Anackire

by Tanith Lee

After a pause, Kesarh stopped smiling.

  “If it concerns you, captain, you have my leave to go and get them out. Provided, that is, you go alone.”

  In flat truth, not many had compassion for the chained slaves and their agonies. The odds had been too vast against the Karmians, and now were nothing. They had already begun to shout, over and over, Am Xai! Am Xai! A din that gradually almost drowned the other, of dying ships and men.

  • • •

  By midmorning, only skeins of charcoal and metal bits and a heaven-touching smolder marked where the Zakorian pirates had gone down.

  Those who had got ashore, less than thirty men, were pursued by Kesarh’s own mounted guard and a pack of yowling sailors eager with blood-lust. It was butchery, not killing, on the uplands.

  Some few others may have escaped by swimming under the ships and then on toward Dorthar, but the chances were against that. If the fire and the spears did not finish them, the sea and the poison maybe did.

  For a long while after, Tjis drank peculiar toasts with her wine. The town chronicler made haste to note in his history what had gone into the wine of that night. Anything that was bane—rank herbs, opiates, lamp oil, emetics, purgatives, and liniments for zeebas—all these, providing they had slight taste and lesser odor, or at least so long as they smelled and tasted sweet. Even perfumes had been poured into the vats and jars. To Free Zakoris, the wines of the southern continent were scented and honeyed beyond any they knew. They took the thickness, and the unexpected first reply of nostril, palate and belly merely for the unusual at work. And drank deeper to grow accustomed. It might not have killed them, but it gave them to be killed.

  Kesarh returned into Tjis, and the golden afternoon dulled on his darkened sword. It was not the sword the magician had made from a serpent, but his own blade, forged a year ago when no battle at all had been in the offing. Nor were the Zakorians he had ridden down on the hill the first men the Prince had slain.

  Rem, who had also killed men, had been the swing and cut of that sword, and glimpsed the white fixed grin that involved only lips and teeth, the eyes hard and cold, deadly as hell, above it.

  They said, Rem had heard it often, that Kesarh at fifteen or sixteen had now and then had himself shut in with armed felons, and so learned to polish his fighting, to the death. Princes sometimes trained themselves in this way in northern Vis, if not at the imperial academies of arms, but always a guard stood ready to aid beyond the door.

  They had lost only five men, none of them Kesarh’s own.

  The Tjisine women were eagerly offering themselves, and the Karmian crews, their ships anchored, careered about the town, instigating potentially as much damage as the Free Zakorians might have done. The guardian feasted, if without wine, the Prince and his captains.

  Four girls came to dance to shell-harps and drums, Vis girls, their long black hair dripping beads on the floor as they arched their brown backs.

  “My daughter,” said the guardian, pointing out the prettiest arching back.

  When she was tactfully offered to him for his night, Kesarh modestly accepted her.

  The guest room was small, the draperies moth-eaten.

  Rem found he had been posted at the door for the last half of the night. That was, he supposed, a jest.

  • • •

  The girl did not want to leave him, either through opportunism or lust, or a mixture of both. He had her again, now with scant courtesy, and then pushed her out. Affronted, she donned her flimsy clothing and went.

  Kesarh lay on the bed, looking up at the domed ceiling of the chamber.

  Noises of carouse and sometimes glints of feverish light came in through the window, from the town, although it would be dawn in less than two hours. He pondered how much mess the ships’ soldiery would have made by sunup. It would be obvious, of course, that his own personal guard was not responsible. Tjis in any event was a flea-bite on the earth.

  They had intended to send word of victory at once to Istris. He had made them wait.

  A sudden lantern or torch caught the straight and naked length of the ceremonial sword leaning against the wall.

  Kesarh took note of it. It was a little more than half the height of a tall man, himself, and heavy, meant only for show. Tonight he had let it be carried into the provincial feast, along with his banner of the Salamander. That was the only value of such weaponry. That and to be masked by illusion and gimcrack jugglers’ play as a snake.

