by Shannah Jay
Shadow of the Serpent
Shannah Jay
When the members of the Kindred pass through a portal and are scattered across the twelve claims, they face the dark threat of being discovered by Those of the Serpent. As each group journeys towards the fateful rendezvous it finds unexpected allies.
The depraved evil of the Serpent threatens to engulf them. Will their Quest against Discord be successful? Will their faith in the Brother save them?
Published by Shannah Jay
Copyright 2010 Shannah Jay
Cover Copyright 2010 David Jacobs
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work
CHAPTER 1 KATIA ALONE
Katia moved her head and groaned as bright sunlight stabbed at her eyes. She put up one arm to shield her face, then opened her eyes again cautiously and raised herself on her elbows. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was falling into the darkness of Quequere’s portal when Those of the Serpent were attacking her and her companions in the Peneron foothills.
She stared around her. No sign of any attackers. No sign of anyone. Davred! The word formed instinctively on her lips, then died. Her husband was nowhere to be seen, nor were any of her other companions. She tried to cast her senses out around her as Herra did, but only a meaningless jumble of sensation echoed back at her. She hadn’t the Elder Sister’s sure Gift for sensing the nearby presence of human life.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on Davred. Him alone she could sense at a distance. After a moment, she breathed a sigh of relief. He was a long way away, she knew not where, but he was alive, and he could sense her. Their ability to mindlink was very rudimentary as yet, though Herra said it would improve gradually. And if the Elder Sister said that, then it would come true. Herra was a very special person, even for an Elder Sister of the Sisterhood.
As Katia looked around again, an involuntary shiver of fear ran down her spine. She was alone with no idea where she was. She concentrated first on controlling her breathing and through it, her fear. Sisters of the God were trained not to give way to panic in times of trouble. She ran through a quick discipline of self control and felt her fear lifting, though apprehension still sat within her. How could it not, in such a situation?
After a moment or two, she sat up properly and stared around. She was proud to be a Sister, proud to be one of those who now called themselves the Kindred of the God. She had been chosen to serve the God at the age of fourteen and now, seven years later, she was a full Sister, wife of Davred, who’d come down from the satellite as the Manifestation of their Brother the God. Wherever she was now, whatever happened to her, she would continue to follow the Quest of her Kindred, continue to struggle against Those of the Serpent, who had spread their evil ways across the Twelve Claims, mesmerising their followers with drugged incense and hypnotic rituals, and dealing out death to those who opposed their cruel ways.
And, she told herself firmly, she would find her husband Davred again, and her sons Alaran and Erlic, whatever it took, wherever they were. Only death would stop her. She raised her eyes and endorsed this vow with the traditional words, ‘So do I swear. Let the sun by day and the three moons by night bear witness to my oath.’
Then she turned her attention back to her own predicament. To one side of her stretched the rippled surface of a sunlit pool. Behind her a stand of tall trees sighed in the breeze which wafted the faint earthy scents of the deep forest towards her. As she moved her head incautiously, the world wavered around her for a moment, then settled into a steadier focus. Passing through portals left you disoriented, but the weakness was fading more quickly this time than it had done before.
She and her eight companions had been travelling through the rocky foothills of Peneron when they fell into a trap set by Those of the Serpent. Surrounded by so many enemies using new tricks against them, they’d been in desperate straits. Then Quequere, the strange crystalline creature they’d met in the Sandrims, had opened a portal in the rocks to save them. But where had Quequere brought her? And where were the rest of her companions? This wasn’t Peneron, nor was it wildwoods terrain. It was a forest, and it had required regular passage by human feet to make the small hard-beaten path that wound alongside the pool.
She studied the foliage around her. Not the High Alder. She’d have recognised the forests of her birthplace instantly. The scents here were not quite the same and the vegetation was different in many small ways.
