Riding the Serpent's Back (21 page)

Leeth shrugged. He opened his mouth to speak, but when he did it was at the same time as the man.

“We’re looking for a boy,” the two of them said.

Leeth smiled awkwardly, and the man spoke again. “A boy who heals the sick. He calls himself Chi. We want to find him.”

Hooves sounded on the track behind Leeth, and then Joel’s voice said, “Join the pack.”

The woman looked up and her eyes narrowed. The man put a hand to his head, then swept back his hair and straightened his spectacles.

“The boy’s been missing since the day before yesterday,” said Joel. “The whole of Edge City’s being turned upside down as we speak. If he’s there he’ll be found.” He paused, and Leeth saw that he was studying the strangers closely. “It’s been a long time,” he finally said.

“Tell me,” said the ruddy man, pulling at his lip as he spoke. “Is he really who he claims to be?”

Leeth studied Joel and was surprised to see the horseman nod briefly, his expression one of certainty. “I believe that he is,” he said. “I’ve been here about a month and in all that time I didn’t think I believed him. Then, when he disappeared, I realised I really care where he is: he could be dead, he could be imprisoned, he might just be hiding somewhere scared to come back and lose face. That’s my brother out there: I’d lay my life on it.”

Leeth decided that it was time to join the conversation. “Anton and I seem to be the only ones here who don’t know everybody,” he said.

But Echtal shook his head. “Afraid not,” he said. “You see we’ve all met before. This—” he pointed at the woman “—is Joel’s half-sister, Sawnie, and by that account, also the boy’s half-sister, too. And this gentleman, here, is her brother, Petro, who would also then have to be Joel’s and the boy’s half-brother.”

Leeth turned to Joel who nodded in confirmation. “The family is coming together,” said the horseman. “But the one who is missing is the one who sent out the invitations.”

“In which case,” said Petro. “Perhaps we should rejoin the search.”

~

Leeth sent Sky off to roam alone, with an image of Chi planted firmly in her mind. At the newcomer’s invitation, he returned to Edge City mounted behind Petro, with Echtal strapped in place in front of Joel.

As they rode back along the trail, Leeth learnt more of Chi’s brother and sister. They had come here from the city of Halstrand, where Petro was one of the four Principals. Looking at him, Leeth found it difficult to picture the man in the finery of his office – the robes, the plumes, the ceremonial breastplate – but when he spoke he betrayed a sharp and inquisitive mind.

His sister was chief military adviser to the Halstrand Senate. “She’s picked fights all her life,” mused Petro. “One to one there’s nobody could beat her, and tactically she ranks alongside the military greats of our Era. So she tells me, in any case, and I would be most reluctant to dispute the issue.”

Sawnie was riding ahead of Leeth, side by side with Joel – so close the horses kept bumping together. When the track widened, Petro moved up to join them.

“Such a lovely mare you have,” Joel was saying. “Such a beautiful grey.” He had been in Halstrand only a few months earlier and so the newcomers were already aware of his affliction.

“Family or not,” said Sawnie, in a deceptively sweet tone. “If you lay so much as a hoof on Tin I’ll peel every last sliver of skin from your combined bodies and feed it to the rats. And I could do that.”

Joel edged away.

“What it must be,” said Petro, “to have Joel’s proclivities and a horse’s dick.”

“It has its limitations,” muttered his half-brother. “Believe me: it has its limitations.”

“Tell me,” said Petro. “What is the boy planning to do? You say he is our dead sibling. If that is so, then I imagine his plans are not small. He used to threaten that one day he would draw us together so that we could assume our rightful place. Presumably he feels that time has come. My rightful place is Halstrand, but that is by the by. What is he planning to do then?”

“He’s obsessed with his son,” said Joel. “He’s convinced Lachlan is plotting to move armed forces downriver to secure the Junction, and then from there to move out and establish the Embodiment’s authority over Edge City and the rest of the Shelf. And from there, the Serpent’s Back and all the scattered settlements of the Burn Plain. The boy’s paranoid.”

Now, Leeth joined in. “We flew over the Junction,” he said. “It’s full of soldiers – there must have been a massive build-up of forces.”

