The Serpent Bride Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  Baron Lixel’s Residence, Margalit

  The journey to Margalit took almost three weeks, longer than expected. The winter was closing in, and drifts of snow had forced Ishbel and her escort to spend long days idle in wayside inns, waiting for the weather to improve enough that they might continue their journey.

  Ishbel had spent most of the idle days praying that the weather would close in so greatly she’d be forced to return to Serpent’s Nest. Of course it hadn’t happened. The snow had always cleared in time for her to move forward, and, by the time they reached Margalit, she had managed to convince herself that no matter the trials ahead, she would manage.

  Ishbel hoped only that this Maximilian was tolerable, and that he would be kind to her, and that the Great Serpent had not lied when he’d said that she would return to Serpent’s Nest, and that it would be her home, always.

  She would be strong, because she had to be.

  And, damn it, she was the archpriestess of the Coil, no matter how much she might hide that from Maximilian. She had courage and she had ability and she had pride, and she would endure.

  Despite her carefully constructed shell of determination, it was a black moment for Ishbel when she first saw the smudge of Margalit in the distance. For an instant all the terrifying fear of her childhood threatened to swamp her, but Ishbel managed to bite down her nausea and panic, and maintain a calm exterior as they rode closer and closer to the city.

  Then she took a deep breath, called on all her training and courage, and the moment passed. Margalit held no horrors for her now. All that was past.

  Ishbel was to stay with Baron Lixel, Maximilian’s ambassador to the Outlands, in his house in Margalit. The house sat in one of Margalit’s more desirable quarters. It was a large, spacious house, single-story like most of the Outlanders’ buildings, with thick walls, high ceilings, and decorative woodwork around doors and windows. Lixel had rented the property from the Margalit Town Guild when he’d first arrived in the city, and Ishbel had no reason to suppose that Lixel knew that the house was, in fact, one of the properties in her not-inconsiderable inheritance.

  Baron Lixel was there to greet Ishbel on her arrival, and he was not what Ishbel had imagined. Her fears had led her to expect a stern, forbidding man, uncommunicative and dismissive, but Lixel proved exactly the opposite. He was a pleasant man in middle age, very courtly, courteous, attentive without being fussy and with a charming habit of understatement in conversation, and Ishbel hoped it foretold well for Maximilian.

  Ishbel spent a pleasant evening with him. Lixel seemed to intuit her anxiety and, surprisingly, managed to put Ishbel at her ease with his charming conversation and easy manner.

  On the morrow Maximilian’s party was to arrive, and the negotiations for the contract of marriage to commence.

  Lixel knocked on the door of Ishbel’s chamber at mid-morning, and bowed as she opened it. “Maximilian’s delegation has arrived,” Lixel said, offering Ishbel his arm. Then, as she took it, he added, “They won’t eat you.”

  Ishbel gave a tense smile. “I feel very alone today, my lord. This is all most strange for me.”

  They walked down the corridor toward the large reception rooms of the house. “You do not wish to wed?” Lixel said.

  “I am missing my home, my lord, as noxious as that home must be to you.”

  Ishbel was pushing Lixel a little too far with this statement, but she knew that his response would tell her a great deal about the man, and also, possibly, his master.

  “A home is a home,” Lixel said, leading Ishbel out the door and down the long corridor toward the main reception room of the house, “whatever its strangenesses. I do not think Maximilian will begrudge it in the slightest if you yearn for a home you have lost.”

  Not lost, Ishbel thought. I will return to Serpent’s Nest one day.

  “I would not have thought him so generous toward the Coil,” Ishbel said, pushing just a little more.

  “I was not speaking of the Coil,” Lixel said quietly, and led her into the reception room.

  Ishbel might have responded to that, she still had time before they met the gaggle of people standing at the far end of the large chamber, but just then she caught sight of the leading member of Maximilian’s delegation, and she stopped dead, unable to repress a gasp.

  It was a birdwoman. An Icarii. Ishbel had heard about them, and had heard about the land from which they had come, but had never seen one.

