The Serpent Bride
Maximilian smiled, slowly turning about. “And how glad I am, StarWeb, that you were sitting on that rooftop, waiting for me to open the window.”
She crouched in the window, her dark wings held out gracefully behind her for balance, watching him with unreadable dark eyes. She had a mop of black curls, a fine-boned face and a dancer’s body, currently clothed in a short silken robe as dark as her hair and wings.
Maximilian slowly walked over to her and held out a hand. “StarWeb, I took a chance, knowing you often soar over the palace late at night. Arrogant assumption didn’t open that window. Hope did.”
StarWeb hesitated, then took his hand as she jumped down to the floor. She started to walk into the chamber, but Maximilian’s grip on her hand tightened, and he pulled her close enough for a soft kiss.
“Smile for me,” he whispered, drawing away fractionally.
“Why? What good news could you possibly have to make me smile?”
Still keeping her hand locked in his, Maximilian drew back enough so he could study her face. StarWeb was an Icarii, one of the race of bird people who had once ruled over the land of Tencendor to the west. StarWeb had also been one of the elite among the Icarii, a powerful Enchanter who could manipulate the magic of the Star Dance. But then Tencendor had descended into chaos, the ruling SunSoar family had imploded into tragedy; the Star Gate, through which the Icarii Enchanters drew the power of the Star Dance, had been destroyed. Tencendor itself vanished into the waters of the Widowmaker Sea, taking all its peoples into doom.
But not quite all its peoples. Caelum SunSoar, who had ruled the land in its final years, had maintained strong diplomatic ties with both Coroleas and the continent over the Widowmaker Sea. During the final wars that had destroyed Tencendor, almost five thousand Icarii had been scattered about Coroleas and the eastern continent. More had joined them before the final cataclysm. Currently, StarWeb had told Maximilian, there was an expatriate community of almost six thousand Icarii scattered about the lands surrounding the Widowmaker Sea, as well as the Central Kingdoms. There were at least six hundred living in Escator alone.
The Icarii may have kept their lives, but the Enchanters among them had lost all their power, and Maximilian well knew from his relationship with StarWeb what that had cost them. It wasn’t so much the power they resented losing, but the constant touch of the Star Dance, without which, StarWeb had once confided to him, their lives were but pale reflections of what had once been.
Maximilian pulled StarWeb closer again, and kissed her a little more lingeringly. They had been lovers for some months now, their relationship based almost entirely on a sexual bond rather than an emotional one, which suited Maximilian well, although he often wondered about StarWeb. He knew she disliked the fact he kept their trysts secret.
StarWeb pulled away. “What do you want, Maxel?”
He sighed. “To talk, to share some companionship. To make love, if you want. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
She shrugged, moving deeper into the chamber, running a hand lightly over a table, then the back of a chair, folding her wings close in against her body — a sure sign that she remained annoyed with him.
“Is it only kings who want companionship completely on their terms, Maxel?”
“You’re in a bad mood tonight.”
She swung about to look at him. “That’s because I hate it, Maxel, that I always come whenever you deign to open that window.”
“I’m sorry, StarWeb. I am not what you need.”
She studied that statement for any hint of sarcasm, and then decided the apology was genuine. “So what’s up, Maxel? You’re tense. Worried about something.”
“I’ve been offered a bride.”
StarWeb burst into laughter, her expression relaxing back into that of a delighted girl. “Well done, then! Are you going to take this one?”
“She’s been offered to me by the Coil.”
All StarWeb’s amusement vanished. “I’ve heard of them.”
“And not liked what you have heard, most apparently.”
“You are truly considering taking a priestess of the Coil to your bed? As a wife?”
“She’s not a priestess, merely a ward taken in after a plague wiped out her family and half the population of the Outlands. And she comes with wealth that Escator could well use.”
“Oh, well. That makes it all right then.”
“I don’t need that sarcasm, StarWeb. If I was merely Maximilian Persimius, I would have winced and torn up the offer into a thousand pieces. But I am King of Escator as well, and with that comes a responsibility to my people. Escator needs that wealth.”
