The Serpent's Shadow em-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  This was as much a staged setting as the temple, but here she was the focus of the room. A deep-pile, figured carpet laid over a padding of more carpets so worn as to be worthless created a floor that didn't even squeak when she walked over it. In this room, all the walls were swathed in dark maroon fabric that was gathered together at the midpoint of the ceiling, like a tent. From that point depended a pierced-metal lantern fitted with colored glass panels. This was the sole source of light in the room, and the colored light, red and blue, served to confuse more than it revealed. At the back, she had made use of a little alcove, pulling aside the fabric and creating a canopy above it. Creating a platform within the alcove and piling it with pillows gave her a kind of dais on which she sat. Petitioners standing before her were at her eye level. If they chose to sit, they had to do so on one of the several flat cushions placed in front of her, and so would be much below her. On either side of the platform were incense holders.

  Shivani arranged herself in full lotus position on her platform, and gestured to the servant who had followed her to light the incense burners on either side of it. The drugs she had inhaled earlier had worn off, leaving her mind clear, making everything sharp-edged. She made a pattern in the air, whispered a few words as the smoke from the braziers rose about her. There was more hashish mixed in with the strong incense; not enough to bother her, bolstered as she now was against its effects by the subtle spell, but enough to fuddle her visitors.

  She used every weapon she could get against the English sahibs, especially when she had one in her view that could prove more than merely useful.

  Such a one was this, who stepped into the room with all the arrogant confidence of one who felt he had the right to anything that met his eye.

  This man was not the sort—outwardly—to be expected in this place. His type was of the sort that figured in advertisements and tales of "manly men." Tall, with hair of short-cropped, new-minted gold, the body of a warrior of sorts, with ruddy cheeks, a small mustache, and a perfectly pressed suit, he was the very epitome of everything Shivani hated.

  He was used to his steps sounding firmly on the floor, and was slightly nonplussed when they made not a whisper on the soft carpets. He was accustomed to having someone meeting him when he entered a room. It took him aback to be forced to scan a darkened chamber for the person he had come to see, and then have the disadvantage that she could see him clearly, but he could not see very much of her. He didn't even notice the drug taking hold of him, making him a little more clumsy (and self-conscious) when he stood before her and had to decide between the indignity of facing her on his feet, like a child about to be chastised, or sitting uncomfortably on the ground.

  He finally chose the ground, and she was much amused, watching him folding his long legs as he tried to find something like a position he could hold for any length of time.

  All this time, she had not said a word to him. Only when he was seated did she acknowledge his presence.

  "Speak," she said. Nothing more. No questions, no greetings, only the barest of beginnings. And an order—not a request, nor the expected query of "How may I serve you?" He was here as the petitioner; it was she who would be served, and she would drive that home to him with even the tiniest of gestures.

  Nothing loath—and aided, no doubt, by the drugs in his brain—he carried on for some time. He began with his importance (largely existing only in his own eyes, although the one claim to status he had, he did not mention), his occult prowess (minimal), his knowledge (surface), and ended in a demand that she add to his enlightenment (as she had expected).

  But this man was not quite such a fool as others of his sort had been, and Shivani gave him a different answer than she had the rest. He had seen through to the heart of the group headed by one called "Crawly" (or something like it), and had found it rotten. He had gone to the woman Blat-sky and discovered that the only things she had to offer were stolen and discarded bits of true wisdom, overlaid with a tinsel-dross of half-truth, flattery, and lies to make it pretty and palatable. He did have enough native talent in the occult to see that she had real power. So instead of giving him half-truth herself, and implying she could grant him things she had no intention of granting, she gave him a less embroidered version than the one she had caught her mirror-servant with.

  But first, she laughed scornfully.

  "So, the novice seeks to be Archbishop before he has even made his first vows!" she taunted him in flawless English, which probably startled him the more. "Either you are a fool, or you take me for one. So which is it, O Lord of the World? Are you the fool, or do you think you can deceive one who can see into your empty head and heart?" She tilted her head mockingly, and waited for his answer.

  He gritted his teeth, but did not get up and walk out, nor snap back an immediate insult.

  "So, you have some self-control, at least," she said when he made no reply. "That is better than your erstwhile friends who follow the Dawn." He started, and stared at her, the whites showing momentarily about his eyes. Oh yes, I know of them, and of you, and all you have said and done with them; why should this surprise you?" she continued. "I have what they only pretend to, as you know. Well. You have ordered me about, and you have seen what that brings you. Now what will you do?"

  What he did was the unusual but not entirely unexpected step of humbling himself. He bowed his proud head to her, although the stiffness in his neck was due entirely to pride and not to muscle strain.

  "I apologize for my poor manners," he said at last, after taking himself in hand and subduing his temper and his arrogance.

