Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

whom the Skraelings had a love-hate relationship.

The Skraelings listened to what Lister had to say, and in return for the food and the kind

words, they occasionally helped out in the castle (as much as Skraelings were capable of

“helping out” anyone, but they did their best), but they owed him no particular loyalty.

Lister was not their master.

The Lealfast, as much as they tried to lord it over the Skraelings, were not their masters.

Their true lord lay far south, and every day his siren song grew stronger and stronger in

their minds.

One day the Skraelings would go to him.

One day, when they were strong, they would swarm.

High in Crowhurst, Lister stood at a window looking down at the Skraelings. He was

never too sure whether to be sorry for the creatures, or to be completely repulsed. For the

moment he supposed he should be tolerant of them, for they tolerated him and gave him a stage

on which to act.

“They”re growing restless,” said Inardle, standing at his side. She had a hand resting

intimately on his lower back, caressing him through the soft fabric of his clothing.

“They will swarm this winter,” said Eleanon, from where he stood farther back in the

room.

Another of the Lealfast, a man called Bingaleal, who was older, more experienced, and

somewhat harder in nature than the other two, moved up to Lister”s shoulder. “They scare me to

death,” he said, earning himself a surprised look from Lister.

“They scare you to death?” Lister said. “But I would have thought you to be their friend.”

He received no reply from Bingaleal save a slightly cynical twist of the man”s mouth, and

so Lister turned to Eleanon.

“Your brothers and sisters, your cousins and neighbors, your friends and comrades?”

Lister asked the man, although he meant the question for all the Lealfast in the room. “Are you

ready to swarm?”

“We are ready, Lister,” said Eleanon. “All of us. We will do anything to ensure that

Elcho Falling rises again.”

Lister looked at Bingaleal, who held seniority over Eleanon and Inardle.

“Anything for the Lord of Elcho Falling,” Bingaleal said in a quiet tone, and Lister

nodded, satisfied.

“Then I, and he, are blessed indeed by the Lealfast,” said Lister, giving Inardle a kiss on

her forehead and smiling at Eleanon. “Now, to business, eh? Ba”al”uz. I have heard or felt

nothing from him, and I worry.”

“Is he not in Coroleas?” said Inardle.

“The last I heard, yes,” said Lister. “But now? I don”t know. Until he makes himself

known to us, we just won”t know where he is.”

“He must still be in Coroleas,” said Inardle.

“I hope so,” Lister muttered.

CHAPTER TEN

Venetia’s Hut in the Marshlands, Escator

Tell me what you know, Ravenna,” Venetia said. “Tell me why you have left Lord

Drava and returned to this world.”

They were sitting at the table, conversing in quiet tones.

Everyone else was wrapped in blankets, and lying in various spots about the fire, but

neither Ravenna nor her mother would be able to rest until they had spoken with each other.

“There is something coming,” said Ravenna. “Something about to move between this

world and…another. Not from the Land of Dreams, but from a far darker world. Drava spoke

often of it, and I felt it, too. I think you have as well, Venetia.”

Venetia nodded. “My dreams have been greatly disturbed these past months, and not just

with my sense of the woman, Salome, who StarDrifter abandoned.”

She paused, one hand rubbing at her forehead, as if to worry away her memories. “I feel

as if the world is about to pull apart, Ravenna. Like dough that has been rolled and stretched too

far on the pastry board. Something is stretching reality too thin in order that it might cross over.

A terrifying, raging beast. I feel as if…”

Ravenna smiled, a little sadly. “I think it has come time for us to say good-bye, for the

time being, to these comforting marshes.”

They sat in silence for a little while, each lost in her own thoughts, then Venetia roused,

and smiled a little.

“Tell me, Ravenna. Do I have a grandchild yet? I have often wondered. Did you give

Drava a child?”

“No,” Ravenna said, “I wanted no child. Not of his. He was not what I wanted.” She gave

a small shrug. “I had been thinking of leaving for a very long time. The darkness that now besets

us finally gave me the courage to actually leave.”

