“I wish to speak to the Magria,” she said now. “If you are not permitted to speak to me, fine. Only have mercy on my plight and give my message to her. My father is Lord Albain. He will come for me and take me off your hands if only he is informed of what has happened. Will you tell the Magria this? Please?”
The woman said nothing, only tugged at her to hurry.
Sighing, Elandra bumped into the wall and righted herself. Where were they going?
They turned again. The floor was very rough and uneven beneath Elandra’s bare feet; then its surface grew smoother. Strange scents came to her: pungent odors of herbs, cedar, and rodents. The air against her face grew progressively warmer and drier.
The woman escorting her stopped in front of her without warning. Elandra bumped into her and heard a hiss of anger. She was shoved back with a rough hand.
Before Elandra could react, her arm was gripped above the elbow, and she was pulled forward, then stopped.
Confused, Elandra hesitated. The same action was repeated. This time, her foot stumbled down a step. Understanding flooded her.
“Steps,” she said aloud. “Very well.”
Slowly she made her way down a whole series of steps, her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It would help,” she said, “if you would tell me how many steps there are.”
The woman said nothing.
Annoyed, Elandra clamped her lips together. This rule of silence was both cruel and absurd. She might be blind, but she wasn’t deaf or stupid. She would not ask again.
They passed through a doorway and entered a place that was extremely hot.
The temperature made Elandra gasp. Perspiration broke, out across her face, and she wiped her brow with the back of her hand. Already the heat seemed to be sapping her energy. She could not imagine where she was, unless it was a kitchen, yet she heard no sounds of activity and smelled no food cooking.
The woman pulled her up one shallow step, then along a smooth floor of cut stone. Only five steps; then the woman turned around to face her and pushed her shoulders until Elandra sat down.
Even the stone felt warm when she sat on it. The heat was intense, radiating into her from all sides. Wiping her face again, Elandra lifted her head, tilting it to catch any nuance of sound that might help her understand where she was and what was happening.
She smelled burning wood, and heard a low crackle of fire. There were many other scents she could not identify.
The woman circled her and left the way they’d come.
When the faint patter of her footfalls faded and there was only silence, Elandra frowned. She extended her arms and touched only air. For an instant she thought she heard a faint rustle, but she decided it was her imagination.
Still, she had the growing suspicion she was not alone. Was she being observed? It was unpleasant to think she might be entertaining some watcher with her gropings and explorations.
Frowning more deeply, she folded her hands in her lap and waited.
Nothing changed.
At last she rose to her feet, paused until she had her balance, and slid one foot forward.
The stone ended abruptly half a stride away. She swept her toes back and forth along the edge of the pavement, then made a quarter turn and slid her foot forward. Almost immediately she felt the edge.
She made another quarter turn and found no end to the stone. That had been the way she’d entered.
Another quarter turn, and she found a nearby edge.
Another quarter turn, and she was once again facing the direction in which the attendant had left her.
Elandra did not intend to step off blindly into thin air. She turned around and started back the way she’d come.
“Stop.”
The voice seemed to come out of nowhere.
Startled, Elandra froze in place.
“You are not permitted to leave.”
She looked up, placing the voice as coming from high above her. Elandra turned around to face it. Inside, she felt overwhelming relief. At last someone was talking to her.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The woman chuckled.
“Why have I been brought to you?” Elandra asked. “Can anything be done for my blindness? I have heard the Penestricans possess many powers, but I know nothing about your order. Forgive my ignorance and tell me please if you can help me.”
“So many questions,” the woman said. Her voice sounded old yet vigorous. “You have been dealt many tests, yet your spirit is not broken. That is good.”
Angrily Elandra gritted her teeth. She had no patience for this sort of nonsense. “Why should I be tested?” she asked. “For what purpose, unless it is for your amusement?”
“You are impertinent. You were sent here by your father for training, and that is what you have received.”
“There’s been no training!” Elandra cried impatiently. “No one has even spoken to me, until now. Besides, I cannot be married if I am blind. What good—”
“The platform ahead of you ends two strides from where you are standing now,” the woman said. “Walk forward slowly and step off the platform onto the sand. It is not a high distance. You do not have to jump, but take care not to fall.”
Bewildered, Elandra responded to the clear, simple directions in spite of herself. She felt her way forward, then crouched to hold onto the edge of the stone while she slid one leg down. The platform was perhaps no more than knee height above the sand.
Her feet sank into the grainy substance. The sand was almost too hot for comfort, as though the sun had shone on it. She winced and hopped a little, turning back to the platform.
“No,” said the woman. “Sit on the sand.”
“It’s too hot.”
“Walk forward. You will find a pillow. Sit on that.”
Gingerly, Elandra minced across the hot sand and stumbled over the pillow. It was a wide square cushion, big enough for her to sit on and curl her legs under her. She brushed the sand off her feet as quickly as possible.
“Excellent,” the woman said. “Now do not move.”
“Why?”
“Ask no questions. Obey.”
“Why are you testing me?”
No answer.
Compressing her mouth stubbornly, Elandra sat there with growing resentment. The idea of being tested was infuriating. It made her wonder if they could do something to restore her sight. If they could, and they had not done so, then they were beyond cruel.
