Serpentine (The Beggar's Ride Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  Bane waited until he was firmly seated and then tipped over the edge, catching the air with his wings and soaring gently and gracefully down the face of the mountain. He set down just below the second tier of the palace. He lowered his wing and Narak slid down to the ground.

  He walked into the palace. It was fairly austere for the home of a god mage. Pascha had not spent time making it look impressive, and so, in its austere manner, it did. The buildings had high ceilings, thick walls, and all of it naked rock, and somehow it was always just warm enough. He strolled across a vast hall. He had no idea what its purpose was, and neither did Pascha, he was sure. The west facing windows were all coloured glass, a jarring touch of pretty brightness amid the harsh stone. At the far end he came to a broad stairway and went up the steps three at a time.

  At the top was a doorway. There was a guard here, but really he was only for show. Pascha didn’t need men to guard her. The guard knocked on the door as soon as he saw Narak and opened it as he approached. He nodded to the man and went in.

  Pascha was sitting on a bench looking out of a window that looked, predictably, to the east. She didn’t turn when Narak entered, but she did speak.

  “I am killing children,” she said.

  Narak crossed the room and sat beside her. Through the window he could see that she had been watching the funeral of the boy who had died. They had reached the burning ground and even as he watched, the pyre caught and sent a black column of smoke skywards.

  Narak put a finger on her chin and gently turned her face away from the pyre.

  Pascha was tiny. It was incongruous that so much power should be vested in so small a frame. Her red hair was tied back severely and her pale skin seemed a degree paler than usual. Her green eyes sought his.

  “You are trying to protect millions,” he said. “It is a small price to pay.”

  “I know you think it is wrong,” she said.

  “I do not like it,” he agreed, “but neither do you. If I knew a better way I would tell you.”

  “I know.”

  She turned her eyes back to the window. The distant pyre was blazing now. The smoke had changed to white and drifted down towards the great plain.

  “He was from Avilian,” Pascha said.

  Narak understood all too well why she was taking it so hard. It was a deliberate act of penance on her part. She was afraid that she would become inured to it, that death would become something she accepted, and mortal life something she did not value. It was already hard for someone who had seen so many centuries pass to care about the flickering lives of the mortal. Also there was the detail that nobody, not one of the twelve candidates that had come to Col Boran and passed the first test, had survived the second.

  Narak speculated privately that it was something in the nature of the people who wanted to be tested. Those that preferred not to take the risk might be more likely to pass.

  He also speculated that those who might have the talent would stop coming to Col Boran and seek another path, one that permitted the overly ambitious, the ones that lacked a fellow feeling for others, to gain power. That was what had happened before, and the world had been saved only by the most unlikely accident.

  “I am here,” he said, and he put his arm about her shoulders. “I will always be here.”

  3 Mordo

  He stood on the stairs and listened to the voices. It was annoying that Narak had gone to her, but he could wait. Mordo Tregaris had wanted to be there himself, but his duties had kept him away at the crucial moment, and he dare not go near her when the Wolf was there.

  Mordo had secrets, and having secrets he must lie to protect them, and he knew enough to know that Narak was part dragon, or so they said. He believed it. He had seen the Wolf leap from a cliff and land in his aspect, and his appearance had been more dragon than man, more man than wolf.

  You could not lie to a dragon.

  Mordo wanted the god mage to trust him, and he knew that the quickest way to trust was not being trustworthy. It was being what the god mage needed him to be – a sympathetic ear, a supporter. He played the role with some skill when the opportunity arose.

  He turned and retreated down the stairs, crossed the empty great hall and went over the bridge that led to the roof of the next building. The roof was a garden, lined with flowering shrubs, grassed, and boasting a pretty fountain in the Avilian style, but Mordo barely noticed.

  He went down another stairway, along a corridor, and into a room where two clerks sat at desks. They stood when he entered, inclining their heads respectfully.

  “Are there any more to be tested?” he asked.

  “No, master,” one of the clerks said. His name was Boyso, a man of middle years and expanding gut, bald and dull witted. The other was Harrigan, younger, smarter, and subject to the whims of the older and more senior clerk.

  “And none on the way?”

  “Not that we know, master.”

  Well, it would have to be something else, then. He left the clerks and went to his own place of work, a room filled with papers and books, all carefully boxed, for Mordo was nothing if not organised. He had once considered scholarship as a profession, but it had seemed rather poorly rewarded, and so here he was, through a little luck and a great deal of hard work and planning, the Under-Steward for Protocol in the palace of the god mage.

  But for Mordo even this post was merely a stepping stone.

  He sat at his desk and quickly thumbed through the new papers that had accumulated there since this morning. Most of it was trivia. He signed a couple of orders for ceremonial supplies, read a few pages, and that was all. The last item was a personal matter, a confirmation of his order for ten cases of very expensive Telan wine. It was as good a bottle as the god mage herself drank, and Mordo used it to curry favour with other officials at Col Boran, especially with the Steward himself, but Mordo’s wine served another purpose.

  The previous Under-Steward for Protocol had been a regular recipient of Mordo’s wine, and he had died, dropped dead of heart failure. The two facts were not unrelated.

