She reached the dark tunnel-mouth, and took one step into it- but then she looked behind her, and caught his eye. She gazed at him- quite coldly, it seemed and then she turned back. Instead of disappearing into the tunnel she continued to circle the room until she reached their station. Then she swung around to watch with 465
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Andris as the execuuon of the warrior drago mite was completed. It had almost ceased to thrash and twist.
The two surviving warriors- one of them injured but the other quite unhurt slowly turned to face the little group huddling by the wall.
Andris came to his feet, although he used his free hand to force Merel to remain on her knees. The giant took a large knife from her belt and stiffly held it out to him. It was no sort of weapon for use against such adversaries as these, but he took it and was grateful.
She hefted the spear, ready to hurl it at the uninjured warrior.
The two warriors were standing still or almost still, for their antennae were moving very rapidly, vibrating madly as they bobbed and twitched.
"Stay exactly where you are," said a hoarse voice.
"A little of my blood is on your clothes, and you had best be careful."
Andris froze. He looked at the broken body of the mound- queen, which had been flipped on to its back by the conflict which had raged above her. The legs still lay at crazy angles, but the head had lifted slightly from the lake of blood and ichor. Her eyes were open. Andris was less surprised than he would have been had he not held the head of one of her drones in his left hand.
"Are they yours, then?" Andris whispered, meaning the two warriors, i "Not hers," the mound-queen replied, speaking faintly but more easily than could have been expected, given that she had been so comprehensively trampled after tearing herself free from the throne.
"Conquerors, if they've come so far so quickly. Such warriors as the nest has left will be covering the. retreat of the egg- bearers.
Nothing left down here counts for anything, now, but if you can keep quite still until the drones come . . . "
So far as Andris was concerned, the most revealing word in this speech was hers, where he might have expected ours. If 'hers' meant 'the drago mite queen's' -- and what else could it mean? -- then the mound-queen was no longer the voice of another. This was her own voice. We are not all of one mind, Seth had told him, nor all of one body, no matter how things may appear. Although the mound-people had little use for names, they did have names. No matter how intimately bound together the flesh and the thoughts of these chimeras were, they had not fused into a 466
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seamless whole. They
were capable of difference, of conflict, of confusion . . perhaps, as they stared death in the face, of hysteria, of the kind of surrender to the irrational that had stopped'Dhalla from taking her opportunity to escape and brought her to stand beside a man she could not love or admire.
"What's happening?" Merel asked breathlessly.
"I wish I knew," Andris whispered.
They're following instructions," Dhalla said, meaning the drago mites
"They've been told, somehow, not to attack us. They have very little mind, but they'll obey, if we don't provoke them."
It seemed to Andris that this was a clever guess. It made sense of the warriors' patient inaction but whose 'instructions' were they following?
"The giant's right," whispered the stricken mound-queen, 'but they're uncertain, their instincts confused. Bide your time. The drones will come as quickly as they can, with their own egg- bearers and perhaps their own mound-queen, although I had not thought it possible. "
She stopped abruptly as one of the warriors the injured one turned its head in her direction. She was all but dead, but she was capable of fear. Within a few seconds, though, she began again. "We did not know how much we needed one another," she said, her voice becoming even fainter.
"Guard my daughters well, if they will let you and my brother too. Be still, and all will be well. If you value your life, be still." Her head sank back then, into the sticky mess which flooded the floor. Andris had seen too many wonders to be certain that she would not rally again, but the battered and unreasonably fleshy body looked as dead as dead could be.
"What's happening here?" Merel whispered plaintively.
"For Goran's sake tell me what's happening."
"The nest-war's over," Andris said, 'but something else has happened is happening. The new tenants of the Corridors of Power aren't quite what the mound-queen or her drones expected, and they don't want us dead. "
"Thanks," said Merel faintly.
"Now I understand everything."
"Ereleth will understand," said Dhalla confidently.
Is that supposed to reassure usf Andris wondered.
Silence fell, and remained for several minutes but the constant 467
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stare of
the warriorJdragomites was too oppressive to bear, and Andris felt that the three of them were engaged in a tacit contest to see who would break first.
It was Merel.
"I'm not sorry I came," she said.
"I want you to know that, Andris.
I'd rather be with you than up there, waiting for news of you.
Whether we get out of this or not. . . "
She sounded embarrassed- probably, Andris guessed, because Dhalla's inhibiting presence made it difficult for her to express her feelings.
"I understand," he said.
"And I hope you'll understand when I say I'd rather you were five hundred kirns away from this whole mess, somewhere safe. For myself, I'm very glad I met you but in a way I'd far rather you'd never got my message. I'd rather be feeding a thorn bush with my living blood, ifthatwould mean that you'dbesafe . . ."