Her anger growing, she reached down to scoop some of the hot sand into her hand.
Something ropelike and sinuous slid across the back of her hand.
She flinched back instinctively, her heart quickening.
Suddenly she was aware of them. She could hear the faint rustling glide of scales across sand, could hear the hissing. Snakes surrounded her.
A visual image of their powerful, writhing bodies filled her mind. Her mouth went dry, and she choked off all sound, forgetting even to breathe as she froze in place.
“You sense them?” the woman asked, her voice soft and intense.
Elandra could not speak. Jerkily she nodded.
“Do not move. You must accept their presence.”
In spite of the heat Elandra felt clammy all over. She breathed in fear.
One of the snakes slithered across her ankle, and she nearly screamed. All her life she had feared snakes. Growing up in the hot humid jungles of Gialta, she considered the reptiles a way of life, but deadly nonetheless. Even in her father’s palace, the servants were ever vigilant. Cats and tame mongooses roamed at will to help patrol the rooms. As a very young child, Elandra had witnessed her old muimui, her nurse, being bitten while pulling a snake from Elandra’s crib. The old woman had swelled up horribly and died. Shortly thereafter, Elandra had gone to live with her father, but the memory had never left her.
Now her heart thudded inside her chest, and she drew in short, raspy breaths. A snake slid over her legs, and she started shaking. They were closer,
hissing, their tongues flickering along her wrist in delicate little patterns of exploration.
Her body was freezing. She had tensed her muscles so tightly they ached. Filling her was the certainty that if she moved the slightest degree, or spoke, or even breathed too deeply, one of them would bite her.
Then she would convulse with agony, and would swell with poison, and would die, choking for air.
“There are forty serpents in the sand pit with you,” the woman’s voice said calmly. “The warmth makes them active, and they have found you. Do not move.”
Simple hatred was not enough. Elandra clenched her eyes tightly shut, raging against the woman in her mind. Clammy perspiration trickled down her temples. With every thud of her heart, she felt the urge to run consuming her.
She couldn’t stay here, waiting for one of them to bite her. She had to do something, had to flee, fight, get out of here.
Suddenly she was gasping for air, gulping it in with desperation. Panic shuddered through her. This was crazy. She didn’t have to take this.
And yet something held her motionless. She forced the panic down, remembering her father’s voice in her mind. Never act in panic, he always instructed his troops. Panic in warfare is defeat. Panic is death.
A moan rose in her throat, and she stifled it. Don’t move, she told herself. Don’t move. She could feel them now, sliding over and around her. Their sinuous bodies were warm and silky soft on her skin. Their tongues flickered across her, making her fight herself not to flinch. She was trembling with exhaustion. She did not know how much more of this she could endure. Then one curled around her throat, and panic flooded her anew.
The snake tightened its coils. It was going to choke her. She could feel its blunt snout moving through her hair. Its tail tickled along her shoulder blade. She shuddered again and clenched her fists in the sand. Her heart was hammering out of control. She could not stand this, could not.
“Its coils will tighten slowly,” the woman said in a soft, expressionless voice. “It kills by crushing its prey. Of course this is a young one, very small. When they are fully grown, they encircle the body and crush the lungs of their victims. Do not move if you want to live. If you move you will startle it, and it will crush your throat instantly.”
Elandra did not have to be told. She had seen grown men crushed to death in the rice marshes by giant anacondas.
Tears ran down her cheeks. Her consciousness shrank to the strong bands encircling her throat. She believed what the woman had told her, yet the snake continued to slowly choke her. The constriction was becoming alarmingly tight.
She opened her mouth, punting, and realized that whether she fought or waited passively she was going to die here in this rite she didn’t understand.
Anger tired within her. She was the daughter of a warrior, and she wouldn’t die tamely.
Lifting her hand, she tugged at the snake around her throat. Immediately it tightened its coils with a quick, reflexive action that made her gasp for air.
Her anger intensified. She found the snake’s head, felt its tongue flicker against her palm, and closed her fingers around his neck. Then she squeezed with all her strength.
Its tail whipped against her shoulder, and it tightened its coils harder. She was gasping now, fighting for every breath of air. With her last shreds of consciousness, she twisted with both hands and snapped the snake’s neck. A final reflexive shudder ran through its length; then it lay limp.
She unwound it from her throat and flung it as far from her as she could.
Still consumed by fury, she rose to her feet, shaking off the other snakes that had been crawling over her legs. None of them bit her. She lifted her head and faced where she thought the watcher might be.
“I defy you,” she said loudly. “I will not submit to your tests again. Let me go.”
“If you cross the sand, the snakes will strike,” the woman warned her. “Most are poisonous.”
“You put me here to die,” Elandra said. “But I will do so by my choice, not by yours.”
She oriented herself and stepped off the pillow onto the hot sand. It burned her feet as before, but this time she did not flinch. She strode out, driven by her anger and defiance, and counted the number of steps back to the stone platform.
Despite the woman’s warning, nothing bit her. Elandra tossed her head with a feeling of triumph. So that had been another lie too. She bumped hard into the platform, bruising her thighs, and climbed onto it.
