The Serpent Bride

  “What are these ‘Readings’?”

  “We take a living man, Axis, and we disembowel him to reveal the Coil within—his bowel. His coil spills to the floor, then rises, taking on the form of the Great Serpent, who then speaks to us and reveals glimpses of the future or imparts information that we need to know.”

  “Your knowledge of anatomy must be superb,” Zeboath muttered to one side.

  Axis stared at Ishbel, wondering that so few words could describe such horror. “And the person you disembowel…?”

  “Dies.”

  “Sweet gods, Ishbel…”

  “We take criminals destined for execution, and very rarely a man who offers us his life. In the latter instance, the Great Serpent blesses the man’s family with good fortune, and we render him insensible during the Reading, so that he feels no pain.”

  Axis swallowed, dragging his eyes away from Ishbel to stare out the window. “You don’t ‘read’ women?”

  “No. Their coil within is too often disturbed by childbearing, or by the waxing and waning of the womb with its monthly cycle.”

  “Yet you, a female, rank at the top of the Coil?”

  “When I was inducted into the Coil I relinquished all reproductive rights and workings.”

  Axis nodded at her belly. “And that?”

  “I cannot explain this pregnancy. I should not have been able to conceive.”

  “Maximilian is a man to be reckoned with, then,” muttered Axis. “Tell me, does Maximilian know that you are the archpriestess of this order?”

  “He suspects.”

  Axis looked back at her. “Then you cannot blame him for thinking you might be involved with the murders Ba’al’uz committed across the Central Kingdoms. Dear gods, Ishbel, you cannot blame anyone for reacting with horror at what you do.”

  “Are you repulsed, Axis?”

  He sighed. “I have done many terrible things in my life, Ishbel. No. I am not repulsed, but I am saddened.” He gave a small smile. “Zeboath, on the other hand, looks as though he shall be your student for life.”

  Ishbel smiled.

  “Was it the Great Serpent who told you about the ancient evil?” Axis asked.

  “Yes. He showed us Skraelings swarming over Serpent’s Nest, and a terrible darkness rising from the south.”

  Whatever rests beneath DarkGlass Mountain, thought Axis. Or perhaps even the cursed pyramid itself.

  “It is why I was sent to marry Maximilian,” Ishbel offered.

  “What? Why should marriage to Maximilian help?”

  Ishbel shrugged. “I don’t know.” She paused. “I didn’t want to marry him.”

  “And now?” Zeboath said.

  “It matters no longer,” she said, her tone bitter. “This marriage is over.”

  “Ishbel,” Axis said eventually, very gently, “what is it about Maximilian that the Great Serpent felt was worth this?”

  “I don’t know. And now…now I have ruined everything. I have lost Maximilian. I have failed the Great Serpent. Oh, gods…”

  “Ishbel, you were stolen. You couldn’t help it that—”

  “The Great Serpent wanted me to stay with Maximilian. He said I could come home eventually. I could leave Maximilian eventually. I told Maxel, we talked about this, he knew I was unhappy. He said to give it a year, and I thought I could give him that year, hand him this baby, then leave. Go home.”

  “You don’t want the baby.”

  “No. Maxel wants it. I don’t.” Again, a pause to collect herself. “And now…now I worry that the baby has died, it doesn’t move, and Maxel…”

  What a complex woman, thought Axis. She feels guilt for everyone. The Great Serpent. Maximilian. She may have been a brilliant archpriestess, but the god she served thought it better for her to be a woman, a wife, and a queen, all roles that Ishbel had no experience in and that terrified her.

  “Earlier,” Axis said, “when I mentioned the name Lister, you reacted strongly. What do you know of him?”

  “I have never met him,” said Ishbel, “but I know of him. He was once the archpriest of the Coil, serving at Serpent’s Nest well before my time.”

  “Lister was an archpriest of the Coil?” Axis said. “Well, well. Go on, please.”

