Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  Please believe that."

  "I do," Jacom said unhappily, 'but . . . " He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  "I'll do what I can to help," the merchant assured him, 'but I have plans and ambitions of my own- which might turn out in the end to concern matters of far greater moment than the grand gesture of a petty prince of rogues. Would you like to hear the rest of what the story-teller has to reveal? "

  Jacom's first impulse was to say no, and protest that he had more important things to do than listen to idle fancies, but the thought of going back to the barracks to face the bitterly reproachful stares of the men who were to share his exile was by no means a pleasant one.

  "Why hot?" he said, with a careless shrug.

  "He has been recalling fragments from the Apocrypha of Genesys,"

  Fraxinus explained, jalthough the title meant nothing to Jacom.

  "I

  believe that he has one more left to relate. " He turned to the blind man, and said: " I'm sqrry for the interruption, my friend. " " It wasn't the amber who hit the guardsman in the Wayfaring Tree," the blind man said, with the air of 'one who had been patiently waiting for a chance to say so.

  "It was a man named Burdam. I heard his name quite clearly spoken as he made his escape up the stairway. The amber's an honest man, sir1 have an ear for such things."

  "It hardly matters now whether he was innocent or guilty," Jacom observed.

  "If they catch him again, he's a dead man."

  "It's quite possible that he didn't know anything about the robbery,"

  Fraxinus pointed out.

  "Perhaps Checuti was using him as cynically as he used you."

  "Perhaps," Jacom admitted.

  "But it won't help him if he's caught- and he's not an unobtrusive man. My own situation isn't enviable, but I wouldn't swap places with him." He suspected from

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  the way Fraxinus looked at him, however, that the merchant would very readily have made the exchange of travelling- companions.

  "Go on, then," he said to the story-teller.

  "Let's hear your secret lore."

  The story-teller seemed to be on the point of saying something more, but changed his mind and did as he was told.

  "These are the last of the verses I was taught," he said.

  "You will know their substance, I think." His tone changed very markedly as he slipped into the manner of one reproducing a precious heritage.

  "Let it not be thought," he recited, 'that the ship which sailed the dark between the scars was a place of perfect harmony, and let it not be thought that there was agreement as to the manner in which the people of the world were to be armed for their struggle. The lore which the forefathers made is not the only truth, nor is it even the whole of the truth which Goran desired his sons and daughters to know. "In addition to the lore and the common wisdom which the forefathers designed Goran drew up the secret commandments, perhaps twelve in number and perhaps thirteen, which he entrusted to a favoured few of the original lore masters but not to others.

  "Goran was wise enough to know that secrets perish easily, and that pretence flourishes wherever secrets are. Secrets perish easily because that which is known to the few cannot be as securely held as that which is known to the many. Pretence flourishes where secrets are because pretenders invent what they do not truly know, for the sake of being thought better people than they are. Goran knew, therefore, that some of the secret commandments would be lost and the remainder polluted by haphazard invention. He could only hope that these processes of corrosion and corruption would not lead, even in the end, to mere chaos. Nevertheless, he gave his secret commandments to the favoured few, and hoped that they might be kept.

  "Goran was not the only one among the forefathers to invent such arcana, and others issued secret commandments which contradicted his.

  They were wise enough to fear that they were sowing the seeds of future wars, but they were brave enough to hope that more good would come of it than evil.

  "To all those who believe themselves custodians of secret 151

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  commandments,

  cqcanon wisdom has this to say: first, do not fail to keep them; second, do not trust them too far; third, before you do evil at their urging ask what good will come of it.

  "What are humans for, if not to fight evil wherever it is found? What are humans worth, if they fear to tread the paths of evil? What will humans become, if they do not aim their endeavours towards the defeat of evil?"

  There was a moment's silence when the blind man had finished. What nonsense!

  Jacom thought, while Fraxinus offered polite thanks. The story-teller drank his wine, aglow with pleasure. Jacom doubted that he had ever been thanked for news of that particular kind. Everyone had heard of the secret commandments. Everyone knew that they were a joke. Everyone knew- or ought to- that the so-called Lore ofGenesys was simply a story made up by ignorant men to supply some kind of explanation of their presence in the world. "You seem unimpressed, Jacom," Fraxinus said.

  "You are a hard-headed realist, no doubt, who has no truck with tales of the beginning of human society?"

  "I'm more concerned with practical matters," Jacom said.

  "Now more than ever."

  "So am I," Fraxinus countered.

  "If I'm to go in search of legendary places, is it not practical to be as scrupulous as possible in consulting what legend hasjto say about them? I admit, though, that this was the least interesting of the three fragments which my friend has taken such care to preserve. The others spoke of the garden of Idun, of Serpents and Salamanders and strange pacts. . . and of the legacy of dreams which connects us, even now, to our remotest ancestors and the world from which they came."

