year, after that man had strangely disappeared.
Ional knew she would partner Aziel only for a few more years, until he was well settled
into his position as archpriest, and then she would make way for someone younger. Stronger.
More Aziel”s match.
Now Ional looked back to the girl.
Ishbel.
“You said,” Ional said very softly, so as to not wake the girl, “that the Great Serpent told
you she would not stay for a lifetime.”
“He told me,” said Aziel, “that she would stay many years, but that eventually he would
require her to leave. That there would be a duty for her within the wider world, but that she
would return and that her true home was here at Serpent”s Nest.”
“She is so little,” said Ional, “but so very powerful. I could feel it the moment you carried
her into Serpent”s Nest. How much more shall she need to grow, do you think, before she can assume my duties?”
“When she is strong enough to hold a knife,” said Aziel, “she shall be ready.”
Deep in the abyss the creature stirred, looking upward with flat, hate-filled eyes.
It whispered, sending the whisper up and outward with all its might, seething through
the crack that Infinity had opened.
It had been sending out its call for countless millennia, and for all those countless
millennia, no one had answered.
This day, the creature in the abyss received not one but two replies, and it bared its teeth,
and knew its success was finally at hand.
Twenty years passed.
CHAPTER TWO
Serpent’s Nest, the Outlands
The man hung naked and vulnerable, his arms outstretched and chained by the wrists to
the wall, his feet barely touching the ground, and likewise chained by the ankle to the wall. He
was bathed in sweat caused only partly by the warm, humid conditions of the Reading Room and
the highly uncomfortable position in which he had been chained.
He was hyperventilating in terror. His eyes, wide and dark, darted about the room, trying
to find some evidence of mercy in the crimson-cloaked and hooded figures standing facing him
in a semicircle, just out of blood-splash distance.
He might have begged for mercy, were it not for the gag in his mouth.
A door opened, and two people entered.
The man pissed himself, his urine pooling about his feet, and struggled desperately,
uselessly, to free himself from his bonds.
The two arrivals walked slowly into the area contained by the semicircle of witnesses. A
man and a woman, they too were cloaked in crimson, although for the moment their hoods lay
draped about their shoulders. The man was in middle age, his face thin and lined, his dark hair
receding, his dark eyes curiously compassionate, but only as they regarded his companion. When
he glanced at the man chained to the wall those eyes became blank and uncaring.
His name was Aziel, and he was the archpriest of the Coil, now gathered in the Reading
Room.
The woman was in her late twenties, very lovely, with clear hazel eyes and dark blond
hair. She listened to Aziel as he spoke softly to her, then nodded. She turned slightly,
acknowledging the semicircle with a small bow—as one they returned the bow—then turned
back to face the chained man.
She was the archpriestess of the Coil, Aziel”s equal in leadership of the order, and his
superior in Readings.
Ishbel Brunelle, the little girl he had rescued twenty years earlier from her home of
horror.
Aziel handed Ishbel a long silken scarf of the same color as her cloak, and, as Aziel stood
back, she slowly and deliberately wound the scarf about her head and face, leaving only her eyes
visible. Then, equally slowly and deliberately, her eyes never leaving the chained man, Ishbel
lifted the hood of her cloak over her head, pulling it forward so that her scarf-bound face was all
but hidden. She arranged her cloak carefully, making certain her robe was protected.
Then, with precision, Ishbel made the sign of the Coil over her belly.
The man bound to the wall was now frantic, his body writhing, his eyes bulging, mews of
horror escaping from behind his gag.
Ishbel took no notice.
From a pocket in her cloak she withdrew a small semicircular blade. It fitted neatly into
the palm of her hand, the actual slicing edge protruding from between her two middle fingers.
She stepped forward, concentrating on the man.
He was now flailing about as much as he could given the restriction of his restraints, but
his movements appeared to cause Ishbel no concern. She moved to within two paces of the man,
took a very deep breath, her eyes closing as she murmured a prayer.