As she started to rise to her feet, there was a distant crashing sound in the undergrowth. She glanced quickly from side to side. Nowhere to hide this close to the water. As she took a step, she stumbled and looked down. She had forgotten that she was still wearing this voluminous dark robe, an ugly thing which covered her from neck to ankles. Those of the Serpent insisted on women dressing modestly, but such clothing was ridiculous in a mild climate, and uncomfortable, too. All her female companions had had to dress in the same way to avoid drawing attention to themselves as they travelled through the Twelve Claims.
She sighed and turned in the direction of the noise. As a Sister of the God, she should have been wearing a soft blue robe and headband, but now that the shadow of the Serpent lay across the land, to show that one was a Sister was to invite a slow painful death in one of the Shrines of the Serpent. The Initiates there specialised in pain, even inflicting it willingly upon themselves. They were insane, their souls rotten with discord madness. Even to be near one of them made her shudder.
Everything seemed to be happening slowly, as if she were in a dream. The crashing sounds were very close now. She stood with her back to a tree, ready to deal as best she could with whatever came. The bushes erupted outwards and a large woman brandishing a naked sword burst into view.
‘Quinna!’ Katia sagged against the tree in relief.
‘Bust my guts! I was afraid we’d all got separated when we passed through that portal.’ Quinna turned to face the way she had come. ‘Something’s following me. This is the first space clear enough to swing a sword that I’ve found in this damned forest. Keep out of my way.’ She hefted the sword in her right hand, slipped the dagger from her belt into her left hand, and stood poised for action.
She was taller than Katia, who was reckoned tall by most people’s standards. Quinna was also massive, especially when seen next to Katia’s slenderness, and her bare arms and legs were as muscular as any man’s.
She was clad in minimal fighting gear, brief tunic and tight knee-length breeches, with soft leather sandals laced up her strong calves. The very way she held her weapons proclaimed her expertise.
In spite of the danger, Katia couldn’t help smiling. ‘What’s happened to your robe, Quinna?’
‘I stuffed the cursed thing into some bushes. Back in the Sandrims we had more sense than to wear things that flap around your ankles and trip you up if you try to move quickly. Women from the Twelve Claims must be stupid to put up with those robes. No one can fight properly in a long skirt. Good thing I had my sword and dagger with me when we fell into that portal, eh? It was another portal, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. Herra shouted Quequere’s name before we passed through it, so he must have created it. I didn’t know he could do that.’
‘Shh! Here it comes!’ Quinna rocked gently to and fro, ready to lunge in any direction.
Again the undergrowth thrashed around, heralding the arrival of someone who was either too strong to care about possible enemies, or too foolish to think of such things. Katia stepped back out of reach
of Quinna’s sword and gathered her inner forces together. She hated fighting, hated violence of any kind, but you didn’t give in to the evil that now stalked the Twelve Claims. ‘Brother, watch over us!’ she murmured.
Both women sighed with audible relief as the undergrowth burst apart to reveal a slender youth whose hair was a startling silver-gilt in colour and whose eyes gleamed silver-grey in a face striking for both its beauty and its alienness.
‘Erlic!’ Katia moved towards her son. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m not hurt, but someone’s following me. Several people. Can we find somewhere to hide?’ Like his mother, like the deleff who had planted him in her womb, Erlic loathed violence.
Quinna rumbled in annoyance, then decided that with two companions so unskilled at fighting, discretion was the better part of valour. ‘Let’s go that way.’ She pointed to the right, where a rocky outcrop rose from the edge of pool. ‘There may be some shelter behind the rocks, a cave even, if we’re really lucky.
Keep away from the sand at the edge of the water, though. It’ll show our footprints.’ Without waiting for a response, she led the way briskly through the undergrowth and round towards the rocks.
Katia followed, a smile on her face again. Although this forest was different from those near her home, it was similar enough for her to know how to move in it and she hadn’t needed telling to avoid making footprints. But Quinna had automatically taken command. Back in the Sandrims, where the Kindred had first met her, she’d been one of the leaders of her people, a noted swordswoman. Now she’d brought that sword to aid their quest.
