Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  "It was said to be a marvel- a kind of thorn-bush which grows from seeds planted in human flesh but I never saw it brought to full maturity."

  "That is a vile thing," said Eyub uneasily. It was not entirely clear whether he had ever heard of such a plant before or not.

  "We take great pains to banish such unearthly horrors from our lands. It sounds to me like Serpent witchcraft. Do your people trade with Serpents?"

  "Serpents are sometimes seen in the cities of the far west, I believe," she admitted, 'but they keep themselves to themselves.

  They're said to be quite harmless. "

  He snorted expressively. It was obvious that Serpents were not said to be harmless in Ebia.

  "The dark landers never trade with Serpents," she added, thinking that she ought not to give Eyub's men any more reasons to be wary of the forest people.

  "The goods in question were brought into the forest by men."

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  "Mound-women5. Eyub countered.

  Lucrezia was not certain whether or not it was a rhetorical question.

  "No," she said, to be on the safe side.

  "Ordinary men, much like you or me."

  He looked down at her darkly. There was a great deal for him to think about, and to worry about. It wouldn't be easy for him to go to sleep, no matter how exhausted he might be.

  He turned and walked away.

  Lucrezia breathed a sigh of relief, realising for the first time how tense she had been. She felt that she had acquitted herself well, and that she might yet succeed in becoming a great peacemaker, a true mover in the fortunes of cities and empires.

  Hyry would have been proud of me, she thought- but the thought brought tears to her eyes again.

  "Don't be afraid," Elema whispered.

  "All will be well in the morning.

  You cast your spell cleverly, little witch. You have him in the palm of your hand. "

  It was a sincere compliment, and Lucrezia accepted it as such although the metaphor was not a happy one, given that the palms of her hands were uncomfortably jammed together by the cord that was cutting into her wrists.

  "Try to sleep," the old woman advised.

  "Tomorrow might be a long day." ; Tomorrow, Lucrezia thought, Fraxinus and Phar will surely arrive. If they had only got here one day sooner, Hyry would be alive and I would be free, and. . . why is the world such a stubborn place, where loose ends never quite meet? But this is not the end; it is the beginning. Tomorrow, I shall be an ambassador, a healer, a player in the game. This is what I wanted, and what I wanted to be She realised then that Djemil Eyub was not the only one who was going to have great difficulty in going to sleep.

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  20 andris raised his head and looked down dazedly at the bandages which were wrapped around his right wrist and hand. He could feel another bandage wrapped tightly about his skull, and cool ribbons of wound glue winding about the contours of his face in grotesque confusion. His head was swimming, and he quickly lowered it to the pillow again, fighting to keep hold of consciousness.

  He felt far worse now than he had after being injured by the guardsman's spear during his escape from Xandria. The night- cloak had mauled him badly, and the ride through the forest had been far longer than the ride through the byways outside the city wall.

  "My head hurts," he complained.

  "I'm not surprised," said a tender voice, whose solicitousness was extremely welcome.

  "Merel?" he said, trying to focus his eyes. He realised that the grey blur above his head was in fact an awning of some kind, lit by a single candle.

  He also realised that the strange feeling of movement which he had was not so strange after all, given that he was lying in a wagon which was indeed on the move. He found Merel's face at last, and looked her in the eyes. She smiled, evidently happy that he was back in the land of the living. He recovered a vague memory of dismounting from a horse while Mere! ran to greet him.

  "It's all right," she said reassuringly.

  "We're in Aulakh Phar's cart, heading south. Your wrist isn't broken, and the other wounds will heal. The scars will make you look fierce, but not much uglier than you already are. We're perfectly safe until we run into the drago mites Even then, Phar has some aromatic potion which will supposedly make them leave us alone."

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  Andris remembered how he had come to hurt himself.

  "Is Ereleth alive?" he asKed sharply.

  "Yes. Don't worry- she's in the other cart. She's awake now, and her injuries are no more serious than yours, although they laid her low for a little while. Checuti told me what she did. I can understand why you were so desperate to rescue her that you nearly got killed. He gave the young dark landers a rousing account of how you tackled a night cloak with your bare hands, and they think you're a great hero unlike Captain Cerri, of course. He doesn't like you, even though I've explained that you're not to blame for his misfortunes."

  "Cerri? Is he here? Why?" Andris recovered another vague memory. Yes, there had indeed been guardsmen looking when he had tumbled from his horse.

  Those silly red skirts . . .

  "The same thing as everyone else," Merel informed him.

  "He's looking for Keshvara and the missing princess. If they ever do manage to catch us up, there'll be quite a competition to decide what happens to the prize. She, apparently, wants to join the expedition, but the handsome young captain's career will be ruined if he can't take her back to Xandria.

  still want to wring her neck because of what she intended to do to you- and Ereleth seems to have secret plans of her own which she's disinclined to share with anyone." ' "The Grey Waste," said Andris off-handediy.

  "What about the Grey Waste?"

