Riding the Serpent's Back (37 page)

~

Monahl woke, her entire body raw and sore.

She had been dreaming about Freya, a Freya strangely tall and thin and silent. If it had been a vision, then it was one that communicated little, so she decided that it was no more than a dream: she did, after all, have dreams just like anyone else.

It was still dark, but Monahl could see that the sky was growing lighter already. She set off immediately, desperate to make as much use of this early coolness as she could. The night had started unbearably hot, the day’s warmth rising back up from the ground. But at some point, the ground’s reservoir of heat had been exhausted and a chilling coldness had taken over.

She found what appeared to be some kind of track across the dry plain. The ground now was less stony, its pinkish-brown surface set hard in a crust covered with fissures and cracks. As she passed on her way, these cracks took on more of a pattern, until they divided the ground to either side into a mosaic of polygonal plates like the scales on a lizard’s back. Each of these plates had a raised rim, and now the colours ranged from dazzling white to a garish candy pink. Large areas were coated with a blue-green slime of algae, the only relief from the harsh whites and pinks that predominated.

The track became a causeway, and eventually Monahl realised that the ground to either side had become the first viscous margins of the soda lakes. Every so often, the mosaic of scales was broken by a scummy sheet of water or mud. Fumaroles belched sulphurous gases into the air and occasional springs spat their steamy water out into the miserable pools.

She had noticed, as she rode, a scattering of animal remains across the flats. Husk-like carcasses of crows, waders, rats and lizards had long been picked over by the scavengers that inhabited this land. Even the remains of a wild horse were scattered by the track at one point: the beast had clearly broken through the crust and become stranded, perhaps as it searched for water from one of the pools. All that remained of it was its leathery hide, stretched across the picked-clean frame of its skeleton.

At some point, Monahl came across a series of neat ridges in the soda flats, the first evidence of human intervention other than the track she followed. The pink crystals of soda had been hoed up into straight lines to dry, ready for harvest. The sodium carbonate trade was the one regular source of contact between this region and the outside world.

She realised that the raised track she followed did not, as she had first thought, pass between two lakes. Rather, it skirted one large lake. Eventually, this became more clear, as to her left the land remained drier and crusted over, whilst to the right the flats opened up into wide sheets of oozing dark mud and expanses of water.

Birds flocked to this part of the soda plains. Great, mechanical parties of bright red spoonbills marched through the water, sweeping their ladle-like bills from side to side, their legs encrusted with freshly deposited crystals. The shallower water and mud were the preserve of delicate wading birds and squat black and white ducks dabbling their bills methodically in the mud. Smaller birds darted through the air, snatching at insects and chasing each other in elaborate aerobatic dances.

In the hottest part of the day, Monahl came to a place where a number of springs bubbled to the surface of a small, open area by the side of the causeway. From the greater variety of birds here, Monahl hoped the water was less acrid than was the norm. She dismounted and carefully edged her way down the sloping side of the causeway.

Cautiously, she reached out and dipped a finger into the pool. She snatched it back again immediately. Before, when she had tried to do this, it was the chemical make-up of the water that had stung her hand: this time it was the heat.

She lowered a cup into the water and scooped some out. When it had cooled, she tested it. The water tasted terrible, but she made herself swallow it. She would drink from this pool now and save what little she still carried for later.

She leaned down again and suddenly there was a splash so close the water sprayed up her arm. She snatched her hand away.

When she looked around, she saw the figure of a boy a short distance along the track. She watched as he stooped and gathered another stone, then he straightened and threw it at her.

“Hey!”

She hurried up the bank, just as the next stone struck her horse on the side. She clung onto the beast’s reins, fighting its panicky reaction. When she was able to look again, she saw the boy running off along the causeway.

~

The Morani delegation met her a short time later.

She should have been scared by their fierce looks, the array of spears and knives and crude bone clubs. She should at least have been intimidated by the lengthy silence they greeted her with when her long walk towards the waiting group ended and she dismounted so that she could stand before them.

But all she could think about was how stunningly beautiful these people were.