  “He vanished one day,” Ishbel said. “Perhaps a year or two before I came to Serpent’s Nest. Axis, why are Lister—whom you now style Lord of the Skraelings—and Isaiah in contact?”

  “They are in an alliance to invade the Outlands and the Central Kingdoms,” said Axis. “Isaiah from the south, Lister from the north.”

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. “No…”

  “Lister and Isaiah use the pyramids,” Axis said, “to communicate. Lister either made these, or he has access to those who can. I admit myself highly curious about Lister, Lord of the Skraelings, and once archpriest of the Coil.”

  “Please, Axis,” Ishbel said, “please—the Icarii are in the north, I have seen them, and you have talked to one of them. Let us, you and I, flee north. Dear gods, you cannot be involved in this invasion of innocent peoples! Have not enough Icarii died?”

  Axis gave her a sharp look at that last. “I do not agree with Isaiah’s plans for invasion,” he said, “but I will do better here. With Isaiah. He is not a bad man.” He is a man full of mysteries himself. “I like him. Besides, there are great puzzles to be solved here. DarkGlass Mountain, for one.”

  “DarkGlass Mountain?” Ishbel said, wanting to argue more with Axis about the invasion, but unable to resist the question.

  “I think it is your ancient evil,” Axis said, “or something associated with it. DarkGlass Mountain is a massive stone-and-glass pyramid far to the south, on the opposite riverbank from Aqhat. Zeboath, what do you know of it?”

  Zeboath gave a small shrug. “Isembaardians know of it only as a great mystery to which only the tyrant has access.”

  Axis laughed. “Well, I shall disabuse you of that rumor here and now. The tyrants have no idea what it is, either.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Courtyard of the People, Yoyette, Coroleas

  Salome supposed that there was an outcry over the loss of the Weeper, but it did not save her. The guardsmen who held her continued to drag her out of her bedchamber, out of her luxurious apartment, out of her privileged life, and down into a misery so extreme Salome wished beyond anything else for death.

  They took her first to the guardroom, where they raped her, then handed her over to their fellows. A day or so later, when the entire guardroom had finished their fun, they dragged her bleeding body through the streets of Yoyette to the Courtyard of the People, where she was chained to a stake in one corner.

  If Salome had thought she’d endured hell over the past day, it was nothing to what occurred now. Men and boys continued to rape her—at least while her body remained vaguely intact. The rapes stopped, however, once the countless rocks and pieces of wood thrown at her broke and tore her flesh to such an extent that not even rape became attractive.

  The Coroleans did not stint themselves. The Duchess of Sidon was hated so violently that people from all the castes traveled in from the country to have their turn at her. They tried ever new and inventive ways of humiliating and abusing her. One man tried to persuade his dog to mount her, another the boar he’d brought in from his farm.

  The dog refused, the boar was not so choosy.

  Women spat at Salome and emptied chamber pots over her. Small boys poked at her flesh with hot coals held in iron pincers.

  Salome wished for death, she begged for death, but it did not come.

  Even death tormented her.

  All this abuse was terrible enough, but it paled into insignificance when they dragged her son, Ezra, before her. Salome had hoped he’d escaped, or had at least been spared the emperor’s vindictiveness.

  But, no.

  Ezra was too good an opportunity to torment Salome into hell itself to be ignored.

  Guardsmen dragged him before Salome, tossing a
bucket of icy water over her to rouse her.

  Then they raped him, as violently and as viciously as they had raped Salome.

  At one point, when she could no longer bear the screaming of her beloved son, Salome turned her head.

  And saw to one side, through eyes bleary with agony, the emperor and half the court, hands laced over fat bellies, watching with satisfaction.

  She tried to shriek to them to stop it, to save her son, but nothing came from her mouth save a faint croak.

  When Ezra’s rape became less amusing, the emperor gestured with his hand, and one of the guardsmen pulled forth a knife.

  With long, slow strokes, he castrated the boy, tossing the severed genitals onto Salome’s naked, battered breasts.