Joel snorted. “It’s always been heavily defended,” he said. “So much of the Rift’s imports come through that place. They are prepared to defend it and that’s exactly the reason we don’t want to provoke them.”

“It is possible to maintain the status quo,” said Petro. “At Halstrand we have been at a stand-off with the Embodiment for three years. They have the largest grouping on the Senate, but they have been unable to convert any of my fellow Principals. Our tributes to Tule have been increased sixfold in that time, but otherwise we have maintained independence through the trade codes and our population is in full support, I think.”

“It’s true that Lachlan is behind the recent movement of military forces through the Rift,” said Sawnie. “Now that he’s a Principal his hand can only be stronger. But if anything the drift has been away from the logical gathering points for movement south. They’ve been recruiting hard but they’re gathering in the Heartlands, not along either of the Two Rivers. They would hardly march south through the Zochi jungle.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Joel. “But I do know that Lachlan has been moving forces in the north and you don’t do that without good reason. He has always regarded his father as a threat. And now that threat resides within a dozen standard leaps of the Junction. I can’t believe Lachlan will do nothing.”

“Are Chi’s forces strong enough to take the Junction?” asked Sawnie.

Petro, shook his head vigorously. “Oh no,” he said melodramatically. “I knew that was in your mind, sister. I just knew it.”

Joel was shaking his head too. “Even if we can take the Junction then we would just be inviting Lachlan to strike back,” he said. “It’s all the excuse he needs.”

“To the best of our information,” said Sawnie, “the largest part of his forces are otherwise occupied. By the time they reorganise and move south we’ll be established. You think it better that we wait until they have strengthened their defences even more before we challenge him?”

“You think he really needs to be challenged?” asked Petro. “Would you take the time to allow me to explain the manifold attractions of a quiet life?”

“We need to assess the threat Lachlan poses,” said Sawnie, ignoring her brother. “If that threat is serious, then we should strike first. The Junction would be their key military stronghold so it should be neutralised. Equally, if we control the Junction, then we control the supply of trade to the north.”

“And that’s exactly why they would never let us get away with it,” said Joel.

They had reached the edge of the shanty town now. As the track descended the escarpment the ramshackle homesteads of the farming community were supplanted by row upon row of lean-to shacks crammed onto shelves cut into the rocky slope. As they passed by, the leader of a group of Raggies armed with knives and clubs acknowledged them with a grim shake of the head.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” asked Leeth, feeling squeezed out by the familial currents of understanding and disagreement flowing between the three siblings. They turned to him, now, and he said, “
Chi
. We still haven’t found your brother.”

~

Chi returned triumphantly late that afternoon.

Leeth was with Sawnie and Petro at the house of Lili. They had left their horses and troops at Joel’s encampment and come here on foot. As dusk started to gather, they sat around a fire, listening to Cotoche’s explanation of Chi’s new nature and, in turn, telling her of their own relationship with their half-brother.

“We knew he had faked his death in the fire at Tule,” said Petro. “He visited us in Halstrand a few years later to explain. I was only a young man, then, and Sawnie was not even adolescent. I fought with him, I remember.” He patted his belly and laughed. “You might not believe it of me now, but I was something of a hothead back then. A challenge was the obvious response to a stranger who first claimed to be a Tullan Senator who had died in a fire and then claimed that our father was not our father and that the stranger was actually our brother. It was the way he said it that really made me mad: as if only a fool would have trouble accepting such outrageous claims the instant they were made.”

“Chi doesn’t find it easy to avoid trouble,” said Cotoche, as if she felt she should apologise for something that happened nearly thirty years ago. “He can’t help himself.”

“Indeed. I hit him once and he fell over, but then instead of continuing as I would normally have done I drew back. He was drunk and I suddenly felt a touch of pity for him. Instead of kicking him where he lay, I helped him to sit and dabbed at some of the blood that was coming from his nose.

“Sawnie was standing nearby, quietly, which was not then her way. I looked at her and she said, ‘Big Pee—’ for that was what she called me ‘—he does have your eyes.’ Chichéne stayed in Halstrand for a time, and we got to know him. More and more, what he said fitted in with inconsistencies in our own background.”