They were tall and thin – gaunt, even – with skin that was a weathered, bronzed mid-brown, the closest the mainland came to the golden hue of Monahl’s own skin. They wore a kind of kilt made of some woven fabric, knotted at the waist, and their feet were bound tightly in animal skin to protect them from the burning ground. But it was the shape of their heads which struck Monahl most of all. From narrow necks, their jaws jutted forward, aquiline noses cutting like blades from their thin faces. Their skulls were barely wider than their necks, though, so elongated that the forehead was perhaps twice the height of the face. This long, slender head was surmounted by haphazard tufts of hair, ornately waxed and greased into extravagantly knotted structures.

Monahl greeted them by bowing her head and holding her hands before her to show that she meant these beautiful people no harm. “I am a traveller,” she said. “I come from Edge City, and before that, Zigané.”

They stared at her, saying nothing.

She wondered what she should do. Suddenly it seemed futile to hope that she could recruit a Morani army. Suddenly it seemed far-fetched even to hope that she would be allowed to pass through in safety.

They stood across the track, blocking her way. To the right, there was an expanse of scale-like crusts, which she was certain only thinly covered a depth of deadly mud. To her left, the terrain appeared slightly more solid, but she would never risk crossing such unreliable ground.

She looked again at the Morani delegation. They were all men, she realised, and then she saw that one of the men was different: paler, with a head more conventional in shape.

He had clearly, at some point, been an outsider.

She met his eyes and he leaned towards one of the Morani. He made a series of sounds, which Monahl assumed must be words, and then the man straightened. “Edri-ab-Halahm says he has no desire to eat you today,” he said. Then he smiled. “Edri-ab-Halahm honours you, priest. It is as close as my friends ever come to being friendly. If you wish to live, then you had better do precisely as I indicate.” He bowed again, and said, “I have no wish to eat you, either.”

And then the group of beautiful people turned as one and set off along the track. Monahl glanced back along the track and, to her amazement, another group of Morani had materialised a short distance behind her.

She had no choice, so she followed this strange welcoming party to their village.

~

As they walked, Monahl felt that she had to keep rubbing at her eyes. The world around her seemed to be constantly shifting and sliding: the mountains looming then suddenly remote, the track apparently disappearing ahead of them, yet at other times stretching out into pink-washed infinity.

It was the heat, rising from the soda-flats, playing tricks with her eyesight. At one point, she saw a line of dark blobs stretching across the pink mud, at a distance she could not even begin to estimate. They blurred and bulged, like droplets of oil on water, continually coming together and parting as they moved. People, she realised, perhaps hoeing up more ridges of soda to dry.

Later, she heard the unmistakable rumble of a steam engine. After a few minutes, the dark form of what appeared to be a paddle-steamer loomed abruptly out of the rising walls of heat. It was back-to-front, she realised, its paddles biting huge chunks out of the soda-flats: a giant, mechanised soda harvester. The whole thing was covered in fantastic, bulging growths of pink crystals.

The edge of the soda lake appeared suddenly, as if by magic. Another trick of the distorting heat haze. The track climbed onto a shelf of higher ground. At the far end of this there was a cluster of mud huts gathered around some kind of long hall with bowed ends and a crumbling thatched roof.

As they entered the village, Monahl became aware of the continual sound of ringing bells. It sounded like the wind chimes in the Lava Gardens of Zigané. She looked around to see where they were suspended but she saw no sign of them.

When they entered the long hall, she saw the source of the sound. A group of Morani women was at the far end, preparing some kind of food, it appeared. They hurried out as soon as Monahl was led in. They were just as tall as their menfolk, and equally beautiful, with the same strangely elongated skulls. Like the men, they wore kilts, but in addition to these they were bedecked with heavy jewellery. The bells were suspended from the bangles and bracelets and tight-fitting metal rings that covered their arms. Heavy bronze hoops formed jangling metal ruffs around their necks. Their ear-lobes were dragged down almost to the level of their shoulders by the weight of their ornate rings, and yet more jewelled studs were driven through their noses, lips and cheeks. Some of the women were so heavily ornamented that they moved only slowly and painfully.

