Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  "No," he said stubbornly.

  "I

  don't trust Erelech or the giant, and I certainly don't trust the drago mites I want Merel with me and if that animated lantern wants this carried out of the nest it'll have to take me to Merel first. "

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  It was by no means obvious, of course, that the 'animated lantern' was intelligent enough to know what was happening but it did seem to care. When it realised that its followers had stopped it came back, still bleating

  "Come with me! Come with me!"

  "Take me to my cousin," the amber instructed the creature.

  "The girl who was brought down here with me. Not the old woman, nor the giant -- the young woman. You have to take me to her."

  "Don't be stupid," Jacom said exasperatedly.

  "It can't understand you."

  "Take us back to the cells," Myrasol said, staring into the guide's saucer-like eyes.

  "Merel was put into one too. When we have her, we can go on."

  Jacom reached out then, trying to take the disembodied head from Andris's hand, but there was no way he could do that without the amber's consent.

  "You had your chance when he asked for help," Myrasol said grimly.

  "No brotherly love, no ticket to the earthly paradise. If I weren't the sort of person who cared about my cousin, I wouldn't be the sort of person he'd want looking after him, would I? Merel risked her neck to get me out of Belin's citadel, where you put me, and I won't leave her fate to chance."

  "Come with me ['screeched the guide, waving its tentacled hands in a mad pantomime of concession.

  "Come with me!"

  When it set off again, Myrasol followed, and Jacom fell into step behind him.

  He soon observed that they were no longer climbing steeply, but moving more or less horizontally through that part of the drago mite hive which was alive, but he didn't know whether he ought to be glad about that or terrified. No more than a few minutes passed before they were disgorged into one of the permanent corridors where the air was a little fresher and cooler and the lighted walls a fraction brighter. The tunnel was deserted; they met no workers coming in the opposite direction, nor did they glimpse any in the branching tunnels.

  After several more minutes the tunnel widened out again, letting them into the complex of chambers to which they had been brought by the human warriors.

  These chambers were by no means deserted, by humans or by drago mites and their guide was forced yet again to duck and dodge as it hurried forward.

  Although human warriors and workers were milling in every 449

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  direction it

  quickl^became obvious to Jacom that he and his companions were moving against the main tide. He was about to renew his complaint, but Myrasol was in no mood to listen, and he changed his mind when he suddenly caught sight of someone he knew.

  "Look!" he said excitedly.

  "It's Ereleth! The giant and your cousin must be with her!"

  The nascent elation died in Jacom's heart, though, as he perceived that Ereleth's companions were all mound-women. Even so, both men turned aside to go after her, although their guide continued the way it had been going.

  "Ereleth!" Jacom shouted after her. The mound-woman who was leading her tried to prevent her pausing, but the queen brushed her off impatiently.

  "Where's Merel?" Myrasol asked bluntly.

  "Is she safe?"

  Ereleth's initial surprise at seeing them turned to shock as she realised what Myrasol was carrying. The witch-queen stared at the head as if she expected to recognise the face and made no answer to the question which Andris had put to her.

  "Tell him, for Goran's sake," said Jacom.

  "It's not what you think!"

  "Whose head is that?" Ereleth demanded but she was looking about her as she said it, as if surprised to find that there were no humans with her except mound-women.

  "My brother's," Andris retorted.

  "Bur it's my cousin I want now. Have you seen her?"

  "Come with us," Ereleth said, belatedly.

  "Yhu must come with us. The nest. . ." She broke off as she caught sight of the luminous creature, which had fought its way back once again to regain contact with its troublesome charges. Her eyes grew wide with fear and fascination but the fascination was already outweighing the fear.

  Myrasol was staring angrily at Ereleth, perhaps having caught an expression in her eye which suggested to him that she had seen Merel Zabio, and knew exactly where she was. Deliberately, the amber raised his left arm and extended it towards her, showing her what it was that he carried. "Tell me where she is," he said, injecting all the venom he could muster into the command.

  "Tell me, you murderous bitch, or I'll . . ."

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  It was his turn to be interrupted as this display overrode Ereleth's fascination with the humanoid monster and recalled her presence of mind. She drew herself up to her full height, in a queenly manner.

  "Your cousin's back there," she said flatly, pointing along the corridor.

  "We were all in the mound-queen's throne room." For a moment, it seemed as if she might go back herself, but the warrior women with her were trying to force her in the opposite direction.

  "If you've hurt her. . ." Myrasol began butJacom cut him off in peremptory fashion.

  "Come on," he said.

  "If you must. . ."

  Myrasol rounded on him.

  "Go with her!" he snapped.

  "Do your duty, captain and get out while you can!"

  / ought to do exactly that, Jacom thought, but he means it as an insult, not as a kindness.

