by Lara Morgan
They flew on and on and she lost track of time. The hills gave way to valleys, the sun rose higher and then started to dip, and her stomach became hollow with hunger, but still they flew on. The rush of air numbed her and she began to feel disconnected from the world around her. She could feel Azoth gripping her hands, but it was as though she were a long way from them. Weariness crept upon her and her mind drifted.
Balkis, his lips pressed to hers, his face twisted with grim desperation, floated before her and sadness rose, filling her throat. She pushed the thought away, afraid of her own feelings, only to have it replaced by images of Tuon and Torg, bleeding, dying. She swayed sideways, overcome with grief. A tear slipped from her eye and was whipped away by the wind. That was all she could hear now, the noise of the wind in her ears, loud and pulling at her. She closed her eyes. Darkness rose to meet her and she slipped into it gratefully, seeking oblivion, drifting into a dream. But it was not peaceful. With rising dread she felt the familiar darkness seeking her. She tried to open her eyes, but slipped into the void. All was blackness and cold, so cold. She could no longer feel her body. She was nothing: a bodiless wraith spinning in the dark – and she was not alone. Something watched and waited. She could feel it, unseen. She tried to wake, to escape, but she had no compass. Terrified, she began to scream.
Then she heard her name. Shaan, Azoth’s voice reverberated through her skull. He had found her. He would save her. She hated him, but she could not save herself. She reached for him. There was a tremendous pull and she opened her eyes.
Cold dry earth was beneath her back and Azoth was bending over her, her head cradled between his hands. She had time to register that it was night, but then all logic fled as pain split her skull. Clutching at his hands she collapsed into unconsciousness.
Azoth let her fall back into the darkness. Lowering her to the ground, he picked up her arm. The night was dark, but he had no trouble seeing the bright band of gold on her finger. With a satisfied smile he slipped it off and put it back in his pocket.
It was interesting that she hadn’t felt him slip it on earlier. He hadn’t expected quite the reaction he’d got, but it was good. Now he knew. Satisfied, he stood and walked out from under the sparse canopy of the tree. The ring he had crafted so long ago as his fail safe was still connected to his descendant, it would allow her to access the Stone.
The stars were blue bright and the undulating land around was barren, dark shadow. There was no wind, the only sound the sluggish gurgle of the small river behind him. He remembered these lands. He had not liked their dryness before and still did not. Nearby, Nuathin stirred and he turned and looked at the serpent, a dark, bulky shadow on the riverbank.
Hunt, semorphim. You will need your strength. He spoke to him in the old tongue.
Nuathin’s eyes blinked red in the starlight. I have no hunger for meat, I hunger only for the true paths now, Arak.
A lump rose unexpectedly in Azoth’s throat and he became very still. Slowly he went over and reached one hand up to touch the serpent’s side. For a moment his fingers trembled as he touched him.
It has been many years since I have heard that said. He ran his hand lightly along Nuathin’s ribs, watching as the serpent’s skin became luminescent under his touch. Arak – he paused and looked up into Nuathin’s eye, How many would still call me that? How many would remember?
The Hive will again remember when we are reunited. They will come to you and forget their fear. Forgive them.
Azoth smiled briefly then dropped his hand, the smile falling replaced by a dark look that made the serpent quiver and hunch down low to the earth.
‘Yes,’ he spoke aloud, staring once again up at the stars. ‘And you will help them, Nuathin. The Sermorphim will once again be mine and we will follow the true paths together. We will all be together.’
But what of the others? The serpent sent tentatively. Will they not feel your return?
He laughed. ‘My siblings? They are nothing now, powerless. They cannot harm me and they will not find me.’ He shook his head, his teeth shining in the starlight. Suddenly he frowned and looked back at the serpent. ‘You have not named me in the hive have you?’
No, no, Arak. Nuathin dropped his head from his glaring eye. Never.
‘Good.’ Azoth smiled, his humour restored as quickly as it had gone. ‘They are no more Nuathin. Now there is only me. And there will only ever be me.’