Erlic strode along behind the two women. ‘There’s a cave in the rocks, Mother. I can sense it.’
Katia nodded. She, too, could sense the cave. Strange how Erlic seemed to have inherited some traits from her, but also seemed like a changeling at times, so different was he from Alaran, his twin. In his looks Erlic resembled neither her nor his father Davred. She stole a glance at him. The same old dilemma. Was he her son or not? She knew that she hadn’t conceived twins. Any Sister could control her own body well enough to be sure of that. But after going through one of the deleff’s portals during their flight from Temple Tenebrak, she’d found that the one son she’d conceived had been transformed into two.
How had the deleff done that to her? She’d fretted about it until her sons were born, for all Herra’s reassurances. But from the moment she took him in her arms, it hadn’t mattered. However Erlic had been conceived, he was the son of her body and she loved him dearly.
He stopped abruptly as they neared the tall dark crevice. ‘It’s not empty. There’s something inside it. An animal, I think.’ Then he began to smile. ‘It’s Nim.’
Quinna looked at Katia. ‘Shall I go first, just to be sure?’
Katia shook her head. ‘No. If Nim’s in there, nothing else will be.’
She moved forward confidently.
A loud purr came from the cave and a large head poked out of the cleft.
‘Nim!’ Katia moved to lean her head against the tawny fur of the shoulder that was on a level with her own. She stroked the huge cliff cat and a rough tongue rasped over her cheek.
‘Hey, let’s get inside,’ said Quinna, giving her a nudge. ‘They’re not far behind.’
Katia led Nim inside the cave again and Erlic followed. Quinna stayed near the entrance, hidden by the shadows but able to see anyone who approached. Even as they all settled into position, three men came into view, moving with the confidence of hunters who know their own terrain and feel themselves in charge there.
Nim rumbled in her throat and Katia shushed her.
‘Are they of the Serpent?’ Quinna whispered.
Katia concentrated, sending out her consciousness to test the strangers. At this short distance, she could just manage to gain some impression of them. ‘I can sense no taint. They are not initiates, or even committed to the Serpent, I think.’
‘Want me to go out and speak to them?’
Katia frowned, trying to sense the correct path to take in this bewildering new situation. Were any of their other companions nearby? She’d already sensed that her husband was far away. Where in the Twelve Claims had Quequere’s portal thrown them all? ‘I think we should wait until we know more about where we are. Let’s try to find the others before we do anything.’
Quinna nodded. ‘All right. That makes sense.’
Erlic came to stand next to his mother and stare through the shadows of the entrance. ‘What if Nim stuck her head out? Might they be afraid and run away?’
Katia shook her head. ‘No, they’d be more likely to try to capture her, I think. They look like hunters to me and most hunters can’t resist trying to trap an animal of a sort they haven’t seen before. I’ve never heard of cliff cats in the Twelve Claims, only in the Sandrims. Let me try to plant wards just in front of the entrance. That might turn them away.’ She had to concentrate hard because this was one of her developing Gifts. She’d worked on it a little with Herra, but hadn’t had much chance to practise while they were fleeing across the strange lands beyond the Twelve Claims.
The air in front of the cleft in the rock began to flicker slightly and the three men paused.
‘I don’t think we need to hang around here,’ one of them said. ‘It must just have been a wild rock nerid.’
Katia concentrated hard. She had no great Gift for Compulsions, but she might just be able to nudge one of them into action.
‘I’m getting hungry,’ a dark-haired man said. ‘Let’s finish here and get back to town.’
As they turned and walked away, Katia leaned for a moment against the roughness of the rocky wall.
Using her powers before she was fully recovered from the disorientation of the portal was difficult.
