him, and saw that the physician”s eyes were now almost popping out of his head.
“The knowledge of anatomy that you must have!” Zeboath said. “Would you mind, later,
when you have the time and are strong enough, sharing some of that knowledge with me?”
Ishbel looked at him with some surprise, and Axis thought she must have been expecting
judgment. Instead, she received breathless admiration.
Ishbel smiled, just very slightly. “Well, yes, Zeboath, I will gladly do that. I am sure there
is much we can teach each other.”
Axis was now a little irritated, as obviously Zeboath knew more about the Coil than did
he. “Ishbel, tell me of the Coil, and what you do within it.”
“We tend to the Great Serpent, and protect and honor him as best we may. We also
conduct Readings, in which the Great Serpent speaks to us, and reveals…” She hesitated. “The
Great Serpent is an oracle, Axis, of great mystery. He can reveal the future to us, or for any who
desire to know it.”
“What are these „Readings”?”
“We take a living man, Axis, and we disembowel him to reveal the Coil within—his
bowel. His coil spills to the floor, then rises, taking on the form of the Great Serpent, who then
speaks to us and reveals glimpses of the future or imparts information that we need to know.”
“Your knowledge of anatomy must be superb,” Zeboath muttered to one side.
Axis stared at Ishbel, wondering that so few words could describe such horror. “And the
person you disembowel…?”
“Dies.”
“Sweet gods, Ishbel…”
“We take criminals destined for execution, and very rarely a man who offers us his life.
In the latter instance, the Great Serpent blesses the man”s family with good fortune, and we
render him insensible during the Reading, so that he feels no pain.”
Axis swallowed, dragging his eyes away from Ishbel to stare out the window. “You don”t
„read” women?”
“No. Their coil within is too often disturbed by childbearing, or by the waxing and
waning of the womb with its monthly cycle.”
“Yet you, a female, rank at the top of the Coil?”
“When I was inducted into the Coil I relinquished all reproductive rights and workings.”
Axis nodded at her belly. “And that?”
“I cannot explain this pregnancy. I should not have been able to conceive.”
“Maximilian is a man to be reckoned with, then,” muttered Axis. “Tell me, does
Maximilian know that you are the archpriestess of this order?”
“He suspects.”
Axis looked back at her. “Then you cannot blame him for thinking you might be involved
with the murders Ba”al”uz committed across the Central Kingdoms. Dear gods, Ishbel, you
cannot blame anyone for reacting with horror at what you do.”
“Are you repulsed, Axis?”
He sighed. “I have done many terrible things in my life, Ishbel. No. I am not repulsed, but
I am saddened.” He gave a small smile. “Zeboath, on the other hand, looks as though he shall be
your student for life.”
Ishbel smiled.
“Was it the Great Serpent who told you about the ancient evil?” Axis asked.
“Yes. He showed us Skraelings swarming over Serpent”s Nest, and a terrible darkness
rising from the south.”
Whatever rests beneath DarkGlass Mountain, thought Axis. Or perhaps even the cursed
pyramid itself.
“It is why I was sent to marry Maximilian,” Ishbel offered.
“What? Why should marriage to Maximilian help?”
Ishbel shrugged. “I don”t know.” She paused. “I didn”t want to marry him.”
“And now?” Zeboath said.
“It matters no longer,” she said, her tone bitter. “This marriage is over.”
“Ishbel,” Axis said eventually, very gently, “what is it about Maximilian that the Great
Serpent felt was worth this?”
“I don”t know. And now…now I have ruined everything. I have lost Maximilian. I have
failed the Great Serpent. Oh, gods…”
“Ishbel, you were stolen. You couldn”t help it that—”
“The Great Serpent wanted me to stay with Maximilian. He said I could come home
eventually. I could leave Maximilian eventually. I told Maxel, we talked about this, he knew I
was unhappy. He said to give it a year, and I thought I could give him that year, hand him this
baby, then leave. Go home.”
“You don”t want the baby.”
