Shadow of the Serpent

by Shannah Jay

  He found it difficult to move, so concentrated on gathering his inner forces, wishing he had half Herra's skill and control over her body. Where was he? Why was he lying outside in the rain? And what was that smell, that salty tang in the air?

  He dredged through his memories and recalled visits to a simul-chamber as a boy on the university planet.

  His tutors had shown him a miniature beach and told him to play in the sand with the other children in his study cohort. They hadn’t played there for long, because others were waiting outside to come in and enjoy the experience. And he hadn’t liked it there much, if truth be told, surprised by the grittiness of the sand between his toes and the unruliness of the waves. He’d been happy to return to his studies.

  The dull booming sound behind the storm's fury must be waves pounding on a real shore. What was he doing on a shore? He’d been in Peneron, one of the claims furthest away from the sea. What had happened?

  Where was he now?

  At last he managed to open his eyes and push himself into a sitting position. Around him was darkness.

  'Katia!' His voice was a mere thread. He cupped his hands round his mouth and called again, more loudly,

  'Katia! Katia! Are you there?'

  There was no response and he couldn’t sense her presence.

  'Herra! Erlic! Alaran!' Each time he called, Davred's voice was lost in the scream of the wind that raged around him, a wind that shrilled in his ears as if it were hysterical with rage.

  He pushed himself to his feet, swaying as much from his own dizziness as from the force of the wind. He could see very little. The sky was covered in dense cloud which hid all the moons, a rare thing on Sunrise, except during the spring darks. Around him, faint motionless shapes suggested vegetation or rocks. He remained where he was for a few moments longer, shielding his face from the rain with one arm and waiting to see if his eyes would grow accustomed to the poor light.

  When it became apparent that even the sharpest eyes could see little on such a night, he felt his way forward a few careful paces to the nearest dark shape. It proved to be a rock, worn and gnarled beneath his groping hands. Its roughened surface was running with water. In its lee, he found some shelter from the worst of the wind, but there was no shelter from the stinging flails of the rain and the noise of the storm.

  He started to shiver and it took him a few minutes to regulate his body. This, at least, he could do fairly well nowadays. Why hadn’t he thought to do it before? Why had he simply stood there and endured the buffeting of the rain like a simpleton?

  'It was a portal,' he said aloud. The wind tore his words to pieces before they left his lips, but he repeated them again, slowly, as their meaning sank in. 'It was the disorientation from a portal! And,' he frowned in the darkness, 'Herra called Quequere's name before we passed through it. So it must have been Quequere who saved us.' He hadn’t known their rock-bound friend possessed the capacity to create a portal. Had any of them known that? No, they had thought only deleff could create portals, and fixed ones at that, only possible in special places.

  Ideas started sparking in Davred's mind, setting off other trains of ideas. It was this capacity that had made him a Potential Cathartic Agent in the Confederation, and perhaps the same capacity that had made him become the Eighth Manifestation of the God when he came down to the planet. If Quequere had come to their aid, then the strange crystalline life form they’d encountered in the Sandrims must have the capacity to make portals at will, anywhere on the planet.

  How could Quequere do that? He was, he said, bound to the rocks. But - the terrain had been rocky around the small town where Those of the Serpent had attacked their two wagons. Ah! Davred nodded to himself. Perhaps Quequere could reach out to anywhere which had a rocky terrain, especially on a planet like Sunrise, where surprises greeted you at every step and anything seemed possible.

  He shook his head. The disorientation did not seem as bad from this portal. It was passing very quickly. Or perhaps he was just growing more accustomed to portals.

  What else were they going to discover on this mysterious planet? What other surprises did Sunrise have in store for the Galactic Confederation? Even the inhabitants of Sunrise didn’t know all the planet's secrets.

  From the satellite, the lands of the deleff, to the east of the Twelve Claims, had appeared to be only barren, rocky deserts, with occasional areas of thermal activity. There’d been no sign of the Tanglewoods or the Sandrims, no sign of life forms like the deleff and their spiderlike servants, the SS'Habi, or of other human settlements.

