The White Serpent

by Tanith Lee

  He did not go that morning to the exercise courts of the Academy. He walked slowly toward Marble Street, and reaching it, beheld the sun rising over the eastern slopes of the city. The stone-shops along the lower concourse were already active. He could see the smoke, and hear the beat of drums where they were “serenading” the scored marble to make it split by vibration. Less than two years, yet Moiyah was well-known to him, as if he had dwelled here longer. Small, she could have fit inside Saardsinmey like an egg in a dish. Yellow amber, for the rubies of the west.

  There was a cessation in the drumming. A bird sang from a garden. He thought of Chacor and Elissi, waking in their love-bed, and, for a moment, of the scent of a woman’s white hair against his mouth, across his arms and breast.

  Rehger turned his head and looked up the street. The sun was spearing between the buildings, flashing on some bronze-work in the square before the hall of the Artisan’s Guild. The bronzes were the chosen pieces of those who, this winter, had earned the guild wristlet. There were only five of them: There had been many dozen disappointments. At first, like a boy, he had gone every day, to look at his success, there among the four others, the sun gilding it for glory.

  It was the length and height of a wolf, the ancient prescribed measurements, raised on a five-foot plinth. A chariot and team, racing at full stretch. You were warned to work from what you knew. He had had no model, which was audacious and foolhardy, Vanek assured him. But memory, he had had that.

  The group was faulty, far from perfect. Even the cast had been too ignorantly ambitious and revealed as much, after the bronze cooled. Nevertheless, it was enough to win admission to the guild. It was enough that, three days after its erection in the square, ten offers had been made for it. And a month later, sixteen more. “You do understand,” Vanek said, “some men always bid on principle for the winners.”

  The Charioteer, among those who had an interest in artistic events, was however much discussed. For all the flaws, it had essential quality. Being static—yet it moved. The hiddraxi, leaping, were one thing, like the shapes of a breaking wave. The chariot had a weightless buoyancy. The man, his hair bound back and clubbed, just the side-locks streaming, leaned into the speed-rush of the team. The reins, like astral filaments, poured from his grip into the animals’ hearts, the wheels were wrapped in winds. Grounded on its plinth, the assemblage was half in the air. Only a racer could have done it, the connoisseurs had said. Vanek did not say, They want to buy as they awarded the wristlet, because of what you were. The guild was not a charitable institution. Vanek had already mentioned that.

  Rehger had modeled for the Raldnor statue some weeks before he took up a scoop of warm wax one dusk and pinched out a figure from it.

  Mur had left his pumicing and gone into the yard to oversee the oven. The lamps were lit, for it was a stormy evening. Vanek came from his room and looked, and said nothing. Rehger compressed the wax into a blob, and put it down again. Vanek said, “You’ve made such figures before.”

  “As a child. There was mud enough. The sun would bake them.” He did not add that then his uncle would come and kick them to bits. Vanek went back into his room.

  When Mur no longer needed Rehger every day, he obtained similar employment without trouble at other studios and shops in the vicinity. Several of these were less exclusive and more populous than Vanek’s, but to stand near-naked, eaten by eyes, was hardly novel to a Swordsman. Only once had it been unacceptable. Arriving at the venue, he had found neither students nor draftsmen, but a small party of wealthy mixes without a stylus or caliper between them. Despite this, he stripped and got on the dais for them, and did nothing else until one of the women came to stand by him and to run her hands along his ribs and thigh. Then he quietly descended the dais, dressed, and left the studio.

  Mur, seeing him interested and apt, was by then giving Rehger tasks to do, the rougher portions of rubbing and polishing, the upkeep of the fine utensils in the forge. When Mur rested, never while working, he lessoned Rehger in his art, demonstrating this and that, praising the young man’s quickness and ability. Mur noticed that once he had been shown what was done, Rehger seemed able to do it. Mur confided in Vanek. Rehger, coming on this scene, as if in the theater, said with no preamble, “I’ve been saving my pay. Will you apprentice me, Master Vanek?”

