by David Hair
‘Slaves,’ Kekropius said softly. ‘From Hebusalim.’
‘Kore’s Blood! You’re from Hebusalim?’
‘The first – indeed, the only batch – were my parents’ generation. They are all dead now.’ He cocked his head, looking down at Alaron. ‘How old do you think I am?’
Alaron considered. Kekropius was clearly an adult of his kind, and an elder. If he had Water-gnosis, which gave access to healing and could be used to preserve youth, he could be even older than he looked. And the slave trade had began well before the First Crusade thirty-six years ago. ‘Fifty?’ he guessed.
Kekropius shook his combed head. ‘I am seventeen.’
Alaron stared. ‘No way …’
‘We have a short lifespan. I will die of old age in three to five years.’ Kekropius looked wistful. ‘We have short gestations, and attain full size inside three years. But we live to only twenty-five at most, and we go down fast in our last years.’
Alaron thought about Mesuda and Reku, hunched over and shrivelled up. Right now he didn’t feel terribly sorry for either of them, but Kekropius’ calm acceptance of his fate was different. He’d stuck up for him, and of course, he’d saved his life by killing Seldon. He liked Kekropius, found him strangely good company; it was almost impossible to believe that he was barely three years from dying of old age, let alone that he was younger than Alaron himself.
‘Can’t you do anything about it?’
Kekropius shook his head. ‘Short lives suited the empire’s purpose for us – we had no time to learn anything but obedience.’ He shook his head. ‘We grow swiftly and learn voraciously. Our days then were spent in weapons-drilling and lessons in obedience.’
‘And you escaped?’
Kekropius frowned, and spoke as if reciting from memory, ‘We were being readied for what they called the Holy Crusade – the First Crusade, by your reckoning. My parents’ souls were harvested from slaves and placed within the bodies the magi had made. But they were too few, so they were held back for the Second Crusade in 916. I was born in 911, between the Crusades. Our generation were taught Dhassan by our parents and Rondian by our tutors. We were trained to fight.’
‘Did you?’ Alaron asked breathlessly.
‘Yes, but not for the empire. In 914 one of the magi at the beastarium took pity on us. He informed a faction at court, hoping to have the breeding programme closed and us released. He was naïve; when the emperor realised that our existence could be used to discredit his regime, he moved quickly, intending to have us all killed. Luckily, our patron got wind of the decision and released us into the wild before the Inquisitors came.’
‘How many?’
‘We numbered in the thousands – there were many types, not just we lamiae. But the Inquisitors pursued us relentlessly and now there are fewer than seventy in our group. There may be other enclaves, but we’ve never found any of them.’
‘How did you get here?’ Alaron was having a hard time taking this in; it felt almost like a fairy story.
‘While most of the constructs took to the forests, our group headed for the coast. We’d been following the edge of the land, moving on every few months, until we found these caves. This has been our home for two years now. We had more or less decided to settle here permanently.’
Alaron marvelled that all this could be happening and yet people knew nothing of it: imperial Animagi creating abominations – yet that hardly seemed the word, not for Kekropius, anyway. ‘And the “Promised Land”?’ he asked.
Kekropius looked at him sadly. ‘Alaron, my generation is dying out. The younger generation do not even speak Dhassan; they remember only that the Crusades were to their homeland, a place promised them by their elders. My father told me that our people are so shortlived that we are like children. We don’t have time to fully mature here’ – he tapped his head – ‘or here.’ He touched his heart. ‘We are fast losing our heritage.’
‘Write it all down,’ Alaron said reflexively.
‘We’ve never learned how.’
Alaron looked up at him. ‘I could teach you.’
Kekropius blinked slowly. Alaron had learnt to recognise this as a sign of intense cogitation. ‘We would be in your debt.’ He cocked his head. ‘Do you truly know the way to Hebusalim? We have travelled this coast for fourteen years. We don’t know our way home.’
Alaron met his eyes, heart pounding. ‘I do know the way, and I can show it to you.’
The lamia’s face betrayed a hopelessness he’d not shown before. ‘We are dying out, Milkson. Our breeding pool is too small, and the world too perilous. Sometimes I wonder if there is any point.’
‘There’s always a reason to go on,’ Alaron replied. ‘I don’t know much, but I know that.’ It’s about the only thing life has taught me.
