Two Serpents Rise

by Max Gladstone

  “What the hells, Caleb?”

  This was not the reaction he expected. “What?”

  “You came to me with this? Out of all the people in this city? Not to a Warden, or the King in Red, or any of the board members.”

  “The pyramid’s locked in a Canter’s Shell, and I have no idea how to reach the board. Ostrakov, Mazetchul, the rest of them, they’re probably as bad off as the King—comatose, or close to it. They’re as tied to the system as he is. Even if some of them are still moving, they’re probably low on power, and in danger—fighting Tzimet, trying to fix the water, save their own skins. I had to hide and catch my breath. Decide what to do next. Maybe that is looking for the board. I don’t know.”

  “You could have died on the way over.”

  “Or as I wandered through Monicola on foot with Tzimet loose. Or when I tried to steal the heart from Mal. Or when I jumped off the pyramid. My life isn’t the point now.”

  Teo stood and paced. She thought best in motion. “How could we have missed this?”

  “You never knew her. Nobody did. She was careful. I got closest, and I was in love. Or thought I was.” The past tense hurt.

  “What’s her plan?”

  “Take over the city, it sounded like. In the short term.”

  “We need more detail. She wants to wake the Serpents up. Use them to chase the Craftsmen out, set up a new government, hail the glorious revolution, whatever. But the Serpents wake up on the eclipse. She’ll have ultimate power for, what, half an hour, maybe less, until the Craftsmen move back in.”

  “The eclipse wakes the Serpents up, I think. The sacrifice is supposed to send them back to sleep. Maybe they’d normally sleep once the eclipse ended, but Mal’s used a lot of their power. I bet they’re ravenous. Have you ever tried to sleep with an empty stomach and food in the next room?”

  “So we feed them.”

  “We’d need a sacrifice.”

  “So we find a sacrifice.”

  “No.”

  “I’m only saying, if we can—”

  “We are not going to sacrifice anyone. To anything.”

  “Even if it would stop Mal? Fix all this?”

  “Hells.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Fine.” She cradled her forehead between her hands. “Why did she let you go?”

  “She didn’t let me. I jumped, remember? Off a building?” He indicated his wounds and his ripped clothing with an angry wave.

  “She grabbed the heart. I’m sure she could have caught you, if she wanted.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to let me go. Maybe she still has feelings for me.”

  “Feelings.” Teo strangled a laugh. “Sorry. This situation is absurd.”

  “It’s serious.”

  “Absurd and serious. The worst kind of joke.” She tapped her lower lip with a curled finger. “RKC’s out of commission because it has to spend all this soulstuff keeping the Serpents asleep. That’s the problem. If we could get into the Sansilva pyramid, maybe we could break the contract binding RKC and Heartstone.”

  “Won’t work. Craft is more than words on a page.”

  “But words on a page are important. Without a contract, without a signature, RKC could weasel out of the deal. We might have a chance.”

  “A deal’s a deal, though. Can we really just cancel the contract without Heartstone’s consent?”

  “Cancel, no. But weaken, sure, enough for someone as strong as the King in Red to ignore it for a while. If Heartstone had Craftsmen and Courts on their side, nothing we do would matter, but I imagine their Craftsmen are all busy right now, and none of the Courts are open.”

  “Fair point.”

  “But if that’s so, you’re the only one alive who knows what’s going on, and how to stop it. If I were Mal, love you or not, I’d hunt you down and make sure you didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Good thing she doesn’t think the way you do.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t caught up with you yet.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  He and Teo exchanged a brief, deep glance. She picked up her blast rod.

  There was a second knock, like the beat of a funeral drum.

  Is that her, Teo mouthed. He did not answer, but tiptoed to her kitchen and returned bearing a long, sharp chef’s knife.

  The third knock, the fourth: thick, solid sounds.

  Teo edged down the hall, blast rod leveled at the door. Her hands shook. He followed her. “Sam?”

  She received no answer.

