Two Serpents Rise

by Max Gladstone

  Caleb collapsed into his own skin. Others glanced about in confusion, wondering at the significance of Mal’s last words. Some code between her and the King in Red, a joke or dare: speculation whispered through the awed hush.

  Caleb did not wonder. He turned to Teo.

  “I have to go,” he said, and fought toward the door.

  18

  Caleb sprinted through twisting halls and passages, all alike. By intuition and dumb luck he soon found an iron door fitted with latches resembling eagle’s claws—a former fasting chamber that served visiting speakers as a green room. Mal would be there now, resting. Caleb touched the door, the latches gave, and he tumbled into a small room hung with yellow-and-black tapestries. Ghostlight danced in iron braziers on the walls.

  Mal, Alaxic, and the King in Red sipped sparkling wine around a stone basin in the room’s center.

  She would be resting, yes. Or else celebrating the deal with two of the city’s most powerful Craftsmen.

  “Mister Altemoc?” The King in Red sounded shocked, even amused. Caleb backed toward the door.

  “Hi,” he said. “Sir,” and “Sir,” again to shrunken Alaxic, who regarded him with narrowed eyes and a thin, warped smile. “Excuse me. I should, um. Go.”

  Don’t say anything, he begged Mal with his eyes.

  “Caleb! What a surprise!”

  “Ms. Kekapania.” Kopil’s skull revolved from Caleb to the woman beside him. “Are you and Mr. Altemoc acquainted?”

  She raised her glass to Caleb first, then to the Deathless King and Alaxic. She drank. “We’re dating, actually.”

  “Dating?”

  Caleb and his boss spoke at the same time. They looked at each other, then back at Mal. She shrugged. “I wasn’t convinced at first, either, but he’s persistent.”

  The blood red sparks of Kopil’s eyes winked out, and returned. Caleb had never seen the King in Red blink before.

  “I didn’t know she worked for Heartstone when I met her,” he said.

  Mal raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have come after me if you knew who I was?”

  “It would have changed the way I approached you. Yes.”

  She raised her glass in a salute and downed its contents.

  Kopil’s shoulders shook. A noise like grinding gravel issued from somewhere below the hinge of his jaw.

  The King in Red was laughing.

  “I’ll leave,” Caleb said, and reached behind him to open the door. He did not want to take his eyes off the three Craftsmen. “I’m so sorry I burst in. I didn’t expect anyone would be here.”

  “Sure, sure, sure.” Kopil nodded three times. “Take the day off.” He spun his finger bones in a circle above the basin. Water droplets took the shape of miniature nymphs, who skidded over the surface like skaters over ice. “Let us all celebrate Alaxic’s retirement.”

  “The pleasure is mine. I leave you to inherit the rising salaries and health-care costs of my employees, my tempestuous engineering department, and my other bureaucratic diseases. I, meanwhile, will retire and find a hobby. Gardening, perhaps.”

  “Lord Kopil,” Mal said, “may I escort Caleb out?”

  “Of course. Go. Get out of our hair. Metaphorical hair, in my case. Try not to kill him. Hard to replace good people these days.”

  “Lord Kopil, Lord Alaxic.” Mal said as she bowed to each. “It’s been a pleasure. Let’s do this again soon.” She grabbed the sleeve of Caleb’s jacket, and pulled him into the hall after her. Behind them, the water nymphs began to scream. Their high-pitched cries pursued Caleb and Mal through the maze of passages.

  “What is going on here,” Caleb said when he thought they were safely out of earshot. She turned on him with a finger to her lips, and said nothing more until they reached the front door of the pyramid and stepped out into sunshine.

  “How’s this?”

  “Not far enough. Why don’t you buy me a drink?”

  Mal raised her hand. A four-foot-long dragonfly fell from the sky with a whir like a thick book’s pages being fanned, and landed on Mal’s outstretched arm. Translucent wings split sunlight into a rainbow haze. Another dragonfly landed on Caleb’s shoulder, bowl-sized eye inches from his face. He flinched, and resisted the urge to brush the insect away.

