The Dragon in the Sword (22 page)

Von Bek understood that I had received a mild reprimand. He turned to look at me just as we started off again. He winked.

And it was at that moment that I saw his foot stepping directly upon the tip of a grey coil.

“Von Bek!”

He looked at me in horror, realising what I had seen. His eyes widened further in pain. “My God,” he said softly, “it has my calf…”

Then Alisaard was flinging herself downwards, knife poised, left hand stretching full ahead of her.

The dark grey coils were moving slowly but surely up von Bek’s leg. I could see no head, no mouth, no eyes, yet I knew the creature was crawling up his body, seeking the upper parts, the head and face. I reached out to try to tug the thing off and there came a savage metallic hiss from somewhere within the beast. Another coil seemed to detach itself from the main body and cling to my wrist. With my knife I cut at it, trying to slice it, but somehow the knife made no impression at all. Von Bek also used his knife. And with equal impotence. I saw Alisaard’s figure very dimly through the fog. She was still on the ground, growling to herself, cursing in frustration, as if she sought something she had lost. I heard the ivory armour clattering against rocks. I thought I saw her arm rise and fall. And still the smoke snake continued to climb my arm and von Bek’s leg at the same time. I was close to being sick with the horror of it while von Bek’s face was paler than the mist surrounding it.

I looked at the tip of the coil, where it was almost at my shoulder. Now I thought, somewhere within the creature, I saw the faintest suggestion of features. It darted at my face then, as if in outrage at my discovery. I felt a sharp pain in my cheek. I felt blood begin to run down my chin. Almost at once the smoke snake’s head revealed a scarcely visible but distinct mouth full of long, thin teeth, of vibrating nostrils, the suggestion of a tongue.

And, thanks to my blood, the head now glowed a delicate and horrifying pink.

6

W
ITHIN SECONDS THE
smoke snake had begun to turn a darker red. Its other head reached von Bek’s face and struck, as it still struck at mine, taking tiny, almost dainty, bites of my flesh. I knew it would continue to bite in this way until my head was nothing but a white skull on my body. I believe I screamed something, but I cannot remember the words. It was a prospect of death all the more terrifying because it would not be quick. I waved my knife in front of the head, which now displayed glaring crimson eyes, hoping somehow to distract it. But it had a strange kind of patience. It was as if it waited until it perceived a gap in my defence then it would dart through again. And again my face would sting from a further wound. I remembered scars on a traveller’s face at the Great Massing. I remembered wondering what had pocked him so. And I yelled again. At least, I thought, it was possible to escape the smoke snake. That man had done so, though it had cost him an eye and half his face.

Von Bek was yelling, too. There was an appalling inevitability about the creature’s attack. As our arms grew more tired, as it became steadily more and more visible, thanks to our blood, it merely waited, maintaining its grip on our limbs and occasionally giving vent to that awful metallic hissing.

What made the experience worse for me was that the creature no longer seemed angry. It was a simple enough organism, I supposed. It only reacted when it believed itself attacked. When it had its coils about something, that something was then tasted. If the taste was good, that something simply became the smoke snake’s ordinary prey. It probably could not even remember its initial reason for attacking von Bek. It had no reason to hurry now. It could take a leisurely meal.

I tried to stab the fanged maw with the knife again. All logic suggested that the creature which could inflict such wounds must therefore be able to receive such wounds. But it was not so. My knife, cutting and slashing wildly, found only the tiniest resistance and a faint, pinkish dust seemed to surround the head like a halo for a moment before being reintegrated back into the bulk of the animal.

All this, of course, in a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, Alisaard continued to curse and shout. I could not see her at all. I could only hear, as if in the back of my mind, her rattling armour and her animal-like grunts and howls of frustrated action.

Von Bek’s face looked as if he had been weeping tears of blood. Streamers of blood ran down his cheeks. Part of his left ear had been torn away. He had a bite, swollen with blood, in the very centre of his forehead. He drew rapid, sobbing breaths. His eyes spoke not so much of a fear of death but of the horror and pointlessness of the manner of his death.

Then I heard Alisaard’s cry change. It was almost a howl of triumph. A kind of ululation. I still could not see anything of her, save a white hand grabbing for the insubstantial main body of the smoke snake. She uttered a sort of prolonged groan. I saw her knife dart out of the fog and her other hand seemed to strike at the identical spot.

The smoke snake reared back. I was sure it would take one of my eyes. I brought my hand up to shield myself. Unable to see the snake I might easily have believed the thing did not exist, save in my imagination. It had virtually no weight. Yet it held me tight.

I heard von Bek give vent to a huge roar. I thought the thing had struck some vital spot and, still without looking, threw myself forward, even while I knew I was incapable of saving him. But there would be some value, I remember thinking, if one died in such an attempt. There is consolation for certain souls, even in the moment of the most hideous and violent death.

I felt two arms embrace me. I opened my eyes. The smoke snake’s coils no longer writhed around half von Bek’s body. I wondered if he and I were already dead. If this were some anodyne illusion of safety as our lifeblood bloated the belly of our antagonist.

“Herr Daker!” I heard von Bek say in some surprise. “He appears to have fainted, my lady.”

I lay on the ground. I saw my friends staring down at me. There was amusement as well as anxiety there. I looked at them. I felt tremendous relief that they lived. And I felt again that demeaning pang of jealousy as I saw their heads come together above mine. “No,” I murmured. “You must be Ermizhad. Be Ermizhad if only for a moment while I die…”

“That is the name he spoke before,” said Alisaard.

