Sara Douglass - The Serpent Bride

“Would you like me also to take her to bed, and see if she suits your needs?”

Maximilian smiled. “Would you?”

StarWeb laughed then, and the mood between them relaxed. The Icarii Enchanter walked over to Maximilian, running her hands slowly over his naked upper body, her fingers tracing the outlines of the scars left from his time in the Veins, kissing his neck slowly as she spoke. “How fortunate you are that I am not a jealous woman.”

He took her face between gentle hands. “I am well aware how fortunate I am in you, StarWeb, and also well aware that I use you unmercifully. Whatever you want from me, you have it.”

Your love? she wondered, and then discarded the thought. There had never been any expectation of love on either of their parts.

“Just you,” she whispered. “For an hour or two tonight, so I can forget all I have lost.”

While Maximilian lay with StarWeb, Vorstus sat at a table in his locked chamber in a distant part of the palace. On the table before him sat a small glass pyramid, about the height of a man’s hand. It pulsated gently with soft rosy light, and its depths showed a man of ascetic appearance in late middle age who revealed, as he reached up a hand to rub thoughtfully at his nose, a serpent tattoo writhing up his forearm.

“Has Maximilian looked at the map yet?” said the man whose image showed within the pyramid.

“No, my Lord Lister,” said Vorstus. “If he had I am sure I would have heard the screech from here.”

Lister smiled. “Will he be ready, do you think?”

“He had seventeen years battling the darkness in the Veins, my lord,” said Vorstus. “He won’t like it, but when he is needed, then, yes, I believe he will step forward. How goes the Lady Ishbel?”

“Resigning herself to marriage. She, also, will step forward when needed.”

“If only she knew who had caused that plague to strike her family home in Margalit, my lord. Then perhaps she might not be so ready to ‘step forward’.”

“Don’t threaten me,” Lister said. “Besides, what will Maximilian say, eh, when he learns who it was whispered to Cavor the plan to imprison him in the gloam mines for such a mighty length of time?”

“We have all done what was needed.”

“Ah, we all have done what was needed,” said Lister, “and we will do more, as the need dictates. Let me know what Maximilian says, why don’t you, when he finally looks at that map.”

The rose pyramid dulled, then died.

Lister stood in the central chamber of his castle of Crowhurst and stared as his own pyramid dulled into lifelessness on the table. He sighed, and turned away, walking to the open window to look out.

Beyond stretched a vast wasteland of frost and low, snow-covered rolling hills. The northern wastes were a desolate place, but they suited Lister’s purpose for the time being, and for the time being he needed to be here. He shuddered, more from the cold than from any direction of his thoughts, and he reached out and closed the windows, revealing tattoos of black serpents crawling up both his forearms.

Kanubai’s ancient foe, Light, had taken the form of Lister some forty-five years ago when it had become apparent to both Light and Water that Kanubai’s prison had begun to fail. Light and Water needed mortal shape now, for the battle to come would be of the physical rather than the ethereal. While they had taken the flesh of men, Light also, from time to time, and as it amused him, took on the ethereal form of the serpent, while Water occasionally took the form of the frog.

Sometimes also, when it suited their purpose to manipulate those about them, they named themselves gods, and commanded ordinary men and women.

Ishbel had no idea what it was she truly served.

The move into the physical realm of men was dangerous. As flesh and blood men they might still command powers greater than those of most mortals, but were as vulnerable to the spear and the sword as any other.

There came a noise from the door, a footfall, and Lister turned about.

Three creatures of above man-height stood there. They were skeletal, and vaguely man-shaped, but more wraith than flesh. The most substantial part of them was their over-sized skull-like heads, dominated by heavy, great-toothed jaws and huge silver orbs set deep into their eye sockets.

One of them nodded at the table, which was covered at one end with the detritus of Lister’s earlier meal.

“We’ve come for the leavings, Lord Lister,” the Skraeling said, his voice more hissed whisper than spoken word.

“Take them,” said Lister. “Did the kitchen hand out the scraps to your comrades earlier?”

“Yes,” said another of the Skraelings. “Thank you. Lard and blood. Tasty.”

“Tasty, tasty,” whispered the other two.

Lister nodded at the table, and the three Skraelings crept forward, gathering plates into their awkward hands, licking each one clean as they picked them up. Then, silver orbs glancing at Lister, they crept back through the door, closing it behind them.

“Damned creatures,” Lister muttered. He loathed them, but for the moment it was better to be their friend than their enemy.

Like his ally, Water, who stood watch over the ancient evil far to the south, Lister stood watch over the tens of thousands of Skraelings who gathered in the frozen hills about Crowhurst. He knew that Kanubai whispered to them from deep within his abyss, and that Kanubai was the Skraelings’ only true lord. But Lister had wormed his serpentine way into the Skraelings’ affections by feeding them scraps and leavings in order that he might live beside them, and watch their every move.

They were loathsome companions, but for the moment Lister must make do.

And at least they were not his only companions. Another footfall sounded at the door, and Lister looked up, smiling in genuine warmth as the winged woman entered.

Maximilian lay in bed alone, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Star Web had left an hour or more ago.

Since he’d returned from the gloam mines, Maximilian had taken a variety of lovers. He had spent his youth and early manhood trapped in the mines, and once free he did not hesitate to enjoy the comfort and excitement of a woman in his bed.

But they never stayed the night.

One of Maximilian’s first lovers had been an accommodating lady of court. She was a sweet woman, and had taken it upon herself to teach Maximilian the skills that by rights he should have learned many years earlier. She had slept through the night at his side one time only (and that many months into their relationship), and in the morning had turned to him and said:

I think that the darkness is your true lover, Maximilian. I think you brought it with you out of the Veins. Perhaps you should wive the darkness, and not any flesh and blood woman.

That had stung Maximilian badly, and he’d never invited her back into his bedroom.

Now he lay on the bed, twisting the Persimius ring on his left hand over and over, thinking not so much about Ishbel, but about his parents. His father and mother had loved each other dearly, and their marriage had been strong.