Lybis reminded Kazim of Baranasi, though this was only a lake, not a river, and the lake was only four hundred yards across and apparently only twenty feet at its deepest. Sacred bathing in this land where water was life and death was primarily a Lakh custom, but here in Lybis the tradition had been translated into a peculiarly Amteh variant, with bathers strictly segregated, and only the men permitted to disrobe at all. Even so, it had become imbedded in Lybis culture.
Beside Kazim was a white-clad young man. He was a Scriptualist, a spindly boy with a fluffy beard, who reminded Kazim of Haroun. He was of the same ilk, too: serious and self-righteous. He’d been mesmerised by Elena to think Kazim was his superior and now he was waiting to do whatever Kazim told him.
He peered across the water and focused on a shape in a distinctive bekira-shroud, black with a triangle pattern on the edging of the robe. Elena. As she moved out into the depths and then dropped from sight, he turned and tapped the boy on the arm, and he responded as instructed by ringing his bell.
As the bell rang, men and women began to leave the water, climbing the wet stairs to the many Dom-al’Ahms that faced the water, some large and some tiny. The water emptied of everyone except Elena and Mara, both unseen below the surface.
Be safe, Ella
, he prayed silently.
Ahm watch over you
. He looked up at the sky.
I mean it! You look out for her, or you’ll answer to me.
Ahm doesn’t care about half-safian white women
, the dark voice at the back of his brain told him. It spoke in the tones of all the Godspeakers and Scriptualists he’d ever met, but mostly it spoke in Haroun’s voice.
He hung his head, heartsick at his confusion. He’d never been able to deal with ambiguity. He wasn’t simple, but he craved simplicity, black and white answers to life’s questions. But the woman he loved was too complex, too strange for him to know. She was slipping away and he didn’t know how to try and win her back.
At least action was better than waiting and thinking. At least he
understood
action.
While almost every other man present headed for the Dom-al’Ahms, Kazim hurried around the shore towards the keep, close to where Mara Secordin had entered the water. There were Rondian soldiers on the walls above, but no one was taking any interest as he passed beneath them and dropped below their line of sight. In less than a minute he had reached the curtain wall which extended right into the lake. Above him was a tower, but the watchman was staring out over the water, not looking down. Kazim slipped into the water, went under and paddled quickly to Mara’s private bathing ghat, where he emerged unseen; an inner wall shielded him from the sight of the men in the tower. He clambered out with as little splash as possible and moved up the steps on his hands and knees, hoping no one was peering down from above.
So far so good
.
He topped the steps and peered forward, just in time to register a glimpse of jaws opened wider than his head, and fangs like fingers flashing towards him.
*
The thing that had been Mara Secordin glided carefully through the water, tasting blood and knowing it.
Elena!
She’s here! How
dare
she be here!
Mara’s tail wove smooth patterns as she circled closer and saw her quarry. She was swimming beneath the surface, beside another darker-skinned, indistinct being that barely moved. The taste of death was in the water, along with the blood, but it was definitely Elena, the blood told her that. No two persons’ blood tasted alike; blood was a never-ending, always changing feast on which Mara could happily gorge for ever.
Human life was so stultifying compared to the endless teeming waters and the mindless, life-affirming hunt, and here was prey she had sought for a very long time.
Elena clearly couldn’t see her; her movements were the awkward jerking of non-fish that set the senses of every water-predator on alert. She was blind and helpless in the dark waters, and the taste of her blood was maddening. Mara’s native caution began to dissipate, the urge to dart in and
bite-rip-killkillkill
was becoming overpowering. But she was an experienced hunter, as a human as well as in beast form, so she continued to circle, getting closer, closer, closer.
Elena swivelled, turning sluggishly, to face her.
This is my domain, Elena. You’re going to die here …
With a massive thrust of the tail Mara propelled herself through the water, her shields extended, the gnosis shimmering through her body, her jaws opening and snapping shut on human flesh. The taste of flesh and blood filled her mouth.