  Davred raised his head. Was that a noise? A cry for help? He strained to listen through the rain's drumming on the abject muddy land and it seemed as if he heard the sound again. He began to move forward towards it, one slow step after another, feeling the ground ahead of him with his foot before he placed his full weight on it. He had no desire to fall over a cliff or to break his ankle at a sudden dip in the ground. After a few paces, he heard the call again, from closer to hand.

  He raised his own voice and called out for his wife, but as he approached the lone voice, he realised it wasn't Katia. He’d have known if she were near. Something within him would have sensed her presence, as she could sense his.

  A shadow blurred into being in front of him. His outstretched hands touched another human body, but he couldn’t see the face. 'Who is it?'

  'It's me, Father.'

  'Alaran! Our Brother be praised! You're safe. Have you seen any sign of the others?'

  'No. And I can't sense Erlic, so he's not close by. Where's mother?'

  'I don't know.' Davred stood thinking for a moment, then put his arm round his son's shoulders. 'We'd better try to find shelter. Hold on to me.'

  'Do you know where we are, Father?'

  'No. But I think that's the sea you can hear pounding behind us, so we'll move in the other direction.'

  'The sea! How did we get near the sea? We were in Peneron! What happened?'

  'We fell through a portal. I don't know where we are now, but - ' He broke off as a light started flashing some distance away from them, in the direction away from the booming and crashing noises made by the sea.

  'Look! Let's go and see what that is. We can't stay out here in the rain. We've got to find shelter and warmth.'

  They fumbled their way across the uneven, night-blurred landscape. When Davred would have fallen, Alaran held him upright. When Alaran stumbled to his knees, Davred prevented him from measuring his length on the rocky ground. As they got closer to the light, the force of the rain seemed to lessen a little.

  They stumbled into the circle of light, and immediately arms seized them. They were jerked roughly apart and held fast.

  'Who are you?' demanded a deep voice.

  'Spies! Kill them!' The speakers were all hidden in the blur of rain behind the brightness of the lantern.

  'We're travellers, lost in a storm,' protested Davred. 'Why should you kill us? We saw your light and made our way towards it. You could see we were making no attempt to hide our approach.'

  'He's right there. They came straight at us, openly.'

  'I don't trust them. Who knows where they've come from? Or why?'

  'Keep an eye on them and make sure they stay quiet,' the deep voice ordered. 'We'll give it another few minutes, then we'll abandon it for tonight.'

  'I told you no one would come out in such a storm.'

  'Shh!'

  Davred could have used his growing powers of Compulsion to break free, but since no actual violence had been offered to him or his son, he stood where he was and waited. The storm was indeed lessening and the rain wasn’t stinging his face now, just drifting in cold flurries against his cheeks. He wasn’t too uncomfortable, but Alaran, who didn’t yet have the same body control, was shivering. When he saw his father looking at him, the lad smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  Davred grinned back. He’d never realised how much he’d enjoy being a father, or how much he’d love his chil
dren. He regretted deeply that the troubles on Sunrise had deprived Alaran of a normal childhood, and that he himself had missed the pleasures of raising him from a small child.

  'What are you two grinning at?' a voice near his ear demanded.

  'We're glad to be alive,' said Davred.

  'How did you get out here in the first place?'

  Davred shook his head. 'I don't know. We were - er - attacked by raiders. They held us captive for days and took us somewhere in a cart. We were unconscious when they dropped us here.'

  'Raiders! There aren’t any raiders near here.'

  'I told you. It was a long way away. And they dumped us a few hours ago. We've been wandering ever since.'

  'I don't believe him. We should kill them. It's the only way to be safe.'

  'But we're very glad to see you people,' said Alaran. 'There's no need to hurt us.'

  'Well, we're not glad to see you!' the leader snapped back. 'The last thing we want is a pair of strangers spying on us.'

  'You aren't of the Serpent,' said Alaran, 'so you have nothing to fear from us - or we from you.'

