Scion of the Serpent

by J. Steven York

  He had dressed for the desert, a full headcloth, and loose and layered clothing like the caravan drivers wore. Even so, it was hot, and his thirst soon returned. He cursed Teferi for his insane rituals, but still he continued. The way climbed, winding up the steep hills that separated the city from the desert. As he crossed the ridge, the last of the greenery disappeared. Ahead grew only scrubby brown brush, cactus, and the occasional deep-rooted tree, dwarfed by lack of water and nearly devoid of leaves.

  The houses and buildings became farther and farther apart, until finally there were none. He could look in any direction, and other than the clear trail of the caravan route, there was no sign at all of human habitation. The realization made Anok stop. He scanned the entire horizon to verify that it was true. No house, no buildings, no streets, no walls. All he could see was reddish-brown dirt, rocks, scrubby brush, and jagged, rocky hills.

  Anok was, he realized, as alone as he’d ever been in his entire life. He’d been born in Khemi and only knew life on its streets. He’d heard countless tales of the desert and places beyond, from merchants, travelers, and caravan drivers, but he hadn’t been there himself since infancy—since his mother’s death. He couldn’t recall a thing about it, and he had never dreamed it would be like this.

  He felt small. He felt alone. Yet he felt strangely powerful. There was no one to help him there, but no one to hinder him either. What he did, what he accomplished, and his very survival, were all up to his own will and resourcefulness. For the first time he began to feel that there might be something to Teferi’s Usafiri, that he might be able to find something of his lost direction and purpose out here in the empty spaces.

  Not far beyond, he spotted something long and dark lying next to the trail. At first he thought it might be a snake, but it turned out to be the wooden shaft of a spear. He stopped to pick it up. The shaft was some dark wood unknown to him, and the point was flaked from some glassy gray stone, also unfamiliar. Shaft and point were tied together by means of thin bindings made of some kind of leather or gut. A band of ornate carving circled the shaft just below the head, but Anok did not recognize any of the symbols. Doubtless it was a souvenir or trophy dropped by some passing caravan, possibly from Kush, Darfar, or even the Black Kingdoms beyond.

  It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was far better than no weapon at all. He hefted it, tossed it gently into the dirt a few yards away. Despite its primitive construction, the balance and heft were good. It was good to have any kind of weapon again.

  Eventually, the hills opened up onto a broad valley, and there he saw the Black Pyramid. It was huge, as tall as any tower in Khemi, constructed of smooth stone and as black as obsidian. No road led to the pyramid, and there was no entrance visible. He’d heard, in fact, that nobody had ever found a way to get in. Or at least, nobody had ever returned to tell of it. Unlike some of the smaller temple pyramids in the city, this one was not stepped. It had sloped sides, too steep for a man to climb, forming a sharp point at the top.

  He stood on an overlook, wondered what secrets the pyramid concealed and who had built it. The Lemurians? The Giant Kings? An even more ancient race?

  He became aware of a strange sound, like the ringing tone of a bell. But unlike a bell, the tone was constant, not fading over time. Like the chirping of a cricket, it was hard to locate, seeming to come from all directions at once, but very close.

  Finally, he identified the source. It was coming from his medallion, or more specifically he suspected, the Scale of Set itself. “It has to be the pyramid,” he said to the empty desert, startled at how dry and scratchy his voice sounded. “Magic follows magic.”

  Somehow the Scale was responding to some mystic energy contained in the pyramid, as a divining rod might respond to deeply buried water. If he’d needed an additional incentive to stay away from the Black Pyramid, that was it. He steered a wide distance around it, even though doing so took him off the caravan trail.

  The sun was high in the sky now, beating down relentlessly. There was no shade, no place to take shelter. He could only keep walking. Sweat streamed down his face, and the paint began to itch and feel sticky. Finally, he gave up and wiped the stuff off with the hem of his robe. He’d take Teferi’s superstition only so far. Let the gods and demons look upon his own face.