“It is their way,” said the paler man who had translated for her earlier. He had seen her watching the women leaving the hall. “If you have come to proselytise then you will only get through to the women by convincing their men. And that is a complete waste of time.”

Monahl looked at him. “I’m no missionary,” she said. Then she made the connection. “But you are,” she continued. “Aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “Once, perhaps,” he said. “I have been here more than twenty years, and I could only have called myself a missionary for the first three or four.”

“But you remain.”

“Missionaries have many reasons for leaving their homes to convert the heathen,” he said. “The religious impulse is rarely the biggest motivator. I found acceptance here, so I stay. Tell me, what is it that you are running from?”

“I’m looking for someone,” said Monahl. “And I wished to pay my respects to your hosts.”

“A brave woman.”

They sat on the floor around a low table, the legs of which barely raised it above ground level. The tallest of the Moranis spoke again. The sound of his voice was so continuous that Monahl could not even identify the breaks between words – indeed, for all she knew he may only have spoken a single, long word.

“Edri-ab-Halahm says that as he has no wish to eat you, nor you him, it would honour you to know that his name is Edri-ab-Halahm,” translated the former missionary. “I would add that my own name is Qobi.”

Monahl bowed her head. “How should I reply?” she said. “My name is Monahl of Camptore.”

Qobi spoke to the Morani leader, then explained to Monahl. “I told him that you are so low before him that you have no name and would be doubly honoured if he should choose one. He is considering the matter.” After another exchange, Qobi added, “He has decided to call you Kunuk, which means Strange Man with Sunset Skin. I thanked him on your behalf. He asks what has brought you to this place and I explained that you are an itinerant priest in search of a missing friend.”

Monahl nodded. She didn’t like having to rely on this stranger to communicate with the Morani, but there was little alternative.

Edri-ab-Halahm spoke again.

“Edri-ab-Halahm asks if you would accept the honour of eating in this hall tonight.”

Monahl nodded. “Of course.”

Soon afterwards, the small group of Morani men rose, spat on the floor and left the building, leaving only Monahl and Qobi behind.

“You have made a good impression, Kunuk,” said Qobi. “Edri-ab-Halahm admired the shape of your words.”

“But that was your doing,” said Monahl.

Qobi smiled, and said, “I know. You depend entirely on me and you resent me because of that. I do not mind. You are fortunate they think you a man: to the Morani a woman is not capable of the higher arts of thought. If they thought you a woman you could have walked straight through the village and no one would have affected to notice – even if you happened to be in the way of one of their spears. A woman is only noticed because a man’s attention is drawn by the ringing of her bells.”

“But what if I demonstrate to them that I am both female
and
capable of thinking?”

“You wouldn’t,” said Qobi. “Believe me.”

“I’m grateful for your help,” said Monahl. She couldn’t risk offending this man: if he turned against her then she was finished.

“You have to be,” said Qobi. He seemed to understand exactly what she was thinking and he seemed to be enjoying it. “Now tell me,” he continued. “What is the real reason you pass through Morani territory? Ordinarily people would go to any length to avoid these people. Why have you come?”

“It is the direct route between Edge City and the City of the Divine Wall, where I believe my friend to be staying.”

“And?”

“And I hoped to make representations to the leaders of the Morani on behalf of my brother, Chichéne Pas. He is raising an army to challenge the brutal regime of his son Lachlan: we believe it would be to the advantage of the Morani if they were to support his efforts.”

Qobi laughed. “Chichéne Pas, eh?” he said. “I had heard the rumours that his death was a fake. So he’s decided to fight the Embodied Church?”

Monahl knew she should have remained quiet. “I don’t expect you to support me,” she said. “I—”

“The Church has changed a great deal since my day,” said Qobi. “I have little time for Lachlan Pas and his type. Just as I have little time for his opponents – I left that world behind me years ago. But I would tell you that you will get nowhere by appealing to the Morani sense of self-interest. Improved trade relations would not sway them.”