The Serpent Bride

by Sara Douglas

  The marshlands were known for their treacherous sands, and many were the tales of travelers who had sought shelter in them never to be heard from again.

  "Come on," Maximilian yelled, pulling his reluctant and terrified horse down the slope into the gully. "We can wait it out here."

  "So long as there's no storm surge," Serge said.

  StarDrifter turned over and over in the turbulent water, eyes and mouth tightly closed, trying to fight his way to the surface.

  The Weeper was gone, torn from his hands as they were dashed into the sea.

  StarDrifter had no doubt at all that the Weeper had pulled them overboard. He was aware that the deity had expended a massive surge of power just before the fishing vessel had tilted that final, terrible time,

  and he'd felt both himself and the deity being pulled toward the sea.

  StarDrifter had no idea why the Weeper might want him to drown in the Widowmaker Sea, and right now trying to drum up a reason was the last thing on his mind.

  All StarDrifter wanted to do was survive.

  His clothes--the cloak, his boots, his heavy jerkin and trousers--were pulling him ever downward, no matter his attempts to fight his way to the surface, and he tried to pull them off.

  The cloak floated free fairly easily, although it tangled in his legs as it went, causing StarDrifter a moment of sheer panicky terror. His jerkin, a thick leather affair, and trousers, of similar material, were harder to dislodge, however, particularly when his lungs felt as if they were about to burst.

  He started to sink, and he stopped struggling with his clothes and tried to work his way to the surface.

  He sank farther.

  It began to feel almost like flying.

  StarDrifter stopped fighting altogether, overwhelmed by the sensation.

  He'd missed flight so desperately. To re-create the sensation, even for a moment, would surely be worth death.

  Wouldn't it?

  Suddenly a powerful light blazed in the water before him, searing through his closed eyelids, and StarDrifter's eyes flew open. Something gripped his upper arms, and StarDrifter felt himself being drawn toward the surface.

  Maximilian, Serge, and Doyle crouched in the lee of a boulder, trying to shelter themselves as best they could from the driving wind and rain.

  Their best was pitiful little.

  The horses had bolted almost as soon as they'd been tied to a strong hewen bush. So great was their fright, nothing could have held them, and Maximilian had signaled to the two guardsmen to let them go.

  Trying to catch them in this storm was not an option, and all they could do was trust that their horses might find some degree of shelter rather than dash themselves to death in terror.

  The three men huddled behind their boulder, faces turned away from the storm front, bodies crouched into as small a ball as possible, crowding themselves together for what little shelter and warmth they could provide each other. They did not talk--there was no point.

  Maximilian hoped that BroadWing and his companions had managed to find shelter, and that he and his two companions would manage to survive.

  He thought they could. They were in no danger so long as Serge had not managed to curse them with a storm surge through his pessimism. The night would be wild, and very wet and cold, but they were strong, and even though the boulder offered little comfort, it did shelter them from the worst of the weather.

  Just as he'd managed to make himself feel a little easier, something twigged at Maximilian's consciousness.

  Almost like a distant shout.

  And then his Persimius ring screamed--so loudly that Maximilian himself shouted in shock, rolling away from Serge and Doyle into the full fury of the storm.

  Maximilian heard one of them call out, the sound a thin and diminishing wail in the tempest, and then he was gone, the wind so vicious, so powerful, it rolled him over the lip of the gully toward the pounding surf on the beach.

  Toward the beach? But that was against the wind!

  Maximilian tried to grab at bushes, rocks, the occasional thin trunk of a stumped tree, but he was being pulled so fast toward the surf that his fingers did not manage to maintain a grip on a single thing.

  He felt something tear in his shoulder, and he gave a hoarse cry of pain that was instantly lost within the maelstrom.

  The blazing light--the Weeper, StarDrifter knew that somehow, impossibly, it was the Weeper--had somehow managed to drag him to the surface.

  Here the danger felt even closer, for the waves loomed huge above them before crashing down on his head, and every so often he was dragged into the wrath below.

  But now StarDrifter was almost entirely encased within the light, and whenever a rogue wave dashed him down, he bobbed back to the surface just at that moment when he thought his lungs would explode.

  He was covered in scratches and bruises from debris in the water.

  StarDrifter hoped it was not the wreckage of Prata's boat.

  The coast! the Weeper said in his mind. StarDrifter, look, the coast.

  StarDrifter blinked, but his eyes were blinded by the sea and spray and the mountainous waves, and he had no idea how the Weeper expected him to see any farther than his nose.

  Maximilian will be there, the Weeper said. Maximilian will be there for us.

  Maximilian managed somehow to hook the fingers of his left hand into the thickness of the damp sand at the surf's edge, then get his right hand wedged behind a boulder.

  Thank the gods he hadn't slammed into that!

  With his good arm he managed to pull himself farther and farther away from the sea, desperate to get himself as far away as possible.

  Then, impossibly, he heard a faint shout coming from behind him.

  From within the sea.

  "No," Maximilian whispered, too tired, too cold, too desperate for shelter to even contemplate the idea that someone might be calling out to him for rescue from the raging waters.

