Riding the Serpent's Back (51 page)

“But they were gods.”

Donn shook his head. “Their stories became the stories of gods only in the retelling. History moves in cycles. Just as each Era is born and is inevitably destroyed, so the stories of its development repeat themselves again and again.”

Leeth stared at the frozen image of Chi, broken only by a few ripples on the surface of the lava pool. “You think I should never have left him. Never have...run away.”

“Qez was the feathered-serpent god,” said Donn. “And Litherameran became his confidant and mentor. Your place is at Chichéne’s side, boy. You should never have fled: you should have learnt to ride the serpent’s back, as Litherameran did.”

Leeth was thinking of Cotoche again. “I don’t know if I can,” he said.

Donn’s expression changed, as if shutters had been slammed across it. “Like I told you,” he said. “You are a drifter. A disappointment. I had expected so much more of you.” He turned one wheel of his chair so that he faced the sea again. Slowly, he propelled himself across to where he had been earlier, watching the waves crashing onto the flanks of his volcano home.

Leeth started to follow him, then stopped as Donn twisted back to confront him. “I’ve had enough,” he said. “I’m tired. So tired. And you irritate me with your selfishness. Housekeeper will show you out. And if you ever try to come back here again, before I deem you worthy to be called the son of Donn, I will have you killed. Do you understand? Now go.”

He turned away, and sat staring out at the rough northern sea.

~

Leeth was shown through another series of twisting passageways to the end of the main causeway. Before departing, he turned to the housekeeper, who stood watching him with a docile expression on his face. “Tell him I’m not bitter,” he said. “I still love him as Muranitharan Annash.”

The housekeeper nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “His moods, you know. Bad day.” He shrugged, smiled, looked away.

Leeth turned and walked back along the causeway. When he reached the end, the gatekeeper stood holding the barrier to one side. “I’m sorry,” he told Leeth. “But, as I told you, I had no instructions to let anyone in.”

“Only to let me out,” finished Leeth.

The gatekeeper nodded.

“I met your brother, the housekeeper,” said Leeth, as the gatekeeper swung the barrier shut.

“Brother? Oh no. We just look alike. It amuses the master. He likes things that amuse him. Did you amuse him?”

Sadly, Leeth shook his head.

He set off up the track to where Sky would be waiting.

~

Donn sat, leaning towards the lava pool, peering into the distance.

His housekeeper approached him cautiously, unsure of his mood. “Your son said—”

“I know,” snapped Donn, irritably. “Young fool.” Then he pointed into the depths of the pool.

The housekeeper stared at it until he could make out the shapes of three people: a crooked-nosed soldier, a priest-seer and a young votary.

“...any brother of Chichéne Pas is an enemy of the Embodiment,” the votary was saying eagerly. “And Ellen Barde-Hamera said he had been fighting alongside Chichéne Pas, too. He should be stopped.”

With a brief, dismissive gesture, the soldier interrupted the boy. He looked at the priest-seer and said, “Can you tell us where he will be?”

The seer, pressed a hand to her head and rolled her eyes.

“Actress!” cried Donn, cackling and rocking from side to side in his chair.

Eventually, the seer nodded. “There are possibilities,” she said. “And there are probabilities. I can be no more accurate than that. Is it enough?”

The soldier nodded.

Donn rocked back in his chair and turned to his housekeeper. “What do you say, eh?” he asked. “A challenge for the boy, no? Another little test...”

Red wrapped Estelle in his arms and they might just as easily have been back in the summer house in the Garden of Statues. Apart from Estelle’s somewhat ripe body odour and the smell of gin on her breath. And, of course, the snake coiled around their legs, binding them together.

Her hands moved up to the back of his head, holding him in place as she pressed her mouth against his. In all their frantic rendezvous, he had never known her so desperate for him, her tongue so eager. He let his hands slide down her back, amazed that it felt no different: no loose shiftings of skin over destroyed tissue, as he had dreaded; none of the blisters and wide, dark bruising he had seen on the other people of the ophidy refuge.

As they kissed, he looked into her eyes and saw the pupils dark and wide. She was staring past him, focusing somewhere in the distance.