“Great Serpent be with me, Great Serpent be part of me, Great Serpent grace me.”
Then Ishbel opened her eyes, stepped forward, lifted her slicing hand, and, in a
movement honed by twenty years of the study of anatomy and practice both upon the living and
the dead, cleanly disemboweled the man with a serpentine incision from sternum to groin.
Blood spurted outward in a spray, covering Ishbel”s masked and hooded features.
As the man”s intestines bulged outward, Ishbel lifted her slicing hand again and in several
quick, deft movements freed the intestines from their abdominal supports, then stepped back
nimbly as they tumbled out of the man”s body to lie in a steaming heap at his feet.
The pile of intestines was still attached to the man”s living body by two long, glistening
ropes of bowel, stretching downward. The man himself, still alive, still conscious, stared at them
in a combination of disbelief and shock.
The agony had yet to strike.
The man trembled so greatly that the movement carried down the connecting ropes of
bowel to the pile at his feet, making them quiver as if they enjoyed independent life.
Ishbel ignored everything save the pile of intestines. Again she stepped forward, this time
leaning down to sever the large intestine as it joined the small bowel.
Behind her the semicircle of the Coil began to chant, softly and sibilantly. “Great
Serpent, grace us, grace us, grace us. Great Serpent, grace us, grace us, grace us.”
“Great Serpent, grace us, grace us, grace us,” Aziel said, his voice a little stronger than
those of the semicircle.
Ishbel had pocketed the slicing blade now, and stood before the intestines, her hands
folded in front of her, eyes cast down.
Please, Great Serpent, she said in her mind, grace me with your presence and tell me
what is so wrong, and what we may do to aid you.
The man”s intestine began to uncoil. A long length of the large bowel, now independent,
rose slowly into the air.
The man had bitten and masticated his way through his gag by now, and he began to
shriek, thin harsh sounds that rattled about the chamber.
No one took any notice of him.
All eyes were on the rope of intestine now twisting into the air before the archpriestess.
It shimmered, and then transformed into the head and body of a black serpent, its scales
gleaming with the fluids of the man”s body and sending shimmering shafts of rainbow colors
about the chamber. Its head grew hideously large, weaving its way forward until it was a bare
finger”s distance from Ishbel”s masked face.
Then it began to speak.
When it was over—the serpent disintegrated into steaming bowel once more, the
agonized man dispatched with a deep slash to the throat—Ishbel turned and stared at Aziel,
dragging the scarf away from her face so he could see her horror.
“We need to speak,” she said, then walked from the chamber.
CHAPTER THREE
Serpent’s Nest, the Outlands
Aziel followed Ishbel to the day chamber they shared, pouring her a large of glass of
wine as she undid her cloak and tossed it to one side.
“Pour yourself one, too,” she said. “You shall be glad enough of it when I tell you what
the Great Serpent said.”
“Ishbel, sit down and take a mouthful of that wine. Good. Now, what—”
“Disaster threatens. The Skraelings prepare to seethe south. Millions of them.”
“But…”
“Millions of them, Aziel.”
Aziel poured himself some wine, then sank into a chair, leaving the wine untouched. The
Skraelings—insubstantial ice wraiths who lived in the frozen northern wastes—had ever been a
bother to the countries of Viland, Gershadi, and Berfardi. Small bands of ten or fifteen
occasionally attacked outlying villages, taking livestock and, sometimes, a child.
But millions? And seething as far south as Serpent”s Nest?
“I know only what the Great Serpent showed me, Aziel,” Ishbel said. “I don”t understand
it any more than you.” She took a deep breath. “I saw Serpent”s Nest overrun, the members of
the Coil dragged out to be crucified on crosses. You…” Her voice broke a little. “You, dead.”
“Ishbel—”
“There”s worse.”
Worse?
“A forgotten evil rises from the south,” Ishbel said. “Something so anciently malevolent