Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  “You’re here to stand up with Ruil.”

  “Obligation, Meth-maren.”

  They did not say friendship. Raen herself did not miss that implication, and there was a space of silence while Run glowered.

  “We have opportunities,” the Hald said further, “that ought not to be neglected.”

  “At least talk on the matter,” said Yalt. “We ask you to do that.”

  “No,” some of the House muttered. But Eldest did not refuse. His old eyes wandered over them all, and finally he nodded.

  Raen’s mother swore softly. “Leave,” she said to Raen. And when Raen looked at her in offense: “Go on.”

  Others, even adult and senior, were being dismissed from what was becoming elder council. There was no objection possible. She kissed her mother’s cheek, pressed her hand, and sullenly made her retreat among the others, younger folk under thirty and third and fourth-rank elders, inconsiderable in council.

  There was a muttering gathering in the hall just outside, her cousins no happier than she with what was toward.

  No peace, she heard. Not with Ruil.

  And: Reds and golds, she beard, reminding her of the hillside and the meeting which had diverted her. She had told no one of that. She was too arrogant to contribute that meaningless fragment to the general turmoil in the hall. She skirted the vicinities of her chattering cousins, male and female, and brushed off the attentions of an azi, walked the corridor in a fit of irritation—both at being cast out and at reckoning what Ruil-sept proposed. Kethiuy lake belonged to Sul-sept, beautiful and pristine. Sul had cared to keep the shores as they were, had laboured to make the boat-launches as inconspicuous as possible, to keep all evidence of man out of view. Ruil wanted a site which would obtrude into their sight, to plant themselves right where Sul must constantly look at them and reckon with them. This business of reds and golds: this was surely something Ruil had concocted to obtain backing from other Houses. There was no possibility that they could do what they claimed, interceding with the wild hives.

  Lies. Outright lies.

  She shrugged past the azi at the door and sought the cool, clean sir of the porch. She filled her lungs with it, looking out into the dark where the candletrees framed Kethiuy lake; and the ugly aircraft sat in her view, gleaming with lights.

  Armed azi, as if this were some frontier holding. She was indignant at their presence, and no little uneasy by reason of it.

  A step sounded by her. She saw three men, the one nearest in Hald’s dark Colour. She froze, recalling herself unarmed, having come from the table. Childish pride held her from the flight prudence dictated.

  It was a tall man who faced her. She stared up at him with her back to the door and the light from the slit windows giving her a better look at him: mid-thirties, beta-reckoning; on a Kontrin, that could be anywhere between thirty and three hundred. The face was gaunt and grim: Pal Hald, she recognised him suddenly, with the déjà vu of deepstudy. The two with him, she did not know.

  And Pol was trouble. He had lost kin to Meth-marens. Tie was also reputed frivolous, a libertine, a jester, a player of pranks. She could not connect that report with that gaunt face until quite suddenly he grinned at her and shed half a dozen apparent years.

  “Good evening, little Meth-maren.”

  “Good evening yourself, Pol Hald.”

  “What, could I know your name?”

  She lifted her head a degree higher. “I’m not in your studytapes yet, ser Hald. My name is Raen.”

  “Tand and Morn,” he said with a shrug at the kinsmen at his back, the one young and boyish, the other lean-faced and much like himself, like enough for full kin. Isis grin did not fade. He reached out with complete affrontery and touch her under the chin. “Raen. I’ll remember that.”

  She took a step backward, feeling a rush of blood to her face. She had no experience to deal with such a move, and the embarrassment became rage. “And who sent you out here, Skulking round the windows?”

  “We’re set to watch the aircraft, little Meth-maren. To be sure Meth-maren hospitality is what it should be.”

  She did not like the sound of that, and turned abruptly, seized the door handle, afraid for the instant that they would stop her; but they made no move to do so, and she delayed to glower resentment at them, determined to make it clear she was not being chased off her own doorstep. “I seem to have left my gun inside,” she said. “I usually carry it for pests.”

  Pol’s gaunt face went serious then, quite, quite sober.

  “Good evening, Meth-maren,” he said.

