Serpent Mage

by Margaret Weis

  Parts of the snake's story didn't exactly fit the facts as he'd heard them from the mensch, but that didn't matter now. What mattered was a chance to strike a blow, a telling blow, at the Sartan.

  “Peace and harmony are all very well, Royal One,” Haplo said, watching the snake closely, feeling his way, “but the Sartan will never allow it. Once they know you have returned, they'll do their best to destroy you.”

  “Too true,” agreed the dragon-snake. “Destroy us and enslave the mensch. But what can be done? Our numbers are few; many of us did not survive the hibernation. And the Sartan, or so we hear from our spies, the gushni,2 are stronger than ever. They've received reinforcements through Death's Gate.”

  “Reinforcements.” Haplo shook his head. “That's not possible …”

  “One has come, at least.” The dragon-snake spoke with conviction. “A Sartan who travels freely through Death's Gate, visiting other worlds. He disguises himself as a mensch, calls himself by a mensch name. He pretends to be bumbling and clumsy, but we know him for what he is. He is the one we call Serpent Mage. And he k far more powerful than Samah himself.”

  The dragon-snake's eyes narrowed. “Why do you laugh, Patryn?”

  “I'm sorry, Royal One,” said Haplo, grinning, “but I know this Sartan. And you don't need to worry about him. He doesn't pretend to be bumbling and clumsy. He is bumbling and clumsy. And he doesn't travel through Death's Gate. More likely he fell through it, by accident.”

  “He's not powerful?”

  Haplo jerked a thumb toward the cave. “Those mensch in there are more powerful.”

  “You astonish me,” stated the dragon-snake, and it did truly seem surprised. It cast a slit-eyed, red-green glance at its fellows. “All our information led us to believe quite the opposite. He is the Serpent Mage.”

  “Your information's wrong,” said Haplo, shaking his head, unable to keep from laughing again at the thought. Alfred, a Serpent Mage! Whatever that was, he wasn't.

  “Well, well, well. My, my, my,” mused the dragon-snake. “This does require some rethinking. But, we seem to have strayed from your original point. I asked what could be done about the Sartan. You, I think, have the answer.”

  Haplo took several steps nearer the dragon-snake, ignoring the faint warning glow of the sigla on his skin.

  “These three races of mensch get along well together. They were, in fact, preparing to unite to go to war against you. What if we convinced them that they had a more dangerous foe?”

  The dragon-snake's eyes opened wide, the red-green glow turned completely red, was blinding in its intensity. Haplo squinted against it, was forced to shield his eyes from the glare with an upraised hand.

  “But these mensch are peace-loving. They won't fight.”

  “I have a plan, Royal One. Believe me, if it comes to their survival, they'll fight.”

  “I see the shape of your plan in your mind and you are right, it will work.” The dragon-snake closed its eyes, lowered its head. “Truly, Haplo, you Patryns deserve to be the masters of this world. We bow before you.”

  The dragon-snakes all prostrated their heads in the dust, gigantic bodies writhed in homage. Haplo felt suddenly exhausted, so weary that he staggered where he stood, almost fell.

  “Go, now, to your well-deserved rest,” whispered the dragon-snake.

  Haplo stumbled off across the sand, heading for the cave where the mensch sheltered. He could not remember ever feeling this tired before, assumed it must be a reaction to the loss of his magic. He entered the cave, cast one glance around at the mensch, assured them they were safe, then slumped to the ground, sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  The king dragon-snake rested its head comfortably once again on its coils, red-green eyes gleamed.

  1Human translation: the Dark Place.

  2Similar in appearance to jellyfish, each has a shared intelligence with all the others, each one contains all the knowledge of the entire group. They make excellent spies, since what one leams is instantly passed on to every other gushni in Chelestra. They cannot speak and are probably linked to the dragon-snakes telepathically.

  ALFRED, ACCOMPANIED BY THE DOG, LEFT THE COUNCIL meeting as soon as he possibly could and began to roam about Surunan. His joy in his newfound realm had been destroyed. He looked at beauty that could no longer touch him; listened to a language that was his own, yet sounded foreign to him; felt himself a stranger in what should have been his home.

