your clothes will be dripping when you resume your real form.
I was in Nyissa now, so I didn’t have to worry about Dryads any more.
I started keeping a sharp eye out for snakes instead. Normal humans
make some effort to keep the snake population under control, but the
snake is a part of the Nyissan religion, so they don’t. Their jungles
are literally alive with slithering reptiles–all venomous. I managed
to get bitten three times during my first day in that stinking swamp,
and that made me extremely cautious. It wasn’t hard to counteract the
venom, fortunately, but being bitten by a snake is never pleasant.
The war with the Marags had seriously altered Nyissan society. Before
the Marag invasion, the Nyissans had cleared away large plots of jungle
and built cities and connecting highways. Highways provide invasion
routes, however, and a city, by its very existence, proclaims the
presence of large numbers of people and valuable property. You might
as well invite attack. Salmissra realized that, and she ordered her
subjects to disperse and to allow the jungle to reclaim all the towns
and roads. This left only the capital at Sthiss Tor, and since I’d
sort of drifted into the self-appointed task of making a survey of the
Kingdoms of the West, I decided to pay a call on the Serpent Queen.
The Marag invasion had occurred almost a hundred years earlier, but
there were still abundant signs of the devastation it had caused. The
abandoned cities, choked in vines and bushes, still showed evidence of
fire and of the kind of destruction siege engines cause. Now the
Nyissans themselves scrupulously avoided those uninviting ruins. When
you get right down to it, Nyissa is a theocracy. Salmissra is not only
queen, but also the High Priestess of the Serpent God. Thus, when she
gives an order, her people automatically obey her, and she’d ordered
them to go live out in the brush with the snakes.
I was a little footsore when I reached Sthiss Tor, and very hungry.
You have to be careful about what you eat in Nyissa. Virtually every
plant and a fair number of the birds and animals are either narcotic or
poisonous, or both.
I located a ferry landing and crossed the River of the Serpent to the
garish city of Sthiss Tor. The Nyissans are an inspired people. The
rest of the world likes to believe that inspiration is a gift from the
Gods, but the Nyissans have found a simpler way to achieve that
peculiar ecstasy. Their jungles abound with various plants with
strange properties, and the Snake People are daring experimenters. I
knew a Nyissan once who was addicted to nine different narcotics. He
was the happiest fellow I’ve ever known. It’s probably not a good idea
to have your house designed by an architect with a chemically augmented
imagination, however. Assuming that it doesn’t collapse on the workmen
during construction, it’s likely to have any number of peculiar
features–stairways that don’t go anyplace, rooms that there’s no way
to get into, doors that open out into nothing but air, and assorted
other inconveniences. It’s also likely to be painted a color that
doesn’t have a name and has never appeared in any rainbow.
I knew where Salmissra’s palace was, since Beldin and I had been in
Sthiss Tor during the Marag invasion, so I wasn’t obliged to ask
directions of people who didn’t even know where they were, much less
where anything else was.
The functionaries in the palace were all shaved-headed eunuchs.
There’s probably a certain logic there. From puberty onward, the
assorted Salmissras are kept on a regimen of various compounds that
slow the normal aging process. It’s very important that Salmissra
forever looks the same as the original handmaiden of Issa.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of those compounds is a marked
elevation of the Queen’s appetite –and I’m not talking about food.
Salmissra does have a kingdom to run, and if her servants were
functional adult males, she’d probably never get anything done.
Please, I’m trying to put this as delicately as possible.
The queen knew that I was coming, of course. One of the qualifications
for the throne of Nyissa is the ability to perceive things that others
can’t.
It’s not exactly like our peculiar gift, but it serves its purpose. The
eunuchs greeted me with genuflections and various other fawning
gestures of respect and immediately escorted me to the throne room. The
current Salmissra, naturally, looked the same as all her predecessors,
and she was reclining on a divan-like throne, admiring her reflection
in a mirror and stroking the bluntly pointed head of a pet snake. Her
gown was diaphanous, and it left very little to the imagination. The
huge stone statue of Issa, the Serpent God, loomed behind the dais
where his current handmaiden lay.