“No. Maxel wants it. I don”t.” Again, a pause to collect herself. “And now…now I worry
that the baby has died, it doesn”t move, and Maxel…”
What a complex woman, thought Axis. She feels guilt for everyone. The Great Serpent.
Maximilian. She may have been a brilliant archpriestess, but the god she served thought it better
for her to be a woman, a wife, and a queen, all roles that Ishbel had no experience in and that
terrified her.
“Earlier,” Axis said, “when I mentioned the name Lister, you reacted strongly. What do
you know of him?”
“I have never met him,” said Ishbel, “but I know of him. He was once the archpriest of
the Coil, serving at Serpent”s Nest well before my time.”
“Lister was an archpriest of the Coil?” Axis said. “Well, well. Go on, please.”
“He vanished one day,” Ishbel said. “Perhaps a year or two before I came to Serpent”s
Nest. Axis, why are Lister—whom you now style Lord of the Skraelings—and Isaiah in
contact?”
“They are in an alliance to invade the Outlands and the Central Kingdoms,” said Axis.
“Isaiah from the south, Lister from the north.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “No…”
“Lister and Isaiah use the pyramids,” Axis said, “to communicate. Lister either made
these, or he has access to those who can. I admit myself highly curious about Lister, Lord of the
Skraelings, and once archpriest of the Coil.”
“Please, Axis,” Ishbel said, “please—the Icarii are in the north, I have seen them, and you
have talked to one of them. Let us, you and I, flee north. Dear gods, you cannot be involved in
this invasion of innocent peoples! Have not enough Icarii died?”
Axis gave her a sharp look at that last. “I do not agree with Isaiah”s plans for invasion,”
he said, “but I will do better here. With Isaiah. He is not a bad man.” He is a man full of
mysteries himself. “I like him. Besides, there are great puzzles to be solved here. DarkGlass
Mountain, for one.”
“DarkGlass Mountain?” Ishbel said, wanting to argue more with Axis about the invasion,
but unable to resist the question.
“I think it is your ancient evil,” Axis said, “or something associated with it. DarkGlass
Mountain is a massive stone-and-glass pyramid far to the south, on the opposite riverbank from
Aqhat. Zeboath, what do you know of it?”
Zeboath gave a small shrug. “Isembaardians know of it only as a great mystery to which
only the tyrant has access.”
Axis laughed. “Well, I shall disabuse you of that rumor here and now. The tyrants have
no idea what it is, either.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Courtyard of the People, Yoyette, Coroleas
Salome supposed that there was an outcry over the loss of the Weeper, but it did not
save her. The guardsmen who held her continued to drag her out of her bedchamber, out of her
luxurious apartment, out of her privileged life, and down into a misery so extreme Salome
wished beyond anything else for death.
They took her first to the guardroom, where they raped her, then handed her over to their
fellows. A day or so later, when the entire guardroom had finished their fun, they dragged her
bleeding body through the streets of Yoyette to the Courtyard of the People, where she was
chained to a stake in one corner.
If Salome had thought she”d endured hell over the past day, it was nothing to what
occurred now. Men and boys continued to rape her—at least while her body remained vaguely
intact. The rapes stopped, however, once the countless rocks and pieces of wood thrown at her
broke and tore her flesh to such an extent that not even rape became attractive.
The Coroleans did not stint themselves. The Duchess of Sidon was hated so violently that
people from all the castes traveled in from the country to have their turn at her. They tried ever
new and inventive ways of humiliating and abusing her. One man tried to persuade his dog to
mount her, another the boar he”d brought in from his farm.
The dog refused, the boar was not so choosy.
Women spat at Salome and emptied chamber pots over her. Small boys poked at her flesh
with hot coals held in iron pincers.
Salome wished for death, she begged for death, but it did not come.
Even death tormented her.
All this abuse was terrible enough, but it paled into insignificance when they dragged her
son, Ezra, before her. Salome had hoped he”d escaped, or had at least been spared the emperor”s
vindictiveness.
But, no.
Ezra was too good an opportunity to torment Salome into hell itself to be ignored.
Guardsmen dragged him before Salome, tossing a bucket of icy water over her to rouse