  She opened the door and went in, into the safe light, among her own kin.

  iii

  There was the drone of an engine toward dawn. Aircraft taking off, Raen thought, turning in her bed and burrowing into the pillows. The talk down in the dining hall had gone on and on, sometimes loudly enough to be heard outside the doors, generally not. The gathering in the hall outside had drifted off at last toward duties or pleasures: there was a certain lack of law in the House, younger men and lesser elders piqued by their exclusion, seeking to make clear their displeasure. A few became drunk. A few turned to bizarre amusements, and the azi maid who had bedded herself down in Raen’s room had fled here in panic.

  Lia had taken her in, Lia her own azi, a female nearing her fatal fortieth year. Raen blinked and looked at Lia, who had fallen asleep in a chair by the door, while the fugitive maid had curled up on a pallet in the corner…dear old Lia was upset by the commotion in the House, and had surely taken that uncomfortable post out of worry for her security.

  Love. That was Lia, whose ample arms had sheltered her all her fifteen years. Her mother was authority, was beauty, was affection and safety, but Lia was love, lab-bred for motherhood, sterile though azi were.

  And she could not slip past such a guard. She tried to rise and dress in silence enough, but Lia wakened and began to fuss over her, choosing her clothes with care, wakening the sleeping maid to draw a bath and make the bed, supervising every detail. Raen bore this, for impatient as she was to learn how things stood downstairs, she had infinite patience with Lia, who could be hurt by refusal. Lia was thirty-nine. There remained only this last year, before whatever defect was bred into her, killed her. Raen knew this with great regret, though she was not sure that Lia knew her own age. She would on no account make a day of Lia’s life unhappy; and on no account would she let Lia know the reason of her attitude.

  It’s part of growing up, her mother had told her. The price of Immortality. Azi and betas come and go, the azi quickest of all. We all love them when we’re young. When one loses one’s nurse, one begins to learn what we are, and what they are; and that’s a valuable lesson, Raen. Learn to enjoy, and to say goodbye.

  Lia offered her the cloak of Colour, and she decided it was proper to wear it; she fastened it and let Lia adjust it, then walked to the window, where the first light of dawn showed the landing.

  One aircraft still remained. It was not over.

  She went out into the corridor and down, past the council room where a few of her elder cousins and relations lounged disconsolately. They were not in the mood to brief a fifteen year old, be she heir-line or not; she sensed that and listened, heard voices still talking inside.

  She shook her head in disgust and walked on, thinking of breakfast, though she rarely ate that meal. Lessons, at least, were still suspended, but she would have traded a week of holidays to have Ruff and their friends out of Sal’s vicinity. She recalled the three Halds and wondered whether they were still occupying the porch.

  They were not. She stood on the porch with her hands on her hips and breathed deeply. The area was clear and the azi were heading out to fields as they did every morning. A golden light touched the candletrees and the hedges at this most beautiful hour, before alpha Hydri showed its true face and scorched the heavens.

  There was only the single aircraft befouling the landscape.

  And then she saw movement at the corner of the
house.

  An azi, sunsuited at this hour.

  “What are you doing there?” she shouted at him. And then she saw shadows skittering in a living wave across the lawn, tall, stiltlike forms moving with eye-blurring speed.

  She whirled, face to face with an armed azi, and cried out.

  BOOK TWO

  i

  Raen stumbled, skidded, came to a halt against a projecting rock. Pain shot through her side. The cloth clung there. The bum had broken open; moisture soaked her clothing. She felt of it and brought away reddened fingers, wiped a smear on the rock which had stopped her, fingers trembling. She kept climbing.

  She looked back from time to time, on the lowlands, the forest, the lake, on all the deceptive peace of Kethiuy’s valley, while her breath came short and balance nigh failed her on the rocks. They were all dead down there, all her kin: all, all dead—Ruil-sept held Kethiuy for its own, and Sul-sept bodies were everywhere. Only her own was missing from the tally, and that from no act of wit, nothing of credit: burned, she had fallen, and the bushes by the porch had sheltered her.

  They were all dead, and she was dying.

  There was no relief from the sun up here; it burned in a sky white with heat, blistered exposed skin, threatened blindness despite her cloak that she had wrapped about her face. Stones burned her hands and heated the thin soles of her boots. Her eyes streamed tears, seared by the dryness and the glare. Her chance for shelter was long past, at the beginning of the climb. If Ruil sought her, they would find her. She left a trail for any groundsearch they might care to make, smeared on the rocks from her hands and her side. And from the air, Ruil might well manage heat-sensors for night tracking. There was no hope of shaking them if they wanted her.

