The Company of Glass

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘They’re warm,’ said the man in a languid voice, as if he had not heard Xiriel speak. ‘They’ve been basking in the sun all day. Now that we are here, they seek out our heat instinctively. They are …’ He paused, and his eyes rolled back momentarily. Se sighed, and when he spoke again his voice was pitched lower. ‘They are fond of warm orifices.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Ah, coward. You can’t begin to imagine what you’re missing. They are extremely supple. When the smaller ones wrap you and flex, it feels better than any woman’s cunt, I assure you. See these yellow ones? They are trained. Lie down and they will come to you.’

  Xiriel was feeling the effects of the flower, this much was certain. He didn’t step into the snake pit so much as he seemed to deliquesce into the reptilian flesh. A myriad of fine and delicate sensations enveloped his skin, and a fabulous smell rose up from among the snakes; he couldn’t identify it, but it aroused him beyond words.

  ‘It is the Animal Magic,’ Se told him. ‘It is sacred to my Clan. We never share it with outsiders. But you won’t be an outsider for long.’

  His gold-green eyes dragged at Xiriel like a tide, irresistible. Xiriel clasped his outstretched hand and let himself be pulled through the heavy, sleek mass. Se’s skin was pale and shining beneath its armour of snakes; as they moved they revealed and then covered sections of muscle and skeleton, delineating the body piecemeal. Two golden snakes had enveloped his phallus with their curves, endowing his genitals with a size out of all proportion to the rest of his body. He held out a slender golden creature of the same type to Xiriel.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take one. They know what to do.’

  But Xiriel could barely move. One of the largest constrictors had wound itself around his torso and had restricted the movement of his shoulders; his legs had long ago been taken out from under him, and he felt now like he was swimming in a sea of pressure and smell. The constrictor’s body vibrated slightly as though thrumming to some deep bass music beyond the threshold of hearing.

  ‘Of course, they can be scary,’ his tutor murmured as a banded red viper slithered across his lips. ‘That is part of the thrill.’

  Xiriel didn’t know whether or not to struggle. The constrictor was pulsing tighter around his body; it had not interfered with his breathing yet, but it had a tight grip on one leg, and his range of movement was limited. The other snakes moved randomly against him. Several had worked their way inside his clothes; he wondered what had happened to the yellow one until he felt its greeting, which was more intimate than anything he’d ever experienced. He began to gasp with excitement.

  ‘You are quite strong,’ Se observed. ‘The constrictors don’t even go near me. They know I am no match for them. This one senses your strength and she’s challenging you.’

  ‘Well,’ Xiriel gulped, trying to laugh, ‘At least it’s a she.’

  The other man’s eyes narrowed. He stood up and the snakes suddenly fell away from him.

  ‘This is how we learn to fight,’ he said. ‘It is how we learn to love, also. They are almost the same thing, and both involve initiation rites.’

  He came closer to Xiriel and began to stroke the great constrictor.

  Meanwhile the golden snake worked up and down the length of Xiriel’s penis, contracting rhythmically. It felt like a woman having an orgasm, only stronger; Xiriel’s hips began to fire out of control, but every time he came to the brink, the snake squeezed him hard and his erection subsided slightly.

  ‘It’s good, yes?’ Se’s whisper tickled his ear. Xiriel tried to answer but only an inarticulate noise came from his mouth.

  ‘Don’t come,’ Se said. ‘It gets better.’

  The yellow snake went back to work. Again the stimulation increased, and again he began to gallop towards climax.

  ‘No,’ the other man advised. ‘Don’t.’

  Somehow the injunction only made Xiriel more frantic. Every time the word ‘don’t’ was spoken, he nearly lost it; and every time the snake gripped him and pulled him back against his will. Then it would begin again.

  This time as he was beginning to reach a peak, something slithered lightly along the inside of his thigh, between his legs and across his scrotum. It penetrated him briefly, then retreated. He heard himself bellowing with pleasure, and he was entered again, and yet again. The intensity of sensation shocked him to the point of blindness.

