The Serpent Bride Read online

  “You must have pushed her hard.”

  “I think it is fair to say she loathes me.” StarWeb paused. “I told her I was your lover.”

  Maximilian went very still. “That was not wise, StarWeb, and most certainly not fair to Ishbel.”

  StarWeb shrugged, moving away from Maximilian. “I was honest with her. I hoped to startle some honesty from her in return, but was disappointed.”

  “I am surprised she conceded as much as she did,” Maximilian said. “She must want me very much.” Or perhaps she is under strict instructions.

  StarWeb shot him a look. “I did not tell her you were a good lover.”

  Maximilian raised a small smile. “Nonetheless, she wants marriage with me badly, it seems. Perhaps tales of my attractions have spread.”

  “It is suspicious, Maxel.”

  “Yes. Perhaps.”

  StarWeb sighed. Maximilian was in one of his uncommunicative moods.

  “What was she like, StarWeb?”

  “Lovely, if you like the sharp-edged kind.”

  Now Maximilian smiled far more genuinely. “I like you.”

  “Ha. Well, she is lovely, but curiously gauche. She is uncomfortable among people, constantly watching others as if she needs prompts on what to say and do. I think she has been hidden among the Coil for too long. God knows what they taught her, but social skills must not have been high on their list. Maximilian, if she is to be your queen, then she shall need some hasty lessons in the arts of conversation and etiquette once she reaches Ruen.”

  StarWeb paused, thinking. “She is not comfortable to be around, and I think that is mainly because she is desperately uncomfortable around others.”

  “I was not the world’s best conversationalist when first I stepped forth from the Veins either, StarWeb.”

  “You are curiously defensive of a woman you have never met, Maxel.”

  Maximilian opened his mouth, then shut it again, and contented himself with a small shrug in answer.

  StarWeb rose, weariness evident in her every movement. “I am going to take some rest, Maxel. Perhaps we can meet later?”

  “Yes. Perhaps.”

  StarWeb looked at Maximilian a long moment, wondering why he’d decided to leave Ruen for Pelemere before hearing from her, then decided she was too tired and Maximilian was too uncommunicative to justify the question.

  She turned and left the chamber without another word.

  Maximilian did not move for an hour or more, leaning against the window frame, thinking.

  He was not foolish enough to think that a bride sent to him from the heart of the Mountain at the Edge of the World from an order devoted to the Great Serpent was mere coincidence, but he had convinced himself that the only reason Light, in his guise as a serpent, had sent her was that he’d decided the Persimius line needed new, stronger blood.

  Or that perhaps Maximilian was doing so badly at finding a bride on his own, when an heir was so badly needed, that he’d sent one himself.

  Elcho Falling was not stirring. Maximilian was sure of it. He’d spent the night before he left Ruen standing in front of the crown, trying to see any chance, any sign of life.

  But the crown of Elcho Falling was as it had been for millennia. Absolutely quiet.

  Besides, there was no crisis, no desperation, no reason to think Elcho Falling was needed.

  He need not worry.

  He need not fret about the emptiness of the Twisted Tower. That would be for one of his descendants to worry about, perhaps, but not he.

  Maximilian took a deep breath, consciously relaxing his shoulders as he exhaled. He had brought the emerald and ruby ring with him. He knew that he and Ishbel would marry. They would live calm, settled lives, gradually building a marriage, and having many children.

  All would be well.

  Of course it will, said his ring. Naturally. Just like your youth and early manhood was calm and settled and happy.

  Irritated, Maximilian pulled the ring from his finger and slipped it into the pocket of his outer robe.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hairekeep, Tyranny of Isembaard

  Ba’al’uz faced a long and arduous journey north into the Northern Kingdoms. The northern dependencies of the Tyranny of Isembaard themselves could be difficult at this time of the year, while the FarReach Mountains beyond were not well known for their winter bonhomie. Nonetheless, Ba’al’uz was looking forward to the experience. As much as he loved DarkGlass Mountain and Kanubai’s whisperings, there was also knowledge to be gained and trouble to be caused in the Northern Kingdoms, and Ba’al’uz couldn’t wait for either.

  Isaiah and Lister might well think Ba’al’uz was laying the ground for their invasion, but in reality Ba’al’uz meant to prepare the ground for Kanubai.

