Two Serpents Rise (23 page)

A roar answered from the valley, larger, deeper, a sound made by no human throat.

Shaken, he returned to the Wardens, who stood with weapons bared, roused by his cry or the valley’s answer. They packed quickly, and flew south.

By day’s end the Drakspine peaks mellowed into farms and bare hills. Here, amid long dry rows of wheat, the Wardens kept observation posts, small adobe buildings beside barn-sized hutches where Couatl warmed their eggs. Caleb’s escorts spent most of the evening writing reports; afterward, he challenged them and the other attendant Wardens to a quick game. As he played, he did not look the goddess in the eye.

Talking over cards, he listened for news, but heard little more than farmers’ gossip, rumors of Scorpionkind raids on outlying settlements. When he asked about the city, the Wardens glanced at one another and claimed they had heard nothing certain.

They reached Dresediel Lex the next morning. Serpents of smoke tangled in the air above Sansilva. Caleb’s heart leapt, but when they crested the Drakspine he saw the damage was limited to the 700 block. Some shops burned, that was all, a few lives destroyed. Wardens circled above emptied streets.

They landed in the pyramid’s parking lot, strewn with broken bottles, rocks, clapboard signs, all the detritus of a protest turned riot. Two Wardens met them and rushed Caleb across the lot into the pyramid. Glancing over his shoulder he saw Muerte Coffee, empty, its front window webbed with cracks.

His escorts bore him wordlessly across a lobby manned with guards and security demons, into a waiting lift. By the sixtieth floor, he stopped asking questions.

The foyer of the Red King’s office was empty save for dark leather furniture, a grim portrait on one wall, and Anne, Kopil’s secretary, at her desk. She acknowledged Caleb with a curt nod, and turned a stone desktop idol counterclockwise; the double doors behind her, marked with deaths-heads, opened without sound. The Wardens thrust him into the shadow beyond, and the doors slammed shut.

“Caleb.”

The voice was weak, a bare suggestion of wind. For a confused moment he thought it belonged to his father, captive, tortured, and he turned in slow terror of what he might see.

He stood in Kopil’s office, beneath the crystal dome on the pyramid’s peak—the office without entrance or exit. There was no sign of the doors through which he had come.

A hospital bed rested near the altar-desk. The carpet was rolled back, and someone had drawn a mandala around the bed with white and purple and yellow sand. Red sheets clad the mattress, and a red robe wrapped the skeleton who lay upon it.

The shadows that clung to Kopil looked light and insubstantial. His gestures were weak, the sparks of his eyes dull and rust-colored. The Kopil who confronted Caleb in this office months before had been a river in flood, and here he lay at ebb.

Caleb stared. Everything he could say seemed wrong.

The King in Red beckoned Caleb with a twitch of his fingers. He approached.

Bare jaws worked silently until the Deathless King could speak. “What happened?”

“You look different,” he said, and wished he had said something else.

“I am different,” Kopil replied with a low, grating laugh like a snake’s rattle. “I lie reduced, and the water flows. It has been half a century since I last felt weakness. Do they appreciate what I do for them, I wonder.”

“There are people who have sacrificed more,” he said, though he didn’t know why, “and lived less comfortably, with death their only promise of release.”

Kopil did not seem to understand what he had said, or if he understood, did not care. “Is Seven Leaf Lake ours again?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

Caleb did, though he left out many details. He did not mention his scars, or Mal’s acquaintance with Allesandre, or her bloodletting and their fight beneath the lake. Dates, times, names, these he related with precision. Four and her team deserved commendations for their service. Seven Leaf was safe again, and the water flowed.

He spoke of the agony of the gods in the lake, and shuddered when Kopil said, “Good.”

“The riots should stop now,” he said, but the King in Red waved the subject away.

“They were barely worth the name of riot. A tussle with the Wardens. Someone knocked over a few fire barrels, and the coals ignited a line of Sansilva shops. We couldn’t use tainted water on the fire—some Tzimet might survive the heat—so we flew saltwater in from the ocean.”

“The Vale looked quiet when we passed over.”

“Not much trouble there. Wardens arrested a few agitators, prophets proclaiming the Twin Serpents’ return, that sort of thing.”

“Do you think,” Caleb said, but stopped himself.

“What?”

