Riding the Serpent's Back (58 page)

He stepped into the archway from outside.

“I thought you’d like it,” he said now. “You’re not happy.”

“You could simply have said no yesterday,” she said. “There was no need to be so cruel.”

He gave an ambiguous smile. “A lesson is never learnt unless the process hurts,” he said.

Monahl sat and drew her knees up to her chin. “I have to go in the morning,” she said. “Whether you’ll join me or not, I have to go.” She studied him closely for a response, but there was none. “I had a vision,” she explained. “Chi is in danger and I have to warn him before it is too late. If I fail then he will be killed.”

With a soft tone that barely concealed the cruelty of his words, Herold said, “And when you have saved him all will be fine and Freya will have a father, of sorts. Is that how it goes? Such grand visions, child.”

Monahl resisted the temptation to rise to his bait.

“If he dies,” she said, “the cause will be lost. Lachlan will release the power of Samhab into the world and nobody knows what that will lead to.”

“I do” Herold said softly. “When the earth-power of Samhab is unleashed the shock-waves will spread outwards like ripples on a pond. Civilisation will be destroyed in a succession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Our Era will come to its end, Monahl. Only small, isolated pockets of humankind will survive and they will be the True Families of the next Era: when the world has stabilised again, these survivors will spread out and re-populate. That is the way it is.”

“Then Lachlan Pas must be stopped.”

“What does your half-brother think I can do?” asked Herold.

“Overturn the pact that gave Samhab its power. It was created by a mage, and it can be revoked by one. You would protect us all.”

Herold gave a bitter laugh. “He thinks I am that good, does he? No, it would be impossible. Or at least very difficult. He doesn’t know what he asks.”

“Lachlan Pas must be stopped.”

Herold shook his head. “Lachlan Pas must be avoided at all costs, because Lachlan Pas will be at the heart of the cataclysm.”

“But what about all the people who will be killed? You could use your Talent to save them. Why do you think the gods gifted you so richly?”

“Phah!” snorted the mage. “The gods? Hooey. My gifts are the statistical result of generations of in-breeding among the True: every million or so True births throws up the mix of traits that makes a person what you would call a mage. I am a man like any other, only I have a gift of Talent and longevity. Just as your father, Donn, was only a man – although he had delusions of grandeur. Just as Lachlan’s tame mage, Oriole, is no more than a woman. You can leave the gods out of it: I owe them nothing.”

“His mage cursed my brother Joel,” said Monahl. “She has bound his body to that of a horse.”

“That sounds like Oriole’s sense of humour,” said Herold.

“Can it be reversed?”

“By Oriole, yes,” said Herold. “But not by me, before you ask.”

“Do you know this Oriole?”

“Only be reputation,” said Herold. “Lachlan would be nothing without her. He has the brains and the ambition, but he’d be nowhere if he didn’t have the help of a mage. Lachlan’s not your problem, child. It’s this Oriole creature. She’s behind him, pulling his puppet strings. Peel back the layers and you’ll see her hand in everything.”

“Surely she must know what destruction will be unleashed?”

“Of course she does,” said Herold. “She’s orchestrating it all to produce an epic conflict so that she will establish herself in the legends that shape the next civilisation. She wants to be the great mage of the next Era: she wants to be just like Donn has been for us.”

“Then she must be stopped! It’s your duty to us all, Herold.”

“You argue morals with me? Obligations? The only obligation we have in this world is to survive. What good are morals if they get us killed? Divine, here, is well-placed to survive the coming cataclysm. The parks will have to be turned over to agriculture, but even if the rains fail there is enough ice up above us to irrigate this valley for a hundred years or more. Zigané, too, is well-placed to survive, although the city has become over-dependent on the import of food in recent years – against all my better efforts. When I am done here, I will return to Zigané, and prepare it as best I can. I suggest that you join me. The peoples of the Serpent’s Back might survive, too, if their continent is not torn apart by upheavals in the magma below. The Rim, too, always has a share of survivors.

“You say I have a duty to protect the people. That’s exactly what I will do: the survivors will appreciate my Talents far more if I live than if I die like a fool. I cannot leave them at the mercy of Oriole.”

