Phantom Snakes

These were dangerous times, so we closely guarded the cave that was the only entrance to our valley. I happened to be on guard that day. I had an arrow notched and was prepared to send it through the eye of any who approached. They came more often these days, strange men who wanted to find the valley and conquer it for their own.
　
So I was not unduly surprised when I saw a man, dressed in armor that glittered in the sunlight, ascending the path. “Halt!” I called down.
　
He looked around, saw me standing on a ledge a little above the cave, and deliberately took a large step forward. “Surrender, savage!” he demanded, “And our armies will be merciful.”
　
I released my arrow, and the man fell down dead. But he had said “armies”; this wasn’t the end. I blew my horn and waited for our warriors to come rushing out through the cave. But before they could, a surge of men in armor swarmed up the road. My heart nearly stopped when I saw their numbers. This was no small raid but a full-scale invasion. I shot several more of the men before one managed to sneak up behind me. I heard a footfall and began to turn, and then there was blackness.
　
I woke up again. I was rather surprised. Everyone knows the Denzorians don’t let nonhumans live, even as captives. And yet, I was alive, my hands bound and tied to a tree. It was very dark out, so I’d been unconscious for hours, at least, and I recognized my surroundings as the base of the mountain with the cave. Around me, the army was camped. I didn’t see any other prisoners. That filled me with dread, but not surprise. I wanted to hope that we’d won, or that some of my people--my family, my friends, even strangers who were still my people--had survived, gotten away somehow, even been captured. But I was no fool. If we’d won, the men around me would be dead or far gone. So they’d won, and that meant there were no survivors.
　
Except me. I still didn’t understand that. I look human enough, besides for my hair, but even with my hood on, my snakes would wriggle, and they would notice. And at that thought, my blood ran cold. For I had been woozy and shocked, enough so that until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the lack of weight hanging from my head, the lack of smooth, scaly bodies moving about my shoulders, or that the pain in my head was not from being knocked out but from having my snakes cut off.
　
I wanted to scream and kill and gouge out eyes. This was worse than the loss of my family and friends and everyone I’d ever known, far worse than my capture. My snakes were part of me, there with me always, yet individual beings, and I loved them. Keythi, who grew from above my forehead on the far right and reached just past my chin and loved to curl around my ear and stroke her head against my cheek; Elth, the largest, who’d wound up and sat on my head and swayed with my emotion; Jinsha, who loved music; Meiltho, who was shy and hid in my clothing; Saols, who would reach out and touch anyone near me; Pli and Yithey and Srey, who would knot and braid themselves into intricate patterns around my head, and Shiiki, who liked to play tricks like covering my eyes or wrapping around trees or furniture as I walked past them. They were gone, dead, all of them. What is a gorgon without her snakes? Nothing.
　
I was crying, and against my will I let out a loud sob. The soldier sleeping closest to me woke. “Shush,” he said gently, coming over to me. “It will be alright. You must pretend to be human, and when you are questioned in the morning swear your loyalty to the Denzorian Empire.”
　
“Did you do this to me? Kill my snakes?”
　
“They would have killed you, otherwise. I saw your face and just couldn’t help bring about the death of such a beautiful woman. No one needs ever know you’re not human. You can wear a hat or a wig, and I will marry you and cherish you forever and never tell anyone your secret.”
　
“You killed my snakes!”
　
“Don’t you understand? I had to!”
　
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. It would have been kinder to kill me.” I looked in his eyes, trying to make him see what it meant. He didn’t, but maybe he got an inkling or at least knew my words were true without quite knowing why, and I could see in his eyes that he meant what he’d said. He was fool, of course, and a selfish one, and a member of an evil people, but he was not, himself, evil. So I said, “You can take me to your home and marry me, and I will live with you in misery, and someday when I get the chance stab you in your sleep. You can tell your companions what I really am and have me killed. I don’t know if you’d be punished for hiding it in the first place; you could probably pretend not to have known. That would probably be best for me; to have the chance to rejoin my people and my snakes. Mine wouldn’t be the only blood you have on your hands, I’m sure. Or you could untie my hands and let me walk away from here, alone.”