“Do you think they knew we’re drawing the Serpents’ power? Do we have an information leak?”

“One of the men we arrested was a salesman from Centervale with three children and a pending divorce; another, a minor landowner; the third, a junior league ullamal coach. Their wives, husbands, children claim none had any religious history, not even the coach. They dreamed of the Hungry Serpents, and when they woke, they prophesied in tongues of flame.”

“A thousand people must go mad in Dresediel Lex every day.”

“Three thousand. But the visions here were all the same. They saw Aquel and Achal, waking.”

“We only have six weeks to the next eclipse.”

Kopil sighed. “I know. RKC has already volunteered to pay for the fireworks. Fifteen thousand souls for simple merriment. We could buy everyone in the city a cup of decent coffee for that. And yet the revelers must revel.”

“The Serpents are on peoples’ minds as the eclipse nears, is my point. When they go crazy, their madness takes a form to fit their fears. It’s just dream stuff. Nothing serious.”

“Have you ever read Maistre Schatten?”

“Who?”

“Schatten wrote about dreams and myths and the unconscious:
Sleeping Giants
,
The Shadow’s Refuge
,
The Ends of Time
. Did you ever read them?”

“No.”

“I knew the man,” Kopil said. “Old in his fifties, shaken and shattered by a life of delving under the placid surface of his clients’ minds. Do not ignore dreams. They are a line from the past to the future. All nightmares are real.”

“You’re worried.”

“I’m worried,” the King in Red replied. He crooked one finger, and a brown paper envelope floated from his desk to Caleb’s hand. Caleb opened the envelope, and slid Mal’s shark’s-tooth pendant into his palm. The closed-eye glyph and the tracking pattern were cracked and blackened. “Yesterday, the sigils and enchantments on this pendant burned themselves out—around noon, when you struck down Alaxic’s aide.”

Caleb pursed his lips. Allesandre had spouted no True Quechal rhetoric, no promises of the gods’ return. Then again, she had been all but a goddess herself, at the end. And when she usurped Seven Leaf, she had let Tzimet into the water. She would have been a logical poisoner’s agent—she knew Mal was sneaking into Bright Mirror and North Station. As Alaxic’s aide, as Mal’s friend, Allesandre could have set Mal up, pointed her toward a dealer in Quechal artifacts who would give her the tracking amulet. Only the faintest strands of the deal would lead back to Allesandre herself. “Interesting,” he said.

“Are you still in contact with the cliff runner from whom you took this amulet?”

He blinked. “I could try to track her down. I don’t know if she’ll talk to me.” Both statements were true.

“The talisman is dead. Even the tracking signals have ceased. Only broken glyphs remain. My people copied the glyphs, studied the tooth down to its component atoms, and found nothing. This supposed link between your cliff runner and Alaxic’s aide is our only lead. Find the runner. Ask her if she recognizes a woman of Allesandre’s description. You may offer to return the talisman, if she requests it in exchange. Report back to me on your success.”

Caleb slid the tooth into his jacket pocket. “I’ll try.” No need to say more than that.

“Do.” Kopil clicked his teeth together three times, and rested his skull back against the pillow. “Weak, I feel something like fear again.”

“I don’t understand,” Caleb said.

“We’ve built a world in the last six decades, but it has not endured the test of time. We inhabit the gods’ abandoned buildings like spiders in an old house. Madmen flock to worship departed lords and dead ladies, to tear down all we have built. They seem to hate me. Perhaps they’re right to do so.”

“No.”

“Gods perished at my hand half a century ago. Was that for any purpose, beyond satisfying my vanity, my lust for vengeance?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

Caleb pointed to the altar stone. “It’s been sixty years since the last death on that altar.” He saw Mal again, blood black against her dusky skin. “Our city is cruel. It exploits its children. But it does not corral those it fears and hates, does not kill them to appease bogeymen. There’s a lot wrong with this world you’ve made, sir, but that much is right.”

Kopil lay still beneath blood-colored sheets and blood-colored robes.

“I take it your time with Ms. Kekapania did not go well,” said the King in Red, after a time.

“No,” Caleb replied. “It did not.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.”

“You are right, of course. About the sacrifice, and the value of our creation. But do not underestimate the power of dreams.” The red sparks in his eye sockets blinked out. “I see the Serpents when I sleep, too.”

