Just then, Rudy’s wounded voice warbled from the quartz.Oh no! Not another emotional spiral of despair! Oh, art, you CRUEL and beautiful thing!
“I haveneversaid that in my entire life!” said Aiden.
Brynne lifted her fingers to her lips and whistled so loudly that Aru winced. “Enough!” she said. “Rudy, we do need your help.”
“As expected,” said Rudy smugly.
“We need to get to Vasuki,” said Brynne. She held up the Sun Jewel and filled him in on what Agni had told them.
When Brynne was finished, Rudy’s eyes looked huge. “You want me torobG-Thousand?”
“What’s G-Thousand?” asked Aru.
“Nobody saidrob!” said Mini, alarmed. “Borrow, that’s all!”
“Possibly rob…” muttered Brynne.
“G-Thousand is what my brothers and I call Lord Vasuki,” said Rudy. “Technically, he’s like our great-great-great-times-a-thousand-grandfather, and that’s kinda complicated to keep saying, so we nicknamed him.”
“Maybe you can explain the situation to him?” suggested Mini.
“I’ve never talked to him,” said Rudy. “I’ve met him—well,partof him—but everyone has.”
Mini frowned. “How can you meetpartof someone?”
“I mean,lookat him,” said Rudy, pointing up.
The ceiling of Rudy’s suite was like a miniature Sistine Chapel. Only in here the frescoes were enchanted to create images of how the gods won back their power. After the gods lost their immortality due to a curse, they convinced the asuras to put aside their differences and churn the Ocean of Milk to find the nectar that would restore it. According to the story Aru’s mom told, King Vasuki agreed to be used as a rope, and he was wrapped around the great Mount Mandara to froth the sea.
Aru didn’t have much experience with mountains. She’d been to Stone Mountain in Georgia, which was pretty big, but even with that in her head she had trouble picturing how big a serpent had to be to wrap around it not just once, buttentimes.
“Why is this on your bedroom ceiling?” asked Aiden. “I thought you’d make a constellation of your face so you can look up at it when you go to bed.”
Rudy’s jaw dropped. “Wait…That’s such a good idea.”
“I was joking.”
But Rudy was tilting his head, examining the ceiling like he’d never truly seen it before. “My parents had this installed after I started failing all the jewelry-identification tests—it was a reminder of my illustrious heritage and all that. It was supposed to inspire me, and it did, but you’re right, Aiden.Ishould be inspiring me. That’s brilliant!” Rudy clapped his cousin on the back. “Thanks for believing in me.”
Aiden opened his mouth, then closed it. “You’re…welcome.”
“Hug?” asked Rudy.
“No.”
“Okay!” said Rudy, turning back to the Pandavas. “So you see why I’ve never reallymethim? I think once I saw a part of his tail when our parents took us camping. My brothers and I poked it, and then the scales started rippling and we got freaked out and swam away. I don’t think anyone has seen G-Thousand’s head in…centuries? He’s so ancient and so huge that he’s basically part of the infrastructure of the whole kingdom.”
“How are we going to find the piece of the Sun Jewel if we can’t talk to him?” asked Brynne. “Does he have a storage room or something? Maybe we can look through that?”
Rudy shuddered. For the first time, his bravado slipped away.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mini.
“I know where we have to go,” said Rudy. He walked over to one of his shelves. There, Aru saw a miniature model of a kingdom she’d never seen. It was made entirely of jewels and interlocking caves; the jagged mouths of caverns wove between shining towers and spires. He tapped the top of one miniature cave.“Here.”
“And what is ‘here’ exactly?” asked Brynne.
“Patala,” said Rudy. He whispered it like it was someplace sacred. Or haunted. “It’s mostly ruins these days, but it used to be an old kingdom and now it’s ‘something, something, historical landmark, something.’ I think one of my cousins is interning at the archive desk there. G-Thousand’s treasures are supposed to be in one of the caves.”