  Mal laughed at his shock, and stroked her opteran’s thorax. Broad wings twitched in anticipation. “You don’t take fliers often?”

  “Isn’t the airbus good enough for you? These things,” he said with a flick at his opteran’s exoskeleton, “are expensive.”

  “They are expensive,” she allowed. “And your Concern just closed the largest deal in its history. Celebrate.”

  Her teeth gleamed in the sunlight. The creature perched on her forearm regarded him with many-faceted eyes, each facet quizzical.

  Optera were descended from smaller bugs the gods and priests had used to ferry packages across the city. After Liberation, Craftsmen swelled the creatures’ size, gave them unnatural strength, and changed their diet. Instead of other bugs, fliers fed on the souls of those they bore aloft. “There are stories,” he said, contemplating its feathery proboscis, “of young Craftswomen riding these things drunk.”

  “I’ve heard them.”

  “They get so caught up in the flight that they forget to land. The opteran brings a husk back, or nothing at all.”

  “Some girls don’t know when to quit,” Mal said. “Same for boys.”

  “Where to?”

  “You choose. Last time I made you follow me. I don’t want to seem unfair.”

  “Emphasis on the ‘seem.’ You’re happy being unfair.”

  She lifted the opteran to her shoulder. Joints clicked as it crawled over her. Two long limbs latched under her arms. Two circled her waist, and two her thighs. Translucent wings spread from her back. She wore the creature as a mantle, its monstrous head rising above her own.

  “See if you can catch me,” he said, moved the opteran to his own back, and flew.

  19

  They landed on one of the balconies that bloomed like flower petals from Andrej’s penthouse bar. The optera buzzed off, leaving Caleb and Mal alone with sky and city and declining sun. An airbus drifted past between them and the light.

  “What do you think?” With one sweep of his arm Caleb took in the view.

  “It is wonderful,” she said. “You could watch the world end from here and be happy for it.”

  “I don’t often come to Andrej’s when the sun’s up. The games start late.”

  “You gamble,” she said.

  “I play cards. Poker, mostly.”

  “What else?”

  “Bridge, when I was a kid. Not so often these days.”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  “I lost my partner.”

  Wind and surf filled the silence between them. She turned from the city and leaned against the railing, arms crossed, head lowered, waiting for the question Caleb did not know how to ask.

  “Who are you?” was the best he could manage.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I met you, you said you were a cliff runner. You said you broke into Bright Mirror Reservoir because it was good exercise.”

  “It was good exercise.”

  “And your being a senior Heartstone executive had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m hardly senior,” she said.

  “I put myself at risk for you, and I don’t mean just chasing you over rooftops. I didn’t tell the King in Red about you, or the Wardens. I could be fired for that—hells, I could be tried and convicted. I trusted you.”

  “Not smart, trusting someone you’ve only met once.”

  “I never claimed I was smart. I don’t know if you owe me an explanation, but I want one. And I think you’ll give it to me.”

  She walked from the railing to the balcony door. It was locked.

  “They don’t open for another twenty minutes.”

  “You planned this, I see.”

  “Didn’
t you?”

  She frowned, turned from him, and paced the balcony, weaving between tables and chairs. He did not move, but followed her with his eyes.

  At last, she wheeled on him, feet wide-planted, hands on her hips. “Alaxic told me he didn’t trust your security. Not with the Serpents at stake. He knew I ran, and he asked me to run a penetration test. Not to break anything, just get in if I could, and out again.”

  “He wanted leverage against the King in Red.”

  “Of course. He had to send someone he could trust. But he couldn’t give me anything to help, in case I was caught. So I found a Quechal glyph-artist in the Skittersill who made that pendant. Claimed it would hide me from anything.”

  “It did more than hide you.”

  She crossed her arms and turned away. Caleb waited.

  “I know,” she said at last. “I didn’t realize until after you took it from me. I’ve never dealt with Quechal glyphwork. If the tooth was made with modern Craft, I would have seen right away. I was blind, and I guess I deserve to suffer for it. The blackout, the Tzimet, your dead guard, my dead friends—the cliff runners who died at North Station—those are my fault. So you’re safe. I can’t turn you in, because you’d do the same to me. For all I know, you’ll do that anyway.”

