by Tanith Lee
“There’s something harsh in moonlight,” Sulvian said. “It scours every shadow. Jarred, when this is over, will we still remain, or will the harsh light scour us away?”
A night bird began to sing somewhere among the overgrowth and ruined terraces. After this, silence hung on Pellea. And on the beaches of the wide lands, south and north, only the sea was moving.
BOOK FIVE
The Serpent Wakes
19.
AS HE CAME NEAR the city he saw smokes rising from it, up into the red drought of the early winter sunset. Despite the smoke, it was a ruin, a desolation; already the shadows had it. Yannul noted the strip of banner over the gate—the black dragon of Dorthar. So, she was occupied, as the vague rumors had suggested out in the wilds of the Plains. The ruin had been invested with malignant, alien life. Yannul was reminded of certain sorcerers, mountain charlatans no less evil for being frauds, who claimed to be able to animate the corpses of the dead with demons, and make them eat, drink, copulate and dance.
He cursed softly, but his companion kept silent.
They had had a zeeba apiece till the last village, some twenty miles back. Since then, Raldnor had gone on foot while Yannul rode. It was a logical expression of their supposed relationship—Vis master and Lowland serf. Yet the “serf” seemed composed enough with whatever thoughts he had, whereas Yannul was uneasy, his whole body tense. The situation fitted him imperfectly, or perhaps it had simply been the long journey with this man, inland from the dark sickle bay where the Shansarian ship had left them. They had come by another route from the far land of the yellow-haired men—a route marked on their ancient maps, free of fire mountains and fiery water, and dotted with small islands. Yannul had diced and wrestled with the pirates, cracked jokes, drunk and exchanged histories. At the primeval bay, the edge of the Lowlands—unfrequented because it was too near the mouth of Aarl Sea—he had found himself alone with a man who was no longer a man in any human sense. He felt great loyalty to this being. Also compassion, admiration and even a desire to serve him—that ancient tribute inspired by true kings, so legend had it. Yet the old liking and the old companionship were dead. It had been hard on Yannul to travel in this silence and awe across the cold and lonely Plains toward a city of despair.
There were soldiers in the gate.
He swore again. The menacing incongruity worked on him like acid. Amrek’s jackals. Yannul spat to clear his mouth of a taste of sick anger.
They reached the ruined walls. Two sentries stepped out and peered at them through the dim vermilion dusk.
“Rein in, traveler. What’s your business here?”
“Not mine, my master’s. With the Ommos Yr Dakan.”
“Oh, yes? Your hard luck then. Who’s your master?”
“Kios of Xarabiss,” Yannul said. He drew out and showed the nearest soldier a forged letter and seal.
“Hasn’t your master heard the Storm Lord’s forbidden all trade with the Lowlands?”
“I told you, sir dragon. He’s dealing with the Ommos pig.”
The soldier laughed.
“And who’s this ape trundling along with you?”
“My slave,” Yannul said. He spat again, in Raldnor’s direction. “It saves an extra pack animal.”
The soldier, still grinning, drew aside.
“Pass through. And watch out for your needle in the pig’s house.”
The gateway was black. A weight of years and abysmal solitude pressed on the Lan, yet he, too, grinned, pleased at his acting.
The terrace and the wagon way beyond the gate were slippery and stinking with decayed fruit. Traders, venturing to ignore Amrek’s new trade laws, had had their merchandise tipped out at the gate. The dragons took what they wanted, left the rest to rot. Under this stench came a cold, dull, tomblike odor, the perfume of the doomed city.
There was no sound but the zeeba’s hoofs in the long, unlit streets, over which the sunset had suddenly gone out. Yannul saw no lights. The smokes rose in the distance, all in one place. This place, he deduced, was the Dortharian Garrison.
A bell began to toll onerously.
“We will separate here, Yannul,” Raldnor said. “You recall how to reach the Ommos?”
“I remember. And you? What if they catch you on the streets when the bell’s finished?”
“This spot is close to Orhvan’s house,” Raldnor said.
