Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  She faced forward again, wiped at her lips. She found herself sweating, shaken. The car whipped along too fast now for hazard: no passers-by could define them at their speed. The lights became a flickering blur.

  No majat troubled the A4 ramp. And at the house there was no evidence of difficulty. Raen relaxed in her seat, glad, for once, of the sight of the beta police on guard at the gate. There was a truck at a neighbour’s: the furnishings were being removed. She regarded that bleakly, turned her head again as their own gate opened for them.

  Merry took the car slowly up the drive, stopped under the portico and let them out, drove on to put the car in the garage, round the drive and under.

  Warrior arrived around the corner of the house, through the narrow front-back access, Raen squinted in the light, anxious about any majat at the moment.

  And Max opened the front door, let them both into the shade and coolness of the inner hall. “You’re all right, sera?”

  “All right,” she confirmed. “Don’t worry about it. Merry will tell you how it was.”

  Warrior stalked in, palps twitching.

  “Do you scent greens?” Raen asked. “Greens attacked us. We killed some. They killed humans.”

  “Greensss.” Warrior touched her nervously, calmed as she put her hand to its scent-patches, informing it. “Greenss make shift. Reds-golds-greens now. Weakest, greens. Easy to kill. Listen to red-Mind.”

  “Who listens, Warrior?”

  “Always there. Warrior-Mind, redsss. I am apart. I am Warrior blue. Good you killed greens. Run away greens? Report?”

  “Yes”

  “Good?”

  “They know I’m here now. Let them tell that to their hive.”

  “Good,” Warrior concluded. “Good they taste this, Kethiuy-queen. Yess.”

  And it touched and stalked back outside.

  Jim was standing over against the wall, his face strained. Raen touched his arm. “Go rest,” she said.

  And when he had wandered off to his own devices, she drew a deep breath, heard Merry coming in the side door—looked at Max. “No trouble at all while I was gone?”

  He shook his head.

  “A cold drink, would you?” She walked into the other room, on into the back of the house, toward the comp center.

  Messages. The bank was full of them. The screen was flashing, as it would with an urgency.

  She keyed in. The screen flipped half a dozen into her vision in rapid sequence. URGENT, most said. CALL DAIN.

  One was different. I AM HERE, it said simply. P.R.H.

  Pol.

  She sat down, stricken.

  BOOK SEVEN

  i

  More reports. Chaos multiplied, even on Cerdin.

  Moth regarded the stacks of printouts with a shiver, and then smiled, a faint and febrile smile.

  She looked up at Tand.

  “Have you made any progress toward the Istran statistics?”

  “They’re there, Eldest. Third stack.”

  She reached for them, suffered a fluttering of her hand which scattered them across the table: too little sleep, too little rest lately. She drew a few slow breaths, reached again to bring the papers closer. Tand gathered them and stacked them, laid them directly before her. It embarrassed and angered her.

  “Doubtless,” she said, “there are observations in some quarters that the old woman is failing.”

  From Tand there was silence.

  She brushed through the papers, picked up the cup on the table deliberately to demonstrate the steadiness of her right hand…managed not to spill it, took a drink, set it down again firmly, her heart beating hard. “Get out,” she said to Tand, having achieved the tiny triumph.

  Tand started to go. She heard him hesitate. “Eldest,” he said, and came back.

  Near her.

  “Eldest—”

  “I’m not in want of anything.”

  “I hear rumours, Eldest.” Tand sank on his knee at the arm of her chair; her heart lurched, so near he was. He looked up into her face, with an earnestness surprising in this man…excellent miming. “Listen to me, Eldest. Perhaps…perhaps there comes a time that one ought to quit, that one could let go, let things pass quietly. Always there was Lian or Lian’s kin; and now there’s you; and is it necessary that things pass this time by your death?”

  Bewilderment fell on her at this bizarre manoeuvre of Tand Hald; and within her robes, her left hand held a gun a span’s remove from his chest. Perhaps he knew; but his expression was innocent and desperately earnest. “And always,” she whispered in her age-broken voice, “always I have survived the purges, Tand. Is it now? Do you bring me warning?”

