Scales of the Serpent

by Richard A. Knaak

  However, neither could he say that it had been spawned by anything good.

  Staring into his brother’s penetrating black eyes, Uldyssian snarled, “I only understand that he and so many others are dead…but whether it’s more my fault or the Triune’s, I doubt I’ll ever decide.”

  “That was not to what I was referring—” But Mendeln got no further. Uldyssian shoved past the black-robed figure and resumed his trek into the temple. The others followed at his heels, ever leaving around Uldyssian’s brother a gap akin to that which they made for their leader. However, in Mendeln’s case, of late it was as much out of an unwillingness to be near the sallow figure as it was respect for his place. Even the untouched could detect the oddness of the younger son of Diomedes.

  “I’ve shown you the gift,” Uldyssian declared to those behind him, while at the same time mentally seeking out hidden dangers ahead. “Remember to use it. It’s your life. It’s you.”

  At that moment, he sensed them coming. A chill ran down his spine and he prayed that his people had listened…or else many more were about to perish terribly.

  He turned to face the path ahead again. The vast chamber in which they stood was the central gathering place for the faithful before the sermons of the three orders began. Towering statues of the Triune’s guiding spirits stood watch over the separate entryways leading to where each of the orders met. They were robed, ethereal beings with only vague countenances. Bala on the left, with its hammer and the bag containing the seeds of all life. Dialon on the right, bearing at its breast the Tablets of Order.

  Mefis in the middle…always Mefis…carrying nothing but cupping its hands as if about to gently receive an innocent baby.

  A baby to be slaughtered, Uldyssian always imagined.

  And with such an image burning in his mind, he thrust out a warning hand to the rest just as all three doors opened and the grotesque, bestial figures in ebony armor came rushing forth. They screamed their bloodlust as they waved their weapons high, and although there were far fewer of them than the invaders, they were no less daunting, especially to Uldyssian, who knew of them best. There was that about them that did not speak of mortal flesh anymore, but rather something long overdue for the grave. Uldyssian sensed the sudden dismay among his followers and knew that he had to show them that, while sinister, the morlu were not indestructible.

  But before he could strike, a brilliant, blinding light flared before his eyes. Letting out a cry, Uldyssian staggered into one of those just behind him. Once more, in his concern for the others, he had overestimated himself. He should have expected the priests to have something cunning yet planned in conjunction with this new attack.

  A pair of hands dragged Uldyssian out of the way just as a heavy form collided with his right side. Uldyssian spun around, then tumbled to the floor.

  As he fought to clear his vision, horrific cries rose all around. The terrifying sound of crunching bone sent renewed chills through him. He heard a deep-throated laugh and recognized the demonic voice of a morlu savoring the carnage he caused.

  Uldyssian had not expected to find any of the Triune’s ghoulish servants in Toraja. He had assumed that their kind was for the most part relegated to the vast temple near the capital and that those who had followed Malic had been exceptions sent out due to the Primus’s interest in the son of Diomedes. Now Uldyssian wondered if each of the temples had its own contingent, which boded ill. That meant far more morlu than he could have ever imagined existing…

  His eyes began to focus. It infuriated Uldyssian that for some reason he could not speed up the process. Too slowly, shapes began to coalesce.

  And one of those shapes—filling his gaze—was a morlu reaching for him.

  For his bulk, the armored figure moved astonishingly swift. He seized Uldyssian by the collar and dragged his prey up to eye level.

  Black pits were all that existed physically of the morlu’s eyes, yet Uldyssian knew that they saw him better than any mortal orbs. He had witnessed enough during the bitter struggle in Master Ethon’s home to understand just how malevolent and powerful were the forces that animated the ebony-helmed fighters.

  “You…are the one…” his assailant grunted in that voice that could not quite pass for that of anything living. “The one…”

  Steeling himself, Uldyssian concentrated—but again a brilliant light flared before his eyes. Once more, he was completely blinded.