　
He thought about it for a long time, then, wordlessly, drew a knife and cut the rope binding me. I was stiff and my head still swam, but I managed to lurch to my feet.
　
“Wait,” the soldier said softly. “At least tell me, what’s your name?”
　
“Anemone.” I didn’t ask him his name, and I didn’t look back. I felt nothing but sorrow, not even the thirst for vengeance.
　
I don’t know for how long I wandered aimlessly, foraging for food and sleeping wherever I dropped when I could walk no longer. I could feel always the absence of my snakes, and sometimes their presence as well. I would feel Elth swaying on my head, or Keythi touching my ear, or most often, Shiiki reaching out to grab a tree. I felt them as strongly as though they were really there, and I died anew inside each time I remembered they weren’t. I often cried while I walked, and while I slept.
　
The stumps of my snakes had healed into smooth scars by the time I found a destination to wander towards. I had lately been remembering everyone I’d once known but would never see again, and I thought of Heia, a woman who’d lived across the road from me, and was one of the best warriors I knew. We hadn’t been quite friends, but we’d enjoyed each others company, and the image of her lying dead, her sword fallen at her side, renewed my tears. Until I remembered that she hadn’t been in the valley when we’d been attacked. She’d left several months before to fight the Denzorians. “There’s a camp, where the Rondal Forest meets the Meolian Sea, and all kinds of free people who wish to remain so make their base there,” she’d told me. “I mean to go out and fight the Denzorians before they come here.”
　
So at least one of my people might still be alive, and in a place where I could give myself a purpose again, stop what had happened to me and mine from happening to others, where I maybe could even get some measure of revenge.
　
So I made my way to the Meolian Sea. It was to the west, I knew that much, and I eventually came across a road leading west, so I followed it until it ended in a small town at the edge of the sea. I was wary of people, but I at least could tell the town was not yet under the yoke of the Denzorian Empire, for while the people I saw were mostly human, I also came across a woman with the head of a blue ox and a family of Starthans. They were having a picnic on the beach, and seemed happy and carefree and innocent. The two children were playing inside a shell the size of my fist, and their parents were sitting on a small blanket nearby, watching them. At seeing them, even I could only feel nostalgia, not real sadness.
　
“Excuse me,” I called down to them. “Do you happen to know which way it is to the Rondal Forest?”
　
The woman smiled at me. “Going to fight the Denzorians, are you? My cousin’s there. It’s north of here, far north. You’d do better to catch a ship.” She turned to her husband. “Has Efril left yet?”
　
“I don’t think so. He lives up there,” he told me, “But comes down to trade for supplies, and he takes passengers. His ship’s the Dishonorable Confidant; it’s anchored down at the docks, you can’t miss it.”
　
“It’s bright pink,” his wife added. “And he won’t even charge you, if you’re against the Denzorians.”
　
I thanked them, and went to find the Dishonorable Confidant. It was a brigantine, and it was indeed bright pink, from the hull to the deck to the sails. “You’re just in time,” Efril told me when I asked about passage. “We’re leaving tonight.” He looked curiously at the scars from my snakes, but said nothing. During the voyage, I could often sense that he wanted to ask, but he never did. He mostly bragged about voyages and exploits, his own and others. I expected most of them were tall tales, but they were entertaining, and I was less miserable than I had been since my snakes had been killed.
　
The weather was fair, and the voyage lasted just over two weeks. Finally, we dropped the anchor and rowed up to the dock in a dinghy.
　
There were several other ships around. None was as flamboyant as the Dishonorable Confidant, but none was exactly ordinary, either. Several flew Jolly Rogers, and one seemed to be made of glass. I noticed merpeople in the water as well, and an enormous sea serpent that reminded me of how Jinsha had swam as I bathed. A human woman and a woman with rainbow skin tanned on the beach, and a group of children of several different species were racing around and giggling. A man with nine arms stood at the end of the dock, holding four fishing rods, and a griffin soared in circles overhead.
　
“The main camp is right up the cliff; there’s a path there,” Efril said, pointing. “I have to unload the ship, but I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
　
“I’ll help,” I offered, partly out of kindness and to repay him for my passage, but mainly because I didn’t want to enter the camp alone.
