Serpent Mage

by Margaret Weis

  The three of us, Alake, Devon, and I, ate dinner alone. Alake tapped on Haplo's door and called, but there was no answer. She returned, disappointed and downcast.

  I didn't say anything to her or to Devon. To be honest, I wasn't certain they'd believe me and I didn't want to start an argument. After all, I have no proof of anything I saw except a couple of wet boards.

  But at least I know the truth.

  Whatever that truth may be.

  More later, i'm so sleepy I can't hold the pen any longer.

  ALFRED SPENT MANY PLEASANT HOURS WALKING THE streets of Surunan. Like its inhabitants, the city had awakened from its long, enforced slumber and returned swiftly to life. There were far more people than Alfred had first supposed. He must have discovered only one of many Sleeping chambers.

  Guided by the Council, the Sartan worked to restore their city to its original beauty. Sartan magic made dead plants green, repaired crumbling buildings, wiped away all traces of destruction. Their city restored to beauty, harmony, peace, and order, the Sartan began to discuss how to do the same to the other three worlds.

  Alfred reveled in the tranquility, the beauty his soul remembered. He delighted in the Sartan conversation, the multiplicity of wonderous images created by the magic of the rune language. He heard the music of the runes and wondered, his eyes moist with pleasure, how he could have ever forgotten such beauty. He basked in the friendly smiles of his brothers and sisters.

  “I could live here and be happy,” he said to Orla.

  They were walking through the city, on their way to a meeting of the Council of Seven. The dog, who had not left Alfred's side since the night before, accompanied them. The beauty of Surunan was food to Alfred's soul, which, he realized now, had nearly withered up and died of starvation.

  He could, he noted wistfully, actually walk the streets without falling over his feet or anyone else's.

  “I understand how you feel,” said Orla, looking about with pleasure. “It is as it used to be. It seems as if no time has passed at all.”

  The dog, feeling itself forgotten, whined and shoved its head into Alfred's dangling hand.

  The touch of the cold nose made Alfred jump. Startled, he looked down at the dog, forgot to watch where he was going, and tumbled into a marble bench.

  “Are you all right?” Orla asked in concern.

  “Yes, thank you,” Alfred mumbled, picking himself up and endeavoring to put himself back together.

  He looked at Orla in her soft white robes, at all the other Sartan dressed alike in their white robes. And he looked down at himself, still wearing the faded purple velvet suit of the mensch court of King Stephen of Arianus. Frayed lace cuffs were too short for his long, gangly arms; the hose covering his ungainly legs were wrinkled and sagging. He ran his hand over his balding head. It seemed to him that the smiles of his brothers and sisters were no longer friendly, but patronizing, pitying.

  Alfred wanted, suddenly, to grab his brethren by the collars of their long, white robes and shake them until their teeth rattled.

  Time has passed! he wanted to shout. Eons. Centuries. Worlds that were young and newly born out of fire have cooled and grown old. While you slept, generations have lived and suffered and been happy and died. But what does that mean to you? Nothing more than the thick layers of dust covering your perfect white marble. You sweep it away and prepare to go on. But you can't. No one remembers you. No one wants you. Your children have grown and left home. They may not be doing that well on their own, but at least they're free to try.

  “Something is the matter,” said Orla solicitously. “If you're hurt, the Council can wait…”

  Alfred was startled to find himself trembling; his unspoken words churned inside him. Why not say them? Why not let them out? Because I may be wrong. Most probably I am wrong. Who am 1, after all? Not very wise. Not nearly as wise as Samah and Orla.

  The dog, accustomed to Alfred's sudden and erratic tumbles, had leapt lightly out of the way when he fell. It returned to gaze up at him with a certain amount of reproach.

  I have four feet to worry about and you only have two, the dog advised him. One would think you could manage better.

  Alfred was reminded of Haplo, of the Patryn's irritation whenever the Sartan stumbled over himself.

  “I think,” said Orla, eyeing the dog severely, “we should have left the animal behind”

  “He wouldn't have stayed,” said Alfred.

