The Serpent Bride

by Sara Douglass

  On the face of it, the task was a nightmare. Ishbel traveled in Isaiah’s group, and on any given day that might be at any given spot within the convoy.

  In the end, Salome had simply commandeered a horse, ridden up to the less than subtle military escort that accompanied them at all times, and asked two of the men to take her to Ishbel.

  “After all,” she said, “you must know in which direction your master’s party lies, as you must report to him daily. Yes?”

  The men looked at each other.

  “I am not about to slaughter her,” said Salome. “You may search me for a weapon, if you wish…and as thoroughly as you wish.”

  They did, to Salome’s complete amusement. They took her to one side, one man holding up a blanket for some privacy while the other searched her as thoroughly as Salome had invited.

  At the end of the search, having rearranged her clothes, Salome dealt the man a stinging slap across the cheek. “You have heard of me, no doubt,” she said. “The vile, murdering Duchess of Sidon? Yes? Then, believe me, should I ever hear of sniggering tales regarding this incident being passed about fires at night, you and he”—she inclined her head at the other man, now folding up the blanket—“shall be dead by nightfall of the following day. Not even Isaiah can save you. You understand? Yes? Good, then help me to my horse, and let us be on our way. And be careful of that wing, it is still tender.”

  Ishbel was traveling as alone as anyone might in this vast mass of people and horses. She rode her horse to one side of Isaiah’s personal party of wagons and riders, isolated and introspective. Isaiah was busy elsewhere, and although he spent time with her each day, Ishbel often felt as if she were traveling by herself. She did not feel the same isolation as she had when leaving Serpent’s Nest to marry Maximilian, but it was a similar sensation, and kept her wreathed in sadness for most of the time. Ishbel simply did not know where she belonged, or what would happen to her life. She could not for a moment imagine returning to Serpent’s Nest, there to resume her duties as archpriestess of the Coil. Too much had happened, too many corners had been turned, too many doors had been opened.

  “Ishbel Brunelle? Queen of Escator, lover of tyrants?”

  Ishbel jerked out of her reverie, heart thumping. A birdwoman had just ridden to her side, her lovely face wreathed in smiles, her eyes in calculation, and her wings tucked in awkwardly behind her back and trailing partway down her horse’s flanks. Ishbel could see they were thin, as yet unmuscled, and she knew who this woman must be.

  Salome, Axis’ father’s exotic and somewhat infamous wife.

  Ishbel didn’t like birdwomen. They reminded her too much of StarWeb, Maximilian’s former lover.

  Salome was obviously also a very good horsewoman, and that put Ishbel at further disadvantage.

  “Ah,” said Salome, her smile undimmed, “you are not happy to see me. Well, at that I am not surprised. I have yet to meet a woman who was happy to see me. But no matter. Here it is, such a lovely day, and I am bored, and thought to make your acquaintance.” She indicated the saddlebags. “On my way to you I collected some bread and cheese and dried fruits and some rather strong ale. Shall we find somewhere nice to lunch?”

  “Look…Salome, isn’t it? It is a nice invitation, and I thank you for it, but—”

  “I can tell you all about Ravenna.”

  It wasn’t so much what she said as how she said it that told Ishbel that Salome didn’t want to exchange pleasant gossip, but potentially useful information.

  “Why?” said Ishbel.

  “Because I don’t like her very much,” said Salome. “Too righteous by half.”

  Ishbel’s mouth twitched. She knew that Salome was likely saying only what Ishbel wanted to hear, but for the moment that didn’t matter. Ishbel would have given her right arm rather than be forced to spend an afternoon picnicking with StarWeb, but suddenly the idea of sitting in the winter sunshine with Salome, listening to (hopefully) some sharp-tongued gossip, sounded appealing.

  Salome grinned, seeing the decision on Ishbel’s face. “I have two guards trailing me,” Salome said. “I don’t like them. Can you get rid of them?”

  Ishbel looked to where the two men rode some four or five paces back. She gave a single jerk of her head, and they instantly peeled off and vanished within the general convoy.

  “Sleeping with the tyrant has its advantages,” said Ishbel.