  “You’re too old for such an apprenticeship,” said Vanek. “You’ve seen my other boys. Lads of ten and twelve.” Then he waited, head to one side. He was a cranky man, Vanek. He could use his tongue for a whip or a dousing of cold water, but he rescued flies that fell in the warmed wax, he hoarded sticks and lamp oil, and gave away the limestone off-cuts free for winter fuel to any at the door who asked. Rehger therefore, seeing the tilted head, the waiting, said, “You start them young to build the muscle. I have mine.”

  “Agreed,” said Vanek, “you have at least the back and shoulders for the job.”

  “But even with what I can pay you, I’ll be in your debt over the cash.”

  Vanek pulled a face. He pointed to the afternoon work benches that the students had not yet returned to claim. “Go and make me something.”

  It had been clumsy enough, a wax wrestler on one knee. The wire armature was improperly secured and an arm fell off at Vanek’s persistent jabbing.

  “Fearsome,” said Vanek. “We must teach you to do better. But, as I told you once, you’ve done this before.”

  “As a child.”

  “You forget,” said Vanek, “we Lowlanders, we believe all men live quantities of lives.” He spoke scornfully, as if holding up religion like fouled cloth, between finger and thumb. “I meant you did it in a previous existence, my tall Lydian of Iscah. Then. So it will only be a question of remembering. Mur will help you remember. Mur has doubtless also been an artisan over and over. His very soul is warped into that shape.”

  He did not consider their religion. Even on the lips of his lover, Rehger had not heeded it. Even so, the craft of the sculptor came to him as Vanek said, like a slow sure remembering, flowing in wild bursts, or shut behind mental walls that must be hewn away. And once, cutting the “skin” from weathered marble, in the yard, with the rubble of marble all around him and the texture of marble in his pores and under his nails, and its flour tasting in his mouth, he recalled how he had fought through the debris, pulling up the blocks and tiles, at Katemval’s house on Gem-Jewel Street, finding wrung water-fowl and a girl’s body, a favorite chair miraculously intact, the gush of the wave having set it floating, empty. And in that minute, in Moih—but hovering out of place and time—it had seemed to him valid that the touch and smell of the marble did not seem to anchor him to destruction, rather seemed to reach quickly away from it back to some older hour, older that was than his body, heart, and mind.

  But the minute passed from him. And he let it go.

  • • •

  Yennef pushed a way through the courtyard of the Amber Anklet, to the table under the vine. It was noon, and the Dortharian already there, as he should have been the night before. He looked up, and lifted the corners of his mouth.

  “What detained you, Yennef?”

  Yennef sat down.

  “My own question exactly.”

  “Really? I’ll go first then. I stopped to have a woman on Love Street. She was a very tempting woman. Very blonde and very tender. Despite this, I tore myself from her arms and arrived at our meeting point only half an hour in arrears. You, however, failed me. I kept faith till midnight. A grievous waste of time.”

  “I,” said Yennef, waving over the wine-server, “was also prepared to wait until midnight. Then I was kidnapped.”

  The Dortharian watched him, through iron-colored eyes. Apart from short stature, these were his only show of Lowland mix, but unnerving enough in the brazen darkness of his face. (When they unearthed the gray-eyed bandit king on the Plains, Yennef had been reminded of Galutiyh Am Dorthar, but not for lo
ng.)

  “Kidnapped. By whom?”

  “No one important. A wedding party. The bridegroom was a Corhl—that soldier I told you about, who slew my tirr for me on the Plains.”

  “So then what?”

  “Nothing. I joined in the wedding, and couldn’t leave until the sun got up. I assumed you’d be gone by that time, and went to sleep it off. Noon was your second choice, and here I am.”

  Galutiyh sipped his drink, a vintage of Vardath, sweet and rosy. He said, “What a fibber you are, Yennef. Why dissemble? You slunk off with a young man. I never knew you had those tastes, but so what?”

  “You followed me.”

  “I had someone follow you.”

  “After all these intimate months, you trust me so well.”

  “Sensible, it would seem.”

  “Anack’s gilt tits,” said Yennef. “He’s a son of mine.”

  Galutiyh gave him a prolonged kalinx’s stare.

  “My, my.”

