The Serpent Bride

by Sara Douglass

Maximilian closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the top of her hair. All she wanted was to go home and be safe from the Lord of Elcho Falling, whom she hated, and who would wrap her life in unbearable pain and sorrow.

  What a damnable, cursed time, Maximilian thought, to realize that he loved her. He moved his hands over her body, feeling more hopeless than he had felt in—

  More hopeless than he had felt in eight years, and as trapped and lost and desolate as he had felt when trapped in the Veins.

  She was responding to his touch now, turning her body against his, lifting her face to be kissed.

  If only you knew, Ishbel.

  “Ishbel,” he said, lifting his mouth from hers. “Let us make a pact, you and I. I know you did not wish to come to me, but only did as the Coil wanted. I know you do not truly want that child you are carrying.”

  “Maxel—”

  “Let us make a pact—come home with me to Escator and stay a year. Give birth to our child. Let us see how we do. If you still want to go home to Serpent’s Nest after that, then I will let you.”

  Give me a year, Ishbel. Please, just a year. Maybe at the end of that year you will not fear the Lord of Elcho Falling so much. A year of sleeping in his bed, Ishbel, please…please…

  “Really?” She sat up, looking at him. “You mean it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I can leave the child with you and go home to Serpent’s Nest after a year?”

  She looked like a child herself, one who had been handed an unexpected treat, and Maximilian’s heart turned to bleak despair that she could so easily smile at the thought of leaving him and their child.

  “You have no idea how much I want that child,” he said. “It means the world to me.” You mean the world to me. “Whether or not you leave me after the year is your choice.” His mouth quirked very slightly. “But if you wanted to stay, if you wanted to stay…”

  “Thank you for understanding,” she said, and leaned her body against his, and kissed him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pelemere, the Central Kingdoms

  Ishbel lay against Maximilian’s body in their bed, relaxed but not sleepy. They had made love—a pleasure so intense Ishbel did not yet wish to slip into sleep and forget.

  She was happy. Happier than she had been in months. Happy she’d told Maximilian about the terrifying whispers that continued to torment her, happy he’d suggested that he would allow her to go home after a year if she wished. A year with Maximilian would not be a trial, and perhaps she might even stay a few months longer…just to watch Maximilian with the child…just to see him smile.

  Ishbel moved against Maximilian, running a hand softly down his side. He was deeply asleep, and did not move, and so she allowed her fingers to linger over some of the scars on his body.

  Scars from his seventeen years spent in the Veins.

  When they had first met, Maximilian had told Ishbel that if she asked him about that time, then he would tell her. Ishbel had, on several occasions since, asked a question about the Veins. Maximilian had answered, true to his word, but his answers had been brief and too unemotional, and Ishbel knew that he hid a world of pain behind them.

  Her palm slid over a particularly ridged scar on his hip. She had felt it when they’d made love; now she allowed her fingers to travel up and down its length, wondering what had caused it. What horror had befallen him in the Veins?

  She lay thinking a long time.

  Eventually Ishbel came to a decision. As archpriestess of the Coil she had many skills, the very least of which was the slicing open of bellies to glimpse the future. She could use these skills now, to retrieve the memory of how Maximilian had come by this scar.

  It would give her an insight into Maximilian she was sure he would never share with her, and Maximilian was fast asleep. He would never know.

  Ishbel debated briefly whether or not to deepen his sleep with some of her power. She often granted unconsciousness to the victims of Readings, those who were there through no fault of their own—it was generally only the rapists and murderers she preferred to keep conscious throughout the entire procedure. But in the end Ishbel decided Maximilian was fast enough asleep anyway. Adding to that sleep magically could leave him groggy—and suspicious—in the morning.

  Ishbel took a deep breath, steeling herself, for she would experience this memory as if it had happened to her, and allowed power to seep down her arm into the fingers lying over the scar.

  Unwind for me, she whispered to it. Show me the memory of your creation.

  After a long moment, memory began to uncoil from the scar, and Ishbel found herself transported to hell.