　
“No, no, you go in, my crew and I will be fine,” he insisted. “And so will you; the camp’s a little hectic but you’ll get used to it.”
　
“A little hectic” did not begin to cover it, I discovered when I reached the top of the cliff. It was a jumble every type of person or animal imaginable, and many that weren’t, until you saw them. I walked around in amazement, to shy to approach anyone. I saw a few other gorgons, from a distance, but I couldn’t bring myself to go nearer to any of them. Any gorgon would know what it meant, that my snakes were gone, and I couldn’t bear the pity right then, especially from people with snakes happily swinging from their heads.
　
I wanted to go back down to the beach and wait for Efril, but I wanted to be braver than that. So I gathered my courage and deliberately approached a group of friendly looking women about my age.
　
“Excuse me, I’m new here….” I began.
　
One of the women, a sphinx, smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Mirthidia, people call me Mirth because, you know, I’m mirthful. Are you a gorgon? I’m usually good at telling what people are. What happened to your snakes? Ouch! Elizabeth, what was that for?” The woman next to her, a human, had kicked her. “Oh, was I being rude? Sorry, I didn’t mean to be. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. You don’t have to do anything here if you don’t want to. Isn’t this place just amazing? Are you going to fight the Denzorians? Lazulia does,” she gestured towards the third woman, “but I don’t usually, I just help her with strategy, I‘m smarter than I sound, and I watch the kids during battle, I‘m good with kids. And Elizabeth is a healer, or she‘s learning to be and her boyfriend is. She‘s even newer here than me, I came from Senthoria a few months ago.”
　
“Um….” I had no idea what to respond to.
　
“You must be overwhelmed,” said Lazulia. “I think everyone is, when they first get here.”
　
“I can see why.”
　
“I didn’t even know there were people other than humans, when I came here,” said Lazulia. “I was Denzorian, originally. Elizabeth too.”
　
I tried to figure out how I felt about that. “Nobody minds?”
　
“If anyone does, that’s their problem. Most people don’t. It’s not my fault where I was born, and I hate them as much as anyone.”
　
“They killed all my people,” I found myself saying. I hesitated before adding, “And they cut off my snakes.”
　
All three of them were horrified; they knew other gorgons and had at least some understanding of what that meant.
　
We talked for a while, and they showed me around the camp and helped me set up a tent. A little before sundown, a Starthan man riding a large dog pulled Lazulia away for what she said was something urgent.
　
Her face was grim when she returned a few hours later. “An army is approaching the camp,” she said, pulling on leather armor as she spoke. “We have to ride out at once and meet them as far from here as we can.” Horns of every tone began to trumpet.
　
“I want to come,” I said.
　
Lazulia nodded. “What weapon do you use?”
　
“A bow, mostly.”
　
“Hold on.” She rummaged around her tent and pulled out a bow and quiver of arrows. “Will this do for now? There isn’t time to find one better suited to you, now.”
　
I examined the bow; it was a little longer than I was used to, but it would do. I had no armor, but I wasn’t alone in that. Lazulia directed me towards a group of archers, and I joined them as we marched out.
　
It was night by the time we reached the Denzorian army, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. They were in their formation, rows and rows of soldiers, as neat as cross-stitch. Our army wasn’t quite as haphazard as it seemed, but it could not by any stretch of the imagination be called organized. I couldn’t see how the fighting began, but soon someone yelled to us, “Draw…and FIRE!” and I did so, and was in the thick of it.
　
Each time I drew my bow I could feel Shiiki wrapped around the arrow. It renewed my anger and hatred, and though my arrows flew farther than anyone else’s and buried themselves deep in my enemies' flesh, I had to wipe the tears from my eyes to be able to see my targets.
　
The battle ended, eventually, and we’d won, or at least, we hadn’t lost. The Denzorians had retreated; they hadn’t pushed past us to devastate the camp. We hadn’t lost, but I didn't feel victoorious.
　
“We just haven’t lost yet, here,” I said quietly to Lazulia as we worked to bury the dead.
　
“That’s how I always feel too,” she admitted, “But we’ve been not losing yet, here, for five years since I’ve been here, and a lot longer than that.”
　
I could feel Elth raise up to his full height on my head. I put my hand to the scar where he’d been, and knew that Lazulia was right. I’d lost once, and even if we could never win, I would always keep fighting to not lose again.