  Then they dragged Ezra close to his mother, close enough that they could stare helplessly at each other as he slowly bled to death.

  The last thing he whispered to her was, “You said I was to be emperor.”

  At that point Salome hated StarDrifter so greatly she thought her hate would become a living thing and rise from her body and hunt the birdman down on her behalf.

  On the third night that Salome had been chained to the stake in the Courtyard of the People, she was finally left alone. She was close to death, and people had become tired of taunting her. Better for them to go home to bed, and resume in the morning, on their way to market.

  Salome was largely incapable of coherent thought. All she wanted was to slide into death, and follow Ezra into whatever relief he’d managed to discover. As much as she was capable, she tried to concentrate on not breathing, and on making her heart stop.

  But her body was too strong, and it did not want to give up on life just yet.

  At some point when it had become very cold, Salome thought she heard a movement behind her.

  She didn’t care who it was, just so long as they had come to slide a merciful blade deep into her heart.

  More footsteps, and murmured words.

  Then a hand on her shoulder.

  Salome almost screamed in shock. Then, before whoever had touched her could speak, she convulsed—caused by a combination of despair, shock, fright, and the sheer degree of physical damage done to her body.

  “Stars,” someone muttered, and the hands now moved faster and with more determination, cutting Salome free from her chains, and wrapping her in a blanket.

  “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  “We can’t leave you here,” said the voice, and then, horribly, terrifyingly, Salome felt herself lifted into the air and knew she was being carried by an Icarii.

  She tried to struggle, tried to wrest herself free of the hated creature’s grip so that she might fall mercifully to the ground and dash herself to death against its kindness.

  But he was too strong, and she too weak, and so finally, gratefully, Salome slipped into unconsciousness, and knew no more.

  Salome woke an indeterminate amount of time later. She was lying in a bed, in a plain, ill-lit chamber, and she was in agony.

  She could feel every hurt and every injury done to her over the past few days as if it had been committed only moments earlier. She moaned, twisted a little on the bed, then cried out in pain as her body spasmed.

  “Here,” said a voice, “drink this.”

  A none-too-gentle hand gripped her hair and pulled her head up, and a cup was pressed against her lips.

  A bitter liquid splashed into her mouth, and Salome choked on it. She tried to twist her head away, but the hands kept the cup to her mouth until she had gulped down all the liquid.

  “That will keep you alive a little longer,” the voice said, and Salome blinked, trying to bring the man into focus.

  She could see by his silhouette against the lamp that he was an Icarii, and so she tried to spit at him and pinch him with her fingers.

  But Salome was too weak to do more than purse her lips, and flutter her hand helplessly, and the Icarii gave a short, dry laugh.

  “A little gratitude would be appreciated,” he said.

  “Who are you?” she managed. “Why…”

  “Our names you are never likely to hear,” said the Icarii, and Salome realized there must be more than one in the room. “Why reveal ourselves to such as you, when you would sell our souls to the highest bidder, even though we have saved your life?”

  “And as to why,” said another voice from somewhere to Salome’s left. “We saved you because we could not let a fellow Icarii continue to suffer in that manner. Not at the hands of the Coroleans.”

  A fellow Icarii? thought Salome. Gods, they called me an Icarii!

  Loathing for them rushed through her.

  “But do not think we sympathize with you, or like you,” said the first speaker. “You are foul in our eyes. What you have done in your life…”

  “Me?” she managed, feeling stronger now that the painkilling drink was taking hold. “Me? What about StarDrifter? He did this to me. And my son…my son.”

  “Ezra we do regret,” said the Icarii to her left. “We would have saved him had we the opportunity. But we didn’t. Only your heart had the strength to hold fast.”

  “Strong Icarii blood,” muttered the first Icarii.

  “As for StarDrifter,” said the other. “Well, we do not agree with what he has done, but we do not wonder at it. He would have hated you almost as much as we do.”

  She tried to move, but her body was so painful and stiff she could only wince. “What do you want from me?” Salome said. “Why save me if you loathe me this greatly?”

