Riding the Serpent's Back (36 page)

Most of the people Monahl consulted advised her to take a longer northern route: travel by boat up the New Cut to the river port of Stopover, then ride back along the Two Rivers Road around the northern fringe of the Zochi jungle to the hills, and on to Divine.

One trait Monahl shared with her brothers and sisters was stubbornness. Early, when the routes were being discussed, she had decided that she must take the most direct route. She didn’t trust the idea of a boat journey after the fighting at the Junction and the resulting militarisation of the river traffic. And she had travelled through the jungle once before – the heavy walls of green, the oppressive, humid heat, the monotonous and incessant buzz of insects – she had no wish to be struggling to follow some long-abandoned trade route through that abominable place.

But, far more than any of her carefully rationalised reasons for choosing her route, it was a gut feeling that made her resist those who tried to persuade her otherwise. Brother Amathyr would have said her fate was calling to her; Sister Cheri would have told her it was her vision and, anyway, it was her right to be dumb. Monahl stuck to her choice. “I’ll talk to the Morani,” she promised Chi, before setting off on the horse he had procured for her. “When our forces gather above the Zochi I’ll be at the head of a Morani army.”

“That would be quite something,” said Joel, who had asked to ride with her for a few days, before he set off to meet up with his small squad of mercenaries to return to the north and raise support. “Such a sight would scare the balls off a stone moke.”

They rode hard until they were well clear of Edge City. Monahl was enjoying her return to the saddle, happy memories of some of her times on the Serpent’s Back revisiting her.

They slowed when they came within sight of the New Cut. Even here, thirty leaps north of the Falls, the river was nearly two leaps wide. Before the Cut had been made, this had been a lesser river, one of about forty that sprang up again from the porous ground to the south of the raised lands of the Zochi. Most of those rivers remained even now – the sheer volume of the Hamadryad to the north delivered more than enough water to the jungle to feed them all – but with its direct link to the north, the New Cut was the largest by far.

They rode down to an old quarry where Sawnie had established a supplies base for the guerrilla squads she had set up to disrupt the river traffic.

Just before they reached the camp, a young Habnathi boy challenged them, a spear mounted into his atlat, ready to throw. When he recognised Joel and Monahl he stepped aside.

“How’s sport?” Joel asked brightly, as their boat was prepared.

A pale, unshaven boy who appeared to be in command smiled shyly. “We turned one of them back last night,” he said. “Thought they could sneak through in the dark but we had listeners out in boats. We made a lot of noise, so they didn’t know how many there were attacking them in the dark, then Marten Kersey came up behind them and fouled their paddle with chains. They drifted back with the current. They’ll be over the Falls by now, if nobody’s towed them in to the bank.”

The boat was barely big enough to take the two horses and both had to be hooded to prevent them panicking – the middle of the Hamadryad was no place for a kicking horse. “Oh, the indignity,” groaned Joel, as Harken’s eyes were covered.

Monahl remained mounted to keep her brother company. “All this water,” she said, as they headed out through a marsh cutting to the main river. “Doesn’t it frighten you?”

Joel shook his head. “Hadn’t considered it.”

Soon, they were out into the main channel of the river, with white-capped waves kicking up all around, the boat rising and rolling on the swells.

“Monahl. You don’t have to do it this way,” said Joel. “When we get out of this confounded tub you can ride north with me. It’s not safe on your own – anything could happen. We’ll head for a little village I know tucked just into the jungle. From there, we’ll go upriver and then you can take the easy way to Divine. You can ride with me, and I can get to know my own sister a little. It would be good, Monahl.”

“You’re riding with me as it is,” said Monahl. “And anyway, I told Chi I would recruit him a Morani army.”

Joel looked at her. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” he asked. “All you have in that immoderate head of yours are directions and a bunch of naive ideas that should have been knocked out of you after five minutes in this miserable place. Life’s been too easy for you in that floating city of yours. You’re being stupid.”