Chaos

This story is a sequel to Entropy. If you haven't read that, you should read it first.

I could not have been more surprised than I was at seeing Elizabeth wandering around the camp in confusion. This was the last possible place I would ever have expected to see her, and she was the last person I would ever have expected to see here. The first thought that ran through my head was that she was here to kill me in revenge for killing her husband. I squashed the thought instantly. Elizabeth was not a vengeful person, and even if she hated me now, we’d grown up together and been best friends for most of our lives.

To my surprise, it did not seem that she hated me. She spun around in fear when I tapped her on the shoulder, but at seeing it was me her expression of worry changed to one of delight. “Lazulia!” she cried, embracing me. “I can’t tell you how I’ve missed you!”

I wondered if she’d gotten my letter at all. Even if she hadn’t, someone would have told her. But if she knew… at best, she’d somehow manage to forgive me, eventually. More likely, she’d hate me forever.

“I’ve missed you too,” I told her. I wasn’t sure how to ask whether she knew. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

“I got your letter,” she told me. “I’m afraid you mixed up your congratulations and condolences.”

“What do you mean?”

“Is there somewhere more private where we can talk?” Because we were standing in the middle of the crowded camp with beings of every possible description going about their business around us. I’m sure it intimidated Elizabeth; even I’d been intimidated when I arrived.

I led her along a path down the cliffs to the beach. It wasn’t empty, of course; the docks were full of pirates and other mariners, and there were merpeople in the sea, and here, as everywhere around the camp, huge black butterflies flew overhead. There were a few beings on the rocky beach, but the rock Elizabeth and I sat on was far enough to allow private conversation.

We were both unsure of what to say. Finally, Elizabeth told me, “I tried to write to you, but I just ended up crumpling up all my attempts. I suppose some things are better told in person. So I kept wanting to come here to visit you, but I couldn’t work up the courage.”

“I guess you did, eventually.”

She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t courage but fear that brought me here. I’ll get to that later, though.”

“What did you mean, about me mixing up congratulations and condolences?”

“You sent me your condolences on the death of my husband. You would have been better served by sending congratulations on his death, and condolences on the marriage in the first place.”

“You weren’t happy with him?”

“No. Oh, I wish you had been able to tell me what happened with him, the day you left. I suppose I wouldn’t have listened anyway. I know I wouldn’t have. Caldow was quite good-looking, you remember. So I went home that day babbling about how I’d met… gods, I believe I actually used the phrase ‘the man of my dreams.’ Lazulia, I was shocked to hear you say you’d been a fool; no, the fool was always me.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “Or at most we were both fools.”

“I don’t know. Your dream ended up coming true, didn’t it?”

“In a rather twisted way, but yes,” I admitted. “Isn’t that funny? My dream was impossible, and it came true, and yours was almost guaranteed, and… well, you sound like it didn’t.”

