Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

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  "Do you mean

  tys garden of Idun? In the Lore of Genesysf Is that where you're going?"

  "Not know namess. Iss very possible you remember ssingss we forget.

  Musst put all togesser, like pussle. Tell me sstoriess, pleas se "

  "Will you tell me your stories in return?" Hyry countered guardedly not because she had any particular desire to be initiated into the secrets of Serpent mythology, but because she thought it was important to preserve the principle of fair exchange even in a situation where she was at a disadvantage and clearly owed her rescuer a debt of gratitude.

  "Yess. Tell me about garden."

  Hyry racked her brains, knowing that she ought to be able to remember the beginning of the Lore of Genesys word for word, but in the end she had to settle for a paraphrase.

  "According to the lore," she said slowly, 'humans first came to the world in a ship, which had sailed the dark between the stars for thousands of years.

  According to the story, the people who lived aboard the ship had no need of legs, because nothing there weighed very much, and their lower limbs were extra arms but when they sent their sons and daughters into the world something called Genesys gave them legs. "Genesys wasn't a person, more like a set of tools and a plan to guide their use, although no such tools exist today. , " The story says that the people of the ship were anxious for the sons and daughters they sent into the world, because the world was under the dominion of the three evils: corrosion, corruption and chaos.

  Aboard the ship the three evils had long been contained and kept in check, because that was easy to do in the dark between the stars.

  People lived for hundreds of years aboard the ship without ever falling ill, and there was no forgetfulness aboard the ship at all.

  "There were some people aboard the ship who didn't want to send their sons and daughters into the world, because the world was such an evil place, but there were others who said, if I remember it right: What are humans for, if not to fight evil wherever it is found? What are humans worth, if they fear to tread the paths of evil? What are humans to become, if they hide in the dark between the stars for ever? It was for these reasons, the story says, that the people of the ship used Genesys to reshape their sons and daughters, and sent them into the world.

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  "The people or the ship knew that the people of the world would lose much in coming under the dominion of the three evils. The people of the world had to submit, to a degree, to the forces of corrosion, corruption and chaos. We cannot give you all that we have, the people of the ship said to their sons and daughters, and much that we give you will undoubtedly be lost, but we will shape for you a manifold lore and a common wisdom, which you might preserve in full even though you must rely almost entirely on word of mouth for its preservation. You must hold the lore and the wisdom as a sacred trust, and preserve it even though you cease to see the sense in it, for it is the most precious thing in all the world. Or words to that effect.

  "People with legs were by no means the only things that Genesys made, according to the story. It made animals and plants for the people of the world to use, for every purpose imaginable. The world had lots of kinds of animals and plants already, but Genesys made many more thousands, at least.

  Many of the creatures made by Genesys were too small to be seen; some of these were instruments whose use was denned and described in the lore given to different guilds, but some were released into the world to do their work without any supervision by the men of the world.

  "The war against the three evils will be long and hard, the people of the ship told the people of the world, but you will have many unseen allies. The war might never be won, or might take a hundred thousand years in the winning, but you are humans and must never cease to fight or despair of victory. That's the essence of the lore, more or less. It goes on and on, but only trained lore masters can recite it word for word."

  Mossassor had listened to all of this very attentively, and Hyry observed that its companions were also listening in, even though they were still sitting some way apart, careful to place themselves beyond a tacit boundary, as though she were in quarantine.

  "Iss ass I ssought," Mossassor said.

  "Ssiss iss what we ssought humanss ssink. Iss ssere nossing consserning uss in ssesse sstoriess?"

  "Yes there is," Hyry was quick to say, realising that she ought perhaps to have given that part of the lore more prominence in this particular telling.

  "I'll try to remember exactly how the story puts it. Among the animals which were in the world before humans 35i

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  came, the lore says^ here were two kinds

  of almost-people, which the people of the ship called Serpents that's you, of course and Salamanders. Neither fear nor hate these almost-people, the people of the ship said to the people of the world, for they are not your enemies. In time, if you are fortunate, they will become your steadfast allies in the war against the three evils, and the war will be easier to win if you and they can fight side by side. That's almost word for word, but not quite.

  "According to the tale, when the people of the ship had made the lore and the common wisdom, and had given it to their sons and daughters, the ship went on into the dark between the stars, in search of other worlds. We must leave now, the people of the ship said to the people of the world, and we shall never be able to return, for the universe is infinite and we must go for ever on, because our purpose is to be equal and more than equal to all the challenges of existence. The world is your challenge, and we have every confidence in your ability to meet it but challenges are better met if they are not met alone.

  Whatever enemies you make, among your own and other kinds, always remember that all enemies may become friends when they stand against the greatest of the evils, whose name is chhos. "

  "I told you sso," said Mossassor, not to Hyry but to its two companions although it spo(ce in the human tongue so that she might understand it.

