The Serpent's Shadow

a battle of words and wits, you would ever carry the day.'

Gupta blushed. 'I would not say I was wise, only cunning, perhaps, and perhaps the gods gave me the words to move my friend-foe's heart. So it was I convinced him to lie to Shivani, to bring her the heart of a doe, and not the heart of our gentle dove, your mother. This he did, then fled and took his service far into the north, lest she discover his deception.'

'But how could she not know—' Maya began. Gupta cast her a withering glance.

'You, who weave protections about us every night, ask this? Your mother spent herself and her power in weaving a canopy of deception about herself, about the sahib, and about you. Her sister knew nothing, immured as she was in her temple, never coming forth either by day or night, weaving magics of her own, and plots to destroy the sahibs and all who fattened themselves at the English table.'

Now Maya understood. The English who thought that they ruled India because India was not wise enough to rule herself were fools. There was enough resentment and anger at the arrogant foreigners to supply the fodder for a hundred outbreaks of rebellion a year, and it was surprising that there had actually been so few. So her mother's sister had allied herself with one of those factions . . . and not just any faction either, but with the thugee cult of Kali Durga.

'She dared not teach you the magics of your own people, although you begged to learn, for she could not have concealed your half-awakened power once it began to shine. She knew that you must come to learn one day, but she hoped that if you were to learn the magics of your father's people, her sister would not recognize that the magics were wielded by the hand of one of her own blood.' Here Gupta smirked. 'And when the Sahib Witherspoon went about with the doctor his daughter, even if Shivani did hear of such a thing, her eyes were so blinded by hatred that she never would have thought the daughter to be other than wholly English, for she never would credit a sahib with bringing a half-blood daughter into the sun, and never, never, would she credit him with giving her education and a high rank within the sahibs' world.'

'So—that was why we were safe for so long.' Maya spoke slowly, her heart contracting with grief at her mother's long sacrifice. 'Because she never went out if her sister would have heard of it, and her magic made it seem that we—just weren't there. I always knew we had an enemy, one who had great power— but I never knew it was one of her own blood.'

Gupta's eyes clouded briefly. 'Alas, that her magics were not enough to keep the wings of the plague- goddess from overshadowing her.'

Maya's throat tightened, and she groped for her handkerchief, but her hand never reached it, for her heart froze within her at Gupta's next words.

'I have never been certain that was mere mischance,' he said, with a hint of a growl of anger in his throat. 'Kali Durga governs disease as well as the thugee. And the snake in the sahib's boot was no accident at all.'

Of course, it couldn't have been, she thought, as Sia and Singhe flowed forward to twine around her ankles, as if seeking comfort and reassurance. She reached down to stroke them. 'No. You're right, Gupta. No ordinary snake would have gotten past these little warriors. Never, ever, would they have let a serpent get so far as the bungalow door.

Sia whined in her throat; Maya cupped her hand comfortingly around the mongoose's cheek. 'I have known for a very long time that we had an enemy with magic power, my oldest friend. I even guessed that this enemy caused my father's death. That was why I fled from home, and took you with me, for since you were willing to come, I would not leave you behind to face the wrath of one who had been thwarted. But I did not know that my enemy had so ... familiar a face.' She shivered. 'Why, Gupta? My mother and father are dead. What possible quarrel can she have with me?'

'That you live is quarrel enough, to her and those who serve her,' Gupta replied sourly. 'And her anger and hatred would only be the greater, that Surya deceived her for so long. Your mother—and you—are everything she is not, have everything she has not. You earn respect; she has only fear. She is comely, but her bitter heart casts a blight over her beauty and her face—when last I set eyes on it—had the same icy beauty as a diamond. A man may admire a diamond, but he will not love it. And you have love. I do not think she is even liked by those she serves and those who serve her. Envy eats at her, waking and sleeping. Of this, I am certain.' He pursed his lips. 'And there is another thing,' he added reluctantly. 'It is only a thing that I have heard, once or twice, as a rumor. But it is said that if one who devotes her magic to the dark slays another mage, she will have that mage's power to add to her own. For that reason alone, she is likely to harm you.'

Maya digested Gupta's words, feeling cold and very much alone. 'And what have you seen and what have you heard, that you bring me these words now?' she asked him, at last.

His face took on the aspect of someone who is haunted, but is reluctant to speak of his fear. At last, he cleared his throat. 'I have heard, when I have been abroad at night, the call that the thugee use, one to another. It was not near here,' he added hastily, 'but they are within the city.'

She didn't ask him how he knew what such a call sounded like. It was easy enough to guess that it would be the call of some night-walking bird or animal of India, and it was unlikely that anyone would be prowling the streets of London making such a sound, unless he was from her homeland, and he and those with him had a reason to keep their movements a secret.

'And you have seen?' she prompted.

'I have seen—in the bazaar where I go to buy our foodstuffs from home—the shadow of a serpent on a wall, where no serpent was, or should be.' Fear stood unveiled in his eyes. 'It was said that Shivani danced with the