  “I won’t,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He sought the dry blue sky for an answer, finding none. “I need a drink,” he said at last.

  “I’ll buy.”

  He walked to the balcony door and rapped his knuckle against the glass until the bartender heard, and opened the door to ask their business. “Drinking,” Caleb said, and Mal added, “Dancing.” The bartender regarded them both skeptically, but she recognized Caleb and, after a few thaums changed hands, she let them inside.

  Chairs stood on tables. The marble tiles were clean-swept. A quartet tuned on the stage by the dance floor—drums, bass, piano, and trombone, dinner jackets immaculate white. Caleb ordered a gin and tonic, Mal single malt on the rocks; the bartender set the glasses in front of them and busied herself stocking the icebox for the evening.

  “To you,” he said. “Whoever you are.”

  “That’s hardly a fair toast.” She pulled her glass away from his.

  “You know me—my job, my family, or at least my father. I only learned your full name today.”

  “Well.” Her whiskey cast golden light on the bar. “My name doesn’t get you much. My parents died when I was a kid. My aunt and uncle couldn’t support me, but a scholarship sent me to a good school, and after that to the Floating Collegium.” Caleb recognized the name: an academy of Craft a hundred miles farther up the coast and inland. Classy place, good sports teams. “Once I graduated, I drifted back to the city. Heartstone was new then, and growing. Alaxic was one of the sponsors of my scholarship, and he offered me a position. How’s that?”

  “It’s a start.”

  “A start, he says. It’s not as though I know much more about you.”

  “You know more than most of the people who work with me.”

  “You mean, they don’t know who your father is.”

  “I don’t exactly spread it around. Like you say—Temoc’s a pretty common name.”

  “I don’t care about your father,” she said with another sip of whiskey. “He’s no mystery. Unlike you.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Mal left her drink at the bar, and walked to the band’s dais. She spoke briefly to their leader, passed him a sliver of silver. Half-formed melodies and scales cohered: the bass the spine, the drums ribs, the piano and horn meat and sinews of music.

  Her hips rolled to the beat as she returned. She held out a hand, and said, “Let’s dance.”

  He let her lead him onto the floor.

  Caleb was not a good dancer, but Mal was. She matched his steps, and by her body’s alchemy transformed his unfinished movements into gold. His hand fit below her shoulder blades as if sculpted for that purpose, and her fingers rested warm against his palm.

  The walking bass line quickened, and with it Caleb’s steps and Mal’s. Caleb could not tell who led whom. He lifted his arm, perhaps in answer to a suggestion from her wrist, and she spun, white skirt flaring with the force of her revolution. Stepping through, he turned, too, her arm falling to his waist and his to hers.

  Drums beat in syncopation with Caleb’s heart, one two quick-step. Their turns swelled and sharpened as cymbals clashed and the drums took their solo.

  Mal’s fingers slipped from Caleb’s hand. He lurched, too slow, to catch her, but as she started to fall, invisible cords caught his arm. Her Craft lines snapped taut and Mal stopped in midair, rigid as a plank, her left arm extended toward Caleb. Beneath the skin of her arms and fingers, glyphs glowed silver. With a snap of arm and shoulder, she pulled herself back up, and spun toward him once more.

  He let momentum carry her past him. His hand moved in a swift half circle, and he grabbed at empty air. He caught her Craft line, solid, invisible, and cold, and Mal stopped.

  Pale light streamed from the scars on Caleb’s arms. He pulled her back to him.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead and her lip. “I didn’t know you had glyphwork.”

  “I don’t.”

  She didn’t ask him to explain. They danced, touching and not touching, bound by invisible cord, each in accelerating orbit of the other. Her glyphs left tracks of shadow in the air, and his scars trailed light.

  The band played three songs, a small set, before breaking to prepare in earnest for the evening. Neither Caleb nor Mal objected. Leaning against each other, they staggered to the nearest table and called for the bartender. Waiting, Caleb watched Mal. She hugged her shoulders and shivered. The Craft devoured heat, life force, soulstuff. Combining Craftwork and physical exertion—no wonder she was cold.

