Serpent's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 3)

by D J Salisbury

Blast! The lizard was still running toward him. Flames spewed fifteen feet in front of it.

  Viper grabbed a fist-sized rock and hurled it at the creature.

  The stone bounced off the lizard’s head. Its fire vanished. It stumbled, shook its whole body, and marched forward.

  When it opened its mouth again, he heaved a large pebble directly at its maw.

  Flames surrounded his stone, but his aim was true. The rock flew into the gaping mouth.

  The lava lizard halted and shook its head hard. Was the rock stuck in its jaws?

  Lorel’s sword slammed across its neck. Its ruby-red head tumbled across the stony ground. “How can you get in so much trouble, kid?” She started to clean her sword on her sleeve.

  The lizard’s blood sizzled on her bahtdor-bone blade.

  “Stop! Don’t!” He pointed at the smoking blood. “Quick, clean it in snow, then run and grab a serdil pelt. Anything that can be tossed out. Don’t get the blood on you!”

  For a change, she actually obeyed him.

  Tsai’dona retrieved his wayward padded boot and handed it to him. “That was exciting.”

  The little corpse turned gray.

  He snorted. “I really wanted to study it. I even planned to set it free tonight.”

  The lava lizard’s body burst into flame. Even the bones disintegrated.

  She nodded. “You’re out of luck now.”

  Several feet from the flaming body, the head charred and blistered, but didn’t catch fire. In seconds only the two-inch-long skull was left.

  “Bring a bag, please.” Viper limped closer to the skull, but turned back and grinned at Tsai’dona. “There’s a little left to study, but I don’t want to touch it.”

  She sighed. “Promise me you’ll clear it with Kyri-thing before you even try.”

  Considering how much magic the lava lizard had displayed, he planned to carry it back on the end of a pole. “I promise.”

  But back at the wagon, the Kyridon inspected the skull only briefly. “The hatchling has procured an interesting specimen, which appears innocuous at this juncture.”

  Viper blinked at the serpent, and shrugged. “Don’t let it set the wagon on fire, please.”

  “This one will not permit its domicile to incinerate if circumstances are not inevitable.” The Kyridon coiled up on the upper bunk and appeared to fall asleep.

  So much for the serpent’s help. Maybe the skull wasn’t dangerous. He gingerly touched it with one finger.

  The bone was still warm. Pleasantly warm. He tucked it into his jacket pocket for later study.

  He soon learned that whenever he kept the skull in his pocket, his whole body felt reasonably warm. It kept him sane for the rest of the winter.

  ˜™

  The next afternoon they were forced to leave the riverbed and shove through crotch-deep snow. Knee-deep on Lorel. Even the weather had to rub in how much shorter he was. At least Tsai’dona was having just as much trouble.

  Praise the Thunderer for the wagon, and the team. The roans plowed through the snow as though they’d done it every day of their lives.

  The stench of rotten eggs wafted across the driver’s bench. Where had that come from?

  The Kyridon pushed its head under the door. “The hatchling shall halt here. Summon the swordlings and command them to excavate a channel through the snow.” It jabbed its snout hard to the left, and withdrew into the wagon.

  What was that about? Like he could order the girls to do anything. But he could ask. Now he was seriously curious. “Lorel. Tsai’dona. Come back here, would you?”

  ***

  Viper plowed through the snowdrift, forcing a new path in the channel Lorel had carved three days ago. Two feet of fluffy new snow lay above his waist, but it disappeared in sudden icy cliffs when he neared the misty hot springs.

  The stench of rotten eggs surrounded him, but after three days it had become a comforting smell. He pushed back his serdil cloak and luxuriated in the warm sulfury air.

  Inside the snow-walled canyon, Poppy flicked an ear at him, but none of the horses seemed inclined to complain. They would as soon as he fetched the harness, though probably not much. He wondered if most horses were so compliant. That wasn’t how he remembered them.

  Viper shrugged. He needed to find the Kyridon before he tried to harness the team.

  Something moved in the water.

  He stepped to the edge of the spring and frowned down at the depths. “Will you get out of there?”