  Having used such a strategy once he knew that he could not use it again. Even the dullards at Col Boran would notice if everyone above him dropped dead at a convenient moment. But Mordo was a resourceful man, and there was more than one path to the top of every mountain.

  The thing that fascinated him above all else was Pelion’s Crown. He had been allowed to handle it. Indeed, as Under-Steward for Protocol it was his duty to collect it from its locked room and bring it to the lesser hall every time a candidate asked to be tested, and he had done it seven times since the untimely death of his predecessor. He had watched the god mage place it upon the head of each candidate, and on two occasions the opaque stones that graced its rim had lit up with a fierce white light.

  It was a talent detector.

  Mordo knew that he had no talent himself. One of the first things he had done as Under-Steward had been to go to the locked room and try the crown on his own head, and there had been no light, no blaze of promised power. That had been a disappointment, because he had always known that he was special, clever, better at almost everything than the people he met. He had been certain that he was talented.

  But Mordo had learned to live with the disappointment.

  The other source of unhappiness for Mordo was the god mage herself. She was not at all what he had hoped. Instead of seizing the world by the scruff of its neck and exercising her awesome power she stayed walled up in Col Boran and let the kingdoms do pretty much as they wished.

  The way she hugged her power to herself meant that Mordo, as her Under-Steward, had less power himself. Indeed, it was only the assorted ambassadors and candidates who came here that paid him any heed at all.

  It was not what Mordo would have done, and he was clever enough to know that he was exactly the kind of man who would fail the god mage’s precious tests for exactly that reason.

  Mordo wanted power. He dreamed of it. But so far he had not c
ome up with a way of acquiring it other than rising through the ranks of the god mage’s servants. If he had the crown, if he could steal it, then things would be very different, but he knew that as soon as it went missing it would be hunted for relentlessly by her Farheim, and by the Wolf himself, and Mordo did not want to be hunted.

  He left his office and walked down to the kitchens. He was growing hungry. He took a bottle of wine with him – a gift for the head cook.

  4 Callista

  She could see Col Boran from her makeshift camp. She had been able to see it last night and the night before that, so flat was this part of the Great Plain.

  Since she had first seen it, a regular shaped speck on the huge irregular mass of the Dragon’s Back, she had walked sixty miles, and the speck had grown into a pattern. She could make out the larger structures now and she thought that by tomorrow night, or the day after at the latest, she would be there.

  Callista Dalini believed that she was going to Col Boran to die.

  It was what she hoped.

  She was nearing the end of a long journey, from what had once been her father’s estates outside Afael to the palace of the god mage. It had taken a month.

  When she had begun it had seemed impossible that she would reach her goal, but now, so close, she allowed herself to believe. She would cheat her uncle.

  It had started when her father had died in a hunting accident. But it had not been an accident, she was sure of that now. A month later her mother had killed herself, from grief it was put about, but that, too was stained with suspicion. Callista believed that both her parents had been murdered.

  She had not known, of course, not then.

  Her uncle was foster lord of the estate now, holding it in trust for her, but he had moved in with his wife and two sons and it was quickly apparent to Callista that they did not much care for her. Every family meal became a trial, every formal occasion another humiliation.

  It had been a stormy spring night when she learned the truth.

  She had gone to one of her favourite places, an alcove behind a tapestry in the hallway that ran between the hall and the family bedchambers. It was not a particularly good hiding place, but it had yet to be discovered, and so she took refuge there from the cold mockery of her cousins and wept for the life she had lost.

  She heard steps in the hallway and quietened her grief, not wanting to be discovered. She recognised the voices at once. It was her uncle, gruff and coarse in his diction, and the higher pitched tones of her oldest cousin, Roy.

  “You will do as I say,” the uncle was saying.

  “But I don’t want to marry her, father,” Roy complained. “She’s a cold stick without the life of a tavern girl.”

  “You know the law,” the uncle said. “And besides, it will not be for long. Remember, if she dies unwed the estate reverts to the king, but the day after her wedding it will revert to you.”

  Callista felt a chill run down her spine. They were talking about her, about her father’s estate, her estate.

  “You must wed her and bed her,” the uncle said. “No more than that. We will have to wait a while before her accident. It cannot be too hard upon the heels of the marriage.”

  “Wed her, bed her and dead her,” Roy chimed. He laughed. “Then I will be Lord Dalini.”

  It could not be clearer. Callista shrank back into herself. She was just turned seventeen, and she knew that they must act within the year or she would have rights under the law to expel them and rule the estate in her own right.

  She waited until they had gone and then hurried to her own rooms where she fretted the night away. She was trapped, she knew. Nobody would believe that they planned to kill her. Her uncle was her guardian, and before she turned eighteen had the right to make a match for her, even to his own son. Callista had no powerful friends to turn to, and as a child no recourse to law. They could do with her exactly as they planned. What friends she had were barred from the estate, and she was rarely permitted to leave it. Now she understood why. Doubtless they had put about various lies as to her state of mind, and few would be surprised if she ‘killed herself’, just like her mother, after the marriage had been consummated.