  “You’re a great dancer,” he said.

  “You’re not bad yourself.” Her hands traced a cat’s cradle in the air before her. “What are those scars?”

  He turned away from her, to the empty dance floor.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Fine.”

  Caleb ordered soda water and Mal a mug of hot tea when the waiter drifted past. After she left, Mal said: “It was an excellent dance. I’m sorry if I was too curious. All the Lords and Ladies know there are parts of my life I don’t like to talk about.”

  “Okay.” Caleb rolled down his shirt cuffs, and buttoned them. “It’s a sensitive subject. I’m sorry.”

  “I can live with that.” Their drinks arrived. Greedily, Mal drank her tea, both the liquid and the heat inside it: she touched the mug, the glyphs on her hands sparked, and frost spread from her touch. By the time the mug reached her lips, dew clung to its sides. Color returned to her cheeks.

  She set her empty mug down. Ice crystals encased the tea leaves within. Strange future, for someone. “Where do we go from here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told your boss we were dating, to keep you from saying something stupid and ruining our careers. I don’t find the idea of dating you repellant, of course.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “My point is, we have a choice. We don’t need to keep up the illusion. I can walk out of here now, never look back. Our paths probably won’t cross again. Your boss never needs to know I spied on him, or that you hid information. Either that, or we could try to make this work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leaned across the table toward him. “Are you … interested in me?”

  He remembered her eyes, black and endless, in his living room, in the dark, after the explosion.

  He tried to speak, but could not. Across the room, the bass played a slow, deep scale. “Yes,” he said, at last.

  “Good. Me too.” She stood and placed a silver coin on the table to cover her drinks.

  “You’re leaving?”

  She smiled with one side of her mouth, li
ke a crack in a stained-glass window. “Last time we were together, I gave you an invitation, and you declined. I can’t just come to you because you want me now.”

  “I’m serious.” He stood, so she could not look down on him.

  “So am I. But I don’t want to rush this.” She revolved around the table to him, eclipsing the world as she approached. “Do you trust me?”

  “You saved my life.”

  “Say it.”

  “I trust you.”

  “I’ll come for you in my own time. Find someone else, if you’re not comfortable waiting; plenty of girls out there wouldn’t mind you. If you’d rather have someone who wants you, someone you want in turn, then wait, and let me claim you when I claim you.”

  “You enjoy this.”

  “Making you suffer? Maybe a little.” She held her hand up next to her eye, thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “You can handle it. You’re a strong young man. Loyal. Brave.” She slapped him on the shoulder, hard. “And a good dancer.”

  “I’ll wait. Not forever, but I’ll wait.”

  “I know.”

  She turned from him and left. Doors opened without her touching them, and drifted closed behind. Her afterimage burned in the dark behind his eyes, dimming from gold to red to purple to colors deeper than black, an invisible brand on his brain.

  He lifted her coin from the table, felt the piece of her soul worked into it, and walked her down his knuckles and up again.

  If he could have seen through the bartender’s eyes when she came to refill his drink, he would have recognized his grin—though he had only seen it on Mal’s face before.

  He ordered his dinner and sat alone while lovers, dancers, and gamesmen drifted in to Andrej’s bar. Deep in thought. Laying plans.

  20

  Two weeks later, the water ran black.

  Caleb and Teo were sharing dinner in her apartment over a game of chess. Sam lay supine on the couch. A glass of cold white wine dangled from her fingers.

  Every year, when spring evaporated into the punishing heat of desert summer, Teo stole a few bottles of old wine from her family’s cellar and held a private bacchanal. Caleb was a usual guest on these occasions, but this year he had not expected to attend—Sam harbored sharp, serrated feelings toward him after his interruption the night of the Bright Mirror disaster. She caved to Teo’s pressure at the last moment, though, and Caleb received an invitation the day before the event. Sam was friendlier in person than Caleb expected—which was to say, cold and gratingly radical, but she had not yet opened outright hostilities.