  Samah appeared to be of the same opinion. He eyed the dog, sitting at Alfred's feet, suspiciously.

  “You say that this dog belongs to a Patryn. You have said yourself that this Patryn uses the animal to spy on others. It shouldn't be in a Council meeting. Remove it. Ramu”—he gestured to his son, who was acting as Council Servitor1— “remove the animal.”

  Alfred made no protest. The dog growled at Ramu, but—at a soft word from Alfred—suffered itself to be led out of the Council Chamber. Ramu returned, shutting the door behind him and taking up his proper place before it. Samah took his place behind the long, white, marble table.

  The six Council members took their places, three on his left and three on his right. All sat down simultaneously.

  The Sartan, in their white robes, faces alight with wisdom and intelligence, were beautiful, majestic, radiant.

  Alfred, seated on the Supplicant's Bench, saw himself by contrast—huddled, faded, and bald. The dog, tongue lolling, lay at his feet.

  Samah's eyes skipped over Alfred, fixed on the dog. The head of the Council frowned, glanced at his son.

  Ramu was astonished. “I put him out, Father, and”—he glanced behind him—“I shut the door! I swear!”

  Samah motioned Alfred to stand and come forward, into the Supplicant's Circle.

  Alfred did so, feet shuffling.

  “I ask you to put the animal outside, Brother.”

  Alfred sighed, shook his head. “He'll just come right back in. But I don't think you need worry about him spying on us for his master. He's lost his master. That's why he's here.”

  “He wants you to look for his master, for a Patryn?”

  “I believe so,” said Alfred meekly.

  Samah's frown darkened. “And this doesn't seem strange to you? A dog belonging to a Patryn, coming to you, a Sartan, for help?”

  “Well, no,” said Alfred, after a moment's reflection. “Not considering what the dog is. That is, what I think it is. Or might be.” He was somewhat flustered.

  “What is this dog, then?”

  “I'd rather not say, Councillor.”

  “You refuse a direct request of the head of the Council?”

  Alfred hunched his head into his shoulders, like a threatened turtle. “I'm probably wrong. I've been wrong about a great many things. I wouldn't want to give the Council misinformation,” he concluded lamely.

  “I do not like this, Brother!” Samah's tone was a whiplash. Alfred flinched beneath it. “I have tried to make allowances for you, because you have lived so long among mensch, bereft of the companionship, counsel, and advice of your own kind. But now you have walked among us, lived among us, eaten our bread, and yet you willfully persist in refusing to answer our questions. You will not even tell us your real name. One might think you distrusted us—your own people!”

  Alfred felt the justness of this accusation. He knew Samah was right, knew the flaw to be in himself, knew he was unworthy to stand here, to be among his people. He wanted desperately to tell them all he knew, to fling himself prostrate at their feet, to hide beneath the hems of their white robes.

  Hide. Yes, that's what I'd be doing. Hide from myself. Hide from the dog. Hide from despair. Hide from hope…

  He sighed. “I trust you, Samah, members of the Council. It's myself that I don't trust. Is it wrong to refuse to answer questions to which I don't know the answer?”

  “Sharing information, sharing your speculations, might benefit us all.”

  “Perhaps,” said Alfred. “Or perhaps not. I must be the j
udge.”

  “Samah,” Orla said gently, “this arguing is pointless. As you said, we must make allowances.”

  If Samah had been a mensch king, he would have ordered his son to take Alfred and wring the information out of him. And it seemed, for a moment, as if the Councillor was regretting he wasn such a king. His hand clenched in frustration, his brow furrowed. But he mastered himself, continued on.

  “I am going to ask you a question and I trust you will find it in your heart to answer.”

  “If I can do so, I will,” Alfred replied humbly.

  “We have urgent need to contact our brethren in the other three worlds. Is such contact possible?”

  Alfred looked up, amazed. “But, I thought you understood! You have no brethren in the other worlds! That is,” he added, shuddering, “unless you count the necromancers on Abarrach.”