He ran his hand once more along the serpent’s skin making his luminescence flare.
‘There is only me,’ he murmured then turned and went back to Shaan.
Do we go to the rain lands? Nuathin asked as he crouched to lift Shaan into his arms. She moaned and flinched as he brushed her burnt hand. The bandage had come loose. But he was unconcerned. She would heal.
Yes, we go back. He approached the serpent and placed Shaan up on Nuathin’s back before jumping up behind her himself. Come, semorphim, carry us on. He urged Nuathin upwards and the serpent, his old heart full of hope once more, leaped up into the night.
Shaan drifted awake to find herself once again on Nuathin’s back, but this time Azoth was behind her, his arms preventing her from falling. It was night and the air was warm, the sky clear. She could see the bright pinpoint lights of a thousand stars. Nuathin’s wings flapped slowly on either side, spreading to glide on the warm air.
‘Are you in pain?’ Azoth said, but she ignored him.
The question didn’t seem to come out of concern, rather as an observation as if she were an insect to be studied – or crushed. Her hand was hurting again and her head throbbed, but anger at her own weakness kept her silent. She had let him help her. Why was she so weak? Sitting as straight as she could she tried to let only as much of her body touch him as necessary. It amused him, she knew, this small rebellion. She felt him smiling at her, sensed it. It made her hate and anger stronger.
She closed her eyes against the wind. Inside, she could still feel the faint, tugging presence of Tallis. It was like the last ember of a fire now, small and dark, glowing only faintly, but she could still feel the warmth in it. It gave her hope. She was not alone, not quite. Azoth may have taken two of those she loved most from her, but he did not know about Tallis, and he would not, she thought fiercely. Wrapping her mind around the thought of him like a shield, she buried his presence deep inside. She would keep him from Azoth even if it meant she could barely feel him, for if Azoth knew she was sure he would try to take him also.
For six days and nights they flew across unknown country. It was hot and dry and during the day she could see, to the west of them, a constant wavering shimmer on the horizon. Azoth told her it was the desert lands, but that they would not fly over them. They were following the coast to their destination.
‘The desert lands are not our lands,’ he said to her. ‘There is nothing there for our kind, and nothing that wants us. We go north.’ And he had looked at her intently and asked if she felt anything or guessed where they went. But she turned her back on him and was silent. How little he knew.
The sun burned her skin and tormented her injured hand. Azoth seemed oblivious to the fact that her dress was dirty and torn, the skirt shredded from the rough hide of the serpent, and her legs rubbed raw. It was painful to walk when they stopped and she was always thirsty. He hardly seemed to need to eat or drink, and she wondered why he simply did not kill her, as surely she would die if she were forced to keep on this way much longer. But he did not, and on the fifth day as the sun rose again, she was relieved to feel some moisture in the air and see clouds scudding across the sky.
In the distance a dark mass crowded the rim of the world, but beneath them the earth was gently undulating and sparsely shrubbed. The dark ribbon of a river snaked across it and when she looked to the left she saw the land flattening and stretching forever. But they did not stop for some time. Bare hills and sparse trees gave way to wide plains of tall dark green grass, dotted with myriad small ponds.
Finally, as the su
n dropped to the horizon, Nuathin began to descend. He circled and came to rest near a pond on an open patch of ground ringed by waving grasses. The earth was spongy and damp and insects buzzed over the still water. The grass that surrounded them was as high her waist and marched away to the dark mountain-like mass on the horizon.
‘The rain lands,’ Azoth said, nodding at the shadow. He looked at her as though he expected her to speak, but Shaan turned her back and tried to find a dry place to sit. Batting small flies away, she perched on a small rock near the pond.
She scooped her hand into the fetid water and sluiced it over the burn. It wasn’t much cooler than the air, but the wetness of it was a merciful relief. Soon she abandoned the rock altogether and kneeled in the soft mud at the pond’s edge, laying her entire forearm under the water. Sluicing her thighs as well she closed her eyes and enjoyed the respite; but after a while her back began to ache. She endured it for as long as she could, then smeared some of the cool mud over her skin and she sat back on the rock, staring down at the brown, algae-specked water. She was parched and hadn’t eaten since the day before, but she said nothing. She thought now only of escape.