“I don’t know if it didn’t come true, or if it was just the wrong dream. Anyway, upon hearing that Caldow was a man of suitable rank, wealth, and profession, my father called upon him the next day and arranged the match. I was overjoyed. We had a beautiful wedding, and then he had to leave on campaign right afterwards. I missed him, or the idea of him, but I liked living in his huge manor and being wealthy. It wasn’t until he came back that… well, that things went wrong.”

She paused, so I asked gently, “He was abusive?”

“Yeah. He was away a lot, but when he wasn’t… it was bad. And then after….” After what? I wondered when she broke off that chain of thought, but I didn’t interrupt. “I… I don’t want to admit it, but I… hoped he wouldn’t come back. Every time he left. And then finally he didn’t. And when they told me it was you who’d killed him... it was like you were protecting me from him, even from a distance, even without knowing any of it.”

I had to laugh. “When I found out he was your husband, I felt like I’d betrayed you.”

“That’s how everyone else back home feels, and assume I feel.” She looked around absently, then focused on a large black shape just over our heads. “You know these are omens of doom and destruction?”

“We’re the forces of chaos. We like doom and destruction.”

Elizabeth laughed, then asked, “Really?”

“No. But they seem to like it here, and they seem to fit, somehow. And they don’t hurt anything.”

“I suppose, but they seem so… ominous.”

“Like I said, they fit in here. They follow us in battle, even. Quite spooky for the enemy, I’m sure.”

“I can imagine. Weird, spooky things do fit in here, I guess.”

“Oh, thanks,” I pretended to be insulted.

“It’s just so… you described it in your letter, but actually seeing it… and then I was trying to find you, wandering around between all those strange, terrifying people.”

“They can be overwhelming, but most of them aren’t really like that when you get to know them.”

“I know. It’s just… I doubt I could ever fit in here.”

“Any more than I could back in civilization.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said sadly. “I was just hoping… I don’t know where to go. I know this must make me a horrible friend, ignoring you until I needed you, but Lazulia, I really need your help.”

“Anything,” I promised.

“I inherited Caldow’s money, quite a lot of it. His family dislikes and mistrusts me, and is quite unhappy with the arrangement. And now they have my daughter and will try to use her to manipulate me.”

My jaw dropped. “Your daughter?”

“Emily. She’s three.”

She had been going to say, “And then after Emily was born,” I realized. But the thought was overshadowed by the fact that Elizabeth was a mother. She’d had a baby. Elizabeth had had a baby. I could still remember when we were three years old, and now she had a daughter that age.

And she’d been taken from her mother and was being used as a pawn.

“What are we going to do?” I asked her.

“I don’t know! I hoped you could think of a plan, you’re the one whose good at tactics and strategy and all that. Caldow’s father is the highest placed, richest man in town; the law won’t help me against him.”

“I know you’re didn’t come to me for the law to help you, Elizabeth. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with a plan. Tell me more about where they have her.”

“Well, they live in the big mansion on the hill… you know which one I’m talking about?”

“The one that’s exactly the opposite of a haunted house?”

“Yes! I’d forgotten about that. From what I’ve been able to find out, she’s there being taken care of by the servants. Taken care of well, not mistreated or anything, but she’s my daughter!”

“The best thing,” I mused, “would be to sneak in and grab her. Is she under guard?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d assume she would be. And the house would certainly be guarded. Damn not being good at invisibility. I’ll have to get help, I think, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then the other question is what you’ll do once you have her. They don’t sound like the type of folks to give up so easily.”

“No. I was thinking maybe I could come here, but now that I’m here… this isn’t the place for me.”

“We’ll rescue Emily, and the two of you can come back here and stay while you figure out what to do next. Right now, let’s go find Tewlan. And maybe one of the Starthans, it would be useful to have someone less than six inches tall… but on second thought, probably more trouble than it’s worth. So Tewlan it is.”