  His ring screamed again, flared as if in agony, and Maximilian cried and rolled to one side, the cry intensifying as his injured shoulder hit the boulder.

  The shout came again, closer, and somehow Maximilian struggled to one elbow, and looked over his shoulder.

  There was a man, struggling out from the surf, directly behind him. He was dragging something in his hand.

  Another man, perhaps, or a log.

  Then everything went black for an instant, and when he regained his vision, all Maximilian could see was a body being rolled over and over in the surf.

  Almost crying with the effort, Maximilian managed to get to his knees, shuffled into the waves, then pushed forward with his feet as the water got deeper.

  Waves crashed into him, blinding him, and he felt his feet give way.

  The next instant the body collided into him, and Maximilian felt something very hard hit his head.

  He blacked out for a moment, then something picked him up and thrust him forward. He found himself on sand, out of the water, a heavy body draped over him, almost suffocating him, and he felt the icy heaviness of metal against his injured shoulder.

  He rolled away from it, onto his belly, raising his head a little to peer into the rain-swept gloom.

  Then blinked, not believing what he saw.

  A woman stood on the crest of the small hill that the wind had blown Maximilian over, her cloak wrapped about her, long dark hair streaming in the wind, but otherwise apparently unaffected by the storm.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Marshlands Outside Narbon, Escator

  Maximilian blinked, and she was gone.

  He blinked again, and the driving wind and rain blocked any sight he may have had of the crest of the hill.

  He blinked yet again, and the woman was standing before him, bending down to him, squatting at his side, her hand lifting back the sodden hair from his brow.

  "Hello, Maxel," she said softly.

  He stared at her, still too shocked by the events of the past half hour to comprehe
nd what now was happening.

  "It has been a long time," she said. "Perhaps too long. Don't you recognize me?"

  Her hand continued to stroke back his hair, her fingers combing it into some order.

  Maximilian still stared at her, trying to take her in. The one thing that instantly struck him, almost overwhelmed him, was that she was walking magic.

  The second was that she was lovely--very long, thick, dark hair that, somewhat remarkably given the storm, appeared only slightly damp; an exquisitely structured face, pale skin, the lightest gray eyes he'd ever seen, ringed with thick, luxuriant dark lashes...

  It was the eyes that were so different, Maximilian realized. They were far lighter than he remembered.

  And her face was much stronger, and far more mature.

  "Ravenna," he whispered.

  Ravenna, the marsh girl who had helped Garth rescue him from the Veins.

  Ravenna, the girl who rescued him from his madness, but then left him, and Garth--with whom she was close--to run with the Manteceros and Lord of Dreams, Drava, whose likeness Maximilian wore carved into his upper right biceps.

  "You do remember," Ravenna said, and smiled. "What are you doing here, Maximilian?"

  "Pulled here by magic," Maximilian said, managing to get to his feet with Ravenna's aid, and suppressing a wince at the pain in his shoulder. "You?"

  Ravenna shook her head, looking at the man still lying half in the water behind Maximilian. The storm had abated now. It still blew about them, and it still rained, but it was a gentle and mild thing compared to what had enveloped both sea and land only a few minutes earlier.

  "It was magic that brought me here, too," she said. She stepped past Maximilian and bent to the man lying at the edge of the tide. "Who is this man, Maxel?"

  "I don't know."

  Ravenna rolled him over. "He has a strange aspect."

  Maximilian stepped to her side, looking down. "He is Icarii," he said, "but with no wings."

  "I have heard of the Icarii," Ravenna said.

  "No doubt from Drava," said Maximilian.

  She looked at him at that. "I heard about them while I was with Drava, yes," she said. "Our lives together were filled with the pursuit of mysteries."

  "And now?"

  "Now the dreamworld is waking, Maxel. The barriers between it and this world are cracking."

  "So Drava sent you back?"

  "I wandered back of my own accord. I am a marsh woman, Maxel. I belong to no man, whether he be flesh and blood, or dream."

  This was, Maximilian thought, a bizarre place and time to be having this conversation.

  He looked back to the Icarii man, now softly moaning as he regained consciousness. "Power dragged me here, to this man. I have no idea why."

  "Maxel?"

  He looked at Ravenna.

  She nodded at an object lying in the water a few feet behind the Icarii, almost obscured by the darkness and rolling waves. "What's that?"

  Maximilian walked over, leaning down and grabbing at the object with his uninjured arm.

  Almost immediately he swore softly, and jumped back.

  "Maxel?" Ravenna said again, now at his side.

  "You'll have to pick it up," Maxel said. He indicated his left shoulder. "I injured my shoulder. Can't use my left arm very well. Don't worry," he added. "It isn't dangerous."

  She gave him a level look, then bent down and lifted the object gently from the water--it was an exquisitely worked bronze figurine of a young man.

  It reeked with magic, which Ravenna knew Maximilian must have felt as well, but which, as he had, she instinctively knew wasn't dangerous to her.

  Not dangerous, but Ravenna received the faint impression that the object didn't like her very much.

  "It is very sad," she said, softly.

  "He is the Weeper," said a weary voice from behind Ravenna and Maximilian, and they turned about.

  "And he is indeed very sad."

