Shadow of the Serpent

by Shannah Jay

  'And what if Those of the Serpent are waiting for you now, in the village?'

  He shook his head. 'They won't be. We'd have seen a sign.' He looked at her through narrowed eyes for a minute, then tried to explain. You could always trust a Sister with your secrets. Not one of them had ever been known to go over to the Serpent, whatever them snake-loving devils claimed. 'We’ve got signals, you see.

  Ways of moving them rocks around. No one's changed 'em, so the village is safe.'

  But as they approached the small group of shabby-looking houses, Olleff stopped. 'No one's come out to greet us,' he said. 'No one at all!' He looked terrified suddenly.

  Diff and Porrin came to stand beside him. 'What'll we do?' they asked each other. They looked as if they were ready to take flight. The flock of nerids caught their uneasiness and the animals started milling round, making mewing whining noises and butting into one another for comfort.

  'Danged if I know what to do,' Olleff admitted.

  Cheral clicked her tongue in exasperation and took charge. 'We can find out nothing by standing here. We must risk driving into your village. As traders, we three should be fairly safe. One of you can come with us.

  You can ride on the wagon out of sight. The other two can wait here with the flock. Narla, perhaps you'd better wait here as well.'

  'No.' Narla's voice was firm. 'I'm staying with you and Jonner, Herra. I'm not going to be left behind, not from now on.'

  'You might be safer staying here,' Jonner urged.

  'No. I'm coming.'

  The wagon rolled into the village. The deleff seemed uneasy, but didn’t refuse to move forward until they came to the edge of the village green. There Sh'Hessa stopped dead and the others followed suit. Olleff threw himself off the wagon with a cry of anguish, ran forward a little, then stood there, retching, unable to go further.

  Bodies lay sprawled across the grass. The blood from their shredded backs had dried now into black stains, but the expressions on their faces still showed that they’d died in agony. Three women, two oldsters and one child, all whipped to death.

  Cheral got down and put her arms round Olleff. 'Are any of them yours?' she asked gently.

  He leaned against her sobbing bitterly. 'The - the child,' he managed. 'My little Anisha.'

  She could only hold him and rock him against her, stroking his head as if he were her son.

  There was a hesitant shuffling from inside one of the small houses. Olleff pushed Cheral away and snatched at his knife. Jonner's knives were already out.

  A figure stumbled out of the house, a figure whose bloodied eye sockets would see no more, a figure whose every movement spoke of pain. 'Who's there? I can't see you. They blinded me. I can't hurt anyone.

  Who's there?'

  It was Narla who jumped down from the wagon and went over to enfold the old woman in her arms.

  Olleff didn't seem able to move. 'We're traders,' she said. 'We wouldn't harm you.'

  Olleff took a deep sobbing breath and walked forward. 'Ma? It's me.'

  She turned towards the sound of his voice. 'They killed Anisha,' she wailed. 'Killed my little darling. I'd have killed myself after they left. No use in my living like this, a burden to everyone. But I wanted to tell you first - ' She broke off and sobbed against Narla, then pulled herself together and said in a dull voice, 'They took everyone else, you see, Ollie. Said you menfolk could save the others if you went and made sacrifice in Marrinak. Your wife was still alive when they left. At least, they said she was still alive. I couldn't see her any more by then.' She swayed. 'I don't know why I didn't die of this. It hurts, oh, Ollie, it hurts. Brother, Brother, gather me to you! Gather me now!'

  'Let us take you inside and dress your eyes,' said Cheral, not allowing the shock and horror she felt to prevent her from helping this victim of evil. 'I've got some soothing herbs in my wagon.'

  'Why bother? I'd rather you killed me.'

  'I couldn't do that.' Cheral's voice was thick with tears. 'I could never do that.'

  'Ma, don't leave me. I still need you.' Olleff helped his mother into the house. She clung to him with her thin old hands as she stumbled along. Inside, the one living room was neat and tidy, its appointments colourful and dainty, in contrast to the horror that still seemed to linger around them.