  "That is an improvement." She nodded, indicating that he should go on.

  "I—" He gritted his teeth again; she heard them grinding. "I beg that you should accept me as a disciple."

  "And what will you offer me for the privilege?" she asked, again surprising him. "What, why should you be astonished? What I have is of value. Every Master is entitled to a fee for taking an Apprentice; the difference between me and those you have sought out in the past is that I am honest about requiring that fee, and I have far more to teach you than they have. You have so far given me no indication that you have any intention of making an exchange of value for value."

  His indignation was evident in every movement of his body—but he reached into his pocket for his wallet before she stopped him with an abrupt gesture of rejection.

  "Money? I think not, Englishman," she said sharply. "What need have I of the dross of your money? My Goddess grants anything I need; I need not contaminate myself with your leavings to supply my wants." She waved her hand around her chamber. "Look about you! I have no hordes of idiot English hangers-on, and you see how I live. That I choose to dwell here and not in some 'fashionable district' is a matter of my convenience and privacy, and not because I cannot afford to live there. You must offer me something better than your abominable English pounds and pence."

  Clearly he had never found anyone who so forcefully rejected his money before. Shivani wasn't at all surprised at that; the Blat woman's begging habits were a matter of mirth among her dacoits, one or two of whom had penetrated the ranks of her servants before they learned just how empty her promises were. And the Crawly-man regularly milked the largesse of his disciples, though with a little more finesse.

  Now the petitioner's mood shifted from indignation to puzzlement. "Then what do you want?" he asked, so thoroughly discomfited that he had become, had he but known it, as malleable as she could have wished. She leaned forward; he mirrored her action, his ruddy cheeks pale with strain. He wanted what she had, more than wanted it. Under the influence of her manner and the drugs, he craved it. He would not yet do anything to get it, but that would come.

  "Nothing small," she replied in a low voice. "Only what is proper. For the reward of becoming my disciple, I demand no less than your service, your devotion, and your obedience in all things."

  Over the course of the next hour, they bargained, but it was hopeless on his side of the
bargain from the moment that he had asked what she wanted. In the end, she had him. He didn't know she had him, body and soul, but she did. He went away with orders to carry out; only when he had fulfilled them would she teach him anything.

  For now his orders were simple things, and so far as he knew, harmless. He was merely to procure a list of addresses from the pension rolls of an importation company—one which imported opium as well as tea, and dealt in jewels which were not always honestly gotten—in which he was a not-so-petty official. When he brought it back to her, she would have a list of men who had worked in one of the many companies that traded in Indian misery, in this case, headquartered in Calcutta. From this, she could choose potential victims.

  He protested over her instructions, and blustered, but they both knew it was merely for form's sake. He had not enough imagination to construe what she wanted with the list, and even if he had known, he probably would not have believed she had the means to carry out her plans. He went away knowing that there is always a price for anything that is genuine. That was the first step in what might become an extensive education, if he returned.

  She summoned her handmaiden to escort the man to the street. The girl came with one of the dacoits, which was wise of her, in case the English decided to take out his humiliation on his escort. The dacoit was the one who took the man away; the handmaiden remained with her mistress.

  "Come," Shivani said, and returned to her private rooms to take off her ridiculous guise and assume a more comfortable set of garments.

  There was, of course, the chance that the man would get his wits about him and not make a second visit; that was the chance she always had to take. You did not capture an ape with shouting and chasing after it. You caught it by careful planning, tempting it in with things it could not resist, and seducing it with pleasures it was loath to do without. Only when the pleasures had become necessities did you close the door of the trap.

  If he did not return, there would be others like him. This one was useful in that he had already tried and tested other groups in this place who purported to have some dealings with the Unseen—and he had access to those "lists." It would be much easier to choose those who should die first, if she had those lists.

  Of course, if all went according to her plans, eventuany there would not be an English soul on this island that was not dead or a slave to the shrine of Kali Durga (or both)—but until that bright day dawned, it would be convenient, so very convenient, to have the lists.

  MAYA bound her head with a strip of toweling to absorb the inevitable drops of perspiration from her forehead, then donned an enveloping apron that had been bleached in lye, then boiled. There was no proper sink for the surgeons to wash at in the female operating theater, only a basin and a pitcher of water, but she scrubbed her hands and arms as best she could anyway, using the harshest soap obtainable. The atomizer was full of carbolic acid to disinfect, and she would see to it that before this operation was over, it was empty.

  "Maya," said Doctor O'Reilly, as he dried his scrubbed hands on a scrupulously clean towel, "thank you. This is not an easy case of mine that you've taken."

  She turned to smile wanly at the Irishman, who, not being a surgeon, was acting as her anesthetist. O'Reilly's expression betrayed his strain despite the concealment of his red beard and mustache; he was only too correct that this was "not an easy case."

