Scroll down to read the prologue to The Sign of the Serpent

Olbo sat with his back against the rock, his gaze resting on the skull in his lap. Soft light radiated from the crystal, shrouding it in a thin, bluish haze. It was the only source of light in the underground caverns, and when he looked up, he could see its faint glow reflected in the eyes of the twins. They were watching him. They followed his every move.
    Olbo stared into the crystal again, his eyes feverish and his face flushed. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him as if the skulls were changing, as if they were opening up to him in a way they never had before. It was almost as if they were coming alive. He swallowed hard. Was this even possible? Or had he finally gone insane? A sudden, pulsating pain drove through his head, pounding like a hammer, and he closed his eyes and winced. Images flashed through his mind, images of fire and destruction and of a terrible darkness that sucked the light out of everything alive. He tried to block it out but found he couldn’t. It was as if he was right in the middle of it all, the flames scorching his skin and the darkness pressing upon him like a terrible weight. He felt a surge of panic. It was getting worse! Could it really be his frightened imagination that produced such vivid hallucinations? Or were these images real? Then the pain ebbed away.
    Olbo took a few deep breaths, and as he recovered, he became aware that the twins were still staring at him. Their faces glowed with excitement. For a moment, he was sure that they had somehow been able to see what he had seen and feel what he had felt, but then he discarded the idea. How could they? His fingers trembled as he opened the sealskin bag at his side. He took out the other skulls, handling them carefully and neatly arranging all six of them in a half circle at his feet. Their hollow eyes stared back at him. And despite the fact that these eyes were cold and dead, they somehow radiated an enormous power. Olbo shivered.
    He remembered how he had yearned to get his hands on the skulls, yearned to wield the force that had been locked inside for all these years. But he realized now that he had underestimated that force. What if he couldn’t control it? It was almost as if the skulls had a will of their own. He wondered how he could have misjudged them so badly. After all, he had guarded one of them for several years. Perhaps it was because they were together now, he reflected. It was as if they fed off each other, as if they were components of something larger. And it wasn’t just that they were somehow linked, that they could communicate, even over vast distances. No. This was something far deeper. A drop of cold sweat ran down his cheek. It fell to the floor with a splash that was clearly audible in the dark silence of the caverns. Olbo flinched at the sound.
    Sometimes, he was certain that he felt the presence of an entity, something that seemed to feed on the skulls’ energy. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it made him terribly afraid. And there were moments when he considered getting rid of them. But he knew full well that he couldn’t. He needed them to get a sense of what was going on in the world above. If it weren’t for the skulls, he wouldn’t even have known that Schlemba was still alive. He closed his eyes and pondered the things he had seen. Schlemba had translated the sacred scrolls, Olbo was sure of it. And then the Attarians had set out to find the missing crystals, hoping to protect themselves against the coming darkness. He had considered looking for the missing skulls himself, but he had decided against it. Even if he did find them, what good would it do? Now that he was experiencing the true power contained in the crystals, he was becoming more and more convinced that he could never wield it. Nobody could. Not even Schlemba….
    No, he had made up his mind. The darkness was near. The Beast could not be stopped. The only chance of survival was by hiding underground, and even that, he knew, was a small chance at best. Pain seared through his head again, a throbbing pain that quickly grew in intensity. The images returned in full force. There were flames, hot, scorching flames, and a profound, pulsating darkness that closed in on him from all sides. It felt more real than ever before. He gritted his teeth. He realized that he was going to lose consciousness again, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the twins shift their weight in apparent anticipation. “Do not touch them,” he managed to whisper.
    Then his mind slipped away.
    As Olbo slumped against the rock, the twins crawled closer, their feverish eyes fixed on the glowing crystals at his feet.