Caleb said nothing.

“You may leave.”

A Warden flew him home over the Drakspine. Dry heat sucked his blood and spirit. Yet, standing for the first time in days outside his own house, in full sunlight, he could not shake the chill from his bones.

30

Zolin, the finest ullamal player in the world, tore down the narrow court. She dodged defenders, juggling the heavy rubber ball from knee to knee. It struck her flesh with a thick sound. Ten thousand onlookers watched from the stands, and did not breathe.

For two hours Zolin’s squad had lagged behind, but in the last thirty minutes, through a haze of exhaustion, the Dresediel Lex Sea-Lords had closed the gap in score through luck and grim determination. In ordinary games, the audience laughed, cried, shouted obscenities at the stripe-robed, monstrously masked referees; tonight, they waited and hoped for a moment of magic.

Zolin spun clear of the last blocker and struck the ball with the crown of her head. It flew over the opposing team toward the gaping mouth of the serpent statue at the arena’s far end. That serpent was Aquel, the Creeping Hunger; across the field coiled Achal, the Kindled Flame.

For two thousand years, this game had been a cornerstone of Quechal religion. Play mimicked the Hero Sisters’ sacrifice to the Serpents, at the beginning of the world. Modern fans cared little for mythology. Neither did Zolin. But if there was an afterlife, and she met ancient players there, she would play circles around them all.

The ball soared, a blur of black and bone, struck the inside of the serpent’s mouth, and disappeared down its gullet. A bell rang.

Roars of triumph filled the arena. Beer and wine showered like rain onto the sand; torn programs and strips of cloth joined the deluge. Zolin raised her arms and leapt into the air. Sweat flew from her skin. Her teeth gleamed like pearls. She was immortal.

“Dammit,” Caleb said from his seat far up in the stands. With vicious pulls he tore the bookie’s receipt to shreds. Swearing felt good, so he tried again. “Godsdammit.”

“I warned you not to bet against the city,” said Teo as she tallied her winnings. The crowd thinned, making for the exits. Sam, in the aisle, cupped her hands around her mouth and hooted in triumph. “Especially when Zolin’s playing.”

“If she’s sober.”

On the court, each team saluted the other’s serpent-goal. Zolin’s teammates lifted her onto their shoulders and ran a slow circuit around the court. A band struck up a bassy triumphant tune, and Sam thrashed to the music. She waved to Teo, who waved back but did not leave her seat.

“She has a face full of powder off the court, but it’s never hurt her play. This is religion to her.”

Caleb winced, and Teo noticed.

“What is it with you?”

“I just lost a decent chunk of soul. Give me some space.”

“Whenever I mention religion, you get this look like you’re about to stalk off and beat your head against a wall somewhere.”

“I told you what happened with me and Mal.”

“You told me what happened. You haven’t told me what you’re going to do next.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Again Sam waved, and this time Teo smiled, and stood. “Fine.” She slid her receipt into a pocket of her white linen jacket, and joined Sam in the aisle. They danced as the band played, hands on each other’s hips.

Fans filtered out into the dark, hot night. Caleb sat alone in the empty row, save for a small Quechal man, silver-haired and slump-shouldered, who rocked in his seat, muttering a half-remembered prayer.

Sam whispered in Teo’s ear. They drew apart, glanced around at the empty stands, laughed. “You want to grab a drink with us?” Sam asked.

“Sure,” he said.

They extricated themselves from the labyrinth of halls and shops and parking structures that adjoined the stadium, and found a bar with a crudely painted, misspelled sign and a muscular young woman guarding the door. Teo gave the bouncer a wink as they ducked inside, and the woman shifted, unsure whether to smile back. Teo and Sam joked about her confusion as they found a booth. Inside the bar, Caleb drank gin and listened to them argue about art, faith, sports, and alcohol. Sam picked up the tab; her
Urban Grotesquerie
had sold at auction, and while she was still an artist, she was no longer starving.

After an hour, the bar’s air grew stagnant and they staggered out onto cool streets. Teo hailed a driverless carriage and the horse pulled them across town through traffic toward Andrej’s. As they rolled through the night together, Caleb remembered their last carriage ride, the rush and terror of the evening when the water ran black.