Riding the Serpent's Back (13 page)

They stood in the confined space outside Chi’s home: the androgynous young man, the boy, the horseman.

Leeth turned just in time to see Cotoche emerge from the shack with a platter of bread crusts and shreds of dried, grey meat. “You didn’t tell me you had a brother,” she said to Chi, as the boy rushed up to hug her legs.

Joel gave a double-edged laugh. “Perhaps he didn’t know,” he said in a deep voice. His hooves shuffled restlessly in the dirt, somewhat betraying his confident tone.

Chi stared at him, partly hidden by the off-white fabric of Cotoche’s kilt. “I recognised you straight away,” he said. “You must know it’s me.”

“Chichéne would be sixty-one years old, if he had not become a dispirited drunkard who perished in a house fire of his own causing. Why should I believe the claims of an ambitious young gangster whose body has not kept pace with the development of his mental faculties?”

“You never agreed with me, anyway,” said Chi. “So why should you start believing me now?”

“Ha! Good one,” laughed Joel. “You’ve clearly rehearsed your role thoroughly.” He bowed graciously towards Cotoche. “Madam. As well as being a beautiful and considerate host, you have coached your son well. I assume you are the brains behind his temerarious exterior.”

Cotoche placed the platter of food on the ground. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We have no grain for the horse.”

Suddenly, there was a deep, stertorous rumble and the ground wobbled beneath Leeth’s feet, as if for a moment the rock had turned to jelly. The horse tossed its head and gave a shrill whinny and for a few seconds Joel fought to control the beast.

Leeth moved towards them and put a hand on the horse’s neck. He could feel the inner turmoil flowing out from its mind in waves and now he realised why the horse had appeared so nervous: the animal sense of empathy with the earth, the anticipation of the quake. He realised now that he had learned to take the regular tremors and disturbances quite for granted since the early days on the Serpent’s Back. The horseman must have travelled recently from somewhere more stable. Leeth tried to send out calming thoughts to the horse, but its mind was not receptive. The beast would soon grow accustomed to the Shelf’s ways, he supposed.

While they ate, the two half-brothers managed to refrain from arguing. Leeth stood where he could pass food up to Joel; he even persuaded the horse to eat a few crusts of bread. “It’s okay,” said Joel, leaning towards Leeth, who was scratching behind the horse’s ears. “I have some friends camped out at Bilterswood. We have supplies for Harken there – he’ll feed in the morning. And if you could just do that a little higher up. Mmm, that’s good.”

~

“What happened to you?” asked Leeth a little later, when the platter was empty and the fire burning low.

Chi had been drinking and now he was in a combative mood, refusing to leave them for his sleepmat. He sat leaning against Cotoche, his head cushioned against her chest, rubbing his eyes with his fists and drumming his heels to help fight off sleep. “Go on, Joey,” he said. “You always did get into trouble so easily. I could tell them about the time you ended up tied to the paddles of the riverboat
Zochi Star
, stripped of your clothes and your body stained brightest red with cochineal. Or how about the Senator’s son you mistakenly propositioned in Annatras?” The boy shook himself vigorously and rubbed at his eyes. “But you’d just compliment me on how well I had learned my story, wouldn’t you?”

Joel laughed. “Who says I was mistaken when I tried to get into Grath’s trousers? He was a pretty young thing. For a novice priest, that is.”

He gathered himself, then continued, “Okay then. A bedtime story: The Mage’s Noble Son and the Vindictive Bitch-Hag Who Made Him Like This – titles not being my strong point, you’ll agree.”

~

Joel had been travelling in the region of Anajash, where the foothills start their climb up towards the range of long-extinct volcanoes which delineate that eastern fringe of the great Rift valley.

—“You’ll know the sort of person I am, if your research has been thorough,” said Joel, unable to resist another prod at Chi. “Always the wanderer, looking for fun and excitement. This time I found my thrills in the town of Two Torrents.”—

Two Torrents was a thriving market town, spread the length of a narrow valley which opened out onto a flood plain about thirty leaps from the Little Hamadryad river. The valley’s importance had been cemented some thirty years previously when a rail link had been constructed between Two Torrents and the lesser of the Rift’s two rivers. The line connected the town to the main trade route upriver to Totenang, and from there, through the lakes to Laisan, Tule and the Hamadryad, itself.