  The birdwoman turned, looking directly at Ishbel with a discomforting frankness. She was clad all in black—form-fitting leather trousers and a top which allowed her wings freedom. She moved again, taking a half step forward, and Ishbel had her first glimpse of the stunning grace and elegance of the creatures.

  The entire group had turned at her entrance now, and Ishbel tore her eyes away from the birdwoman long enough to see that several other Icarii were within the delegation.

  Maximilian controlled Icarii?

  Ishbel took a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t obvious, set a smile to her face, and walked forward.

  She was the archpriestess of the Coil, and she would manage.

  “You were very surprised to see me,” StarWeb said. “You paled considerably.”

  They were alone, standing on the glassed veranda that opened off the reception room. Everyone else was still inside, talking, drinking, negotiating, but as soon as practicable after the introductions and initial chat, StarWeb had requested Ishbel join her for a private word.

  “I have never seen one of your kind,” Ishbel said. “I was shocked.” Her mouth quirked. “The Icarii are almost myth here in the Outlands.”

  StarWeb thought about being offended at the “your kind,” but decided that for the moment she would accomplish more without assuming affront. Full-on confrontation would prove far more effective.

  “Then in your marriage,” she said, “you shall have to get used to us. There are many of ‘my kind’ at Maximilian’s court.”

  “You know him well?”

  “I am his lover.” There, Ishbel, StarWeb thought, make of that what you will.

  To StarWeb’s surprise, Ishbel showed no emotion whatsoever. “That does not mean that you know him well.”

  “But I expect that,” StarWeb countered, “should you become his wife, you shall come to know him well.”

  “I expect,” Ishbel said, “that any man who has endured what Maximilian has experienced in life will be a man who lets only those he truly loves know him well. If he allows me that privilege, then I shall be honored.”

  “That was very good, my lady,” said StarWeb. “You managed to be self-effacing and insult me all in one. You shall do very well at a royal court, but I do not know that it should be Maximilian’s.”

  “Will all Escator welcome me as generously as you, StarWeb?”

  “Let me be frank with you, Ishbel—I may call you Ishbel, yes?”

  “I would prefer that you did not.”

  “Very well then, my lady, let me be quite frank with you. None of us here”—StarWeb gestured to the Escatorian delegation inside the reception room—“nor any back in Ruen among Maximilian’s inner circle, entirely trust this offer. We don’t trust who it comes from—the Coil are universally loathed—”

  “Not by me,” said Ishbel quietly. “The Coil took me in when no one else would. They nurtured me, and were kind to me, and subjected me to none of the practices in which I hear rumored they indulge.”

  “Apparently so, my lady, for I believe your belly is still intact under that silken gown of yours. But allow me to return to the point, if I may. There are many about Maximilian who wonder about this offer and its timing. We wonder why a lady as lovely as you, and with such a dowry as yours, has only now decided to put herself on the marriage market, and to such a minor player—no, no, don’t protest, Maximilian isn’t the haughty kind—when she could have tempted a much nobler man, an emperor perhaps, or maybe even the Tyrant of Isembaard, for I hav
e heard rumor he is looking for a new wife.”

  “My dowry,” said Ishbel, her tone low, “would attract no emperor or tyrant. Particularly with, as you have been so kind to point out, such a home as I have enjoyed these past twenty years. Yes, the Coil is universally loathed, but not by me. I owe them a loyalty, StarWeb, that perhaps you cannot understand. It is one of love and gratitude. It is one of family. If you want a reason why I have not married in the past eight or nine years, when one might reasonably have expected me to take a husband, then it is because no man has interested me enough.”

  StarWeb looked at her carefully. “Yet Maximilian does.”

  “I think a man who has spent seventeen years in a black pit thinking his life at an end will have more understanding, more tolerance, than most.” Ishbel paused, her eyes glittering. “Yet perhaps I am mistaken, if the kind of woman he takes as lover is any indication.”

  “Maximilian is a quiet man, of manner and mind,” said StarWeb, “and you are a very unquiet woman, Ishbel. I do not know how I shall report you to him.”