  'I'd rather you gave me some herbs as'd put me to sleep for ever,' the old woman repeated, feeling her way to a chair. 'I'm no use to anyone now. Not even to myself. I don't want to live on. I don't want to remember what I seen.'

  'No!' Cheral's voice was firm and sure. 'You must be of some use. Our Brother wouldn’t have left you alive had he not some purpose for you.'

  'You speak like a Sister.'

  'I am a Sister. Proud to serve our Brother in these dreadful times.'

  The old woman was silent for a moment, then, 'I reckon the Serpent's winning.'

  'No! Don't even think that! Each time you think such a thing it gives them more power.' Cheral's voice was firm and sure.

  The battered blood-stained old face looked puzzled. 'Say you so?'

  'I do. Tell me your name.'

  'Bessa.'

  Cheral put one arm round her shoulders, 'Let me make you more comfortable. I have beringa sap cordial.

  That'll soothe the pain, give you strength . . . '

  'What for?'

  'For whatever comes.'

  When the other two herders arrived, Cheral finished helping Bessa, then glanced around, gathering the attention of the small group. 'Listen to me, everyone. Listen well. We Sisters have changed. We are no longer a Sisterhood. We've become the Kindred of the God. Men and women both serve our Brother now. And our quest is bearing fruit. We're learning new skills, pulling together groups of people.'

  She stopped speaking for a moment as the realisation hit her. Then joy filled her face, even more radiant than the sunlight outside. 'That's why we've been scattered like this,' she exclaimed in ringing tones. 'We're here to seed the land with rebellion. We're here to start a blaze that will one day consume the evil of the Serpent.' She raised her hands as she spoke, and it seemed as if light haloed her. None could doubt that the God was speaking through her, and even Bessa's face brightened.

  For a few moments silence seemed to echo round the small room, and in spite of the horror of the day, hope was born again in each of them.

  'We shall overcome the Serpent,' Cheral repeated firmly, then let her hands fall. 'Now, show Narla where to heat me some water, Olleff, then go you and bury the dead. When the graves are ready, call me and I shall speak the words of passing from this life with you. And afterwards,' her eyes gleamed with sharp intent,

  'afterwards we shall make plans to rescue the rest of your people.'

  * * *

  The moves for the rebellion were planned very carefully. Word went out to those hiding in the secret places of the plains. As Olleff worked on the details with Jonner, Cheral and Narla offered advice, and Olleff's old mother sat there, with her sightless face lit up by the vengeance she heard building up step by step. Then she began abruptly to take part in the plotting, and the rest of them recognised in awe that their Brother was speaking through Bessa, for even the tone of her voice was different.

  Message birds brought scouts from hidden groups across the plains hurrying into Twin Springs. The scouts left the village with eagerness burning on their faces. The time had come to do something. At last.

  It wasn’t hard to rouse the plainspeople to rebellion. Few herder folk had been caught up by the Serpent cult. The wide airy spaces kept people's minds clear of the cloying incense. And besides, these folk had never taken kindly to authority. Their comings and goings weren’t easy to monitor, and their loyalty to their own kind bordered on the fanatical.

  The few who were suspect, who might be serving the Serpent, were brought into Twin Springs, locked in a storehouse and watched most carefully. The darkness that writhed within that close-shuttered room made those bringing them food shudder and approach it only in gro
ups.

  On the chosen day, the townsfolk of Marrinak hurried through the streets as usual, conducting their daily business quickly. Given the capriciousness of Gervar, Initiate of the Inner Shrine, who was now to all intents and purposes the ruler of this region, men didn’t want to expose themselves in public for longer than was needful. The women mostly stayed indoors, tended each other's wounds and waited in dread for another night to bring them pain.

  It was a hazy sort of day, with a chill wind lifting the litter in the corners of the marketplace and whispering at them in every breath of air.

  'The Houran will blow tonight,' folk said to one other, shivering. 'Put up the shutters. The Houran's coming.' The chill wind that sometimes blew across the plain from the mountains made life a misery for everyone, bringing dust and cold and, when it was at its height, an omnipresent wailing sound as it found every crevice and hole to whistle through. No matter how carefully you blocked up the holes that the wind had discovered one year, once it blew again, it would find more. And when the Houran was at its height, you could only sit indoors and endure the misery.