“So shall you meet with her?”
He hesitated, then gave a nod. “Eventually, but —”
“But you want something from me first.”
“I trust you, StarWeb. I trust your perception. I need someone to act as an emissary between me and the Coil. I need someone to meet her, and tell me what they think. Will we suit each other? Is she good enough for me to forget her association with the Coil?” He gave a shame-faced grin. “And I need someone who can do all this relatively quickly. This is not a decision I wish to linger over.”
“Would you like me also to take her to bed, and see if she suits your needs?”
Maximilian smiled. “Would you?”
StarWeb laughed then, and the mood between them relaxed. The Icarii Enchanter walked over to Maximilian, running her hands slowly over his naked upper body, her fingers tracing the outlines of the scars left from his time in the Veins, kissing his neck slowly as she spoke. “How fortunate you are that I am not a jealous woman.”
He took her face between gentle hands. “I am well aware how fortunate I am in you, StarWeb, and also well aware that I use you unmercifully. Whatever you want from me, you have it.”
Your love? she wondered, and then discarded the thought. There had never been any expectation of love on either of their parts.
“Just you,” she whispered. “For an hour or two tonight, so I can forget all I have lost.”
While Maximilian lay with StarWeb, Vorstus sat at a table in his locked chamber in a distant part of the palace. On the table before him sat a small glass pyramid, about the height of a man’s hand. It pulsated gently with soft rosy light, and its depths showed a man of ascetic appearance in late middle age who revealed, as he reached up a hand to rub thoughtfully at his nose, a serpent tattoo writhing up his forearm.
“Has Maximilian looked at the map yet?” said the man whose image showed within the pyramid.
“No, my Lord Lister,” said Vorstus. “If he had I am sure I would have heard the screech from here.”
Lister smiled. “Will he be ready, do you think?”
“He had seventeen years battling the darkness in the Veins, my lord,” said Vorstus. “He won’t like it, but when he is needed, then, yes, I believe he will step forward. How goes the Lady Ishbel?”
“Resigning herself to marriage. She, also, will step forward when needed.”
“If only she knew who had caused that plague to strike her family home in Margalit, my lord. Then perhaps she might not be so ready to ‘step forward’.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Lister said. “Besides, what will Maximilian say, eh, when he learns who it was whispered to Cavor the plan to imprison him in the gloam mines for such a mighty length of time?”
“We have all done what was needed.”
“Ah, we all have done what was needed,” said Lister, “and we will do more, as the need dictates. Let me know what Maximilian says, why don’t you, when he finally looks at that map.”
The rose pyramid dulled, then died.
Lister stood in the central chamber of his castle of Crowhurst and stared as his own pyramid dulled into lifelessness on the table. He sighed, and turned away, walking to the open window to look out.
Beyond stretched a vast wasteland of frost and low, snow-covered rolling hills. The northern wastes were a desolate place, but they suited Lister’s purpose for the time being, and for the time being he needed to be here. He shuddered, more from the cold than from any direction of his thoughts, and he reached out and closed the windows, revealing tattoos of black serpents crawling up both his forearms.
Kanubai’s ancient foe, Light, had taken the form of Lister some forty-five years ago when it had become apparent to both Light and Water that Kanubai’s prison had begun to fail. Light and Water needed mortal shape now, for the battle to come would be of the physical rather than the ethereal. While they had taken the flesh of men, Light also, from time to time, and as it amused him, took on the ethereal form of the serpent, while Water occasionally took the form of the frog.
Sometimes also, when it suited their purpose to manipulate those about them, they named themselves gods, and commanded ordinary men and women.
Ishbel had no idea what it was she truly served.
The move into the physical realm of men was dangerous. As flesh and blood men they might still command powers greater than those of most mortals, but were as vulnerable to the spear and the sword as any other.
There came a noise from the door, a footfall, and Lister turned about.
