Riding the Serpent's Back (65 page)

She buried her face in her hands and rubbed at her screwed up eyes. She had not realised how exhausted she was. The comfortable life of a votary-priest on Zigané was no preparation for the kind of journey she had just completed.

She touched the discs suspended around her neck and thought of Cheri, Amathyr and Edric. Of Freya. She and her daughter would be different people when, or if, they met again. Perhaps things would be easier between them: an older and a younger woman – Sister Monahl and Sister Freya – instead of a mother and a daughter.

She looked at Herold. He was staring into the distance again.

She followed the direction of his gaze.

The hill dropped sharply away to the north. In character, it was more like two hills than one: to the south was the spring and the pool, the spreading vegetation that marked the start of the dry forest, which in turn marked the start of the jungle proper; to the north, the hill tumbled away as if great bites had been taken out of its rocky substance.

Beyond was a rolling, barren landscape of crumbling, reddish rock, punctuated here and there by drifts of thorn scrub and grass. Low, bulbous cacti grew in isolated groups and occasional, apologetic drifts of spinifex grew in the dusty soil. This was not a desert-proper, she knew – there were periodic rains, and the hills that rolled away before them were interspersed with valleys carved by seasonal rivers – but it was hardly the most hospitable place to build a new city.

She had never known Herold to be so reflective: for now, he seemed to have put aside his usual facade of cruel jokes, barbed comments and put-downs.

“We have to go out there,” he said, after some time. “We have to get closer.”

Monahl nodded. “Whenever you feel ready,” she said. His hesitancy worried her.

“I can feel the earth’s tune in my bones,” he said. “The energies Lachlan and his mage hope to channel. They have to be stopped.”

“That’s what I told you,” said Monahl. “And you are the man to stop them.”

When he turned to look at her she was startled at the expression on his face: he was scared.

Herold was scared.

“Am I?” he asked. “You really think I’m that strong?”

~

They set off the next morning, just as the sun was spreading its first dim glow across the eastern sky.

Monahl had seen Chi only briefly since the previous afternoon. “Herold wants to travel into the Heartlands,” she had told him. The look on Chi’s face only confirmed the mage’s claim that Chi resented him being there: he might be a grown man, but many of his expressions and gestures were as transparent as those of a child.

He stuck out his lower lip and narrowed his eyes. “He is a mage,” he said. “He’ll do whatever he needs. You’ll take a unit of soldiers for protection, of course.”

“No. Herold wants us to go alone.”

Chi had clearly been about to insist, but was distracted by the arrival of a deputation from one of the outlying camps, come to tell him of signs of enemy activity from the jungle.

So now they rode out across the edge of the Heartlands with only one of Chi’s raggies for a guide.

Behind them, the sun picked out the hill that marked the encampment. Monahl glanced back once, then settled down for a long day.

“How far to Samhab?” she asked, made uncomfortable by Herold’s intensity.

He ignored her, but Ghost, the ragged child, replied, “Only about a hundred leaps, or so. But in a place like this that’s the best of a day’s ride.” Monahl felt reassured by the girl’s presence. She must have been about fourteen, her small body twisted and stunted by childhood polio. Despite her apparent frailty, Ghost had the assurance of one much older.

The low hills spread out around them, like ripples set solid. She realised that was probably a fair description: before the pact that had stabilised Samhab, the heart of the Rift had been a region of intense seismic activity. The ancient patterns of the first city were the means of tapping that energy, without letting it spill over into large-scale destruction. But it was such a fine balance to strike.

After a time, they dropped down into a valley, the bed of which was packed with silt that was still dark with moisture. A mass of vegetation had sprouted along this valley, capitalising on what dampness remained.

They came across a black patch on the ground. The region’s nomads had been here recently.

Monahl watched as Ghost leapt down from her horse and examined the ground around the old fire. Eventually, the girl said, “Two days, at least. A camp of six yurts. Goats, hens, polecats for hunting, a few dogs. No horses or mokes: they travel on foot.”

