Serpent Mage

by Margaret Weis

  “It's all your fault!” he said crossly.

  The animal cocked its head, looked innocent, denied the charge.

  “It is, too. Putting such ideas into my head! Why don't you go off and find that blasted master of yours and leave me alone! I can get myself into quite enough trouble without your help.”

  Cocking its head in the other direction, the dog appeared to agree that this was true. It seemed to think the conversation had reached its logical conclusion, however, for it stretched luxuriously, bending forward over its forepaws, back over its hind end, and finally shook itself all over. Then, it trotted over to the garden gate, looked at Alfred expectantly.

  Alfred felt himself go hot and cold, both at the same time—a most uncomfortable sensation.

  “You're telling me that we're alone now, aren't you? No one's with us. No one's watching us.”

  The dog wagged its tail.

  “We can …” Alfred swallowed. “We can go to the library.” The dog wagged its tail again, its expression long-suffering and patient. It obviously considered Alfred slow and thickheaded, but was magnanimously willing to overlook these minor faults.

  “But I can't get inside. And if I could, I can't get back out. Samah would catch me …”

  The dog was afflicted by a sudden itch. Plopping down, it scratched vigorously, fixed Alfred with a stern gaze that seemed to say, Come, come. It's me, remember?

  “Oh, very well.”

  Alfred cast a furtive glance around the garden, half-expecting Samah to leap out of the rosebushes and lay violent hands upon his person. When no one came, Alfred began to sing and dance the runes.

  He stood outside the library. The dog dashed up to the door, sniffed at it with interest. Alfred slowly followed, gazed at the door sadly. The warding runes had, as Samah had promised, been strengthened.

  “‘Due to the current crisis situation and the fact that we cannot spare the staff needed to assist our patrons, the library is closed until further notice.’” Alfred read the sign aloud.

  “It makes sense,” he insisted. “Who's interested in doing any research anyway. They're spending all their time trying to rebuild and establish their city, trying to decide what to do about the Patryns, and wondering where the rest of our people are and how to get in touch with them. They have to deal with the necromancers on Abarrach and these dragon-snakes …”

  The dog didn't agree.

  “You're right,” Alfred heard himself arguing, his own inner being as rebellious as his limbs and appendages. “If I had all those problems to solve, where would I turn? To the wisdom of our people. Wisdom recorded in there.”

  Well, the dog demanded, bored with sniffing at the door, what are we waiting for?

  “I can't get inside,” Alfred said, but the words came out a whisper—a halfhearted, faint, and ineffectual lie.

  He knew how to get in without being detected. The idea had come to him, suddenly, last night.

  He hadn't wanted it to come. And when it did, he'd told it in no uncertain terms to go away. But it wouldn't. His stubborn brain had gone right ahead making plans, examining the risks and deciding (with a cold-bloodedness that shocked Alfred) that the risks were minimal and worth running.

  The idea had come to him because of that stupid story told by Bane's nurse. Alfred caught himself hoping irritably that she'd come to a bad end. She had no business telling such nightmare tales to a susceptible child. (Never mind the fact that Bane himself was a nightmare personified.)

  Thinking about that tale, Alfred had found himself remembering Arianus and the time he'd lived at the court of King Stephen. One memory led to another memory, and that led to another, until his mind had carried him, without him being aware of where he was headed, to the time the thief broke into the treasure vault.

  Money is water, on Arianus, where the life-sustaining liquid is in short supply and is, therefore, considerably valuable. The royal palace had stockpiles of the precious commodity, kept for use in times of emergency (such as when the elves succeeded in cutting off the water shipments). The vault where the barrels were stored was located in a building behind the palace walls, a building of thick walls and heavy bolted doors, a building guarded day and night.

  Guarded—except on the roof.

  Late one night, a thief, using a most ingenious system of ropes and pulleys, managed to make his way from a neighboring roof to the top of the water vault. He was drilling through the hargast-wood timbers when one gave way with a shattering crash, literally dropping the unlucky thief into the arms of the guards below.