  The morlu laughed harder—and then let out a peculiar grunt. He released his hold on the unseeing Uldyssian, who just managed to keep from falling and cracking his skull on the floor.

  Shaking his head, Uldyssian focused his every effort on seeing. The world came into focus once more…and there he beheld Serenthia, a spear gripped tight in her hands, skewering the morlu as if he wore no armor nor weighed an ounce. The spear blazed silver and Serenthia’s black hair fluttered as if alive. Her blue eyes, always radiant, now burned with utter determination. Her normally ivory skin was flushed and her red lips were twisted in grim satisfaction. Uldyssian did not doubt that she imagined Achilios’s death as she drove the spear deeper into the twitching, armored figure. She had only just before Achilios’s murder come to love the hunter after years of seeking Uldyssian’s favor, knowledge that still filled him with shame.

  One of the very first to accept Uldyssian’s gift, Serenthia was now also among those most proficient in drawing it forth. Again, Uldyssian knew that much of that ability had to do with her loss, but even he was astonished by her amazing effort now.

  The morlu clawed desperately at her, the hungry grin now replaced by something approaching fear. The spear allowed Serenthia to hold him at bay.

  She looked anything but the daughter of a country merchant now. Her simple cloth blouse and skirt had given way to the wrapped, colorful dress of a Torajian woman. Indeed, with her long, sleek raven hair, she looked as if she carried some of their blood in her. The dress was designed to flow loose at the legs, and instead of boots, Serenthia also wore the strapped sandals more common to the people here.

  The morlu shook violently, his massive form abruptly beginning to shrivel. Within the space of a breath, he looked even more late for the grave, only his wrinkled white skin now enshrouding his bones. Yet, still Serenthia kept him impaled. Her expression took on an unsettling eagerness…

  “Serry!” Uldyssian called, using the childhood version of her name that he had only recently ceased favoring. He feared where her outrage was taking her.

  His voice cut through the din…and through her fury. Serenthia glanced back at him, then, with a shiver, the morlu again. A tear slipped unbidden from her, one that had Achilios written on it.

  She tugged on the spear, which slid easily out of her foe. The armored villain dropped like a puppet suddenly bereft of strings. Bones and armor scattered across the marble tile.

  Serenthia looked at Uldyssian with relief and gratitude. He said nothing more to her, only nodding his understanding as he rose to see to the others.

  As he feared, the trap had claimed more lives. There were bodies strewn about and although many were morlu, so, too, were there Torajians and Parthans. Uldyssian saw the slack face of a Parthan woman who had been there on the day when—near the town square where first he had preached—he had healed a young boy with a malformed arm. That brought bitter memories of the lad and his mother, Bartha, for they had both perished when the townsfolk had come to his defense against Lucion. The boy had been one of the demon’s several random victims and Bartha—stalwart Bartha—had died of a broken heart soon after.

  So much blood…he thought. So much of it due to me…and their belief in what I bring to them…

  But then silence swept over the chamber and Uldyssian realized that the fighting was again, for the moment, over. The morlu had not laid waste to the intruders; it was the beasts of Lucion who had been utterly decimated. They had taken lives—too many lives—but not so much as their own numbers.

  That in itself was a miracle, but far
more important, the others had taken up both his and Serenthia’s example. It had not been weapons alone that had brought the morlu to bay, but the same gift that Uldyssian wielded, albeit on a less focused scale. One warrior had been neatly severed in two, the cut so clean at the waist that it looked as if all the morlu needed was for someone to put him back together to reanimate him. Another lay far above, his corpse dangling limply over Mefis’s outstretched hands. Scores more lay scattered about in all sorts of macabre conditions, a striking image that, despite their own losses, Uldyssian hoped would bring heart to his surviving companions.

  Surveying the dead again, Uldyssian suddenly choked. The triangular tiles covering the floor were now splattered in black bile…or whatever it was that passed for morlu blood. But mixed with it was the precious life fluids of those who had either acted too slowly or had hesitated in their trust of their gift. Uldyssian mourned each and cursed once more the fact that all his vaunted might could not resurrect them.