The Eighteenth Fist gathered in a circle about Commandant Vordan and Adamus Crozier. It was dawn and the venators were hissing impatiently, awaiting the command to take to the air. Wind whipped at their cloaks, a cool dry southern breeze that cleared the cobwebs of sleep.
The tale the ghost of Seldon had told them had been almost unbelievable: some kind of snake–man creature, clearly a construct, had killed him. Vordan had admitted that some years ago there had been a breakout from a secret beastarium; the distorted creations of a renegade mage had escaped. It had been left to the Inquisition to clean up the mess; they had believed all the illegal constructs had been found and slaughtered, but it appeared that was not the case. He would report the find, he said, but tracking down Alaron Mercer remained the priority.
Malevorn nodded to himself. That was logical, if Mercer really does have the Scytale of Corineus.
Of course, these creatures might well have slain Mercer and taken the Scytale – but if so, surely the remains of Mercer’s body would also have been found. They could only pray these things hadn’t simply lost the Scytale, let it wash into the sea.
They’d been searching the coastline for days, flying fifty miles in either direction, but they’d found nothing. This region was barely inhabited; a few communities lived on the cliff tops, subsisting by combing the tidelands when the waves receded, but that was it. Adamus Crozier turned to Malevorn. They’d been working together late into the night, the bishop using a Mysticism-link to try to scry Alaron via Malevorn’s memories of him. Such things could work, but only at short range, and there had been no tangible results. Being with the bishop alone had been uncomfortable at times – Adamus had made it clear that he wished to know Malevorn carnally, but he had refused. It might be a bad career move, but he was an Andevarion and had his pride. To his surprise, the bishop appeared to respect him more for that refusal.
‘Master Andevarion,’ the Crozier said now, ‘you were not this boy Mercer’s only classmate. Surely there are others we might summon to our aid?’
‘We were a small class, my lord Crozier,’ Malevorn replied. ‘Just seven: Mercer and Sensini, his only friend.’ He cast his mind back. ‘Gron Koll is dead.’ And unmissed. ‘Francis Dorobon is a strong scryer.’
‘Dorobon?’ Adamus glanced at Vordan. ‘I think not. Anyway, he is in Javon.’
Ah, so you’re off chasing that kingdom of yours, Francis? Good for you. ‘Seth Korion, though I don’t remember him as being proficient.’ At anything.
‘Not a Korion,’ Adamus responded firmly. ‘Who was the seventh?’
Malevorn had almost forgotten him: fat, blathering, pompous … ‘Boron Funt.’ Not a name I thought I’d ever be saying again.
The Crozier’s eyes lit up. ‘He is one of ours. We recruited him on Gavius’ say-so.’
‘He too is a strong scryer, my lord.’ Or so he pretended.
Vordan looked at Adamus. ‘Do we know where this Boron Funt was posted?’
Somewhere with a blazing log fire and roast pigs on the spit.
‘Someone will know. I will send for him,’ Adamus said confidently. ‘In the meantime we will continue our search.’ He turned to Vordan. ‘Commandeer a villa an
d set up base. Mercer will be found, I assure you.’
But Alaron Mercer continued to elude them as the days passed, and their frustration grew.
*
It took much persuasion, but the lamiae finally resolved to seek Hebusalim. It would be a slow process, as their scouts had seen Inquisitors searching the coastal cliffs. But night-travel through the woods was possible, for the lamiae used gnostic heat-sensing, a self-taught skill in which they were as proficient as any Arcanum-trained mage. They set out in small groups, initially covering only a few miles each night, but once they had left the heavily choked undergrowth of the Silacian hills and entered the pine forests of eastern Noros it was easier. Alaron mostly rode on Kekropius’ back. They were managing more than fifteen miles a night, but it wasn’t fast enough: by his reckoning the Bridge was two thousand miles away; at their current rate it would take six months to reach Pontus. And how in Hel they were going to make it over the Bridge he had no idea.
But there were moments of inspiration: a rare sea-view at dawn revealed a dim shape on the horizon that he realised could only be the volcanic island of Phaestos. At last all those geography lessons were useful: he knew it to be uninhabited, after the last eruptions in 886, and it offered a way to cut hundreds of miles from their journey. Mesuda sent scouts swimming towards it while the main group rested for a few days.
