Queen of Sorcery

by David Eddings

  "Don't be afraid, my Belgarion," she purred at him. "I won't hurt you - not unless you want me to. Your duties here will be very pleasant, and I can teach you things that Polgara hasn't even dreamed of."

  "Come away from him, Salmissra," the young man on the dais ordered petulantly. "You know I don't like it when you pay attention to others."

  A flicker of annoyance showed in the queen's eyes. She turned and looked rather coldly at the young man. "What you like or don't like doesn't really concern me anymore, Essia," she said.

  "What?" Essia cried incredulously. "Do as I say at once!"

  "No, Essia," she told him.

  "I'll punish you," he threatened.

  "No," she said, "you won't. That sort of thing doesn't amuse me anymore, and all your pouting and tantrums have begun to grow boring. Leave now."

  "Leave?" Essia's eyes bulged with disbelief.

  "You're dismissed, Essia."

  "Dismissed? But you can't live without me. You said so yourself."

  "We all say things we don't mean sometimes."

  The arrogance went out of the young man like water poured from a bucket. He swallowed hard and began to tremble. "When do you want me to come back?" he whined.

  "I don't, Essia."

  "Never?" he gasped.

  "Never," she told him. "Now go, and stop making a scene."

  "What's to become of me?" Essia cried. He began to weep, the makeup around his eyes running in grotesque streaks down his face.

  "Don't be tiresome, Essia," Salmissra said. "Pick up your belongings and leave-now! I have a new consort." She stepped back up on the dais.

  "The queen has chosen a consort," the eunuch intoned.

  "Ah," the others chanted. "Hail the consort of Eternal Salmissra, most fortunate of men."

  The sobbing young man grabbed up a pink robe and an ornately carved jewel box. He stumbled down from the dais. "You did this," he accused Garion. "It's all your fault." Suddenly, out of the folds of the robe draped over his arm, he pulled a small dagger. "I'll fix you," he screamed, raising the dagger to strike.

  There was no thought this time, no gathering of will. The surge of force came without warning, pushing Essia away, driving him back. He slashed futilely at the air with his little knife. Then the surge was gone.

  Essia lunged forward again, his eyes insane and his dagger raised. The surge came again, stronger this time. The young man was spun away. He fell, and his dagger clattered across the floor.

  Salmissra, her eyes ablaze, pointed at the prostrate Essia and snapped her fingers twice. So fast that it seemed almost like an arrow loosed from a bow, a small green snake shot from beneath the divan, its mouth agape and its hiss a kind of snarl. It struck once, hitting Essia high on the leg, then slithered quickly to one side and watched with dead eyes.

  Essia gasped and turned white with horror. He tried to rise, but his legs and arms suddenly sprawled out from under him on the polished stones. He gave one strangled cry and then the convulsions began. His heels pattered rapidly on the floor, and his arms flailed wildly. His eyes turned vacant and staring, and a green froth shot like a fountain from his mouth. His body arched back, every muscle writhing beneath his skin, and his head began to pound on the floor. He gave one thrashing, convulsive leap, his entire body bounding up from the floor. When he came down, he was dead.

  Salmissra watched him die, her pale eyes expressionless, incurious, with no hint of anger or regret.

  "Justice is done," the eunuch announced.

  "Swift is the justice of the Queen of the Serpent People," the others replied.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  There were other things they made him drink - some bitter, some sickeningly sweet - and his mind seemed to sink deeper with each cup he raised to his lips. His eyes began to play strange tricks on him. It seemed somehow that the world had suddenly been drowned and that all of this was taking place under water. The walls wavered and the figures of the kneeling eunuchs seemed to sway and undulate like seaweed in the endless wash and eddy of tide and current. The lamps sparkled like jewels, casting out brilliant colors in slow-falling showers. Garion slumped, all bemused, on the dais near Salmissra's divan, his eyes filled with light and his head washed clean of all thought. There was no sense of time, no desire, no will. He briefly and rather vaguely remembered his friends, but the knowledge that he would never see them again brought only a brief, passing regret, a temporary melancholy that was rather pleasant. He even shed one crystal tear over his loss, but the tear landed on his wrist and sparkled with such an unearthly beauty that he lost himself utterly in contemplating it.