  And that, for reasons he did not understand, made him look again for Mendeln.

  He found his brother hovering over not their dead comrades, but rather two morlu who had somehow become twisted around one another. Uldyssian’s brow arched at this enterprising action and wondered just who among his followers had managed it.

  Mendeln looked up from whatever it was he was doing. His generally unperturbed expression now took on a darker cast.

  “This is not over,” he announced needlessly. However, it was his next words that most set the elder son of Diomedes on edge. “Uldyssian…there are demons here.”

  No sooner had he said it than Uldyssian also sensed their nearby presence. The foulness of the morlu…themselves of demonic make, although of mortal flesh…had masked from him the dire fact.

  Uldyssian also sensed just where they were…and that they awaited him.

  He had faced other demons besides Lucion, none of them proving as much a threat as the Primus himself. Yet, that these new ones waited so patiently—something hard for all but the most cunning of them to do—further stirred his suspicions. They knew of him, knew what he had become…

  He had only one choice. “Mendeln—Serenthia—keep watch on the others! No one is to follow me.”

  His brother nodded, but the woman frowned. “We won’t let you go alone—”

  Uldyssian stopped her with a glance. “I don’t want another Achilios—no one follows, especially you two.”

  “Uldyssian—”

  Mendeln took her arm. “Do not argue with him, Serenthia. This must be.”

  He said it in such a manner that even his brother paused to look at him. Mendeln offered nothing more, though, as had become typical of him of late.

  However enigmatic the statement, Uldyssian had already learned to heed such comments. “No one follows,” he repeated, staring down everyone. “Or it won’t be the wrath of demons you face.”

  Hoping that they would listen but still fearing that some—especially Serenthia—might yet disobey, Uldyssian crossed the threshold of the door through which Dialon’s followers would have gone. The moment he was clear, the door slammed behind him, just as he knew that so too did the other pair.

  He had sealed the way, at least temporarily. Even Mendeln and Serenthia would find it difficult to overcome his effort. So long as he could, Uldyssian would keep the path to the underground chambers—the area where worship of the Triune’s true masters took place—barred from anyone else. Too many had perished for him already.

  He sensed the demons nearer, although their exact locations were not known. In truth, they were only a part of the reason that Uldyssian wanted only himself at risk.

  Perhaps that had been what Mendeln had meant, Uldyssian suddenly realized. Perhaps with his own strange abilities his brother had also detected the more subtle yet distinctive third presence awaiting Uldyssian…a presence that was much, much more powerful than a mere senior priest and known so very well to both of them.

  A presence that could only be Lilith.

  Two

  All around Mendeln, the voices whispered. The awful truth concerning this place was best known to him, who could hear the victims’ own words.

  So many, he thought. So many wrongly done in. The Balance is much askew because of this place alone.

  Uldyssian’s brother did not understand exactly just what “the Balance” was, but knew that the horrible events that had taken place in the inner recesses of the temple over the past years had certainly befouled “it.” That disturbed him even more than all the deaths this night, although their cumulative effect was no good thing, either.

  And then there was also Lilith…or Lylia, as he, Serenthia, and most painfully of all, Uldyssian, had known her.

  Serenthia stalked back and forth like an impatient cat, her eyes ever on the doors so effectively “locked” by his brother. The rest of Uldyssian’s followers eagerly spread through the chambers, tearing apart the grand trappings as they went along despite the fact that the fires consuming other portions of the building would eventually do the same here. Mendeln, aware that victory was truly not theirs yet, paid great heed to the voices, even those of the dead priests and Peace Warders. Not the morlu, of course, for they were creatures long dead and so from them there was only emptiness. He listened very carefully, focusing on some that seemed more relevant than others.

  How simple we were, Mendeln thought almost wisfully. Farmers and brothers in a small village, destined to live out our lives tilling the soil and raising livestock. It was Lilith’s fault that it had come to all this, Lilith, who had chosen Uldyssian to be her pawn in some otherworldly struggle between demons and angels over a pitiful little rock called by them Sanctuary.

