Riding the Serpent's Back (59 page)

Everywhere, people swarmed over the wreckage, pulling bodies and goods free, helping the injured down onto the stony ground. Somewhere in the distance there were occasional sounds of gunfire and raised, excited voices.

Red had climbed to his feet and wandered about aimlessly, feeling that he should help, but knowing he would only get in the way. Everything was in the hands of the soldiers who had been guarding the train.

Eventually, he found a group he recognised gathered around a fire.

He went over to where a young woman was innocently applying a dressing to Jon Pascal’s broken face. Red was about to say something, when he caught the look on his friend’s face. Jon winked, then groaned in mock pain. “Such a horrible, horrible wound,” the woman was saying, oblivious to its real cause.

“Such a delicate touch,” groaned Jon, in reply. “Surely you are a healer. No? But I can sense the Talent in your fingertips.”

Red smiled and left him to his fun.

He found Estelle sitting cross-legged at the next fire, staring into its flickering blue-green heart. “You’re back,” she said, as he approached.

He raised his eyebrows and she nodded across to a twist of blanket next to where she sat. “They put you there,” she said. “When they pulled you out of the wreck. I sat with you, but you just got up and walked off a short time ago.”

“I didn’t know,” he said. He tapped his head. “Concussion,” he said. “I must have hit my head.”

“The men who carried you off the train said you were snoring,” said Estelle, through her lop-sided smirk.

“Hmm,” said Red. “Strange what a blow to the head can do.” He sat down beside her. “What happened?” he asked. “Why did the train fall over like that? Haven’t they finished building the track?”

“Oh yes,” said Estelle. “But somebody un-built it for them. Nomads or rebels, they said.”

“Rebels?”

“Your brother,” said Estelle. “Chichéne Pas. Oriole told me about him. Your brother has been raising an army from the slums where he lives in the south, with support from some of the provinces and principalities in the fringes of the Rift. They’ve set up a base to the north of Zochi and they use it for guerrilla raids like this.”

“Is that what all the noise is about?” asked Red, glancing over his shoulder. He could still hear occasional gunshots in the distance.

Estelle shook her head. “No,” she said. “That’s just labourers. They were being carried in a wagon that split open. Some of them decided to run away, that’s all.”

The carriages arrived just as the sky was becoming lighter in the east. The mokes coped with the dry heat better than most horses, but they were terribly slow. The convoy set out, and for a long time Red sat watching the barren Heartlands rolling slowly away to either side. Apart from occasional scrubby patches of thorn and cactus and a few tussocks of grey desert grass, the ground was a relentless carpet of stones and dirt.

The rock here was a dingy brown basalt which, at the beginning of the current Era, was said to have spewed out almost continually from a great split in the continental crust. When the First City’s Charmed Pact had stabilised this region, the first of the True Families had been able to rule for centuries. Eventually, their growing demands on the poor resources of the area had led to a natural decline and the city had fallen into ruin.

Plans to recreate this city and tap into its power depended on the use of modern technologies. Now, a railway – except for where the rebels had lifted the rails – connected Samhab to both Little and Big Hamadryad rivers, and soon others would connect the city directly to Tule and Totenang in the north. Eventually, a new cut, similar to that through the Zochi jungle, would be excavated to bring water directly to the city from fresh sources to the south.

When he first saw the city, Red’s mouth fell open in wonder. He squeezed Estelle’s arm and pointed out of the carriage window.

She had been fanning herself with both hands, but now she paused to peer out of the carriage’s small window. “Thank the gods,” she said. “I’m stewing.”

Red stared as they approached. The first buildings they passed were incomplete, swarms of labourers spread over them like ants at their nest, all overseen by soldiers from the military encampment sprawling around the city’s fringe. As they rode in towards the city centre, where most of the construction had been completed, Red felt the hum of energy growing in his heart.

Great, towering palaces rose out of the dust, built of marble and granite brought in from all over the Rift. Entire walls were constructed of multicoloured glass, with all kinds of precious stones set in amongst them. One building they passed – a rising tower shaped like a spike which, because of its diminishing shape, appeared to reach forever into the sky – was covered entirely in gold-leaf. If, that is, it was not made entirely of solid gold.