Azoth came up beside her. ‘It burns,’ he commented.
She gave him a narrow-eyed look but said nothing.
He squatted down next to her. ‘Do you know, it amuses me that you fight me. I can feel it now, your desperate need to escape.’ He lifted a finger to brush a tendril of hair from her brow and she jerked away. He smiled. ‘You resist me only because you do not know what you are – what I am – what we can be together.’
‘You’re a murderer,’ Shaan said. ‘I’ve met your kind before. We will never be anything together.’
‘Are you so sure?’ He stood and walked around the edge of the small pond. ‘What did you discover in the hive mind of the serpents?’
She glanced at him. So Nuathin had told him. She was not surprised; Nuathin was his creature, mind and soul. She almost felt sorry for the beast, almost.
‘Did they not talk to you about me, Shaan?’ Azoth said. ‘Someone whose mark they could feel on you?’
‘They talked nonsense,’ she retorted, but her heart began to pound with apprehension.
‘Do they?’
She didn’t like the way the conversation was going. ‘Why am I here, Azoth?’ She looked up, meeting his gaze. ‘What do you want with me? Will you kill me?’
‘Only if I have to,’ he said and the look he gave her was flat, truthful.
She swallowed. ‘But only when I’ve given you what you want.’
He didn’t answer at once. He walked around the pond, watching as his boots crushed the wet grass, then stopped and looked to the dark mass of jungle on the horizon.
‘Do you see the Rain Lands? Though I think they are called the Wild Lands now. There are many secrets, many pasts hidden within its trees and deep rivers. Many things lost long ago.’ His voice became soft as he stared out across the grass.
Shaan looked at his profile: his straight nose and high forehead edged by the afternoon light, and a shiver passed over her. He seemed to become an otherworldly, fey creature as she gazed on him. All around them the grasslands fell quiet, not an insect hummed, not a speck of breeze stirred the green blades. It was as though the very earth was holding its breath, waiting for him to speak. And she was holding hers with it. He was not human. She knew it, and she should be afraid of him. He could kill her easily. And yet his being pulled at her; she could feel the drag of it now, tugging at her, stretching toward him like an invisible cord. It was similar to the feeling she had with Tallis. But whereas Tallis felt like a warm flame in her heart, his was a cold chain closing around her throat – unbreakable. It frightened her more than dying. She feared that if she gave in to him there would be no turning back. She would lose herself completely.
He turned and looked at her, his eyes a dark violet and a jolt shuddered through her.
‘What do you want with me?’ she said. Her voice sounded scratched and frail to her ears. But he merely watched her, unsmiling, studying her, as though to imprint every part of her in his mind.
‘What do I want with you?’ He turned and walked slowly back across the clearing. ‘I want you to find something for me, that’s all.’
Shaan was afraid. What could she find that he could not?
He smiled. ‘It’s just a small thing. All you have to do is find it for me, then you can go . . . If you want to.’
‘What is it?’
His mouth curved secretively. ‘You will see. But don’t worry, it won’t be difficult. It will almost find you.’
35
Tallis leaned against the railing of the walkway watching some children throwing a net into the swift flowing river. He guessed the three of them were between six and ten years old. They threw the net with confidence and waded naked in the shallows. They were all brown skinned with short, black hair, and the tallest boy shouted instructions to the other two, occasionally pushing them around or pulling them back if they ventured too far into the deeper water.
It reminded him of his own brothers and a deep ache cut him, but he quickly pushed it aside, burying it deep. The desert lands were lost to him now, his brothers long gone. There was no going back. He gripped the railing hard and winced as pain shot into his shoulder. The wound was healing slowly and needed tending, but he had been avoiding Alterin. He didn’t trust himself around her.