  "After the way you helped with that little problem of mine, I could hardly refuse, now, could I? Besides, you know what anyone else would do with this girl."

  "Take appendix, uterus, and child, without a second thought," O'Reilly said grimly. "And she a good Catholic girl, and this her first child! It would break her heart."

  "If she lived through it," Maya replied, just as grimly. "Doctor, if I can save this girl without removing anything but what's diseased, you know I will."

  The patient in question, who was one of O'Reilly's, a young Irish woman who had been brought in thinking she was miscarrying of her first child, was in fact in the throes of an attack of acute appendicitis. She might come through this attack without surgery to remove the diseased organ, but neither her doctor nor Maya thought it at all likely. When this had been made plain to her—and the fact that she must have surgery immediately—her first thought had been for her unborn child. She had begged Maya, clutching Maya's skirt with both hands, to save her baby.

  She was with her priest now, for even now the removal of an appendix was a risky procedure. If it had burst—if it was perforated—and the infection had spread within the body cavity—well, there was very little chance that she would survive. Her seven-month pregnancy made things doubly complicated. Maya hoped that the priest was human enough to give her absolution before she must go under the knife; whatever such blessing meant or did not mean to the girl's immortal soul, it would surely make her calmer.

  As O'Reilly had pointed out, any other surgeon would simply excise the uterus and its contents without a pause, simply to remove that complication. After all, the girl was a charity patient, a nobody, and if she complained, no one would care. It wasn't as if she was a woman of good birth who was expected to produce an heir for a family with money or social standing. She'd even be better off without the handicap of breeding a brat a year—

  Or so the male Protestant physicians would say. And never mind how she would feel.

  The Female Operating Theater, located in the attic of the Female Wing, was stiflingly hot now that it was late into July. Why they couldn't have used the regular operating theater—

  Because the women cry and carry on so, it might disturb the male patients. As if the men don't cry and carry on just as much. Or—women are embarrassed to be prepared for surgery in the same room as the men. As if, at that point, they are thinking of anything but the surgery to come.

  The excuses made no sense, for they were only that, excuses. But at least, being at the top of the building, there was not as much room for observers here—and the light was excellent, for the theater had been provided with two broad skylights.

  Since it was Maya who operated here today, it was Maya who made the rules for this case. She had abolished the practice of leaving the bloodstained aprons on hooks to be used and reused until they were stiff. Aprons were bleached with lye and boiled, then wrapped in clean paper and stored here until use. After the conclusion of an operation, used aprons were taken away immediately to be boiled and bleached again. Water was never left in the pitcher; it was brought fresh before each surgery. Physician and assistants scrubbed hands and arms up to the elbow— in Maya's case, higher than that—and the carbolic atomizer was as much a fixture as the ether mask. Maya used only her own personal set of surgical implements, because she made sure to keep her own scalpels sharp and sterile, and didn't trust those left for the use of others.

  And all those preparations would be in vain if that poor girl's appendix was not intact.

  "Bring her in," Maya instructed, when her hands were just short of raw, O'Reilly and the nurse went to fetch the girl, and Maya saw to the laying out of her surgical instruments on the tray beside the wooden table.

  O'Reilly carried the girl in his arms into the antechamber, wrapped in a clean sheet. She was in too much pain to walk, and in any case, Maya didn't want her to do anything that might stress that appendix. He put the patient down on the narrow table, giving her a reassuring smile before placing the prepared mask over her mouth and nose and pouring the anesthetic on it.

  When she was asleep, they wheeled her into the operating theater and lifted her onto the immovable table. Maya adjusted the sheet she'd been wrapped in to expose as little as possible of anything other than the surgical site, then wiped the site itself clean with carbolic solution. Some physicians not only operated on patients while clothed in their street clothes, but on patients who were also still in their street clothes. and as unwashed as they had come in. This girl had been stripped and bathed by the nurses in the outer room, then wrapped in a sheet that, like the aprons. was bo
iled and bleached and kept wrapped in sterile paper until use. The plain, deal table had an inclined plane at one end to elevate the girl's head, and was covered with a piece of brown oilcloth. Once again, Maya's rules held sway here today; the oilcloth was new and had been wiped down with carbolic before being placed on the table.

  As usual, the theater, was full—there was a reason why it was called a "theater." The actual amount of floor space devoted to the operation was small in comparison with the tiers of stand-places rising for four rows, at an angle of sixty degrees, so that those standing in each tier could have an unobstructed view of the operation below. The students' entrance was at the top tier, and a metal rail on which to lean ran at the edge of each tier. It was the students' business to attend every operation he (or rarely, she) possibly could, so even Maya's operations were fully attended, and she was by no means a famous surgeon.