Riding the Serpent's Back (26 page)

“Lachlan is already making it,” said Kester. “Invasion of the south is not an immediate priority for him.”

“What
is
his priority?”

“He’s building a city,” said Kester. “He’s building a new capital.”

~

Instead of travelling by boat, through the lakes and then down the Hamadryad, Kester had chosen to ride directly from Totenang. Her route would take her through the agricultural lands fed by tributaries of the Little Hamadryad and from there across the Rift’s central plains, the Heartlands, until she came to Stopover, the port at the northern end of the New Cut.

The journey passed without incident until she was four days’ ride into the Heartlands. The land here was dry and dusty, covered with grass and a scrub of cacti and thorn-bushes. All that normally lived here were lizards and snakes and a few clans of nomads who followed the herds of semi-feral mokes and wild horses which, in turn, followed the region’s sporadic rains.

The railway line took her completely by surprise.

She dismounted and studied it more closely. The metal rails were untarnished, the blonde wooden sleepers not yet darkened by exposure to the air and sun.

As she tried to understand, the rails began to hum, and she led her horse away to shelter in a patch of scrub. The train came past, eventually, travelling at little more than walking pace, struggling against a heavy load. Most of the wagons were covered, but Kester saw great blocks of marble on some, timber and slate on others.

She judged that the line would pass through the centre of the Heartlands, eventually intersecting with the Hamadryad in the west.

Resuming her journey, she dismissed the line as just another new trade route to take goods to the river, and from there, the capital.

She learnt what was really happening from one of the nomadic families she encountered the next day.

She was relieved when she spotted the small cluster of tents, with the horses and goats tied up outside. She needed to trade for supplies for the rest of her journey.

She was greeted by a man with a double-headed wood-axe and a string of invective. “Please,” she said, ready to flee if he proved to be as hostile as he looked. “I’m a traveller. I’m looking for food and water.” Reluctantly, the man lowered his axe and called his wife out from where she had been hiding in the tent.

They haggled for a while over Kester’s supplies, then she asked them about the new railway line. Instantly, the aggressive look flashed in the man’s eyes. “I saw it yesterday,” she said. “I didn’t know it existed.”

“It’s for the new city,” said the woman. “It’s for the city they’re building at the heart of the plains.”

~

“That’s why your son is moving his forces in the north,” said Kester. “He’s building a new capital city at the geographical centre of the Rift.”

Chi laughed. “But there’s nothing there!” he cried. “You mean to say he’s building this new monument to his ego on an ancient lava-field in the middle of nothing. The soils are so thin they’ll have to bring all their food from the rivers.”

“Their water, too,” said Petro. “The region is not exactly famous for the reliability of its rains and there are only a few streams there at the best of times.”

Leeth noticed that Joel was looking relieved. The horseman leaned down from his mount and said, “Now that we are better informed about what is happening, perhaps we can forget any extravagant plans to gather an army and take over the Junction. The threat from the north was illusory. We can relax.”

Even the hard-nosed Sawnie seemed ready to agree with her brother, but Kester shook her head vehemently. “No,” she said. “You don’t understand. The True Church of the Embodiment has been preparing for this for years, under Lachlan’s supervision. They have worked through the cyclicals and all the ancient histories, they have sent out parties of Talented diviners to ensure that their calculations are accurate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lachlan’s new capital is to be called Samhab,” said Kester. “They have found the site of the ancient city and they are rebuilding it stone by stone. When it’s complete they believe they will be able to tap into the power of the earth and the Embodiment will rule with the complete authority of the gods.”

Nobody had expected that. Leeth looked around at the shocked, disbelieving faces.

The city of Samhab was said to have been the first city. After Habna had created the world, he created Samna to sustain it, and together they created the lesser gods to help them in their dual duties of creation and destruction. At the start of each of the world’s five Eras, Habna and his brother had created a divine city from where the True Families would rule the lesser peoples of the world. As long as they lived in the first city, the True Families were granted divine authority, and with it, divine Talents.

Lachlan was rebuilding Samhab so that he could rule as a god.

