Daniel nodded warily. ‘Of course.’
Sofia rose from her seat and smoothed her skirt. ‘Well, there’s no point in remaining here.’
Daniel stood up. He wondered where Enniel would take Shem now. Would he be allowed to see him again tonight? He felt they should discuss what had happened today.
Sofia preceded him out to the corridor, where she turned to appraise him. ‘Well, Daniel, I expect we shall see each other tomorrow. I thought it best I stay here tonight.’
Daniel couldn’t prevent a frown. ‘Why? Are you expecting something to happen?’ He had visions of the serpent stretching forth from sleep to burst up through the foundations of High Crag.
Sofia laughed faintly at the alarm in his voice. ‘My dear, it is just a precaution. I doubt if anything will happen instantaneously.’ She patted his shoulder. ‘Anyway, don’t worry. Everything will work out fine. See you.’ She breezed away from him down the corridor.
Daniel watched her retreating form for a moment. There was something about the swagger in her walk that alerted him. What was Sofia’s agenda?
Hoping to find Shemyaza, Daniel went to his suite on the first floor. It was empty, and smelled of old incense with a faint hint of wax. Daniel got into the bed, fully clothed, and sat resting against the headboard, watching the night outside through the open curtains. He sensed the flexing of the serpent beneath the earth, and his own belly churned in response. He sensed imminence, the approach of something vast and terrifying and wondrous.
Shem came into the room about half an hour later. Daniel said, ‘I need a drink. Can you get something?’ He realised he wanted Shem to stay as he was, someone as involved with the trivia of everyday life as with the dark arcana of Grigori heritage. Would the Divine King be capable of fetching a bottle from a room downstairs?
Shem shrugged at him. He looked tired, but not that different from how he’d been before the ceremony. ‘OK.’ He picked up a phone extension next to the bed and called Austin’s office; someone was on duty in there round the clock, like in a hotel. Shem asked for two bottles of wine to be sent up; one red, one white. Daniel was amused by this, but disappointed.
‘You have slaves now,’ he said.
Shem lay down beside him on top of the bed and put his arms behind his head. ‘It’s been a very strange day.’
‘It’s a strange night, too.’
‘You’re angry. What’s wrong?’
Daniel sighed. ‘I feel... confused. Everything’s happening so quickly. I feel like we have no control.’
Shem turned onto his side, resting his head on one hand. ‘That’s not the case. Don’t let the Parzupheim’s songs and dances upset you.’
‘It’s not that! It’s the rest of it. Sofia, this Salamiel. Shem, I’m suspicious of it.’
‘Really? I’m just curious.’
Daniel sensed Shem’s deliberate reticence. His interest, of course, involved rather more than curiosity.
A soft knock at the door signalled the arrival of the wine. Shem swung himself off the bed to fetch it.
Daniel watched him as he poured two large glasses of dark red liquor. There was a tense atmosphere in the room, an omen that more was to be said. He accepted the glass from Shem and took a deep breath. Every doubt had to be aired. ‘Another thing I’m not happy with is the way you’re trying to pass the buck onto me all the time.’
Shem laughed and lay down on the bed again. ‘I’m not!’
‘You are! You didn’t just pass me a cloak of feathers to teach me how to fly. It was all about handing me your responsibilities. You want me to enter the underworld for you.’
Shem took a drink of wine. ‘Well, I think you should. You’re far more capable than I am.’
Daniel could have hit him. ‘Are you mad? You know what the Parzupheim said to you. You’re their Messiah. Enniel told us that you’re the only one who can withstand the gaze of the serpent. Anyone else will probably just be... I don’t know... burned alive! Is that what you want for me?’
‘Daniel, whatever the Parzupheim think of me, I don’t have the light of truth within me. I’m not their Messiah.’
‘Oh wake up, will you! They called you the son of the serpent, and I believe them. I know what’s inside you, Shem.’
‘I can’t do it.’
‘Then what was all that about today? Why did you go through with their little charade? And it was little, Shem.’
Shem eyed him speculatively. ‘I thought that was what you wanted. What changed your mind?’
Daniel shook his head in confusion. ‘I don’t know! Something felt wrong about it. You looked like an imbecile.’
Shem laughed dryly. ‘Thanks.’