  “A by-blow, nothing more. But he’d tracked me down—being a friend to the Corhlan bridegroom.”

  “Wanted to know why you had dishonored his mother, where the heirlooms were, that sort of thing?”

  Yennef shrugged, and drank his wine.

  Galutiyh linked his hands behind his head. He said to the sky, “Is it that I’m stupid, or that he thinks I am, or that he is, or that the Dream of the goddess has curdled his brain?”

  Yennef did not answer this. He was used to Galutiyh, or had tried to become so. Instead, he responded with, “Down at the dock, I heard some of them discussing a quake in Free Zakoris. The ships brought the word, from Thos. But it may be exaggerated.”

  “I know about the earthquake, Yennef. A paltry quiver, to a man of Dorthar’s capital. It’s this other thing I know that’s on my mind. Can it be that you’re attempting to shield him—this lover-son of yours?”

  Yennef called the wine-server again. When he had had his refill, Yennef said, “My sons are in Dorthar. This one—there’s no bond between us.”

  “Aah. And that is why you know nothing about him. Did you even inquire his name?”

  “I know his name, yes.”

  “And so do I, Yennef. Rehger the Lydian, a champion slave-Sword of the Alisaarians. Saardsinmey. A rare survivor.”

  Yennef put down his cup.

  “You’re aware that I’m less concerned with these supposed sorcerous occurrences. I was hired as a political hound.”

  “In Dorthar, the political and sorcerous aims of the Amanackire are always considered jointly.”

  Yennef, who had been to Amanackire Hamos, and got in the walls of ice, and next out again, not much wiser but a deal colder, was conscious Galutiyh had also gone there, and returned with all his superstitions in fresh trim. “The antics of the weather, and the quakes, the volcano and the wave at Saardsinmey—are necessarily alarming,” said Yennef appeasingly. “I see them as figments of a general unrest. Omens.”

  “By which you mean you dismiss the Power the Children of Anackire claim to wield. History displays you are wrong.”

  Galutiyh was a fanatic. It was useless to protest. It was indeed Galutiyh’s proximity which had kept Yennef from resigning his post as Dorthar’s agent and spy. You felt that for Galutiyh’s partner to renege, however honestly, would be grounds for Galutiyh’s cleanest knife in the throat. Most of two years they had been roaming now, paired like felons on a great length of chain. Neither had garnered much, for the Lowlanders of the farthest southern Plains were odd, and the ones in Moih only human, full of business and family, so if they had secrets they must keep them even from themselves. As for such bastions as Hamos, unless you could overhear their perpetual within-speech, what could you hope to learn?

  Galutiyh was rising from the table, sleek and urbane. He was not much older than Rehger, but not so heroically made, and not as tall as the son or the father. A devout worshipper of the goddess, there was still a twig with red paper leaves tucked into his belt— they were to be had at the Anackire temple here. Galutiyh made sacrifice once every nine days. Not in rapture, which was the only reason for offering in native Moih, but out of dedicated respect. In the wilds, Galutiyh even would catch rats and snakes and make blood and burnt offerings. True Dortharian piety.

  “Come with me, Yennef, my dear. I’m going to show you a wonder.”

  Yennef had discovered that argument must be saved for extremes. He got up and went after Galutiyh.

  “And as we go,” added the short Dortharian, “I’ll tell you a tale to knock two inches from your backbone.”

  • • •

  The fictitious persona in which Yennef traveled Xarabiss and the Lowlands was that of a merchant’s agent. Having been partly robbed of his camouflage at the Dragon Gate, he restocked the wagon in Moiyah and set off for Hamos. During this short journey, his nervous Xarabian servant vanished, and thereafter Yennef did not bother to-replace him. Galutiyh meanwhile, entering Moih a season behind Yennef, settled himself in, in his own way, and built up for himself over succeeding months a coterie of paid underlings.

  It was one of these, lurking at the Anklet, who saw Yennef abducted by a Raiding Party. Much later, loitering at Am Yr’s house, the watcher beheld the reemergence of Yennef with a solitary companion, and dogged them to the Dusty Flower.