  Sleep was beginning to come, now he was sated, sleep deadening the dull rage, the dull searching after some lost thing that kept his mind restless though his limbs were lax. And Val Nardia, how did she fare tonight, Zastis the rose of desire scorching her flesh under the sheet—

  The light of the stray torch flickered on the sword blade.

  He could remember seeing no women after all on the sinking pirate biremes. Dressed as men, perhaps, disguised by that and smoke, or dead or stupefied below, their hypothetical screeches mingled with the shrieks of the men.

  He dismissed the idle thought. His mind was quieting now.

  The sword went on flickering the light. Through his half-closed lids, Kesarh seemed to see the metal growing fluid, rippling, running like a river down the wall. . . . He turned on his belly and slept.

  What woke him was the gentle touch of a hand about his ankle. He was alert, totally and at once, and as totally his self-discipline kept him utterly still, quiescent, as if yet unaware.

  Had the girl come back? No. The touch was not the girl’s—some assassin, then. How? The window was barred by a lattice. Number Nine, the man at the door—Rem—just possibly disloyal, or careless and dead despite the whip—

  The gentle touch uncoiled from Kesarh’s ankle. It began to flow upward along the muscle of his calf, the back of his thigh.

  Suddenly he knew what it was. An assassin maybe, but not human. The sweat broke out over every inch of him, that he could not control, and the weighty treacly length of the creature paused again, perhaps tasting his sweat, his fear. For he was afraid of this. He had the intuitive Vis aversion to such beasts, nor was it irrational. From the size, neither small nor large, of what he felt so sensitively upon him, the snake was most likely venomous.

  It had reached his lower back now, shifting smooth as milk across one buttock, the cleft at the base of the spine.

  Kesarh clenched his teeth across his tongue, holding his body down to the bed with an appalling strength that must not even be felt in the shiver of a sinew.

  It lay against his spine, rising and falling with his breath, quickened a little, but not much. At any instant it might strike at him. Even if he were motionless, some abrupt noise from the town—

  It moved again.

  Now it had found his hair, wandered briefly, slipped to his left shoulder.

  The closer a bite to the throat or skull the more deadly. The snake seemed to consider. His face was turned to the other shoulder, away from it. It touched his arm, almost a caress. Then swam down the arm, the rope of its body against his side.

  The snake had reached his hand. He was so conscious of it now he realized when it lifted its head, and he was already involuntarily and unavoidably tensed for the spring that would take him from the bed if the fangs shut in his flesh. A knife to the wound, then fire to cauterize—And then the snake laid its head across his hand and ceased to stir.

  He waited. Waited. The snake did not change its position. He felt the stasis in it, as if it might lie there forever, or rather until disturbed.

  Kesarh pushed fear from his mind. He measured the attitude of the snake, explored without eyes, by sense alone, the angle of the flat head against his fingers, the upturned sleeper’s palm, open to it, cradling it now. There would be one second only—

  In a single convulsive movement, Kesarh squeezed closed his fist, an iron vise about the skull of the snake.

 
; The tail spurted into immediate spasms, lashing and thrashing against his side, his chest and loins as he threw himself from the bed. But the clamp of his strong fighter’s palm kept the deadly jaws bound shut. He could see it now, the seizure of prismatic scales faded by darkness.

  Kesarh raised his arm and flung the thing from him hard against the wall, the whole length of it, the head coming free and next moment meeting the plaster. Then as it fell back stunned on the flagged floor he had his sword from beside the bed and brought the metal edge down across the snake’s middle.

  The weapon was blunt from killing Zakorians, but it carved through most of the snake. It lay dead, spasming still but harmless, at his feet.

  The door crashed open and the soldier called Rem, his own sword drawn, sprang into the chamber, framed by the light of candles in the corridor.

  Kesarh recalled he had cried out, one loud hoarse cry, as he severed the snake.

  “My lord—”

  Kesarh picked the snake up across his sword, bloody and broken and contorting, and showed it to Rem.