  "We cannot know that they came from another world," Jacom said stubbornly.

  "Perhaps they did and perhaps they didn't-- but whatever the truth is, we cannot know it. If there ever was a ship, and forefathers who made the lore, they have rotted down to mere dirt.

  Whatever our ancestors were, they're gone as completely as if they had never been. "

  "Not so," Faximus said.

  "The makers of the lore, whoever they were and whether or not they were truthful in everything they taught, shaped our thoughts, our lives and our nature. We carry the past in our blood and in our minds; it remains incarnate in our

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  flesh and it colours our dreams. The world is the world, though centuries and millennia may elapse; the legacy of its past is everywhere, in every open appearance and every hidden thing.

  Everything dies and everything rots, but everything gives birth to effects and consequences, however briefly it may endure; life is eternal as well as evanescent.

  "The Navel of the World cannot now contain the least trace of the ship that brought our forefathers to the world, if there was indeed a ship, but whatever our forefathers did in the city of Idun and the garden they made when the city crumbled into dust, the consequences of those actions extend even to the present day. I believe that we ought to be interested in those consequences, and they might affect us far more profoundly than we imagine.

  Perhaps, in the fullness of time, I shall be able to convert you to my way of thinking." Jacom understood the implications of that perhaps far too well.

  He had already asked him elf over and over again, what he might do if- as seemed entirely likely he never found the fee which would buy his way back into Xandria.

  "I hope it won't come to that," he said unhappily.

  "I only want to find the princess, and bring her safely home. I wish you every success in your adventures, but I hope with all my heart that I shall
be able to return to Xandria long before you."

  "Then I shall hope so too," Fraxinus said kindly.

  "And for what it may be worth, you shall have my help for as long as you might require it." i53

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  a ndris woke up not knowing where he was. He lay perfectly still, not daring to move, trying to remember.

  He remembered that he had been lost in terrible discomfort for a very long time, but now felt sufficiently detached from the sensation not to be forced to describe it as pain, or even as agony. It had started out as pain, and had more than once veered towards agony, but time had reduced it to a mere framework of his existence, which circumstance inevitably made it fade and become duller. It had been tempered, too, by pride: pride in the fact that he had never given up the ghost, never fallen unconscious, and never fallen off his horse.

  He had ridden for hours on end, following Merel wherever she led, held firm in the grip of determination to show her that her efforts had not been wasted, and that he was a man worth saving, j He remembered getting down from the horse, and stretching himself out as carefully as ho could upon the.

  moist ground. He remembered lying prone and helpless while someone applied something glutinous and cold to his spine. He remembered trying to speak, hut being unable to do anything more than twitch and grunt.

  "It's all right," Merel had assured him roughly.

  "It's only wound glue Grandfather always told me never to get into a fight without wound glue in my pouch, and it's a good thing for you I was such a respectful listener. Lie still." He remembered making an effort to reply, but failing. How long ago had that been?

  His head ached and his whole body felt sore. He had been lying on damp ground for a long time, without so much as a coarse mat to cushion him or keep him dry. He was clothed, but he could remember Merel's intrusive fingers working through an open gap in the back of his shirt, where no gap had been until the

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  guardsman's spear had raked him, and he knew that he was still clad in the same ruined shirt. His trousers had been soaked by mud and such protection as his garments gave him against the unfamiliar cold seemed inconveniently slight.

  He knew by the cold that it was still night even before he attempted to open his eyes. When he finally managed to drag his sticky eyelids apart he found that his resting-place was unsheltered by roof or foliage and that the stars were obscured by a great sheet of unbroken cloud. No lamp was lit nearby and he could not see where he was- but he felt intuitively certain that it was going to rain, and that they would be in for a thorough drenching if they could not find shelter.

  He tried to get up, but the effort cost him dearly. The movement set his spine and dorsal ribs aflame with agony. He gave up, and decided to lie prone until he felt a lot better. His mouth and throat were very dry, and he felt fearfully thirsty.

  But I'm alive! he thought. And wherever I am, it's not prison.

  "Merel?" he croaked weakly, glad to be able to pronounce the word. He heard a rustling sound. A match was struck and a candle lighted, but his position was too awkward to allow him to take much advantage of the little flame. He had to tilt his head back to look up into the face of Merel Zabio, who was kneeling nearby, and the effort was too painful to sustain. He laid his forehead down for a second, and then turned his head half-sideways so he could inspect his rescuer from the corner. of his eye. She set the candle down, compacting soil around the base to make it stand up. Then she groped in the dark beside her feet, and found a leather bottle, which she uncorked and passed into his hand.