Three creatures of above man-height stood there. They were skeletal, and vaguely man-shaped, but more wraith than flesh. The most substantial part of them was their over-sized skull-like heads, dominated by heavy, great-toothed jaws and huge silver orbs set deep into their eye sockets.
One of them nodded at the table, which was covered at one end with the detritus of Lister’s earlier meal.
“We’ve come for the leavings, Lord Lister,” the Skraeling said, his voice more hissed whisper than spoken word.
“Take them,” said Lister. “Did the kitchen hand out the scraps to your comrades earlier?”
“Yes,” said another of the Skraelings. “Thank you. Lard and blood. Tasty.”
“Tasty, tasty,” whispered the other two.
Lister nodded at the table, and the three Skraelings crept forward, gathering plates into their awkward hands, licking each one clean as they picked them up. Then, silver orbs glancing at Lister, they crept back through the door, closing it behind them.
“Damned creatures,” Lister muttered. He loathed them, but for the moment it was better to be their friend than their enemy.
Like his ally, Water, who stood watch over the ancient evil far to the south, Lister stood watch over the tens of thousands of Skraelings who gathered in the frozen hills about Crowhurst. He knew that Kanubai whispered to them from deep within his abyss, and that Kanubai was the Skraelings’ only true lord. But Lister had wormed his serpentine way into the Skraelings’ affections by feeding them scraps and leavings in order that he might live beside them, and watch their every move.
They were loathsome companions, but for the moment Lister must make do.
And at least they were not his only companions. Another footfall sounded at the door, and Lister looked up, smiling in genuine warmth as the winged woman entered.
7
THE ROYAL PALACE, RUEN, ESCATOR
Maximilian lay in bed alone, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Star Web had left an hour or more ago.
Since he’d returned from the gloam mines, Maximilian had taken a variety of lovers. He had spent his youth and early manhood trapped in the mines, and once free he did not hesitate to enjoy the comfort and excitement of a woman in his bed.
But they never stayed the night.
One of Maximilian’s first lovers had been an accommodating lady of court. She was a sweet woman, and had taken it upon herself to teach Maximilian the skills that by rights he should have learned many years earlier. She had slept through the night at his side one time only (and that many months into their relationship), and in the morning had turned to him and said:
I think that the darkness is your true lover, Maximilian. I think you brought it with you out of the Veins. Perhaps you should wive the darkness, and not any flesh and blood woman.
That had stung Maximilian badly, and he’d never invited her back into his bedroom.
Now he lay on the bed, twisting the Persimius ring on his left hand over and over, thinking not so much about Ishbel, but about his parents. His father and mother had loved each other dearly, and their marriage had been strong.
But they had had separate bedrooms, and Maximilian suspected that his mother only spent a handful of entire nights with his father, and those, perhaps, only at the very beginning of their marriage.
Generally, she had preferred to sleep elsewhere than at her beloved husband’s side.
Maximilian’s lover had been wrong. It was not the Veins that had imbued Maximilian with his darkness, but something far older, and deeply embedded within the Persimius blood.
Maximilian sighed, finally admitting he could not sleep. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked at his desk for a long time, then rose and walked over, lighting a lamp and scattering the documents regarding Ishbel Brunelle across the desktop with his fingers.
He paused as the folded map slid into view.
“By the gods, Vorstus,” Maximilian muttered, “my life would be so much simpler without you.”
Then he picked up the map and unfolded it.
At first glance the map was innocuous, showing the Central Kingdoms and the Outlands. Maximilian traced a finger over the Outlands, looking for Serpent’s Nest. He knew it was a mountain, and had supposed it was one of the summits within the Sky Peaks which ran down the western border of the Outlands.
He frowned as his initial scan of the map failed to reveal Ishbel’s home.
Then, increasingly irritated, he looked further afield, and finally spotted Serpent’s Nest on the very eastern seaboard of the Outlands.
Maximilian dropped the map and stepped back from the desk, staring at the desktop as if it contained the most vile of monsters.
