I had been tied to the iron ring in the stone more securely than Fenin had been. Though Svilsara’s priests had accepted my repentance all too easily, having never encountered an outsider with no faith in their serpent, some suspicion as to my motives remained. In a way, I was grateful for the rope chafing my wrists. The people of Svilsara were like children, naive, trusting, and unable to imagine that another person might not share their belief in the benevolence of their god. If they could doubt me, then perhaps they had within them the capacity to break free of the serpent’s hold.
That, however, was a concern for later. The blinding desert sun bore down upon my head, its heat like a burning iron weighing down on my face and the exposed skin of my arms. My thin traveler’s robe did little to protect me, and I could feel my flesh redden and burn.
“Come on, you foul creature,” I shouted into the burning expanse. “I’m waiting.”
The god of Svilsara did not appear in either of his guises, man or serpent. I had seen enough of his arrogance to know that he would arrive in his own good time.
The priestly attendants had tethered Bran beside me. His lead was longer, and he moved into the shade of the stone, snorting his displeasure. He was thirsty, as was I, and the food and water we had remaining was just out of reach of both of our bonds. Everything I owned in the world was piled in a small heap at the edge of the stone, with my harpoon set awkwardly on top.
Sweat dried on my skin as soon as it appeared. Without water, it was likely I would not last the day. The sun climbed toward noon, inch by inch. There were many, many hours between me and the relief of evening.
I tugged at my bonds. The rope was a fraying braid of rough fibers, with broken ends that dug into my flesh, and the knots held fast. If I had a blade, I could cut through it with ease, but both my harpoon and my one useful knife were out of reach. I pulled hard on the rope, hoping it might snap, but despite the creaking of the iron ring and the bruising strain on my wrists, it withstood all my efforts.
Bran looked at me with one baleful eye. His expression said that I was a fool and I had doomed us both, and I well believed he was right. We’d both die of thirst before the serpent ever came. I wondered if that was how he slew Fenin, and all the sacrifices before her, year after year in isolated secrecy—but he had appeared to us that night, in both his guises.
That did not mean that he was going to deign to appear to me now.
I backed up against the stone, letting the tiny sliver of shade I could reach relieve the burning on the back of my neck. My eyes fell upon my harpoon, glinting darkly in the sun. It had returned to my hand when I threw it. Could it come to me now, if I had the will to summon it?
I reached out, the rope pulling taut over my head. I stretched my fingers and willed the weapon to move. It remained where it had been left, still as death, indifferent to my plight.
“You helped me free the people of Salmacha,” I said. “You are a dragon’s flesh and bone, a dragon’s gift to one who would throw off the yoke of an oppressor. Help me now, and I will do everything in my power to free Svilsara. This I swear.”
I had, until this point, entertained the idea of escaping and leaving Fenin and her people to their fate. Their wicked, proud god had been correct in saying that I could do nothing to convince them to leave their illusory comforts. Why shouldn’t I preserve my own life, and hurry toward the coast without further delays to my quest?
But the dragon upon the mountain above the temple, and the dragon who created this weapon that I now possessed, would have me use it to return to the people of Svilsara the choice their god had taken from them. And one day, I swore, I would stand before Khalim and tell him the tale of how I came to find him. When I spoke of meeting a cruel god in the desert, I wanted him to look back upon me with pride. Khalim would not abandon these people, were he in my place.
The harpoon fell from the stack of parcels, rolling a step toward my feet. Hope flared in my chest until I felt the ground shake. I had not summoned my weapon, but the serpent was coming with all his needless fanfare. I leaned back against the stone to wait.
A plume of dust bloomed upon the pale surface of the desert, rushing toward the sky in swirls and eddies like water pouring over a cliff. Underneath it, the serpent’s body glinted black like obsidian as it undulated across the plain.
It was all an illusion, a trick of heat and light and magic. Still, it was an impressive sight. For a brief moment, I forgot myself and stared in awe as the snake wound its way through the sand. It reminded me of the sea serpent of the far northern waters, with its scales and spines shining in the sun, and the thrill and terror of watching it approach. My hands curled around an imaginary harpoon, but alas, my weapon remained on the ground.
A wave of dust washed over me, clinging to my skin and stinging my eyes. When it cleared, any trace of the serpent was gone. Instead, the strange, tall man with his snakelike grin stood on the rock beside me.
“Hello again, little warrior,” he said, his lips unmoving and his eyes hard as flint.