  “I’m angry, and I’m armed. Tell me who you are or get away from my—”

  The latch snapped and the door burst from its frame. Black, sharp-edged shadow boiled through. Teo’s blast rod flared twice. A clawed hand grabbed her wrist and twisted. The wand fell from her limp fingers; the shadow figure spun her around and pinned her against the wall.

  Caleb stabbed the shadow, and felt a dull thud as if his knife had struck solid wood. Before he could react, something hit him in the stomach. He sunk to his knees, swallowing air.

  The blurred world resolved into outline. Teo’s knife lay on the ground beside Caleb, its blade melted. Their attacker was human-shaped, broad-shouldered and massively muscled, clad in darkness and gleaming light; the air about him thrummed with ancient chants. One huge hand held Teo’s wrist. A forearm thick as a column pressed against her throat. Teo’s free arm clawed at her attacker’s face. Her nails drew sparks as they skidded over the steel-smooth dark.

  Caleb recognized him.

  “Father,” he said. “Put Teo down, or you’ll have to hit me again.”

  Temoc released her and stepped back. Teo coughed, and straightened, cradling her wrist. Anger flushed her face.

  Shadows passed from Caleb’s father like flowers closing for the night. His scars dimmed, and the man himself stood in Teo’s hallway: naked from the waist up, dark skin distended with muscles and old wounds.

  “Son,” Temoc said. “I need your help.”

  Caleb blinked. “What?”

  40

  “A group of fanatics is about to destroy the city,” Temoc said.

  “I know.”

  “They intend to use the Twin Serpents as a weapon. The last time Aquel and Achal were used this way, they broke the continent in half. I need you to help me stop them.” He blinked. “Wait. What do you mean, you know?”

  “Mal, the woman who’s planning all this, she and I. We’re dating, I guess. I mean, we were.” Temoc’s eyes widened. “I’m not a part of the plan. I left as soon as I found out what was going on. About an hour ago.”

  “You did not tell me you were seeing anyone.”

  “I didn’t know I had to clear my romantic choices with you.”

  “Caleb,” Teo said, massaging her throat, “I’ve never met your father. Please introduce me to this man who just broke into my apartment and tried to strangle me.”

  Temoc looked at her. She glared back.

  Caleb counted to ten and down. “Teo, this is Temoc, last of the Eagle Knights, high priest to All Gods. Dad, this is Teo. She’s a contract manager at RKC, and my friend.” He laid special emphasis on the last word.

  “I apologize for hitting you.” Temoc bowed his head. “I do not relish striking women.”

  “Thank you,” Teo said with a cold edge, “for your condescending, sexist apology.”

  Temoc clasped his hands behind his back and raised his chin, and waited, like a statue staring into the glorious future.

  Teo knelt to reclaim her blast rod. “How can we trust you? You’re a theist, a murderer. You tried to kill the King in Red. You could be part of this whole plot.”

  “I could have killed you both if I wished. I have not done so. Nor did I break your wrist when you shot me. These are signs of my good faith.”

  Teo bared her teeth. Caleb stepped between them. “Swear you’re not part of this, Dad. Pick a god, and swear.”

  “I speak tru
th, on the bones of Ili of the Bright Sails. Your woman and her comrades have betrayed us all. They have abandoned the keeping of the days and the marking of the hours.”

  “Add deicide and murder to those charges.”

  Temoc drew a deep, rumbling breath. “Then Qet is dead.”

  “Yes. And some people, too.”

  “Your woman’s master was a priest once. A good man turned sick. I discovered this planned blasphemy too late, when he tried to kill me, and killed himself. I recovered, broke into his house, found his journals, learned the truth. We must stop his student before others die.”

  “Yes,” Caleb said. “But how?”

  For a time, Temoc did not reply. He should have been a poker player, not a priest. He was immutable as a mountain. Eons could pass about him, civilizations rise and fall, without Temoc registering the change.

  “First,” he said, “I would like you to tell me about this woman. Second, I would like a glass of water.”