  The last question was irony. Her finger almost pulled the trigger, but he showed no apprehension of it. “Resign from Council,” he urged her. “Eldest, resign. Now. Pass it on. You’re feeling your years; you’re tired; I see it…so tired. But you could step aside and enjoy years yet, in quiet, in peace. Haven’t you earned that?”

  She breathed a laugh, for this was indeed a strange turn from a Hald. “But we’re immortal,” she whispered. “Tand, perhaps I shall cheat them and not die…ever.”

  “Only if you resign.”

  The urgency in his voice was plain warning. Perhaps, perhaps, she thought, the young Hald had actually conceived some softheartedness toward her. Perhaps all these years together had meant something.

  Resign Council; and let the records fall under more critical eyes. Resign Council; and let one of their choice have his hand to things.

  No.

  She gave a thin sigh, staring into Tand’s dark and earnest eyes. “It’s a long time since Council functioned without someone’s direction. Who would take Eldest’s place? The Lind? He’s not the man for this age. It would all come undone. He’d not last the month. Who’d follow him? The Brin? She’d be no better.”

  “You can’t hold on forever.”

  She bit at her dry lips, and even yet the gun was on its target. “Perhaps,” she said, allowing a tremor to her voice, “perhaps I should take some thought in that direction. I was so long, so many, many years at Lian’s side before he passed; I think that I’ve managed rather well, have I not, Tand?”

  “Yes, Eldest…very well.”

  “And power passed smoothly at Lian’s death because I had been so long at his side. My hands were at the controls of things as often as his; and even his assassination couldn’t wrench things out of order…because I was there. Because I knew all his systems and where all the necessary matters were stored. Resign…no. No. That would create chaos. And there are things I know—” Her voice sank to the faintest of whispers, “things I know that are life and death to the Family. My death by violence—or by accident—would be calamity. But perhaps it’s time I began to let things go. Maybe you’re right. I should take a partner, a co-regent.”

  Tand’s eyes flickered with startlement.

  “As I was with Lian…toward the last. I shall take a co-regent, whoever presents the strongest face and the most solid backing. I shall let Council choose.”

  She watched the confusion mount, and kept a smile from her face.

  “Young Tand,” she whispered, “that is what I shall do.” She waved her right hand, dismissing him; he seemed never to have realised where her left one was, or if he did, he had good nerves. He rose, grey and grim as iron now, all his polish gone. “I shall send out a message,” she said, “convoking Council for tomorrow. You must carry it You’ll be my courier.”

  “Shall I tell the elders why?”

  “No,” she said, knowing that she would be disobeyed. “I’ll present them the idea myself. Then they can have their time to choose. The transition of power,” she said, boring with sudden concentration into Tand’s dark eyes, “is always a problem in empires. Those which learn how to make the transfer smoothly…live. In general chaos who knows who might die?”

  Tand stood still a moment. Moth gave him time to consider the matter. Then she waved her hand a second
time, dismissing him. His departure was as deliberate and graceful as usual, although she reckoned what disturbance she had created in him.

  And, alone, Moth bowed her head against her hands, trembling. The trembling became a laugh, and she leaned back in her chair in a sprawl, hands clasped across her middle.

  Not many rulers had been privileged to be entertained by the wars of their own successions, she reckoned; and the humour of seeing the Hald and their minions blinking in the light with their cover ripped away, publicly invited to contend for power, while she still lived… That was worth laughter.

  Her assassination had been prepared, imminent. Tand’s action was puzzling…some strange affliction of sentiment, perhaps, or even an offer relayed from the others; and with straight-faced humour she had returned the offer doubled. Of course they would kill her as soon as their choice was well-entrenched in power…but time…time was the important thing.

  She grinned to herself, and the grin faded as she gathered up the falsified Istran reports, stacked them with the others.

  The Meth-maren would have need of time.