“It’s the folly that confirms his madness,” said Chi. “Perhaps it’s for the best: let him divert his mad energies into this project. It will beat him. He will drive the people so hard that, one day, they will turn against him. He’s doing our work for us.”

Petro was shaking his head. “I think you miss the significance,” he said. “I don’t doubt that your son is insane. But are his advisers and diviners all mad, too?”

“He has a mage,” said Kester. “Some say she’s the driving force behind his new madness.”

“
She?
” said Joel, looking pale.

Kester looked up at him. She had heard his story earlier. “Lachlan’s mage is Oriole,” she told him. “The one who made you as you are.”

Joel nodded once, without expression, but Leeth sensed his wave of revulsion through the horse’s mind-shapes. “What does this all mean?” Leeth asked, trying to be practical, trying to find a focus.

“If our sister is right,” said Petro, “then a lot of resources have been devoted to replicating the ancient city in every detail. A lot of planning has gone into this, and the efforts of a lot of good minds and—” he glanced at Joel “—Talented individuals. They must be fairly confident that they know what they are doing. What if they are correct? Consider the consequences if the power this might release is put in the hands of Lachlan Pas.”

“The power of the gods?” said Chi. “Be serious, man.”

“I am. We could argue into the night about the actuality of the gods of the cyclicals, but that misses the point. You’ve claimed before that religion is merely a mystical justification for the existence of Talents. Do I paraphrase you correctly?”

Chi shrugged. “Near enough,” he said, begrudgingly.

“In that case, such an argument only refutes the existence of the gods, not that of the Talents. You cannot deny the power some of us retain to reach out into the fabric of the world and wreak transformation – you do so yourself, more powerfully than most. The legend of this city is that if it is constructed correctly, and in its precise historical location, these powers are magnified. You would trust your son with such gifts?”

“You use a lot of ‘ifs’ in your argument,” said Chi.

“You would take the risk?” persisted Petro.

“That’s not the point,” said Kester. “Or rather, it is, but there’s more. Lachlan’s scheme explains the increased tributary demands Tule has been placing on the allied cities and regions of the Rift over the last year or so. As I came south from the Heartlands I made some enquiries. His demands are bleeding entire communities dry. He’s using forced labour to build his mad city. The reason he’s moved so much of the army into the Heartlands is to keep the enslaved workers under control. They send press gangs roaming through the countryside in search of more labourers. Any man or woman not of True blood is at risk. In Tule the old women dance alone in protest outside the buildings of the Senate, their arms empty of their lost husbands and sons. Rumours spread like fire. I heard of mass punishments where those who resist the press gangs are laid down in the street and stamped under foot by horses and mokes ridden by votaries and priests. Parents who protest are made to watch as drunken soldiers rape their children. Some say objectors have been forced to eat their slaughtered relatives, or that Lachlan’s followers routinely dine on their fallen opponents.

“I only heard the stories,” said Kester. “I don’t know how much is true. But I was chased by a press gang on one occasion, and I heard the lust for blood in their cries. I spoke to families who have lost sons and daughters, children who have lost parents.

“I promised our father that I would join you when you called,” Kester said, finally. “But if you choose only to stay here and hide, then I will leave immediately for the north. Chi, your son has to be stopped. There’s no place left for argument.”

Chi had tears in his eyes. “It’s my fault,” he said. “He’s my son. I made him what he is.”

Joel shook his head. “He’s a madman,” he said. “He made himself.”

~

Any decisions taken that night were soon put aside.

When the reunion had finally broken up, Chi insisted that the new arrivals should stay with him for the night. Sawnie tried to make excuses: their followers and horses were out at Joel’s camp at Bilterswood – they would go with the horseman and return in the morning. Kester did not seem concerned where she spent the night; her journey had finally caught up with her and she could sleep standing up if she only had a wall to lean against.

“Really,” said Sawnie, again. “We’ll go with Joel.”

“No,” said Chi.

Leeth recognised the boy’s mood. Although he knew it would be pointless, he tried to back up Sawnie. “There’s no room,” he said, gesturing into the small shack. “We’d have to take it in turns.”