He broke his mouth away and gasped, “Estelle, are you okay? Are you...?”

Suddenly she gave the little smirk he knew so well. She moved her hands down and yanked his shirt open, buttons popping away across the floor. She lowered her head and kissed his chest, her hands moving lower to release the clasp of his belt.

Red looked around. For a moment he had been oblivious, but now he was suddenly aware of the crowd all around, watching them. Men and women, their faces and bodies red and peeling, leaned forward, waving bottles and pieces of clothing, or maybe even skin. He heard their voices raised in laughter and shouting and he wondered how many of these people had been with his beloved Estelle. He felt the snake release its grip and drop to the floor as Estelle’s mouth moved down to his belly. He put his hands on her head, trying to raise her, but she tugged his trousers down to his knees and took him deep in her mouth.

He cried out, staggered – her mouth felt so hot!

Then she pulled her head away, rocked back on her heels and started to sway about, mimicking the movements her snake had been making. As she did this, Red felt the creature sliding up his leg, twisting about his waist. He felt the movements of its muscles beneath its smooth, warm scales.

Estelle settled back on the paved floor of the hall and gradually, relentlessly, Red felt the weight of the snake across his shoulders pulling him down, forwards.

He staggered to his knees and then fell full length onto Estelle. Instantly, her tongue drove into his mouth and she reached down to guide him into place. As they started to move against each other the snake wove itself through their four legs, binding them in a knot of scaly flesh.

~

Eventually, the party broke up and Red and Estelle slept fitfully in a corner of the open-sided building.

When they woke, they looked cautiously at each other. Red cleared his throat and raised his knees in a vain attempt to disguise how much he wanted her again, already. “Well,” he said. “And I thought we had already tried everything.”

“Oh no,” said Estelle. “You’d be surprised.”

A short time later, they found their clothes and dressed. They walked slowly through the settlement. The buildings were constructed of stone and wood. Those by the island’s small quay had been painted white in a manner more traditional in the far north. The place had a strange air of domesticity about it today – just a normal fishing village.

They stared out over the water to the distant shore. Estelle took a small clump of leaves from a fold in her dress and offered some to Red. “It’s good,” she said. “You need it out here.”

He slipped it into his mouth and chewed, sensing an immediate lifting of his spirits. For a time they watched a group of men winding a big pulley, towing a raft in from the bay where it had been filled from a supply barge.

“You’re still so beautiful,” he said. “You seem untouched by this thing.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Estelle. “There’s a lot said about ophidy that isn’t true. These people have the mildest form – it’s not the same as the disease that causes epidemics on the mainland. Not nearly as deadly. Chronic ophidy’s painful and ugly and you can die from infections, but it’s rarely bad enough to kill on its own.”

“Then why are they exiled out here?”

Estelle looked at him. “Prejudice. Convenience.” She smiled, and added, “Aesthetics, too – you think people would be happy with someone who looked like Jon Pascal for a neighbour?”

“How long until you become like these people? How long until I do?”

Estelle took his hand and led him away from the quay, back into the village. She was smiling. “Come with me,” she said. “Come and meet my protector.”

They stopped before a small stone building, little different from any other. Nearby was a dark pit; when Red peered into its depths he saw a writhing mass of snakes. He shuddered, thinking of the morning he had spent with Estelle. He looked at the building instead. The door was open and he could see someone moving inside.

“I’m back,” called Estelle. “Come and see who’s here.”

Red watched as a tall woman emerged from the hut, completely naked except for the twist of snakeskin tying her dark hair back from her face. She smiled warmly when she saw Red.

Estelle released Red’s hand and rushed forward to embrace her protector, the familiarity of their touch making it quite clear to Red that the two were lovers.

He should have guessed, he supposed: Estelle’s protector was the mage, Oriole.

~

That evening, he had an even bigger surprise.

He lay slumbering on the sleeping mat in the single bedroom of Estelle’s house. She had been away all afternoon with Oriole and he was quite certain the two of them had been partying in some other house. She had been sent here to be a whore, after all, and she seemed quite settled in the role.