  Mendeln’s world.

  He did not consider either himself or his brother to be champions of Mankind, but Uldyssian especially had been cast into a role he could now never discard. The fate of everything apparently depended upon what he chose to do. Mendeln could only try to be there to lend whatever questionable support that he could.

  His musings were interrupted by a deep sense of foreboding. The voices cut off, save for one that did not belong with them. It was stronger, alive, and one that had comforted Mendeln as much as it had guided him through his own mysterious transformation.

  Beware the hands of the Three…it said. They grasp for everything, then crush it in their all-consuming grip…

  Mendeln’s brow wrinkled at this esoteric comment. Of what useful knowledge was such—

  “Serenthia!” he shouted with more animation than any had heard from him in days. “All of you! Stay back from the statues—”

  But his warning came too late for some. As if of living flesh, the gargantuan effigies bent forward. Bala’s heavy hammer came down on two Torajians, crushing them beneath it. Dialon battered away a hapless Parthan with the edge of one of the tablets.

  Mefis…Mefis seized a woman and squeezed hard. Even Mendeln found himself nauseated by the monstrous results.

  With a scraping of stone that echoed through the huge chamber like the combined moans of the dead, the statues descended among the invaders. The once confident band now retreated back to the doors through which they had come, but those doors, too, were also now shut…and not because of Uldyssian.

  “Lilith…” he gasped just as massive Dialon turned a stony gaze his way. The colossus raised his hammer. “Very much Lilith…”

  Through the empty worship hall he strode, eyes and other senses ever on alert. Androgynous effigies of Dialon stared down at Uldyssian, who thought that the supposedly benevolent images looked more mocking than anything else.

  What great demon are you, Dialon? he grimly wondered. What’s your true name?

  In the outer chambers, torches in niches in the walls had well illuminated everything. In here, though, only a few round oil lamps dangling from the arched ceiling gave any light and that not much. Moreover, the path ahead looked even darker, finally fading into utter blackness perhaps ten yards or so ahead.
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  Yet still Uldyssian moved on. He passed by and under the huge statues, entering the passage that he knew would lead him to her.

  Just as she desired.

  The beautiful, aristocratic vision that had first graced his wondering eyes what seemed so long ago still remained strong with him even after the discovery of the dread truth and the subsequent betrayal. The thick, long blond tresses, often artfully bound atop the head as befitting a noble-woman, the glittering emerald eyes, the slim perfect lips—they would never leave his imagination.

  But with them also remained the nightmarish recollection of an inhuman seductress, a creature with scaled flesh, vicious quills for hair, and a tail like the reptile she resembled.

  “Lylia…” he muttered, the name both a curse and a yearning. “Damn you, Lilith…”

  Something scurried over his foot. Startled more because he had not sensed it rather than from the thing itself, Uldyssian squinted. It was only a spider, albeit a fair-sized one. It was hardly surprising to find such a creature in this place. Uldyssian immediately forgot it, his concerns with vermin much larger and more deadly.

  The last of the failing oil lamps gave way. Darkness prevailed. All this was a show for him, he realized. He had come hunting what he considered evil and so they were granting him the appropriate mood. This was in some ways a game to them and that knowledge further infuriated the human. They cared nothing for all the lives lost, not even of those who had willingly served them.

  Something got into his face. He swatted at it, then felt a tiny creature crawling on the back of his hand. Uldyssian brushed it off, aware that it was a second spider.

  Deciding this was a move in the game he could do without, Uldyssian summoned light.

  The first time he had managed this feat, it had been due, Uldyssian later understood, to Lilith’s presence. Now, it was as familiar to him as breathing. But the pale white glow he called into being now was not nearly as powerful as it should have been. The sphere barely revealed the stone corridor more than two yards ahead. He could sense much farther than that, but natural instinct made him want to see it, too.