It was a modern town, then, but not a town which had forsaken its local idiosyncrasies and traditions.

Joel had broken his wandering to lead a small group of soldiers on an expedition for the Principal of Two Torrents. He had been hired to locate the gang responsible for a series of raids on villages throughout the region. Joel’s men had done far more than merely locate the brigands: they had tracked the gang down to its stronghold in the Jasperan mountains and, despite being heavily outnumbered, had ambushed them and captured their leaders. He had returned to Two Torrents in triumph.

—“Take Joel’s claims and scale them down by half,” said Chi, “and they’d still be grossly exaggerated.” Joel ignored him and continued—

The Principal was extremely grateful. A banquet was held in honour of Joel and his men and they were paid handsomely. “Stay on,” Principal Amer told Joel. “You’ll always be welcome here. And you wouldn’t want to miss the road race after all now, would you?”

Joel had never liked to stay in any one place for long – he had found long ago that a warm welcome soon becomes grudging acceptance as memories and gratitude fade. If he wanted to work for Amer again he must leave soon, before personalities came to cloud judgement.

But mention of the road race intrigued him. He had always liked to gamble.

When the food had been removed from the hall, the floor was cleared for the dance and musicians started to play. Joel had caught the eye of a rather striking woman over dinner and discreet enquiries confirmed that she was unaccompanied.

He approached her and asked if she would dance.

Close to, she was even more striking. As tall as Joel, her black hair with a single grey flash was pulled back tightly by a tie of snakeskin, emphasising the angularity of her facial structure, the perfect teardrop shape of each cool charcoal eye. Velvet gloves extending above her elbows were of the same deep magenta hue as the shoulderless dress which revealed the first creamy bulge of her breasts, the fabric clinging to her body as if it were a second skin. Much later, he learnt that that was pretty much what it was.

She smiled at him, her eyebrows arching as she sized him up. “I warn you,” she said. “I am rather good.”

“I know,” Joel told her. “I’ve seen how you move.” He offered her his hand and she accepted it. They went out onto the dance floor and stood poised, oblivious to the twirling, gliding couples all around.

Joel stepped forward and placed his hands on the swell of the woman’s hips and it was as if he had rested them on naked flesh. She moistened her lips, then reached up to curl her long, slender arms around his neck and began to sway gently from side to side.

She took a step and he mirrored it, then suddenly they were stepping and spinning as if their bodies belonged to a single animal.

All around Joel the room spun and blurred and the music pulsed and the only fixed thing was that beautiful face, barely a handspan from his own.

“I don’t know your name,” he said, in a pause as the band prepared to strike up a new tune.

“But I know yours,” she said, her head tipped slightly back so that he could feel the breath from her flaring nostrils.

“Will you be in Two Torrents for long?” he asked.

“Like you,” she said, “I am staying with Principal Amer. He asked me here to be the guest of his family for the road race. He would make love to me if his wife would let him.” The music started up and they danced again, with a fluidity and coordination which Joel, although naturally a good dancer, had never known before.

The dance was to continue right through until morning, but the strange woman made her excuses to their hosts a few hours before dawn. On her way out she passed Joel. “Come to me,” she said, in a voice Joel could not even consider disobeying. “Soon.”

“How will I find you?” he asked.

“You’ll find me,” she said, and then she was lost in the crowd.

A short time later Joel left, assuming she would be waiting for him in his room.

He walked slowly through the dimly lit corridors, savouring the release from the smoky, sweaty, perfumed atmosphere of the dance.

Eventually, he came to a door and knocked softly. Then suddenly he realised that, without being aware of what he was doing, he had ignored his own room and passed through corridors and up stairways, until now he found himself outside this dark door.

It was ajar so he passed inside. A lantern glowed from beside a wide bed, the covers folded down invitingly.

The room was empty, but another door was open, leading out to a balcony.

Joel approached the opening, then stepped out into the darkness. A moth batted against his cheek and he flapped at it, suddenly irritable.

