Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

walk beyond the palace flowed the emerald waters and reed-covered riverbanks of the Lhyl, and

just beyond that, on the far bank, rose the massive pyramid of DarkGlass Mountain. It was

covered in blue-green glass and surmounted by a cap of gold.

Axis thought it the most beautiful and yet, somehow, the most deadly thing he had ever

seen. He had questions about that, too, but for the moment he was intrigued more by the fact that

Ba”al”uz and Isaiah were brothers.

“Do you know of the manner in which a tyrant comes to the throne of Isembaard?”

Ba”al”uz said, leaning on the railing and looking out over the countryside.

“No. I”d assumed that Isaiah was his father”s eldest son.”

Ba”al”uz shook his head. “Isaiah was his father”s twentieth son, and there were another

eighteen after him. Thirty-eight of us, all told.”

Axis thought that with all the wives Isaiah”s father must have enjoyed, it was amazing he

had so few sons. “By what process, then, is the tyrant chosen?” he said.

“You know the throne of Isembaard is a warrior throne?”

“Yes, Isaiah told me as much.”

“Well, then, what better way to decide who to sit that throne than with individual combat

bouts between the sons.”

Ba”al”uz turned a little so he could see Axis” face. “To the death.”

Axis could not speak for a moment. He”d battled with his brother Borneheld for Achar,

and killed him, but to do that so many times over? Isaiah had seen thirty-six of his brothers die so

he could assume the throne?

“Why are you still alive?” Axis finally asked.

“Me?” Ba”al”uz assumed an effeminate pose and an arch expression. “Can you imagine

me with a weapon in my hand! No…” He laughed merrily. “There is a strain of madness runs

through our family, Axis. In every generation there is one son…not quite right. Strange.” He

paused, then hissed, “Crazed! Such sons do not battle. Instead we become our successful

brother”s maniac. His court wit. His weapon.”

Again he laughed, and Axis could indeed hear the faint strains of madness lurking deep

within Ba”al”uz” being.

Genuine, or counterfeit? Axis wondered about a son who, knowing he did not have the

skills to succeed in combat, might save his life by pretending madness.

“Weapon?” Axis said.

“A madman sees things, hears things, that no other can,” said Ba”al”uz, and this time

Axis thought he could recognize genuine insanity in the man”s eyes.

“He dares things,” Ba”al”uz continued, “that no other can. And he knows things that no

other can comprehend. Madness is a gift of the gods, Axis, and I serve my brother well. Madness

is power, yes? Not like that which once you wielded, but power nonetheless. I have my life, and I

am grateful, and I do whatever I can to smooth Isaiah”s path through tyranny. I slide through my

brother”s court like an evil wind, and in the doing I confound his enemies and scry out their

secrets.”

Axis gave an uncomfortable laugh. “What have you scried out from me, then?”

“That you are a burned-out hero, Axis, and that Isaiah has nothing to fear from you.” He

grinned as he said it, and with such malevolence that Axis actually leaned back a little.

Stars, how did Isaiah stand the man?

He couldn”t, Axis realized. Isaiah may have sent Ba”al”uz to answer any questions Axis

had, but the underlying purpose of Isaiah”s request was that Axis see once and for all Ba”al”uz”

true nature.

Ba”al”uz was a frighteningly dangerous man, and Axis wondered what his secret

ambition was, how he meant to achieve it, and what it would mean to all about him. Maybe

Isaiah hoped Axis could tell him.

“Well, then,” said Axis, “why not tell this „burned-out hero””—he wished he had the

control not to grind the words out—“the purpose of that pyramid across the river. It is most

intriguing.”

“Ah,” said Ba”al”uz, “DarkGlass Mountain. It is intriguing, is it not?”

“Who built it? For what purpose?”

“Be patient, Axis, and I shall tell you what I know.” He leaned on the balcony railing

again, looking at the glass pyramid. “From what anyone can gather—and my forebears spent their lives checking records—DarkGlass Mountain was built about two thousand years ago.”

“By whom?” asked Axis. The momentary antagonism between them had vanished, and

Axis leaned on the railing as well, looking curiously at the massive pyramid.

“A group of men known as the Magi caused its construction. The Magi worshipped

numbers, particularly the One. The Magi were mathematical geniuses. They used the power of

the One in order to build a device by which they could touch more intimately the power of the

One, and, by so doing, reach out to touch Infinity. Creation. Call it what you will.”