Daniel reached out and touched his arm. ‘I’m not insulting you. They did something to you. Can’t you remember? Did they drug you?’
‘Probably. Anyway, it was just to satisfy them, silence their nagging. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do what they ask of me.’
‘That’s different. I still think you should. Not for the Parzupheim, but for yourself.’
Shem glanced at the ceiling in exasperation. ‘No, Daniel. I really can’t.’
‘You can. You must. Just overcome all the bitterness inside and take a leap of faith.’
‘How easy it is for you to say that!’
Daniel sensed Shem’s withdrawal. This arguing would do no good, yet he felt unable to keep his thoughts to himself. ‘You’re not just bitter, you’re lazy! Shem, you’re more than all the rest of the Grigori put together. Surely that’s a privilege and a responsibility? Acting like a spoilt child is... well, it’s ungrateful.’
‘Hah! So I’m supposed to be grateful for being tortured and abused am I? You ignorant little bastard! How can you say that? I never asked to have my soul imprisoned, along with all the memories of my original life, only to have it flung back at me now. My people did nothing for me. They ruined me. I only despise them now.’
‘This isn’t just about your people, Shem, but the whole world.’
‘So fucking what!’
‘I’m not condoning what happened to you in the past...’
‘Shut up, you don’t remember half of it.’
‘I do! In Little Moor I lived through your death. I saw it.’
‘Death? Is that all! Daniel go fuck someone and dream the rest of it will you? You’ve missed some salient details out.’
‘Oh Shem, stop being difficult for the sake of it.’
‘Right, OK, I’ll go and do it for you, shall I? I’ll just go down into this fucking underworld, wherever it is, and face their demons. That’s what it’s all about, you know. Get real, Daniel, see it as it is. They don’t want me to come out again, don’t you understand? For me, afternoon tea with the serpent would be a one-way ticket. That’s the bit you conveniently forget — my scapegoat aspect.’
‘You’re afraid!’
‘Yes!’
‘But why? You have the power to survive, I know you do, even if the Parzupheim see you only as a sacrifice. Forget them. Think about us.’
Shem narrowed his eyes at Daniel. ‘Oh? Why is this so important to you? Why should you care?’ Daniel didn’t answer, and Shem rolled his eyes in sarcasm. ‘Oh, I see, you care about the world. You green little queen!’
‘Don’t speak to me like that!’
‘I don’t want to speak to you at all. Shut the fuck up!’
Uttering an angry cry, Daniel threw his wine glass onto the floor and turned on his side. Silence descended like lint over a wound.
Shem finished his wine, drank another two glasses in quick succession, then got up from the bed and undressed himself. He turned off the lights and climbed in beside Daniel, who still lay with his back to him.
Daniel was taut with fury. Shem had never spoken to him like that before. He knew it was important their rift was healed, but was too angry to address it now. The reek of spilled wine was tart in the room, hanging there like an accusing symbol of the sourness between them. We can sort it out to
morrow, Daniel thought. Everything will be fine once we’ve talked it through. He hoped Shem would think about what they’d said.
Shem lay awake for hours and was aware of when Daniel’s breathing changed, indicating he was asleep. Shem felt restless and frustrated. He hated the responsibility everyone was trying to project on him. It was as if they wanted him to marry a woman he found repulsive and who would eat him alive. The whole world annoyed him. The coronation had been embarrassing and pathetic, a travesty. All it represented to him was being bound by chains and authority. Bureaucracy and tradition; stale, worn out and meaningless. None of what the Parzupheim had talked about that afternoon seemed real. He appreciated the existence of the serpent, and could sense its freezing breath burning the back of his neck, but felt the people around him were somehow missing the point of it all. They were trying to make it small and manageable, when in reality it was almost too huge and mystifying to comprehend. Daniel had a romantic view, believing that Shemyaza could ride into battle like a king, dressed in silver mail with a magic sword in his hand. He thought that the serpent was a physical creature and that Shem could simply approach it, tell it to wake, and save the world. But Shem feared the serpent was beyond their imaginations. The encounter could not be physical like that, but a psychic trauma. Now, Shem regretted what he’d said to Daniel, although not to the extent where he felt he should apologise. Why couldn’t Daniel see sense? He’d fallen for the fairy-tales. Stop thinking about this, he told himself. Just sleep. Deal with it tomorrow.