  “Report me as a woman who can speak for herself,” snapped Ishbel, “and who does not need an arrogant and threatened lover to speak on her behalf.”

  And with that she pushed past StarWeb and rejoined the reception.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Palace of Aqhat, Tyranny of Isembaard

  Isaiah, Tyrant of Isembaard, walked along the wide corridor of his palace of Aqhat. He’d returned from Lake Juit a few days earlier, together with his maniac Ba’al’uz, his ten thousand men, and the man he had pulled from the lake.

  It was this man that Isaiah now went to visit. He had not seen him since he’d deposited him, dripping wet, on the wharf of Lake Juit for his servants to attend.

  He approached the entrance to an apartment, and the guards standing outside stood back, bowing as one and touching the tips of their spears to the floor.

  Isaiah ignored them.

  He strode through the door, through the spacious room that served as the day chamber of the apartment, then into the bedchamber. He stopped just inside the door, more than mildly displeased to see that Ba’al’uz hovered just behind the physician, who bent over the man lying on the bed.

  Both Ba’al’uz and the physician bowed when they saw Isaiah, and the physician stepped back from the bed.

  “His condition?” Isaiah said.

  “Much better, Excellency,” said the physician. “The nausea has subsided, and his muscles grow stronger. I expect that within a day or two he can begin to spend some time out of bed.”

  “Good,” said Isaiah. “You may leave.”

  As the physician collected his bag, Isaiah switched his gaze to Ba’al’uz. “You also.”

  “I was here merely to sate my curiosity as to the health of your guest,” said Ba’al’uz. “I apologize if this has displeased you.”

  You were here to spy for your true lord and master, thought Isaiah. He did not speak, but merely regarded Ba’al’uz with his steady black gaze.

  Ba’al’uz repressed a sigh, bowed slightly, then followed the physician from the room.

  Once Isaiah had heard the outer door close behind them, he relaxed slightly and walked to the side of the bed.

  The man who lay there was of an age with Isaiah, in his late thirties, but of completely different aspect. He was lean and strong, not so heavily muscled, and his shoulder-length hair, pulled into a club at the back of his neck, was the color of faded wheat. His close-shaven beard was of a similar color, while his eyes were pale blue, and as penetrating as those of a bird of prey.

  His entire aspect had an alien cast, but that was not surprising, thought Isaiah as he sat down in a chair close by the man’s bed, given his Icarii heritage.

  “You do not like Ba’al’uz,” said the man. His voice was a little hoarse, but not weak.

  “I neither like nor trust him,” said Isaiah. “He is that most dangerous of madmen, one whose insanity is so difficult to detect that most who meet him think him merely unpleasant.”

  “Yet I sense that he is a force at your court,” said the man.

  “You know who I am,” said Isaiah.

  “I have been asking questions.”

  Isaiah gave a small smile. “I would have expected nothing else from you. But as to your observation…Yes, Ba’al’uz is a force at my court. He is useful to me.”

  “I suspect he is too dangerous for you to move against.”

  Isaiah burst into laughter. “We shall be friends, you and I.” He hesitated slightly. “Axis SunSoar.”

  Axis grunted. “I thought no one knew my name. I was reveling in the idea of such anonymity that I might invent my own past and name to suit.”

  “I wanted to be sure that you would live before I told anyone your name and history.”

  “Were you the one who pulled me from the afterlife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are far more than just a ‘tyrant,’ Isaiah.”

  Isaiah gave a small shrug. That is of no matter at the moment. “Tell me how you feel. There have been times since I pulled you from the water when my physicians feared they might lose you to death.”

  Axis rested back against the pillows, not entirely sure how to respond. He’d been walking with his wife, Azhure, along a cliff-top coastline in the strange Otherworld of the afterlife when he’d felt a terrifying force grab at his entire being. He’d gasped, grabbed at Azhure, and then pain such as he’d never felt before enveloped him, and the world of the afterlife had faded. All he could remember was Azhure, reaching for him, and then the utter shock of finding himself caught by tangled reeds at the bottom of a lake, unable to breathe, unable even to fight the grip of the reeds because every muscle in his body was so weak they would not, could not, respond to his needs.