  “For you to get strong enough that we can get you away from us,” said the first. “We will make you stronger, then we will ensure you get out of this country. We will give you some clothes and some money, and after that your life is yours to rebuild as you will.”

  “After all,” said the other, “if our Icarii blood is good enough to see you survive the brutality meted out to you over so many days, then you will surely live a long, long life. Five hundred years, at the very least.”

  Salome moaned. Nothing had hurt her so much as that. A life five hundred years long? No, no, she could not bear it.

  Salome slipped back into unconsciousness.

  The two Icarii males tended her over the next week. Salome never saw their faces clearly, nor learned their names. They stayed with her day in, day out. They washed her, rubbed salve over her wounds, and fed her food and herbal medicines.

  After their first conversation they rarely talked to her, which suited Salome. She hated talkers, whether lovers or any others. She closed her eyes to them whenever they were near, as if in pretense that she slept, even though her mouth readily accepted any food they spooned in, or drank of any refreshment they offered.

  Salome discovered that she wanted to live, after all. If she could not die, then she would do the next best thing.

  Find StarDrifter.

  Then ruin his life as he had ruined hers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Widowmaker Sea, to the West of Escator

  Ba’al’uz wished he’d thought to leave StarDrifter behind. He had come to loathe the birdman in the very few short days they’d been together on this cursed fishing vessel.

  At night they lay in their tiny cramped cabin (and that they had a cabin at all was due entirely to Ba’al’uz’ initiative in the use of some inventive and quite frightening threats), and in their narrow, uncomfortable, damp bunks, and pretended the other did not exist.

  Neither was very good at it.

  The trouble had started almost the instant they’d boarded the boat in Yoyette harbor.

  StarDrifter had not liked the rank stink of the fish. Neither did Ba’al’uz, but under the circumstances (this was the only boat available and it was leaving immediately) he was prepared to put up with the fish stink in order to make a quick escape from Coroleas.

  Then StarDrifter had objected to the way Ba’al’uz had made threats against the captain’s wife in order that the captain evacuate his cabin for StarDrifte
r and Ba’al’uz.

  Those objections had so irritated Ba’al’uz that the moment they were belowdecks and the boat had cast off from the wharf, he’d informed StarDrifter that he’d cast Salome to the wolves of the Corolean court.

  “You did what?” StarDrifter said.

  “What care you?” Ba’al’uz said, holding on to an overhead bulkhead in order to steady himself against the increasing motion of the vessel. “You have said yourself, countless times, what a cruel and selfish creature she is. Now she is reaping the rewards of a life lived at everyone else’s expense. It would surprise me, frankly, if she was not already dead.”

  “It would have been enough that she will need to face the consequences of losing the Weeper,” StarDrifter snapped, keeping his balance with an unconsciously graceful ease that did nothing for Ba’al’uz’ irritation with the man. “You did not need to ensure her death!”

  “I had not realized you’d developed an affection for her,” Ba’al’uz said.

  “I had not realized you were so fucking vindictive.”

  Ba’al’uz sneered, then looked at the Weeper. “Give it to me.”

  StarDrifter hesitated, then held the Weeper out for Ba’al’uz.

  The instant it left the warmth of his arms, the Weeper shrieked.

  It did more than shriek. It wept and wailed and sobbed until the cabin literally throbbed with sound and sadness.

  Before Ba’al’uz could touch the Weeper, StarDrifter wrapped it in his arms again.

  The noise ceased abruptly.

  Now Ba’al’uz had a reason to not be merely irritated with StarDrifter, but to develop a considerable loathing for him.

  “What have you done to it?” Ba’al’uz said. “Why won’t it leave you?”

  “I have done nothing to it,” said StarDrifter, “and I can’t even begin to imagine a reason why it might not want to go to you.”

  They’d stood there and stared at each other for a long moment, then StarDrifter turned aside and sat down on his bunk. He wrapped himself in a blanket, the Weeper beside him, and affected to go to sleep.