  "Sshe iss ssearsshing for garden. Sshe not on sside of dissasster. Sshe doess not want Sserpentss wiped out. Sshe iss not disseasse."

  Hyry wished that she could read Serpent expressions. The two whose names were presumably Ssifuss and Ssumssarum made no reply, either in human language or their own, and their sombre eyes were quite inscrutable.

  Somehow, though, she felt that they were still sceptical as she might have been herself had anyone tried to win an argument by citing the evidence of ancient mythology.

  "What disaster do you mean?" she said.

  "What is it, exactly, that you're searching for?"

  "Great changess coming," Mossassor said succinctly.

  "Great dangerss.

  Chaoss, exsstincssion. Ssearssh for garden. Iss debt, you ssee-. Iss debt, musst be paid. You wiss uss, undersstand? We ssearssh for garden togesser, whesser Sserpent'ss blood or not. "

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  Hyry dared not lay claim to any real understanding of what the Serpent was saying, and she didn't feel that the time was ripe to tell it that she knew where a human might be found who did have Serpent's blood whatever that might mean but she knew, no matter how inscrutable its eyes might be, that Mossassor was appealing to her for help and support and she did owe it a debt.

  "Yes, I understand," she said, rather grandly.

  "We're all on the same side: humans, Serpents, Salamanders. We all want to live our lives peacefully and securely. Chaos is the enemy of us all. We'll search for the garden together, if that is what you think
needs to be done.

  Believe me, I'll do everything I can to help. I owe you that. "

  "Ssee," it said to its friends.

  "Iss ssettled."

  This time, one of them did reply, but not in human language. Within seconds a fierce argument was raging, of which Hyry could not understand a single syllabic. She had already noticed that the Serpents had no weapons with them save for knives of human manufacture, and she was glad of it now as their voices became faster and faster but they showed no inclination to physical violence, and in the end she simply lay down on the ground and closed her eyes, wondering what in the world she had got herself into.

  Oddly enough, it was with a certain perverse fondness that she thought: Lucrew, my troublesome lore, you should he with me now! This is a stranger adventure by far than the one I promised you before, and I truly wish that you were here to share it.

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  ^ the drago mite hills were the most remarkable sight that Andris had ever encountered in all his years of wandering. He had never seen a landscape which looked more profoundly unnatural, and this was by no means because it had lately undergone a kind of devastation. He had never seen slopes so precipitous and so irregular, nor peaks so raggedly sharp, and these would have been just as strange- perhaps even stranger- had they been decked according to their usual fashion.

  The kind of 'forest' which had grown everywhere upon the hillsides until the blight had come to obliterate the greater part of it could still be seen in scattered patches. These fertile enclaves were composed of dense masses in which huge fungoid growths mingled with gargantuan moss-like plants, the mossy greens competing for visual attention with a riot, of creamy whites and ochreous yellows, dappled with occasional bursts of pale blue and dark red.

  The most extensive reaches of this kind were situated on the highest ridges; in the narrow winding valleys through which the expedition's course ran, all but a few of the unearthly plants had been rendered down into shapeless sticky masses whose colours had darkened into ugly browns and funereal blacks.

  In their healthy state the plants provided food for the drago mites which had raised the hills- and were, according to Aulakh Phar, very carefully cultivated by these instinctive agriculturalists-but the plague must have brought starvation to all the mounds.

  Andris judged that the battles which must have been fought between rival nests for the dwindling resources had all but run their course by now, but Fraxinus steered the expedition well away from the ridges where the vegetation remained rich, and with good reason. Once Andris had caught a glimpse of the 354

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  massively armoured warriors which guarded these fields far more intimidating than the common workers which were more frequently to be seen he had not the slightest inclination to take a closer look.

  If the blight were as bad throughout the hills as it was in the region they had so far crossed, Andris reasoned, then the expedition would have little or no difficulty winning through to more hospitable lands. Fraxinus had placed both food and water on strict ration as soon as the wagons left the Forest of Absolute Night behind, but it had rained on each of the last three days, so the chance of their running out of water seemed thin, and the food they had was relatively well preserved. Unfortunately, he had no confidence that he would be allowed to remain with the expedition. Queen Ereleth would not condescend to discuss her plans with anyone but she had clearly become very anxious about Dhalla's failure to return from her mission to track and intercept the princess's captors.

  Although she had not yet abandoned all hope of recovering the princess, Ereleth was obviously in two minds as to what to do for the best and there seemed to be every chance of her deciding to return to the forest and to the dark land witches over whom she had some authoritarian hold. She had, of course, made it perfectly clear to Andris that the effort he had exerted in saving her life from the night cloak did not qualify him for an early release from his enforced servitude. He had meekly eaten the contraceptive fungus which she had given to him on the appointed day, wincing at the foul taste-and even more resentful of the gleam in her eye as she watched him, which might or might not have signified that she was playing him for a fool.