“Have you ever met your father?” asked Leeth.

Petro shook his head. “I dream of him, on occasions, but that is all. Sawnie, here, is thirty-four years old. So far as we know the only one of Donn’s children that is any younger is Red Simeni. Donn must have died not long after Red’s time, I think. He left his offspring as his memorial, so now, if Chi is right, it is up to us to prove worthy of the old man’s legacy.”

Gradually, Leeth had become aware of a growing rush of voices coming towards them. Lili’s house was near the end of one of the many small alleyways, that led off from Jacaranda Street.

Leeth stood and went the short distance past rows of lean-tos to where the alleyway joined the larger street. Now he was more certain. The sound he heard was an excited jabber of voices, cheering and shouting and laughing. Jacaranda Street took a zigzag course down the escarpment to counter the sharp slope and as Leeth looked down over the shacks he saw a procession winding its way up the hill.

He turned and ran back towards Lili’s house and met Cotoche rushing to meet him. He took her hand and turned, tugging her along.

From the street they could see more clearly now: at the head of the procession was a large moke, more than twice the bulk of a horse. Feathers and snakeskins adorned its slender neck and a gaudy throne-like saddle was mounted across its shoulders, its back extending up to support a canopy painted brightly with birds and a sun emblem.

And sitting there, dwarfed by the seat, was a small boy with a beard, multicoloured feathers tied into his hair.

Leeth and Cotoche stood quietly watching as he approached them. Eventually, he spotted them. With a cry of delight, he leapt down from his mount and ran at them. He hurled himself into Cotoche’s arms and the three embraced, each talking, each crying, each laughing. “You’re safe,” sobbed Cotoche, over and over again. “Safe.”

“Course I am,” said Chi, with a big grin. “It’s the other guy you should look out for. I didn’t want to hurt him, I really didn’t. But he made me mad.”

~

Chi recognised his brother and sister the instant he saw them. “Sawnie! Petro!” he cried. “So it’s beginning, at last.”

“What do you want from us?” asked Sawnie, when the greetings were done. “And where have you been?”

Chi sat in Cotoche’s lap and studied his siblings closely. “The time has come,” he said. “The time Donn warned us about – in person and in our dreams. I’ve never feared a living thing in my life, but in my son I created a monster. I know him well and I ignored his evil potential for too long. Now he threatens to bring his brand of brutal repression to lands that have always been free. It’s time for him to be confronted. I called you here in the hope that you would join with me, in our father’s name. We have to raise an army. We have to make a stand.

“And your second question: where have I been? I’ve been with a man I had thought an ally, and I’ve learnt that my judgement is not what it once was.”

~

After running away from Leeth and Cotoche at the Falls, Chi had sobered up quickly. He stopped running about halfway along the tunnel that passed behind the Falls and sat for some time, staring out at the water, his feet dangling in space. He meditated, his skull filled with the roar of the water, drowning out all thoughts.

Shortly, he felt a lot better. He knew he had been trying to provoke Leeth, his behaviour fuelled by the drink. He had wanted someone to lash out at, someone to blame. He emerged from his meditation with a renewed determination to get it right this time. He had had two lives already – in Tule and then on the Serpent’s Back – and he had messed them both up. This time he would do better.

He hurried back along the tunnel, but the only people he saw were worshippers at the shrine, young lovers and families taking time away from the dread monotony of life in Edge City. Out on the terrace, he wandered through the steam-clouds, but there was no sign of Cotoche and Leeth. He asked a few people, and soon he found a pox-scarred old man who told him, “Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. Took them for two girls at first: one a Habnathi, like me – only younger, of course, and a girl, too – and the other one, blonde. He was a boy, the other one, though he had a girl’s face and a kind of skirt which made it hard to tell.”

“Where?” demanded Chi. “Where are they?”

The man shook his head. “You missed them,” he said. “A courser came in and they climbed up on its back and – puff! – disappeared in the clouds. Now, I been standing here talking to you, giving of my time, and I realise, it’s not often you see a littl’un with a beard, who talks with a deep voice like that. So I think: it has to be the man-child. The healer. Now, I’ve been having trouble with this back of mine, it...”