  Davred winced. You didn’t say such things openly, but his sons hadn’t had time to learn subtlety or subterfuge. They still spoke their thoughts without thinking, like the young children they were in many ways.

  'You see! They are spies. We should kill them now,' insisted that same half-hysterical voice.

  'Shut up! We'll not hear anything if you lot keep on jabbering like that.' The leader of this strange bedraggled group started beating his arms against his body to generate warmth, but his face looked white and chilled under the bushy black beard that covered his chin.

  He was looking pointedly at Alaran, who gave him another sunny child's smile, then stood there silently, waiting. Already Alaran had more control over his own body than the men around them, for all three children had started their training in Sisterhood ways during their months of respite at Outpost. But still, he shivered from time to time.

  'That's it, then!' the leader said at last. 'They won't come now. Let's get back to our homes. An' you two had better keep quiet as we move if you know what's good for you.'

  'We'll be quiet, my friend,' said Davred. He and Alaran followed their shivering captors down a tussocky hill. At the bottom, they came to a rough track and before they climbed a rise in the track, the men extinguished their lanterns.

  'Remember, no noise at all from you two!' the leader growled again.

  A few minutes later, Davred and Alaran were led into a big dark structure that proved to be a barn. Some nerids woke up as the group entered and snuffled sleepily at them once or twice.

  ''Bout time you got back.' A woman who was sitting waiting on some bales of hay turned up the flame of a shaded lantern and gasped aloud. 'Who are these?'

  'That's what I intend to find out,' the bearded man said. 'Tie them to the roof poles.'

  'There's no need to bind us, friend,' said Davred. 'We mean you no harm.' Then he added, very softly, 'I serve our Brother, as you do.' Like his son, he could sense that these people were not of the Serpent.

  The woman moaned in her throat and one of the men muttered a curse.

  'Why do you say that?' demanded the leader.

  'Because I can sense it. Those of the Serpent are tainted by their evil. I can sense that, too. You carry no taint.'

  As the bearded man stood there indecisively, there was a hammering on a door somewhere nearby, clearly heard through the lessening storm. 'Open in the name of the Serpent!'

  The woman instantly slipped away.

  'Get out through the back fodder hatch!' ordered the bearded man, tearing off his soaked outdoor garments and ganging them on a nail. The group dispersed quickly, as if they were used to this. He turned back to Davred and Alaran. 'If you betray us, I'll kill you myself.'

  'No betrayal, friend.' Davred and Alaran followed the man to the rear of the barn, squeezing between draped fishing nets, tools and implements, and untidy piles of hay bales. A small rear chamber was devoted to the smoking of fish. Alaran pulled a face at the strong smell of the place. Their guide stopped, gestured to them to be silent, then swung a rack of drying fish aside and indicated that they should enter the narrow space concealed behind it.

  Davred tried to copy Herra and sense the man's intentions, and indeed, it seemed very clear the fellow meant them no harm. Alaran, who had no qualms about their rough host, entered the constricted space without hesitation. Davred's heart twisted in fear at the thought of the harm Those of the Serpent could and would do to his son if they captured him.

  'Hurry up, will you!' The man shoved Davred towards the hiding place, casting an anxious look over his shoulder.

  'Brother, look down!' Davred said, and entered the narrow space.

  The man made a gesture, the forming of a circle with thumb and first finger, a gesture so swift that it was gone as soon as formed, but Davred had time to echo the gesture before the rack of fish swung back into place. He’d seen that sign before, in Tenebrak, and seen Herra trust the man who made it.

  Back in the barn, the man just had time to slosh some wine over himself, stand the wine crock in a prominent place and lie down on a pile of straw. When the outer door opened and black-clad men stamped inside, carrying lanterns and naked swords, he was snoring gently, his face relaxed.

  'Search this place!' the leader ordered.

  One of the intruders shook the sleeping man roughly by the shoulder, but it was a while before they got him awake, and even longer before they could get any response out of him. He seemed fuddle-witted, his thoughts as slow as his movements. When they stopped holding him upright and shouting in his face, he sank to the ground, smiling foolishly.