  "How did he do it?" the queen's voice said somewhere behind him. Her voice was so beautifully musical that the sound of it pierced Garion's very soul.

  "It has power," Maas replied, his serpent voice thrilling Garion's nerves, vibrating them like the strings of a lute. "Its power is untried, undirected, but it is very strong. Beware of this one, beloved Salmissra. It can destroy quite by accident."

  "I will control him," she said.

  "Perhaps," the snake replied.

  "Sorcery requires will," Salmissra pointed out. "I will take his will away from him. Your blood is cold, Maas, and you've never felt the fire that fills the veins with the taste of oret or athal or kaldiss. Your passions are also cold, and you can't know how much the body can be used to enslave the will. I'll put his mind to sleep and then smother his will with love."

  "Love, Salmissra?" the snake asked, sounding faintly amused.

  "The term serves as well as any other," she replied. "Call it appetite, if you wish."

  "That I can understand," Maas agreed. "But don't underestimate this one - or overestimate your own power. It does not have an ordinary mind. There's something strange about it that I can't quite penetrate."

  "We'll see," she said. "Sadi," she called the eunuch.

  "Yes, my Queen?"

  "Take the boy. Have him bathed and perfumed. He smells of boats and tar and salt water. I don't like such Alorn smells."

  "At once, Eternal Salmissra."

  Garion was led away to a place where there was warm water. His clothes were taken from him, and he was immersed and soaped and immersed again. Fragrant oils were rubbed into his skin, and a brief loincloth was tied about his waist. Then he was taken quite firmly by the chin and rouge was applied to his cheeks. It was during this process that he realized that the person painting his face was a woman. Slowly, almost incuriously, he let his eyes move around the bath chamber. He realized then that except for Sadi, everyone there was female. It seemed that something about that should bother him - something having to do with appearing naked in the presence of women - but he could not exactly remember what it was.

  When the woman had finished painting his face, Sadi the eunuch took his arm and led him again through the dim, endless corridors back to the room where Salmissra half lay on her divan beneath the statue, admiring herself in the pedestaled mirror beside her.

  "Much better," she said, looking Garion up and down with a certain appreciation. "He's much more muscular than I thought. Bring him here."

  Sadi led Garion to the side of the queen's divan and gently pressed him down onto the cushions where Essia had lounged.

  Salmissra reached out with a lingeringly slow hand and brushed her cold fingertips across his face and chest. Her pale eyes seemed to burn, and her lips parted slightly. Garion's eyes fixed themselves on her pale arm. There was no trace of hair on that white skin.

  "Smooth," he said vaguely, struggling to focus on that peculiarity.

  "Of course, my Belgarion," she murmured. "Serpents are hairless, and I am the queen of the serpents."

  Slowly, puzzled, he raised his eyes to the lustrous black tresses tumbling down across one of her white shoulders.

  "Only this," she said, touching the curls with a sensuous kind of vanity.

  "How?" he asked.

  "It's a secret." She laughed. "Someday perhaps I'll show you. Would you like that?" />
  "I suppose so."

  "Tell me, Belgarion," she said, "do you think I'm beautiful?"

  "I think so."

  "How old would you say I am?" She spread her arms so that he could see her body through the filmy gauze of her gown.

  "I don't know," Garion said. "Older than I am, but not too old." A brief flicker of annoyance crossed her face. "Guess," she ordered somewhat harshly.

  "Thirty perhaps," he decided, confused.

  "Thirty?" Her voice was stricken. Swiftly she turned to her mirror and examined her face minutely. "You're blind, you idiot!" she snapped, still staring at herself in the glass. "That's not the face of a woman of thirty. Twenty-three - twenty-five at the most."

  "Whatever you say," he agreed.

  "Twenty-three," she stated firmly. "Not a single day over twentythree."

  "Of course," he said mildly.

  "Would you believe that I'm nearly sixty?" she demanded, her eyes suddenly flint-hard.

  "No," Garion denied. "I couldn't believe that - not sixty."