  “One dancer too many,” said Kesarh. “Bring in one of those candles and light these. Shut the door when you get in, or Am Tjis will come prancing to see what’s wrong.”

  Rem did as he was told, came back with a candle and shut the door.

  By the glow of the newly lighted wax, he could see the ceremonial sword had gone from its place against the wall. Kesarh had slung the dead snake down where the sword had been.

  “Witchcraft,” said Kesarh. His tone was light and clever. “If I’m to credit such things. Can it be Ashara-Anackire practices against me, leading me to think all this while her serpent was a blade? Never trust a woman.” Kesarh sat on the bed. “But then you wouldn’t, would you, Number Nine.” Rem looked at him. Kesarh shrugged. “You went to a female person who is your mother after you were lashed. If you haven’t an affectionate woman for your bed at this season you’re either diseased, deformed, a Lowlander, or prefer boys.”

  “Or my woman dislikes nursing.”

  Kesarh said nothing. He reached for the wine jug and drank directly from it. It had beer in it tonight. A reaction was setting in all over him, his finely controlled body now rigidly trembling. That was like the cry. He ignored it.

  “You ran in here like a kalinx to defend me, Number Nine. Suppose you’d found me in the grip of four well-armed men? Or did you merely think I was in a Zastis dream?”

  Rem said nothing.

  “I think I can trust you,” said Kesarh. “Of course, I’ll have you killed if I find I can’t. And I would find out, my Rem.”

  “I’m sure you would, my lord.”

  “However this happened, this gambit with the snake, someone was at the root of it. Someone—maybe Suthamun himself.”

  “Or an heir, jealous of your sudden fame. His brothers. Prince Jornil.”

  “That’s astute. But then, I should have died in battle with the pirates, shouldn’t I? This was a provision if I did not.”

  “You sent no victory messenger to Istris,” Rem said.

  “Quite. I may send one now. News of my victory, and my . . . nearness to death from snake-bite. I mean to take refuge from any further hopeful assassins. A very safe refuge, but a place where I’ll be allowed one companion only, and where besides I’ll need some sincerity—Ever milked snake-poison, Rem?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “You are about to. That thing over there is indeed venomous, but dead. Safe, unless your hands are open anywhere.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then I’ll direct you. Use your knife.” As Rem went by him, the Prince lounged back on the bed. He indicated the beer-wine jug. “Drink, if you want.”

  Rem drank.

  “A beaten child,” said Kesarh, his eyes shut, “continually tries to placate and to earn the favor and affection of its harsh parent. Is that what you would do?”

  “I’m older than you, my lord. Almost two years, I think.” Rem bent over the snake and forced wide the jaws as directed. “And where is your lordship’s refuge to be?” Rem inquired.

  The dark voice was barely audible from the bed.

  “Ankabek of the goddess.”

  • • •

  The departure was circumspect. Only after they were gone was Tjis to discover what had occurred. No doubt unsavory rumor would take up the tale. A prince, Vis in appearance, all at once a hero, all at once in danger of his life. The idea of treachery would be but too apparent.

  The guardian, privy to calamity, had already muttered a phrase or two most unguardedly indicative of such suspicions.

  The ship was a lightweight skimmer with a discreet sail, perfumed strongly by fish. Four Tjisine rowers had been taken on. The guard sergeant of the Prince Am Xai’s men, and one soldier, had gone aboard with him. It had been done at first light. The Prince could not walk and had had to be carried to the ship. It alarmed the guardian to see Am Xai so sick. Having seen the corpse of the snake, the guardian was fairly certain his recent savior would not live, despite the healing skills of Anack’s priests.

  The ship put off around the headland, and disappeared.

  She ran well, taking all the early breeze, the rowers fierce at their oars. They had been given gold, and besides owed him something, the man now a tossing shadow under the sketch of awning.

  The morning went by with strips of heat-wavering coast to port and flashes of sun on the oar-smashed water. Later, as they turned more northerly, hints of Dorthar’s edges grew visible, far off and blue as sapphire, more pastel than the sea. A current drove in across the straits hereabouts, sucked toward the smaller island. They chased it and bore on.