Chi turned on him angrily. “Then sleep in the street!” he shouted. “My brother and sisters are staying here.”

Leeth slept in the open, sharing a blanket with Petro who joined him out of solidarity.

As a result, both were nearly dead before morning.

~

Petro settled himself and looked out across the valley. The mists had drifted up from the Burn Plain tonight and only the strongest fires pricked the darkness.

Leeth pulled his half of the blanket up to his chin.

“Don’t let him bully you,” said Petro. “He enjoys it too much.”

Leeth was silent for a while, then he said, “I thought I was close to him. I thought I served a purpose by being here when he needed me.”

“The stoat and the weasel are close,” said Petro. “But one would just as soon kill the other. I do not suggest that my brother would kill you, but he would certainly blind himself to your worth. He owes you a lot: maybe that is why he is so hostile. Chi never liked to be in anyone’s debt.”

Leeth found that he slept better outside the hut. Away from Cotoche and the boy, away from whatever noises they made in the night.

He woke stiff, though, the chill air freezing his joints so that it hurt even to breathe.

It was still dark.

Leeth had the vague half-memory of a dream, a turbulence of thoughts that had dragged him to consciousness. He made himself sit and rub at his painful neck, and then he realised that it was still there: that knot of disturbance lodged somewhere inside his head.

He concentrated for a moment, and then he recognised the sensation, the shapes of the thoughts: animal in origin. If Sky ever became agitated, Leeth felt it like this; when Joel had first arrived and Harken had been nervy he had felt this way too.

And Harken had been upset because he had subliminally sensed that an earthquake was imminent.

“Petro!” cried Leeth. He struggled to his knees and shook the fat man awake.

Petro sat up and fumbled in a pocket for his spectacles. Leeth grabbed him by an arm and hauled him to his feet just as the ground started to rumble.

Petro fell and Leeth crouched by him, then the ground lurched and leapt and continued to roll and heave and it was all Leeth could do to hang onto his sleeping partner and pray desperately to any god who would listen.

They lay clinging to each other as screams and cries pierced the night above the thunderous roar of the ground. The rumble seemed to find an echo in Leeth’s body and he felt his flesh trembling violently in time with the shaking of the ground, his teeth rattling in his mouth. He felt that he was being pulled apart, felt the hard ground thumping him in the side repeatedly as it quaked.

When it was over, Leeth lay hugging Petro for several long seconds. Then he slowly released his grip and pushed himself away.

Twisting into a sitting position, he peered through the darkness. Where he and Petro had lain, there was a heap of adobe rubble: the shack’s walls had collapsed outwards, exactly as they had been designed to do.

He scrambled to his feet. There were figures struggling under the collapsed roof of the shack, and the shacks to either side. Suddenly, Leeth realised the scale of what had happened: if Chi’s hut had been levelled, then it was probable that the vast majority of Edge City had been destroyed in the quake.

He hauled at a bundle of palm-leaves and immediately someone struggled upright. Kester. Together, they pulled more debris clear and Sawnie, then Chi, wriggled free.

Leeth approached a dark shape and with a heavy sense of dread pulled leaves and rubble clear. He crouched down and reached out a hand.

Cotoche stirred, then rolled onto her back. Leeth took her head onto his lap and smoothed the hair away from her face. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

~

Morning revealed how widely the night’s devastation had spread. Great swathes of the shanty-town had been flattened, while others – by virtue of the local rock, or the pattern of the quake’s spread, nobody knew – had not been touched. The ritual wailing of those mourning the dead filled the air for days, and red – signifying the blood of the lost – became the predominant colour apart from the pervasive muddy brown of those who had been digging in the mud-slips in search of bodies or the increasingly infrequent survivors.

Leeth’s concerns were entirely selfish for the rest of the night. He sat with Cotoche’s head cradled in his lap, while Chi squatted at his side, clutching the hand of his mother and lover. “She’s all right,” the boy insisted. “She’s just resting.” Leeth didn’t know if the boy’s words were true or if they were the words of a desperate child unable to come to terms with imminent loss.