  * * *

  Temoc, Priest of All Gods, sipped water from a blue coffee mug emblazoned with the words “World’s Best Daughter” above a picture of a goddess suckling a serpent. Caleb shifted in his seat. His wounds hurt, talking hurt, not talking hurt, sitting at a table across from his father hurt. Teo paced, tapping the tips of her blunt fingers together. She scowled as Caleb repeated the story of his relationship with Mal.

  Temoc considered for a long, silent time, head downturned, shoulders sloped over the table like a rocky hillside. Since the Skittersill Rising, Caleb’s father had become a myth, to his son as much as to the rest of the city: a name shouted from newspaper headlines and whispered in dark corners. He was a legend, and a legend could not be a father. Nor could a legend sit in Teo’s white living room, surrounded by sensible Iskari furniture, drinking from a World’s Best Daughter mug.

  “The Serpents are the great danger,” Temoc said at last. “If all she had were her Craftswoman’s tricks, we could defeat her. We cannot stop the Serpents while they are hungry. We must feed them with sacrifice—feasting, they will be sated, and sleep. The great altars are all destroyed, or under heavy guard, but lesser altars remain, used before the Fall for simple sacrifices, goats and cows, rarely touched by human blood. Two priests, working together, could purify one of these lesser altars and make sacrifice there. Caleb, you are not a priest, but you bear our marks.” The old man touched the scars on his arms. “You can help me.”

  “I won’t sacrifice anyone,” Caleb said.

  “Why not? No doubt one of the True Quechal will give his life for the city. Many would count it an honor to be asked. I will find one for us.”

  “If your plan involves murder, walk out that door now.”

  “You will not let one person die to save an entire city?”

  “I won’t kill anyone. Teo and I covered this already.”

  Temoc raised an eyebrow. “It is the only way. The Serpents wake when they are called, and will not sleep until their hunger is assuaged.”

  Caleb searched the walls of Teo’s apartment, blank white, hung with paintings, but found no help. “There must be another option.”

  “There is not.”

  “Caleb,” Teo said, carefully. “Maybe you should listen.”

  “No.”

  “You are not being reasonable,” Temoc said.

  “And you’re being disgusting.”

  “Disgusting.” He laughed. “You are comfortable when violence is done by others on your behalf—when gods are imprisoned, when men are slain or reduced to slavery, you do not blink. But faced with the need to dirty your own hands, you shudder.”

  “That’s not what bothers me.” He pointed to the battle-scape above Teo’s couch. Jewel drops of blood rained from an infernal sky. “People fought a war to keep us from doing this sort of thing. If we sacrifice someone to stop Mal, she’s won.”

  “Sophistry. If we sacrifice someone to defeat her, she has lost. This city holds seventeen million people—surely one of them can assuage your wounded conscience in the aftermath.”

  “You refuse to even try to think of a better way.”

  “Do you not think that if a better way existed, we would have found it somewhere in three thousand years of history?”

  “I could say the same about, oh, dentistry. Anasthesia.”

  Teo leaned against the back of an empty chair. “Caleb, you’re not helping. Your father knows the Serpents better than we do. If he says this is our only choice, shouldn’t we believe him?”

  Caleb’s bruised ribs and burned hand radiated pain.

  “The Serpents,” Temoc said, “feed on the souls of our people. The human heart is a focus—the nobler, and more innocent the heart, the better, hence the preference for altar maids and altar men, who are pure in their own bodies. The ritual binds the soul into meat and blood. Death focuses the spirit, heightens its awareness.”

  Caleb did not listen.

  He stared at the painting of the battle.

  Gods fought and died over the pyramid at 667 Sansilva. Temoc and Kopil wrestled in midair, figures wreathed in flame. The flayed body of Qet Sea-Lord sprawled upon a black glass altar stained red with blood.

  “Dad,” he said.

  “Without that moment of death, without the moment of transcendence, we cannot—”

  “Dad.”

  Temoc stopped.