‘Not men of evil,’ said Erlic thoughtfully. ‘But not of the Kindred, either. Where do you think we are, Mother?’ For all that he seemed almost a man grown, he spoke and gazed at her with the directness of a small child, and he had a child’s confidence that she’d know the answers to his questions. While the Kindred were travelling through the lands of the deleff, far to the west of the Twelve Claims, Katia’s twin sons and Carryn’s daughter Lerina had grown overnight from babyhood into youth, with the help of the great trees which controlled the mysterious Tanglewoods. The three young people were now a strange mixture of child and near adult.
‘Let’s look for the others first,’ said Quinna. ‘There’s safety in numbers and I’d like to make sure Benjan’s safe.’ The two of them had been lovers ever since the Kindred reached the Sandrims, and Quinna had left her people mainly to be with him.
Katia’s expression grew sad. ‘I’ve tried to sense Davred. I can tell he’s alive, but that’s all. I think he must be a very long way away from here. The others might not be nearby, either. We three were together as we entered the portal, walking between the two wagons. Remember? Perhaps each group has ended up somewhere different.’
‘I hope not, but I’m afraid you’re right.’ Quinna scowled around her. ‘It must be useful, that mindlinking stuff. I wish me an’ Benjan could manage it. I’d surely like to know he’s safe.’
Katia nodded. The mindlinking had its disadvantages, too. She and Davred were so closely bonded, so attuned to one another, that she felt now as if half of herself was missing. No matter that Davred was a citizen of the Galactic Confederation and came from another planet far across the sky. That made no difference to her. He was her husband and soul-mate, and they’d not been parted for more than a day or two since his arrival on the planet Sunrise nearly three years previously.
He’d fled down from the satellite to escape Robler, when his Exec Officer had decided that Davred was too obsessed by the Sisterhood’s Quest for Peace and Wisdom and had tried to send him back to Confex Central for reassignment. Katia shuddered at the thought of Robler, who seemed a harsh bitter man to her.
Twice he’d tried to drag her husband back to the satellite by force, but thanks to
the deleff he’d failed.
It was strange, but Robler now seemed tainted with the same evil as Those of the Serpent. Discord was everywhere, it seemed, even on the satellite and other worlds Davred had told her about. She blinked and realised her son was speaking to her.
‘Alaran is safe, too, Mother,’ Erlic said. ‘I can tell that. But he’s a long way away from here.’ He shivered. ‘I don’t like to be so far away from him. It feels wrong.’
‘He’ll be missing you, too.’ Katia laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. Erlic didn’t always welcome others touching him. This time his hand came up briefly to squeeze hers. His skin never felt warm to the touch, always cool and dry.
‘Not as much as I miss him, mother. Alaran gets on well with everyone. He draws love to him. People sense that I’m different.’ Erlic looked at Katia. ‘I am different, aren’t I?’
‘Yes. But I don’t love you any less because of that. You’re still my son.’
He nodded, accepting that, and drew her hand up to his cheek for a moment, staring at her with those sad, wise, silver-crystal eyes.
When neither of them spoke, Quinna voiced her own worries. ‘We’d better search the area near the pool, I think, to check that there aren’t any other surprises waiting for us. And I suppose I’d better find that cursed robe again, as well, in case we meet someone.’
Katia smiled. She remembered what a fuss Quinna had made when first presented with a long dark robe to wear. Benjan had roared with laughter and teased his partner unmercifully as she practised walking and fighting in skirts. Best not to think of those golden months of respite beyond the Fireflats in the settlement called Outpost. ‘It would be sensible to get the robe and put it on again, Quinna. You’ll offend people if they see you dressed like that.’
Quinna pulled a face. ‘I’ll fetch it, but I’m not putting the stupid thing on until I have to.’
By the time dusk started to cast long shadows through the forest, they’d come to the conclusion that none of the others was within reach. They’d circled the area, stopping often to listen, and although they didn’t dare call out, Katia was sure that she’d have heard if there’d been anyone moving around nearby.