  One of them turned him over roughly with his foot, and looked scornfully down at the recumbent figure.

  'It's as his wife said. Nedar Bel-Savreth has turned into a wine-sot.'

  'Our informant told us that was just a ploy, Reth.'

  'Our informant is so eager to join the inner shrine he'd say anything, incriminate anyone. Our Dread Lord doesn’t welcome liars - or fools. Still, we can keep a closer eye on this lot in future. It's about time they started making sacrifice in the shrine like everyone else. It's a disgusting waste to have sex at home. You should have it on the altar, so that it gives more power to the Serpent. And it doesn't hurt to accept a light whipping while you're doing it, either. All honour to our Dread Lord.'

  The other man nodded. 'I've got to quite like that, now, though it seems a bit strange at first till you accept the pain. The women don't welcome it, though, do they? Women are stupid. Don't know their duty.'

  'Some men are stupid, too,' Reth said. 'The fisherfolk, for a start. They haven't any idea of duty, that lot haven't.'

  'They say if they go into the shrines and make sacrifice, the sea won't welcome them and their boats will sink. And we do still need the fish they bring in. The townfolk only just survived last winter's hunger.'

  'Ha!' Reth snorted scornfully. 'They'll still bring in fish afterwards. We'll make sure of that. Making sacrifice hasn't affected the other fishers who joined us, has it? It's all lies.'

  The man who had objected looked doubtful. 'That might just be luck. Fisherfolk say those who venture on the ocean must placate Feera and the rest of the water gods. It's always been so. Dare we risk it?'

  'The fisherfolk can say anything they choose and you'd believe it, you credulous fool! Things are changing now. The Serpent is growing stronger. Go you and tell the wife what we've decided.' He kicked the recumbent figure hard. 'This fool will remember nothing. Make sure she at least understands that her husband is to bring her to the Shrine tomorrow evening without fail.'

  Nedar lay looking up at them owlishly, as if he didn’t really understand what they were saying, as if his side wasn’t throbbing painfully from the kick, as if he did not have the urge to leap up and throttle them.

  One of the men snickered. 'I doubt that sot will be able to make sacrifice, even if you do dr
ag him into the Shrine.'

  'Then we shall use his wife for him, shall we not? She's a comely woman. I like them big-breasted.' He winked. 'Anyway, the order’s been given that all shall play their part from now on. If we're to rid the land of those evil hags who remain in hiding, we must give the power of our bodies to our dread Lord the Serpent.'

  When they had gone, Nedar lay where he’d fallen, well versed in the ways of the Servants of the Shrine.

  Sure enough, a little while later the door opened softly and another man dressed in damp black robes slipped inside. He stood there by the door, staring across at Nedar by the light of the single lantern guttering on its hook on the central roof pole.

  As the door closed behind him, Nedar opened his eyes to slits and debated whether to move. Something made him decide to stay where he was and sure enough, a few minutes later the heavy wooden door crashed back on its hinges and a burly man with drooping moustaches strode inside, searched the barn carefully, then stood looking down at Nedar, who was bubbling snores like a simmering kettle. The intruder muttered something under his breath, swung a kick at Nedar and chuckled as Nedar jerked awake, rolling to and fro, clutching himself and blinking hard, as if trying to focus on his tormentor.

  A final kick and the man left.

  Nedar waited for a while and only when he caught the sound of a riding nerid trotting out of his yard, did he rise, grimacing at the pain in his ribs. He crept across silently to peer out of a convenient slit in the wooden wall near the door. And he waited again, just to be sure. But nothing stirred. His wife had lit the lamp and thrown back the window shutters, a sign that she was alone in the house. He decided to risk leaving the barn.

  First he went into the rear section to release Davred and Alaran from their cramped hiding place. 'I still don't trust you two completely,' he growled at them. 'An' don't think I do. I shall be keeping my eye on you every minute. Just one step wrong and ksst!' he mimed slitting his throat.