  She kept running, climbing, all the same, because there was no going back, because it was less her Ruil cousins she feared than red-hive, the living wave that had poured over her into Kethiuy, spurred feet trampling her among the bushes, deadly jaws clashing. There were deaths and deaths, and she had seen them in plenty in recent hours, but those dealt by majat were cruellest, and majat trackers were those she most feared, swift beyond any hope of escape.

  A second fall; this time she sprawled full length, and from this impact she was slow in rising. Her hands shook now as in ague, and there was skin gone from her palms and her knees and elbows, cloth torn. Thirst and the blinding heat of the rocks were more painful than the abrasions, but even those miseries were devoured by the pain that stitched her side. She drew breath with difficulty, reaching for support to hold her on her feet.

  She was running again. She could not remember how, but she faced a climb, and her mind was forced to work again. She used hands as well as feet, and managed it, slowly, tottering on the brink, slipping, gaining another body’s length. There had been other refuges, the woods, the road toward the City. She had chosen wrong. Her mother, her uncles—they would have done otherwise, would have tried for the City. She had made a panic choice, the hills, hide-and-seek in the rocks, the high places, hard ground for their vehicles. But most of all the hills were blue-hive territory, old neighbours. Red-hive would not readily venture their borders, not for all Ruil’s urging.

  Panic choice. There was no help up here, nothing human, no way down, no way back. She knew what she had done to herself, and the tears that ran down her face were of rage as well as the heat.

  There was another gap in her memory, and then a bald hill swam in her sight. Here was the boundary, the point-pas-which-not for any human. Majat trails ran through the gap, converging here. Raen caught her breath and felt her way along the rocks and down, into the shadows, set her feet on that well-worn track and looked about her, at tilted, tumbled rocks, flinching from the white sky.

  Here was the refuge. No one would come here rashly; no one would likely take the trouble and the risk. It was a private place, for the private business of dying, and she knew it finally, that dying was what she had left to do. She had only to sit down and rest a while, while the blood kept leaking from her side and the sun baked her brain. Of pain there could be no more to endure. It had reached the top of the curve, and lessened even from standing still; there was only the need to wait. Her mother, eldest, her kinsmen and her azi…there was no grieving for them: their pain was done. Hers was not.

  Balance failed her. She moved to save herself, fearing the fall, and that move led to the next step and the next. Her vision went out for a moment, and panic and failing balance drove her stumbling and reaching for the rocks which she remembered ahead. She hit them hip-high, braced herself, recovered a blurred vision of daylight and kept moving downhill. It was a little death, that dark, that blindness; the real one was coming, deeper and larger, and already the heat of the sun seemed less. She fled it, fighting each dark space that sent her staggering and reeling from point to point.

  Thorns ripped her arm and her clothing. She recoiled and fought past the edge of the obstacle, blinked her eyes clear. She knew the meaning of the hedge, knew that here was the place she must stop, must. Her frightened body kept moving with its own logic, heedless of dangers; her mind observed from a distance, carried along helplessly, confused…and suddenly, in grim rage, found a focus.

  The pact of Family had failed; it was murdered, with her mother, Grandfather, her kin…slaughtered by Ruil and Hald.

  There was an older Pact, that which was grafted into the very flesh of her wounded hand, chitinous and part of her, living jewels.

  She was Kontrin, of the Family which ruled the Hydri stars, which hid won of majat the rights of settlement and trade, the serpent-emblemed Family, which lived where other humans would not; she was Meth-maren, hive-friend.

  A great many fears diminished in her. There was a place to go, a thing to do, a means to make Ruil suffer.

  Her mother smiled grimly in her mind, encouraging her: Revenge is next only to winning. Raen’s mouth set in a rictus between gasp and grin, seeking air, a little more life, and someone else’s death.

  The blacknesses came more frequently now, and she hurled herself from rock to rock, tumbling from one winding turn to the next, fending off thorns with her chitin-shielded right hand…majat barriers, these ancient hedges.