  As the afternoon dimmed towards dusk, a strange procession entered the town. The old woman who led it was blind, and walked with a hand on her son's shoulder. The new scars around her eye sockets showed that her blindness was no accident and the mere sight of her battered face set the hairs rising on the bodies of those who saw her.

  'Vengeance!' Bessa began calling out, in a monotonous voice that yet penetrated the walls of the houses.

  'Vengeance! Down with the Serpent!'

  Behind her followed a group of men radiating anger and determination, their clothing proclaiming them to be herders and farmers. Next came a group of women, not clad in dark robes, not walking demurely with their eyes lowered, but striding along freely in their old traditional garments, with low-necked blouses and full skirts bright with embroidery. The mere sight of them brought an ache to people's breasts. Thus had they all dressed once on festival days.

  At the tail end of the procession rumbled a trader's wagon, drawn by the two largest deleff anyone had ever seen. It was a long time since traders had called at Marrinak.

  The wind was gusting strongly, blowing people's robes against their bodies and sifting dust down upon them, but they paid it no attention. They had eyes only for the procession, a procession which was growing larger by the minute as more and more townsfolk began to follow behind it. No incense blew around the streets today, save that from the shrine itself. Wherever the rebels found incense sticks burning, they doused them quickly in the nearest water butt, and moved on purposefully.

  'Where is Gervar?' shouted the old woman as they walked down the main street towards the town square.

  'Come out, Gervar, and face your doom. I've come to repay you for my blindness, come to repay you for little Anisha, too.' She waved her clenched fists in the air and shrieked her message. 'See what Gervar has done to me, people of Marrinak. See my face. Will yours be next? Will he whip your grandchild to death before your eyes, as he did mine? Will you let him do such things? Down with the Serpent!'

  Bessa's voice seemed to carry further than a voice should. It had an echoing quality behind the shrillness, and for a while even the houran died down a little, so that the voice could be heard above the gusting restless wind. And at the centre of it all was a woman possessed. 'I am the Serpent's doom,' she called. 'Vengeance!

  Down with the Serpent!'

  Some men had gone running ahead to the shrine to report this blasphemy, while others had hidden in their houses lest they be accused of allowing the hag to profane the air with her accusations. But most people followed the herder folk, openly curious to see what would happen.

  When the Servants of the Shrine first came hurrying forth to meet the procession, knives ready to stop this old beldam from ever shrieking such profanities again, they found their way blocked by carts in one street, a herd of bewildered wool nerids in another and a pile of dismembered market stalls in a third. Only one entrance to the square was left open and down it they could see the procession approaching.

  In vain they cried for folk to come out of their houses and shops to help them clear the ways, to help them avenge the insult to the Serpent. The nerids milled around in confusion, the pieces of wood couldn’t follow anyone's orders and there were no people around to blame for it all. Uneasy, the Servants went to consult with one another in front of the gates of the shrine, huddling there in a black-clad group, staring down the main street.

  The shrieking of the madwoman drew closer and closer, and behind it the low hum of an angry crowd.

  'She must be killed,' Gervar decided. 'Killed immediately. The minute you see her, rush across and kill her.

  I shall go back inside the shrine and pray to our dread lord for your success.'

  But when he’d left, the other Servants looked at the size of the approaching crowd and hesitated.

  Some men found themselves quickly taken prisoner by those in the procession, for the old hag would point to them as if she could still see, point and smile and call, 'That one! That one is of the Serpent.' It made them shiver and stare at her in horror, and few of them found the strength to resist their captors.

  Then the old woman and her son reached the corner where the main street entered the town square. They brought the procession into the middle of the square and came to a halt there, opposite the group of dark-clad Servants. They stood for a few moments. Waiting. Silent. The wind mourned softly around them, setting the black and silver banners flapping and cracking above this confrontation.

  Into the silence moved people, angry people, men and women both. Some of them had helped organise this rebellion, some were only just realising the time had at last come to overthrow the Serpent. But something held their words back as they slipped out of the gates of their domains and made their way to the square. And their silence was far more frightening than noise would have been.