  It was good to have something to grip, although his fingers were unbearably clumsy. He moved the bottle into position and lifted himself long enough to sip a little of the liquid. It was only water, but it was very welcome. He lifted himself again. His second sip was more of a gulp. By the time he had drained the vessel to the dregs he felt almost human again. When he tried to move his limbs he had to fight against the leaden pain, but they all moved freely enough; unfortunately, he could find no position other than prone which did not put strain on his back.

  "Lie down and sleep," his kinswoman had advised, in a soothing i55

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  tone.

  "We can't go on till there's light. The wound glue is long set, and working well. With luck, you'll be well enough to ride by the time we can move on."

  He had not the slightest idea how long he had slept. He had no idea whether the present darkness was the same darkness that had surrounded him when his cousin had first applied the wound glue to his torn back, or whether he had slept through an entire day. Woundglue could do that, especially if it had been mixed strong and laced with some kind of knockout drops.

  His back felt a little better, but not much. He made another attempt to get up, but again decided that it was wiser to remain prone.

  "Merel?" he said querulously.

  "Where are we?" His voice was still hoarse, in spite of the liquid he had drunk. He did his best to look around, but his ignominious position made it difficult for his probing eyes to penetrate the surrounding curtain of darkness. The candle's light was so feeble that the lighted space seemed narrower than the cell he had so recently quit. It was almost as if the world itself had become a prison.

  "The middle of nowhere," Mere! told him, adjusting her position to make herself comfortable, 'or as near to it as we could get, given that the walls of Xandria are, far too close for comfort. I had to hide us quickly, because I daren't let you bounce around coo long on that mare with blood gushing from your back. She's a good horse, though. So's mine without them, we'd have been lost. Chccuti and his men are long gone, but they wouldn't have helped us anyway.

  You're too easily recognisable. "We on our own, cousin, at least for the time being. We have to
  The ground on which Andris lay was bare, the loose soil having been prepared for planting but not yet sown with seed. He peeped up at his companion's face. She met his gaze frankly, seemingly as interested in his features as he was in hers. They studied one another for a minute and more. He had collected himself now; he felt more like his usual self.

  "You'll be fine," she told him reassuringly.

  "Why did you do it?" he said faintly.

  "You don't even know me."

  "You're the only family I have," she told him.

  "But I'd be lying if I said it was my idea. I'd never have dared think of such a thing. It

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  was all Checuti's doing. He was the one who told me that I had a kinsman in the jail, and asked me whether I was interested in getting you out. I didn't know what to say ... I could very easily have told him to forget it. Then he told me what the princess intended to do to you . . .

  after that, I could hardly say no."

  Andris put his hand up to his forehead, trying unsuccessfully to calm a throbbing ache in his head.

  "I'm sorry," he said, after a brief period of silence.

  "I don't understand. What did he tell you the princess intended to do to me?"

  "Break your legs, cut off your balls and plant a thorn-bush in your living flesh."

  He looked up at her steadily for a few moments before saying: "You're serious, aren't you?"

  "So was Checuti. He said he felt bad about it, because you hadn't actually done what they put you in jail for. It was one of his men, apparently.

  Anyhow, he said he'd already planted one of his people in the jail, but that if I was game for it he'd include you in the plan too. The more the merrier, he said and I think he mea
nt exactly that. I suspect that he has a certain fondness for complication for its own sake, and his scheme was as much a joke- or at least a grand gesture as a means of getting rich. As I said, I felt obliged to join in. He made it seem as though I'd be turning down the chance of a lifetime if I didn't, even though he didn't offer me a share of the coin. And you are my kinsman, after all what kind of person would I have been if I'd said no? Checuti said there was a man who might help us if we can only stay ahead of the king's men long enough to get to him."

  "Carus Fraxinus?" said Andris.

  "No. He advised me to steer clear of him, at least for now. Too honest, he said. Told me to go to a man named Phar - Aulakh Phar if we can only get to him. Checuti says he'll pay as much as Fraxinus would for a map, and pay us a wage if we care to join him. The only trouble is that we have to go to Khalorn to find him. It's a long way, and there'll be people looking out for us. Lots of them." Andris studied her carefully.

  "Are you sure this Checuti wasn't lying to you?" he asked

  "About the princess, I mean."

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  "Maybe. Would you rather have taken a chance? Have you got any better ideas about what to do now' i57

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  Andris decided,^! due reflection, that the answer to both questions was no. He didn't bother saying so out loud.

  "How did Checuti know where to find you?" he asked.

  "Why was he even looking? I asked Fraxinus to try to find Uncle Theo -1 even wrote to the captain of the ship I came in on- but they evidently failed."

  "Actually, they succeeded- but indirectly," she told him.

  "If they hadn't started asking after Theo Zabio, Checuti would never have become interested.

  He hears everything, you see. He keeps track of everyone else's plans and schemes, just in case there's a chance to cut himself in. That's why I believe him about Phar -- he probably knows every detail of this business that Fraxinus, Phar and Keshvara are learning up for.