In her mind’s eye, Monahl could picture the peaceful little encampment, settled here while there was still water in the river-bed. They lived in tents made from animal skins, which they called yurts. Hens would peck around in the dirt for seeds and insects, their wings pinioned and their legs hobbled so they couldn’t get far away.

“Which way did they go?” asked Herold.

Ghost shook her head. “They were camped here for several weeks, so there are plenty of signs of movement in all directions. There’s nothing to say which way they went.”

Herold turned north, towards Samhab. “We carry on, then,” he said.

~

They saw no more indication of the nomads’ existence that day. In the past they would have been far more easy to locate, but in recent years the native people of the Heartlands had been driven out or seized on a large scale by Lachlan’s forces. Now, they took more trouble to disguise their presence.

By mid-afternoon, the three stopped, ready to turn back.

“What are you looking for?” asked Monahl. They could only be about thirty or forty leaps south of Samhab now – Ghost had been warning them since late morning that they should be wary of enemy patrols.

She was surprised by Herold’s reply.

“I don’t know,” he said. All day he had seemed so purposeful, so definite, yet now he was admitting his ignorance. “A place, I suppose. Or a people. If we find nomads who are of the true extraction of their race and they neither flee nor kill us, then there might be someone amongst them who understands me, someone who knows this place in their blood and in their bones. I know the form of the rituals, of course. I know the chants and the prayers, I know the holy words and—” he patted his jacket “—I carry the blessed blade carved from the stone of Divine, used in the pact which stabilised that city, and used in the pact I renewed at Zigané.”

Monahl stared at him. He was carrying the knife that had ended the life of her great-grandmother.

Herold patted his chest, above his heart. “What I am less sure about,” he continued, “is whether I have the strength in here and—” he tapped his head “—the Talent in here to reverse such an ancient pact.”

He smiled now. Monahl did not like the uncertain look in his eyes.

“Can you feel it now?” he asked, suddenly.

She nodded. Gradually, as they rode towards Samhab, a feeling had grown inside her, a resonance that communicated through every cell of her body. She had felt like this in her guiding trances on the spurs of Zigané: in touch with the energy of the rocks themselves. Now she understood what Herold meant when he talked of the tune of the earth: it was the kind of music you can’t ever hear.

~

The next morning, the three of them set out as before. This time, when they reached the remains of the nomads’ camp, Herold dismounted and went to stand by the black stain of the fire.

For a long time he stood with his eyes closed and neither Monahl nor Ghost dared make a sound.

Finally, he climbed back onto his mount and set off northwards, following the same route as before. He was in one of his darker moods today, and they rode for a long time in silence.

Eventually, they came to a thicket of cacti Monahl was sure they had not passed the day before, and she realised Herold had been subtly changing their course as he rode.

A short time later they looked down from a craggy ridge and saw a small cluster of yurts, hidden at the heart of a patch of scrub. The nomads had made an effort to disguise their tents with branches, but there was no hiding the herd of twenty piebald goats, tearing hungrily at the scrub.

Monahl stared down at the camp, certain that they must have been spotted by now.

Herold started to walk his horse down the slope, but when Monahl and Ghost made to follow he looked back sharply and snapped, “Stay! You want us
all
to be killed?”

So she had to sit there and watch as her great-grandfather rode down towards the yurts. When he reached the edge of the thicket where they were partially hidden, she saw movement, and then suddenly five figures appeared from the undergrowth, spears and clubs poised to attack.

It was so difficult to see from this distance, but Herold hardly appeared to flinch. He swivelled to see them all, then resumed his horse’s slow walk towards the camp.

She sat on the ridge in the harsh sunlight until well into the afternoon. All sorts of gruesome possibilities ran through her mind, and occasionally Ghost would make it worse by repeating what had become her favourite phrase: “They’ll have killed him by now, they will.”

Then the mage emerged. He mounted his horse and left the camp at a sedate pace.

Monahl didn’t know what to say when he rejoined them on top of the ridge.

Ghost saved her the trouble. “I thought they were going to kill you,” she said.