  “Find Haplo,” he muttered to the dog, who, hearing the beloved name, began to whine eagerly. “How do they expect me to find Haplo? And what am I to do with him if I find him?”

  Distraught and confused, he wandered the streets aimlessly.

  “How can I find Haplo when even you can't find your master?” he demanded of the dog, who gazed up sympathetically but was unable to supply an answer.

  Alfred groaned. “Why don't they understand? Why can't they just let me alone?”

  He stopped, suddenly, looked around. He had traveled farther than he had intended, farther than he'd ever been before. He wondered bleakly if his body—as usual—had decided to run away and had not bothered to inform his brain of the decision.

  “We only want to ask the Patryn questions.” Samah's words, and the Councillor wouldn't lie to me. He couldn't lie. One Sartan can never lie to another.

  “Why, then,” Alfred asked the dog unhappily, “don't I trust Samah? Why do I trust him less than I trust Haplo?”

  The dog was unable to say.

  “Perhaps Samah's right.” Alfred continued, a prey to misery. “Perhaps the Patryn has corrupted me. I wonder if they have the power to do that? I never heard of a Sartan falling under a Patryn's enchantment, but I suppose it's possible.” He sighed, passed his hand over his bald head. “Especially with me.”

  The dog saw that Alfred was not, after all, going to produce Haplo on the spot. Panting in the heat, it flopped down at the Sartan's feet.

  Alfred was tired and hot himself. He looked about wearily for a place to rest. Not too distant stood a smallish square building made of the eternal white marble that the Sartan loved and which Alfred was beginning to find a trifle boring. A covered porch, supported by innumerable white marble columns, surrounded it, gave it the stolid, formal look of a public building, not the more relaxed air of a private residence.

  Strange that it should stand so far from the other public buildings, located in the heart of the city, Alfred thought as he approached it. The cool shadowy portico offered a welcome respite from the bright sunlight that shone interminably on the Sartan city. The dog trotted along after him.

  Reaching the porch, Alfred was disappointed to find no benches where he could sit and rest. Assuming that there must be some inside, he waited until his eyes had adjusted to the shadowy interior, then read the runes inscribed upon the large, bronze double doors.

  He was puzzled and considerably startled to find runes of warding. The sigla weren't very strong, nothing like the ones that had tried to bar their way into the Chamber of the Damned on Abarrach.' These runes were far milder, advised

  Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle.

  Alfred in a friendly fashion that the nice, polite, and proper thing for him to do would be to leave. If he had business inside, he was told to seek permission to enter from the Council.

  Any other Sartan—Samah, for example, or Orla—would have smiled, nodded, and immediately turned around and left. Alfred started to do just that. He fully intended to do just that—turn around and leave.

  In fact, half of him did turn around. The other half, unfortunately, chose that moment to decide to open the door a crack and take a peep inside, with the result that Alfred stumbled over himself, fell through the door, and landed flat on his face in the dust.

  A game, thought the dog, and bounded in after the Sartan. The animal began licking Alfred's face and biting playfully at his ears.

  Alfred endeavored to induce the playful animal to remove itself from his person.
Kicking and flailing on the dust-covered floor, he accidentally struck the door with his foot. The door swung shut, closing with a boom that sent dust flying into the air. Both Alfred and the dog began to sneeze.

  Alfred took advantage of the dog's preoccupation with the dust up its nose to rise hurriedly to his feet. He was uneasy without quite knowing why. Perhaps it was the absence of light. The building's interior wasn't cloaked with the absolute blackness of night, but it was shrouded in a murky duskiness that distorted shapes, made the ordinary seem strange and consequently ominous.

  “We'd better leave,” said Alfred to the dog, who, rubbing its nose with its paws, sneezed again and seemed to think this an excellent idea.

  The Sartan groped his way through the gloom to the double doors, started to open them, discovered that there was no handle. He stared at the entrance, scratching his head.