He turned and moved off up the street, becoming a shadow among other shadows. Yannul rode left, along the stony, empty roads. The bell rang itself out. No moon rose to alleviate the dark.
• • •
Orhvan’s house.
No lamps burned. A ceramic vessel lay broken on the steps.
The tall man struck the door with his fist. And on the silence of the place was overlaid a second silence—listening, with fear in its mouth. The man did not knock again; he sent his mind, instead, into the dark house.
Presently a hand drew back bolts. A figure opened the door a little way and beckoned him in. Then the door was closed and rebolted. Not a bar was left out of its socket.
The figure, guiding by mental signals, led across the round hall in the blackness, up stairs into an upper room. Two or three candles flickered here in a candlebranch, giving off the palest, most insubstantial glow. By it, the guest made out his host’s face, which had become the face of an old man.
The old man spoke now aloud.
“You’re welcome, sir. We’ve little to offer you. You see we hide like rats up here, afraid even to light a fire. But you were wise to knock on our door once the curfew sounded—lucky, too. This may be the only inhabited house left in the street.”
The guest looked about him. An old woman sat in the shadows. On her brocaded flesh was suddenly imposed the memory of a young, pale, beautiful mask.
“Orhvan,” the guest said. He pushed back the hood of his cloak and looked full into the faces of the old man and the old woman. “Do you know me now?”
“Why—why—” the old man stammered. Tears, either of emotion or shock, welled in his eyes.
“You are Anici’s death,” the old woman hissed. She tensed, fluttering like a fragile insect; the venomous pain of her thoughts pulsed in the room. “The death of my daughter’s daughter. I only saw you once. That is how I remember you.” But she could not meet his gaze with her own. Her hatred guttered before him.
“Now you can speak with your mind,” Orhvan said, as if he had not heard her. “Ah, Raldnor, how did it come to you?”
“I was well taught, though in a distant place.”
“Oh, what joy to see you.” Orhvan took his hand, struggling with the moisture in his eyes. “And yet—why come back at such a time?”
“At such a time, where else, for one of our race?”
“Raldnor, Raldnor—where else indeed. Where else. Have you seen the dragon men?” Orhvan let go his hand and stared into the black corners of the room. “Every night, when the bell finishes, they split themselves into parties, draw lots for which house to visit. They fling in live brands at the windows. If there are women, they use them in the street. Men are flogged to death every day. They invent reasons. Once they caught a man after the curfew. They cut off his hands and feet and nailed them up where he could see them as he bled to death.”
The old woman whispered a name like a curse, from the edge of the candlelight: “Amrek Snake-Arm.”
“No, no,” Orhvan said, “Amrek’s lying ill at Sar. He sees devils, so they say. No, these are the whims of the Koramvian soldiers. They have a commander, a man from Dorthar. He lets them do as they wish. No matter. We are only cattle waiting to be butchered. Before the year is out, every hovel in the city will be emptied. The old will be slaughtered without compunction. The young and the strong they’ll take to the mines of Yllum, to the galleys and the refuse pits. That was Amrek’s promise to us. We shall be his invent
ion—a race of slaves.”
Through the chinks in the broken shutters there came a spurt of red fire igniting far off across the city.
Orhvan, shuddering, turned from it toward the faint, flickering candles.
“We have a little food—you must eat—”
“I need nothing,” Raldnor said. “Are you alone in this house?”
“Alone . . . yes, Tira and I. . . . Yhaheil died—died of a chill, like an old man—up in the tower room, staring at the stars. We are alone.”
“Then you will be the first in the city to hear me. I did both of you a great wrong in the past. I have not forgotten.”
“Ah, Raldnor, there’s too little time to eat bitter bread together. We’ve put aside that past, haven’t we, Tira?”
Then he felt the current stir and sift in his brain.
“I no longer know you,” he suddenly thought. “I wasn’t mistaken. No longer that anguished boy pulled both ways by his blood, the angry sullen boy whose mind was shut. Now here is a stranger who commands me, a man I’ve never met.”