  To leave this place, Cerdin and Council and all of them, and have such a place as the old Houses had been, old friends, dead friends—that was the only retirement for which Moth yearned, to find again what had died long ago, those who had built—instead of those who used.

  But one of the folders was the Meth-maren’s, and Moth opened the record, stared morosely at the woman the child had become.

  The data was random and the cross-connections inexplicable, and her old age grew toward mysticism, the only sanity…too much knowledge, too wide a pattern.

  Lian also must have seen. He had complained of visions, toward the last, weakness which had encouraged assassins, and hastened his death.

  He had died riveted in one of those visions, trembling and frothing, a horror that left no laughter at all in Moth.

  She had had to do it.

  “Eggs,” Lian had cried in his dying, “eggs…eggs…eggs…eggs,” as if recalling the beta children, the poor orphaned creatures, the parentless generation—the thousands growing up too soon, cared for en masse, assembly lined into adulthood, men and women at ten, to care for others, and others…to bear natural children at permission, as they slid all things at permission, forever. Give them luxury, Lian had said once. Corrupt them, and we shall always control them. Teach them about work and rewards, and reward them with idleness and ambition. So we will always manage them.

  So betas, seeking idleness, created azi.

  Eggs…eggs…eggs…eggs.

  Eggs of eggs.

  Moth shuddered, reliving the fissioning generations who had spawned all reality in the Reach.

  Seven hundred years. From one world to many worlds, a rate of growth no longer controlled.

  Eggs.

  Potential.

  I am the last, Moth thought, who was once human. The last with humanity as it once was. Even the Meth-maren is not that.

  Least of all…that.

  Eggs making eggs.

  Family, she thought, and thought of an old saying about absolute power, and absolute corruption.

  Only the azi, she thought, lack power.

  The azi are the only innocents.

  ii

  Pol Hald sat down, propped his slim legs on a table, folded his hands and looked about him with a shrug of amusement.

  Raen took the drink that Jim served her and leaned back, stared balefully as Pol accepted his and looked Jim up and down, drawing the obvious conclusions. Jim glanced down, an azi-reaction to such attention.

  “Thank you, Jim,” Raen said softly. For a very little she would have asked Jim to sit down and stay, but Pol was another matter than the ITAK board…cruel when he wished to be; and he often wished to be.

  Jim vanished silently into the next room. Warrior did not. The majat sat in the corner next to the curio table, rigidly motionless as a piece of furniture.

  “Beta-ish,” Pol observed of the decor, of the whole house in general, a flourish of his hand. “You’ve a bizarre taste, Meth-maren. But the azi shows some discrimination.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Pol laughed, a deep and appealing chuckle. “It’s been eighteen years since we shared a supper, Meth-maren. I had a mad impulse for another invitation.”

  “A far trip for little reward. Does Ros Hald’s table not suffice?”

  He had pricked at her. She flicked it back doubled, won a slight annoyance of him. That gaunt face had not changed with the years; he had reached that long stage where he would not. She added up numbers and reckoned at least over seventy. Experience. The gap was narrowed, but not by much.

  “I’ve followed you for years,” he said. “You’re the only Meth-maren who ever amused me”

  “You’ve done so very quietly, then. Did the Hald send you?”

  “I came.” He grinned. “You have a marvellous sense of humour. But your style of travel gave me ample time to catch up with you.” He drank deeply and looked up again, set the glass down. “You know you’ve set things astir.”

  She shrugged.

  “They’ll kill you,” Pol said.

  “They?”

  “Not I, Meth-maren.”

  “So why are you here?” she asked, mouth twisted in sarcasm. “To stand in the way?”

  He made a loose gesture, looked at her from half-lidded eyes. “Meth-maren, I am jealous. You outdid me.” He laughed outright. “I’ve studied to annoy Council for years, but I’ll swear you’ve surpassed me, and so young, too. You know what you’re doing here?”

  She said nothing.

  “I think you do,” he said. “But it’s time to call it off.”

  “Take yourself back to Cerdin, Pol Hald.”