  But all that lay in the delectable future. For now Ba’al’uz was merely glad to remove himself from his brother’s company. Ah, that Isaiah! Strutting about wrapped in his muscles and jewels and black, black braids, thinking himself lord of all, sneering behind Ba’al’uz’ back.

  Ba’al’uz could not wait to see Isaiah ground into the soil under Kanubai’s heel.

  Isaiah had always been irritating, but Ba’al’uz had discovered new depths of loathing and resentment toward his brother at the arrival of Axis SunSoar.

  Axis’ arrival dismayed Ba’al’uz, because, first and most important, Ba’al’uz had no idea how Isaiah had managed it. Isaiah was a tyrant, and he was a warrior, but surely he had not the skills or powers of a priest.

  Yet no one but a priest, or the most remarkable of magicians, could have pulled Axis SunSoar from the Otherworld into this one.

  Isaiah should not have been able to do it.

  The fact that he had appalled Ba’al’uz, because it meant that Isaiah was harboring secrets from him, and secretive power.

  Axis’ arrival dismayed Ba’al’uz for a second reason—it meant that Isaiah meant to replace Ba’al’uz as his most intimate advisor.

  Ba’al’uz loathed his younger, prettier brother, and the only thing that had made their close relationship bearable was the fact that Isaiah needed Ba’al’uz as his advisor and weapon within the volatile politics of Isaiah’s court.

  Now Isaiah had Axis and Ba’al’uz’ jealousy and bitterness festered deeper with the passing of each hour.

  Now he would do anything to ensure Isaiah’s downfall.

  With Kanubai’s aid and the power of DarkGlass Mountain, then who knew? With Isaiah dead, then who knew…?

  The tyrant throne would be empty, and who better to sit it, eh, than Kanubai’s best and most loyal friend?

  Five days after his conversation with Isaiah and Axis, Ba’al’uz set out for his adventure in the kingdoms beyond the FarReach Mountains. He did not travel alone—Ba’al’uz had no intention of warding off brigands by himself, or of cooking his own lonely roadside meals—but with an escort of eight men, all of whom he had handpicked from the shadowy underworlds of Isembaard’s cities. Ba’al’uz trusted them completely, for he had purchased their souls with bribes and obscene gifts many years ago. They were his factors, his apprentices in the arts and crafts of deception and treachery.

  Ba’al’uz would have need of them in his journey. He called them his Eight, and he regarded them with an almost brotherly affection.

  From the palace of Aqhat, Ba’al’uz and the Eight took a riverboat north and then east along the mighty Lhyl. They stopped each night, either at a riverside village or town, to commandeer the best accommodation and food possible, or to make their own encampment on the fertile floodplains of the river, setting up tents and comfortable beds, and roasting river lizards on spits beside cheerful campfires. There, at night, Ba’al’uz would entertain the Eight with twisted tales that sprang from the whispers in his mind.

  Within days the Eight were more devoted to Ba’al’uz than ever. Their journey might be dangerous, and deceitful in the extreme, but the rewards at its successful conclusion were…entrancing.

  T
he journey along the Lhyl was deceptively pleasant; Ba’al’uz knew that conditions would deteriorate from the moment they left the river. Normally, if he took the river journey north and then east with Isaiah to Isembaard’s capital, Sakkuth, they would disembark where the Lhyl turned north once more so they could continue the journey to the city on horseback. Ba’al’uz liked Sakkuth. The city was a viciously immoral place and seethed with opportunity for such as Ba’al’uz. Indeed, he had found five of his Eight within its depraved depths. But on this journey Ba’al’uz embarked into the unknown, for he did not leave the river and ride east for Sakkuth at all, but continued on the river, drawing ever closer to the FarReach Mountains.

  This far north the river journey was no longer pleasant. In its lower reaches the Lhyl was a broad, serene waterway, but close to its source the river narrowed and became an ever more unruly traveling companion. The travelers swapped their initial broad-beamed riverboat for a narrow and much smaller vessel, which depended on both sail and the raw brute force of rowers to enable them to continue against the current. There was little room, with both travelers and rowers crammed onto benches, and Ba’al’uz had to put up with the indignity of having the stench and grunting of the rowers in his face twelve hours a day.