Monahl had known arguing with Herold would be futile.

Then she noticed the silence; all she could hear was her breathing, some distant voices, a bird trilling somewhere nearby.

The waterfall had dried up and in its place was a curtain of ice: slender columns suspended in twists and curls, bulges of ice that looked like faces and figures. As it became dark, the fall had frozen in the shapes Herold had cast in the water.

“It happens at this time every day,” said Herold, turning to study the icefall. “When I was young the city’s children would dare each other to climb the ice as high as they could. That hasn’t happened for fifty-seven years, now.” He turned away. “Come,” he said. “Marna expects us to join her for dinner.”

~

Monahl expected some grand feast, so she was surprised when she was led back to the same room as before, with its ferns and caged birds.

Marna remained on her low-backed sofa, nodding in acknowledgement as Monahl and Herold approached. A low table had been set in front of her, with places set for six.

The first person to speak after they had been seated was Herold. He leaned towards Monahl and said, quite loudly, “Principal Marna is a cripple, you know. Broke her back falling from the ice when she was a child. By the time a skilful enough healer was summoned from Tule the damage was irreversible. Yet now poor Marna lives as close to the ice as it is possible to get. I find the irony touching, don’t you?”

Monahl didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she eventually mumbled.

“I don’t need pity,” said Marna. “And I don’t need you embarrassing my guests, Herold Entrest.”

Monahl picked at the food put before her: pate, biscuits, scrolls of thinly sliced white meat, turtle eggs from the north. Her belly had grown accustomed to little food – she was unable to gorge herself now, particularly on such rich food.

Instead, she observed her fellow diners. The three strangers were introduced to her as two senators and Marna’s personal adviser. They made polite conversation and laughed in the right places. Marna was in her sixties, with a face so heavily painted it might have been a mask. She showed little expression behind all that make-up, so that her constantly jumping eyes were her most expressive feature.

“I presume Herold told you of my little proposal?” said Marna into a brief silence.

Monahl looked up. She had been thinking of the journey ahead of her. She looked at Herold and then at Marna. She had suspected something like this: a marriage, a new pact trapping Herold in Divine. “Not directly,” she said.

“He is most reluctant,” continued Marna. “Despite all our most carefully prepared arguments.”

“A city needs a Principal who will die,” said Herold. “Just as poor Echillestan died. If I accepted your proposal then Divine would be saddled with a Principal who would be in power for two or three centuries. And anyway, I am no administrator.”

Monahl worked out what they meant. Marna’s proposal was not one of marriage: she wanted Herold to take his dead nephew’s place as co-Principal of Divine. Until now the city had always had a member of the Entrest line at its head, but Echillestan had left no heirs. When Herold had referred to sorting out his nephew’s affairs, this must have been what he meant.

But if he accepted, he might never return to Zigané.

She looked at Herold and he smiled his cruel smile. Then he turned to Marna and said, “Why do you not ask Monahl to become your Principal? I am not the only survivor of the Entrest line. She has a daughter, too: how about Freya?”

The two senators laughed politely, assuming the mage was joking. When they realised they were alone, they stopped, embarrassed. One said, “Legislation would have to be changed. A Principal must be born and raised in Divine.” He smiled awkwardly, his reasoning transparent: he didn’t dare express his absolute horror at Herold’s joke just in case this strange priest did one day become Principal.

“I am not a politician or an administrator,” she said. “I assume you joke, Herold.”

“Of course, child. What else?”

A little later, Monahl said to Marna, “I’m grateful for your hospitality, but I have to leave in the morning.”

Marna nodded.

“Can I tell my brother that you will support him? Or at least tell him that you will not support Lachlan Pas?”

“It is against this city’s interests to confront our sole trading partner as you request. We cannot join your brother in his revolution.”

“Does that mean you are against us?”

Marna shook her head. “It is against this city’s interests to involve itself in fighting in the Rift,” she said. “If Lachlan demands our support I will tell him the same thing I tell you: we are a sovereign city and we do not engage in wars on foreign territory.” She glanced at Herold. “The City of the Divine Wall must stand apart if we wish to survive the coming upheavals.”