  How the thief had proposed to get away with enough water to make this dangerous feat worth his while was never learned. It was assumed he had accomplices, but, if so, they escaped and he never revealed them, not even under torture. He met his death alone, accomplishing nothing except to ensure that guards now patrolled the roof.

  That and he'd provided Alfred with a plan for breaking and entering the library.

  Of course, it was always possible that Samah had enveloped the entire building in a magical shell, but, knowing the Sartan as he did, Alfred considered it unlikely. They had considered runes politely advising people to keep out sufficient protection and they would have been, had not Alfred's wayward feet flung him inside. The Councillor had strengthened the magic, but the thought that anyone (much less Alfred) would have the temerity to deliberately enter a place he'd been commanded to avoid would be unthinkable.

  It is unthinkable, Alfred thought miserably. I am corrupt. This is insanity!

  “I… I must get away from here …” he said faintly, mopping his forehead with his lace cuff.

  He was firm, resolved. He was going to leave. He didn't care what was in the library.

  “If there is anything—which there probably isn't—then surely Samah has an excellent reason for not wanting stray scholars to poke at it—although what that reason could be is beyond me—not that it's any of my business.”

  This monologue continued for some time, during which Alfred made up his mind to leave and actually turned around and started down the path, only to find himself walking up it again almost immediately. He turned back, started home, found himself walking to the library.

  The dog trotted after him, back and forth, until it grew tired, flopped down about halfway either direction, and watched Alfred's vacillation with considerable interest.

  Finally, the Sartan made up his mind. “I'm not going inside,” he said decisively, did a little dance, and began to sing the runes.

  The sigla wove their magic around him, lifted him up into the air. The dog jumped excitedly to its feet, and began to bark loudly, much to Alfred's consternation. The library was located far from the center of the Sartan city, far from the homes of the inhabitants, but it seemed to the nervous Alfred that the animal's yelps must be audible in Arianus.

  “Shush! Nice dog! No, don't bark. I—”

  Attempting to hush the dog, Alfred forgot where he was going. Or at least that was the only explanation he could give for finding himself hovering over the roof of the library.

  “Oh, dear,” he said weakly, and dropped like a rock.

  For long moments, he cowered on top of the roof, terrified that someone had heard the dog and that crowds of Sartan would be flocking around, wondering and accusing.

  All was quiet. No one came.

  The dog licked his hand and whined, urged him to once more take to the air, a feat the animal found highly entertaining.

  Alfred, who had forgotten the dog's unique ability to show up where least expected, nearly crawled out of his skin at the unexpected slobber of a wet tongue.

  Sitting back weakly against the parapet, he petted the animal with a shaking hand and looked around. He had been right. The only sigla visible were the perfectly ordinary runes of strength and support and protection from the elements that could be found on the roofs of any Sartan building. Yes, he'd been right, and he hated himself for being right.

  The roof was constructed of massive b
eams of some tree Alfred didn't recognize, but they gave off a faint, woodsy, pleasing aroma. Probably a tree that the Sartan had brought with them from the ancient world, through Death's Gate.1 These large beams were placed at intervals along the roof; smaller planks crisscrossed beneath, filling in the gaps. Intricate sigla, traced on the planks and the beams, would keep out rain and rodents and wind and sun, would keep out everything…

  “Except me,” Alfred said, gazing at the sigla unhappily.

  He sat for long moments, unwilling to move, until the larcenous part of his nature reminded him that the Council meeting could not last much longer. Samah would return home and expect to find Alfred there, become suspicious if Alfred was not.

  “Suspicious,” said Alfred faintly. “When did one Sartan ever use that word about another? What is happening to us? And why?”

  Slowly, he leaned over and began to draw a sigil on the wooden beam. His voice accompanied his work, his chant sad and heavy. The runes sank down through the wooden beams of a tree never known in this world, and they carried Alfred down into the library with them.

