Two dozen shaven-headed eunuchs in crimson robes knelt in a cluster to one side of the dais, resting on their haunches and gazing at the woman and the statue behind her with worshipful adoration.
Among the cushions at the side of the divan lolled an indolent, pampered-looking young man whose head was riot shaved. His hair was elaborately curled, his cheeks were rouged, and his eyes were fantastically made up. He wore only the briefest of loincloths, and his expression was bored and sulky. The woman absently ran the fingers of one hand through his curls as she watched herself in the mirror.
“The queen has visitors,” one of the kneeling eunuchs announced in a singsong voice.
“Ah,” the others chanted in unison, “visitors.”
“Hail, Eternal Salmissra,” Sadi the eunuch said, prostrating himself before the dais and the pale-eyed woman.
“What is it, Sadi?” she demanded. Her voice was vibrant and had a strange, dark timbre.
“The boy, my Queen,” Sadi announced, his face still pressed to the floor.
“On your knees before the Serpent Queen,” the snake hissed in Garion’s ear. The coils tightened about Garion’s body, and he fell to his knees in their sudden crushing grip.
“Come here, Maas,” Salmissra said to the snake.
“The queen summons the beloved serpent,” the eunuch intoned. “Ah.”
The reptile uncoiled itself from about Garion’s body and undulated up to the foot of the divan, reared half its length above the reclining woman and then lowered itself upon her body, its thick length curving, fitting itself to her. The blunt head reached up to her face, and she kissed it affectionately. The long, forked tongue flickered over her face, and Maas began to whisper sibilantly in her ear. She lay in the embrace of the serpent, listening to its hissing voice and looking at Garion with heavy-lidded eyes.
Then, pushing the reptile aside, the queen rose to her feet and stood over Garion. “Welcome to the land of the snake-people, Belgarion,” she said in her purring voice.
The name, which he had heard only from Aunt Pol before, sent a strange shock through Garion, and he tried to shake the fog from his head.
“Not yet,”the dry voice in his mind warned him.
Salmissra stepped down from the dais, her body moving with a sinuous grace beneath her transparent gown. She took one of Garion’s arms and drew him gently to his feet; then she touched his face lingeringly. Her hand seemed very cold. “A pretty young man,” she breathed, almost as if to herself. “So young. So warm.” Her look seemed somehow hungry.
A strange confusion seemed to fill Garion’s mind. The bitter drink Sadi had given him still lay on his consciousness like a blanket. Beneath it he felt at once afraid and yet strangely attracted to the queen. Her chalky skin and dead eyes were repellent, yet there was a kind of lush invitation about her, an overripe promise of unspeakable delights. Unconsciously he took a step backward.
“Don’t be afraid, my Belgarion,” she purred at him. “I won’t hurt you – not unless you want me to. Your duties here will be very pleasant, and I can teach you things that Polgara hasn’t even dreamed of.”
“Come away from him, Salmissra,” the young man on the dais ordered petulantly. “You know I don’t like it when you pay attention to others.”
A flicker of annoyance showed in the queen’s eyes. She turned and looked rather coldly at the young man. “What you like or don’t like doesn’t really concern me anymore, Essia,” she said.
“What?” Essia cried incredulously.
“Do as I say at once!”
“No, Essia,” she told him.
“I’ll punish you,” he threatened.
“No,” she said, “you won’t. That sort of thing doesn’t amuse me anymore, and all your pouting and tantrums have begun to grow boring. Leave now.”
“Leave?” Essia’s eyes bulged with disbelief.
“You’re dismissed, Essia.”
“Dismissed? But you can’t live without me. You said so yourself.”
“We all say things we don’t mean sometimes.”
The arrogance went out of the young man like water poured from a bucket. He swallowed hard and began to tremble. “When do you want me to come back?” he whined.
“1 don’t, Essia.”
“Never?” he gasped.
“Never,” she told him. “Now go, and stop making a scene.”
“What’s to become of me?” Essia cried. He began to weep, the makeup around his eyes running in grotesque streaks down his face.