Casual words for what made Axis” soul turn cold. Touching the power of Creation. Was

there anything more powerful, or more dangerous?

“Then, the pyramid was not known as DarkGlass Mountain,” continued Ba”al”uz. “It was

called Threshold.”

Threshold, thought Axis. A doorway. “Did the Magi manage it?” he said. “Did they

touch Infinity?”

Ba”al”uz” lip curled. “Yes, they did. But when DarkGlass Mountain was first opened up

to the power of Infinity, something went wrong.”

Axis went even colder. Something went “wrong.”

A catastrophe, more like.

“There was…a small rebellion, I believe,” said Ba”al”uz, “initiated by those jealous of the

Magi and the power they commanded. The Magi lost, and were all but slaughtered. DarkGlass

Mountain was stripped of its glass, and left to be buried in sand drifts.”

“But here it stands in all its glory.”

“Yes,” Ba”al”uz said very slowly. “Strange, is it not?”

Axis waited, refusing to ask the question, and Ba”al”uz pouted and continued. “Perhaps

several hundred years ago, DarkGlass Mountain regrew itself.”

“What?”

“After the rebellion, when the Magi were slaughtered and their knowledge condemned,”

said Ba”al”uz, “DarkGlass Mountain”s glass was stripped away, its chambers blocked and its

capstone buried. The glass was supposed to have been broken, but it was buried instead. For a

thousand years and more, DarkGlass Mountain sat covered in hessian and sand, a mound only.

Then, one day, some of the sand slid away, and a little more the next day, until over the space of

two or three years the entire structure was revealed. Stone only, for DarkGlass Mountain had yet

to reclad itself in glass and capstone.”

“Someone must have been—”

“No,” Ba”al”uz said softly, his gaze fixed on DarkGlass Mountain, “the tyrant at that time

set men to watching. No one came near the pyramid. It simply…regrew. Once its stone structure

was uncovered, the blue glass began to appear, growing up from the ground, gradually covering

the pyramid”s sides. It flowed up from the depths of burial. Very, very slowly, but the glass

flowed.

“That process took five years to accomplish. Then the rest. The capstone, and all of

DarkGlass Mountain”s internal chambers.”

“Internal chambers?”

“There are tunnels and shafts,” said Ba”al”uz, “all of which lead to a central chamber of

the most exquisite glass. The Infinity Chamber. You must ask Isaiah to show it to you someday.

He sits there, on occasion.”

Axis shuddered. “What is it, Ba”al”uz? What is its purpose?”

“No one knows. Isn”t that amusing? Here it sits, a great beautiful glass pyramid,

positively humming with power on some days, and no one knows.” Ba”al”uz tapped his nose and

assumed a conspiratorial look. “I can tell you this, Axis, because only I and Isaiah know. The

tyrants, long ago when Dark-Glass Mountain regrew itself, built their palace of Aqhat here so

that it would appear they used the pyramid to bolster their power. „Look at me, Great Tyrant of

Isembaard, who controls the mysterious power of Dark-Glass Mountain.” But between you and

me and Isaiah, Axis, none of the tyrants have known anything about the pyramid, let alone how

to use it. They use it as…oh, as a piece of stage. Every so often Isaiah embarks on a great

ceremonial procession across the river, strides—alone—into the Infinity Chamber, sits there for

an hour twiddling his thumbs, and then walks out again, proclaiming that he has had converse

with the gods and they have shown him the way forward. Of course nothing of the sort has

happened, but who is to know that? The tyrants have closely associated their throne and power

with DarkGlass Mountain, and yet none of them has the faintest idea what it is!”

Ba”al”uz burst into a peal of laughter.

“How is it Lister also controls the power of the pyramids?” Axis said.

Now Axis had caught Ba”al”uz off balance. “What?”

“The glass pyramids that Lister gave Isaiah and yourself. They are powerful treasures, are

they not? Perhaps Lister knows some of the secrets of the DarkGlass Mountain. Secrets that you

have not yet learned.”

Ba”al”uz frowned. “No. Surely not. Lister said he found them.”

Axis laughed softly, disbelievingly, and Ba”al”uz flushed.

“He said he found them!”

“And you believed him. The Lord of the Skraelings. No wonder Isaiah needs my advice.