Read Online The Lake of Souls by Darren Shan - Free Book Online Page A

hairs on the dead panther’s stomach. Thin raised lines were revealed.
    “That’s just scar tissue,” Harkat said.
    “No,” I disagreed. “Look at the circular shapes and the way they spread out. They’ve been carved deliberately. Help me scrape the entire stomach clear.”
    It didn’t take long to shave the panther and reveal a detailed map. It must have been gouged into the panther’s stomach many years ago, maybe when it was a cub. There was a small X at the extreme right of the map, which seemed to indicate our current position. Toward the left an area was circled, and something had been written within the circle.
    “Go to the home of the world’s largest toad,” I read aloud. “Grab the gelatinous globes.”
    That’s all it said. We read it a few more times, then shared a puzzled look. “Any idea what ‘gelatinous’ means?” Harkat asked.
    “I think it’s got something to do with jelly,” I answered uncertainly.
    “So we’ve got to find the world’s … largest toad, and grab globes made out of jelly?” Harkat sounded dubious.
    “This is Mr. Tiny we’re dealing with,” I reminded him. “He makes jokes out of everything. I think our best bet’s simply to follow the map from here to the circle and worry about the rest once we get there.”
    Harkat nodded, then set about the panther’s stomach with a sharp stone knife, cutting free the map. “Here,” I stopped him. “Let me. I’ve got nimbler fingers.”
    As I carefully cut around the edges of the map and sliced the panther’s flesh away from its insides, Harkat strolled around the dead beast, mulling something over. As I peeled the map free of the panther and wiped the inside of it clean on a patch of grass, Harkat stopped. “Do you recall Mr. Tiny saying he’d … thrown in a clue to my identity?” he asked.
    I cast my thoughts back. “Yes. Maybe that’s what the message within the circle means.”
    “I doubt it,” Harkat replied. “Whoever I was before I died, I’m pretty … sure I wasn’t a toad!”
    “Maybe you’re a frog prince,” I giggled.
    “Ha stinking ha,” Harkat said. “I’m sure the writing’s got nothing … to do with me. There must be something else.”
    I studied the dead panther. “If you want to root around in its guts, feel free,” I told Harkat. “I’m content with the map.”
    Harkat crouched beside me and flexed his stubby grey fingers, intent on ripping out the panther’s insides. shifted away, not wanting to be part of the messy task. As I did, my eyes flicked to the panther’s mouth. Its lips were curled up over its teeth in a frozen death snarl. I laid a hand on Harkat’s left arm and said softly, “Look.”
    When Harkat saw what I was pointing at, he reached over to the panther’s mouth and prised its stiff lips entirely clear of its fangs. There were small black letters etched into most of the creature’s teeth — an A, a K, an M, and others. “There!” Harkat grunted with excitement. “That must be it.”
    “I’ll hold the head up,” I said, “so that you can read all the —”
    But before I’d finished, Harkat had grasped one of the panther’s largest teeth with his fingers and attacked its gums with a knife held in his right. I saw that he was fixed on extracting all the teeth, so I left him to it while he hacked them loose.
    When Harkat was done, he took the teeth to the stream and washed them clean of blood. When he returned, he scattered the teeth on the ground and we bent over them to try and decipher the mystery. There were eleven teeth in all, host to a variety of letters. I arranged them alphabetically so that we could see exactly what we had. There were two A’s, followed by a single D, H, K, L, M, R, S, T, and U.
    “We must be able to make a … message out of them,” Harkat said.
    “Eleven letters,” I mused. “It can’t be a very long message. Let’s see what we can come up with.” I shifted the letters around until I got three words — ASK MUD