  The Tjisine ship beached at the landing place of holy Ankabek not long before sunset, at the same spot, and almost the same hour, that the temple barge had brought Val Nardia.

  They, however, were not looked for.

  As the rowers hung exhausted over their oars, a group of men came from the stony village on the slope. There was a short discussion, and one man boarded to look down on the lord under the awning.

  Then the men went away, and Kesarh cursed them in two or three vicious phrases. Nevertheless, before the sun quite met the sea, they were back with a stretcher of matting between poles. The temple would receive the invalid. The rest might sojourn on the beach till morning. They must then return to Karmiss.

  Kesarh, his light-skinned face the color of the bone beneath, eyes bruised, skin polished by sweat, his hair and garments drenched with it, began to rave and cry out: His life was threatened—he must keep someone by him.

  Seeing the state he was in, not wishing to tax him further, the porters accepted that Rem should also go with them.

  • • •

  There was not much to be seen in the afterglow, red sky, red leaves on the tall trees. Then night fell. Finally the coal-black temple stood up on the coppery air above. Turning aside, the men with the stretcher took a subsidiary path that ended among a group of buildings. Lights were burning in this area, while the temple loomed lightless and soulless at the head of the incline, removed in every way.

  The stretcher was carried into a cell with cream-washed walls. Kesarh, lifted from the matting to the pallet-bed, seemed to be unconscious.

  “Someone will come to you.”

  The men filed out and vanished again into the descending groves of trees.

  Rem looked over at the bed and Kesarh grinned at him. The cell was lit by a wick floating in oil. This, and the illness, far milder than it seemed, lent to the Prince’s feverish face a glaze of pure evil.

  A minute or so after, a priest came across the clearing between the buildings, and passed into the cell.

  Rem had heard of the priests and priestesses of Ankabek. They modeled themselves, apparently, upon the Lowland religious of the Shadowless Plains. If to be a black ghost was the intention, t
hen they had done well.

  The hooded figure bent over Kesarh.

  “Who are you?” said Kesarh, clearly. “Are you my death?”

  “Your death is not here,” said the priest.

  Rem’s spine crawled.

  The priest asked no questions, but touched Kesarh gently at the forehead, throat and groin. Kesarh thrust the hands away. They were pale hands, paler than his own.

  “The poison of the snake has almost left you,” said the priest. “I shall have medicines prepared. Rest. You will be well.”

  “No,” said Kesarh, with a desperate breathless rage, “I’m dying. Don’t you think I know?”

  “Life is sacred. You will be tended.”

  “Too late.”

  The priest drew back.

  Kesarh said in a loud distinct whispering, “My sister is here. The only kindred I have. My sister, the Princess Val Nardia, from the court at Istris.”

  “Yes,” said the priest.

  “I must see her,” said Kesarh. “Talk with her, before I die.”

  The skin twitched once more across Rem’s shoulderblades. Discomforted, he moved nearer to the doorway, farther from Kesarh.

  The priest had not answered.

  Kesarh cried out: “Will you deny me? Tell her I’m here, and why. Dying. Tell her, do you hear?” The ache of the poison in his veins seemed to turn to knives and awls. He fell back, clawing the mattress, his eyes blind.

  On his left forearm the puncture wounds of the serpent’s fangs, discolored and open, showed violently in the yellow light.

  When almost every drop of venom had been forced from the sacs of the snake, Kesarh had dragged it off the floor and slammed the points of the teeth through into his flesh. There was enough slaverous filth on them by then to do the work he wanted. No longer enough to do more than that. He had needed, as he said, some sincerity, to earn the protection of the sacred island. The pain at least was doubtless real, as the fever was. A small sacrifice for his plan. But now there seemed to be also some second plan, tangled with the first.

  Rem leaned in the doorway. The scene beyond the cell was impartial and nothing to do with them. The night was very fragrant from the trees. White stars were netted among the boughs. The red Star smoked.