“Stop her!” the woman commanded.
Elandra heard quick footsteps approaching. Hands gripped her arms. Elandra swung out blindly and managed to hit the other woman’s face. The attendant uttered a soft cry and lost her grip on Elandra, who gave her a strong shove.
Stumbling forward, Elandra almost managed to get past the attendant, but she grabbed Elandra from behind by her hair.
Sharp pain in Elandra’s scalp made her yelp. Gritting her teeth, she elbowed the attendant in the stomach and wrenched free again. She tried to run but immediately stumbled down the steps she’d forgotten were at the other end of the platform.
She landed awkwardly, bruising her knees and hip, and cursed her blindness.
The attendant was on her in an instant, pulling her upright and shaking her. “You fool!” the woman cried. “You’ll break your neck trying to run like that!”
It was Bixia’s petulant voice who spoke to her. Bixia who had led her here. Bixia who fought with her now. Suddenly Elandra knew why the sound of her earrings and the smell of her perfume had seemed so familiar. None of the Penestricans wore such adornments. She should have guessed immediately.
Elandra gripped Bixia’s arm. “Sister! I beg you to help me—”
There was an abrupt sound, as though a pair of hands clapped once. The glaring whiteness around Elandra vanished, making her stagger with surprise.
Blinking, she frowned and squinted at the gloom that surrounded her. Rubbing her eyes, she found herself able tofocus on Bixia’s face in front of her. Bixia was scowling at her.
Amazement spread through Elandra. “I can see,” she whispered.
The shock of it was too sudden. Her knees went wobbly and she sat down without warning. She raised her hands and turned them over, ecstatically gazing at the lines of her palms and the texture of her own skin. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The room itself was a huge cavern, lit only dimly by fat white candles and the fire blazing in the center of the sand pit.
Elandra glanced over her shoulder but saw no snakes writhing on the sand. Puzzled, she swung her gaze back to her half-sister.
Bixia was as naked as she, revealing a lush, sensuous body adorned with possibly every item of jewelry she had been given by their father. Bracelets were rowed up both arms, and several necklaces hung around her neck. Jewels swung from her ears. Her blonde hair flowed down her back, unkempt and full of tangles. Fury blazed in her green eyes.
“Is this part of your training too?” Elandra asked.
“No! You simpleton, don’t pretend you don’t know what’s happening. You and your innocent airs make me sick!”
“But—”
“It’s all your fault! I’ll never forgive you for this. Never! I swear it from the bottom of my heart!”
“Silence!” commanded the woman behind them.
At once Bixia bit back the rest of what she might have said and bowed her head. She managed to keep glaring at Elandra, however, from beneath her tangle of hair.
Still puzzled, Elandra turned slowly back to face the sand pit. She saw a thin woman standing on a dais beside a stone chair. The unclothed Penestrican’s hair was braided around her skull. Her bare arms and legs revealed a network of mutilation scars. On her right wrist she wore a simple bracelet in the shape of a snake.
When the woman beckoned, Elandra walked slowly around the sand pit to the bottom of the dais. She gazed up at the older woman, recognizing an air of authority that was unquestionable.
“Ar
e you the Magria?” she asked.
The woman’s slim brows rose. In silence she inclined her head. Her eyes were filled with intelligent scrutiny.
“Why is Bixia being treated like this?” Elandra asked. “As bride-elect of the emperor, she deserves respect and courtesy. Surely you do not blame her for what Hecati tried to do.”
The Magria’s eyes grew cold. “She has been raised by a witch. There is much to be held accountable—”
“But not by Bixia!” Elandra said sharply. “She didn’t know—”
“But you did!” the Magria broke in.
Disconcerted, Elandra stared at her.
“Yes,” the Magria insisted. “You knew about the witch. Answer!”
There was no denying it, not now when she finally understood what Hecati really was. “I knew,” Elandra admitted.
“And you did nothing. You told no one. You did not denounce her, as is required by law!”
Elandra bit back the urge to defend herself. There was nothing to say without being clumsy, no way to justify her fear without admitting cowardice, no way to explain the intimidation and coercion Hecati had practiced on her through the years.
Besides, she had a suspicion the Magria might already know the full circumstances. Warily, Elandra kept quiet, saying nothing even when the Magria glared at her.
“Well?” the Magria demanded.
Still Elandra refused to answer. Two could play this game of silence, she thought.
A terrible look entered the Magria’s face. “You are both fools. I waste my time with you.”
“Then give us to the women who are supposed to train us for marriage,” Elandra said with deliberate insolence. “Clothe us properly and treat us according to our different stations. Put an end to these games of yours.”
“Games!” the Magria said sharply. “Games? There are no games here, girl. Everything that happens in the sand pit is truth.”
Elandra faced her without saying anything.
The Magria slowly descended the steps of the dais until they stood face to face. Then the Penestrican circled Elandra, studying her openly.
“You are very like Fauvina,” she whispered. “The auburn hair and white skin, the temper and the courage. Very like her. Yes, the cycle turns. It turns, and destiny is written.”
Reign of Shadows Page 27