  Something about Yennef’s companion advised the watcher not to try much more. And since he did not want to get too close, he was unable to decipher any dialogue. Instead he risked an old stratagem on the wine-shop doorkeeper. “I’m off. There’s a fellow in here I think I know. I owe him money.”

  “Who’s that, then?”

  “The tall one in the corner. The younger man. He skinned me at Xarar, only I never settled my account.”

  “No fear,” said the doorkeeper. “I know that man. He was never in Xarar. He’s the Alisaarian, Rehger.”

  “No, I tell you it’s my beggar from Xarabiss.”

  “Have it your own way. But I know it’s Rehger. He was a gladiator and charioteer, and he lived through Saardsinmey. You go up to the Artisans’ Guild and have a look at the bronze he made. A chariot and hiddraxi. They say he’s a find, that in a year or so he could be the best in the guild. Go on, you go and see, and then come back and say you owe him money.”

  All this the underling duly reported to Galutiyh.

  Galutiyh, who kept abreast of artistic doings, had already visited the bronze-work. As it happened, he had put in a bid for it, for his instinct was developed, and he, too, had caught the fragrance of rogue genius. Applicants to enter the guild did not give up their names publicly with their work. The Charioteer was accredited solely to an “Apprentice of the Studio of Master Vanek.”

  Galutiyh, as he now promised Yennef, had started like a cat-snapped pigeon on bringing the two segments of information together.

  Yennef looked at Galutiyh stonily.

  “He told me his name last night. And that he got out of Saardsinmey.”

  “But nothing else? And didn’t a distant harp-string twang? Can I trust you, Yennef my dove?”

  They were in the square now, before the guild hall, and the five bronzes ranged about them, blinding in the midday sun.

  “Here it is. What a group! I must have it now. I’ll instruct my man to raise the bid.”

  Yennef looked at the bronze which his son had made. He saw only that it was very fine, then something else cut suddenly at his heart. Flesh of his flesh, which he had met with and parted from, had created this. The knowledge of whatever he had been, and was, his youth and manhood, his blood, his ancestry—had gone into it. Yennef reached out one hand, and the curved necks of the hiddraxi were under his palm, the chariot wheel, the shoulder of the charioteer. The metal was hot from the sunlight. It seemed to thrum and murmur like a hive of bees. It was alive with Rehger’s life. With Rehger’s life which in turn Yennef had crea
ted.

  “Now, Yennef,” said Galutiyh, “come out of your trance. We’re going to the studio of Vanek.”

  Yennef let his hand fall away into the quiet air.

  “You’re saying my son is connected to that insane Shansar hocus-pocus you’ve been suckling on.”

  Galutiyh beamed upon him.

  “Yes, dearest one. And you never thought of it till now.”

  “Leave him alone,” said Yennef.

  Galutiyh sauntered away down Marble Street.

  As ever, perforce, Yennef would have to go after him.

  • • •

  The studio shop was vacant, and the cabinets secured. In the offices beyond two clerks were furtively eating a pie at a desk.

  The studio, a huge room lit by braziers hanging from the rafters and vanes of glass above, had a dim glaze on it of various smokes and dusts. Only a little darker than milk, a naked girl model lay on a couch before the unlit hearth, conversing with some unmoved students. The farther wall gave on a courtyard where a large oven was fuming. Slabs of stone stood about there, but activity had ceased.

  Galutiyh mused on the girl who, indifferent by now, ignored him.

  “Rehger,” said Galutiyh. “Here?”

  One of the students looked around and pointed to a stair.

  Galutiyh, followed by Yennef, ascended. Some doors ranked along a narrow landing, through one of which came the soft rasp of pumice.

  The Dortharian opened this door and put his head around it.

  “Ah,” said Galutiyh, and jumped in.

  Rehger looked up, and saw a man had come through the door. He was Vis, there was no mistaking it, yet he had temple leaves in his belt. He leaned on the table, looking at Rehger.

  “Tell me, where did you learn to do such marvelous work?”

  Rehger remained where he was, beside the small block of whitest marble he had been polishing. From the door it appeared formless, a slender oblong, only breast-high.

  “I’m apprenticed to this studio, which is Master Vanek’s.”