  “I’m from Kethiuy!” she shouted at the greyness which hazed her senses, the cold that numbed the pain and threatened her with losing. “Blue-hive! I’m Raen Meth-maren! Kethiuy!”

  The black edges closed on her sight.

  She thrust herself toward the next hedge, and heard rocks shift and rattle above her, stones which she had not stirred.

  They were all about her, tall leathery shapes, hazy shadows, shimmering with jewels in the blinding sun.

  “Go back,” one said, a baritone harmony of pipes. “Go back!”

  She saw the dark opening in the earth, and held her bleeding side, flinging herself into a last, frantic effort. She could not feel her legs under her. There was no more heat nor cold, nor up nor down nor color. Her body hit stone. Her wounded hand slicked wetly across it and the gray itself went out.

  ii

  Workers tugged and arranged to satisfaction, careful not to further damage the fragile structure, delicate as new eggs. Worker palps busily gnawed away the ruined clothing, laved off the foul outsider smells and cleaned the spilled life fluids from body and limbs. Warriors still milled about the vestibule, disturbed by the invasion, seeking directions. Confusion reigned throughout the sector.

  A Worker took the essence of the problem and circled its companions, squealed a short burst of orders to clear the traffic away, and scurried off. Worker was already in contact with Mother, after that subliminal fashion which pervaded the hive, but that kind of communication was not sufficient for details. There was need of direct report.

  Other Workers delayed it briefly, chance encounters in the dark corridors. Human-in-hive, they scented, among other things of life-fluids and injury. Alarm spread. Warriors would be moving; Workers would be throwing up barricades, sealing tunnels. Worker kept travelling, original an
d most accurate carrier, and obsessed with urgency. Its personal alarm was chiefly distress for the untidiness, a vague sense of higher things out of control and therefore threatening the whole hive: chaos was already loosed and worse might follow.

  Dim glow of fungi and the sweet scent of Mother pervaded the inmost balls, near the Chamber. Worker passed others, Egg-bearers—touched, smelled, conveyed the alarm which sent them hastening away. A Warrior shouldered past, bluff and hasty, returning from its own inquiry. Its message was of sense to Warriors. Worker rejected it, although it bore upon its own, and scurried on, forelimbs tucked, into the Presence.

  Mother sat in a heaving mass of Drones and attendants. The smell was magnetic, delirious. Worker came to Her in ecstasy, opened its palps and offered taste and scent, receiving in turn.

  Mother thought. The shifts of chemistry swirled dazzlingly through worker’s senses. She spoke at the same time, sound which occasionally ascended to the timbre of human names. Communication wove constantly between the two levels, intricate interplay of sound and taste.

  Heal it, the decision came, complex with the chemicals necessary to the performance of this task. Feed it. This is of Kethiuy hive, the young queen Raen. Workers of blue-hive have encountered her before. l taste injury, abundant life-fluids. Warriors report red-hive intrusion in the Kethiuy area. Accept this intruder.

  Queen. The scent touched off reactions in the chemistry of Worker, terrifying changes—communicated also to the Drones, who shifted uneasily and sought touch. The hive mind was one. Worker was one complex unit of it. Mother was a master-unit, the key, which made sense of all the gatherings. Others moved closer, compelled by the intimation of understandings, workers and Drones and Foragers and warriors, each sharing this intelligence and feeding into it in its own way.

  Kethiuy. That was a Drone, who Remembered, which was a function of Drones. Images followed, of the land before and after the human hive called Kethiuy had been built…domes, one at first, and then others, and trees growing up among them. Blue-hive’s memory was as long as its members were brief: a billion years the memories went back, and the specific memory of Kethiuy saw the hills rise and the lake form and drain several times, and form again. Drone-memory extended even back into hives older than Kethiuy’s hills, into days of dimmer and dimmer intelligence; but these memories were not at issue: humans were brief upon the earth, only the last several hundreds of years. The hive sorted, comprehended, knew Sul-sept of Meth-maren hive and all its issue, its bitter rivalry with Ruil and Ruil’s allies. Human thought: intelligence served by peculiar senses, a few more than the hives possessed, a few less, and contained by single bodies. The concept still troubled the hive, the idea that individual death could extinguish an intelligence. it was still only dimly grasped. Mother in particular put it forward, the impending death of an irreplaceable intelligence.