“You certainly know how to flatter a girl,” she said. “Look, I know what I’m doing. I’m not a soldier and I don’t have any political influence, but I’m not as dumb as you think. I’m a devotee-priest, Joel: I know it might not seem it, but I know myself far better than you can imagine. I know I might seem unbalanced and irrational at times – that’s because I am – but I know my own mind and body, I know my capabilities and I know my fallibilities. I know how far to push myself. This is my chance to make an impact, Joel. My contribution.”

“The Morani are savages,” said Joel. “Huipo’s People – they worship death and violence above anything else. You may know yourself, sister, but is that going to stop a spear?”

~

They rode together for the next three days. The land here was a rolling, lazy landscape with a lush greenness which belied the dry heat of the days. Little rain fell in this region so the rich soil had to be irrigated by channels fed by the rivers. Swathes of maize and black beans were interrupted by occasional coconut groves and patches of scrubby thorn forest.

The farming communities they passed through were largely noncommittal about anything not directly concerned with the soil and their crops. Most of the families were the typical Lost People of the Shelf, displaced from the north as populations shifted in tune with the industrial and religious-political upheavals. But any lingering resentment or bitterness was balanced by the fact that these communities produced more than they themselves required and so they sold their surplus on to traders for shipping upriver. Rejected by the north, they still relied on its trade for the money that lifted them above the historical poverty of the region. “Of course we support the boy leader,” they assured the two travellers, just as they must similarly assure the traders of their support for the Embodied governments of the north.

“At least they are ambivalent,” Joel said, on a number of occasions. “They could simply kill us, after all.”

Their progress was slowed by having to cross a number of the rivers that drained out from the Zochi jungle. Most were small, with numerous wooden bridges erected for communication between the farming communities and the traders.

The wider rivers were more of a problem. On a number of occasions they had to find boat-owners who would take them across for extortionate fees. The lesser rivers were shallow enough for the horses to cross unaided. Before the New Cut had stolen some of their supply, these rivers might have been higher, but now it was simply a matter of edging carefully across them, trying to avoid the deeper pools and faster currents.

On the last night before Joel was to leave they made camp beside one such river. They had almost failed to cross it that afternoon. The first time they tried, they had almost reached the western bank when Joel’s horse staggered forward and was nearly lost to a hidden deep channel. Afterwards, Joel straightened his back and said, “I was aware of it, of course. I was just investigating precisely how deep it was, weren’t you Harken?”

They crossed the river at the third attempt, just as Monahl was starting to think they should set up camp for the night and seek out a boat-owner the next day.

“I’ll watch until you’re safely back across in the morning,” said Monahl. “Before I go on my way.”

She expected him to try one more time to persuade her to ride on with him. Instead he said, “Will you come up here with me, Monahl? Please?” He patted Harken’s back just in front of where he and the horse were joined.

Monahl let him hold her by the arms and heave her up. The horse skittered a little as she struggled to lift one leg across, and then she sat astride Harken, facing her brother.

He held her tight and said nothing for a long time. She was aware of his sweaty, musky smell, the strength of his embrace. She tried not to notice that he was crying.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he said, eventually. “To be cursed to be like this.”

Monahl rocked him back and forward in her arms. “Nobody can,” she said.

A little later, Joel eased his grip on Monahl and pulled away a little. “Will you help me?” he asked. “When you find your mage...would you explain to him about my condition? Will you ask him if there’s anything he can do to break this curse?”

Monahl swallowed. “I’ll tell him,” she said. “I’ll plead with him on your behalf. But please, Joel: you mustn’t raise your hopes too far. Herold is not the easiest of men. He sometimes appears to have little interest in the concerns of ordinary people. I’ll do what I can, but please don’t depend on it.”

Joel nodded. “That’s all I can ask,” he said. “I gave up believing in a cure long ago, but that doesn’t mean I have to give up hope. Thank you, Monahl. I haven’t held another person like this for such a long time: I sometimes think it’s only the touch of another person that keeps us human.”

Monahl squeezed her brother. “It’ll be okay,” she told him and, just for a moment, she felt sure that it would.

~

She woke, stiff and cold, in Joel’s arms. A short time later, she was alone.