  The doors had shut completely, not a crack remained. It was as if they had become part of the wall. Alfred was quite perplexed. No building had ever done this to him before. He peered intently at where the doors had been, expecting sigla to light up, advising him that he was wrongfully attempting to enter an egress and suggesting that he take the back stairs.

  Nothing of the sort appeared. Nothing of any sort appeared.

  Alfred, uneasiness growing, sang a few runes in a quavering voice, runes that should have opened the door, provided a way out.

  The runes shimmered, then faded. Negating magic at work on the door. Whatever spell he cast would instantly be countered by a negative spell of the same power.

  Alfred groped about in the dusky shadows, searching for a way out. He stepped on the dog's tail, bruised his shin on a marble bench, and scraped the flesh off his fingers trying to open a crack that he thought might be another door, but turned out to be a flaw in one of the marble blocks.

  Apparently whoever came into this building was meant to stay in this building. Odd. Extremely odd. He sat down on the bench to consider the matter.

  Admittedly, the sigla on the outside had requested that he not go in, but it had been a request, not a prohibition. Also admittedly, he had no business inside here, nor had he obtained permission from the Council to enter.

  “Yes, I'm in the wrong,” he said to the dog, petting it to keep it near him, finding comfort in its presence, “but I can't be too wrong, otherwise they would have laid far stronger warding spells on the door that would definitely keep people out. And obviously people come in here, or at least they did once long ago.

  “And because it doesn't say anything about there being another way out,” he continued, thinking, “that must mean that there is another way out and everyone who came in knew about it. The way out was common knowledge and therefore they didn't bother to put up directions. I don't know about it, of course, because I'm a stranger, but I should be able to find it. Perhaps there's a door on the side or around back.”

  Feeling more cheerful, Alfred sang a light-shedding rune that appeared in the air over his head (absolutely fascinating the dog) and headed for the building's interior.

  Now that he could see clearly, Alfred was able to get a much better picture of his surroundings. He was in a hallway that ran the length of the building's front and, from what he could tell by advancing to the end, then turned a sharp right angle, continued on down the side. Dim light filtered in through several skylights in the ceiling—skylights that, observed Alfred, could use a good cleaning.

  He was reminded of one of Bane's toys—a box that had another, smaller box nesting inside it, and another smaller box inside that.

  A door in the center of the wall opposite the doors through which he had come offered entry into the next smaller of the boxes. Alfred studied this door and the walls around it carefully, telling himself that if there were runes of warding upon it, he would heed their warning. The door was smooth, however, had no advice or help to offer.

  Alfred pushed on it gingerly.

  The door opened, swinging easily on silent hinges. He entered, keeping the dog close at hand, and propped the door open with his shoe, when it seemed likely to shut behind him. Hobbling, one shoe on and one off, he entered the room and stood looking around in amazement.

  “A library,” he said to himself. “Why, it's nothing more than a library.”

  Alfred wasn't quite sure what he'd expected (vague thoughts of nasty beasts with long, sharp teeth had been lurking in the back of his mind), but it wasn't this. The room was huge, open, airy. A large skylight of frosted glass softened the glare of the sun, provided light to read by that was also easy on the eyes. Wooden tables and chairs filled the central portion of the room. The walls were honeycombed with large holes bored into the marble, and in each of these holes was housed neat stacks of gold scroll tubes.

  There was no dust at all in this room; strong runes of preserving and protection adorned the walls, to prevent the scrolls from deteriorating.

  Alfred spotted a door on the far wall.

  “Ah, the way out.”

  He headed for it, moving slowly in order to make his way through the maze of tables and do as little damage to them and himself as possible. This proved difficult, for he discovered, as he traversed the room, that the various scroll compartments were labeled and catalogued for ease of access, and his attention kept wandering.

  The Ancient World. He read the various categories: Art … Architecture … Entomology … Dinosaurs … Fosils … Machines … Psychology … Religion … Space Program (Space? What did that mean? Empty space? Open space?)… Technology … War … Alfred's footsteps lagged, came to a stumbling halt. He gazed about him in ever-increasing awe. Nothing more than a library, he'd said to himself. What a fool! This was the library. The Great Library of the Sartan. His people on Arianus had assumed it was lost in the Sundering. Alfred looked to another wall: The History of the Sartan. And, below that, much less extensive, though with numerous sub-categories: The History of the Patryns.