Alaron felt as if he’d stepped into a very strange dream. Despite the lamiae’s human characteristics, they were very much an alien species. They ate fish primarily, wolfing it down whole to a main stomach below the hips, at the top of the snake body. Kekropius told him the males had two hearts to power their long bodies; they could move at dazzling speeds, and could climb anything. They were terrifying in their strength and anger, but though they quickly reached physical maturity, they were like capricious children, swiftly fascinated or bored. The Elders’ role was somewhere between older sibling and parent.
While contemplating the alien nature of his companions, Alaron had an idea. Kekropius sent him to talk to Reku. The ancient lamia woman – at twenty-two, she was declining fast – was perched on her own on a low bluff, beneath which the refugees were camping. Most of the males were hunting while the females were preparing cooking pits or tending the young. More had been born on the journey, and he watched with awe as the whelps matured at incredible speed.
Reku turned her craggy head as he approached. She was losing her sight and was even more hunched over. When he compared her with the majestically built younger lamiae, it was almost pitiable to see her decline. Though she was no more likable. ‘Come to offer yourself as my last meal, boy? Roasted with garlic would be nice.’
‘I’ve brought some worms for your dinner,’ he snapped back, tired from the journey and irritable with loneliness. Though he was now their guide, only Kekropius would actually converse with him and it was wearing him down.
To his surprise she cackled gleefully. ‘Are they juicy fat ones, like human fingers? Drown them in wine, boy, then I’ll suck them down whole.’ She mimed a swallowing gesture and smacked her lips with a show of great pleasure.
‘Better yet, they are actual human fingers. See, I’ve cut off my fingers to feed you,’ he told her, joining in the game. He hid his hand in his sleeve and waved it at her.
‘Fingers,’ she purred. ‘I hope you didn’t fillet them, I love to crunch on the bones and suck out the marrow.’
Yeuck. That sounds too much like experience. ‘Aunty Reku,’ he said, using the lamiae address form, ‘may I ask a question?’
She regarded him with a birdlike cocking of the head, a half-mad-looking one-eyed stare of appraisal. ‘Of course, child of Kessa.’ She made a teat-sucking sound, her eyes teasing.
He flushed; that memory still rankled. ‘Aunty, do any of your people have the ability to see things that are far away?’
Reku blinked several times and licked her lips: a sign of great interest. She leant towards him. ‘Some.’ She cocked her head. ‘We have the gnosis, and it answers our personalities, just like you magi. Some of us can wield fire and others can fly.’
Ha: thought so! ‘Might I be able to talk to one of those who can see far away?’
Reku turned her head and changed eyes. Her pupils were narrowing and dilating. Appraisal. ‘What for?’
‘To find someone.’
‘Will it put my people at risk?’
He hesitated. ‘Not if done properly,’ he answered honestly.
She exhaled thoughtfully. Acceptance. ‘Talk to Ildena, but only after her mate Fydro returns from hunting. Tell him I approve.’ She seized his left hand before he could react, then slowly drew it to her mouth.
‘Uh, what—?’
‘I have given you something – you owe me something in return.’ She opened her mouth and jerked forward, pinned his forefinger and bit down, drawing blood with her tiny pin-prick teeth. ‘Mmmm,’ she purred, rolling her eyes.
He didn’t move, perspiration beading on his brow as he tried to work out if this was a game or some kind of bargain sealer for securing her agreement. Her thick purple tongue coiled about each finger in turn, its surface both rough and slick. Then she pushed his hand away and roared with laughter. ‘Your face, boy, you should see it!’ She hunched over and wept, shaking with hilarity.
Eeeyeurgh. He wiped his saliva-coated hand on his shirt, and hurried away.
*
The next night, as the lamiae awaited the returning scouts, he took Kekropius with him as his chaperone. Fydro was a burly lamia with a surly face. Kekropius did most of the talking, explaining that Fydro’s wife might be of great aid to the clan, but that she would need to learn from the human mage to enable this. Fydro was reluctant, as they were newly mated; Ildena was a delicate beauty and he was exceedingly possessive of her. Eventually he agreed, but only if he was present. He appeared to regard Alaron as some kind of devil who would use his gnosis to seduce his wife. Alaron thought this bizarre. The lamiae were so alien he couldn’t even conceive of wanting to seduce one – even though in Lantric myths lamiae were sometimes lovers of this or that demigod or hero. He’d even stopped noticing breasts while with them; to the snake-people they were just another body part of no great importance, and he was so surrounded by personal body parts he’d practically stopped seeing them.