  ‘Don’t come,’ whispered the other. But there was nothing he could do this time. It was too late, and now the constrictor was around his neck, preventing blood and air from flowing – ‘Don’t come!’ – and he exploded. His body transcended itself, soared exponentially higher and higher as if the release would never end, the ecstatic flood unstoppable. He lost consciousness.

  He wasn’t sure when or where he came back, but his body was still out of his range of command, tingling and sparking. From somewhere distant he heard his companion chuckle.

  ‘You had better move fast. You have been weakened, and now they will kill you and eat you.’

  This didn’t make sense and he felt inclined to ignore the words, but they tickled at his mind even as pleasure continued to flow sluggishly through him. His mind was much happier when it wasn’t thinking – why had he never noticed this before, or if he had, why had he forgotten about it? He felt sure that it would be best if he stayed this way forever. The constrictor was still wrapped around his throat; yet it had also managed to contort itself so as to stare at him with both eyes at such close range that he had to cross his eyes to focus on it. Its tongue began to slide in and out more rapidly between its jaws, tasting him. Again he tried to take in what had been said, but his body was still captive to ecstasy and he only wanted to laugh. He was breathing hard, soaked in sweat, light as dust in sunlight. The snake tightened fractionally.

  Kill. That was the word Se had used. They will kill you and eat you.

  It had to be a joke.

  The snake’s mouth yawned open.

  ‘Here,’ Se remarked, ‘comes your chance to get power.’

  The Causeway

  ‘We are still in the black island,’ Pallo whispered. Below they could hear the soldiers passing through, but the light had gone out and they could no longer see through the rock where the light shone. ‘But it’s got these displacement connections inside it that can take you to other islands in the chain, depending on which way you go. Remember how we seemed to skip when we got across the rope before?’

  ‘Sort of …’

  ‘Like how Jai Khalar displaces parts of itself?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I get it.’

  ‘Well, if I can get us up to the surface using the correct way, we’ll be able to skip to the last island. There’s a causeway there that leads to Jai Pendu.’

  ‘How do you know these things? The maps in your book are all burned.’

  ‘They’re burned because she put me inside the book before she set fire to it. I’ve been to all these places while they were going up in flames.’

  ‘Never mind!’ Istar said, holding up a hand. ‘I don’t want to know. Can you get us there without getting lost?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She gestured for him to lead the way. Through the darkness they climbed and turned and trudged, until at last they emerged on to the smooth grass of one of the most seaward of the Floating Lands. The storm had cleared and the sun was low on the horizon.

  ‘Where’s the army?’ Istar asked, looking around and seeing the other islands all empty. She couldn’t spot the black island from this position. ‘Where have they all gone?’

  Pallo didn’t answer. He had seemed calm to Istar until now, but when she looked a little closer she saw how pale he had gone beneath his sun-gilded skin. His posture sagged. He sank on to the corner of an ancient stone foundation and fished in his pack, producing a flask of brandy. He offered some to Istar, but she shook her head. Though this quiet should be a welcome respite, she didn’t trust it. She lowered herself by Pallo’s side and
they both gazed out to sea.

  Their vision had become a triptych in blue: sky, ocean, and massed clouds divided the world into three equal parts. Whitecaps appeared and vanished; shorebirds clustered on the water where schools of fish swam beneath; and then without warning the scene shattered and fell away and Jai Pendu was there.

  The sister of Jai Khalar resembled it the way ice resembles stone. Where Jai Khalar was largely invisible, Jai Pendu’s every surface reflected or radiated light. Its towers and arches released a superfluity of illumination that admitted no shadow. The floating city hurtled towards them, massive and yet delicate, its angles contrived with a spiderweb precision. If the moon were to be rendered according to the logic of a mad wizard, it might resemble Jai Pendu, for in the floating city some secret geometry of light was expressed with a virtuosity that stole breath and thought. Starspun, spiralline, anchorless, Jai Pendu looked more like a blown seedpod or a tangle of mating insects than a city. The sky showed through gaps in its delicate, weightless structure. Its underparts were mirrored. They cast the sea’s light back on itself.