I thought them rather unconcerned that their friend was dying. Were they already dead?

“It is the name of an Eldren woman, like yourself,” I heard von Bek say. “He loves her. He has sought her across the aeons; he has searched for her in so many realms. He thinks you resemble her.”

Her features softened. She removed a glove and touched my face. I moved my lips and said for a second time: “Ermizhad, before I die…” But already reality was returning and I knew I hovered on the edge of play-acting, willing to pretend I was still in a swoon if I could prolong that moment, that feeling of receiving good-hearted and honest sympathy, such as I had once received from Ermizhad and which, I hope, I had given in return. Then I made a great effort and said firmly: “Forgive me, my lady. I am recovered. My senses are about me again. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me how Count von Bek and myself are still amongst the living!”

Von Bek helped me into a sitting position. The fog did not seem quite so dense now. I thought I could see some distance down the hill, to where wide, silver water awaited us.

Alisaard had seated herself upon a rock. She had something small and unlovely at her feet, placed on a flat shard of flint. It, too, seemed to possess thousands of coils, but these were tiny and of no possible danger, unless they were poisoned. She poked at the little black thing with her knife point. It seemed completely lifeless. Indeed, beneath her knife it began to crumble. Parts of it rapidly turned to fine, black dust.

Unbelievingly I said: “Surely that cannot be the remains of the smoke snake?”

She looked up at me, sucking in her lower lip, raising her eyebrows. She nodded.

Von Bek stared down at the fragments. “It was defeated by the commonest of substances in the hands of a most uncommon woman.”

She was pleased by his praise. “I know only one way of killing a smoke snake. You must find its centre. Cut it, and you create as many new creatures as there are fresh pieces. You must make it bleed and kill it at the moment before it can divide. The blood carries that which you use to destroy it. Happily I remembered that. Happily, too, like all Gheestenheemers I travel with my own supplies.”

“But what killed it, Lady Alisaard? How did you save our lives when our weapons had no effect on the thing?”

Von Bek interrupted her. He was laughing. “You’ll see the humour of it, when she tells you. Please, Alisaard, let him not stay in suspense any longer. The poor man’s exhausted!”

Alisaard showed me the palm of her left hand. It had a faint crust of white near the centre. “Salt. We always carry salt.”

“The thing responded as swiftly as any ordinary garden slug!” Von Bek was exultant. “As soon as she found that core—and that was where her courage was unbelievable—she had to strike with her knife to draw blood and apply the salt at the exact same second. The core shrivelled immediately. And we were saved.” He dabbed at the little scabs on his face. The wounds were already healing. They would leave few marks. I supposed myself as lucky. “Nothing to show for it,” my friend added, “but what appears to be the remains of a bad case of acne.”

He helped me to my feet. I presented myself to the Lady Alisaard. Now she resembled my Ermizhad even closer than she had at first. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Lady Alisaard. I thank you for my life.”

“You would have given yours trying to save Count von Bek,” she said gently as she flipped the dead core out into the mist. “Luckily I had a little more knowledge of these things.” She looked with a mixture of merriment and sternness at von Bek. “And let us hope a certain gentleman does better at watching his feet rather than his comrade if he comes this way again.”

Chastened, von Bek became an exemplary German nobleman. He drew himself upright and at attention. He clicked his heels and bowed in acknowledgement of what he regarded as a just condemnation of his folly.

Both Alisaard and I found it difficult to hide our amusement at his sudden adoption of formal manners.

“Come,” she said then, “we must make haste to reach the lower slopes. There we shall be out of the domain of the smoke snakes and can rest without much fear of any further attacks. It is too late now to approach the city, for it is their custom to refuse all visitors after dark. But in the morning, refreshed, we can go there and hope they will agree to help us find Morandi Pag.”

With the mist at last above us and twilight bringing further chill, the three of us drew close together for warmth as we stretched out on the springy and rather comfortable turf of the slope. I remember looking down into the valley where it widened out into a kind of bay overlooking the lake. In this bay and along the riverbank for some distance inland I could see lights winking, fires blazing. I thought I heard voices, although these could have been the sounds of flocks of jet-black carrion birds as they crowded home to their nests in the upper crags. I wondered at the city. I could see no buildings of any kind. I could see no ships, though I thought there were some quays and piers at the water’s edge. Further along the shore of the lake there grew a deep, thick wood whose trees primarily resembled oaks. From this, too, now emerged some lights, as if foresters made their way homeward. Again I looked in vain for buildings. I wondered vaguely as I fell into a deep and exhausted slumber if, like the smoke snakes, the city and its residents were invisible to the human eye. I remembered something of another people who had been called “ghosts” by those who refused to understand them and I tried to bring the memory into sharper focus. But, as often happened with my overcrowded brain, I could not quite grasp the full recollection. It had something, I thought, to do with Ermizhad. I turned my head. In the last of the light I looked directly into Alisaard’s sleeping face.

And in the privacy of the night I believe I wept for Ermizhad before sleep came to fling me into further torment. For I dreamed of a hundred women: a hundred who had been betrayed by warlike men and heroic folly, by their own deepest feelings of love, by their romantic idealism. I dreamed of a hundred women. And I knew each of them by name. I had loved each of them. And every one was Ermizhad. And every one I had lost.