The old woman, glimpsing something, whispered in her mind: “You have come a long way to us. Somewhere your guilt was purged or lost. Does she rest quiet, then, my little white-haired baby, my Anici?”
But the man had begun to speak to them. The tide of his own thoughts bore theirs away like leaves on the wind.
• • •
The Ommos was big, a strong-built man succumbing now to fat. Rings cluttered his hands; a ruby bled on an upper tooth.
“Well, Lannic traveler, what is it you wish?” The voice was smooth, without a modicum of interest.
Yannul stood his hard-won ground in the hideously frescoed hall. There had already been considerable trouble with the porter.
“I’ve told your man. I want to speak to your master, Yr Dakan.”
“The Lord Dakan is at dinner.”
“Splendid. I’ll join him. I’ve eaten nothing since this morning.”
The Ommos smiled, snapped powerful fingers and waited while two thickset house guards sidled in from the porch.
“I suggest to you, Lannic traveler, that the dinner might not be to your liking.”
There was a smash of timbers a few streets away, the sound carrying harshly over the silent city. The Ommos’s slothful eyes shifted involuntarily to the door, and Yannul, tearing aside a curtain, strode into the hall beyond.
Red light submerged the room. A massive Zarok statue dominated the center, its belly flaring poisonous flame. A memory of abominable sacrificial rites griped in Yannul’s guts.
Yr Dakan, seated at a low table, looked up startled from his food, a tidbit held halfway to his mouth.
“What’s this? Am I not to be allowed to eat in peace?”
Yannul halted in front of him, gave a short bow, and handed him the letter from the imaginary merchant stamped with the false seal.
Yr Dakan set down his meat and took the letter in his greasy fingers.
“Explain. Who sends me this?”
“My master. Kios Am Xarabiss.”
Dakan broke the seal even as the Ommos servant appeared between the curtains. Before the man could utter a word, Dakan waved him peremptorily to silence. Yr Dakan read, grunted and looked up.
“You know your master’s mind?”
“The lord Kios has considered in some depth the imminent termination of all trade with the Plains.”
“A few months, a season, and the Plains will be no more.”
“As you say,” Yannul smiled, “and what a lot of good things will go for waste—assuming the Dortharians don’t find them.”
“How perceptive of your master. He is thinking of the village temples, perhaps? Yes. Well, I have a little knowledge of such things. If he is prepared to find means of transport, as he suggests he can, and to see that I am recompensed for my trouble. . . . He mentions a reasonable sum, but I think my services may be worth more—We shall see. But I will take no risks with the Dortharian rabble—this is to be understood.”
“Perfectly, Lord Dakan.”
“Orklos,” Dakan said, half turning to the servant at his back, “before you shut guests out of my hall, you will inquire into their business.”
Orklos stretched his mouth and bowed.
Dakan waved toward the several dishes.
“Eat if you are hungry, Master Lan.”
He bent to the letter and reread it.
Yannul took a cup of wine. His hunger had been curbed by tension and fatigue. And it was to be a long night yet, discussing business with the greedy Ommos, upping his fee, assuring him he need have no part in the smuggling—for the merchant clearly understood the Dortharians despised his race almost as much as the Lowlanders. He had not reckoned on a long sojourn in the city once the dragons came there. Some night they might burn his house as readily as the serfs’.
The wine scorched Yannul’s throat. Dakan began to amuse him, sinuously avoiding all manner of dangers, not realizing the secret agent at his table was using him and making sure of him for the struggle which was coming.
At midnight Dakan allowed him to seek a bedroom on the upper story. A man led him there, guiding him with a lamp. Yannul had noted several Lowland servants about the place, and this man, too, was a Lowlander. Yannul studied him with a certain uneasy curiosity. He seemed almost entirely fleshless in the creeping lamplight, his eyes craters. At the low-linteled door the man went by to light the lamp beside the bed.
“You serve Yr Dakan, do you?” Yannul asked. Something about the man prompted him to exploration.
“As you see, Lord Lan.”