  A wedge-shaped head drifted to the surface. Blank blue eyes stared up at him.

  Lorel crunched along behind him, stripping off her cloak and outer coat.

  He shot her a disgusted look and pointed at the long, limp shape.

  She chuckled. “So it’s got good sense.”

  “This one has intelligence enough to linger in the warmth for as extended a duration as is feasible.”

  “You have to come out of the water eventually!” He clenched his fingers at Lorel, begging for help.

  She rolled her eyes and walked to the edge of the pool. “Yeah, toad,” she said sternly. “How we gonna finish your quest if you turn into a fish?”

  “This one has not experienced acceptable warmth since Padue. This one shall savor the thermal spring as long as practicable.”

  “It’s time we left.” Viper crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve been watching you thaw out for three days.”

  “This one shall consent to matutinal evacuation.” The Kyridon sank below the surface of the steaming water.

  Lorel laughed. “We might as well go for another swim, too, kid. Ain’t nothing gonna get the toad out of the water today.”

  He wanted to leave today, not tomorrow morning. Time to fulfill the quest was running out. He sighed and stared into the clouds, searching for patience. “Hey, look up there!”

  “Weaver speed the Shuttle! That’s one big bird! I ain’t seen a bird that red since last the toad was warm.”

  Ice crunched in the tunnel behind them. “Keep your voices down,” Tsai’dona said urgently. “When was the last time you saw a bird that big?”

  “Loom bust a Thread. You think that’s a dragon?”

  Tsai’dona nodded. “I’m sure of it.”

  His stomach sank. All they needed to ruin everything was a hungry dragon. “I hope your sandblasted hides camouflage the wagon. Otherwise, we’re liable to become supper.”

  Lorel looked the wagon over quickly and shrugged. “They should do.” She grabbed her cloak and slung it around her shoulders. “Move over here, Tsai. Come on, kid. Wrap tight in your cloak and sit next to me. We’ll just look like three serdils from a distance, if it sees us at all. And I bet serdils don’t taste good.” She drew her long sword and sat on a dry rock near the spring.

  “You turybird.” Viper rolled his eyes. She couldn’t be vain enough to think she could take on a dragon. “Why the sword?”

  “No thread-fraying dragon is gonna eat my horses. I’ll slit its gizzard first.”

  “Wind Dancer protect us. The Thunderer certainly won’t! Or the Weaver either. Only Lady Wind Dancer will help a fool.”

  “Hush up, kid. Don’t fuss ’til after I done something stupid.”

  Tsai’dona pointed westward. “Look over there!”

  Viper looked up and gasped. “Another one! It’s bluer than the ocean!”

  “Ain’t you got no fancier word than ‘blue’?” Lorel glanced at him and waggled her eyebrows. “I don’t none believe it.”

  He chuckled, but considered the question seriously. “Azure. An incredible shade of azure. The first one is the ruby color of a fine port wine.”

  “Ruby port,” Lorel drawled. “I could use a little of that just now. Though I’d rather have Zedisti ale. Or even Paduan beer. I knew I couldn’t buy enough. Hey, what on the Loom are those two doing?”

  “Looks like they’re dancing.” Tsai’dona shaded her eyes with her hand. “That’s too strange.”

  “Up in the air and
all over each other like that?” Lorel shook her head so hard her hood flopped off. “Ain’t likely.”

  Viper stared at the dragons, intrigued by the swirling, soaring flight. “Well, I suppose they could be mating.”

  Lorel frowned at the soaring pair. “I think I like them dancing better. We don’t need no more dragons. We got enough problems.”

  Chapter 13.

  Several days and one serdil attack later, Viper finally had fresh specimens for his upcoming anatomy book. He brightened his will-light and studied the flayed corpse fondly. His gyrfalcon had done an exquisite job of skinning the serdil. None of the muscles were the least bit compromised.

  A sudden gust of wind tore loose a corner of the little serdil-hide tent the girls had erected to protect him. He reached up absently to tack the gray pelt back to the side of the wagon.