  She had no name, and she had no identity, save that of her number: Lot No. 859. If she had ever had a name, she did not know it.

  There was nothing in her existence save the rhythmic raising of the pick above her shoulder and the burying of it in the rock face before her, over and over, five swings over her left shoulder and five over her right before swinging back to her left shoulder.

  There was nothing but the black tarry gloam collecting around her naked feet, nothing save the grunt of the anonymous man chained to her left ankle, and those of the seven other anonymous men in the chained gang.

  Raise the pick, swing it, bury it. Breathe. Raise the pick, swing it, bury it. Breathe.

  This was the entire sum of existence, nothing else. Occasionally when someone in the line of chained men died, and another brought in to fill his place, the new man would babble about sun and wind and children and happiness beyond the hanging wall—the rock face hanging over all their heads.

  But Lot No. 859 knew there was nothing beyond the hanging wall, just a greater blackness, extending into infinity. Sometimes she thought she dreamed of something—an echoing memory, a glimpse of a rolling green sea, the scent of something called apple blossom—but Lot No. 859 knew these were figments of her imagination. Lies created by hopelessness to torment her.

  She raised the pick, swung it, buried it in the rock face, feeling pain ripple throughout her entire body, but ignoring it because it was such a constant companion that it had ceased to have any meaning.

  Something overhead groaned and then cracked.

  The hanging wall, Lot No. 859’s only hope for salvation.

  She dropped the pick and looked upward, spreading her arms in supplication, baring her breasts to the inevitable rockfall, praying for the oblivion of death.

  Beside her the men in her gang screamed, trying to scramble away.

  Lot No. 859 knew it was too late.

  In a breath the hanging wall collapsed. Rock fragments struck Lot No. 859, throwing her down to the gloam-covered floor of the tunnel, half burying her and wrapping her in thick, tarry, choking dust.

  Lot No. 859 opened her mouth, sucking in the dust, praying that her lungs would drown in it, soon, please, gods, soon…this was her only hope, her only escape…

  Pain exploded in her left hip, and she cried out, trying to wrench herself away, her hand fumbling down to feel what had happened.

  It was the pick blade of the man next to her, hammered into her hip during his dying moments.

  And worse, over the next terrible minutes, the knowledge that while everyone else in her team had been crushed or smothered into death by the rockfall and its dust, she was still alive, the Veins still had her, and there would never be an escape for her, not into death, not anywhere.

  Ishbel woke out of the vision suddenly, gasping for air, bathed in cold sweat, absolutely terrified. For a moment she was completely disoriented, thinking that Maximilian’s body next to her was that of the man who had died chained to her left ankle and that the darkness about her was that of the gloam mines. Only very gradually did she calm, and realize that the darkness was that of natural night, and that Maximilian’s body was warm and alive.

  She breathed in deeply, regaining her composure, grateful that her sudden waking had not disturbed Maximilian.

  By the Great Serp
ent, Maxel had endured seventeen years of that?

  What had struck her was his absolute hopelessness, and a despair so deep he had convinced himself that there was no world beyond that of the hanging wall, because to admit that would have been to go insane. She knew with absolute certainty that if she unwound the memories behind each of the scars on his body she would experience much the same thing.

  How could anyone survive that and come out from it with as much compassion as Maxel?

  “Oh, Maxel,” she whispered. Seventeen years? “Maxel…”

  She wrapped herself tightly about his body, wishing she could somehow comfort him. She ran her hands over his body again, with more pressure this time, deliberately meaning to awake and arouse him.

  He moved slightly, then rolled into her arms, still more asleep than awake.

  “Wake up, Maxel,” she whispered into his ear, kissing his neck and then his collarbone, making him moan. “Wake up. There is a world beyond the hanging wall, and here it is, in my arms and in my mouth, and in my breasts and my belly. Here it is, here it is…”

  To the south of them, on the main road between Pelemere and Kyros, Ba’al’uz led the Eight to the west. Despite the cold and snow, and the subsequent difficulty of travel, Ba’al’uz was in a high good humor. He knew that Maximilian and Ishbel had fled Pelemere, but he was content with that.