Dhalla refrained from adding to this sentimental exchange. The next voice Andris heard was female, but it wasn't hers. It came from some distance away, within the mouth of one of the many tunnels. The speaker was not yet visible.
"Is this it?" it asked.
"Ssiss iss it, prinssess," answered another voice, whose like he had certainly never heard.
Princess Lucrezia stepped Into the chamber, and stopped abruptly as she caught sight of the waiting drago mites One of her companions came on ahead of her. Andris had never seen a Serpent, but he had heard descriptions of them, and knew that this was one. Her other companion-Jacom Cerri -- hung back.
"Dhalla!" the princess said, jolted into movement again by the sight of the giant.
"Are you all right?"
"Iss all finis shed now," the Serpent said, looking straight at Andris and the severed head.
"Iss all ssafe."
Andris relaxed, not knowing until he did so how rigid his determination not to move had made him. He moved Seth's head to a more comfortable position and handed Dhalla's knife back to her.
"Thanks," he said.
"It was always rumoured that she had Serpent's blood," Merel murmured.
"It's always the wildest rum ours that turn out to be true."
"Name iss Mossassor," said the Serpent earnestly, still addressing itself to Andris.
"Am ssearsshing for garden, ass iss prinssess, 468
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ass iss Kesshvara. All
ssearssh for garden togesser, now. All friendss. Iss good. Iss very, very good."
Andris glanced at the two waiting warriors, neither of which had made a hostile move. He concluded that there was some truth in what the dark landers believed. Serpents evidently could control drago mites Just now, he was profoundly
glad of the fact.
"It's all right," Princess Lucrezia assured them.
"Mossassor can secrete stuff through his skin that's far more powerful and far more versatile than the stuff Aulakh Phar gave you to put on your foreheads. Serpents and drago mites are kindred species, you see after a fashion. They have a sort of non-aggression pact, which goes back a million years and more. In times of crisis, things change inside some of them and inside some of us too. We aren't consciously aware of the triggers or the effects, but they're there.
That's part of what it means to have Serpent's blood or Salamander's fire. "
"Iss true," the Serpent added, as if it were desperately anxious to establish that its word could be trusted.
"Hass ssaved you all. Musst all look for garden, with prinssess with Serpent'ss blood. Iss very, very important. In flessh all flessh. Musst not war, musst be on ssame sside, els se all los st Iss very, very important."
"Just like the dark landers Merel muttered, although Andris couldn't quite see why she sounded so aggrieved about it.
"He thinks it's the end of the rotting world."
"Yess," answered Mossassor gravely.
"Iss essactly ssat. End . . . and beginning. You musst all help all.
Isst debt, you ssee. Iss debt you owe uss. We ssave you for ssiss. Not eassy, but we musst."
Andris remembered the blind story-teller in the Wayfaring Tree, and wished that he had listened more closely to the legend that the man had tried so earnestly to relate especially the part about the forefathers making a deal with Serpents, offering promises that could not be fulfilled for a very long time. /( seems that I'm accumulating quite a stock of bizarre debts, he thought, still cradling his adopted brother in the crook of his left arm.
But that's not bad. A man with obligations has directions in his life and that's something I haven't had for a long time. He put his right arm across Merel's shoulders, and drew himself up to the full extent of his height as though he were ready, willing and able to take arms against the whole world on behalf of those who needed him.
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"All right," he said^ro no one in particular.
"Why not? It suits me.
All friends, all searching for the garden together. What have I got to lose?
I was proud once, but not any more. I'll work for Fraxinus, for Ereleth, for the Serpent king or the drago mite queen. I'll draw maps for anyone. "
"No Sserpent king," said Mossassor, in a curiously earnest fashion.
"Iss only uss. Iss good, iss good."
Andris stepped forward then, and walked towards the warrior drago mites They watched him quite impassively. For once, even their antennae were still. He stopped by the body of the mound- queen, and knelt down beside her. She Was, as he had supposed, quite dead.
He looked over his shoulder at the Serpent, which had turned to watch him.
"Not quite a bloodless victory," he observed. In spite of what he had said to the Serpent he was not too proud to be smugly satisfied with his awesome self-possession. Although he had not struck a single blow in anger against any man or drago mite he felt like a hero, and he felt that he was entitled to feel like a hero.
"Iss not way ssingss work," the Serpent replied. It was impossible to tell whether it was sorrowful or not.
"No promissess. Many dangerss, more blood . . . but all on ssame sside, yess?"
"Yes," said the princess who was, after all, the highest-born among them.
"From now on, we're all on the same side."
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i9 checuti sat cross-legged on the ground, leaning back against the newly repaired wheel of the small wagon, carefully polishing his sword.
Technically, of course, it was the property of the king's guard, but in the circumstances he felt perfectly entitled to appropriate it, on the grounds that no one had a better claim to it.