  As he left the Black Pyramid behind, the sound from the Scale ceased, to his great relief. He rounded another turn, and looked up to see something strange, perhaps a cloud bank, in the sky behind the next hill. He stopped and blinked.

  It took his eyes a moment to make some kind of sense of what he was seeing. It wasn’t a cloud, or something in the sky at all. It was the peak of a huge sand dune, so large that it dwarfed the nearer hill. He’d reached the sea of sand.

  He turned from his path and climbed to the top of the hill. It was a long way, and the rocks were loose and treacherous, but he needed to see. At last he staggered to the peak of the hill and looked out across the sand. The huge dune in front of him was only one of a countless number stretching toward the horizon, and perhaps not the largest. Anok had several times seen the Western Ocean during a storm, filled with towering waves that rolled with terrible slowness toward the land. What he was seeing reminded him of those waves, frozen in time and made immensely larger.

  He put his hand on his chest, feeling the medallion. In this vastness, such a tiny thing could be lost for all eternity. He had only to give it over to the sand, and to do that, he wouldn’t have to go very far. That nearest dune should do it. He would climb to the top, take out the Scale of Set (for he wished to keep the medallion itself as a memento of his father), and throw it as hard as he could into the desert. Very soon thereafter, it would certainly be swallowed by the shifting sand, never to be seen by the eyes of men again.

  Then he could return to the road and wait for a caravan to pass. He could secure some more water and perhaps even hire a ride back into the city. It would be simple.

  Many times, he had walked in the sandy beaches along the Western Ocean, and those that lined some banks of the River Styx, yet this sand was different. It was fine, smooth, and difficult to walk on. With each step, his feet sank into the hot grains, and even on level ground they seemed to swallow up the effort of each step. As he started to climb the dune, it was even harder. The sand slid out from under him as he walked, flowing in sheets like water down the side of the dune, obliterating his footprints.

  He put his head down, concentrating on the effort of moving and not the destination. He trudged for what seemed like hours, until he was sure he must be a good part of the way up the dune, and fell to his knees to rest. Only then did he look up, to see the summit of the dune far above him. He’d traveled barely a third of the way up.

  With a groan, he let his head hang and marshaled his strength. His lips were dry, and stung where they were beginning to crack, and he ached for the taste of water. But he had to press on or he would never be free of the curse. He struggled back to his feet and staggered up the steep side of the dune, digging the shaft of the spear into the sand and leaning heavily upon it.

  Twice more he stopped to rest, each time finding himself only a little closer to his goal. On the last stop, as he let his head hang low to keep the sun out his face, he heard a strange rustling noise, almost like the fluttering of bird’s wings. He looked up in time to see rivulets of sand running down the dune above him, the disturbance terminating in a curious hole in the sand, which was already filling with running sand. As he’d lifted his head, there had been just a hint of something at the corner of his eye, low, slightly darker than the sand, and moving rapidly around the curve of the dune out of his sight.

  Could something be living out here, a snake or a lizard? Yet he’d never seen any reptile moving as fast as the shadow he’d seen at the edge of his vision. He considered the possibility that he was only imagining things. Then he heard the rustling noise, this time coming from around the dune above and to his right. He looked quickly, but could see nothing. Perhaps t
here were birds of some kind. That would explain both the sounds and the rapidly moving shape he’d seen.

  He made the final press for the top of the dune. Once again, he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, something skittering along the edge of the dune, a low, dark silhouette outlined against the blue-white glare of the sky. It was gone by the time he turned his head for a better look. He couldn’t imagine what it was, but he was sure that some kind of stealthy animal lived out here in the sand.

  The view from the top of the dune took his breath away. He could see the line of rocky hills curving off to his right. Beyond that, nothing but sand, seemingly to the edge of the world. For the first time in his life, he felt some small sense of just how large the world was and how little of it he’d seen. He’d met and talked to people from dozens of distant lands, but from the top of the dune Stygia alone seemed vast, almost beyond imagining. That there could be even more to the world was staggering.