  Alfred sat down rather suddenly. Fortunately, a chair happened to be in the vicinity or he would have fallen to the floor. All thoughts of leaving vanished from his head. What wealth! What richness! What fabulous treasure! The story of a world he knew only in his dreams, a world that had been whole, then was wrenched violently apart. The story of his people and that of their enemy. Undoubtedly, the events that led up to the Sundering, Council meetings, discussions …

  “I could spend days here,” Alfred said to himself, dazed and happy, happier than he could remember being in vast eons of time. “Days! Years!”

  He felt moved to express his homage for this vault of knowledge, for those who had kept it safe, perhaps sacrificed objects precious to them personally to save what would be of immense value to future generations. Rising to his feet, he was about to perform a solemn dance (much to the dog's amusement) when a voice, dry and brittle, shattered his euphoria.

  “I might have known. What are you doing here?”

  The dog leapt up, hackles bristling, began barking frantically at nothing.

  Alfred, the very breath scared out of him, clutched weakly at a table and stared around him, eyes bulging.

  “Who … who's there? …” he gasped.

  One figure, then two, materialized, in front of him.

  “Samah!' Alfred heaved a sigh of relief, collapsed into a chair. “Ramu …” Removing a handkerchief from a shabby pocket, Alfred mopped his head.

  The head of the Council and his son, faces grim and accusing, came to stand in front of Alfred.

  “I repeat—what are you doing here?”

  Alfred looked up, began to tremble in every limb. The sweat chilled on his body. Samah was obviously, dangerously, angry.

  “I… I was looking for the way out…” replied Alfred, meekly.

  “Yes, I imagine you were.” The Councillor's tone was cold, biting. Alfred shrank away from it. “What else were you looking for?”

  “N-nothing … I—”

  “Then why come here, to the library? Shut that beast up!” Samah snappe
d.

  Alfred reached out a shaking hand, grabbed hold of the dog by the scruff of its neck, and pulled it near. “It's all right, boy,” he said in a low voice, though he wondered why the dog should believe him when he didn't believe himself.

  The dog quieted, at Alfred's touch; its barking changed to a rumbling growl, deep in its chest. But it never took its eyes off Samah and, occasionally, when it thought it could get away with it, its lip curled, showing a fine set of sharp teeth.

  “Why did you come to the library? What were you looking for?” Samah demanded again. He emphasized his words with a blow of his hand upon the table, causing both it and Alfred to shiver.

  “It was an accident! I… I came here by accident. That is,” Alfred amended, withering beneath Samah's burning gaze, “I came to this building on purpose. I was hot… you see … and the shade … I mean, I didn't know it was a library … and I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be here …”

  “There are runes of prohibition on the door. Or at least there were, the last time I looked.” Samah stated. “Has something happened to them?”

  “N-no,” Alfred admitted, gulping. “I saw them. I only meant to take a quick peep inside. Curiosity. It's a terrible failing of mine. But… well… I tripped, you see, and fell through the door. Then the dog jumped on me and my feet must have … that is, I think I probably … I'm not sure how, but I guess I … kicked the door shut,” he finished miserably.

  “Accidentally?”

  “Oh, yes, of course!” Alfred babbled. “Quite … by accident.” His mouth was drying up. He was drying up. He coughed. “And … and then, you see, I couldn't find the way out. So I came in here, searching for it—”

  “There is no way out,” Samah said.

  “There isn't?” Alfred blinked like a startled owl.

  “No. Not unless one has the key-sigil. And I am the only one with the key. You obtain it from me.”

  “I—I'm sorry,” Alfred stammered. “I was just curious. I didn't mean any harm.”

  “Curiosity—a mensch failing. I might have known you would be afflicted by it. Ramu, check to see that nothing has been disturbed.”