Serpent Mage by Weis, Margaret

Ramu bowed and went to do his father’s bidding, taking with him the other servitors to assist.

“The dragons have done no great harm,” said Orla. “I am sick of killing. I entreat you, again, Samah, to try to talk with them, find out something about them and what they want. Perhaps we can negotiate—”

“All this you said before the Council, Wife,” Samah interrupted her impatiently. “The Council voted and the decision was made. We did not create these creatures. We have no control over them …”

“And so they must be destroyed,” Orla concluded coldly.

“The Council has spoken.”

“The vote was not unanimous.”

“I know.” Samah was cold, still angry. “And to keep peace in the Council and in my home, I will talk to these serpents, learn what I can about them. Believe it or not, Wife, I, too, am sick of killing.”

“Thank you, Husband,” Orla said, attempting to slide her arm through his.

Samah stiffened, held himself away from her touch.

The Sartan Council of Seven left their walled city for the first time since they had arrived in this new world of their own creation. Joining hands, performing a solemn and graceful dance, the seven sang the runes and called upon the winds of ever-shifting possibility to carry them over the walls of the center city, over the heads of the wailing mensch, to the nearby shores of the sea.

Out in the water, the dragons awaited them. The Sartan looked on them and were appalled. The serpents were huge, their skin wrinkled. They were toothless and old, older than time itself. And they were evil. Fear emanated from the dragons, hatred gleamed in their red-green eyes like angry suns, and shriveled the very hearts of the Sartan, who had seen nothing like it, not even in the eyes of the Patryns, their most bitter enemy.

The sand, which had once been as white and gleaming as crushed marble, was now gray-green, coated by trails of foul-smelling slime. The water, covered with a thick film of oil, washed sluggishly up on the polluted shore.

Led by Samah, the Council members formed a line upon the sand.

The dragons began to slither and leap and writhe. Churning the seawater, the serpents stirred up great waves, sent them crashing to shore. The spray from the waves fell on the Sartan. The smell was putrid, brought a horrid image. They seemed to be looking into a grave in which lay moldering all the hastily buried victims of sinister crimes, all the rotting corpses of the battlefield, the dead of centuries of violence.

Samah, raising his hand, called out, “I am head of the Council, the governing body of the Sartan. Send one of your kind forward to talk with us.”

One of the dragons, larger and more powerful than the rest, reared its head out of the water. A huge wave surged to shore. The Sartan could not escape it, and were drenched to the skin, their clothes and hair wringing wet. The water was cold, chilled them to the bone.

Orla, shivering, hastened to her husband’s side. “I am convinced. You are right. These creatures are evil and must be destroyed. Let’s do what we have to, quickly, and leave.”

Samah wiped seawater from his face, looking at it, looking at his hand in awe and perplexity. “Why do I feel so strange? What is happening? As if my body were suddenly made of lead, heavy and clumsy. My hands don’t seem to belong to me. My feet cannot move—”

“I feel it, too,” cried Orla. “We must work the magic swiftly—”

“I am the Royal One, king of my people,” called the serpent, and its voice was soft and barely heard and seemed to come from a far distance. “I will speak with you.”

“Why have you come? What do you want?” Samah shouted above the crashing of the waves.

“Your destruction.”

The words twisted and writhed in Samah’s mind as the dragons twisted in the water, dipping their serpent heads in and flinging them back out, flailing and lashing their bodies and tails. The seawater foamed and boiled and surged erratically over the shore. Samah had never faced any threat as dire as this one and he was uncertain, uneasy. The water chilled him, numbing limbs, freezing feet. His magic could not warm him.