  "Come with me!" bleated the guide and Myrasol went. Jacom hesitated for a moment, but Ereleth was already hurrying away, and her solicitous attendants didn't seem to care about him at all. He was jostled by a drago mite worker for whose massive bulk he had perforce to make room, and the contact seemed oddly enough to steady his fevered emotions.

  Dragomites no longer bothered him, he realised; he had grown accustomed to their nearness within hours, much as he had long since grown accustomed to the nearness of horses. There was nothing in their un earthliness to disturb him now.

  He raced after Myrasol, and eventually caught up with him in spite of the fact that he had not the other's massive stride.

  "You should have gone with Ereleth," the amber said, without breaking stride.

  "She's headed for the surface or for safety, at any rate."

  "I know," Jacom replied, panting hard between phrases.

  "But I'm with yo , brother. This time, I'll not leave you to your fate. I owe you that."

  He observed, bitterly, that Myrasol didn't thank him for this recklessness.

  As they had run through the tunnels the way had become clearer and clearer.

  It was noticeable now that every other living thing they saw was headed in the opposite direction. The luminous creature seemed rather drab in these lighted corridors, and its skin 451

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  had darkened con^erably. It still

  seemed pathetically thin and frail, and Jacom felt a surge of admiration for its steadfastness- exactly the kind of surge which Andris Myrasol ought to have felt when Jacom came after him.

  Can the world be such a terrible place, he thought, when it can play host to three such fools as we?

  They came into the throne room then, where the guide darted to one side.

  Jacom's eye was immediately caught by the fallen form of a young woman who was being t
rampled beneath the feet of an angry drago mite but it was plain to see that the drago mite hadn't the slightest interest in her. The shaft of a spear was jutting out of its forehead, like the horn of a unicorn, and it was charging full tilt at the person who had had the temerity to put it there: the giant, Dhalla. Meanwhile, the latter was busy placing Princess Lucrezia against the wall of the cave, and the fat woman who was sitting on the throne seemed to be struggling to get to her feet.

  Jacom stopped dead in his tracks. Myrasol thrust the severed head into his hands, saying: "Look after this." While he was still looking down at it, petrified by disgust, the big amber bounded forward, dodging around the drago mite jaws.

  It was perfectly clear to Jacom that Myrasol's only purpose was to reach his cousin and plucki her from the floor but it wasn't clear to the drago mite The monster turned its huge head reflexively, and reached out for the amber's hurrying figure. It might have got him, too, had he been slightly less nimble, but he was not in any sort of trance now and he danced clear of the sideways thrust.

  Until it turned its head the drago mite had not seemed to be in the least inconvenienced by the spear in its head, but the lateral movement was a bad error of judgment. The weight of the spear dragged the head down and the blunt end of the spear scraped the ground. The friction must have forced the broad head of the weapon sideways within the wound, and that must have done some damage, for the enormous creature was seized by a sudden convulsion. It lost control of its legs, and slumped to the floor, thrashing its limbs madly but impotently.

  Myrasol picked Merel Zabio up as if she weighed nothing at all, and leapt to the wall of the chamber, where he ended up side by side with Princess Lucrezia.

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  The woman on the throne managed to come to her feet then, and she stepped forward a pace. Her legs, though stout, weren't able to support her, and she had to lean back on her equally stout arms while her bloated hands rested on the arms of her crude throne. Jacom saw her face change as she realised that she couldn't walk, but her expression was indecipherable.

  "No time at all," the mound-queen said, to no one in particular.

  It was only then that Jacom noticed the blood gushing on to the floor in front of the throne, where the woman stood. He couldn't see the wound from which it was flowing, and didn't want to- but the mound-queen continued to stand up. It reminded him of the way Ereleth had gathered herself together in the tunnel, when she had remembered that she was a queen. He realised that she was looking at the head cradled in his hands. Her expression was still unreadable.

  "He will tell you nothing but lies," she said venomously.

  "We are no kin to creatures like you. We never needed you. The nest can look after its own." Having said that, she fell forward, to lie prone in the lake of her blood, struggling impotently to rise again. Jacom could now see the gaping holes in her clothing, where she had had to tear herself free from the throne with whose alien flesh hers had been intimately joined.

  "Come with me!" begged their guide plaintively, already moving back towards the entrance through which they had just come but no sooner had it reached the narrow mouth of the tunnel than a huge head was thrust through it: the head of another drago mite warrior.

  The massive jaws of the warrior snapped shut about the humanoid creature's midriff, slicing it in two. As the upper part of the body fell, the creature shrieked.

  The astonishingly loud and agonising call echoed from the walls and ceiling of the chamber, multiplying into a ghastly chorus. The ugly head ducked briefly as the jaws flicked the two halves of the skeletal form to one side, and then the rest of the monster have into view as it scuttled forward.