I acknowledged him with a nod. “You’ve certainly kept me waiting.”
He gave an audible, almost human sigh. “That’s the trouble with you mortals,” he said. “You want everything to happen so quickly, all at once. You have no patience. It’s what makes you so easy to bend toward obedience.”
“You’re trying to convince me that the people of Svilsara deserve what you’ve done to them,” I argued. “It’s not going to work.”
His brows went up, and his smile widened, splitting his face in half. I expected to see a serpent’s fangs if he ever opened his mouth. “Oh? Here you are, tied to the sacrificial stone, waiting to be devoured,” he said with a gesture to our surroundings. “I did not place you here.”
“You told them to do it,” I said.
He nodded. “And they obeyed of their own volition.”
My eyes fell from the man’s uncanny visage to my harpoon, still lying upon the rock. I pictured it flying toward my hand and cutting my bonds before this creature, this god, could even react. I tried to make my mind like water, to think like the dragon who had made this weapon and the champion who had first received it.
The harpoon turned on the stone by an inch. I could summon it, I was certain, but I needed more time. I needed to keep this arrogant, petty god boasting of his deeds.
“You’ve denied them their own volition,” I said. “One day, they’re going to wake up, and realize you’ve been feeding them worthless food and their beautiful city is but a ruin, and they’ll turn on you.”
He laughed, showing too many human teeth that all shone white in the desert sun: four sets of incisors and double the expected number of sharp canines. “I am immortal, little warrior. Each year, the blood of their chosen sacrifices sustains me, but I will endure even without it. Your blood, on the other hand…”
The harpoon twitched. I flicked my eyes back to the man.
“You haven’t been eating their rations,” he continued. “You’ve grown strong on your travels. Your blood will last me a good many years. Does that please you, little warrior? Your sacrifice will allow me to keep my people happy and safe. Isn’t that what you want?”
“So, that’s why you had them bring me here,” I said. “You are not the first petty god who has desired my blood, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. What makes you think you’ll be the one to take it?”
He smiled, and his enveloping black robe began to blur at the edges, drifting away from his body like thick smoke rising from a fire. Sunlight shone through his face as his form faded into the air. “Because you have spent many hours in my city and among my people. I know your mind. You cannot stand against me.”
“I think you’re mistaken,” I said, and my harpoon flew from the ground and into my hand. I let the shaft slip through my hand and tightened my fingers just below the wicked barbs of its head. With a turn of my wrist, I cut my bonds. The rope fell slack around me.
I brought the harpoon to my shoulder and turned to the man. He may have been a god—I was not entirely convinced—but he was not powerful enough to resist a magic weapon. What I would do with a city full of starving people, once he was slain and his illusions broken, was a problem I would address in the future.
He was no longer upon the rock. I looked about, scanning the gleaming horizon for signs of the serpent, but only a scorching wind stirred the sand. “Where are you?” I cried. “Show yourself!”
“Who are you looking for?”
A voice, at once familiar and strange, cut through the sound of my blood racing through my ears. I knew that voice, but I never, ever expected to hear it here, in the middle of the vast sea of dust.
My arm fell from my shoulder. The harpoon slipped through my fingers, and its head hit the ground, sending up a tiny chip of stone. By sheer luck, I maintained a loose hold on the end of the shaft.
I turned around. There, standing beside Bran in the shade of the stone pillar, was Khalim. He wore the clothes in which he had traveled to Phyreios, a thin coat over a plain woven shirt and trousers rolled up to the knee. His wild curls shone where they caught the light, and his soft dark eyes looked at me with a combination of amusement and concern.
“Eske,” he said. “Are you all right?”
This was an illusion. I should have expected it, given what I had seen of the city. If this god could create a blooming garden in the desert, complete with shimmering ponds and enormous fish to populate them, then he could easily create the image of one man.
I gripped the harpoon, but I found I could not lift it. My limbs were weak. The stone beneath my feet felt distant and fragile, as though it were about to crumble away and drop me into a fathomless pit.
“You’re not here,” I choked out, the words like stones in my throat, rough and heavy.
Khalim—the image of Khalim—smiled, and my heart dropped into my belly. “Of course not,” he said, “but I could be. You could have whatever you wanted.”
Back to Chapter XXXV: Outside the Temple
Forward to Chapter XXXVII: Within the Illusion
Eske has gotten himself into a pickle again. Thanks for reading!
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