  “I knew I was going to like you!” said Salome.

  Axis was just about to pull his horse away from those of Maximilian and StarDrifter when Isaiah rode up.

  Isaiah looked between the three of them, then he nodded at a peak about an hour’s ride away.

  “There is something I want the three of you to see,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

  Salome and Ishbel found a spot on a rise along the eastern face of the pass where they were certain to get several hours of afternoon sun, hobbled their horses, and found themselves a comfortable spot among the rocks. Before them the wide pass spread for miles in either direction, its pink and sandstone walls rearing thousands of feet into the sky. The larger portion of the relatively flat floor of the pass was filled, in every direction, with slow-moving humanity and horseflesh. Wagons and siege engines trundled northward; cattle, sheep, and goats were herded in pools of red and cream and mottled gray through the river of soldiers; loose horses followed their ridden companions obediently. Salome set out the bread and fruit and cheese, and they shared a flask of ale.

  For a while nothing was said. They sat companionably, eating, watching Isaiah’s invasion army creep inexorably onward.

  “You’re having a baby,” said Ishbel eventually.

  “And I have heard that you lost yours,” said Salome. “You can have this one, if you wish.”

  Ishbel thought about how she should react to that, then she saw Salome’s eyes twinkle, and she thought how bizarre, yet how refreshing, it was to have someone actually make a small jest about what had been such a tragedy, and which had tarnished two lives so badly.

  “Thank you,” said Ishbel, “but I don’t think that it would look very much like Maximilian. He might have his doubts.”

  Salome laughed. “And I don’t think StarDrifter would ever let this baby out of his sight.”

  And neither would you, thought Ishbel.

  “Is Ravenna sleeping with Maximilian?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Salome. “She has had her cap set for him, so far as I could tell, ever since she joined up with his party at Narbon. He resisted all through the FarReach Mountains, but I believe she managed to get her claws into him the night—”

  “—the night he and she came to Isaiah’s palace at Sakkuth, and discovered my sins. I see. Tell me, what is Ravenna?”

  “What is she? A marsh woman. Apparently they tread the borderlands between this world and the world of dreams.” Salome paused. “Not very impressive. Maximilian could surely have done better for his comfort.”

  Ishbel brushed some tears from her eyes. It hurt very badly that Maximilian was sleeping with Ravenna.

  “Her mother is traveling with Maximilian as well,” said Salome, handing the flask of ale over to Ishbel. “Venetia. I like Venetia and I think you would, too. I think she must have chosen badly for the father of her daughter.”

  “Why are you telling me all this? Why be so kind to me? What do you hope to gain?”

  Salome laughed. “Because I like the sound of you! What gumption! What talent!”

  Ishbel narrowed her eyes at Salome, as if she thought the woman was crazed.

  “A woman whose arts include the ability to cleanly disembowel a man with one cut? Ishbel! I want to know how to do that!”

  Ishbel smiled, unable to believe that she still could.

  “And then to bed the Tyrant of Isembaard,” Salome continued, “and have him set aside all eighty-six, or whatever the number is, wives for you. Meanwhile, your husband, yet another king, has abandoned both kingdom and people to embark on a foolh
ardy rescue mission. My dear, your skills are amazing.”

  Ishbel now gave a small laugh. “Oh, Salome, everyone else judges me.”

  “Ah, but I am a very bad woman,” said Salome, winking. “We have a special affinity, you and I.”

  They sat there, grinning at each other, not trusting the other one a single inch, and suddenly a firm friendship was formed.

  “Allies?” said Salome, who recognized the moment before Ishbel did. She held out her hand.

  “Allies,” said Ishbel, taking it. “I have never had a female friend before.”

  Salome laughed. “Neither have I. Oh, look, who is this approaching? Can it be…?”

  Ishbel looked up. Isaiah was riding toward them, Axis and Maximilian directly behind.

  She felt cold, and looked away from Maximilian.

  Isaiah drew his horse up when he got close to the women. “Will you mount your horses,” he said, “and follow me?”