  It was a relief finally to disembark, pay the riverboat captain, and continue their journey by horseback.

  After almost three weeks on the river, Ba’al’uz and his companions were now in the very north of the En-Dor Dependency, itself the northernmost of the Tyranny’s dependencies. Directly north rose the foothills of the FarReach Mountains, and beyond them the soaring pink and cream sandstone snow-tipped peaks of the mountains themselves. Ba’al’uz faced many days on horseback across a dry and barren landscape to reach Hairekeep, Isaiah’s northernmost fortress, which guarded the entrance to the Salamaan Pass in the FarReach Mountains.

  Once they’d left the Lhyl, water was hard to come by, and they needed to carefully plot each day’s travel to ensure that they reached the next water source alive. The travel was a strain on both men and horses, and Ba’al’uz was heartily relieved to finally reach the fortress at the dusk of a particularly hot and uncomfortable day.

  The fortress of Hairekeep had been built almost three centuries ago by one of the Isembaardian tyrants to control travel through the Salamaan Pass, which connected the lands of the Tyranny to the kingdoms north of the mountains. For travelers—apart from braving the treacherous sea passage between Coroleas and the Tyranny, or sailing down the Infinity Sea to the east (and in both cases there were no large ports on the Tyranny’s coastlines at which trading vessels could dock)—the Salamaan Pass was the only dependable passage between the north of the continent and the south, and the soldiers stationed at Hairekeep ensured that it remained closed to all but the very few who had the necessary permissions.

  Ba’al’uz thought the fortress resembled nothing less than a massive stone block rising vertically out of the rock-strewn landscape. For almost twenty paces from ground level there were no windows in those walls, then only slits for a further ten paces, and only after forty paces did windows punctuate the stone to allow light inside. The walls continued vertically for another fifty paces to parapets that commanded magnificent views, not only of the pass to the north, but of all the surrounding countryside. Despite its forbidding aspect, the fortress was stunning: built out of the sand and rose-colored stone of the FarReach Mountains themselves, it glowed with an almost unearthly radiance in the twilight, reminding Ba’al’uz of the small glass pyramids Lister had given him and Isaiah.

  The fortress commander was expecting them, and treated them to a good meal and the promise of an evening of good company.

  But Ba’al’uz was tired, and impatient to retire to his quarters, so he made his excuses as politely as he might, and made his way to his chambers set high in the fortress.

  Here, having fortified himself with a glass of wine and washed away most of the grime of his journey, Ba’al’uz unwrapped his own rosy glass pyramid that he’d carefully stowed in his pack.

  Ba’al’uz sat, fingering it for some time.

  He didn’t like Lister. He was a complication in Ba’al’uz’ life. No one had been more surprised than Ba’al’uz at the arrival of Lister’s offer to ally with Isaiah. Ba’al’uz was even more surprised at the gift to himself, from Lister, of one of the rosy pyramids.

  Beautiful things they were, and powerful. Ba’al’uz had thought initially they were connected in some manner to DarkGlass Mountain, but use demonstrated that they were different entirely. The power associated with Lister’s pyramids was colder, and far more horrid, than that which Dark-Glass Mountain radiated. Ba’al’uz didn’t particularly like using the pyramid, but it was useful, enabling him to discover what Lister was about and also to aid Lister’s and Isaiah’s plans to invade the kingdoms north of the FarReach Mountains.

  There was nothing more Ba’al’uz wanted than to see Isaiah out of Isembaard.

  So Ba’al’uz pretended to be Lister’s ally, for at the moment it suited Ba’al’uz’ purpose. He wondered, at times, if Lister thought he might use Ba’al’uz against Isaiah, and would smile at the thought of everyone plotting against everyone else.

  Life sometimes could be so much fun.

  Ba’al’uz took a deep breath, settled himself more comfortably on his bed, and wrapped his right hand about the pyramid.

  As with Isaiah’s pyramid, Ba’al’uz’ glowed first a radiant pink, then red, then flared into sun-bright gold before subduing to a soft yellow.

  Ba’al’uz removed his hand and there, waiting for him as arranged, was Lister, the Lord of the Skraelings.

