by Regina Watts
WHEN I BURST into the bedroom, I could not quite comprehend the scene before me. Valeria’s robed body was wrapped in some kind of green vine that thrashed wildly in the room’s corner, as though one of the plants there had come to life and developed a taste for flesh. Only on closer glance did I recognize this was no plant by any means, but the snake that my lady carried throughout the palace as a pet. The beast had grown to enormous proportions, a pet serpent expanded into a jungle python either in my absence or during the course of the party.
Valeria reached for me, gripping my arm in hopes I might manage to pull her out. Meanwhile the tail of the snake whipped across the floor, its girth bludgeoning me even as I caught it and tried to force it to unwind. It hissed, its great head twisting in my direction and its mouth opening to reveal fangs practically the length of Strife.
“Hold on,” I told my mistress, sprinting back into the sitting room where Strife had been mounted upon the wall during my absence. I tore the blade down and charged back to the source of the commotion: there, the snake had only tightened around Valeria’s body. Her robe had fallen somewhat open and the pressure of each coil gave her flesh the appearance of being ready to burst—more alarmingly, her dark face had adopted a notable purple-crimson hue. My heart surging with passion to protect my mistress, I drew the blade from its scabbard and set against the beast at once.
Such things were easier said than done, however. I swiped at its great head and, as it reared away from me, I realized how easy it would be to hurt Valeria instead of the creature assailing her. Cutting away the coils might endanger her body, and missing the beast’s face might still so aggravate it that it began to bite either Valeria or myself.
Instead, I sank Strife’s blade into the end of the serpent’s tail, cutting the tip clean off while it hissed in terrible agony. The coils tightened further for a few seconds and Valeria gagged sharply, gripping at the one around her throat; then, as the pain passed into the instinct to escape its assailant, the snake unwound from its would-be victim and slithered away to regroup. Valeria gasped sharply, clutching her throat with her ringed hand while I bent over her to inspect her body. The dark shadow of a bruise stretched across her neck and another trailed over her ribs, but she seemed to be breathing steadily.
“Burningsoul,” she rasped, her free hand gesturing behind me.
I whirled to find the snake had gathered its senses and was on the attack once again, rising high above us both and clearly intent on lunging at me. Strife stood between us, my only defense against the monster’s lengthy fangs. When at last the serpent sprang forth to bite, I met its fangs with my cold steel and swore I felt the impact rattle through its skull. With a lower, all the more hateful hiss, the serpent lunged again. I poised the blade forward.
Its already thin pupils shrank to dull lines as it realized it had impaled itself upon Strife’s vicious point. Though the snake reared back once more, it knew the end was nigh as much as did Valeria and I. Finding itself unable to remove the blade from the vertebrae through which it had penetrated, the beast collapsed forward in a heap upon the floor. Breathless, I jerked Strife from its throat, then made short work of severing the creature’s skull from its body. The stump of its tail gave one more wretched thrash, blood splashing across the floor, before it died.
Panting, assessing my unexpected prey, I lowered Strife and turned toward Valeria with an expression that reflected the solemn feelings of my heart. “I am—”
My lady dashed into my arms, even her brave body trembling after such an unexpected ordeal. “Rorke,” she said, my first name precious on her lips for its rarity there, “oh, Rorke! I’m so glad you’re here—if not for you, that might have been my undoing. Hold me—please, hold me!”
Strife tumbled to the ground while I embraced Valeria, wrapping her safely in my arms and kissing the temple of her fragrant forehead. “It’s all right,” I told her. “I swear, Madame, I will let nothing happen to you. You’re safe now. I am so very sorry about your pet.”
While she wept into my chest, I found myself quite surprised. As cool and collected as the priestess was, in the aftermath of her distressing assault she was more sensitive than I had imagined her ever being. The Materna wept softly against my heart, her fingers sinking into my back while I cradled her, then gradually led her in the direction of her bed. We sat upon its foot together while she said, “Even my sweet snake—oh, even the creatures I love are embroiled in this awful conspiracy against me! I’m so tired, Burningsoul. Yes, so tired of living this way!”