  Orla paced about her house, restless, ill at ease. She wished Samah were at home, was perversely glad he wasn't. She knew she should go back out into the garden, should go back out to Alfred, apologize for behaving like such a fool, smooth the incident over. She should have never let it affect her like that, should have never let him affect her like that!

  “Why did you come?” she demanded of his absent figure sadly. “All the turmoil and unhappiness was over. I could once more hope for peace. Why did you come? And when will you go?”

  Orla took another turn about the room. Sartan dwellings are large and spacious. The rooms are made of cool, straight lines, bent, here and there, into perfect arches supported by upright columns. The furniture is elegant and simple, providing only what is necessary for comfort, nothing for show or display. One could walk among the few furnishings with ease.

  That is, a normal person could walk among them with ease, she amended, straightening a table that Alfred had knocked askew.

  She put the table to rights, knowing Samah would be extremely irritated to find it out of its proper order. But her hand lingered on it; she smiled to herself, seeing, once again, Alfred blundering into it. The table stood next to a couch, was well out of the flow of traffic. Alfred had been far away from it, with no intention of being anywhere near it. Orla recalled watching in wonder those too-large feet of his veering off in the direction of the table, stumbling over each other in their haste to reach it and knock it over. And Alfred, watching in bemused bewilderment, like a nursemaid with a flock of unruly children. And he had looked at Orla in helpless, pleading apology.

  know I'm responsible, his eyes said, but what can I do? My feet simply won't behave!

  Why did that wistful expression of his tug at her heart? Why did she long to hold those clumsy hands, long to try to ease the burden that rested on those stooped shoulders?

  “I am another man's wife,” she reminded herself. “Samah's wife.”

  They had loved each other, she supposed. She'd borne him children, they must have … once.

  But she remembered the image Alfred had conjured for her, an image of two people loving each other fiercely, passionately, because this night was all they had, because all they had was each other. No, she realized sadly. She'd never truly loved.

  She felt no pain inside her, no ache, nothing. Only spacious, large emptiness, defined by cool, straight lines, supported by upright columns. What furniture existed was neat, orderly, occasionally shifting position, but never actually rearranged. Until those too-large feet and those wistful, searching eyes and those clumsy hands blundered into her and threw everything into wild disarray.

  “Samah would say that it is a mothering instinct, that since I am past my childbearing years, I have the need to mother something. Odd, but I can't remember mothering my own child. I suppose I did. I suppose I must have. All I seem to remember is wandering about this empty house, dusting the furniture.”

  Her feelings for Alfred weren't motherly, however. Orla remembered his awkward hands, his timid caresses, and blushed hotly. No, not motherly at all.

  “What is there about him?” she wondered aloud.

  Certainly nothing visible on the surface: balding head, stooped shoulders, feet that seemed intent on carrying their owner to disaster, mild blue eyes, shabby mensch clothes that he refused to change. Orla thought of Samah: strong, self-possessed, powerful. Yet Samah had never made her feel compassion, never made her cry for someone else's sorrow, never made her love someone for the sake of loving, “There is a power in Alfred,” Orla told the straight and uncaring furniture. “A power that is all the more powerful because he is not aware of it. If you accused him of it, in fact”—she smiled fondly—“he would get that bewildered, astonished look on his face and stammer and stutter and … I'm falling in love with him. This is impossible. I'm falling in love with him.”

  And he's falling in love with you.

  “No,” she protested, but her protest was soft and her smile did not fade.

  Sartan did not fall in love with other people's spouses. Sartan remained faithful to their marriage vows. This love was hopeless and could come only to grief. Orla knew this. She knew she would have to remove the smiles and tears from her being, straighten it up, return it to its straight lines and empty dustiness. But for a short time, for this one moment, she could recall the warmth of his hand gently stroking her skin, she could cry in his arms for another woman's baby, she could feel.