  Then he pushed his horse forward, directly up the sloping walls of the pass.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Salamaan Pass, Northern Kingdoms

  Isaiah dismounted at the very top of the pass, giving his horse a chance to recover from the steep, difficult climb. He let the reins trail loose, and the stallion wandered off, nosing among the stones for any stray blade of grass.

  Behind him the five other riders did the same, not speaking, Maximilian and Ishbel carefully keeping to opposite sides of the group as they had done on the ride up the mountain.

  Isaiah walked to a point where he could stand on a large, flat-topped rock and stare south. He could see the smudge of Hairekeep in the distance, and beyond that farther still Isaiah fancied he could just make out a black haziness that might be Sakkuth.

  Aqhat he could not see at all, but he could feel it.

  The Skraelings were changing into the likeness of their master. Isaiah shuddered. Since Lister had told him about the Skraelings, Isaiah’s dreams had been disturbed by nightmarish visions of what lay ahead.

  Skraelings, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them, under the control of Kanubai.

  Or of DarkGlass Mountain, and Isaiah did not know which was worse.

  Where are you, Lister? he asked. What are you doing?

  I am south of Hosea, my friend, traveling with a horde of creatures that I no longer feel comfortable calling Skraelings. They no longer tolerate me so well, and I stay out of their way.

  A pause, then Lister continued. Pray to the heavens, my friend, that they pass you by on their way south.

  Isaiah shivered, breaking off the connection, and turned around.

  Axis had come up close, and was looking down into the pass at the slowly winding column as it moved north.

  “Why do I get the feeling,” Axis said softly, not looking at Isaiah, “that what you are about to say will shatter worlds?”

  “Worlds are already shattering, my friend,” said Isaiah. “Perhaps what I say now will help rebuild them.”

  He walked closer to the grouping of Maximilian, StarDrifter, Salome, and Ishbel.

  “My lord,” Isaiah said to Maximilian, “do I have permission to speak?”

  Everyone, save Axis, looked between Maximilian and Isaiah in surprise at both Isaiah’s words and tone.

  “Better you than me,” said Maximilian.

  Isaiah nodded. “Very well.” He turned to the others. “I need to tell you a tale. I will be as brief as I can. Some of you”—he glanced at Ishbel—“will have heard parts of it before.

  “This is a tale of my land, now called Isembaard,” Isaiah continued, “and of the Northern Kingdoms from Escator to the Outlands, and including Viland, Gershadi, and Berfardi. All of these lands are wedded together more strongly than you can imagine. It is the legend of Kanubai, the chaos of that time before life, and it is the tale of the Lord of Elcho Falling.”

  Isaiah paused, walking slowly about the top of the mountain, his boots scrunching in the loose gravel, every eye save Maximilian’s fixed on him.

  Maximilian had turned very slightly, and was now looking into the distance over the western FarReach Mountains.

  “In the beginning,” Isaiah said, “and for an infinity of time there was nothing but the darkness of Chaos, who called himself Kanubai. Kanubai grew tired of his lonely existence, and so he invited Light and Water to be his companions. Chaos and Light and Water coexisted harmoniously, but then one day Light and Water merged, just for an instant of time, but in that instant they conceived a child—Life.

  “Kanubai was jealous of Life, for it was the child of the union of Light and Water and he had been excluded from that union. He set out to murder Life, to consume it with darkness and subject it to Chaos, but Light and Water united against him in order to protect their child. Aided by a great mage, Light and Water defeated Kanubai in battle, and they interred his remains in an abyss. They stoppered this abyss with a sparkling, life-giving river, which combined the best of Light and of Water, and they hoped that Chaos was trapped for all time.”

  Isaiah gave a small smile, looking at each of his audience in turn. “The mage who aided Light and Water was a man they knew only as the Lord of Elcho Falling. It was he who defeated Kanubai in a major battle that raged for months through day and night over this entire land, and he defeated him only with the aid of Light and Water, who were his weapons.”

  Again he paused. “And who are his servants.”

  “You are Water incarnate, are you not, Isaiah?” Axis said. “And Lister…Light?”

  “Yes,” Isaiah said.