Herold turned to her. “Oh yes,” he said. “So did I.” He tipped his head up and Monahl suddenly saw a narrow line of blood traced across his neck. “Indeed,” he said, “they are a most distrustful people. They held a knife hard against my throat for at least an hour before I convinced them that I was an ally and that I was not one of Lachlan’s press-gangs.”

“Were they any help?” asked Monahl. “Were they the right kind of nomads? Did they understand what you wanted?”

Herold shook his head. “It took me most of the afternoon to find out,” he said. “But no. Many so-called nomads have merely adopted the way of life in recent generations: displaced agricultural workers and the like. These people did not have the knowledge I required.”

Monahl slumped. Then she sensed something new in the mage’s body language.

He caught her looking and smiled. “But tomorrow,” he said, “my new friends will introduce me to a much older group, and if they are not who I seek, they will, in turn, introduce me to others. I have made a start, Monahl. I have made a start.”

~

Just before dawn, when Monahl woke in the tent she had been sharing with Herold, she discovered that the mage had already gone. She went outside, expecting to find him wandering through the encampment as he did when he could not sleep, but all she found was the empty space next to her own horse.

He had set out alone.

As she returned to the tent, she came across Ghost. “I’m sorry,” the girl said. “He wouldn’t let me wake you and when we’d only gone a little way, he changed his mind and sent me back too.” She gestured back across the hill. “He’s gone out to the camp we found. If you set off now you could catch him by the time it’s properly light.”

Monahl shook her head. He would only send her back.

In the afternoon, Chi came looking for her. He seemed far more composed today, although Monahl was fully aware that she, too, was calmer. They were probably more alike than she had ever really accepted: both short-tempered and volatile, both navigating their life through the poorly defined borderland between the sane and the insane.

“I’m sorry,” he said, joining her at the pool where she was scrubbing at her votary-priest’s smock, trying to get some of the smells of travelling out of its fabric. “About the day you arrived. I’d just come back to camp from Corsters where a whole unit of the Berendi army had been down with the grey staggers. I was healing all day, trying to guide the incompetent whose job it really was. I can’t do everything, no matter what some of these people think.”

Monahl smiled. “Herold thinks you want to,” she said, feeling brave enough to test her brother’s response. “He thinks you don’t like having to delegate – you want to do it all yourself.”

Chi laughed. “If only I could,” he said. “But I could never do what we’re asking of your mage. I know my limits. Despite what Herold might think.”

“Do you think much about when we were first together?” asked Monahl, trying to keep her tone casual.

The bearded boy looked down. Monahl thought he was going to ignore her question, but then he said, “Yes. I think of it every day.”

He was crying, but she didn’t want his tears. She didn’t know what she did want, but not those tears.

“I never wanted you hurt,” said Chi, looking up into her eyes now. “I know you’re the vulnerable one. I never wanted to do anything that might cause you harm. I...I don’t know what happened.”

“You were drunk,” said Monahl in a low, even tone. “And when you are drunk you get violent and impulsive and you forget all the things you care about and which should bind you.”

“It was my head...” said the boy. “Strange things in my head. I didn’t know what was happening. I dreamed, and then when the dream stopped I was there and it had happened and that look on your face is the look I carry with me every single day of my life.”

Monahl look at him evenly. “You have a daughter,” she said.

She saw the knowledge in his eyes.

“You already knew,” she gasped.

He nodded. “Of course I knew,” he said. “I’m a
healer
. As soon as she was conceived I could sense the secondary animus lodged in your womb. Why do you think I ran away when I did? I wanted to be responsible, to care for you both, but you couldn’t stay with me, even if you had wanted to after what happened. You couldn’t follow the kind of life we were leading on the Serpent’s Back and bring up a child. and too many people could have hurt me through the two of you. I had to go, can’t you see? I couldn’t take that kind of responsibility. I couldn’t take the risk.”

Monahl scrubbed at her smock in silence and eventually Chi left her. She didn’t know what to think, what to make of his feeble explanation for his actions all those years ago. But she had learnt one thing: the pain she had carried for so long, when confronted with its source, had dulled to a steady ache. That was good, she supposed. Or, at least, not so bad.