  "What a charming boy you are, Belgarion," she breathed at him, her glance melting. Her fingers returned to his face, touching, stroking, caressing. Slowly, beneath the pale skin of her naked shoulder and throat, curious patches of color began to appear, a faint mottling of green and purple that seemed to shift and pulsate, growing first quite visible and then fading. Her lips parted again, and her breathing grew faster. The mottling spread down her torso beneath her transparent gown, the colors seeming to writhe beneath her skin.

  Maas crept nearer, his dead eyes suddenly coming awake with a strange adoration. The vivid pattern of his own scaly skin so nearly matched the colors that began to emerge upon the body of the Serpent Queen that when he draped a caressing coil across one of her shoulders it became impossible to say exactly where lay the boundary between the snake and the woman.

  Had Garion not been in a half stupor, he would have recoiled from the queen. Her colorless eyes and mottled skin seemed reptilian, and her openly lustful expression spoke of some dreadful hunger. Yet there was a curious attraction about her. Helplessly he felt drawn by her blatant sensuality.

  "Come closer, my Belgarion," she ordered softly. "I'm not going to hurt you." Her eyes gloated over her possession of him.

  Not far from the dais, Sadi the eunuch cleared his throat. "Divine Queen," he announced, "the emissary of Taur Urgas requests a word with you."

  "Of Ctuchik, you mean," Salmissra said, looking faintly annoyed. Then a thought seemed to cross her mind, and she smiled maliciously. The mottling of her skin faded. "Bring the Grolim in," she instructed Sadi.

  Sadi bowed and withdrew to return a moment later with a scar-faced man in the garb of a Murgo.

  "Give welcome to the emissary of Taur Urgas," the eunuch chanted. "Welcome," the chorus replied.

  "Carefully now," the dry voice in his mind said to Garion. "That's the one we saw at the harbor."

  Garion looked more carefully at the Murgo and realized that it was true.

  "Hail, Eternal Salmissra," the Grolim said perfunctorily, bowing first to the queen and then to the statue behind her. "Taur Urgas, King of Cthol Murgos, sends greetings to the Spirit of Issa and to his handmaiden."

  "And are there no greetings from Ctuchik, High Priest of the Grolims?" she asked, her eyes bright.

  "Of course," the Grolim said, "but those are customarily given in private."

  "Is your errand here on behalf of Taur Urgas or of Ctuchik?" she inquired, turning to examine her reflection in the mirror.

  "May we speak in private, your Highness?" the Grolim asked. "We are in private," she said.

  "But-" He looked around at the kneeling eunuchs in the room.

  "My body servants," she said. "A Nyissan queen is never left alone. You should know that by now."

  "And that one?" The Grolim pointed at Garion.

  "He is also a servant - but of a slightly different kind."

  The Grolim shrugged. "Whatever you wish. I salute you in the name of Ctuchik, High Priest of the Grolims and Disciple of Torak."

  "The Handmaiden of Issa salutes Ctuchik of Rak Cthol," she responded formally. "What does the Grolim High Priest want of me?"

  "The boy, your Highness," the Grolim said bluntly.

  "Which boy is that?"

  "The boy you stole from Polgara and who now sits at your feet."

  She laughed scornfully. "Convey my regrets to Ctuchik," she said, "but that would be impossible."

  "It's unwise to deny the wishes of Ctuchik," the Grolim warned.

  "It's even more unwise to make demands of Salmissra in her own palace," she said. "What is Ctuchik prepared to offer for this boy?"

  "His eternal friendship."

  "What need has the Serpent Queen of friends?"

  "Gold, then," the Grolim offered with annoyance.

  "I know the secret of the red gold of Angarak," she told him. "I don't wish to become a slave to it. Keep your gold, Grolim."

  "Might I say that the game you play is very dangerous, your Highness?" the Grolim said coolly. "You've already made Polgara your enemy. Can you afford the enmity of Ctuchik as well?"

  "I'm not afraid of Polgara," she answered. "Nor of Ctuchik."

  "The queen's bravery is remarkable," he said dryly.

  "This is beginning to get tiresome. My terms are very simple. Tell Ctuchik that I have Torak's enemy, and I will keep him - unless-" She paused.

  "Unless what, your Highness?"