  "I think that's where Ereleth wants to take the princess. I don't know why something to do with Serpents and secret commandments.

  She's not here, then the princess, I mean. "

  "There's been no sign of her since we left Khalorn. Fraxinus is afraid that something might have happened to Keshvara. She'd have been safe enough on the road, he says, but if she had to go across country because the princess was with her they'd have made a tempting target for bandits. Tomorrow, apparently, we should reach a river crossing. Fraxinus says that if Keshvara's not there, waiting for us, she must have got into trouble, but we've met dark landers who crossed there very recently, and they didn't see any sign of her. What Ereleth and the guardsmen will do if she isn't there, I wouldn't like to guess. Checuti's asked Ereleth, of course, but she won't say."

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  "Perhaps she'll be so grateful to me for saving her life," Andris said, without much conviction, 'that she'll give me something to kill that filthy worm she made me swallow, and let me go my own way. "

  "Perhaps," said Merel, reaching out to touch his cheek gently. She mustered a little more conviction than he had, but Andris knew that she'd had a lot more practice in the art of dissimulation.

  The wagon rocked as someone else scrambled aboard at the rear. Andris didn't bother trying to raise his head again; he waited for the newcomer to sit down beside Merel. It was Checuri.

  "I thought I heard voices," the thief-master said.

  "I'm glad Phar didn't over-estimate his healing gifts it seems that you're the only friend I have hereabouts. Even the boy who belongs to the Uluru seems to be fast friends with the surly guard-captain, and I still haven't forgiven Fraxinus for telling the guard-captain where to find me that night we fell into Ereleth's un tender clutches."


  "It it weren't for you," Merel pointed out,

  "Andris wouldn't be in this mess. If you'd only left us alone instead of playing that stupid trick at the inn, everything would be fine."

  "You see even your delightful cousin is annoyed with me," Checuti said to Andris, in a hurt tone.

  "Remind her, if you will, that if I hadn't made a last-minute adjustment to include you in my grand plan, you'd be working for the stone masons on the Great Wall by now, with nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of back-breaking labour."

  "The world of ifs is an infinite wilderness of lost opportunity,"

  Andris quoted drily.

  "What bores the forefathers must have been," Checuti remarked, with a contrived sigh.

  "Do you think they spoke in solemn aphorisms all the time, or did they sometimes curse and lie like common folk? But you're right, of course let's nor lose ourselves in a desert of regrets. The real question is, what do we do next?"

  "Who's this we?" Andris complained.

  "The only we I have in mind right now is myself and Merel. Any plans I make are highly unlikely to include you."

  "I understand how you feel," Checuti assured him, with a sigh that was almost as contrived as the previous one, 'but our fates have been bound together by that damned witch and her pet giant. She has something we both want something we direly need, if her 3"

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  word can be trusted-- and we'll stand a

  better chance of getting it if we pool our resources. I was hoping that Phar might be able to help, but he says that this worm isn't something he's encountered, and he has no idea how to stop it breeding. He seems sceptical about its supposed capabilities, but it's easy for him to dismiss it as a bluff when he doesn't have anything to lose. We'll have to make the most of what few advantages we have- including your injured arm."

  "How is that an advantage?" Merel wanted to know.

  "Do you think Ereleth might be persuaded to release Andris because he hurt himself defending her?"

  "Only if pigs can fly," Checuti said bitterly.

  "Queens don't recognise moral debts the way we thieves and pirates do. What I mean is that while your drawing hand is useless, the smudged and smeared map which presently exists which Ereleth's pet giant still has in her possession, hoarded for the witch-queen's vile advantage- can't be replaced.

  Now, if anyone should happen to bring that map to you and ask you to explain it, or ask you to draw another, the sensible thing to do is to procrastinate.

  While you're still of some use to them, Fraxinus and Phar won't want Ereleth to take you back up north to search for the princess in Khalorn."

  "But surely you want to go north again," Mere! objected.

  "That's where all your loot is." i "Not if Captain Cerri and his men are along for the ride," Checuti said.

  "Neither of us wants to be given into his care- and I have a nasty feeling that Ereleth might try to 'make a deal with the captain and his men if and when she decides to part company with Fraxinus.

  He's just about desperate enough to-trust her if she says she'll intercede for him with Bclin, even though that stupid giant's as good as told him that Ereleth has no intention of going back to Xandria. "

  "It's all too complicated for me," Andris complained, weakly. "My head hurts worse than ever now. I think I need another day's sleep.

  I've taken more punishment in the last twelve days than in all the previous twelve years. "

  "You're as tough as they come," Checuti assured him.

  "Twice as tough as poor Burdam, who's probably still lying on the floor of that meeting-house. From now on, I want you as my right-hand man-and if you've any sense you'll take the job. Just let me do the 3"

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  thinking, and

  I'll get us all out of this in one piece. Believe me, we three will make a great team. "

  Merel expressed her scepticism with a wordless grunt, but she took care to look away from Checuti while she did so. She wasn't brave enough to meet his ironic eye. She seemed glad when the awning to her right was pulled back, giving her a slightly belated excuse for looking in that direction.