However, when he actually met Ildena for the first time, he began to understand Fydro’s feelings. Ildena’s face and human torso were lovely. She was small by lamia standards, slim and delicate, and her big golden eyes were shot through with seams of violet. Her hesitant, spooky smile was bewitching. Her narrow waist swayed as she entered the room, and her bosom was so high and shapely it kind of hooked his eyes.
Fydro draped a blanket about his wife’s shoulders and Kekropius shot Alaron a warning look. Okay. I’m not even tempted. He averted his eyes. Not really. ‘Uh, can she speak Rondian?’ he asked. Not all the lamiae could.
‘I understand,’ Ildena replied, her voice deeper than he expected, with a musical lilt.
It took a lot of negotiation, every step contested by Fydro, who kept erupting into fits of anger, but eventually Alaron managed to get Ildena to sit opposite him – albeit with a table between them. He clasped her hands to channel a link and took her through the most basic lessons of Clairvoyance, although he’d never been much good at it himself. But he could do Mysticism, and that meant the mental link he forged was strong and efficient. He showed her how to seek the whereabouts of other lamiae. She had been using the gnosis since birth, and this new skill was really just a more systematic approach to something that had previously only manifested by accident. She found the scouts, swimming safely home, then she scryed their former haven, the Sanctum Lucator, and found it still undisturbed. He showed her how to make what she scryed appear in water or smoke, so that others could see what she saw. The night flew by and at the end of it, they were both exhausted and exhilarated. She slumped, weeping with happiness, into her husband’s arms.
‘Enough,’ she sobbed, whi
le Fydro stroked her shoulders and stared at Alaron with smouldering eyes.
He probably thinks I’ve corrupted her. He rose and bowed formally. ‘Thank you,’ he managed, before lurching towards the door. Kekropius caught him, and the rest was a blur. He slept away the day, and they began again that night. This time they used Aggi, the little wooden doll Cym had once played with as a child, to search for her, but still they found no trace.
His life changed. Other lamiae came to him, wanting him to teach them the way he’d taught Ildena, and his training at Turm Zauberin meant he was able to help all of them, even those for whose skills he had no affinity. The lamiae had the potential for every aspect of the gnosis; they might be self-taught but they were instinctive users. He worked out they were all roughly quarter-blood in power, and eager to learn.
Between teaching them and scrying for Cym, he barely had time to sleep, but he found he actually began to enjoy his time with the lamiae.
Sometimes he even dreamt that he’d grown a snake body instead of legs.
*
‘Boron, welcome.’ Malevorn greeted the plump young priest, putting all the fondness he could muster into his voice. He offered his hand, but Funt staggered from the newly arrived windship and vomited on the grass instead. Most magi with any kind of air affinity were immune to flight-sickness, but Boron Funt was an exception – probably because he eats constantly, Malevorn thought. ‘A bad flight, my friend?’ In the two weeks since Adamus Crozier had sent out the summons for Funt, they’d made no progress at all in their hunt. The trail was going cold.
Boron looked up at him with green jowls and miserable eyes. ‘Mal? Thank Kore!’ He lurched upright, and seized him in a giant bear-hug. ‘Ghastly, simply ghastly.’ Then he looked around, and realised that he’d stumbled right past a Crozier and an Inquisition Commandant. His face went from green to white. ‘My lords!’ He fell to his knees and prostrated himself.
‘Rise, young priest,’ Adamus said with a smirk. ‘We are all brothers in Kore here.’
The windship had landed on the lawn before the villa the Fist had commandeered. Malevorn made the introductions, cringing somewhat to be associated with this buffoon. The Inquisitors looked upon Boron with utter contempt, and he completely agreed with them; it did his own standing no good at all to be associated in any way with this rolling piece of blubber. But he was appointed Funt’s guide and told to room with him. Unless Funt had been miraculously cured of snoring and flatulence, the coming nights promised to be Hel.