  He reached under his tunic and took out the medallion, lifting the chain over his head. It became entangled in his headcloth, and it took a moment to extricate it. He stuck the hilt of the spear in the sand and pressed the medallion between his palms to open it. As he did, he saw something skitter across the dune in front of him, partially hidden by its downward curvature.

  He hesitated, then put the unopened medallion back around his neck. He’d just picked up the spear again when the sand just a few yards to his right mounded up and started to move. The sand flowed back revealing the horror that had been hiding underneath, a monstrous spider that eyed him with inhuman malevolence.

  It looked like one of the big wind-spiders that were common around the outskirts of the city and occasionally could be found even in its center. They were bigger than a man’s hand and, although harmless to a human, could kill mice and even small rats with ease.

  But this thing was far larger, the size of a dog, with eight legs, plus two thick feelers that it held out in front of its body. Eight inky black eyes, two large ones, the others much smaller, studied him with cold interest. The torso was like a thick sausage and as long as his forearm, but still small, compared to the rest of its parts. Most intimidating were the jaws, huge, inward-curving things tipped with needle-sharp fangs.

  Wind-spiders were notoriously afraid of direct sunlight. They came out at night or kept to the shade. But this one seemed to have no fear of the sun at all.

  It looked capable of snapping off a man’s hand, but Anok didn’t care to give it a chance. He hefted the spear defensively. He felt confident that he could kill it or at least fend off its attack. He hoped it wouldn’t come after him. He’d back off and give it space.

  He looked back down the dune, and saw another huge spider skitter across the dune below him. Perhaps he’d stumbled into a nest. He’d have to go forward and head down the dune that way. Then he could double back to the caravan road.

  He started down the face of the dune, glancing back occasionally to see the huge spider, watching him from the crest of the dune, its black eyes glinting in the sun, its hair-covered feelers waving in the air, as though seeking some scent of prey. So intent was he on the spider behind him that he almost stepped on another one hidden in the sand in front of him.

  Only the hiss of moving sand alerted him to the spider’s rising up. He dug his heels in, unable to keep himself from sliding closer to its monstrous fangs. Quickly he swung the spear around, stabbing not directly at the thing, but under it, the strong shaft of the spear sliding under its heavy thorax. Then, like a laborer working with a shovel, he lifted the spider and, with a grunt, sent it flying to one side.

  It only traveled a few yards but landed on its back, where it struggled, sliding down the dune for some distance before finding purchase and flipping onto its abdomen. He half expected it to attack, though he hoped it would run away. It did neither. Instead, it stood, watching him, feelers waving.

  He looked back to see the spider above him moving cautiously down the dune, maintaining a constant distance from him. More skittering and movement at the corner of his eye. Two more spiders trotted down the dune many yards to his right. Then three more on his left. They moved in lockstep, holding a precise formation, like soldiers.

  Anok felt his blood go cold as the realization struck him. These weren’t solitary animals, hunters of opportunity. They’re cooperating, stalking me like a pack of dogs! One spider he could fend off, or two, but not a hunting pack, not with this spear. He cursed Teferi for convincing him to leave his swords at the Nest. With his swords, he’d have been a match for them. He was sure of it.

  But he had no swords, and the spiders were driving him farther into the desert. Grimly, he looked for a defensible position. Ahead and to his left, a smaller dune had a kind of hump on the side, a shelf of sand halfway up its flanks. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could expect among the dunes.

  He scrambled up the dune, once again using the spear as a walking stick. It was slow going, but he finally reached the hump. The spiders followed at a wary distance, flanking his position again, some of them going to the top of the dune above. He couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be at least eight or ten of them, assuming there were no reserves out of sight around the dunes or buried in the sand.