  She knew at once that she would run, but the question she must answer was: to where? Where would they fail to find her? Anyone she ran to would be obliged to hand her back to her lawful guardian, and she could not survive for a year alone.

  She thought she might vanish into the back streets of Afael, but how could she live there? The only option for an unskilled woman of seventeen was whoring, and she would rather die.

  She had heard, in passing, that people had gone to Col Boran to be tested, to see if they had the talent for magic. It was supposed that most did not, and those that did quite often failed the test and died.

  It would serve, she thought.

  If she died her estate would revert to the king, which was better than her uncle claiming it. If she did not fail… well, it was a slim chance at best and she would never allow herself to be sent back to her uncle.

  She waited three nights before she ran. Any longer and she was afraid they might do something else. She had a small hoard of coins hidden away and had gathered enough food for a few weeks from the kitchens, and packed it all together.

  She climbed down from her window, dropped into the bushes in the garden below and climbed the wall by the gardener’s shed close to the river. She followed the river north.

  She knew her uncle would send people after her, so she travelled by night at first, hiding by day in whatever bush or barn presented itself. Three times she had seen riders pass by, and twice had heard her name on a stranger’s tongue, but a week had taken her as far as the Gods Walk, and from there she had struck west across the plain, as direct as she could for Col Boran.

  Three weeks later she was here, almost within the shadow of the god mage’s walls, sitting in a clump of bushes eating what little dried food she had left, gazing up at the white peaks of the Dragon’s Back, when she heard a horse approaching. She crouched down at once, making herself as small and quiet as the dwarf deer that roamed the grassland.

  She heard the horse grow closer, the thud of hooves and the jingle of harness, the huffing of the animal’s breath. Then it stopped. Callista held her breath.

  “You’ve no need to hide from me, girl.”

  It was a woman’s voice. There was an accent to it, but it was otherwise strong and resonant. Callista looked up.

  The woman who owned the voice sat straight-backed astride a powerful looking grey. She wore black boots and breeches and a mail shirt over a green tunic, but everything was of the finest quality, and a long sword hung down from her hip. Black hair cascaded in profusion over her shoulders and she gazed down at Callista with serious brown eyes. She was probably the most beautiful woman that Callista had ever seen. The woman shook her head and swung down from the saddle.

  “I’ll share your camp,” she said. “You’re going to Col Boran? It’s too far to get there tonight, even on Snowlight.”

  Snowlight must be the horse, Callista thought. She stood up. No point in hiding now, and she didn’t think this woman had been sent by her uncle.

  The woman’s comment had been generous, for it was hardly a camp at all. She had not lit a fire for fear of being seen, and she had yet to make up a place to sleep. The beautiful woman was not so hesitant. She quickly built and lit a fire, laid out a bed roll and began to cook a meal. The smell was overwhelming for Callista. She recognised bacon, onions, and a fine Afaeli sausage. Not only that, but the woman pulled out a long loaf and a bottle of wine.

  “You look hungry,” she said. “You’re welcome to share.”

  Callista didn’t need to be asked twice. She hadn’t eaten this well since she’d fled her home.

  “Are you mute?” the woman asked as she doled out a plateful.

  “No, my lady,” Callista said. She had no idea what rank this person might be, but it was best to assume nobility. The woman accept
ed the title without demur.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Callista Dalini, my lady,” she replied.

  “Afaeli. I thought so.” The woman gave her a cup of watered wine. “And your business in Col Boran?”

  “My own,” she replied.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “You want to be tested?”

  Callista could not meet her eyes. It was embarrassing to be so transparent.

  “I advise against it,” the woman said. “If you have a decent life, go home. You seem educated. There are better things to do with your life than throw it away.”

  “My uncle plans to marry me to his son and then kill me so they can have my father’s estate,” she said, not understanding why she had blurted out her darkest secret. As soon as she had spoken she knew that she would be laughed at again, but to her surprise the woman frowned.

  “You’re certain of this?”

  “I heard them,” Callista said, and she could not stop the tears. “Wed, bed and dead.”

  The woman put a hand on her arm. It seemed strong and cool to the touch. “We cannot have that,” she said. “I will prevent it. Now stop crying and eat your food.”

  Oddly, she felt better having told someone, and this lady might be someone of consequence, someone who could help. Why she would put herself out to help a stray like Callista was a mystery, but she had said so. She ate the rest of her food and sipped at the wine, which warmed her.

  By now the sun was setting. To Callista’s further surprise the woman gave her a thick woollen blanket to replace her own thin covering, and then settled down on her bedroll. She seemed to go to sleep at once, but Callista lay awake for a while staring at the stars. Perhaps this chance meeting was a good thing. Perhaps it would change everything, though she hardly dared hope as much.

  She wondered, too, who the woman might be. She had not spoken her name, and Callista had been too timid to ask it.

  *

  The morning was bright. Callista woke to the sound of frying bacon and the song of skylarks. She had not slept so well since she had left home. She rose, carefully folded the blanket, and sat down by the fire. The woman didn’t speak to her for a while, but prepared the meal and put it on two plates.