While he polished away taking great care over the job, as the sword was now his most valuable asset-he tried to figure out how long his meagre supply of anti-just rust salve would last. The result of the calculation was far from satisfactory, and he resolved to steal some more.
His faithful monkey had retreated under the wagon to avoid the sun.
When Checuti had begun his work he had been in the shade himself, but the sun was now at its zenith and the precious shadow had melted away. He knew that it was going to be a long, hot afternoon, but he was determined to make the best of it in case it turned out to be his last. Living on the edge of extinction gave an uncommonly sharp edge to life.
It was most unfortunate, he mused, that he had been drafted into this business without having time to prepare proper plans but if he did manage to survive, it might not turn out so badly. Perhaps it was good for a man to be forced to return to square one occasionally, to ensure that he retained all his skills. At present, he was as poor as poor could be, but a man with his talent for acquisition surely need not remain so for long.
He was mildly surprised by his own light-headed ness and perverse optimism.
It must, he concluded, be the effect of having stared death in the face and watched it turn aside in the nick of time- either that or sunstroke.
A shadow fell across his work and he looked up. It was the female drago mite-rider and heroine of the hour, Hyry Keshvara.
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"Hello, Checuti," she said. There was a strange note of satisfaction in her voice, presumably occasioned by finding him in such reduced circumstances.
"I'm glad to see that the rum ours of your death were exaggerated,"
Checuti said equably.
"Is the grand conference over?"
"It's hardly begun," the trader said, leaning against the side of the wagon.
"Fraxinus won't get much out of Ssifuss. Mossassor is the one who thinks it knows what it's doing."
"And does it?" Checuti asked.
"Maybe. It knows a lot more than I do, or thinks it does, but Ssifuss is more than a little sceptical. I think it sees itself as a benevolent restraining influence, although it strikes me as being more than a trifle churlish. It and Fraxinus are busy discussing paedogenesis. Do you know what paedogenesis is, Checuti?"
"No," Checuti said.
"Neither did I. Even Fraxinus had never heard the word, but Aulakh Phar explained it. Now we all know what it means, and we only have to figure out exactly how it applies to what we're doing, if it applies at all. Ssifus isn't sure, so how can we be?"
Checuti continued polishing the sword-blade. He felt a slight tug at his sleeve as the monkey leaned out from beneath the wagon to see what was going on. After; taking a brief look at Keshvara the monkey disappeared again.
She's not that bad, Checuti observed silently. Not bad at all, considering the competition.
Keshvara abruptly changed the subject.
"After you foisted the princess on to me, you sent men to follow us, didn't you? To make sure that we went south instead of going back to Xandria."
"Just for a day or two," Checuti agreed.
"Shortly before we reached the forest, four men attacked us. Were they your men?"
Checuti looked up at her, squinting against the midday light. "No,"
he said.
"My men were instructed not to harm you."
"Did they come back?"
"Yes."
Keshvara thought about it for a moment or two, then nodded her head to signal that she believed him. He took it as a compliment. He was, in fact, telling the truth- but such was his reputation that two people out of three wouldn't have believed him.
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"What happened to the four men who attacked you?" he asked curiously.
"I killed two of them," Keshvara said blandly.
"The princess killed the other two. But if you hadn't forced me to take the princess with me, I'd never have been attacked at all ... and I wouldn't have been up that rotting tree at that rotting ford, sticking my stupid hand into the nasty bit of that rotting flower worm
"And you wouldn't have met up with your Serpent friends, and you wouldn't have come riding out of nowhere on the back of a drago mite to save my worthless life, at least for a day or two," Checuti finished for her.
"And I would never have got mixed up with Ereleth in the first place, and .
. . what do you want, an apology?"
"It'd be a start," Keshvara said.
"All right," he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders.
"I'm sorry. I should have let Burdam strangle the little bitch.
OK? "
She shook her head wearily. What had she expected?
"So what's paedogenesis?" he asked.
"And why is Fraxinus so excited about it?"
She sat down beside him, screening her eyes from the sun as she looked up at the deserted slopes of the drago mite mound. Like everyone else who couldn't sleep, even though it was midday, she was waiting anxiously to see who would come out and who wouldn't but not quite as anxiously as he was.
"According to Phar," she said, 'there are certain kinds of dark land flies whose maggots live on rotting wood. "
"That's maggots for you," Checuti remarked bitterly, 'no taste at all. "
"The thing is," she said, 'that rotting wood doesn't last very long in these parts, because there are half a hundred things avid to devour every fallen log. So the flies have a neat trick which enables them to make the most of their opportunities. When a clutch of eggs hatches inside a rotten log, the maggots get busy, eating like crazy, and while the rotting log lasts they don't actually bother going through their full life-cycle which would normally involve turning into pupae for a while and then hatching out into real flies. The maggots breed as maggots, and lay eggs of their own, which produce more and more maggots. That way, they can crowd out 473
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