“Hail, Eternal Salmissra,” the eunuch who was escorting me intoned,
prostrating himself on the polished floor.
“The Chief Eunuch approaches the throne,” the dozen red-robed
functionaries intoned in unison.
“What is it, Sthess?” Salmissra replied in an indifferent sort of
voice.
“Ancient Belgarath entreats audience with the Beloved of Issa.”
Salmissra turned her head slowly and gazed at me with those colorless
eyes of hers.
“The Handmaiden of Issa greets the Disciple of Aldur,”
she proclaimed.
“Fortunate the Disciple of Aldur, to be received by the Serpent Queen,”
the chorus intoned.
“You’re looking well, Salmissra,” I responded, cutting across about a
half hour of tedious formality.
“Do you really think so, Belgarath?” She said it with a kind of
girlish ingenuousness which suggested that she was quite
young–probably no more than two or three years on the throne.
“You always look well, dear,” I replied. The little endearment was
probably a violation of all sorts of rules, but I felt that,
considering her age, I could get away with it.
“The honored guest greets Eternal Salmissra,” the chorus announced.
“Do you suppose we could dispense with that?” I asked, jerking my
thumb over my shoulder at the kneeling eunuchs.
“You and I need to talk, and all that singing distracts my
attention.”
“A private audience, Belgarath?” she asked me archly.
I winked at her with a sly smirk.
“It is our pleasure that the Ancient One shall divulge his mind to us
in private,” she announced to her worshipers.
“You have our permission to withdraw.”
“Well, really,” I heard one of them mutter in an outraged tone.
“Remain if you wish, Kass,” Salmissra said to the protestor in an
indifferent tone of voice.
“Know, however, that no one living will hear what passes between me and
the disciple of Aldur. Go and live–or stay and die.” She had style,
I’ll give her that. Her offer cleared the throne room immediately.
“Well,” she said, her colorless eyes smoldering, “now that we’re
alone–” She left it hanging suggestively.
“Ah, don’t y’ be after temptin’ me, darling’,” I said, grinning.
Beldin had gotten away with that; why couldn’t I?
She actually laughed. That was the only time I ever heard one of the
hundred or more Salmissras do that.
“Let’s get down to business, Salmissra,” I suggested briskly.
“I’ve been conducting a survey of the western kingdoms, and I think we
might profitably exchange some information.”
“I hunger for your words, Ancient One,” she said, her face taking on an
outrageously vapid expression. This one had a very sharp mind and a
highly developed sense of humor. I quickly altered my approach. An
intelligent Salmissra was a dangerous novelty.
“You know what happened in Mallorea, of course,” I began.
“Yes,” she replied simply.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you like to sit here?” she invited, rising to a half-sitting
position and patting the seat of the divan beside her.
“Ah–thanks, but I think better on my feet. Aloria’s been divided into
four separate kingdoms now.”
“Yes, I know. How did you ever browbeat Cherek into permitting
that?”
“I didn’t. Belar did.”
“Is Cherek really that religious?”
“He didn’t like it, but he saw the necessity for it. Riva’s got the
Orb now, and he’s on the Isle of the Winds. You might want to warn
your sea captains to stay away from the Isle. Cherek’s got a fleet of
war-boats, and they’ll sink any ship that goes within fifty leagues of
Riva’s island.”
Her colorless eyes grew speculative.
“I just had a very interesting thought, Belgarath.”
“Oh?”
“Is Riva married yet?”
“No. He’s still a bachelor.”
“You might tell him that I’m not married, either. Doesn’t that suggest
something rather interesting to you? It certainly does to me.”
I almost choked on that one.
“You’re not really serious, are you?”
“It’s something worth exploring, don’t you think? Nyissa’s a small
nation, and my people don’t make very good soldiers. The Marag
invasion taught us that. If Riva and I were to marry, it’d form a very
interesting alliance.”
“Don’t the rules say that you’re not supposed to marry?”
“Rules are tiresome, Belgarath. People like you and me can ignore them