  The Icarii man had lifted himself onto one elbow. "My name is StarDrifter SunSoar," he said, "and I beg your aid in finding me a dry and warm spot."

  "StarDrifter SunSoar," murmured Maximilian. "Dear gods...are they all coming back?"

  Ravenna looked at him, an eyebrow raised in query.

  "His son, Axis," Maximilian said, his voice infused with weeks-old fatigue, "has also returned from the land of the dead, and now has my wife, Ishbel. I was traveling to rescue her when this," he waved his hand about, encompassing the storm and all it had wrought, "intervened."

  "Well," said Ravenna, with a bright smile, "now you have Axis' father. I am sure, with your undoubted royal diplomatic skills, we can arrange a prisoner exchange."

  "Axis has your wife?" StarDrifter said, having now struggled into a sitting position.

  "You knew Axis was back?" Maximilian said.

  "Look," said StarDrifter, "I have no idea who either of you are, and I don't really want to go through explanations and introductions sitting in this frigid water. Is it possible, do you think, that we can find some shelter, some dry shelter, and talk all this out there?"

  "I have no idea where--" Maximilian began, but then Ravenna caught at his arm with her hand, and nodded at the crest of the hill.

  Silhouetted against the night sky were the figures of Serge and Doyle, holding the reins of three horses.

  "I know of somewhere," Ravenna said.

  Venetia paced back and forth by the wooden table in her small ramshackle home deep within the marshlands.

  Something was happening.

  Something was coming.

  She had felt this for many weeks...the sense of something happening. Over the past few days the sense had intensified, and had been infused with the pain and terror of a woman far distant.

  A woman was in pain, and was being brutalized, and Venetia felt some tenuous connection with her,

  although she could not identify it.

  Venetia inhabited the marshes beyond Narbon, a witch-woman, one who lived partly in the mortal world and partly in the Land of Dreams, a guardian of the borderlands between the dream world and the mortal. Generally Venetia was happy with her solitariness, but, as the sense of impending events crowded her, she'd become nervy, constantly on the alert.

  Waiting for whatever it was to strike.

  When the knock came at the door, Venetia gave a startled gasp, her body tensing, her eyes widening,

  one hand at her throat.

  She should have detected someone approaching.

  That she had not told Venetia that whatever waited outside for her was a power-wielder themselves.

  Taking a deep breath, summoning her not inconsiderable courage, Venetia walked to the door and flung it open.

  And then immediately enveloped the woman standing outside in a fierce embrace.

  "Ravenna!"

  Ravenna, her daughter, lost years ago to the seductive wiles of the Lord of Dreams.

  Not lost, not totally, for Ravenna and Venetia still remained aware of each other, and on very rare occasions spent brief moments together within the Land of Dreams. But this was the first time in five years that Venetia had held a flesh-and-blood daughter in her arms, and she was not about to let her go too quickly.

  Ravenna laughed, hugging her mother back.

  Eventually Venetia stood back, her eyes shining. "How you've grown!" she said. "Your power, as well as your beauty. How could I have produced such a daughter?"

  "I will never be the woman you are, Venetia," Ravenna said. "Look, I have brought people with me who need aid. Can you--"

  "Of course," Venetia said, standing back slightly so she could see who was with her daughter.

  She tensed. "Maximilian Persimius," she said softly. Venetia had never met Maximilian, but she knew him instinctively.

  Venetia looked at her daughter, her eyes full of questions.

  "There are many questions to be answered," Ravenna said, "and many tales to be told this night, I think.

  But they need to be spoken in s
ome comfort and warmth. Maximilian is injured, and at least one other member of our group has been through extremity over the past few hours. May we come in?"

  StarDrifter had been through many experiences in his vast lifetime, but he thought he'd never enjoyed anything so much as the wonder of being able to strip off his sodden clothes, wrap himself in a blanket, sit before a fire, and sip some of the wonderful ale the marsh witch-woman, Venetia, handed him.

  Everything that had happened to him from the moment he'd been tossed overboard seemed dreamlike:

  the experience in the sea with the Weeper; meeting with a man who appeared to be the King of Escator,

  Maximilian Persimius (StarDrifter had heard of him, yes, but he'd never paid the story much attention);

  discovering Axis had apparently made off with Maximilian's wife (StarDrifter had to suppress a grin every time he thought about that. Axis had not changed, it appeared); and, finally, being escorted by one witch-woman to the home of another, deep in the marshlands.

  From the beach Ravenna and Maximilian had helped StarDrifter (who had been given the Weeper to carry) up a hill to where two men waited with horses, and then Ravenna and Serge had led the others,

  riding the horses, deep into the marshes to Ravenna's mother's house.

  Then there was apparently much discussion and catching up to be done, but all StarDrifter could think about was the wonderful warmth of the fire, the delicious ale, the food that Venetia was spreading over the table, and the promise later of a bed...if bed this ramshackle establishment could provide.

  The Weeper lay under his stool. It had been remarkably quiet ever since they'd been washed ashore.

  Venetia kept casting him uncertain, and decidedly cool, glances, but StarDrifter had no idea why, nor did he particularly care. He could worry tomorrow about where he might go, and what he might do.