‘It would be good to have so few worries again.’ Attar’s voice disturbed his thoughts as he came to stand beside him. ‘I used to love to fish as a boy, could catch a rock squib with my bare hands.’ Tallis looked at him without speaking and Attar raised a scarred eyebrow. ‘You ever catch a fish?’
‘No.’
Attar leaned his forearms on the railing and it creaked under his weight. ‘Well, no, of course, there wouldn’t be many in the desert would there?’ He gave a grunting laugh.
Tallis said nothing and they both watched the young boys pull the net onto the bank of the river.
‘But I didn’t come to talk to you of fish,’ he said finally.
‘I know.’
‘We have to go back,’ Attar said. ‘We must report what we’ve seen to the Commander.’ Tallis didn’t reply and Attar shifted on the railing. ‘Also, something is disturbing the serpents here, they’ve become . . . distant, uneasy. I don’t know why. Have you noticed?’
Tallis looked down at his hands on the railing before answering. ‘I feel it,’ he said shortly. ‘They are afraid.’
‘Afraid,’ the rider repeated slowly. Tallis looked at him. ‘Attar, you told me before that there are those called Seducers in Salmut, men who can somehow control the minds of others. Can they also kill another with their mind?’
The look Attar gave him was wary. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know the ways of the Seducers, Tallis. Why?’
He turned away with a shake of his head. ‘I am trying to understand your world, that’s all.’
Attar took a long breath and looked out over the river and said nothing for a time. A breeze blew the sound of the children’s laughter to them, along with the thick scent of the river. It was rich with the smell of mud and earth.
Attar said, ‘Once, when I was a lad, I saw a boy brought into the barracks. He was young, from one of the outer villages. His family had brought him in to see the Faithful because they were afraid of him. I heard that they’d said he had caused the death of most of their muthu. Another boy in their village, who had picked on him, lay as one dead. He was nothing to look at, thin as a twig, but there was a wild look about him that could make your piss freeze.’ He looked at Tallis. ‘He was an untrained one and try as they might they could do nothing for him. I heard talk that he’d gone that way because he’d opened his mind to his abilities too wide, and had not been able to close it. He killed two men before he threw himself off the cliff into the sea.’
A chill finger tapped Tallis’s spine. ‘Is that what happens to all who do not seek training with the Faithfu
l?’
‘I don’t know,’ Attar said. ‘But I wonder if it’s worth finding out.’
Tallis turned from his probing eyes and thumped a fist up and down on the railing. ‘I tried to reach those serpents when they attacked us.’ He glanced at him sideways. ‘I was afraid too, but then Jared was struck and Bren . . .’ he shook his head. ‘Words came to me that I didn’t understand. I know I commanded Marathin to strike. It was easy. I cannot explain it, but I knew how to push her to heed my will. And then I tried it on those others . . . but they were not the same.’ His throat tightened as he remembered the feel of it in his chest. ‘They were cold, Attar, ancient, older than Marathin. When I shot the one with the arrow I could not escape it. It clung to me, wanting to pull me with it into death. It was you calling my name that brought me back.’
‘A name is a powerful thing,’ Attar replied.
‘Yes.’ Tallis thought of the name the black serpent had called him and the name he had called Alterin. She thought he did not remember it but he did: Uriel. He did not know what it meant.
‘What am I?’ he said almost to himself as he stared out at the river.
‘Only the Consul of the Faithful can tell you that,’ Attar answered. ‘When we return, you must seek his advice.’
Tallis shook his head, torn in two. He knew he had to seek help, and Shaan was there, perhaps in trouble, but still he said: ‘I will not leave Jared here alone.’
‘There is nothing you can do for him. You must come back to the city with me. You will find no help here.’
‘I cannot leave him,’ he said stubbornly and Attar gripped his shoulder. ‘You have no choice, clansman. You do not want to become like that boy.’
‘I will not leave him.’ Tallis pushed him away and, turning, strode off along the walkway, forcing a villager to sidestep hastily as he passed.