Joel was not the kind of person to linger over farewells. He helped Monahl down and, for a moment, hung onto her hand before releasing her.

Then he turned, said, “I’ll go, then.” And went.

She watched him cross the river, as she had promised. When he was safely on the far bank she waved, but he didn’t look back.

~

As the days of her journey passed, the landscape changed. The rivers became less frequent as the land started to rise up out of the Rift. The air became drier and hotter, so that the wind picked up great swirling clouds of dust and she had to wear a veil across her face and keep her eyes narrowly slit.

The farming communities were more thinly spread here, producing only enough to keep them at subsistence level. No one thought to make meaningless pledges of allegiance in this region – most had not even heard of Chi or Lachlan, many even claimed to be unaware of the True Church of the Embodiment, although at this point Monahl began to doubt their claims to indifference.

The people, themselves, were often more welcoming than those Monahl had encountered earlier. Many seemed to recognise that she was some kind of priest, even though her badges of office – the smock and the silver necklets and bangles – meant nothing to them. She thought a more significant reason might be that she travelled alone: she had seen repeatedly how people seemed wary of her horseman brother – his condition took him beyond the natural order and so he was intimidating; he brought with him the threat of the unknown, the threat of the unknowable.

Just beyond what turned out to be the last Shelf settlement, the land fell away again. Monahl paused to take in the sight.

The dry, stony slope dropped gently down to where a low thorn forest extended for a distance of perhaps thirty leaps. Beyond that, the ground became open again, dotted with cacti and yet more clumps of the ubiquitous thorn scrub. As the distance from Monahl increased, so the colour of the ground shifted from a dull, lifeless grey to golden brown, to ochre and then the soda plains themselves began: enormous expanses of strident candy pink spreading for unknowable distances in every direction. Eventually, the hills and mountains reared up, biting chunks out of the horizon. A volcano heaved black smoke into the air, a reminder of the source of these plains’ horribly poisoned nature.

The heat was suddenly intense, although it was still early in the morning. It rose from the soda plains in great distorting waves, making it impossible to determine where the soda lakes ended and the distant foothills began.

Monahl began to think she should have set out earlier, but she could not face turning back now. She twitched at the reins. Her horse hesitated, as if to make sure she really meant it, then started to plod reluctantly down into the low-lying thorn forest.

The day’s heat descended like a blanket. The sky was hazily overcast with volcanic smoke, but that seemed to do little to lessen the sun’s intense burning rays. Monahl had taken the advice of the last people she had met and filled up every available container with water but still, by mid-morning, she realised that her supplies were running perilously low.

The scrub forest rose only to the level of her horse’s shoulders. It was a strange bush, now that she looked more closely: fierce spines as long as her fingers, with leaves that were tiny and scale-like, hugging the form of the twigs. Small birds flitted in and out of this scrub, and lizards could be seen occasionally, darting across the bare ground or basking on flat-topped boulders.

A stream ran through the heart of this sorry band of low forest, and here the vegetation was a little more varied, although scarcely less austere.

Her horse sniffed at the water cautiously, then began to drink. Trusting his judgement, Monahl dismounted and scooped a handful up to her mouth. It was warm and it tasted foul, but she decided that any water would be better than none in terrain such as this.

When she had drunk her fill and replenished her empty containers, Monahl continued on her way.

The forest was wider than it had appeared from the top of the ridge that morning. In the middle of the day, Monahl sheltered with her horse in the deepest shade she could find. She began to think longingly of the stream she had left behind: suddenly its acrid taste did not seem so bad, after all.

She reached the fringe of the forest late in the afternoon and decided to set up camp where there was still a little shelter.

Night fell in a sudden and brief blaze of colour. The patch of light behind the clouds that was the sun edged down until it touched the top of the far mountains. Abruptly, a wash of colour spread through that half of the sky. Gold and yellow and fiery red, shading into purple overhead. The mountains became burning red pyramids lined up on the horizon, presiding over the flooded golden soup of the soda lakes. Then, just as abruptly, the mountains became black silhouettes, the plains impenetrably gloomy, and the sky began to darken. Soon, there was no light at all.