  “I have an idea.” He pointed to the pyramid at the painting’s center. “This is 667 Sansilva, right?”

  “It is Quechaltan. Yes.”

  “And this is the altar on top of it. Stained with blood. Three or four drops from every person who’s died there.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve seen it. The whole block’s red-black.”

  “What is your point?”

  “Thousands of people were sacrificed on that stone. They’ve left their blood behind—their souls, their deaths. Let’s feed them to the Serpents again. Let’s feed Aquel and Achal so much death they’ll sleep for five hundred years. Let’s feed them the altar.”

  Teo straightened. “Would that work?”

  “It is mad,” Temoc said, “this thing you suggest.”

  “Thousands of sacrifices. There has to be some way we can use that. If the altar itself won’t work, pull the souls out and feed them to the Serpents directly.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Impossible,” Teo said, “or just difficult? Why don’t we try it and find out?”

  Temoc shook his head. “Even if we were to attempt this madness, you would not accompany us.”

  “I’m not staying behind.”

  “You are not—”

  “Don’t talk down to me!” She struck the table with the palm of her hand. Glasses rattled on glass. “My girlfriend’s out there, in danger. I won’t cower here if there’s a chance I can help her.”

  “Girlfriend?” Temoc said.

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No,” he replied. “You would risk your own death to save the city.”

  “Of course.”

  Temoc turned to Caleb. “But you will not permit me one sacrifice.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  He did not answer.

  “Perhaps you think no one else would volunteer themselves?”

  “I think,” Caleb said, “there’s a small chance we might survive.”

  “There is.”

  “So, death isn’t certain.”

  “Nothing is ever certain.” Temoc cracked his knuckles, and his neck. “It may be possible to do what you say—the altar atop Quechaltan, 667 Sansilva, whatever name you give the building, is old, and well-seasoned with death. There are ways, rituals, to extract spirits bound to a place. But I cannot guarantee this method will succeed. Do you understand?”

  Caleb blinked. “You’re serious? You think this might work?”

  “If we fail, there will be no time to try again. The city will be destroyed. The danger will be great.”

&nbs
p; “Never mind the danger,” Caleb said, though he minded it plenty.

  “Can we even get to the altar, though?” Teo asked. “There’s a Canter’s Shell in the way. The grounds are crawling with security demons. The altar’s in Kopil’s private office, and gods alone know what kind of wards he has.”

  Temoc glanced out the window. “Canter’s Shell. That is what you call the Curtain of Endless Span?”

  “I think so.” Her hands described a sphere in the air. “Translucent blue ball, lots of reflections. Looks wrong in space. Walk through it and you turn to dust.”

  “It poses no obstacle.”

  “Since when is turning to dust not an obstacle?”

  “The gods will shroud us.”

  “I thought a shell was supposed to keep gods’ servants out.”

  “There are servants,” said Temoc, “and then there are servants. A priest ridden by a god is immortal in most senses of the word.”

  “I’m not a priest. I’m not even related to one.”

  “A god may ride you nonetheless.”

  “I don’t like that image.”

  “It is the only way through the shell. The feeling is of ecstasy, not violation.”

  “That depends on how you feel about gods.”

  Temoc shrugged.

  “Well,” she said, “if we can get past the demons, I can take us up, as far as the thirty-second story. I have clearance to reach my office, even during a lockdown.”

  “If I bring us through the curtain, and you grant us access to the building, can we then reach the altar?”

  Silence.

  “Teo can take us to the conference room on the twenty-ninth floor.” Caleb spoke slowly, uncertain what he was about to say until the words left his mouth. “I think there’s a back door, a sort of tunnel, into Kopil’s apartment. He brought me there during the Seven Leaf thing—he was on his way to meet an aide in his office. So there’s probably another path from his apartment to the top of the pyramid.”

  Temoc bowed his head, and raised it again. Some religious sign, Caleb thought at first, before he realized his father was nodding.

  “We can do this.” Caleb heard the wonder in his own voice. He had almost believed Temoc, almost given in.