  Axis took a deep, deep breath, glancing once more at Maximilian, who still regarded the far distance as if it were fascinating. “Go on,” Axis said to Isaiah.

  “We must shift forward in time, many millennia,” Isaiah said. “To a time some two thousand years ago.”

  Very briefly, Isaiah told the group the tale he’d told Ishbel. How the Magi had built their glass pyramid, through which they meant to touch Infinity, over the precise point where Water and Light had placed the stopper to Kanubai’s abyss. Boaz had opened the pyramid into Infinity, and in the doing cracked the stopper. Kanubai had been crawling his way free ever since.

  “This is where the legend of Kanubai and that of the Lord of Elcho Falling begin to merge once again,” Isaiah said. “Boaz was a magus of the land, and one so powerful he headed the entire Threshold project, but he was the son of a northerner, a man called Avaldamon, a mage the likes of which few of us have ever met.”

  “Ah!” Maximilian said. “We had never known what happened to Avaldamon! How ironic, Isaiah, that his issue caused the stopper holding Kanubai to crack.”

  “Aye, ironic indeed,” Isaiah said.

  “I didn’t know,” said Maximilian. “No one knew where he’d got to. We thought him lost. Is that where…” He glanced at Ishbel.

  “Yes,” said Isaiah, “Ishbel is a direct descendant of Avaldamon’s line through his son, Boaz.”

  “So that is where the connection happened,” Maximilian said. “I could not work it out.”

  “Will one or both of you start to speak sense?” Ishbel said. “What are you trying to say?”

  Isaiah looked pointedly at Maximilian, and he sighed, and stepped close to the group so that he became fully a part of it.

  “Avaldamon’s elder brother, named Fledge, was the Lord of Elcho Falling at that time,” Maximilian said.

  “Yes,” Ishbel said, “I know this. I just don’t understand what this has to do with you, Maximilian.”

  “Ishbel,” Maximilian said, “the name of the House of Elcho Falling is Persimius. I am the current Lord of Elcho Falling. You are also of the family of Persimius. I knew it the first time I touched you. I am descended from Fledge, you from Avaldamon.”

  Ishbel stared at him. Her face was white, her eyes huge, and she trembled very slightly where she stood. Salome came to her, and put a hand about her waist, but Ishbel scarcely felt it.

  Maxel was the Lord of Elcho Falling? Maxel?

&n
bsp; “Kanubai is risen,” said Isaiah. “Water and Light are once more incarnate. The Lord of Elcho Falling needs to assume the throne of his mountain fortress at the edge of the world.”

  “Really?” said Salome. “Where is that, then? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “The fortress of Elcho Falling,” said Maximilian, “fell into disuse perhaps two thousand years ago, fairly soon after Avaldamon went south. It was abandoned by the Lords of Elcho Falling, who took up residence in their summer palace, now the king’s palace in Escator.” He took a deep breath. “Elcho Falling is Serpent’s Nest.”

  “And Ishbel,” said Isaiah, “through the knowledge gained in her training as archpriestess of the Coil, is the one who shall need to unwind it for Maximilian—to present to him his throne. She is far less an archpriestess of the Coil than she is of Elcho Falling, which is her inheritance, too.”

  Ishbel finally found her voice. “You’ve been manipulating everyone’s lives for all of our lives, haven’t you, Isaiah? My parents, my entire family…were they murdered so that I would be raised within Serpent’s Nest? What of Maximilian? Were his seventeen years of hell necessary to hone him for the crown he needed to assume? Did you allow a child to endure a nightmare, and a youth to lose half his life, just so that you could mold us into what you wanted?”

  “Lister and I did what was necessary,” Isaiah said, “to save us all from Kanubai. The future rests in your hands, Maximilian and Ishbel.”

  “Well,” muttered Axis, “thank the stars it’s not up to me this time.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Salamaan Pass, Northern Kingdoms

  Ravenna had no idea where Maximilian was. She’d searched up and down the column, had virtually exhausted herself and her horse, and almost burst into tears of relief when she saw him, StarDrifter, and Salome riding to rejoin the column from a path that led into the mountains.