The convoy of carriages pulled up at the front of a low, sprawling building, palatial even by the grand standards of the rest of the city. It must have been fully a standard leap from wing to wing, its front consisting entirely of repeated arches at least fifty paces high. Each arch was filled out with elaborate screens of brickwork and stone. Statues thrust out of the walls as if they were trying to pull themselves free: men born of stone.

Red swung the door of the carriage open and leapt down, revelling in the freshness that filled the air, the new energy in his body. He reached for Estelle’s hand and she stepped down to join him.

“Splendid, eh?”

Red turned, then faltered. It was Jon Pascal who had spoken, but...Jon had changed. His face had been repaired: the hole in his cheek gone, the ragged scars smoothed over, all the blisters and sores and scabs gone.

Jon was grinning. “Told you she was a healer, didn’t I?” he said, tipping his head towards the stout young woman clinging to his arm. She had been tending his sores at the crash, Red recalled.

“I...” he said. Then he noticed the others – Melody, Anath, even old Colvin Stere. They had all been healed of their ophidian disfigurements. “The city,” he gasped. Samhab’s power was at work already!

The others were already heading into the depths of the palace. Red hurried after them.

The building’s central arch had been left empty, the mouth of a great tunnel which led into the bowels of the palace. They walked into it, led by a man who had ridden at the head of their convoy. Every noise echoed back in this tunnel. As they walked, Red stared up at the vaulted ceiling, like that of a temple. He followed the tracery of its designs down the walls, which were covered with friezes carved into the stone and more statues thrusting outwards.

Now, he remembered childhood tales of the stone armies of the True: the First City had been guarded by men of stone, born from the Charmed rock of the city when it had first awoken and its powers been released. When the city had been abandoned they had been starved of the human interaction that gave them life and they had crumbled away to dust.

Looking around, Red wondered if these statues were to be Lachlan’s new army, brought to life by the city’s powers. He half-expected to see that they were alive already, struggling to break free.

At another arch, halfway along the tunnel, they were greeted by Pieter. He was standing with a small group that included priests and other official-looking people, all dressed in gaudy exaggerations of what they would normally wear: the priests in smocks made of silk, with jewels and feathers sewn into elaborate designs across the back and shoulders, the officials in similarly decorated suits which were pinched at the waist and padded at the hip. Even Pieter had forsaken his normally sober wardrobe to affect feathers and jewels across the ruched chest of his jacket.

When Estelle saw her husband, she picked up her skirt above her knees and ran into his outspread arms. Somehow, such childish enthusiasm seemed out of keeping in this place. Even Red felt subdued by the tremendous show of wealth this building displayed.

He embraced Pieter when Estelle had stepped back. In answer to the Principal’s questioning look at their entourage, he explained, “Our guests. And
their
guests. And...it seemed somewhat harsh to turn them away when there was so much room on the barge.”

Pieter laughed, and said, “Come on. Let me show you around.” He slid his hands into the arms of Red and Estelle and led them along the tunnel into a garden where Charmed fountains danced and twisted in gravity-mocking shapes.

At the garden’s centre was an enormous statue, set on a wide, raised block, about forty paces square. Peering along the top of this block, Red could see, right at the heart of the construction, a single hand emerging from the stone, a finger raised to support the extraordinary mass above. Suspended over this finger was a pyramid made up of layer upon layer of stone. Its lower tiers were almost featureless. Higher up, impressions of bones and skulls became gradually discernible, then tangled, compressed bodies in layer upon layer, until near the summit each layer of the pyramid was made up of finely dressed priests and dignitaries, each supporting the succeeding layers on raised hands. Finally, at the top of it all, sat a single figure, one hand casually raised, its finger pointing skywards.

“It’s called ‘The Principal’s Burden’,” said Pieter, as they stood and absorbed the monstrous beauty of the thing. “You will see that the figure at its summit, upon whose finger everything rests, is modelled closely on our leader, Lachlan Pas.”