*
Only Kazim’s reflexes saved him. As the python struck, he twisted and his hand flashed upwards, battering the snake’s head aside just enough to avoid having his skull crushed and fangs as thick and sharp as nails hammered into his brain. Instead, the reptile’s bite snapped on empty air, but its thick body lashed around him, and though he tried to roll clear, a coil wrapped around his hips and the head flashed around. For a split-second the snake’s eye locked on his, then it rolled its head backwards, its jaws snapped open again and it
lunged
.
Kazim caught its head, top jaw in his left hand, bottom in his right, howling silently as its fangs speared his left palm. He almost lost control; if he had loosed his gnosis, he would have brought every competent mage within a few hundred yards running to see what the attack was … but Elena had trained him well and he held on though the pain was excruciating. The python threw another coil about him while the first slipped up from his hips to his waist and started to squeeze. His stomach muscles clenched to protect his guts, though his gorge rose in a sudden flood. The snake pinned his legs and began to crush him, but still he held on desperately, even as the python wrenched its head from his grip and positioned itself, ready to bite again. His hands suddenly free, he snatched at the dagger at his waist – then dropped it as the snake’s steely coils tightened, seeking to pin his arm to his side. He reached for the blade despairingly, beginning to doubt he would survive this encounter, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. His lungs were beginning to empty and his throat to fill with the contents of his stomach.
The python’s head bobbed above him, seeking an opening. It was at least three times the length of his body, and unimaginably strong. Any ordinary man would have been dead by now …
But he was a mage, and though he could not strike back with his full power without rousing the garrison, if he got a second to compose himself, he might just be able to …
Elena had laid out his affinities for him months ago, and one was Animagery. She’d made him practise back in the monastery on Mount Tigrat by luring lizards. This mighty beast was not so different.
This time when he caught its eye again, he reached out with his awareness and fell into its mind …
Must kill must squeeze must please mistress must protect nest must feed and consume. Must crush!
For an instant the python’s head stopped moving and the coils of its upper trunk loosened, just a fraction – then it hissed and spat and its jaws flew open and its head lunged forward and clamped down on his left shoulder. He jerked in utter agony as the fangs buried themselves to the bone and the last of his air was forced from his lungs. But in that same instant, his right hand had swooped and gripped the hilt of his knife. Even as his vision wavered, he found just enough awareness to stab the snake through the eye, straight into the brain cavity.
*
He must have blacked out for some time, because when he came to, he was still wrapped in the snake coils, but they were flaccid. The beast was dead. And someone was standing above him, a dark silhouette holding a glittering knife.
*
The plan was simple, relying heavily on the probability that in the water, Mara’s judgement was impaired; her normal immunity to illusion clouded by the blood-frenzy once she got her prey in sight. Gurvon Gyle’s mantra about always having a plan to deal with every enemy had been playing on Elena’s mind one evening in Brochena when she had noticed that the fishermen who plied the tidal salt lake used a very spiky, heavy anchor to grip the lakebed. The anchor was like a spiked mace; the weight and the spikes kept the fishing boat in place. It was when she’d seen the fishermen hauling them out of the water that the idea had begun to form.
Swapping her image with that of the dead boy with the anchor sewn into his torso was simple enough. It would never have stood up to measured scrutiny, but that was precisely what Mara was incapable of when caught up in a blood-frenzy. When the shark engulfed the boy in her massive jaws, multiple spikes of steel punched through her body from the one place her shields could not protect her.
From within her.
Mara might have thought, if she was thinking at all, that she was biting Elena in half. Instead, she slew herself. Most of the spikes tore through Mara’s mouth and jaws, but two were driven up into her cranium and the healing-gnosis that might have saved Mara did not even engage. She thrashed about on reflex, but it was too late: her brain was already dead.
