Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

“Salome,” he continued, “you have been cruelly treated by the SunSoars indeed. I am

sorry for it, for the loss of your grandmother and for that of your son particularly. We are not an

easy family.”

She sighed, looking down at her hands interlaced over her stomach. “These past few

months have been like a dream, Axis. I never wanted to leave Coroleas. I loved my life there.”

She paused. “At least, I thought I did. Now it seems so far distant. A dream. I still wake at night

crying for Ezra. His loss is real enough, but as for my life in Yoyette…I am not sure I want this

in its place, though.”

She indicated her back, although Axis was aware she meant her sudden inclusion into the

Icarii race and the SunSoar fold. He knew how she felt—he”d had enough problems coming to

terms with his Icarii heritage when first he”d learned of it.

“Can I have a look?” Axis said, nodding at her back. “Or my father”s, if you”d prefer me

not to—”

“I don”t care,” Salome said with a slight shrug, and unfolded the robe she wore, revealing

not only her back, but her breasts as well.

Axis repressed a smile, glancing at his father as he rose and walked about the table to

where Salome sat. SunSoar blood.

And he could feel it, as soon as he got to within a pace of her. The pull that all SunSoars

exerted each to the other. No wonder she and his father…Axis saw StarDrifter glaring and he

grinned at him, and concentrated on the matter at hand.

Salome”s back both repelled and excited him. It looked horrendous, with twin massive

cartilaginous ridges protruding from either side of her spine. They were barely covered with skin,

and Axis realized that very soon the wings would break free. Very gently he ran his fingers down

one of the ridges, feeling the wing within folded back on itself.

It felt hot, and Axis knew it must be very painful.

“Is it worse, StarDrifter,” he said, “now, than when you were a child?” Icarii children

generally developed their wings when they were five or six, and apart from some grumbling and

whining about the ache, as when they”d teethed earlier in childhood, they generally did not suffer

much pain.

“Yes,” StarDrifter said, “much worse. Our bones are set now, and our muscles and bodies

complain about the growth. I will be glad once they have broken free, and can grow beyond the

confines of our backs.”

“Salome?” Axis asked.

“It is agony,” she said, “and all for something I don”t want.”

“I will remind you of that remark one day,” Axis said, “when you have returned flushed

of cheek and exhilarated of spirit after soaring a league into the sky.”

He lifted the robe over her back again, then stood looking at her.

“Yes?” she said.

“Sorry,” Axis said. “You have been reminding me of someone, and I have only just

remembered.” He looked at his father. “You don”t see it?”

“No. Who?”

“There are none so blind,” Axis murmured. Then said, louder, “Salome, you are the

spitting image of my grandmother, your great-grandmother and StarDrifter”s

mother—MorningStar SunSoar. Not only in features, but you have something of her flair and

directness as well. I remember the day she tried to seduce me—”

“My mother tried to seduce you?” StarDrifter said.

Axis laughed. “And you seduced your granddaughter, StarDrifter. Perhaps we can lay the

blame for this entire grandparent-grandchild attraction at her feet, eh? Now, let me look at your

back.”

If anything, his father”s back looked even worse than Salome”s. “Gods, StarDrifter…”

“I don”t complain,” StarDrifter said. “I rejoice in every twinge.”

“I am sure you do,” Axis said, knowing how his father must have hated living flightless.

“But I don”t understand, how is it that you are growing your wings? I have never heard of

anything like this before.”

“I told you that I”d seduced Salome in an effort to steal the deity known as the Weeper,”

StarDrifter said.

Axis nodded.

“Well,” StarDrifter continued, “Maxel thinks, and I agree with him, that the Weeper has

done this. It is the only possibility I can think of.”

“Is the Weeper the bundle you carried from the bakery?” Axis said.

“Yes,” said StarDrifter. “Usually only Maximilian carries the Weeper, but for the journey

from the bakery it accepted me as an old friend, if only because I would return it to Maxel”s

side.”

“Salome,” Axis said, “what is the Weeper? I mean, what soul went into its creation? It

must have been powerful indeed.”

“All I know,” said Salome, “is what legend tells us: the man who gave his soul into the

deity was a man from a distant land, and very, very powerful. Stunningly so.” She gave a slight

shrug. “That would explain the power of the Weeper, of course.”