  Three of the spiders climbed up the dune below him. The largest of them crawled just out of the range of his spearpoint, rearing up, waving its feelers aggressively. Its companions spread out slightly, skittering forward close enough that he could almost poke them with the spear, then dashing backward a few yards, only to return and repeat the performance.

  Despite their constant threat, he tried to remain aware of his surroundings and the movement of the other spiders, hoping they wouldn’t be able to sneak up on him. A squeal behind him made him jerk his head around. It was the spider at the top of the dune, rearing up on its rear four legs, front legs and feelers waving in the air. The damned things can make noise, too!

  Another sound made him turn back just in time, as the big spider launched itself at him. He batted it away with the spear, but the other two were also charging him. He knocked one off-balance with the hilt of the spear, then kicked it as hard as he could down the dune. The body made a crack like a goose egg as his foot made contact, and the spider landed, twitching, on its back.

  As the third spider leapt at him, he saw two more running up the dune behind it.

  The thing was too close to use the spear, and he was forced to drop the weapon. He caught one of the spider’s legs in each hand and, keeping his arms straight, was able to keep its jaws away from him. An amber drop of venom dripped off one of the fangs and landed on the back of his hand. He howled involuntarily as the venom began to sizzle against his skin.

  He managed to fling the thing away, but the acid venom burned into his hand, and barblike hairs remained embedded in his palms. He reached down and scooped up the spear, hoping to fend off the next wave of spiders coming up the hill. Then the sand under his feet seemed to give way and drop. The hump on which he was standing collapsed into an avalanche of sand. Even as he struggled not to get caught in it, a thick wave of sand swallowed the spiders below him.

  He dug in the spearpoint, anchoring himself against the slide, which was already beginning to dissipate, but the buried spiders were simply gone. Perhaps they would dig themselves free, but by then, he hoped to be long gone.

  He was sizing up his escape route when the spiders above him came charging down the dune. As the first one leapt at him, he instinctively raised the spear and jabbed. The spear skewered the spider’s torso, and a torrent of sticky green fluid ran down the shaft onto his hands. He tried to shake the twitching spider off the shaft, but when that didn’t work, he swung the spear rapidly over his head, flinging the gored spider straight at its companions.

  The spider landed on its back, and its two companions hesitated in their charge. Anok wondered for a moment if he’d frightened them off, but it wasn’t that at all. Instead, the two spiders dived at their fallen compan
ion, plunging their fangs into the soft underside of its thorax, making loud slurping sounds as they sucked out its bodily fluids.

  He didn’t wait to watch. He turned and started putting as much distance between himself and the spiders as possible. Instead of climbing over the dunes, he made better time by trudging along the troughs between them. Another advantage was that at least some of the time he was in shade behind the massive mountains of sand.

  The problem was it forced him onto a winding path that cost him what little sense of direction he had left. He could see little but a swath of sky and the winding sand in front of him.

  Time ceased to have any conventional meaning. The world was measured in terms of his own fatigue and pain. He imagined he could feel the still, hot air sucking the water from his body, drying him like a date in the sun. His lips were dry as old parchment, cracked and bleeding. His eyes stung, and each blink seemed to drag razors across them.

  The venom still burned on his hand, and in desperation, he grabbed a handful of sand and rubbed it in the wound. It made the pain momentarily worse, but the sand seemed to soak up the poison, and the pain receded.

  Exhausted, he slowed, but he couldn’t stop until he was sure he was safely away from the pack spiders. He also had to know where he was, and start making his way back toward the caravan road before he was hopelessly lost. He spotted the highest dune in his vicinity and started the long, and now agonizing, climb. After an interminable ordeal, he crawled the last few feet on hands and knees. Only then did he lift his head and look around.

  Sand.

  Sand.

  He saw nothing but dunes. He was headed straight into the desert. He struggled to his feet. Slowly he turned, scanning the horizon.

  Sand.

  Sand!

  Where were the hills? He should at least be able to see their tops. But all he saw were the rolling peaks of dunes, marching on forever.