Although he pushed all thoughts of the argument and its subject from his mind, Shem still couldn’t sleep. Thoughts nd fragmented memories churned through his brain. He found he was mixing up vague recollections of Aninka Prussoe with those of Ishtahar, which were many thousands of years old. He saw Ishtahar dressed in smart, modern clothes, standing in the middle of a spreading corn-field, holding a mobile phone to her ear, staring up at the blood-soaked clouds of an eastern sunset. He saw barbarian armies, mounted on shaggy ponies, charging down a stretch of the M1, slashing at stalled, listing lorries with their swords. He saw the sky in flames and the Garden in Eden crash down a mountain slope into a deserted shopping mall. He saw bodies lying on steaming streets, where the waters of the flood had recently receded. Bodies lying in mud and the stink of death everywhere. These visions tortured him for hours.
Near dawn, Shemyaza woke up with a start. He sat up in bed and glanced at the clock. Soon, it would be dawn. A new day would start. Another day of questions, demands and embarrassment. His skin itched unbearably and his head beat with pain. He needed the freshness of the wind upon his body. He needed to feel the space of the sky above him, feel solid earth beneath his feet. Quietly, he slipped from the bed and dressed himself. He went down through the sleeping house and out into the garden. It was almost as if a silky voice was calling to him through the chill air.
Shemyaza found himself standing at the place where the gardens ended in a dizzying drop of cracked serpentine. The beach seemed miles below. It was nearly high tide, and the waves were a milky green colour, almost like liquid serpentine themselves. Images and sounds pushed at the boundary of his perception, clamouring to make contact with him. Wearily, Shem relaxed and opened himself up to the environment. Come on, then. Show me. He could hear the voices of sea spirits, joyful in the threshing foam, calling out to one another. Their cries held a melancholic quality; it was the song of the end of the world. When he closed his eyes, a great city rose from the sea before him: Lyonesse, in all her splendour, reborn. Water cascaded from her gleaming spires. It seemed she was made all of glass or encrustations of ancient crystal. This was the city of his ancestors; images of an ancient time, recaptured in the memories of the tides. The sheer walls of the city were surrounded by tall spreading trees, whose stretching upper branches failed to reach the marble battlements. Music came from the hidden temples, borne on a skein of incense smoke. He heard the keening song of the priestesses and the slap of bare feet on marble. He heard the heart-song of the drums, the artful chink of bells at wrists and ankles, and the whirl of gossamer fabric against satin flesh. He heard the priests calling out in voices that mimicked the lament of the sea folk and the cry of sea birds. The heat of the sun was on his skin, and the scents of lost summers in his nostrils.
Shemyaza opened his eyes.
It was dark mid-winter, and the grey sea heaved below him, shot with ghost-lights and the flash of iridescent foam. But still there remained in the sky, above the waves, a faint ghostly image of the lost city. The song of the priestesses still came whispering to his ears, the sounds plaiting and undulating in his mind, until it sounded as if it was a single woman who sang; a woman alone and melancholy, wearing the willow for a lost lover.
Shemyaza leaned against the crumbling wall, and his weight precipitated the looser stones to clatter down to the shore. Without thinking, he climbed over the rubble and stood on the narrow ledge at the very edge of the cliff. Eighteen inches of sandy, rock-strewn turf stretched between him and the yawning space beyond. The wind pushed and pulled at his body like spiteful hands, and snatched gleefully at his hair, blowing it forward across his face in star-spun waves. Shem held his flailing hair back from his eyes with both hands.
Show me, then. Show me why I’m here...
As if something had been awaiting his command, Shemyaza noticed movement in the cove below him: shadowy forms materialised spontaneously and began to slip across the sand towards the cliffs. They were primeval, amphibious shapes; indistinct, but emanating an aura of unthinkable antiquity. Slap of fin and flipper, glister of salt-polished hide. Humanoid, but far from human, far from Grigori too.
Are these mine to command? The shapes paused in their blundering progress, as if a noise had alerted them. Dark heads lifted and tasted the air. His scent would be carried to them; the salty, musky perfume of his masculinity, the smoky incense aroma of his thoughts.