  Ba’al’uz knew where they were going.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Road from Pelemere to Kyros, the Central Kingdoms

  The snowstorm that enveloped Pelemere and the surrounding countryside during the week that Maximilian and Ishbel escaped the city was winter’s final blow. Two days after they had arrived at the woodsman’s hut, Maximilian and Ishbel woke to find the sun shining and the snow melting.

  Maximilian was anxious to leave. He would have preferred that the weather stay bad for a few weeks to come so that he and his retinue could more easily make their escape from Sirus (undoubtedly furious, and who would have sent soldiers to look for them), but they would make do with the sunshine. He roused Ishbel, fed her a hasty breakfast, then saddled the horse and mounted up, Ishbel behind him, heading west through the trees.

  Maximilian left several gold coins for the woodsmen who used this hut to pay for his use of their stores and firewood.

  Within two hours of their leaving, members of the Emerald Guard began to appear from the shadows of the forest, each one nodding silently to Maximilian before pulling their horse in behind his. Just after noon, Garth and Lixel joined them, exchanging a few words of greeting with Maximilian, and then, in midafternoon, Egalion and the final half dozen of the Emerald Guard fell in with the column.

  Ishbel never heard an explanation as to where they’d been, but from the cold-pinched faces of Garth and Lixel, she thought they’d not had the same level of comfort that the woodsman’s hut had provided her and Maximilian.

  Thus began their hard ride home for Escator.

  Escator was a long way distant, many weeks travel, and Maximilian wanted to get home as soon as he could. What Ishbel had said about the Lord of Elcho Falling had shocked him to the core. Since his vision he’d only slowly been coming to terms with the idea that Elcho Falling might be waking…and then to have Ishbel reveal to him how much she hated the Lord of Elcho Falling, how she believed that he would bring nothing but ruin and destruction to her life, to the entire world…

  That had not been the kind of secret he’d hoped she would reveal.

  Despite Maximilian’s wish to travel fast, he was constrained by his concern for Ishbel and her baby, and did not push as hard as he truly wanted. For the next two weeks they traveled by night rather than during the day, Maximilian’s sense for the darkness leading them through the countryside, enabling them to avoid roads and mainly use backcountry sheep and goat tracks.

  One day, when they were resting and sat relatively apart from the others within their train, Maximilian dared ask Ishbel about the Twisted Tower.

  If Elcho Falling was waking, then he needed, somehow, to rebuild what had been lost.

  “Ishbel,” he said as lightly as he could, wondering if this topic would terrify her as much as mention of the rings had, “have you ever heard of the Twisted Tower?”

  Ishbel had no reaction save a mild puzzlement. “No. What is it, Maxel?”

  “The Twisted Tower? Oh, a place where memories are stored.” Of he who you hate so much, Ishbel. “Has there never been any stories in your family, or even within the Coil, of a tower filled with objects?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t ever dream of a tower with—”

  “No. Maxel, what is this?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and sighed, and leaned back against a tree, pretending to fall into sleep.

  Here he was, the poor fool who fate had decided would shoulder the responsibilities of Elcho Falling, whose wife had declared she had nothing but hatred for him, and to cap it all off, much of the lore needed to raise Elcho Falling had been lost. How could one man’s life be dogged by such ill luck?

  Ishbel spent the traveling time seated behind Maximilian. She wasn’t a particularly good rider herself (she had not left Serpent’s Nest for twenty years, and learning the skills of a horsewoman had been a low priority), and when Maximilian had insisted she continue to ride with him, Ishbel hadn’t objected. She enjoyed the warmth and companionship of his closeness.

  She felt markedly more relaxed around him after their talk in the woodsman’s hut. Relieved. She had shared the burden of the whispers she’d heard as a child, and, after an initial misapprehension, Maximilian had understood. He would not force her to wear the ring, and he had allowed her the option of leaving him after a year. Ishbel wondered if those words had been placed in his mouth by the Great Serpent, for the serpent had told her that she would only be gone from Serpent’s Nest a year, two at the most.

