The Serpent Bride. Sara Douglass

them. It wasn’t so much the power they resented losing, but the constant touch of the Star Dance, without which, StarWeb had once confided to him, their lives were but pale reflections of what had once been.

      Maximilian pulled StarWeb closer again, and kissed her a little more lingeringly. They had been lovers for some months now, their relationship based almost entirely on a sexual bond rather than an emotional one, which suited Maximilian well, although he often wondered about StarWeb. He knew she disliked the fact he kept their trysts secret.

      StarWeb pulled away. “What do you want, Maxel?”

      He sighed. “To talk, to share some companionship. To make love, if you want. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

      She shrugged, moving deeper into the chamber, running a hand lightly over a table, then the back of a chair, folding her wings close in against her body — a sure sign that she remained annoyed with him.

      “Is it only kings who want companionship completely on their terms, Maxel?”

      “You’re in a bad mood tonight.”

      She swung about to look at him. “That’s because I hate it, Maxel, that I always come whenever you deign to open that window.”

      “I’m sorry, StarWeb. I am not what you need.”

      She studied that statement for any hint of sarcasm, and then decided the apology was genuine. “So what’s up, Maxel? You’re tense. Worried about something.”

      “I’ve been offered a bride.”

      StarWeb burst into laughter, her expression relaxing back into that of a delighted girl. “Well done, then! Are you going to take this one?”

      “She’s been offered to me by the Coil.”

      All StarWeb’s amusement vanished. “I’ve heard of them.”

      “And not liked what you have heard, most apparently.”

      “You are truly considering taking a priestess of the Coil to your bed? As a wife?”

      “She’s not a priestess, merely a ward taken in after a plague wiped out her family and half the population of the Outlands. And she comes with wealth that Escator could well use.”

      “Oh, well. That makes it all right then.”

      “I don’t need that sarcasm, StarWeb. If I was merely Maximilian Persimius, I would have winced and torn up the offer into a thousand pieces. But I am King of Escator as well, and with that comes a responsibility to my people. Escator needs that wealth.”

      “So shall you meet with her?”

      He hesitated, then gave a nod. “Eventually, but —”

      “But you want something from me first.”

      “I trust you, StarWeb. I trust your perception. I need someone to act as an emissary between me and the Coil. I need someone to meet her, and tell me what they think. Will we suit each other? Is she good enough for me to forget her association with the Coil?” He gave a shame-faced grin. “And I need someone who can do all this relatively quickly. This is not a decision I wish to linger over.”

      “Would you like me also to take her to bed, and see if she suits your needs?”

      Maximilian smiled. “Would you?”

      StarWeb laughed then, and the mood between them relaxed. The Icarii Enchanter walked over to Maximilian, running her hands slowly over his naked upper body, her fingers tracing the outlines of the scars left from his time in the Veins, kissing his neck slowly as she spoke. “How fortunate you are that I am not a jealous woman.”

      He took her face between gentle hands. “I am well aware how fortunate I am in you, StarWeb, and also well aware that I use you unmercifully. Whatever you want from me, you have it.”

      Your love? she wondered, and then discarded the thought. There had never been any expectation of love on either of their parts.

      “Just you,” she whispered. “For an hour or two tonight, so I can forget all I have lost.”

      While Maximilian lay with StarWeb, Vorstus sat at a table in his locked chamber in a distant part of the palace. On the table before him sat a small glass pyramid, about the height of a man’s hand. It pulsated gently with soft rosy light, and its depths showed a man of ascetic appearance in late middle age who revealed, as he reached up a hand to rub thoughtfully at his nose, a serpent tattoo writhing up his forearm.

      “Has Maximilian looked at the map yet?” said the man whose image showed within the pyramid.

      “No, my Lord Lister,” said Vorstus. “If he had I am sure I would have heard the screech from here.”

      Lister smiled. “Will he be ready, do you think?”

      “He had seventeen years battling the darkness in the Veins, my lord,” said Vorstus. “He won’t like it, but when he is needed, then, yes, I believe he will step forward. How goes the Lady Ishbel?”

      “Resigning herself to marriage. She, also, will step forward when needed.”

      “If only she knew who had caused that plague to strike her family home in Margalit, my lord. Then perhaps she might not be so ready to ‘step forward’.”

      “Don’t threaten me,” Lister said. “Besides, what will Maximilian say, eh, when he learns who it was whispered to Cavor the plan to imprison him in the gloam mines for such a mighty length of time?”

      “We have all done what was needed.”

      “Ah, we all have done what was needed,” said Lister, “and we will do more, as the need dictates. Let me know what Maximilian says, why don’t you, when he finally looks at that map.”

      The rose pyramid dulled, then died.

      Lister stood in the central chamber of his castle of Crowhurst and stared as his own pyramid dulled into lifelessness on the table. He sighed, and turned away, walking to the open window to look out.

      Beyond stretched a vast wasteland of frost and low, snow-covered rolling hills. The northern wastes were a desolate place, but they suited Lister’s purpose for the time being, and for the time being he needed to be here. He shuddered, more from the cold than from any direction of his thoughts, and he reached out and closed the windows, revealing tattoos of black serpents crawling up both his forearms.

      Kanubai’s ancient foe, Light, had taken the form of Lister some forty-five years ago when it had become apparent to both Light and Water that Kanubai’s prison had begun to fail. Light and Water needed mortal shape now, for the battle to come would be of the physical rather than the ethereal. While they had taken the flesh of men, Light also, from time to time, and as it amused him, took on the ethereal form of the serpent, while Water occasionally took the form of the frog.

      Sometimes also, when it suited their purpose to manipulate those about them, they named themselves gods, and commanded ordinary men and women.

      Ishbel had no idea what it was she truly served.

      The move into the physical realm of men was dangerous. As flesh and blood men they might still command powers greater than those of most mortals, but were as vulnerable to the spear and the sword as any other.

      There came a noise from the door, a footfall, and Lister turned about.

      Three creatures of above man-height stood there. They were skeletal, and vaguely man-shaped, but more wraith than flesh. The most substantial part of them was their over-sized skull-like heads, dominated by heavy, great-toothed jaws and huge silver orbs set deep into their eye sockets.

      One of them nodded at the table, which was covered at one end with the detritus of Lister’s earlier meal.

      “We’ve come for