  The reek of the decaying vegetation had been exceedingly unpleasant at first, but Andris had grown used to it quickly enough. By now it was simply an ever present reminder of the fact that corruption was the greatest tyrant in the world, whose invisible armies had the measure of any petty empire, whether it be human or alien, earthly or unearthly. If anything, the desolation was worse here than in the fringes of the range, but the decay had so nearly run its full course that the worst of the stink had passed, and the rain had helped to wash it from the air. It was possible to see hereabouts that the mounds themselves were disintegrating 355

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  along with their external

  embellishments: a stark reminder of the fact that they were products of artifice, like the walls of Xandria, in need of constant maintenance if they were to endure. A great deal of rain would have to fall before the region was evened to a plain, but the beginning of such a process was already evident.

  In the natural course of events, Andris thought presuming for the moment that the dark landers whisperings about the threatened end of the world were mere alarmism future generations of drago mites would reclaim their heritage long before the forces of erosion could complete their work, and start a new cycle of growth. He could not help wondering, though, as the expedition trudged over hundreds of kirns of devastated land and saw no hint of an end to it, whether this catastrophe really could be considered part of the natural course of events.

  Decay or no decay, Andris had to admit that the Dragomite Hills were a true marvel. The hills and valleys of Ferentina, such as they were, curved as gently and as sweetly as a woman's hips or so Andris was pleased to remember them now, bathed as they no doubt were by a gentle aura of nostalgia. Even in Ferentina, the processes of erosion which tended to even out all such landmarks were valiantly opposed by the' grasses and bushes which resolutely heaped them up, generation by generation. In Ferentina, however, as in Khalorn, these processes were in such close balance that watchers on the highest towers looked out on a land as gently rippled as a weed-choked pond.

  The forces shaping the land around the Slithery Sea were slightly more violent, but even the most powerful waves, in alliance with the mbst stubborn grasses, could not build dunes a tenth the height of the mounds which the patient drago mites erected. Even the walls of the mighty citadel of Xandria which was certainly among the tallest constructions ever raised by the hand of man, even if one were prepared to doubt its inhabitants' claims as to its uniqueness had nowhere near the height of perfectly commonplace drops engineered by drago mites Nor was the 'empire' boasted by Xandria, despite its vastness in human terms, of any significant size by comparison with the extent of the recently fallen empire of the drago mites Perhaps Fraxinus was wrong to see this happening as an opportunity, Andris thought, as he guided his stolen but ever- faithful mare around a sticky pit of black corruption. If Phar is 356

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  right about the internal organisation

  of the drago mites nests, this must certainly have seemed like a visitation of doomsday to those hypothetical queens which have so long been monarchs of all they surveyed. Can we be sure that it will stop here? Perhaps the superstitious dark landers really do know better than civilised folk.

  Perhaps the blight will move on to claim the Forest of Absolute Night . .

  and then, in turn
, the fields of Khalorn and Xandria itself for who can say that earthly species will resist what so many unearthly species could not?

  What use could Xandrian steel and Xandrian cavalry be against such an enemy as this?

  He looked up abruptly as he caught sight of a lone drago mite on the slope above him, but it was only a worker and it was already ducking back into one of the myriad tunnels which honeycombed the hills. He had seen more than a hundred of the creatures since the caravan had first moved into the region, but never one which showed the slightest inclination to attack. He had begun to wonder whether Aulakh Phar's salve, with which he anointed his forehead at regular intervals, was really necessary. He had no way of knowing how many more of the monsters might be lurking close at hand, invisible within their nests, but the overwhelming impression he had was that most of the drago mite workers he had seen were dispirited, desolate and lonely, altogether disinclined to aggression.

  Although Fraxinus had been careful to direct the expedition in such a way as to avoid any companies of warriors the sentries espied, Andris had formed the impression that even they were entirely devoted to their own internecine squabbles. Sometimes, to be sure, they formed menacing ranks on the ridges, silhouetted against the sky, but they never attacked or pursued the humans or their animals. What their reaction would have been had the humans not been so careful to steer clear of them Andris could not tell, but he had begun to stop worrying about the possibility of a sneak attack in the midday or the midnight, and was sleeping more easily now than he had for a long time. None of his injuries pained him much nowadays, although he still felt an uncomfortable stirring in his gut from time to time which might or might not have been Ereleth's worm.

  While he was still reined in, looking at the place where the drago mite worker had disappeared, Merel Zabio caught him up.

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  She had only recently mounted again, having taken a turn to rest in one of the wagons Both of which they still had with them, in spite of the difficulties posed by the terrain.