  “Even these necromancers, as you term them, are Sartan,” said Samah. “If they have fallen into evil, all the more reason to try to reach them. And you yourself have admitted that you have not traveled to Pry an. You don't know for certain that our people are no longer on the world.”

  “But I have talked to one who has been there,” Alfred protested. “He found a Sartan city, but no trace of any Sartan. Only terrible beings, that we created—”

  “And where did you get this information?” Samah thundered. “From a Patryn! I see his image in your mind! And you would have us believe it?”

  Alfred shrank into himself. “He would have no reason to lie—”

  “He would have every reason! He and this lord who plans to conquer and enslave us!” Samah fell silent, glaring at Alfred. “Now, answer my question!”

  “Yes, Councillor. I suppose you could go through Death's Gate.” Alfred wasn't being very helpful, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

  “And alert this Patryn tyrant to our presence. No, not yet. We are not strong enough to face him.”

  “And yet,” said Orla, “we may not have any choice. Tell Alfred the rest.”

  “We must trust him,” said Samah bitterly, “although he does not trust us.”

  Alfred flushed, stared down at his shoes.

  “After the Sundering came a time of chaos. It was a dreadful time,” Samah said, frowning. “We knew there would be suffering and loss of life. We regretted it, but we believed that the greater good to come would make up for it.”

  “That is the excuse of all who wage war,” said Alfred in a low voice.

  Samah paled in anger.

  Orla intervened. “What you say is true, Brother. And there were those who argued against it.”

  “But what is done is done and that time is long past,” Samah said in stern tones, seeing several of the Council members shift restlessly in their seats. “The magical forces we unleashed proved far more destructive than we had anticipated. We found, too late, that we could not bring them under control. Many of our people sacrificed their own lives in an attempt to stop the holocaust that swept over the world. To no avail. We could only watch in helpless horror and, when all was ended, do what we could to save those who had managed to survive.

  “The creation of the four worlds was successful, as was the imprisonment of our enemies. We took the mensch and brought them to havens of peace and safety. Such a world was Chelestra.

  “This world was the one of which we were the proudest. It hangs in the darkness of the universe like a beautiful blue-white jewel. Chelestra is made completely of water. On the outside, it is ice; the chill of the space around it freezes the water solid. Within Chelestra's heart, we placed a seastar, which warms the water and warms as well the durnai, hibernating, living beings that drift around the seasun. The mensch call them seamoons. It was our intent, after the mensch had lived here many generations and become accustomed to it, that they should move onto these seamoons. We would remain here, on this continent.”

  “This isn't a seamoon?” Alfred looked confused.

  “No, we needed something more solid, more stable. Something that more closely resembled the world we left behind. Sky, sun, trees, clouds. This realm rests on a huge formation of solid rock formed in the shape of a chalice. Runes cover its surface with intricate patterns of force both outside the stone and within.

  “Inside the cup is a mantle of molten rock, covered by a surface crust not unlike our original world. Here we formed clouds, rivers and valleys, lakes and fertile land. Above all arches the dome of the sky that keeps the sea at bay while letting in the light of the seasun.”

  “You mean,” said Alfred, awed, “that we are now surrounded by water?”

  “The turquoise blue you see above you that you call sky is not sky as you know it, but water,” said Orla, smiling. “Water that we could share with other worlds, worlds such as Abarrach.” Her smile faded. “We came here, out of despair, hoping to find peace. We found instead death, destruction.”

  “We built this city with our magic,” Samah continued. “We brought the mensch to live here. For a time, all went well. Then, creatures appeared, coming up out of the deep. We couldn't believe what we saw. We, who had made all the animals of all the new worlds, had not made these. They were ugly, horrible to look on. They smelled foul, of decay and putrefaction. The mensch called them dragons, naming them after a mythical beast of the Old World.”

  Samah's words created images in the mind. Alfred listened and saw and was carried back with the head of the Council to a far distant time….