  “Weak,” Axis said finally, “but improving. Eager to get out of this bed.”

  “Good,” said Isaiah. “I am glad of it.”

  “Why am I here, Isaiah? Why drag me back from death?” Axis gave a soft, bitter laugh. “I do not think I made a great success at my last life, so I cannot think why you need me here now.”

  “Not a great success? You fought off an army of Skraelings, and resurrected an ancient land.” Isaiah hesitated. “Skills that might possibly be useful again.”

  Axis shot Isaiah a sharp look, but did not speak. Skraelings?

  “You became a wielder of great magic,” Isaiah continued, “and discovered yourself a god. You—”

  “Completely underestimated the problems in trying to unite ancient enemies together in the one land, made a complete mess of raising my own children, and then watched everything I had fought so hard for disintegrate into chaos and, eventually, death.” Axis paused. “How long has it been since…”

  “Since Tencendor vanished from the face of the earth? About five years.”

  “You know that I have no powers now. All the Icarii lost their powers of enchantment when the Star Gate was destroyed and we lost contact with the Star Dance. Isaiah, I am not a god anymore, I am not an Icarii Enchanter anymore, I am hardly even a man—I can barely feed myself my noonday soup. Why am I back? Why do this to me? I was at peace in death, curse you!”

  “I apologize, Axis. I needed you.”

  “For what? For what?”

  “For the moment, just to be my friend.”

  Axis fought back a black anger that threatened to overwhelm him. “You could not buy yourself a friend in the marketplace?”

  “You have no idea how much I need a friend,” Isaiah said very softly. “Someone I can trust. Perhaps you have mishandled much of your life, Axis SunSoar, but from what I know of you, you did know how to be a friend very, very well.”

  Axis closed his eyes. He did not know what to say. He did not want to be here, not back in this life, not back in a world where there was no Star Dance, nor any family.

  “Am I a prisoner?” he said eventually.

  “No,” Isaiah said, “although you will notice guards about y
ou. I seek only to protect you.”

  “Of course you do,” Axis said.

  “Get strong, Axis SunSoar,” Isaiah said softly. “Get strong, and then we shall see.”

  Ba’al’uz may have been more than slightly insane, but he was no fool, he paid attention to world affairs, and he had a very good idea who the man was that Isaiah had hauled from Lake Juit.

  So what did Isaiah want with a failed god?

  From Axis’ apartment Ba’al’uz wandered slowly through the palace complex of Aqhat until he entered a courtyard in its western boundary. From here he walked through a gate and down to the River Lhyl, the lifeblood of Isembaard.

  Ba’al’uz stood at the edge of the river for an hour or more, uncaring of the hot sun. He did not use this time to admire the river, as beautiful and tranquil as it was, but instead stared as if transfixed across to the far bank where, at a distance of perhaps half an hour’s ride, rose an extraordinary pyramid clad in shimmering blue-green glass and topped with a capstone of golden glass that sent shafts of light reflecting back at the sun.

  DarkGlass Mountain.

  Ancient. Unknowable.

  Alive.

  Twenty years ago it had suddenly whispered to Ba’al’uz. Sweet whispers, very gentle at first, offering Ba’al’uz power and friendship, the two things Ba’al’uz craved most.

  Its name, it told him, was Kanubai.

  Ba’al’uz knew a little of the history of DarkGlass Mountain. He knew it had been built some two thousand years earlier by a caste of priests who had hoped to use the pyramid to touch Infinity. He knew there had been a small catastrophe associated with the priests’ attempts to open the pyramid to Infinity, a catastrophe which resulted in the pyramid being dismantled and the caste of priests disbanded and scattered to the wind.

  Dismantled.

  Ba’al’uz looked at the pyramid, and smiled. What was once dismantled could always, with some effort, be resurrected.