  He took stock of his supplies. One freshly skinned serdil carcass, pen and ink, a pile of serdil hides so he wouldn’t freeze his rear off, and paper on a smooth plank he’d use as a table. Not enough paper, though. And he’d forgotten to bring out the specially sharpened knife.

  Not a problem. Taking his will-light with him into the predawn darkness, he ducked out of the tent, scrambled through the snow up to the driver’s bench, and scurried under the door into the wagon.

  The Kyridon lifted its fur-covered head from the top bunk and blinked sleepily at him. “Has the hatchling need of this one?”

  “Not unless you have a secret you want to tell me.”

  “The hatchling must scrutinize talismans.” It wiggled deeper under the blankets, closed its eyes, and lay its head back on the mattress.

  Finally! He’d wondered if it would ever teach him magic. “What about talismans?”

  The sandblasted creature pretended to sleep. Maybe it really was asleep. It hadn’t acted properly awake since they left the hot springs.

  He shrugged and opened the drawer where he’d stored his dissection knife.

  Light glittered at the edge of his eye.

  He yanked the knife out of its sheath and spun to face the apparition.

  Green and gold sparks condensed into the glittering image of a plump old man. “You really need to master talismans, considering you carry several with you.”

  Several? He knew about the grimoire, the evil thing, but what others did he have? The stone splinter that murdered Trevor? The mandrake seed?

  Wait a minute, that was the ghost! “Stay out of my head!”

  “I’m not in your head.” Movement near the top of the sparkles suggested a slouched hat wagging back and forth. “I do respect your wishes.”

  The Kyridon reared up so high its head brushed the ceiling. “The magician shall be silent.” It opened its mouth wide and hissed.

  Ghostly shoulders shrugged and vanished.

  “The hatchling need not express concern.” The serpent snuggled back under the blankets. “In life, the spirit was merely a magician, not a wizard.”

  Viper shuddered. He didn’t know what damage magicians could do. Trevor insisted they only did illusions, but the old man hadn’t realized he could construct illusions, too. In fact, he was quite good at creating them.

  Facing any ghost was frightening, but just the thought of a wizard’s ghost still gave him nightmares. He’d never get over RedAdder trying to possess him.

  He’d never be comfortable using the dead wizard’s grimoire, and he suspected that was the talisman the Kyridon wanted him to study. It held many of the spells he’d need to complete the Dreshin Viper’s magical weapons.

  That was a problem for another day. He sheathed the knife, stuffed it into a coat pocket, grabbed a handful of paper from another drawer, and clambered out of the wagon.

  Thunderer bless Lorel for the blasted serdil cloak. He was hardly any colder outside the wagon than he was inside. It was much warmer inside the tent, even if the fire was tiny.

  The ink in his pen was frozen solid. He huddled closer to the campfire, thawed pen and ink patiently, and started making notes.

  Dissection proved to be more fun than he’d hoped. He started at the headless throat and worked down.

  When he reached the lower gut, Lorel stuck her head inside the improvised tent. “I thought you didn’t like stinky hides. Now you’re playing with a whole stinky corpse.”

  Tsai’dona stuck her head under Lorel’s arm and wrinkled her nose.

  Viper drew three precise lines before answering. “It’s too cold to stink. This is in the interest of science. I’m writing a book on serdil anatomy.”

  “You don’t even know all the words for what you’re scribbling.”

  “So I’ll make them up. Help me, here.” He reached into the abdomen and tugged at a coiled, ink-blue cable. Carefully. He didn’t want blood or feces inside his tent. “This is the small intestine. Pull it out all the way and measure it for me, won’t you?”

  “Not me.” Tsai’dona backed out of the tent.

  “Loom lint.” Lorel ducked inside the tent and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why should I?”

  “The more you help me, the sooner I’ll be done. This was your idea, after all.”

  “I ain’t giving you no more ideas, never!” She glared at him, but sighed and braided her hair safely away from the gall and gore. “The things I do for you.” She stretched the intestine out so far she backed completely out of the tent, pulling the large intestine out with the small, and stretched the knotted cord along it. “The skinny part’s seventeen and one half feet long.”

  The part of the intestine outside of the tent froze so quickly it stayed as straight as a pine tree’s trunk.

