Two Serpents Rise

INTERLUDE: TEA

Alaxic sat on the balcony of his villa in the Drakspine, and watched the sleeping city. His skin was thin as parchment, his bones twig-slender and brittle. An autumn leaf of a man, a cicada husk, he waited in his chair. He raised a steaming mug of tea to his thin lips, sucked hot liquid into his mouth, forced himself to swallow.

“You have not aged well,” said a shadow from the balustrade.

The old man fixed his gaze on the tea, and the reflections within: reflections of starlight, of the candle flame beside his chair, of the ghost he did not recognize as himself.

“The Craft,” he croaked, “does not reward one with a long and healthy life, if one wishes that life to end someday. I will not permit myself to be trapped within a skeleton for all time.”

“You will not find true death pleasant.” The shadow advanced. Candle flame chiseled out rocky muscles, massive fists, black eyes, scars that glowed on the dark skin. “You are a traitor to gods and man. Demons wait hungrily for your soul.”

“Nice to see you again as well, Temoc.” His voice wavered and cracked. “I’m glad you received my letter.”

“Such as it was. What did you want with me?”

“To pass the night before the eclipse with another priest. Is that too much to ask?”

Temoc hesitated at the light’s edge. “Perhaps.”

“And perhaps I am not so afraid of the world to come as you believe I should be,” Alaxic said, and drank another sip of foul tea. His face contorted, and he set the cup on the small table. “An annular eclipse tomorrow. The first in more than a century. Occlusion for fifteen minutes. What a celebration this would have been in the old days.”

“Much work for the priests. The gods would have feasted well. The Serpents, too.”

“Yes.” Alaxic motioned to the teapot, and the empty cup beside it. “Share a drink with me, in memory of what was.”

Temoc regarded the tea, and the cup from which Alaxic drank. At last he shrugged, poured himself a cup, raised it to the moon, and shed three drops with the tip of his finger. “Water in the desert,” he said.

“A glorious gift.”

They drank.

“We are the last, you know,” the old man said. “The others have lost their minds, or died, or languish in prison.”

“Yes,” Temoc replied.

“Do you have a sacrifice planned?”

“I will spill my own blood.” Temoc’s voice soured with distaste.

“That is not enough.”

“Of course not. I would have kidnapped a Craftsman, made the ritual preparations, and drawn his heart, but since North Station I have not had the luxury of a permanent base from which to plan. The Wardens’ eyes are everywhere. I would not need a scheme of any kind if I had one of the great altars at my disposal, but few survive, and all those are watched.”

“So the old ways pass,” Alaxic said. “As they should. There are new times ahead.”

“The old ways will not pass while I live.”

“Nor while I live,” Alaxic said, and laughed a dry-leaf laugh, and tapped his teapot. “Fortunately, we are neither of us long for this world.”

Temoc regarded his empty cup, and swore.

“I apologize for the deception.” Alaxic drained his mug. “I thought it was better this way. You and I, the last two priests of the old Quechal, gone. Life belongs to those younger than ourselves.”

Temoc’s scars burned. He staggered back, and dropped the cup from fingers already numb. He turned to run, but his limbs would not obey him. The old man raised one finger. Craft crackled in the night air.

Alaxic’s grin widened. Breath rustled in the hollow chamber of his chest. Stars spun overhead. Temoc bared his teeth. Knives of moonlight pressed against his skin. Sweat beaded on Alaxic’s face, and on Temoc’s; their eyes met, and the world turned like a key in a lock between them.

The rattling leaves paused, and Alaxic slumped in his chair, still.

Temoc staggered for the balustrade and leapt into space, landing in a desperate roll that sent rocks and gravel scampering down the hillside scree. Behind him, an alarm sounded, as servants discovered Alaxic dead.

Temoc crawled to a bush, bent double, and was violently ill. He threw up four times, gasping in between for air. His nerves were brambles lodged inside his skin. With shaking fingers he clutched at his belt, found a roll of leather marked by holy symbols, and pulled from within a green jade disk that shimmered faintly in the moonlight.

The disk broke between his teeth like porcelain. He chewed it into sand and forced himself to swallow. The sand coated his throat and sat in his stomach like ice.

Some time later, his shivers subsided, and the brambles withdrew. Unsteady, he rose to a crouch.

Behind him, hunting dogs howled.

He ran.