“It is the curse of those who are most valuable to society,” I told her, “that they should attract the jealous violence of those far lesser than they. You are a powerful woman, Valeria—a powerful woman among powerful, power-hungry women, and that is a dangerous situation in which to find yourself.”
Nodding weakly, Valeria wiped the back of her hand across her face and said with a shake of her head, “It is a terrible burden—I always knew my time as high priestess would be this way, but I just never realized how exhausting it would be. How discouraging. I can’t trust anyone, Burningsoul…oh, I feel so terribly alone.”
“You’re not alone, Madame…you have me.”
Her smile was faint as any I have seen. I held her hands in mine and kissed them, eyes shut: when they opened again, I found myself eye-to-eye with the indigo gem of that glowing ring.
The conversation with the spirit-thief again rang in my ears. My hands tightened all the more around hers and I looked deeply into her distraught features.
“Materna,” I told her softly, my thumb worrying the edge of her palm, “I had ought to tell you something about what happened today while I was in town in the service of Indra and Odile.”
Gently, I released her hands, then folded my own—still stained with the blood of the serpent. I began with my arrival at the smith’s shop and watched her face as I explained the whole ordeal; it changed quite swiftly, the sorrow fading away to be soon replaced by deep, dark fury. By the time I was finished she had turned her expression away, her gaze trained around the corpse of the snake upon which she evidently meditated. I was not even sure she still heard what I was saying until, when I finished, she asked softly, “And you believe what this—this creature said? That there is subterfuge at work in the Palace?”
“I can’t say for certain, Madame—only that when you left me in the bloom today, your snake was of perfectly average size for one of its species.”
Rising, first stepping toward the dead snake and then drawing back away from it, Valeria gazed out the window and said after another moment of silent contemplation. “Fetch the guards and tell them I wish this body removed and respectfully buried. Lithnor was a noble serpent, a good companion to me before you came into my life. My heart is so unspeakably heavy to think that this was done to—”
Her eyes squeezed shut and her hand flew up to press across them. “When you’ve finished and the task is seen to, come to me in the northern room here in my chambers. I cannot stand to be alone at all this dark. Oh! My heart.”
I reached out to touch her, but she hurried from the room on fast-moving feet that left me plagued with guilt. No doubt, I had done the right thing—the only right thing that there was to be done—yet I could not help but see myself as little more than the murderer of an innocent animal. Weltyr, however, spoke in my soul to bolster its resolve. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that protecting my mistress, not some snake, was why I had been handed the challenge of this servitude.
Of course, it was not always easy to remember that such a thing would ultimately be to my benefit.
The guards were visibly shocked upon taking in the new size of the snake, clearly not having believed or understood it when I expressed that the creature had grown to such massive proportions. They looked carefully at one another, then at me. “You killed this thing for the Materna,” observed the one who had seen me into the chambers on my first arrival.
“Naturally—I would not dream of seeing her hurt.”
/> “They must be putting some kind of binding magic in the brands now,” said the other durrow with a shake of her head, exiting to fetch more help in the task of the removal. “It’s not every bloom you see a human so loyal.”
We were halfway through working out the task of coiling the snake’s massive body up around itself to make the moving process easier when a commotion drew my attention. Trystera burst into the sitting room of my mistress’s chambers.
“Materna,” cried the vizier, looking wildly around.
“Calm yourself, Madame,” I called to her, admittedly forgetting my station in that second. “She is abed after her frightening ordeal.”
The vizier’s head whipped sharply in my direction, her eyes narrowed to irritated slits simply to hear my voice. “If I have the faintest desire to address you, slave, I will.”
“Speak to him with a little kindness, Trystera,” urged the most sensible of the durrow guards, rising with a clinking of her armor from where she knelt beside the serpent. “It was he who slew this beast and annihilated yet another threat to the Materna’s life. We owe him gratitude, slave or no.”