Monahl turned to Herold. “I detect your advice in the Principal’s response,” she said. “Can I presume that you will also turn down my appeal?”

“I have already explained my reasoning,” he said. “My duty is to survive, and to do what I can to ensure that my people survive.”

“What would my great grandmother have advised?” Monahl asked. “Would Jobahl have supported your decision?”

She hated the brief flash of pain in Herold’s eyes, and the knowledge that her words were responsible. She tried to justify herself with the thought that cruelty was sometimes the only language the mage understood, but it did not make her feel any better: it was not a language natural to her.

“Your great-grandmother is dead,” said Herold. “Her wishes are irrelevant.”

~

Morning was announced by the sound of crashing, shattering ice as the waterfall started to thaw.

Monahl rolled over, reluctant to leave the bed’s warmth. She remembered the dinner, returning alone to her room. She had never deliberately tried to hurt Herold before.

She dressed and packed her few things. She would ask if there were any traders taking the northern trade route with whom she could travel. Then she would have to work her way along the northern fringe of the Zochi jungle to Porphyr, where she hoped Chi would be waiting.

She had to hurry. For all she knew she was too late already.

A servant showed her through to a wide balcony overlooking the falls. Marna was seated here, with another group of hangers-on. She would say her farewells and then leave.

She approached the Principal and said, “Thank you, again. I am very grateful for your hospitality.”

Marna nodded briefly.

Monahl looked around. “I had hoped to see Herold,” she said.

“He’s not here,” said Marna, who then turned away in dismissal.

Monahl went down through the palace and then walked alone through the parkland to the great wall. At any moment, she expected the mage to leap out from behind a giant fern to make his farewell, but he did not.

She passed into the tunnel that led through the Divine Wall and allowed the buzz of earth energy to lift her flagging spirits. She thought of Chi: she had to hurry.

Herold was waiting at the outer end of the tunnel. He was sitting on a horse, holding onto another that had no rider. A short distance away was a unit of twelve soldiers, led by the man Monahl had first seen at the gates the day before.

“Will you ride or will you walk?” asked Herold. “It’s a long way.”

Monahl climbed up onto the horse’s back. “What’s happening?” she said.

“Marna has assigned us protection for our journey. When we join your brother, Chaballoh and his men will assess the situation before a final decision is made about whether or not to support Chichéne’s foolish scheme.”

“But the Principal was adamant,” said Monahl.

Herold smiled. “Ah,” he said. “But
this
Principal was, too. I accepted Marna’s proposal, and so she accepted a compromise over our city’s involvement in the coming conflict.”

Now, Monahl understood Marna’s attitude that morning. She looked at Herold and didn’t know whether to celebrate or cry. She had won his support, but at the price of him becoming Principal of Divine and so abandoning her own city of Zigané.

He was watching her closely. “You asked for it,” he said. “It’s too late for second thoughts now.” He flicked at his horse’s reins and rode off to join the soldiers who would accompany them.

Slowly, Monahl followed.

...was alive with energy, even though it was only partly built. Red Simeni was certain he could feel the magical currents flowing through the buildings as they rose up about him. It was as if the earth itself was humming with latent, untapped power.

They entered the city of Samhab in a procession of moke-drawn carriages, having endured a hot and sticky journey across the barren terrain of the Heartlands. After a journey like that, Red had found it easy to understand why the ancestors of the people he had stayed with in the village of Atrac had so readily abandoned the nomadic life of this region for a more stable, settled existence on its northern fringe.

His memories of the night before were confused. He had come round in the open, staring up at the kind of clear, starlit night that was almost unique to the Heartlands: the rain clouds burnt off by the preceding day’s heat, the smoke and ash clouds not nearly as predominant as they were on the Rift’s more volcanic fringes.

He had sensed the activity all around and when he eventually summoned the energy to move, he saw the long, twisted body of the train stretched out along the course of the rails, the whole scene lit by numerous fires and flaring torches. The locomotive at the front of the train had been derailed and, for about a quarter of its length, every carriage had followed suit, each lying twisted on one side. The goods wagons, weighed down with their loads of building stone and timber, had ground to a halt on the broken track, but remained upright.