  “Where are you?” said Lister.

  “Hairekeep. Well on my way to the north.”

  “You will need to negotiate the FarReach Mountains yet, my delightfully crazed friend.”

  Ba’al’uz grinned. “You know you can depend on me.”

  Lister laughed. “Yes, I know that. Now, tell me about Isaiah. He is hiding something. I felt it the last time I spoke with him.”

  “He has a new friend. Axis SunSoar. Perhaps you have heard of him?”

  There was a brief silence, and Ba’al’uz could almost feel Lister’s surprise, but then Lister spoke calmly. “Surely. The Skraelings curse with his name. But I thought Axis was long dead, sunk beneath the waves of the Widowmaker Sea along with his land. The Skraelings drank themselves silly with jubilation the day that happened, I can tell you.”

  “Some months ago Isaiah made a weekend foray down to Lake Juit. He took a punt out into the lake, and from its waters dragged forth Axis SunSoar. Remarkable, eh?”

  “I imagine that you must have aided him in this,” Lister said.

  “I did not. Isaiah managed it all on his own. Do you know how he did it, Lister?”

  “Me? How should I know? I cannot begin to imagine what Isaiah could want with the man.”

  “Surely you can work that one out, Lister. Isaiah doesn’t trust you, and who better to tell him how to outwit the Lord of the Skraelings than Axis SunSoar.”

  Lister managed a small smile. “Then he is sadly mistaken if he thinks Axis can better me. I have far more secrets than the Skraelings to batter at Isaiah should he think to outwit me.”

  “Really? What? Do tell. You know you can trust me.”

  Lister waved a hand, dismissing Ba’al’uz’ question. “Tell me, beloved friend, how goes DarkGlass Mountain?”

  Ba’al’uz frowned. What did Lister know? “What do you mean?” he said.

  “Just curious. I find myself fascinated with the mountain. It doesn’t…chatter to you at all?”

  “No! Never! Have you lost your senses, Lister?” Ba’al’uz wondered if Kanubai was whispering to Lister as well, and felt a knot of jealousy in his belly.

  Again that dismissive wave of the hand from Lister. “So. You travel north to create havoc and mayhem in order to prepare the way for Isaiah and myself?”

  “Yes. Much havoc and mayhem.”r />
  “You are a good lad, Ba’al’uz,” said Lister, “and in the new order, once Isaiah and I have succeeded, you can be assured of many and mighty rewards.”

  Fool, thought Ba’al’uz. In the new order you can be assured of a swift and bitter end.

  “We shall keep in touch,” said Lister, “just to let each other know what is going on, yes?”

  “Of course,” said Ba’al’uz.

  Lister put his pyramid on the table in the central chamber of his castle of Crowhurst deep in the frozen north and looked at his companion. The man lounged back in his chair, snowy wings spread out to either side of him, one foot resting on the seat of another chair, frost trailing down one bare shoulder and arm to where a hand rested on the tabletop, and regarded Lister with gray eyes alive with amusement.

  He was a strange creature, at first sight an Icarii, but at second…some-thing else. His form was not completely solid, but made up rather of shifting shades of gray and white and silver, and small drifts of frost. Even his eyelashes were frosted, and when he lifted a hand from where it had rested on the table it left a patch of icy condensation, which quickly evaporated in the warmth of the chamber. He was of a race called the Lealfast, and they had, for their own reasons, closely allied themselves with the Lord of the Skraelings.

  “Did you hear?” Lister said.

  “Yes,” said his companion, Eleanon. “DarkGlass Mountain has begun its infernal whispering, as much as Ba’al’uz tries to deny it.”

  “And caught Ba’al’uz in its clutches,” said Lister. “The question is, my friend, do we continue to use the madman, or dispose of him here and now?”

  Eleanon gave a small shrug. “He is moving away from DarkGlass Mountain. He should still be malleable. Besides, you need him in the Central Kingdoms. Isaiah has to invade, and none of us wants to have an army waiting to meet him at the other end of the Salamaan Pass. Ba’al’uz can create the chaos to prevent that.”

  “True,” Lister said, his fingers tapping on the table. “We will need to keep an eye on Ba’al’uz, though. One never knows which way his loyalties will dart next.”