  “I didn’t come from Cerdin. I heard. I was willing to come out here. You’re my personal superstition, you see. I don’t want to see you go under. Get out of here. Now. To the other side of the Reach. They’ll understand the gesture.”

  She rose. “Warrior,” she said.

  Warrior came to life, mandibles clashing, and reared up to its full height. Pol froze, looking at it.

  “Warrior, tell me, of what hive is this Kontrin?”

  “Green-hive,” Warrior said, and boomed a note of majat language. “Green-hive Kontrin.”

  Pol moved his chitined right hand, a flippant gesture that was a satire of himself. “Am I to blame for the choice of hive? It’s Meth-maren labs that set the patterns, that reserved blue for chosen friends…of which we were not.”

  “Indeed you were not.”

  Pol rose, walked to the window, walked back again, within reach of Warrior, deliberate bravado. “You’re far beyond the limits. Do you know…do you understand what deep water you’re into?”

  “That my House died for others’ ambitions? That something was set up two decades ago and no one has stopped it? How are they keeping it from Moth? Or are they?”

  Pol’s dark eyes flicked aside to Warrior, back to her. “I grow nervous when you become specific. I hope you’ll consider carefully before you make any irrevocable moves.”

  “I learned, Hald. You taught me a lesson once. I’ve always held a remote affection for you on that account. No rancour. We said once we amused each other. Will you answer me now?”

  He made a shrug of both hands. “I’m not in good favour among Halds. How could I know the answers you want?”

  “But what you know you won’t tell me.”

  “Moth has not long to live. That I know. For the rest of what I know: the Halds are your enemies…nothing personal, understand. The Halds want what Thel reached for.”

  “And no one has undone what Eron Thel did.”

  Pol made a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t know; I don’t know. I protest: I am not in their confidence.”

  It was possibly true. Raen kept watching the hands and the eyes, lest a weapon materialise. “I appreciate your concern, Pol.”

  “If you’d take my advice, get out
of here…clear over to the far side, they would understand, Raen a Sul. They’d read that as a clear signal. Capitulation. Who cares? You’ll outlive them if you guard your life. Running now is your only protection. My ship is onworld. I’d take you there. The Family wouldn’t harm you. The Halds may not take me into their intimate confidence, but neither will they come at me.”

  She started to laugh, and saw Pol’s face different from how she had ever known it, drawn and tense…no laughter, for one of a few times in his irreverent life.

  “Go away,” she said very softly. “Get yourself to that safety, Pol Hald. You’ll survive.”

  He said nothing for a moment, looked doubtful. “What is it you have in mind?”

  She did laugh. “I wonder, Pol Hald, if you don’t surpass me after all. Maybe they did send you.”

  “I think you’ll hear from the Family soon enough.”

  “Will I? Where’s Morn, Pol?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Cerdin, maybe. Or near these regions. It could be Morn. Or Tand. Or one of the Ren-barants. Or maybe none of them. When Moth falls, they’ll pull your privileges, and then you’ll be deaf, dumb and blind, grounded on Istra.”

  “Moth’s on my side, is she?”

  “She has been. I don’t know who it will be. Truth. I started from innerworlds when I was sure where you’d gone…when I knew for certain it wasn’t a cover. Morn headed the other way. Tand moved inworlds, even earlier than that. He’s likely with Moth. I’m handing you things that would break the Reach wide open if you called Moth.”

  “You’re challenging me to do that?”

  Again a shrug, a hint of mockery. “I’m betting the old woman knows a good part of it already.”

  “Or that it’s already too late? It would take eight days for the shockwave to reach us.”

  “Possible,” he said. “But not my reason.”

  “Men you believe I don’t want the break right now. You could be mistaken.”

  Pol said nothing.

  “You don’t plan,” Raen said in a bard voice, “to be setting up on Istra”

  “I’ve a problem,” Pol said. “If I go back, I’ll be called in; and if I run alone…they’ll know I heard something here that made it advisable. I’ve put myself in difficulty on your account, Meth-maren.”