Blood filled the water as Elena kicked away towards the southern shore and the keep. She breached the surface once, to check what was lying ahead, and her heart started pounding in fear. She kicked back into the depths to move more quickly, trying to process what she had seen:
Kazim, lying unmoving, bound in a python’s coils
. She surfaced again and flowed up Mara’s private ghat, dagger in hand, oblivious to the dirty lake water dripping off her. She darted to Kazim’s side, all arguments and anger forgotten in her fear for him. Of course she recognised the huge snake, Mara’s favourite pet, but as she got closer she realised it had a dagger stuck through its left eye socket and was obviously dead. Kazim, though deathly still and pallid, was alive, thankfully. The python’s younger counterpart was nowhere to be seen – just as well, or Kazim might well be lifeless too.
Stupid!
she upbraided herself; she’d never even considered the pythons might be a real threat – but it must have taken Kazim by surprise. Something to blame herself for later.
He opened his eyes, flashed his beautiful smile and she felt a debilitating wave of relief. She forgot she had ever been angry with him, kissing him fervently.
‘Any damage?’ she whispered, pulling a heavy coil of snake away from him. For the first time since she’d seen him she glanced anxiously about her. On the far shore, the Dom-al’Ahms were full, and a dark stain had risen in the middle of the lake. But this little garden was overlooked only by two barred windows above, and in neither was there any movement or sign that they’d been seen. A flight of stairs led to a door above.
‘Damned thing got me good,’ Kazim admitted sheepishly. ‘Surprised me as I came out of the water.’ He winced as he tried to move. His shoulder was bloody, and so were his hands.
‘Here, let me look.’ She peered at his wounds, then used healing-gnosis to disinfect them. Python weren’t venomous, but without proper treatment the puncture wounds might heal badly and go septic, especially those on his shoulder. ‘Can you go on?’
‘Of course,’ he growled, staggering to his feet. ‘I’ll manage.’
She looked around again, considering. It was possible they wouldn’t be disturbed in Mara’s rooms for some time, and the blood was already diffusing in the middle of the lake. If they were lucky, no one would even notice it before it had gone. ‘Okay,’ she murmured, ‘let’s get inside.’
They dragged the dead python to a spot beneath the stairs where it wouldn’t be seen and recovered the satchel filled with clothing and weapons they’d buried the previous night. They climbed the stairs unchallenged and found the door at the top unlocked. Once inside a mage-bolt dealt with the second, much smaller python, which was coiled on the bed, dozing. It died before it could do more than lift its head.
Kazim’s wounds were not too hard to deal with. She used Mara’s jug of drinking water to clean them, then sealed them with healing-gnosis in a few minutes. She had barely finished before he grasped her face and kissed her: the first proper affection they’d shared in too long. She held him close, then wrinkled her nose and whispered, ‘We both stink of lake water.’
‘Shall I ring for hot water?’ He grinned. ‘I could soap you clean if you do the same for me?’
‘No!’ She laughed and wriggled from his lap. ‘Keep your mind on the job. It’s about an hour until the evening meal – Mara would not usually attend, so there is every chance we’ll be left in peace for a while.’
She sealed the main door to the suite, then peered back at the lake again. The prayers continued, and the bloody patch was almost gone. ‘Goodbye, Mara,’ she whispered. ‘I can safely say that you won’t be missed.’
Kazim peered out the window. ‘So the eels in the lake will feast well tonight.’
‘It all went perfectly, just as I hoped. She was dead before she knew it.’ She was surprised to feel a small tremor at the thought. ‘I hope I go the same way.’
Kazim hugged her from behind. ‘No, you will die at a great age, surrounded by dozens of children.’
‘Really? Whose?’
‘Yours and mine.’
‘Kaz, I don’t know if I’ll be able to have children by the time the Moontide is over.’ She twisted in his grip, looked up at him. ‘I’m an old woman.’
‘No, you are eternal.’ His smile lit her heart to the core. ‘You will see.’
He really means it – he wants children.
She had never wanted to bring a child into a world like this. But he’d forgiven her, and that sang loudest in her soul. She fell against him, held on tight.
‘There is a large and comfortable bed, just over there,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘if you wished to make a start.’ He sounded like he was only half-joking.
She shoved him away, a lump of pure relief in her throat. ‘Get away with you! I’m not going to be caught with my pants around my ankles!’ She wagged her finger at him. ‘Especially not with a dead snake on the damned bed!’