Principal Amer’s mansion was high up one side of the valley, which was spread out below in an impenetrable gloom. The even darkness of the sky was relieved only where the half-moon was making a valiant effort to break through its veil of clouds. Some exotic creeper was growing through the stone balustrade, lending its musky scent to the cool night air. The balcony was empty.

And then a shadow moved, head turning, white face and shoulders suddenly picked out by the light spilling from the bedroom. She had been waiting in the darkness, watching him.

“I found you,” said Joel.

She nodded and reached out. Taking his hands, she pulled him towards her. She was still wearing the deep magenta dress, but the smooth firmness of her breasts, the stiffness of her nipples, denied its very existence.

His mouth found her cheek, her jaw, and she tipped her head back so that he could rake his teeth across her neck. She tasted of almonds, and exotic oils. His hands moved down her body and finally he could not reconcile the difference between sight and touch.

He stood back and saw that she was still clothed, yet the feel of her naked skin was fresh in his memory.

She raised her hands above her head and did a sudden pirouette.

The magenta hue started to bleed out as her dress took on a gentle peachy shade. “Illusion,” she said. “It’s what you want it to be, what I want it to be.”

“You’re a mage,” said Joel softly, as he stood transfixed before her.

She shook her head. “You have no need to flatter me,” she said. “I am True Blood like you. I have Talents, but Charmed clothes do not make me a mage.”

“What other tricks do you know?” asked Joel.

Her dress took on the colour of her pale flesh, then its form began to dissolve away. Shadows formed beneath her breasts and her nipples became visible, the same deep magenta the dress had once been. Dark hair clumped beneath her arms, still raised above her head. Lower down, the hollow of a belly button appeared, and lower still a dark pubic wedge.

“I warn you,” she said, for the second time that night. “I am rather good.”

—“And was she?” asked Chi.

Joel looked at him strangely, then nodded. “Nearly as good as me,” he said. “We made a good couple. The bitch.”

“What about the race?” asked Cotoche. “What happened then?”

“We didn’t emerge from her bedchamber for a day and a half,” said Joel. “The morning of the road race was the last time I’ve ever been flat on my back.”—

The stone floor was cold against Joel’s back, but he was hardly aware of it. He lay rigid, gripping a corner pillar of the balcony in a last, desperate effort to retain sanity. All he wanted to do was finish, spit out his juices and sleep for a week, but she wouldn’t let him. She had held him close to the brink since some time in the night and now the sun was beating down into his screwed-shut eyes.

He pushed up against her, felt an exquisite sliding sensation deep inside her, but she laughed and said, “Not yet, lover, just a little more.”

He forced his eyes open, saw the dark, wet tangle where their bodies were joined, saw the shadowy line that marked the boundary between his coarse skin and the smooth paleness of her thighs. She was arched backwards, taking her weight on her arms, her hands resting on the floor somewhere behind her. Sweat glistened in the morning sunlight and almost imperceptibly her breasts rose and fell in time with her shallow, regular breaths. Her face was lost in the shadows of the room, her head tipped so far back that all he could see was the perfect triangle formed by the underside of her chin, the skin of her throat stretched tight.

Slowly – ever so slowly – she drew her body upwards, until she had almost released him. Then she swung forwards, pushing herself upright, and slid back down around him. She leaned forward, drove her tongue into his mouth so hard he almost retched and then the universe exploded inside Joel’s body.

“Come on,” she said, disentangling herself from him seconds later. “We’ll miss the race.”

When she reappeared after a few minutes, cleaned up and powdered, purple leggings and blouse – or their illusion – beneath a long black cape, Joel was sitting propped against the stone balustrade of the balcony. “You go,” he said. “I need some sleep. I need something to eat. I’ll come later.”

She reached down and hauled him to his feet. “You’ll come now,” she said. “If you’re late you miss the betting.”

—“Why on earth did you risk gambling with a mage?” asked Leeth. “You’d never win.”

The horse turned towards him and nuzzled his face. From its back, Joel said, “I didn’t know. I believed her when she said she was no more than True Family with a Talent for illusion.”

“You have to remember,” said Chi, still managing to remain awake despite the late hour, “Joel always thinks with his balls. It’s his way.”—