  Jacom was nearer to the monster than anyone else, far too close for his own comfort. He hurled himself forward, sprinting for the narrowest of all the tunnels which offered exits from the throne room - but before he reached it that gap too was filled to capacity by the frightful head of a warrior drago mite

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  Jacom stopped asi abruptly as he could, and threw himself sideways, to the place where Andris, the unconscious Merel and the princess were already huddled tightly together.

  Oh filth, he thought, with surprisingly little vehemence. Wrong again. I should have gone with Ereleth after all.

  The twin warriors were converging upon them now, from opposite directions.

  There was, as the mound-queen had shrewdly observed, no time at all for the formulation of any kind of plan.

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  i7 As the two drago mite warrors converged, one of them skirting the still-thrashing body of the other which had been killed by Dhalla's spear, Lucrezia pressed herself back against the wall of the cavern, wishing that it might swallow her up. The big amber laid his unconscious cousin down in the angle where the floor met the wall, and knelt over her, shielding her with his body as he tried to revive her.

  The young captain scrambled to her side. He was carrying a human head, but he had to put it down while he tried to wrestle the sword from his belt because it was too large for him to hold one- handed.

  While she looked down at the head, trying to figure out whose it was, he pulled her towards him urgently. She resisted; she had not the slightest confidence in his ability to rescue her. She was looking to Dhalla for that, on the grounds that Dhalla was the only one here who had demonstrated that she was capable of killing a drago mite

  The captain didn't understand why she was pulling away, and he kept pulling too. Dhalla was on the other side of the throne, moving behind one of the warriors, with the obvious intention of recovering her spear. Lucrezia tried to shake off the captain's insistent hand, pressing herself harder and harder against the lukewarm wall.

  Had either of the drago mite warriors turned its head towards them it could have been upon them within a couple of seconds, slashing at them with its awful jaws but neither of them did. Their black eyes were fixed on one another.

  Lucrezia tried even harder to pull away from Jacom Cerri, wishing that there were a space behind her into which she could move away from him and suddenly, there was such a space. There was a tunnel mouth where none had been before: a narrow 455

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  portal which had opened up like a pair of vertical lips. She was pulling so hard thafsne fell into it as soon as it opened- and the young captain was holding on so firmly that he too was pulled over.

  He fell on top of her, but he released his grip then and she was able to scramble away. For a second or two the aperture through which they had tumbled remained open, so that the wan light of the throne room spilled through it- but then it closed. The mouth had swallowed them, and the darkness was absolute.

  Lucrezia would not have been in the least surprised had the walls to either side of them closed in, crushing them both to digestible pulp, but they didn't. The bubble of air which had been trapped with them became warmer and more humid, but she didn't choke.

  "It's all right, highness," the captain whispered.

  "I've been through this before. Last time, the drago mite queen sent a lantern to guide us, but you saw it broken a few minutes ago. We'll have to make our way by feel, until she can bring us to a lighted tunnel."

  "She?" Lucrezia echoed, quite unable to follow the sense of the argument.

  "I'll lead the way, highness," Cerri said, pushing past her as she said it.

  "Take hold of the hem of my skirt and don't let go."

  He grabbed her hand and guided it to the edge of the coarse cloth which made up the lower. part of his un
iform. He wasted no time in moving off thereafter. She could hear the sound his hand made as he trailed it along the wall. How can he be so calm? she thought. How can he know intuitively what to do?

  "My father sent you to fetch me home," she said, repeating what Ereleth had told her as she began to walk behind. him, heading into the dark abyss.

  "He did," the captain replied.

  "But rumour has it that you don't want to go."

  "No," she said faintly.

  "I don't. But if. . ."

  He interrupted her rudely. At any other time, it would have been an unforgivable failure of politeness, but she realised that he must have guessed what she was about to say, and that his reply was both chivalrous and magnanimous.

  "If we get out of this alive, highness," he said,

  "I'll commit myself to your service. I'll go wherever you want to go: to the Navel of the World or the north pole, if necessary."

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  Lucrezia made no immediate reply to this. It was, she realised, an offer made under dire stress, of which he might repent if he ever had the opportunity. The course they were following took them up a considerable gradient, but she was sure that they were not moving in a straight line. If they were headed for the surface they were taking a circuitous route.

  "Why?" she said eventually, in a very different manner.

  "Why did the tunnel open up for us? Why should the drago mite queen save us from her own warriors?"

  "I don't know, highness," Cerri replied, as he moved relentlessly forwards and upwards.

  "Your guess is as good as mine. It might have something to do with that head which Myrasol has. We were taken out of our cell in order to find and fetch it, but I can't begin to comprehend the balance of power here. It called us brother and offered to serve as an oracle if we would only take it away. It seemed to be at odds with the mound-queen and her human warriors but not, perhaps, with the drago mite queen. I fear that I can't even begin to fathom such mysteries and I don't have the head with me now, for I set it down back there when I drew my sword, so it may be that it has nothing to do with this opportunity to escape if it is, indeed, an opportunity . . ."