“Who,” I heard the unspoken, And what?, “ is Tewlan?”

“He’s a friend of mine, and he can go so invisible you can’t even see him.”

“Um, isn’t that what invisible means?” Elizabeth asked as we walked back up the cliffs.

“Sure, but it’s really, really hard. Most people can’t get that invisible, at least not in bright light. See, this is the best I can do,” I went invisible, which, for me, only meant that my color faded to a sort of translucent version. “But I’m really bad at it.”

“About your friend… is he human?”

“As far as I know.”

We found Tewlan bent over an injured kitten, for he specializes in using his magic for healing, and heals humanoids and other animals without discriminating. Once he’d finished with the kitten, I made the introductions.

“Lazulia has said so much about you. It’s great to finally meet you,” Tewlan said to Elizabeth.

“You too. I mean, I haven’t talked to Lazulia for years so she hasn’t said much about you, but it’s great to meet you too.” Elizabeth blushed.

I raised a mental eyebrow. Elizabeth and Tewlan? That would be an interesting couple… though they’d be good for each other, I thought. And they were both my friends…. Wouldn’t that be interesting.

I explained the problem, and the plan, or as much of a plan as there was, and asked Tewlan if he was in. “I’d be happy to help you,” he told Elizabeth.

We rode to Elizabeth’s town, the town I’d grown up in. It was strange being back. Things were the same, except where they were different, small differences, but that only made it stranger. The house next door to the house I’d grown up in had been green, and now was blue. A tree Elizabeth and I had sat in had been chopped down. And of course, I was so very different from when I’d left.

We snuck up to the manor house Emily was being kept in. The plan was for Tewlan and Elizabeth to sneak in, invisible, and bring Emily out, while I made a diversion. I am good at creating diversions; you might say it’s one of my specialties.

We separated, and I went around to the front of the house, hid in a bush, and started making banshee-like screams. When someone popped out of the house to see what was going on, I started a fire. It was floating in the air, so it’s not like it would have caused any damage, but it seemed to upset people pretty well anyway. The person who’d first came out of the house—on closer inspection I could see it was a butler—went back in and came out with more people who ran around in a panic. They tried to swat at the fire with cloths to put it out, but it was higher than they could reach. At that point I summoned a whole swarm of the huge black butterflies. This freaked the people out even more, and soon there was a whole great crowd of frantic people, most of whom had come out of the mansion, though a few had been walking by. I directed the butterflies in great swirling dances. The people, except for me, were not entertained.

Finally, I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked around to see nothing behind me. “Is that you?” I whispered.

“Yes,” I heard Tewlan and Elizabeth’s voices.

“Do you have Emily?”

“Yes.”

“Can you make me invisible, so we can get out of here?”

A pause, during which Tewlan must have been nodding or shaking his head, then, “Nope. Even three people is taxing, I couldn’t do four. Just wait, they’ll go away eventually.”

“It might help if you put the fire out and got rid of the butterflies,” Elizabeth suggested.

I put out the fire and sent the butterflies back to where they’d come from, and soon enough, the people disappeared back into the house. We snuck away, then ran as quickly as we could to where we’d left the horses, and rode away.

Tewlan had dropped the invisibility while we were riding, and now I had the chance to look at Emily. She was adorable, and looked just as Elizabeth had at that age. She didn’t freak out at being taken away on horseback as Elizabeth would have though,

She liked the camp as well. Its bright colors and interesting people provided endless amusement for her, and there were a few other children around her age who she quickly became friends with. Elizabeth grew more comfortable with the camp than she had been, thanks partly to her daughter’s influence and partly to Tewlan.

Elizabeth and Emily stayed at the camp for a few weeks. Then they stayed for a few more weeks. And then a few more. Eventually, everyone realized they weren’t going anywhere. A little bit later, Elizabeth realized it and announced that they were staying. She told me it wasn’t because of Tewlan, but Elizabeth had always been a bad liar.