Venetia stretched her hand across the table, resting it on Ravenna”s arm. “And I for one

am glad to have your company again. It has been a lonely time here without you.”

She gave her daughter”s arm a pat. “And what a coincidence, my darling, that you should

reappear just as Maximilian has lost his wife. Be careful, Ravenna. I sense deep sorrow about

this, such abiding sadness, such loss, that I worry for you.”

“Venetia, do not worry. Maxel is my friend. He cannot hurt me.”

Maximilian lay wrapped in his blanket in a quiet corner of the hut, listening to Venetia

and Ravenna”s muted conversation. His shoulder still throbbed, but Venetia had rubbed an

ointment into it earlier that had reduced both the pain and swelling, and Maximilian thought it

would be well enough within a day or two.

He was tired, but for the moment he did not sleep.

Strangely, he felt content for the first time in many months.

The sudden appearance of Ravenna, a girl—now woman—to whom he”d once entrusted

his life, he took as an omen of very good fortune. Maximilian had felt a distance between him

and Garth, but Ravenna…he was glad to see her again, and he thought she would be a boon on

his journey into Isembaard.

Maximilian knew without a shadow of a doubt that she, as her mother, would be

accompanying him farther south.

More important, the Weeper accounted for his strange state of contentment. He”d known

the instant he”d touched it on the beach that the bronze statue was somehow intimately connected

with Elcho Falling and with himself.

That moment on the beach had been a shock, and he”d leapt back, asking Ravenna to pick

up the statue.

But now…when StarDrifter had laid the Weeper into his arms earlier, Maximilian felt as

if an intimate part of him had been returned. He had no idea what, or even how, but the Weeper

suddenly made him feel…vindicated. Doing something positive and riding after Ishbel had been

the right thing, after all.

The Weeper was near his bedroll, not quite touching one of Maxel”s hands as it lay

outside the blankets. Maximilian knew his Persimius ring and the queen”s ring, secreted away in

a pocket of his jerkin, were communicating with the Weeper. Not in words, and not in any

manner that Maximilian could understand, but communicating they were.

Somehow, they were old friends.

For the moment Maximilian felt contented, and he felt safe, and he felt optimistic, and

none of these things had been close companions for many, many months.

Maximilian finally succumbed to his weariness and slept.

The rings and the Weeper chatted throughout most of the night.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Road Between Narbon and Deepend

Ba”al”uz had no idea how he”d managed to survive the storm. He”d crouched in a corner

of that cursed cabin, holding on to anything he thought might give him purchase, screwed his

eyes closed, and waited for that final, crashing wave that would send the fishing boat to the

bottom of the sea.

It hadn”t come.

The storm had grown immeasurably worse by the moment, the cabin had pitched and

rolled until Ba”al”uz was covered in bruises and contusions from being tossed against chests and

bunks, but the boat had not sunk.

Instead, incredibly, the storm calmed, the sea became unruffled, and everyone,

apparently, was going to live at least another day.

Ba”al”uz had struggled on deck—only to discover that during the height of the storm, the

captain had managed to lose StarDrifter overboard.

With the Weeper.

It had been a moment Ba”al”uz would never forget. Standing there on the now gently

rolling deck, staring at the captain, trying to comprehend the words.

StarDrifter was lost.

The Weeper was gone.

Then the incredulity and incomprehension faded, and incandescent rage took their place.

Ba”al”uz summoned every scrap of power that he could, meaning to strike the captain and the

crew and even the entire damned, cursed fishing boat from the face of the sea (the fact that he

needed captain, crew, and boat in order to reach safety himself just didn”t occur to Ba”al”uz in

his fury).

But something had quelled his power. Something about the captain, and the five crew

standing in a semicircle behind him.

Something calm. Something…protective.

They”d been encased by a charm. Ba”al”uz could not see the precise nature of it, but he

could smell the Weeper about it.