Strangely, he felt no jealousy. It seemed just another way of life in this place. He thought he should have some stronger feelings about it all, but as he lay there, sleeping off the effects of that leaf Estelle had given him, he couldn’t really be bothered.

They came back as it was getting dark, and Red sensed an air of anticipation about them. They stared down at him where he lay, and he thought for a moment that they would join him. Instead, they each took a hand and pulled him to his feet. They dressed him, then, fussing over him as if he was a child. When they had finished, they brushed their clothes down with their hands.

“Come on,” said Estelle, reaching for him again. “Let’s go to the quay.”

A small crowd was waiting by the water and Red wondered what was going to happen: the refuge had no boats, after all, apart from the raft anchored out in the bay to receive supplies.

And then, in the growing darkness, Red saw some lights approaching across the water. Eventually, he distinguished the outline of a barge and then, finally, he recognised it.

Coming towards the island was the Principal’s barge.

Red looked at Estelle and saw that she had been watching him all along, the familiar lop-sided smirk on her face. “He started coming here about a month ago,” she said. “He’s become obsessed. All this—” she gestured to indicate the island and the tattered people “—it turns him on. He loves all this.”

Red stared at her aghast, but that only made her smile more broadly. “Red, my dear,” she said, pressing her fingers to the corners of his mouth, trying to shape it into a smile. “Remember how it used to be? Everything was a game.” She reached up and kissed him briefly. “It still is. It always has been and always will be.”

Red looked from Estelle to the approaching barge, certain that he would soon be dead. Then he shook his head, his mind losing track.

Estelle squeezed his hand. “Trust me,” she said. “I’ll go on board first, with Oriole. We’ll break it to Pieter gently. He’ll be pleased to see you – he really will. Trust me.”

When the barge had docked, Estelle skipped up the ramp and was soon lost from sight. Oriole followed her at a more dignified pace.

Red stood and watched as a number of barrels were rolled down the ramp to the waiting islanders. He noted that although the crew kept their distance, they didn’t seem particularly concerned at their proximity to the dreaded disease.

Eventually, Estelle re-emerged, pulling Pieter by the hand. They came down the ramp, followed by Oriole. The Principal saw Red immediately, and his expression barely faltered.

Estelle danced about at his side like a schoolgirl and when they came close to Red she took his hand, too. “Come on,” she said.

Pieter glanced at her, and then back at Red. There was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, but Red couldn’t quite place it. Then he decided that it was the other way around: something that had once been alive behind his eyes was now dead.

Red watched as the Principal slowly opened his arms wide.

Red stepped forward and for a moment Pieter hesitated and then the two embraced.

~

The previous night’s party had not been a special event.

“It’s the same every night,” Jon Pascal told Red. The man with half a face seemed to sense Red’s low spirits that evening and was trying to cheer him up by smoking a pipe through the side of his face as he spoke. Red had seen most party tricks, but never this one. He smiled wanly, but still his eyes wandered across the ever-moving crowd.

He had seen little of Pieter after that clumsy embrace: whatever had changed in the Principal, it was clear that he still felt a resentment towards Red. Now, he thought Pieter and Estelle must have retreated to the barge. He realised that it was irrational, yet he felt more jealous of Pieter than he did of any of the sick inhabitants of this island whom Estelle had been exiled to entertain.

Jon was drawing smoke in through his mouth and puffing smoke-rings out of the gap in his cheek now. “It’s been like this ever since the Principal started coming ’ere,” he said, picking up a thread Red thought he had abandoned. “Bringing the barrels and bottles and food straight out of the palace kitchens. He’s a good man, the Principal: he sees that we are people like ’imself and so ’e comes ’ere to keep us entertained.”

“He appears to be keeping himself pretty well entertained at the moment,” said Red.

“Oh yes,” said Jon. “Halfway to being a wit you are, ha ha! ’E’s a man of privacy, you see. The Principal. ’E’s aware how it is that ordinary people can’t quite relax when one of his calibre is in their presence. Very aware, ’e is.”

Suddenly Oriole was among them, wearing a long black dress very like the one Red had first seen her in. Without asking, she reached down, took his hand and hauled him to his feet.