Sniffing to have been remonstrated by someone whom she felt to be clearly beneath her station, the vizier nonetheless spared me a displeased flicker of her lilac eyes. “Yes, well—very good, human. I am glad the Materna is wise enough to know a suitable guard when she sees one. Tell her I asked after her, won’t you?”
My eyes narrowed. I looked very carefully at the vizier just then, thinking of the notorious body-snatching powers of the spirit-thieves. Just what had the second in command been doing in Valeria’s quarters when I arrived after the termination of the meeting? It would have been a fine time to put some enchantment on my lady’s snake, or engage in any other bit of deadly mischief. I would have to ask Valeria if Trystera went anywhere within the chambers by herself.
“I’ll let her know,” I assured Trystera, nodding respectfully in her direction. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to know she still has friends.”
Trystera nodded once, looked at me as if she still had something more to say, then decided it was better to keep it to herself. She turned and was gone, back out the door, and I and the guards were left to attend to the remains of the snake.
I wish I could say I found my lady sound asleep after the serpent was removed from the scene of the crime. Sadly, that was not the case. Still awash with the invigorating chemicals of her near-death experience, the powerful durrow nonetheless trembled in the covers of her bed as violently as might a human in the frigid winter tundra. Frowning, I stripped off my clothes and slid into bed to embrace her firm body. Even still, she trembled, an automatic process that would only be soothed with the moving forth of time.
“Were they gentle when they moved him?”
“Very gentle,” I assured her. “They took a sheet and—”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Very well.”
We fell silent again for a time, until, lifting a hand to trail her fingertips over my chest, Valeria said, “I’m so grateful you’re here, Burningsoul. I do wish—well. Wishing is worthless. This is the only way things could have happened. The only way I could have met you. But…when I hear about the way things are done aboveground, I find myself envious. Just a little. There is something very sweet about the thought of being swept off one’s feet, as I’ve read you people say of romance. We are very different down here in the Nightlands.”
“You are,” I agreed, pushing a few locks of bright white hair from her pensive features and back behind the point of her sensitive ear. “But not so different inside, I think. Not you, anyway…not Indra and Odile. We’re all just people, whether owner or slave.”
While she nodded softly, I continued my caresses, smoothing the frayed hairs of one of her delicate brows. “You said before, Materna, that you knew you would someday be in the position you’re in…high priestess.”
“Did I?”
“Just now—perhaps you don’t remember because it was so soon in the aftermath of the attack, but you said something about how you knew things would be this way when you became Roserpine’s high priestess.”
“Oh.” Shutting her eyes, her lips upturned in the faint unsmile of a woman with good humor caught at something harmless, the Materna said, “I am usually better at thinking before speaking, but I admit I was somewhat rattled after that…the prophetic dreams my Holy Mother sends, they have come to me since I was a very young girl. Since menses, or thereabout.”
“How fascinating,” I said, looking carefully into her face. A connection made itself within the dim halls of even my brain then. Studying her features more closely, I asked her, “Is it possible that these prophetic dreams also included me from a time so long ago? Is that why you become so coy when I inquire about them?”
Laughing in slight surprise, Valeria shook her head and confessed, “You’re too smart for a warrior.”
“Weltyr’s gift…it’s why I’m half a priest, rather than all barbarous fighter.”
“So I can tell…indeed, Burningsoul. I have dreamt of you, the man with the sun blazing upon his neck, for years and years.” Her laughter faded but her smile remained, softly warming her lips as she ran her fingertip down the edge of my neck. “As soon as I saw you with my own two eyes, I recognized you from my dreams…what a way to meet you! What a way.”
