Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

Ishbel”s unasked question. “Axis has told you all my secrets, then, and has got from you not a

one.”

“Axis does not know the extent of Isaiah”s secrets,” Axis said dryly, wondering again at

what had happened between Isaiah and Ishbel before he arrived, “let alone the nature of them. I

had thought you to be surprised at the news of Lister”s former occupation, but no. I wonder what

your interest in Serpent”s Nest is, Isaiah. What has Lister told you?”

Isaiah made a vague gesture with his hand, as if to evade the question, but he was saved

from any verbal response by Ishbel.

“Do not invade the north, Isaiah,” said Ishbel. “Please.” She paused. “I don”t understand

why you would want to—”

“Does your Great Serpent tell you his secrets, Ishbel? No? Then why should I?”

Ishbel almost shrank back into her chair, and turned aside her face.

There was a lengthy pause, Axis looking carefully between Ishbel and Isaiah.

“Ishbel,” Axis said eventually, “has the Great Serpent never mentioned Lister? If Lister

had been the god”s archpriest, and then vanished, and then took up with the Skraelings, would

not the Great Serpent have mentioned it at some point? After all, he warned you about the

invasion of the Skraelings—”

And from the ancient evil from the south.

“He might not necessarily mention it,” Ishbel said. “The Great Serpent speaks to us

directly very infrequently, and then generally only in riddles. It is a habit of gods, I believe.”

There was a spot more color in her cheeks now.

“Still…” said Axis, wishing he knew what the hell was going on between Ishbel and

Isaiah. “It is strange, nonetheless. He warned you about the Skraelings, but not about Lister.

Very odd.”

“And your Great Serpent did not mention me?” said Isaiah, refilling his wine goblet and

lifting it to his mouth.

“Perhaps he referred to you when he spoke of the great and ancient evil rising from the

south,” Ishbel said, her tone somewhat tart.

Isaiah”s mouth curved about the rim of his wine goblet, but he said nothing.

“There is something I have not yet mentioned,” Axis said, having had enough of this

bizarre conversation. He rose and fetched the small satchel he”d brought into the chamber with

him.

He opened it, and lifted out the glass pyramid.

“Why, Axis,” Isaiah said as Axis sat back down, “Ba”al”uz” pyramid. How strange you

did not refer to it when earlier you related the adventure of Ishbel”s rescue.”

Axis sat down in his chair again, idly moving the pyramid from hand to hand.

“It really doesn”t look very healthy, Axis,” Isaiah continued. “I presume it was like that

when you obtained it from Ba”al”uz” men?”

“No,” Axis said. “It was perfectly healthy then, a lovely rose color, just like yours. I held

it, Isaiah, and do you know what I felt?”

Another raised eyebrow from Isaiah.

“The Star Dance, Isaiah. I felt the Star Dance. You can have no idea how that felt to

me…or perhaps you do…”

“I do not feel this Star Dance when I hold my pyramid, Axis,” Isaiah said. “It feels warm,

but nothing else.”

“They are of Icarii magic, Isaiah.”

“I do not know from where Lister obtained them,” Isaiah said. “Perhaps they floated over

the Widowmaker Sea after Tencendor”s destruction. Maybe the Skraelings discovered them

when they swarmed through Tencendor so many years ago, and the survivors of their army

returned north with them. Perhaps—”

“And perhaps no more „perhaps,” Isaiah,” Axis said. “They are powerful Icarii magic.

And now in the hands of the Skraelings, and Lister? I wonder how this could be possible.”

“Well, two of them are no longer in the hands of the Skraelings or Lister,” said Isaiah.

“Two of them rest here now, in the palace of Aqhat. But explain, how did the pyramid lose its

lovely translucence and dull to that insignificant gray?”

“Whoever held Lister”s pyramid closed the link between it and this one the moment they

felt my presence through it,” said Axis. “Moreover, whoever it was closed its link with the Star

Dance completely, so it turned gray and lifeless. Maybe Lister. Maybe someone else.”

“Then we have another mystery to solve when finally we meet up with Lister,” Isaiah

said. “I know nothing of it, Axis.”