Red looked at him sharply. He had never heard Pieter refer to anyone as ‘our leader’ before.

Now, Pieter smiled. “You will meet him this evening,” he told Red. “He is most eager to make your acquaintance.”

~

The delegation from the ophidy refuge was allocated a suite as big as a small town, or so it seemed to Red. In the wide lounge area there were sofas and floor cushions everywhere. Feathers and flowers decorated the walls and the furniture: all around were Charmed sculptures and gargoyles with expressions that changed, eyes that moved, blinked, stared. Archways led off this main room into bedrooms, bathrooms, a high, domed hall with a mud-bath and a bubbling pool with healing, scented waters. Every room had at least six archways leading off it, and Red found that he could just walk and walk, leaving the voices of his companions far behind him, until suddenly he rounded a corner and they were before him again. Each time he set out, he came across different rooms, but always he returned, in the end, to the main lounge where the others had found a drinks cabinet behind a pink feather screen.

He lay alone in the huge mud-bath, soaking the tiredness and the aches from his body. His head kept hurting, when he remembered. He decided he should treat it carefully – he had been knocked unconscious in the crash, after all.

Eventually he became aware of the staring eyes of the gargoyles lined up around the walls of the bath hall.

He left the mud and dived into the pool. He swam a couple of lengths before drying himself off and dressing in some clothes he had found in one of the rooms.

The corset made him gasp as he pulled it tight, it was so long since he had worn one. The rest of the clothes fitted him perfectly and soon he emerged to rejoin his companions. They whistled and cheered at his silks and feathers. Within a short time, most had set off to find new outfits for themselves.

Estelle rejoined them late in the afternoon, appearing in a doorway, clinging like a barnacle to Pieter’s arm. The Principal searched the faces of the crowd from Coltsmore’s Haven before locating Red. He nodded and said, “Red. Come along. Lachlan Pas has asked to meet with you before the banquet.”

Red looked at Estelle, but her blank smile told him nothing.

They walked through corridor after corridor, each one different. They passed statues and wall-paintings of the gods, windows of coloured glass, mosaics of feathers and petals and jewels.

Finally, they were shown into a long room lined with grotesquely deformed atlantean pillars of figures that were half man and half beast, their faces contorted with pain, their eyes – as ever – staring at the small party that passed between them.

At the end was a wide balcony, overlooking the garden of fountains. A man stood alone, looking out, his hands lying flat on the surface of a balustrade carved in the form of the undulating body of a giant serpent. He turned at the sound of approaching footsteps and Red couldn’t help but stare at him, surprised at how much he looked like Chi.

He was a lot shorter – barely coming up to Red’s chin – but he had the same staring intensity in his eyes, the deep black hair and beard that would eventually turn a steely-grey, and something far more indefinable, the same automatic air of complete authority.

Red had thought Lachlan was alone but then, as he approached, he noticed a movement in the shadows. Standing amongst the pillars and to either side of the balcony were Lachlan’s bodyguards: each man colossally tall, with skin that was a deepest bronze and the most peculiarly elongated heads, with aquiline noses and a few haphazard tufts of hair waxed into exotic spikes and shapes.

Just as the statues and gargoyles had stared, these guards stared, with a hostile intensity that twisted Red’s innards. He felt sure that one of these men could snap his body in two with no more than the flick of a wrist.

Lachlan was grinning.

“Don’t worry about my Moranis,” he said, in a casual tone. “They’ll only kill you if you threaten me in any way, or if you come within five paces of me.”

Red stopped abruptly, nearly in the danger zone. He didn’t like being toyed with like this and he wanted to say so, then he remembered Estelle and Pieter who had fallen in behind him as they walked down the long hall. He would take it easy, he decided, and – to borrow Estelle’s phrase – he would just play the game. That was what it was all about.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “Although I must say, I don’t quite understand why you have extended such a splendid welcome – I am only a servant to my Principal, Pieter Lammer of Totenang.”

“Modesty does not suit you,” said Lachlan. “You have neglected a crucial point: have you forgotten that, as the brother of Chichéne Pas, you are my uncle?”