A voice cut into his mind. Where? Where? Shemyaza was filled with anxiety and fear and a desperate need for haste. On the sand below, he saw the vague outline of a woman kneeling down. She patted the beach around her with urgent fingers, as if she were searching for something. Like the shadowy amphibians, she too appeared blind; her movements were undirected and random. She investigated the same area again and again, her hands skimming over the untested areas of sand. Shemyaza sensed that if he allowed it, he could recognise this woman. He forced his perception away from her and gazed out to sea.
Above the waves, the sky was greeny blue, bloated with clouds, which glowed with eerie phosphorescence. Lithe, dark shapes frolicked in the hectic foam below, and Shemyaza could hear the deep, fluting bells of their voices. Their cries inspired him with a fierce excitement. He felt at once aroused and tranquil. As he gazed at the tumbling forms in the waves, he noticed that one of them had become still. It appeared to raise its head from the water, some yards out from shore. Something about its posture, the sense that this creature saw and recognised him, filled Shemyaza with anticipation. The beast looked as if it was swimming towards the beach, but as it approached, Shemyaza realised it was a human or humanoid figure that was walking out of the sea. It halted some feet from where the waves licked at the land, and held out its arms. Its perfect, slim body was androgynous. Although the smudge of male genitals could be discerned, its shape suggested femininity. Its hair was plastered to its chest, which was covered in weed and what appeared to be limpets. Its skin shone like nacre in the unnatural light and its eyes were dreaming holes in its long, hollow face. But for its lack of height, it would have looked like a drowned Watcher, disgorged by the sea. Something about the creature made Shemyaza think of Daniel; the boyish body, the aura of mystery. Was Daniel projecting an image to him, lying abandoned in uneasy slumber, suffering a nightmare? Then, Shemyaza saw the shape of Ishtahar shimmering within the occult figure below. The streaks upon its body were not swatches of damp weed, but curling tattoos. Shemyaza shuddered in apprehension; Ishtahar and Daniel in one body. It was h
is desire made flesh.
The androgynous figure let its mouth drop open and uttered a monotonous, wailing call. It sounded like the cry of birds, the symphonic bellow of whales. The song called to Shem: My Lord of Light, you need a new guide to this old land. I am he. Come to me. Listen to my words, for I am the child of the serpent. I have waited here for your advent. Let me lead you to the secret caverns below the land. Let me walk before you. Give me your cloak of feathers. I will be your sacrifice.
To Shemyaza, half drugged by the lure of the song, the offer seemed like an answer to a prayer. He wondered whether the figure below could be the spirit of one of the ancient Grigori, who had stepped ashore so long ago. Or perhaps it was one of their hybrid children, a secret guardian, whom the Parzupheim had not sniffed out. Perhaps the guardian had been waiting for Shem, and would only make itself known to him.
Come to me now. Step from the cliff, and come to me.
Shemyaza felt a wrenching in his mind and body. The urge to comply was tempered by fear or an instinct to survive. ‘I would come to you, but I cannot fly. I surrendered my wings.’
Then call to the buzzard to lend you his wings. Call him and conjure him, then take this leap, the leap of faith...
Shemyaza gasped as if he’d been punched in the ribs. He flung back his head and his arms rose involuntarily towards the sky. He sucked in a lungful of the cold, wet air and tasted metal and ozone on his tongue. A sound was building up within his chest, swirling around inside him. He tried to disgorge it, vomit it out, but it seemed such a part of him, like a tumour. The sound expanded his lungs, growing in power, until with a concentration of effort he managed to expel it in a gust of breath. It flew out into the air, spreading its wings: an ear-splitting shriek. It was the weird, raw screech of a bird of prey. Now a flock of cries burst out of him. Shemyaza called to his bird-form, the shape he wore for astral flight. The wind flung his cries up into the air, scream upon scream, until the ground beneath his feet vibrated to the call. Soon, he heard the shush and clatter of wings approaching through the wind, and felt the bird-spirit buffet his head. Its claws tangled in his flying hair, and the carrion smell of it filled his head with the odour of rotten meat. Shemyaza called the spirit into him, until he was smothered in a mantle of fetid stench. He felt the cloak of feathers form around him, snug around his raised arms. He leaned forward into the wind, and felt its fierce, elemental fingers push up against the feathers.