Axis knew he was lying, but he could also tell Isaiah wasn”t worried about Axis keeping

the glass pyramid, either.

How many secrets was the man hiding?

Axis remembered WolfStar, who had masqueraded as so many different people during

his life as StarMan of Tencendor. He remembered the secrets that man had kept, and

remembered the harm and untold sadnesses he had wrought.

Yet every instinct in Axis told him Isaiah was not another WolfStar. He kept secrets, yes,

and he was also manipulative (if not as much as WolfStar), but there was not the darkness or

harm underpinning him as there had been with the renegade Enchanter-Talon.

“Perhaps,” Isaiah said in a slow voice, “if these pyramids are such powerful Icarii magic,

then this BroadWing you mentioned came to steal this pyramid, not Ishbel.”

“They had come to rescue Ishbel,” Axis said, starting to lose his patience with Isaiah. He

felt as if he were being drawn along a long and pointless road just for Isaiah”s amusement. “Sent

by Maximilian Persimius, Ishbel”s husband.”

Something glinted then very deep in Isaiah”s eyes, but it was gone in an instant.

“Her former husband,” said Isaiah. “Maximilian has lost her now.”

“You cannot discount him, Isaiah. BroadWing said he would tear apart the very earth for

Ishbel.”

Again, that strange glint in Isaiah”s eyes.

“I, for one,” continued Axis, “do not believe he is just going to shrug his shoulders and

forget that once he had such a woman to wife.”

“Perhaps,” murmured Isaiah, and Axis almost threw the damned glass pyramid at him.

Toward midnight, when Ishbel and Axis had gone to their own apartments, Isaiah waved

away his servants, called for a horse, and rode to DarkGlass Mountain, where he sat in the

Infinity Chamber for an hour, thinking.

Trying to sense Kanubai—and whatever else accompanied him—crawling up the deep

rent far below him. How far below? How far below? How much time left? How much?

The ugly brindle dog sat on the far bank of the river, looking at Dark-Glass Mountain,

and seeing straight through the glass and the stone to where Isaiah sat motionless.

Kanubai did not speak to Isaiah that night.

CHAPTER THREE

Palace of Aqhat, Isembaard

Ishbel had slept for a few hours, mostly from sheer exhaustion, but then her turbulent

thoughts woke her. Knowing she would not be able to get back to sleep, she rose, donned an

outer gown over her nightdress, and sat in the open window looking out over the vast inner

courtyard of the palace.

In order to keep her thoughts at bay for a few minutes, she concentrated on the view.

Aqhat—indeed, Isembaard itself—was so beautiful. Ishbel had spent her entire life until this past

year in the cold, windswept north, and most of that in the even colder and more windswept

Serpent”s Nest. She was used to landscapes of blunted trees and tough grasses, cragged

mountains and tired, rolling hills, gray mornings and dull days, underpinned by the constant

pounding of the surf at the foundations of the mountain.

Here all was sweet, spiced warm winds and soft color, and a clarity and richness of the

air which, Ishbel thought, could uplift the most jaded of spirits.

She leaned against the window, looking out into a wide courtyard. The courtyard was

dotted here and there with tall palm trees and stands of thick broad-leaved lilies, which wound

about the serpentine edges of a reflecting pool. Beyond the courtyard a broad path led down

through lawns to the Lhyl. Ishbel could just make out the river”s thick reed banks, and hear, very

softly, the song of the frogs.

Her hand rested on her belly. The baby was moving, not much, just sweetly and gently, as

if it were too languid to be bothered turning over completely in her womb.

She wondered where Maximilian was, and if he were thinking of her, or of the child. He

seemed very far away, almost a dream. If it wasn”t for the child inside her, Ishbel thought it

might be easy to forget him entirely, to let him go, let her memory of the marriage fade, just drift

into the air…

She sighed, rousing herself slightly, thinking over the day, and finally allowing herself to

think about Isaiah.

He was the god who had spoken to her atop Serpent”s Nest. A companion god to the

Great Serpent.

He was also a tyrant who planned an invasion of her homeland.

What was happening? Was he the great evil from the south that the Great Serpent had

warned her about? But if he was, then why were the Serpent and Isaiah—a god of the waters as