  "If Ctuchik will speak to Torak for me, an agreement might be reached."

  "What sort of agreement?"

  "I will give the boy to Torak as a wedding gift."

  The Grolim blinked.

  "If Torak will make me his bride and give me immortality, I will deliver Belgarion up to him."

  "All the world knows that the Dragon God of Angarak is bound in slumber," the Grolim objected.

  "But he will not sleep forever," Salmissra said flatly. "The priests of Angarak and the sorcerers of Aloria always seem to forget that Eternal Salmissra can read the signs in the heavens as clearly as they. The day of Torak's awakening is at hand. Tell Ctuchik that upon the day that I am wed to Torak, Belgarion will be in his hands. Until that day, the boy is mine."

  "I shall deliver your message to Ctuchik," the Grolim said with a stiff, icy bow.

  "Leave, then," she told him with an airy wave of her hand.

  "So that is it," the voice in Garion's mind said as the Grolim left. "I should have known, I suppose."

  Maas the serpent suddenly raised his head, his great neck flaring and his eyes burning. "Beware!" he hissed.

  "Of the Grolim?" Salmissra laughed. "I have nothing to fear from him."

  "Not the Grolim," Maas said. "That one." He flickered his tongue at Garion. "Its mind is awake."

  "That's impossible," she objected.

  "Nevertheless, its mind is awake. It has to do, I think, with that metal thing around its neck."

  "Remove the ornament then," she told the snake.

  Maas lowered his length to the floor and slid around the divan toward Garion.

  "Remain very still, " Garion's inner voice told him. "Don't try to fight. "

  Numbly, Garion watched the blunt head draw closer.

  Maas raised his head, his hood flaring. His nervous tongue darted. Slowly he leaned forward. His nose touched the silver amulet hanging about Garion's neck.

  There was a bright blue spark as the reptile's head came in contact with the amulet. Garion felt the familiar surge, but tightly controlled now, focused down to a single point. Maas recoiled, and the spark from the amulet leaped out, sizzling through the air, linking the silver disc to the reptile's nose. The snake's eyes began to shrivel and steam poured from his nostrils and his gaping mouth.

  Then the spark was gone, and the body of the dead snake writhed and twisted convulsively on the polished stone floor of the chamber.

  "Maas!" Salmissra shrieked.

  The eunuchs scrambled out of the way o
f the wildly threshing body of the snake.

  "My Queen!" a shaved-headed, functionary gibbered from the door, "the world is ending!"

  "What?" Salmissra tore her eyes from the convulsions of the snake.

  "The sun has gone out! Noon is as dark as midnight! The city is gone mad with terror!"

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  In the tumult which followed that announcement, Garion sat quietly on the cushions beside Salmissra's throne. The quiet voice in his mind, however, was speaking to him rapidly. "Stay very still," the voice told him. "Don't say anything, and don't do anything."

  "Get my astronomers here immediately!" Salmissra ordered. "I want to know why I wasn't warned about this eclipse."

  "It's not an eclipse, my Queen," the bald functionary wailed, groveling on the polished floor not far from the still-writhing Maas. "The dark came like a great curtain. It was like a moving wall - no wind, no rain, no thunder. It swallowed the sun without a sound." He began to sob brokenly. "We shall never see the sun again."

  "Stop that, you idiot," Salmissra snapped. "Get on your feet. Sadi, take this babbling fool out of here and go look at the sky. Then come back to me here. I have to know what's going on."

  Sadi shook himself almost like a dog coming out of the water and pulled his fascinated eyes off the dead, fixed grin on the face of Maas. He pulled the blubbering functionary to his feet and led him out of the chamber.

  Salmissra turned then on Garion. "How did you do that?" she demanded, pointing at the twitching form of Maas.

  "I don't know," he said. His mind was still sunk in fog. Only the quiet corner where the voice lived was alert.

  "Take off that amulet," she commanded.

  Obediently, Garion reached his hands toward the medallion. Suddenly his hands froze. They would not move. He let them fall. "I can't," he said.

  "Take it from him," she ordered one of the eunuchs. The man glanced once at the dead snake, then stared at Garion. He shook his head and backed away in fright.