Serpent’s Nest was what he knew as the Mountain at the Edge of the World.
It took Maximilian some minutes to bring his breathing back under control and to still his racing thoughts.
A coincidence, nothing more, surely. The Mountain at the Edge of the World must have been abandoned for thousands of years, it was not so strange that some others may have taken occasion to inhabit it.
But to be inhabited by an order devoted to a serpent god?
Maxel? said the Persimius ring. Maxel? What is the matter?
“Nothing,” Maximilian said automatically, still staring at the desk.
Is it about Ishbel? said the ring.
“No,” Maximilian responded, but wondered what it meant that this bride was coming to him from within the Mountain at the Edge of the World, now associated with a serpent.
No, no, surely not …
Maximilian turned on his heel and walked to one side of his bedchamber, which was clear of furniture. He stood, looking at the floor, then he leaned down.
As his hand approached the floorboards a trapdoor materialised. Maximilian hesitated, then grabbed the iron pull ring and hauled the door open.
The Persimius Chamber lay directly under Maximilian’s bedchamber. He rarely came here: several times when he was a boy and his father had been inducting him into the mysteries of the Persimius family; once, six months after he’d been restored to the throne and he’d felt he needed to check to ensure that all was still safe after seventeen years (Vorstus had told him Cavor had not been informed about the chamber); and once about a year ago, when some marriage negotiations had looked as though they might actually mature into fruition, and Maximilian had come to look at the mate to the ring he wore on his left hand that any wife of his would wear.
No one else ever came here. Only the king, his heir, and the Abbot of the Order of Persimius knew of its existence.
The Persimius Chamber was oval in shape, and relatively small. It contained two chest-high marble columns, each at opposing ends of the oval. Each column held a cushion, and each cushion cradled an object.
Maximilian walked first to the column at the western end of the oval chamber. It held an emerald and ruby ring, worn by the wives of the Persimius king.
My lover, said Maximilian’s ring, and Maximilian sighed, part in irritation and part in resignation, and, taking off his ring, laid it beside the emerald and ruby ring so they could chat for a while.
The Whispering Rings they were called, but only someone of Persimius blood could ever hear them, which Maximilian supposed was a good thing, as he knew his own cursed ring tended to mutter the most uncomplimentary things at the worst of moments.
What it murmured about StarWeb tonight, right at the peak of their lovemaking, had very nearly distracted Maximilian completely.
He looked at the rings, tuning out their whispering as he thought.
Ishbel came to him from the Mountain at the Edge of the World now called Serpent’s Nest. What did that mean? Coincidence? Or something deeper? Darker?
Maximilian knew the ancient legend of Kanubai, and he knew also, from his father’s teachings, that Light often assumed the shape of the serpent, just as Water sometimes assumed the shape of the frog. He hadn’t immediately connected the name of Serpent’s Nest with Light, simply because then he had not realised that Serpent’s Nest was the ancient Mountain at the Edge of the World.
The ancient home of the Lord of Elcho Falling, who had once allied himself with Light and Water in the battle to imprison Kanubai.
Finally, unable to ignore it any longer, Maximilian turned and looked at the other column.
Its velvet cushion held an object so ancient, and so cursed, that Maximilian felt slightly ill even looking at it.
It was the crown, simply made of three thick entwined golden bands, of a kingdom and a responsibility so ancient that its name had been forgotten by all living people, and which had never been recorded in any history book.
Living darkness writhed among the golden bands.
Very slowly, every step hesitant, Maximilian walked over to it. He had never touched it, and hoped he never had to. His father had never touched it, nor his father before him.
If ever Maximilian had to lift that crown to his head, then it meant that the end of the world had risen, and was walking the land.
To Maximilian’s profound relief, the crown looked just as it had every other time Maximilian had studied it. The darkness (that same darkness which writhed through the Persimius blood) lived, yes, but it did not seem aware, or awake. It merely waited, as it had been waiting for thousands of years.
Maximilian allowed himself a sigh of relief, his shoulders finally relaxing.