“I think the Weeper has only ever wanted to get to Maximilian,” StarDrifter said.

“These”—he indicated his back and Salome”s—“are thank-you gifts to Salome and myself.”

“But Ba”al”uz knew about the Weeper,” said Axis, “or, at the least, he knew about its

power. He abandoned his quest of chaos in the Northern Kingdoms, and abandoned Ishbel, to

retrieve the Weeper. So perhaps the Weeper has some connection with Isembaard.”

“Perhaps this DarkGlass Mountain told Ba”al”uz to fetch the Weeper,” StarDrifter said.

He leaned forward a little, looking keenly at Axis. “Axis, one of the things that made me

agree to do what Ba”al”uz wished, apart, that is”—he glanced at Salome—“from the opportunity

to sleep with the lovely Duchess of Sidon, and the fact you were in Isembaard, was that he said

DarkGlass Mountain could reconnect us with the Star Dance. Do you know anything about—”

“Ha,” said Axis. “I have been in this DarkGlass Mountain, StarDrifter, and, yes, the

possibility exists that it could connect us back to the Star Dance.”

“But…”

“But to do so would be to invite catastrophe. DarkGlass Mountain is death itself. I think

that if the Star Dance filtered through DarkGlass Mountain then the Dance would be

contaminated with such horror…so, not DarkGlass Mountain, StarDrifter, but I think maybe

something else.”

StarDrifter leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “What?”

Axis told StarDrifter and Salome about the glass pyramid he”d taken from the packs of

Ba”al”uz” men. “I will show it to you later,” he concluded. “Tomorrow, perhaps, when we are

rested. Isaiah has one of these glass pyramids, and this strange Lord of the Skraelings as well,

Lister. Recently I touched Isaiah”s while it was active, and again felt the Star Dance through it.

Faintly, and not enough for me to catch. But it was there.”

“But how?” said StarDrifter. “Where do these glass pyramids come from? Who made

them? Axis?”

Axis would have smiled at his father”s eagerness if he didn”t understand the desperate

longing that lay behind it. How must his father feel, to be so close to the two things he”d missed

desperately?

“Lister, this Lord of the Skraelings, has some interesting creatures as his allies,” Axis

said. “A few short weeks ago he sent one of them to stage an assassination attempt on Isaiah to

push him forward in his invasion plans. They are Icarii…and yet not Icarii.”

“In what way?” said StarDrifter.

“This assassin looked like an Icarii—features, wings, bearing, elegance, arrogance,

everything. But…ah, I can”t explain it. There was something about him, an air…and he escaped

a rain of spears and arrows when he simply should not have done. He attacked Isaiah in a hall

crammed with marksmen. Wings or not, he should not have been able to get away. But he did.

He vanished.”

“He used the Star Dance?” StarDrifter said.

Axis gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps, although if he did, then I did not feel it. I just don”t

know who or what he could be. There are no other winged races you know of, StarDrifter?

Nothing from legend? No cousin race to the Icarii?”

“No,” said StarDrifter. “There”s nothing that…” He stopped suddenly.

“And then again, perhaps there is,” said Salome, looking at him carefully.

“During the initial Wars of the Axe,” StarDrifter said, speaking slowly, thinking as he

went, “when the Icarii were being pushed back into the Icescarp Alps, there was a conflict

among the Icarii leadership.”

“And?” said Axis.

“Some among the Icarii thought that the Icescarp Alps would not be enough to keep the

Acharites at bay. There were some families, led by a senior Icarii, who fled still further north.

Perhaps fifty or sixty Icarii all told.”

“They fled into the frozen wastelands?” Axis said. “They must have been terrified,

indeed.”

“Yes. I think everyone assumed they had died—we never heard from them again, and the

frozen wastelands were so inhospitable, and populated with Skraelings, and—”

Axis swore, making his father stop and raise a disapproving eyebrow.

“Of course!” Axis said. “Of course! There we have it! The assassin, the almost but not

quite Icarii, was sent by Lister, the Lord of the Skraelings, Isaiah”s „ally.” StarDrifter, you never heard from the Icarii families again because they traveled far further than anyone had