I could not imagine what it must have been like for her to see me—what a shock. I’ve heard it said that, for those unaccustomed to the tangible magic of the gods, such stories of prophecy are met with strong skepticism. However, in my life, in our time, having seen with my own eyes the raising of skeletons out of the earth, or the scuttling of gigantic spiders summoned from green smoke, or great balls of fire produced by seemingly powerless old men, I could personally attest long before meeting Valeria that the least of the gods’ powers were divinatory in nature. I believed her completely—saw her honestly in her face and, more importantly, heard it in the tone of her voice—but could not help wondering if the source really was Roserpine. Weltyr, among other things, was said to be a god of prophecy.
I kept my opinion to myself and instead told her, “If the gods have given you foresight of our companionship, this must be a very important time in your life.”
“Hopefully not because it’s the end,” she said, her grim expression visible to me even in the dark.
My hands enfolded her beautiful face. She gasped softly, then relaxed into the touch and even shut her eyes.
“I won’t let it be,” I promised her. “Nothing will kill you so long as I am alive and in your service.”
Her lower lip disappearing between her teeth, her cheeks warm beneath my hands, gentle Valeria murmured, “Thank you,” and shut her eyes once more to doze.
She slept restlessly that dark, her tossing and turning keeping me up if only to be there to awaken her from the pits of some horrific nightmare. Remarkably, she did not seem to have any nightmares at all until the very early hours of the bloom; when at last she did begin to gasp and cry out in the dim bedroom, I was still awake and pondering the events of the dark prior.
I pressed a hand to her back while she struggled with some unseen threat. On contact with me, she faded back into a blissful slumber. The tips of my fingers curled against her flesh and I marveled that a being so ancient might still have skin so impossibly soft. I kissed the nape of her neck and dozed for an hour or two until she stirred, pushed herself out of bed, and went about the course of her duties.
Now I observed her schedule more carefully, interested less in my place in it and more how she went about hers. That bloom, of course, was an exception, for on her waking she almost at once wept with the memories of her lost python. Once I consoled her and she picked herself back up, she stretched, anointed herself, and prayed in the nude. I had never seen so earnest a person in prayer aside from myself. When praying, Valeria sat among those verdant plants, face covered by her hands, her body rocking with her avid recitations and sometime
s bowing forward completely to press her forehead to the floor. I had seen such rocking before, in certain sects of Weltyr, and was surprised to find its like reflected in the priestess’s communion with her goddess.
Somehow I had it in my head—as did many surface dwellers, I would think—that worship of Roserpine was all nude dances around a fire and elaborate sacrifices using the hearts and sweetmeats of men. Instead here it was, displayed before me in its one true form: prayer. Yes, here were those dastardly pagan rites I had sworn to fight against. I turned away, unwilling to disrupt the beautiful scene but unable to leave her completely by herself after the events with the snake.
Finally, when she was dressed in a short silver gown with a surprisingly high neckline and a cape that was clearly more for fashion than for anything else, Valeria said to me, “I would like you to be prepared to speak at Court today.”
“About what?”
“What happened last dark—and what happened when you were out with Indra and Odile. It is important that the traitor, of it is someone close to me, understand what I know now.”
“Perhaps the spirit-thief wanted you to know,” I posited, unsure whether it was wise to tip our hand just yet. “Surely it understood that I am a servant of Weltyr and bound by oath to be honorable in word and deed. To conceal from you the truth of the mole would break my sacred bond with my god, and I have no doubt the demon knew that when revealing information of any kind.”
“Then it probably has some means of passing information to the mole in the Palace,” she said firmly, draping her wrists in bangles arranging pins in her hair with a certain curt air. “And the mole, then, is well aware of your knowledge, and your propensity to tell me.”
“It needs no way of passing information if the mole is a spirit-thief in disguise.” While she absorbed that thought, I went on to warn her, “Speaking our awareness aloud may provoke conspirators into action, if only because increased awareness of the conspiracy throughout the Palace will endanger them—and, anyway, I made it seem as though I were somewhat open to the idea, if only to get out of the situation alive. I wish I had been permitted to bring Strife.”