Perhaps Ishbel’s connection with the Mountain at the Edge of the World and its current association with a serpent, was coincidence merely. He should not worry.
But he should, perhaps, be highly careful.
Maximilian turned his back on the crown, and collected his ring preparatory to leaving the chamber.
But just before he climbed back into his bedchamber, Maximilian turned and looked once more at the dark crown. He frowned, something stirring in his mind.
Cavor had never been inducted into the mystery of this chamber.
Why not? Everyone had believed Maximilian dead, so why hadn’t Cavor been inducted into this mystery?
Maximilian stood there a long time, the rings silent, before he turned abruptly on his heel and left the chamber.
And the crown of Elcho Falling.
8
SERPENT’S NEST, AND THE ROYAL PALACE AT RUEN
Ishbel sat in her bare chamber, staring unseeing at her hands clasped in her lap.
Tomorrow she was to leave for Margalit. The early negotiations with Maximilian had been successful. He was willing to consider the offer of the “ward” of the Coil — Ishbel’s mouth curled slightly in a smile — as a wife. She’d entertained doubts that Maximilian would even come this far, but he had, and so now she must leave.
Maximilian was sending a deputation to Margalit to meet with Ishbel and to hash out more detailed negotiations. The negotiations could still break down — Ishbel could almost smell the wariness in Maximilian’s initial interest — but they could just as easily progress further, and Ishbel needed to ready herself to commit to marriage.
Ishbel had indeed largely resigned herself to marriage with Maximilian. She still had no idea why the Great Serpent thought such a union would help avert the threatening disaster, but she would do as he (and as this curious frog god) wished. Ishbel had spent the last few weeks discovering all she could about her potential husband, but that was little enough. There had been more details about his harrowing seventeen years spent as a prisoner in the gloam mines, some interesting tales about how he’d been released and how he had defeated Cavor in battle, but very little information about the man himself. Ishbel discovered that Maximilian was respected across the Central Kingdoms, that he had a good relationship with the kings of Pelemere and Kyros, and that his small kingdom of Escator was, indeed, crippled by debt. Ishbel had decided that Maximilian was likely harmless enough, and that his worst fault (apart from some as yet undiscovered socially embarrassing habit) was likely to be a mild dreariness engendered by his long imprisonment.
He certainly had done nothing to set the world afire since his restoration to the throne of Escator.
Ishbel had also steeled herself to accept the sexual intimacy of the marriage. She would endure, if that was what the Great Serpent needed of her.
Additionally, she would endure the necessity of deferring to her husband. She, the archpriestess of the Coil, who had hitherto bowed only before gods.
What Ishbel feared most was the actual leaving of Serpent’s Nest. It had been her only home, her entire world, for most of her life. The mountain was her safety and her comfort, and it shielded her from the horror of the world beyond.
For an instant a memory resurfaced of her mother’s whispering corpse, and Ishbel jerked a little, fighting to keep it at bay.
She was not looking forward at all to her journey to Margalit. Ishbel would be travelling only with a company of guardsmen from Margalit itself. No one from the Coil would be accompanying her. Ishbel understood the necessity for this. She needed to distance herself from them and become the Lady Ishbel Brunelle rather than the archpriestess of the Coil, and Ishbel could not do that if any of the Coil or their servants travelled with her.
There came a knock at her door, and Aziel entered. He came over to Ishbel and sat down beside her on the bed. Wordlessly he picked up her hand, kissed it, then kissed the side of her forehead.
“You will come back,” he said softly, and Ishbel blinked away her tears, and nodded.
She would return.
Since the night he’d looked at the map, Maximilian had either avoided Vorstus, or had avoided speaking to him alone. Maximilian simply did not want to give Vorstus the satisfaction of a reaction.
It irritated Maximilian that Vorstus had not simply come to him and said, “Maxel, an offer of a bride comes out of the Mountain at the Edge of the World. A woman associated with a serpent god, no less. What do you think about that, then?”
Instead, Vorstus had decided to play games.