  A year with Maximilian would be no trial. Ishbel had thoroughly resented the idea of being sent in marriage to this man, but now she found her heart beating a little faster when he looked up and smiled at her, and she enjoyed watching him move about their campsites when they rested. He was very quiet since leaving the woodsman’s hut, and Ishbel thought it the product of his concerns for their safety. When they camped, Ishbel made sure she and Maximilian lay some way from the others, and she encouraged him to make love to her, finding herself more willing to be the one to initiate such intimacy.

  There was another thing that increased her good spirits. Ishbel realized that her growing closeness to Maximilian irritated Garth. She’d heard enough from Maximilian to know that Garth had been Maximilian’s closest companion until his marriage to her. Ishbel derived some pleasure from the idea that Garth was jealous of her. She didn’t particularly like Garth; she had hated his intrusion on her body with his Touch, and she enjoyed the carefully neutral looks he gave her.

  Ishbel was also enjoying—much to her surprise—the journey through the backcountry of the Central Kingdoms. Previously she had not traveled so much as a mile from Serpent’s Nest, and this journey to marry Maximilian was literally her first foray into the wider world in her entire life. She had felt miserable and introspective on the journey from Serpent’s Nest to Margalit, and from there to Pelemere, and she’d barely taken notice of the lands through which she traveled.

  Now, however, feeling better and somewhat optimistic, Ishbel was interested in the world and discovered that she was endlessly fascinated by the country around her. She was seeing aspects of life that she’d only ever heard about previously: even the brief glimpse of a peasant’s hut through the dark of the night, or the distant vista of a village at twilight, had her peering curiously over Maximilian’s shoulder, or twisting about on the horse’s back to soak it all in.

  She peppered Maximilian with questions, and Lixel and Egalion also, until Egalion laughed and said even Maximilian had not been this curious about the workings of the world when he’d been freed from the Veins.

  They ate as best they could
, mainly the game that members of the Emerald Guard hunted as the column crept through the night. Occasionally Garth would add wild herbs to the pot, or Lixel would travel to a town to buy some grain, but they subsisted primarily on meat. Maximilian grew worried about the effect this might have on Ishbel and the child she carried, and asked Garth to examine Ishbel, but Ishbel refused, saying only that she felt well and that the nausea had subsided, which largely it had.

  During the day they melted back into the forests, or into deep gullies, or, if they were very fortunate, abandoned barns with more roof left than not. It was a difficult existence, living hand-to-mouth, traveling as secretly as they were able, but do it they must.

  Sirus did indeed have bands of soldiers out hunting them. Maximilian was well aware that their abrupt (and unexplainable) escape in the middle of the night would only have reinforced in Sirus’ mind that they were responsible for Allemorte’s death. From the moment he and Ishbel had left the woodsman’s hut and started west, Maximilian and the Emerald Guard heard and saw evidence of scouting parties: campsites, tracks, the faint distant sound of many horses.

  But they were never discovered. At times it was close—one night they sat their horses, utterly still under the branches of a clutch of trees, as a roaming band of soldiers passed within twenty paces of them—but manage to remain undetected they did. Ishbel supposed that Maximilian’s—and his eerie Emerald Guard’s—ability to merge with the darkness was largely responsible for this, but it still did not stop her heart thudding up into her mouth every time they had to blend into the landscape in order to avoid detection.

  Three weeks after leaving Pelemere they drew close to Kyros. Maximilian was certain Sirus would have informed King Malat of Kyros of what had happened in Pelemere, and that Sirus believed Maximilian or Ishbel responsible for the murder of Allemorte. But Maximilian knew Malat far better than he’d known Sirus, and he thought that Malat would want to hear Maximilian’s version of events before he tossed him in a dungeon. Nonetheless, while Maximilian was reasonably certain that Malat would give him a fair hearing, he didn’t want to push his luck too far, or put Malat in the unenviable position of having to justify to Sirus why he hadn’t instantly imprisoned Maximilian.