The Serpent Bride. Sara Douglass

was here merely to sate my curiosity as to the health of your guest,” said Ba’al’uz. “I apologise if this has displeased you.”

      You were here to spy for your true lord and master, thought Isaiah. He did not speak, but merely regarded Ba’al’uz with his steady black gaze.

      Ba’al’uz repressed a sigh, bowed slightly, then followed the physician from the room.

      Once Isaiah had heard the outer door close behind them he relaxed slightly, and walked to the side of the bed.

      The man who lay there was of an age with Isaiah, in his late thirties, but of completely different aspect. He was lean and strong, not so heavily muscled, and his shoulder-length hair, pulled back into a club at the back of his neck, was the colour of faded wheat. His close-shaven beard was of a similar colour, while his eyes were pale blue, and as penetrating as those of a bird of prey.

      His entire aspect had an alien cast, but that was not surprising, thought Isaiah as he sat down in a chair close by the man’s bed, given his Icarii heritage.

      “You do not like Ba’al’uz,” said the man. His voice was a little hoarse, but not weak.

      “I neither like nor trust him,” said Isaiah. “He is that most dangerous of madmen, one whose insanity is so difficult to detect that most who meet him think him merely unpleasant.”

      “Yet I sense that he is a force at your court,” said the man.

      “You know who I am,” said Isaiah.

      “I have been asking questions.”

      Isaiah gave a small smile. “I would have expected nothing else from you. But as to your observation … Yes, Ba’al’uz is a force at my court. He is useful to me.”

      “I suspect he is too dangerous for you to move against.”

      Isaiah burst into laughter. “We shall be friends, you and I.” He hesitated slightly. “Axis SunSoar.”

      Axis grunted. “I thought no one knew my name. I was revelling in the idea of such anonymity that I might invent my own past and name to suit.”

      “I wanted to be sure that you would live before I told anyone your name and history.”

      “Were you the one who pulled me from the afterlife?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then you are far more than just a ‘tyrant’, Isaiah.”

      Isaiah gave a small shrug. That is of no matter at the moment. “Tell me how you feel. There have been times since I pulled you from the water when my physicians feared they might lose you back to death.”

      Axis rested back against the pillows, not entirely sure how to respond. He’d been walking with his wife Azhure along a cliff-top coastline in the strange Otherworld of the afterlife when he’d felt a terrifying force grab at his entire being. He’d gasped, grabbed at Azhure, and then pain such as he’d never felt before enveloped him, and the world of the afterlife had faded. All he could remember was Azhure, reaching for him, and then the utter shock of finding himself caught by tangled reeds at the bottom of a lake, unable to breathe, unable even to fight the grip of the reeds because every muscle in his body was so weak they would not, could not, respond to his needs.

      “Weak,” Axis said finally, “but improving. Eager to get out of this bed.”

      “Good,” said Isaiah. “I am glad of it.”

      “Why am I here, Isaiah? Why drag me back from death?” Axis gave a soft, bitter laugh. “I do not think I made a great success at my last life, so I cannot think why you need me here now.”

      “Not a great success? You fought off an army of Skraelings, and resurrected an ancient land.” Isaiah hesitated. “Skills that might possibly be useful again.”

      Axis shot Isaiah a sharp look, but did not speak. Skraelings?

      “You became a wielder of great magic,” Isaiah continued, “and discovered yourself a god. You —”

      “Completely underestimated the problems in trying to unite ancient enemies together in the one land, made a complete mess of raising my own children, and then watched everything I had fought so hard for disintegrate into chaos and eventually, death.” Axis paused. “How long has it been since …”

      “Since Tencendor vanished from the face of the earth? About five years.”

      “You know that I have no powers now. All the Icarii lost their powers of enchantment when the Star Gate was destroyed and we lost contact with the Star Dance. Isaiah, I am not a god any more, I am not an Icarii Enchanter any more, I am hardly even a man — I can barely feed myself my noonday soup. Why am I back? Why do this to me? I was at peace in death, curse you!”

      “I apologise, Axis. I needed you.”

      “For what? For what?”

      “For the moment, just to be my friend.”

      Axis fought back a black anger that threatened to overwhelm him. “You could not buy yourself a friend in the marketplace?”

      “You have no idea how much I need a friend,” Isaiah said, very softly. “Someone I can trust. Perhaps you have mishandled much of your life, Axis SunSoar, but from what I know of you, you did know how to be a friend very, very well.”

      Axis closed his eyes. He did not know what to say. He did not want to be here, not back in this life, not back in a world where there was no Star Dance, nor any family.

      “Am I a prisoner?” he said eventually.

      “No,” Isaiah said, “although you will notice guards about you. I seek only to protect you.”

      “Of course you do,” Axis said.

      “Get strong, Axis SunSoar,” Isaiah said softly. “Get strong, and then we shall see.”

      Ba’al’uz may have been more than slightly insane, but he was no fool, he paid attention to world affairs, and he had a very good idea who the man was that Isaiah had hauled from Lake Juit.

      So what did Isaiah want with a failed god?

      From Axis’ apartment Ba’al’uz wandered slowly through the palace complex of Aqhat until he entered a courtyard in its western boundary. From here he walked through a gate and down to the River Lhyl, the lifeblood of Isembaard.

      Ba’al’uz stood at the edge of the river for an hour or more, uncaring of the hot sun. He did not use this time to admire the river, as beautiful and tranquil as it was, but instead stared as if transfixed across to the far bank where, at a distance of perhaps half an hour’s ride, rose an extraordinary pyramid clad in shimmering blue-green glass and topped with a capstone of golden glass that sent shafts of light reflecting back at the sun.

      DarkGlass Mountain.

      Ancient. Unknowable.

       Alive.

      Twenty years ago it had suddenly whispered to Ba’al’uz. Sweet whispers, very gentle at first, offering Ba’al’uz power and friendship, the two things Ba’al’uz craved most.

      Its name, it told him, was Kanubai.

      Ba’al’uz knew a little of the history of DarkGlass Mountain. He knew it had been built some two thousand years earlier by a caste of priests who had hoped to use the pyramid to touch Infinity. He knew there had been a small catastrophe associated with the priests’ attempts to open the pyramid to Infinity, a catastrophe which resulted in the pyramid being dismantled and the caste of priests disbanded and scattered to the wind.

       Dismantled.

      Ba’al’uz looked at the pyramid, and smiled. What was once dismantled could always, with some effort, be resurrected.

      But Ba’al’uz