  There were three towers, groundless and ethereal; they seemed to overlap one another, and the central one rose above a mass of filaments like firelit hair, at whose centre was a red jewel the size of a house.

  At length, Istar and Pallo wrenched their gazes away, turned, and looked back towards home. With each step across the Floating Lands, with each bridge or hidden way, they had felt another thread sever itself from the rope of reason that bound them to Everien. Now it seemed that they were held by one trembling strand to the world they knew, and overnight the dew had collected on this thread and they could see reflected in the wavering droplet a miniature vision of Jai Pendu, like a promise.

  ‘We’re never going home,’ Pallo said. ‘Are we?’

  He offered Istar the flask again. This time she took it. Pallo took a long swig himself, leaned back to look at her, and with a forefinger deliberately wiped the streak of fresh blood off her cheek. He added, ‘You know, I’m starving.’

  They perched on the edge of the world and Pallo broke apart flatbread, which they shared. As her jaw worked on the stiff crust, she thought nothing had ever tasted so good. She became conscious of vague aches and pains in her legs and back from all the climbing, and the rope burns on her wrists began to throb. Jai Pendu was mushrooming into being as it moved inexorably towards them, its vast detail and endless light making a kind of visual symphony in the background of their meal. She stifled a yawn.

  ‘You’ve had too much,’ he remarked.

  ‘Too much of what?’ She groped for more bread greedily.

  ‘Everything,’ Pallo answered, and wrapped a long arm around her. ‘Sleep if you want. I’ll watch the tide.’

  They both fell asleep for a while; Istar awakened thinking about Kassien, and tears clogged her throat. She swallowed hard. Brushing herself off, she pulled free and stood, rousing Pallo. She was still hungry; Pallo gazed blearily up at her, startled, and offered more bread as if he were afraid she’d strike him. She took the bread and tore it with her teeth while Pallo wandered to the edge of the cliff and looked out on Jai Pendu.

  ‘Where is that damned Xiriel?’ she muttered.

  ‘I don’t know, but look! The causeway is starting to surface.’

  Istar joined him and watched as the city came closer. As the tide drew out, the underside of Jai Pendu was revealed, and the causeway that connected it to the Floating Lands now appeared as a strip of white, several feet underwater.

  There was only one problem. The causeway connected Jai Pendu to the island adjacent to the one they were now on.

  ‘How are we going to get down there, Pallo? We’re on the wrong damn island.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘I wish Xiriel were here,’ Istar moaned tactlessly.

  ‘Xiriel would apply logic,’ said Pallo. ‘Think. The army we saw is led by a Sekk Master. It’s probably using that Glass to control them somehow – it got Kas—’ He broke off and looked away. ‘I just think that’s what it’s doing. I mean, did you see the way it turned towards you? It would have had you in another second. So all this time they’ve been following us, and we’ve cut off the way behind us, and yet they keep finding other ways. Just now, we climbed the shaft but they might have passed through that door that was blocked, the door that I originally wanted to take.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to that place,’ Istar said, thinking of the body cut in pieces. Her throat closed.

  ‘We have to. We’re on the wrong island, and I don’t know how to extend the bridges even if there are any.’

  She clambered to her feet, yawning. She was feeling slightly better for the brief sleep, but not much. She capitulated. ‘At least give me some more bread.’

  They weren’t able to retrace their steps exactly because Pallo’s memory was not too reliable, and he was beginning to be anxious, which caused him to make mistakes. Eventually they found themselves back on the top of the black island emerging from the side of a half-ruined column.

  ‘It’s just like Jai Khalar,’ Pallo muttered, before Istar dragged him to the ground with her. The army was camped on the surface of the island.

  ‘They’re waiting,’ Istar said. ‘I’ll bet they can’t all fit inside the tunnels. Pallo, look! There are Clan soldiers there – see, a whole rank of Wasp archers.’

  ‘Maybe our countries are not at war after all,’ Pallo said hopefully.