  In the centre of it all stood Olleff's mother, a catalyst, a focus, a living example of why they must act, why they must drive the Serpent from Marrinak before worse evil befell them. For people hadn’t known what the Servants were doing out on the plains, hadn’t known that such atrocities could happen, that Those of the Serpent went far beyond whipping in the shrine.

  As the procession stopped, even Cheral shivered at the emanations of evil coming from that place of evil, but Bessa turned to her son and embraced him with joy on her face. 'You can let me go now, Olleff,' she said.

  'You've been a good son to me. After this day is past, be happy. Don't let the past weigh you down.'

  'But, Ma - '

  She raised her voice and it seemed to echo across the whole square. 'I can see my way now. I need no eyes for what I must do. Our Brother is with me.' She walked steadily forward, her whole body vibrating with defiance. 'Brother, look down!' she called, again and again.

  And somehow the Servants couldn’t move to intercept her.

  'Brother, look down!' Bessa's voice rang now with joy.

  'Look down upon us all!' At first the response was muttered by a few in the square, then more folk began to say it, their voices growing louder, and at last they began to call out the words, as they had in the old days.

  And as they called, joy came back into their voices, joy and hope and love. 'Brother, look down upon us all!'

  The Servants who guarded the shrine were transfixed, open-mouthed.

  From her seat on the wagon, Cheral, too, was praying to her Brother, though she had no doubt that he was with them that day. She was praying for Bessa, praying that their Brother the God would look after her through death's transition and would then grant her a next life filled with happiness.

  When Bessa drew close to the shrine, she stopped. But the shrill old voice continued to shriek its defiance, and now the echo was mingled with the whining of the wind blowing in from the plains, the wind that was rising again, rising swiftly, howling around them. 'Come out, Gervar!' she called. 'Dare you fac
e what you did to me? Where are you, Gervar? I'm only an old woman. Nothing to be afraid of. You're good at killing women, Gervar. Come and kill me. We'll die together.' And every time she said this she would throw back her head and howl with that shrill laughter that made even her son shudder as it scraped along people's nerves.

  The black-painted gates of the Shrine were thrown wide open and the rest of the Servants came out to join the line of defenders outside the front walls of their shrine. Silently they formed a wall of black figures, whips in their belts, robes flapping in the wind that blew and howled around them. They placed wildly flickering storm torches in holders in the shrine walls, for dusk was falling fast - dusk, the time they called the Hour of the Serpent.

  But the wind was still blowing, chill and eerie as it howled from crevice to crevice, and it blew away the stink of the incense.

  Only then did Gervar come forth. Fresh blood stained his forehead and his eyes shone black with what the Sisters called discord madness. They didn’t seem the eyes of a human being any more; they seemed rather the staring eyes of a ravening feral beast. 'I’m here, old woman!' he yelled. 'Here to finish what I started.'

  She pointed her hand towards him, and the pointing finger tracked him as he stalked to and fro, an unnerving act that made the Servants mutter to one another. 'Blind I am, Gervar,' she shrieked, 'yet I can see your evil darkening our world.'

  Olleff's face was full of the same defiance, and he watched his mother with pride and elation. Thus did herders make their stand, and live up to their reputation for wildness.

  'The Serpent has marked you, Gervar!' Bessa shrilled. 'Marked you for death.'

  The crowd gasped, for the blood on Gervar's forehead had darkened and changed, and was now writhing in the form of a serpent. Around the man darkness seemed to gather like a cloak.

  'Your God has joined you,' she called. 'I can sense his evil presence. And yet he shall not prevail over me tonight. For I am our Brother's sword, sharp and keen to drink your blood, Gervar.'

  He took a step towards her and pulled out a sharp knife, but even as it flashed in the flickering light of the torches, the wind doubled its fury and howled around them. Those not standing near the protection of a wall were blown about like feathers. The Servants clutched one another and tried in vain to follow Gervar across the square. Torches sputtered and went out, all except that held by the old woman and that held by Gervar.