  Aulakh Phar clambered over the back of the driver's bench, having presumably handed the reins over to someone else. He must have heard every word that had been spoken, but Checuti didn't seem in the least put out by that thought.

  The look which the two men exchanged wasn't exactly hostile, but it couldn't have been described as warm. Phar's expression implied that he considered Checuti's existence in the same world to be a nuisance he could well do without, but Checuti's answering smile was slyly tolerant.

  "Anyway, I'm delighted that you're feeling better, my friend,"

  Checuti said to Andris, in his most amiable tone.

  "I'll leave you in Phar's capable hands- do let me know if there's anything you need."

  Phar watched the thief-master make his way to the rear of the wagon, and waited until he had vaulted down before greeting Andris.

  "You'll feel better soon," the physician assured him.

  "The cuts were bad, but you've got a very solid skull. You certainly saved Ereleth's life, but Dhalla just as certainly saved yours, so the old witch probably doesn't think she owes you any favours. If you really have got a worm in your gut that could eat you alive, she's not going to kill it for you just yet."

  "Thanks for the prognosis," Andris said un enthusiastically

  "I'm just the doctor," Phar reminded.

  "I only bring the bad news I don't make it. I'm on your side, and not just because Fraxinus and I would still like a decent map. I'd like things to be a little less complicated too an under-strength expedition heading into dangerous territory needs all the extra members it can recruit, but it's no good if they're all at one another's throats. If I can persuade Ereleth to lift this stupid curse she's put on you I will. We need your sword-arm as well as your drawing-hand- and you need better friends than Checuti."

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  "I dare say you'reright," Andris admitted.

  "Let's hope that we find the princess tomorrow," Phar said.

  "If she and Keshvara are at the ford we might be able to sort everything out.

  I don't say it'll be easy, but until we find the princess we'll all be constantly at one another's throats. Once she's |fc got what she wants, we'll havea good chance of persuading Queen Ereleth to see reason . . .

  and Captain Cerri too. "

  "You ought to persuade Ereleth to tell you what she already knows or thinks she knows," Andris told him sombrely.

  "I'm not sure what significance you and Fraxinus have read into this business of the blighted hills, but she thinks it means something too. Did you hear what I said about her wanting to take the princess to the Grey Waste?"

  Phar nodded his ancient and bird-like head.

  "The princess is said to have Serpent's blood," he observed.

  "That means something to Ereleth . . . perhaps she expects it to mean something to the Serpents too.

  She's not exactly keen to talk things over with Fraxinus at present he and she seem to rub one another up the wrong way but things might change if Hyry and the princess do meet us at the ford. "

  "Something very strange is happening, isn't it?" Mere! said.

  "Something that's never happened before, in all the time that humans have been in the wortld."

  "Perhaps," Aulakh Phar replied cautiously.

  "On the other hand, if it's never happened before, why does Ereleth think she knows how to respond? Fraxinus has got a bee in his bonnet about the so-called Apocrypha of Genesys, after hearing what that blind man had to say, but it's all so vague it'
s too easy to read things into it. It would be truly amazing if there were any hidden meaning in such ancient lore. How could the forefathers possibly have known that something of this sort would one day happen thousands or tens of thousands of years in their future? If all this stuff about Serpent's blood and the secret commandments makes sense, it must be a very peculiar kind of sense."

  Andris wished that he could laugh dismissively, but Phar's manner was too earnest.

  "Is there any other kind?" he asked.

  "The more I see of it, the more I think that the world's an exceedingly peculiar place, which wasn't made for simple folk like me."

  "It's a very big place," said Merel, in a faintly aggrieved tone.

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  "There's probably room in it for all of us, if only people would let us alone."

  "All worlds are small," Phar told her, with a smile that seemed to have no humour in it at all.

  "They only seem to be so big- and so peculiar--because we're so small and so limited in what we can carry in our heads. If there's any truth at all in the lore, we've only been here for a short period of time, in terms of the age of the world. Our forefathers' invasion seems to have been a success, but if Fraxinus is right, from the very first day that our remotest ancestors landed their marvelous ship we've been fighting a long war of attrition against the things that were already here. So far, earthly order has held out against unearthly decay, just as the walls of Xandria have held out against invasion . . . but it seems to me that it's a war which, by its nature, can never be finally won. Fraxinus thinks that we might have been losing it for thousands of years without being fully aware of the fact. For him, that's what this expedition is all about."

  "But you don't agree?" Merel said, that seeming to be the implication of his tone of voice.

  "I'm only in it for the profit," Phar said but he didn't say it as if he expected to be believed.

  "So am I," Andris said.

  "Unfortunately, you have to break even before you can start making a profit .

  . . and you have to survive before you can break even."