“Do you think you’ll be safer from the dragons with a Vis master to look after your hide? Not that there’s much of a hide. Do they starve you in this house?”
“Yr Dakan is a good master to those who serve him well,” the Lowlander said without expression. The lamp caught suddenly in the pits of his eyes, and Yannul saw a surprising welter of emotion in them; thoughts slid like fish—unrecognizable, yet forever revealed in motion. Yannul sensed pain, a capacity for hate.
“What’s your name, Lowlander?”
“Ras.”
The dull sibilance disturbed Yannul.
“Well, thanks for the lamp, Ras. I’ll say good night.”
“No need, Lord Lan. I am only the merchant’s slave.”
A smile, or some sort of stillborn bastard sister to a smile, briefly altered the Lowlander’s mouth as he turned away into the passage.
• • •
The blackness dwindled into a gray winter dawn. The Dortharian bell sounded over the city; the curfew was finished for another night. There had been no bells in the Plains, or any other warning. They had brought this brass voice from Marsak, and had repaired the city walls, also, for their own purposes as jailors. Beasts still roamed the streets at night, but on two legs now. Day, a day of cold sun, drew the creatures of the city out of their lairs. The little albino house snakes, on whom the Dortharians stepped when able, slid on the palely sunlit stone ruins. Light-haired men moved in the shadows, dropping back into darker places when soldiers passed on the roads. Trade still persisted—barter, the stuff of life—yet very silently. The whole city smothered beneath its silence. Only the Dortharians made sound.
Of the other races—those part-Lowlanders with the blood of Elyr, Xarabiss, Lan—some, capable of passing as Vis, had fled back to the lands their half blood opened to them, and lived there with a sense of horrified estrangement and precarious safety, and nightmares. Others went to earth in obscure villages of the Plains, or into the deep cellars of the city, even, to exist as brothers to, and in the manner of, rats. The soldiers killed a few for offenses various and bizarre. They were the mark of an ultimate shame and had no right to remain as proof of it Some died without assistance. Yhaheil, the Elyrian astrologer, had done so, seated before the wid
e, star-filled windows of the icy tower. Despair, not fever, had eaten him—but it was an impersonal, spiritual despair, for he had seen Amrek’s genocide written over the sky, and intimations of chaos following it.
With the day, women began to gather at the ancient watering places, carrying their jars, lending to the morning with a sort of normalcy.
On the steps of a well in the northern quarter of the city, they moved aside to let the old woman draw her water first. They were courteous to her age, also to her sorrow, for Tira had outlived both daughter and granddaughter—an almost mystical grief—and lost, too, the companions of her age to illnesses of the hot months and the maladies of fear. Her weed-grown court no longer susurrated to the brittle, moth-wing flutter of their movements, the dry grasshopper rustle of their old women’s voices. Nor indeed to anything, for the dragons had long since burnt it out.
Tira bore the brand of these things, and yet today Tira was different. She moved differently; her mind emitted pulses of a curious and definite strength. At the head of the steps she gestured aside the young women’s hands offering help, and drew up the water herself. Then she turned, the brimming jar balanced on her hip and by her bone-thin hands. She looked at the women, and suddenly into the mind of each of them fell a single pure shining drop, like a tear of molten gold let fall into the dark water of the well.
There came a rattle of wheels. Down the narrow street galloped a light chariot with two Dortharians in it; it reined to a halt at the watering place. The soldiers called out obscenities at the women who stood there. Their immobility melted, they vanished as swiftly as the night had done. Only an old woman balancing her water jar on her hip was left at the well’s head.
“Give us a drink, old bitch!”
The soldier grinned when she came down to him and handed him the jar. He snatched carelessly, pretended to lose hold, and dropped the vessel on the roadway, where it broke. Water gushed out. The soldiers laughed. A bronze whip cracked, and the chariot rushed on.
Tira stood still. They did not see her extraordinary smile. She had dealt in symbols once, and now, changed by the man who had come out of the night, she saw Dortharian blood, not water, running self-spilt down the street.