  Istar wasn’t listening to him. ‘We have to get back down that well. How are we going to get past them all without getting slaughtered?’

  She studied the movements of the soldiers for some time, noticing that the Pharicians and the Clan soldiers did not mix and that the Clan leaders were holding authority over their own men although the Pharicians outnumbered them. Those who were on this island seemed to be resting or conferring. Amongst the Clansmen, discipline was not especially tight. The army was using a bridge that had been extended from the nearest landward island, and it was crowded with moving soldiers, most of whom were slowly filing into an equally well-guarded pit in the ground – one that Xiriel had explored and found useless. By contrast, the well that Istar had used for access was being virtually ignored. It was guarded only by two low-ranking Pharician officers. One of them was actually holding a bucket on a rope.

  She spat on her hands and rubbed what was left of her Clan paint off her face.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘What?’

  She walked out of cover and towards the well, taking out her water bottle and neatly dumping its contents behind a wall. Pallo followed suit. Istar asked for water in broken Pharician and the bucket was passed to her. The two soldiers didn’t seem very interested, even when Istar dropped the bucket in and then herself afterwards. She dangled, groping for the ladder with her feet, and slithered down as quietly as she could. She could hear Pallo chatting in Pharician to the guards.

  ‘Hurry up, Pallo,’ she whispered, looking around at the grey tunnels and trying to remember which one was which. She could hear the movements of the army echoing from the centre tunnel and had started to move off in that direction when she heard a soft noise from the one tunnel she had not yet been down. She drew her sword. It was a kind of hissing, like steam.

  Or snakes.

  She took out the lightstone she’d retrieved earlier and held it ahead of her at the mouth of the unknown tunnel. She could just descry something lying on the ground. It looked like a human body. She took a step forward and the light glinted off a snake as it shot away from the body. Just as she was about to turn away, the body moved again as two more snakes slid off it and disappeared into the shadows in the grey tunnel. She shuddered.

  ‘Istar?’

  She leaped back as the figure started to sit up. It wasn’t—?

  ‘Xiriel?’

  ‘What a terrible nightmare,’ he said.

  ‘Where are your clothes? And your hair?’

  Xiriel looked down at his own body
in dismay. He was wearing a close-fitting suit of snakeskin that left his arms bare, and his axes were gone, replaced by a tightly coiled strangle wire and a steel net that hung about his torso. Yellow Snake Clan paint marked his features. His head had been shaved; he ran his palms all over it in dismay, then buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh, no,’ he moaned. ‘I never asked for this.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I had to fight the Snake. I think … Istar, I think it ate me.’

  ‘Of course it didn’t,’ she said. ‘Can’t you remember what really happened?’

  Xiriel looked down at his own body again. ‘No – no, I don’t want this! Let me go back to sleep, maybe when I wake up it won’t be true.’

  He started to roll over.

  Istar grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t be an idiot. We lost Kassien and Pentar, and we have to get over the causeway to Jai Pendu but the entire army is ahead of us now, and there’s a Sekk Master with a Glass, leading the Pharicians. Xiriel! Stop looking so stricken. Think! This is what we brought you for. Think what we should do.’

  It took some time for Xiriel to unfold and get to his feet. He looked a bit like a rag that has been wrung out a few times. He was not standing to his full height. ‘I feel sick,’ he said. ‘How could a Sekk Master get hold of a Glass?’

  ‘What about that thing you found in the cave?’ Istar prompted. ‘The one I was afraid of. You can See things in it, can’t you?’

  Xiriel felt about his person anxiously, giving a sigh of relief when he came up with the lump of raw glass. ‘It seems to be a half-finished Carry Eye – or something of that nature. It’s a poor substitute for the real thing, but it has been useful in exposing some of the illusions here.’

  There was a loud thud behind Istar, and she whirled to see Pallo in a heap at the bottom of the well. From above came shouts and cries.

  ‘Come on, Xiriel,’ Istar urged. ‘We’re almost there, but we don’t have much time. Just blend with the crowd until we get across the causeway.’