  It occurred to her that she'd been away from him an interminable length of time.

  “He'll think I'm angry at him,” she realized, remorseful, remembering how she'd stalked off the terrace. “I must have hurt him. I'll go explain and … and then I'll tell him that he has to leave this house. It won't be wise for us to see each other anymore, except on Council business. I can manage that. Yes, I can definitely manage that.”

  But her heart was beating far too rapidly for comfort, and she was forced to repeat a calming mantra before she was relaxed enough to look firm and resolved. She smoothed her hair and wiped away any lingering traces of tears, tried a cool, calm smile on her face, studied herself anxiously in a mirror to see if the smile looked as strained and borrowed as it felt.

  Then she had to pause to try to think how to bring the subject into conversation.

  “Alfred, I know you love me …”

  No, that sounded conceited.

  “Alfred, I love you …”

  No, that would certainly never do! After another moment's reflection, she decided that it would be best to be swift and merciless, like one of those horrid mensch surgeons, chopping off a diseased limb.

  “Alfred, you and the dog must leave my house this night.”

  Yes, that would be best. Sighing, not holding out much hope that this would work, she returned to the terrace.

  Alfred wasn't there.

  “He's gone to the library.”

  Orla knew it as well as if she could look across the miles and peer through the walls and see him inside. He'd found a way to enter that wouldn't alert anyone to his presence. And she knew that he would find what he sought.

  “He won't understand. He wasn't there. I must try to make him see my images!”

  Orla whispered the runes, traced the magic with her hands, and departed on its wings.

  The dog growled, warningly, and jumped to its feet. Alfred looked up from his reading. A figure clad in white was approaching, coming from the back of the library. He couldn't see who it was: Samah, Ramu? …

  Alfred didn't particularly care. He wasn't nervous, wasn't assailed by guilt, wasn't afraid. He was appalled and shocked and sickened and he was, he was startled to discover, glad to be able to confront someone.

  He rose to his feet, his body trembling, not with fear, but with his anger. The figure stepped into the light he had magically created to read by.

  The two stared at each other. Qu
ick indrawn breaths slipped to sighs, eyes silently exchanged words of the heart that could never be spoken.

  “You know,” said Orla.

  “Yes,” answered Alfred, lowering his gaze, flustered.

  He'd been expecting Samah. He could be angry with Samah. He felt a need to be angry, to release his anger that bubbled inside him like Abarrach's hot lava sea. But how could he vent his anger on her, when what he truly wanted to do was take her in his arms? …

  “I'm sorry,” Orla said. “It makes things very difficult.”

  “Difficult!” Fury and indignation struck Alfred a blow that left him reeling, addled his brain. “Difficult! That's all you can say?” He gestured wildly to the scroll2 lying open on the table before him. “What you did … When you knew … This records everything, the arguments in the Council. The fact that certain Saitan were beginning to believe in a higher power. How could you … Lies, all lies! The horror, the destruction, the deaths … Unnecessary! And you knew—”

  “No, we didn't!” Orla cried.

  She strode forward, came to stand before him, her hand on the table, the scroll, that separated them. The dog sat back on its haunches, looking at each with its intelligent eyes.

  “We didn't know! Not for certain! And the Patryns were growing in strength, in power. And against their might, what did we have? Vague feelings, nothing that could ever be defined.”

  “Vague feelings!” repeated Alfred. “Vague feelings! I've known those feelings. They were … it was … the most wonderful experience! The Chamber of the Damned, they called it. But I knew it as the Chamber of the Blessed. I understood the reason for my being. I was given to know I could change things for the better. I was told that if I had faith, all would be well. I didn't want to leave that wonderful place—”

  “But you did leave!” Orla reminded him. “You couldn't stay, could you? And what happened in Abarrach when you left?”

  Alfred, troubled, drew back from her. He looked down at the scroll, though he wasn't seeing it; his hand toyed with its edges.