  … Samah stood outside, upon the steps of the Council Chamber, and gazed in anger and frustration down upon the newly made city of Surunan. All around him was beauty, but he took no comfort in it. The beauty, instead, seemed a mockery. Beyond the high, glistening, flower-covered city walls, he heard the voices of the mensch beat against the marble like the pounding of a storm-tossed sea.

  “Tell them to return to their homes,” Samah ordered his son, Ramu. “Tell them all will be well.”

  “We told them, Father,” Ramu replied. “They refuse.”

  “They are frightened,” Orla explained, seeing her husband's face harden. “Panicked. You can't blame them. After all they've been through, all they've suffered.”

  “And what about all we've suffered. They never think of that!” Samah returned bitterly.

  He was silent long moments, listening to the voices. He could distinguish the races among them: the raucous blaring of the humans, the flutelike laments of the elves, the booming bass of the dwarves. A terrible orchestra that, for the first time in its existence, was playing in concert, instead of each section trying to drown out the other.

  “What do they want?” he asked finally.

  “They are terrified of these so-called dragons. The people want us to open the gates to our part of the city,” Ramu told him. “They think they will be safer inside our walls.”

  “They are just as safe in their own homes!” Samah said. “The same magic protects them.”

  “You can't blame them for not understanding, Father,” Ramu replied scornfully. “They are like children, frightened by the thunder, who seek the safety of the parents' bed.”

  “Open the gates, then. Let them in. Make room for them where you can and do what you can to keep the damage they cause to a minimum. Make it clear to them that it is only temporary. Tell them that the Council is going out to destroy the monsters and, when this is done, we expect the mensch to return peacefully to their homes. Or as peacefully as can be expected of them,” he added in acerbic tones.

  Ramu bowed and went to do his father's bidding, taking with him the other servitors to assist.

  “The dragons have done no great harm,” said Orla. “I am sick of killing. I entreat you, again, Samah, to try to talk with them, find out something about them and what they want. Perhaps we can negotiate—”

  “All this you said before the Council, Wife,” Samah interrupted her impatiently. “The Council voted and the decision was made. We did not create these creatures. We have no control over them …”

&
nbsp; “And so they must be destroyed,” Orla concluded coldly.

  “The Council has spoken.”

  “The vote was not unanimous.”

  “I know.” Samah was cold, still angry. “And to keep peace in the Council and in my home, I will talk to these serpents, learn what I can about them. Believe it or not, Wife, f, too, am sick of killing.”

  “Thank you, Husband,” Orla said, attempting to slide her arm through his.

  Samah stiffened, held himself away from her touch.

  The Sartan Council of Seven left their walled city for the first time since they had arrived in this new world of their own creation. Joining hands, performing a solemn and graceful dance, the seven sang the runes and called upon the winds of ever-shifting possibility to carry them over the walls of the center city, over the heads of the wailing mensch, to the nearby shores of the sea.

  Out in the water, the dragons awaited them. The Sartan looked on them and were appalled. The serpents were huge, their skin wrinkled. They were toothless and old, older than time itself. And they were evil. Fear emanated from the dragons, hatred gleamed in their red-green eyes like angry suns, and shriveled the very hearts of the Sartan, who had seen nothing like it, not even in the eyes of the Patryns, their most bitter enemy.

  The sand, which had once been as white and gleaming as crushed marble, was now gray-green, coated by trails of foul-smelling slime. The water, covered with a thick film of oil, washed sluggishly up on the polluted shore.

  Led by Samah, the Council members formed a line upon the sand.

  The dragons began to slither and leap and writhe. Churning the seawater, the serpents stirred up great waves, sent them crashing to shore. The spray from the waves fell on the Sartan. The smell was putrid, brought a horrid image. They seemed to be looking into a grave in which lay moldering all the hastily buried victims of sinister crimes, all the rotting corpses of the battlefield, the dead of centuries of violence.

  Samah, raising his hand, called out, “I am head of the Council, the governing body of the Sartan. Send one of your kind forward to talk with us.”