“Don’t be tiresome, Essia,” Salmissra said. “Pick up your belongings and leave-now! I have a new consort.” She stepped back up on the dais.
“The queen has chosen a consort,” the eunuch intoned.
“Ah,” the others chanted. “Hail the consort of Eternal Salmissra, most fortunate of men.”
T’he sobbing young man grabbed up a pink robe and an ornately carved jewel box. He stumbled down from the dais. “You did this,” he accused Garion. “It’s all your fault.” Suddenly, out of the folds of the robe draped over his arm, he pulled a small dagger. “I’ll fix you,” he screamed, raising the dagger to strike.
There was no thought this time, no gathering of will. The surge of force came without warning, pushing Essia away, driving him back. He slashed futilely at the air with his little knife. Then the surge was gone.
Essia lunged forward again, his eyes insane and his dagger raised. The surge came again, stronger this time. The young man was spun away. He fell, and his dagger clattered across the floor.
Salmissra, her eyes ablaze, pointed at the prostrate Essia and snapped her fingers twice. So fast that it seemed almost like an arrow loosed from a bow, a small green snake shot from beneath the divan, its mouth agape and its hiss a kind of snarl. It struck once, hitting Essia high on the leg, then slithered quickly to one side and watched with dead eyes.
Essia gasped and turned white with horror. He tried to rise, but his legs and arms suddenly sprawled out from under him on the polished stones. He gave one strangled cry and then the convulsions began. His heels pattered rapidly on the floor, and his arms flailed wildly. His eyes turned vacant and staring, and a green froth shot like a fountain from his mouth. His body arched back, every muscle writhing beneath his skin, and his head began to pound on the floor. He gave one thrashing, convulsive leap, his entire body bounding up from the floor. When he came down, he was dead.
Salmissra watched him die, her pale eyes expressionless, incurious, with no hint of anger or regret.
“Justice is done,” the eunuch announced.
“Swift is the justice of the Queen of the Serpent People,” the others replied.
Chapter Twenty-eight
THERE WERE OTHER THINGS they made him drink – some bitter, some sickeningly sweet – and his mind seemed to sink deeper with each cup he raised to his lips. His eyes began to play strange tricks on him. It seemed somehow that the world had suddenly been drowned and that all of this was taking place under water. The walls wavered and the figures of the kneeling eunuchs seemed to sway and undulate like seaweed in the endless wash and eddy of tide and current. The lamps sparkled like jewels, casting out brilliant colors in slow-falling showers. Garion slumped, all bemused, on the dais near Salmissra’s divan, his eyes filled with light and his head washed clean of all thought. There was no sense of time, no desire, no will. He briefly and rather vaguely remembered his friends, but the knowledge that he would never see them again brought only a brief, passing regret, a temporary melancholy that was rather pleasant. He even shed one crystal tear over his loss, but the tear landed on his wrist and sparkled with such an unearthly beauty that he lost himself utterly in contemplating it.
“How did he do it?” the queen’s voice said somewhere behind him. Her voice was so beautifully musical that the sound of it pierced Garion’s very soul.
“It has power,” Maas replied, his serpent voice thrilling Garion’s nerves, vibrating them like the strings of a lute. “Its power is untried, undirected, but it is very strong. Beware of this one, beloved Salmissra. It can destroy quite by accident.”
“I will control him,” she said.
“Perhaps,” the snake replied.
“Sorcery requires will,” Salmissra pointed out. “I will take his will away from him. Your blood is cold, Maas, and you’ve never felt the fire that fills the veins with the taste of oret or athal or kaldiss. Your passions are also cold, and you can’t know how much the body can be used to enslave the will. I’ll put his mind to sleep and then smother his will with love.”
“Love, Salmissra?” the snake asked, sounding faintly amused.
“The term serves as well as any other,” she replied. “Call it appetite, if you wish.”
“That I can understand,” Maas agreed. “But don’t underestimate this one – or overestimate your own power. It does not have an ordinary mind. There’s something strange about it that I can’t quite penetrate.”