  Viper skipped back a page and inserted the measurement. “Thank you. Now, since this one is male, could you bring a female in here? There should be only a couple of major differences.”

  “I sure hope there’s a couple of differences.” Lorel shoved aside the makeshift tent flap, dragged a second furless corpse out of the snow, and dumped it beside his knee.

  “Are you sure that’s a female?” Viper poked at the body with the blunt end of his pen. Unlike his first specimen, this corpse was frozen solid. “It’s an awful lot bigger than the male.”

  “You don’t see nothing unless I shove it up your nose.” Lorel pushed the stiff carcass over with her foot. “Girl serdils are always twice as big as boy serdils. They’re just like you and me, that way.”

  Just rub it in, wouldn’t she? “You overgrown turtle dung,” he muttered, writing madly at the same time. “Where’s the head to this one?”

  Lorel sighed and shrugged indifferently. “I’ll find it.” She trudged out into the snow.

  Viper wrote industriously. For the first time in lunars, he felt he was doing something worthwhile. Traveling was fun. Most of the time. Playing merchant was entertaining, and usually profitable.

  But research was definitely his calling in life.

  He slit open the abdomen, carefully avoiding cutting into the organs inside until he was prepared to draw them. Interesting. The uterus was more like a bear’s than a cat or a wolf.

  “Hey, kid. We got company.”

  Viper looked up from his notebook and yelped. His will-light flickered out.

  A pack of seven severed serdil heads surrounded him, eyes wide and fangs bared. They almost looked alive in the flickering firelight.

  Lorel sat in the snow and cackled.

  “Lightning strike you!” He shook his pen at her. Ink splattered into the snow and froze in black droplets. “You’ll scare me out of what little growth I have left.”

  She rolled backwards and howled with laughter.

  “Fascinating.” He inspected the heads more closely. “They all have brown eyes but one, and it has yellow eyes. Obviously a mutant. Was that one male or female?”

  “It was the biggest gal.” Lorel snickered and wiped tears out of her eyes. “What’s a mutant?”

  “Something that’s born different from the norm.” He wrote a long note about eye coloration, then leafed forwar
d six pages to finish his drawing of the uterus.

  “Ain’t you a mutant?” Lorel stood and brushed snow off her trousers.

  Viper looked up sharply. “No. No, because I wasn’t born different. The viper’s venom changed me, stopped me from growing.”

  “And the toad’s poison changed you more.” Lorel leaned against the wagon and looked thoughtful. “If the toad tells me rightly, the scorpion’s and the other snake’s poison made you change even more. Weaver knows what else has bit you. If you ain’t no mutant, what are you?”

  He blinked and tried to find an answer to the question he had never been willing to ask himself.

  An explosion rocked the mountain. Acrid smoke spewed into the air. The ground shook fiercely, rolling into a full earthquake, throwing the severed heads around the tent.

  Lorel dropped to a crouch.

  Viper batted the serdil heads away from him. He yanked one out of the fire and tossed it out of the tent.

  The land buckled and heaved before it subsided into a low but constant growl.

  “I hate it when there’s earthquakes without alignments.” Lorel rolled to her feet and stalked off to calm her young stallion.

  The Kyridon thrust its hooded head out of the wagon and peered at the nearby mountains. A huge smoke plume was forming above one peak, growing higher every moment. The growling of the earth continued unabated.

  “This one demands that this assemblage evacuate immediately.” It stared down at him. “The hatchling must organize with alacrity. This assemblage is in imminent peril.”

  It demands? That was rare.

  “What’s wrong, Kyri?” Tsai’dona called from behind the wagon.

  “The volcano erupts, and this assemblage is in injudicious proximity. This one believes this assemblage is in jeopardy.” It stared pointedly at Lorel. “The swordling’s weapon will not help in this instance.”

  The plume above the volcano coalesced into a black, ominous cloud.

  “Danger? From a mountain that far away?” Lorel gaped at the volcano, but yanked down the serdil tent. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  The clouds crackled with lightning, and fine ash floated down around the wagon. A strange, incandescent glow seared the top of the mountain and the clouds directly above it.