Gently nudging a couple of twenty-foot-long yarn-snakes out of the pathway, he ushered his charges to the throne, somewhat more visible after Yob brushed handfuls of baby bushmasters from Rotapan's feet. Cheyne looked on with interest. Rotapan's throne must have been part of the original furnishings of the building; some of the same seashell decorations had been worked into its design. Its carved red marble gleamed with a high polish.
Somewhere during the short walk to the throne, Claria's fear of the deadly reptiles turned to curiosity. None of the snakes seemed the least bit dangerous, their movements languid and lazy. She knew some to be natural enemies-why did they tolerate each other, and how was it that Yob could handle them? Just as she was about to ask, Rotapan raised himself from the throne and stood before them, smiling.
Though she recognized traces of a resemblance, Claria decided instantly that the statue in the desert had been sculpted by an artist whose flattery bordered on deceit. But at least now she knew how he had gotten his name. Rotapan stood only four feet tall to begin with, and looked older than the rock in which he'd been immortalized. Blue eyes, set far too closely together, peered out from a slightly overhung brow, and gray fuzz covered his chin. Wisps of pale hair crowned his head rather than the lush waves the desert artisan had provided. His upper lip lay completely hidden under a huge silver mustache, leaving the lower one to protrude prominently over his weak chin. His features, like his speech, were decidedly human, though his skin tone and the clawed hands and feet gave away his half-ore heritage.
Uh-oh, she thought. That probably means he's much smarter, and much more dangerous.
Rotapan dismissed Yob with a wave of his staff and stood watching as the ore gingerly made his way to the door, the sea of writhing reptiles closing quickly over his wake. The overking then rested his cold gaze upon Claria.
'I am Rotapan, Rex Serpens to the ten tribes. You will answer me, woman. Why do you offend me by declining an audience? You may address me as 'Overking,'' he said, his right hand wandering up and down his staff.
Claria had forgotten his first question. She stood transfixed by the scepter's glowing red stone, cleverly set as a third eye in a gold viper's head, its fangs bared, at the very top of the staff. Cheyne prodded her gently and she found her voice.
'I meant no disrespect, Overking. Snakes make me very nervous. I don't like them,' she replied, flustered.
Rotapan grinned slyly, showing the two tiny, sharp fanglike teeth left him. 'Neither do I, woman. But what is your name, and who is your tall companion? Something about you smells familiar, like a rat we saw lurking around the outside of the temple once. Speaking of rats, have you any notion of the esteemed person who travels with you?' he ended sarcastically, and motioned to Og, who had remained remarkably quiet since they had come through the door, his focus entirely upon the red stone in the staff.
With the mention of his name, Og bowed to Rotapan.
'Forgive the woman, Overking. She knows nothing,' Og said, pitching his voice in a pleasant, warm range. Claria shot him a deadly look, but let him continue. 'Her name is Claria, and her companion is Cheyne, a digger.' Cheyne's dazed face matched Claria's.
'Archaeologist,' Cheyne interjected.
Og went on. 'We seek only passage to the Borderlands. We hope to return with treasure, and with such would gladly pay your fee for safegoing.'
With the word treasure, Rotapan's nose crinkled up like a dried fig, and he cackled loudly.
'You come into my temple with two stinking humans who don't have so much as a second name between them and expect me to believe you are hot on the trail to treasure? You cannot be serious.' He began to cough with laughter, finally doubling over in some sort of spasm and almost dropping the staff.
One of the puffadders lying near Cheyne's ankle made a sudden movement toward Claria, its mouth wide with aggression. Rotapan hastily tightened his grip on the rod and brought it down sharply on the marble step. The adder dropped harmlessly to the ground, leaving Claria gritting her teeth to keep from shrieking.
'But perhaps you think you are serious, I see,' the overking continued. 'Hmm… You have told me lies before, Og. Your head is already promised to me. Should I collect your bones now, or wait for you to make me richer? It's also time for another sacrifice.'
He eyed Cheyne suspiciously. 'You are a digger? You hunt for lost things, lost hoards? What time has buried, from the glorious days of antiquity?'
Cheyne nodded.
'You smell strange, digger. I wonder if you are not sent here to dig up my kingdom. Perhaps you are sent by Riolla? Remain where you are. I must consult my cabinet.'
He stepped gingerly through the coils of a boras and over a ghost cobra, its white scales reflecting the glow of the red gemstone in the ornament, and banged the staff on a large wooden cupboard,
'All right, Og, what's this about a sacrifice and when is he going to let us go? We have to get out of here,' whispered Cheyne, adjusting the cord on his amulet. 'That's your ajada, isn't it?'
Og nodded. 'Yes. He hasn't really got the hang of it, though. The ajada trues my music. The way he's working it, that power looks to have somehow drawn nearly every snake in this part of the world to him. Interesting. And the sacrifice-apparently for Chelydrus-the monstrous water snake he says lives in the cauldron-is something he does every now and then, when things aren't going all that well. Like now, I guess-the closed caravan route means he never sees most of what the northern tribes take off the longer road to Fallaji. There's talk that one of the underkings is getting pretty powerful up there. Oh, and don't worry; nobody else has ever seen Chelydrus-it's a figment of Rotapan's imagination.'
'How comforting. Og, what precisely does he sacrifice?' asked Claria, tight-lipped and pale.
'Um, well, I'm sure we'll figure something out before we have to talk about that. Keep your eye on me. We may have to run for it, if this gets personal,' said Og, silently working out a scheme to retrieve the ajada.
'Silence!' shouted Rotapan. From the drapes of his robe, the half-ore slowly took a long bone carved into the shape of a key and unlocked the cabinet doors, swinging them wide.
This time, Claria was beyond shock. When three shelves full of shrunken heads began to bat their eyes and yawn, she just dug her nails deeply into Cheyne's hand. He wondered how snake bites could possibly be more painful.
'His enemies,' whispered Og. 'He uses my stone to animate them and make them tell him the future. Again, the stone governs truth, so they can't prophesy lies. They still hate him, though. He can't do anything about their venomous words.'
'Why the two empty spots?' murmured Cheyne.
'One is for the riverking, Wiggulf. Didn't you hear him when we came in? He sings all the time in the water dungeon under this temple. Rotapan would have
killed him by now, except that he enjoys torturing him with captivity and he's more than a little afraid of selkies, even though ores have been known to eat them…'
'Ores eat anything, even other ores. Why is Rotapan afraid?' said Claria.
'Well… some time ago, Drufalden-'
'Drufalden? You mentioned her before,' said Cheyne.
'She's queen of the cold country, has a fortress of ice up on the biggest mountain in the range, along the Borderlands,' answered Claria. 'The last of the Three Sisters, they call her. A long time ago, when everything was locked in ice, her ancestors' kingdom covered most of Almaaz. They've never gotten over the Thaw.'
'As I was saying, Drufalden had another of my stones. The caravan route passes through her lands, so Riolla had to pay her off, also. But the ice queen got a little careless with her water sapphire. Lost it as she was bathing in a stream that feeds Into the selkies' river. The stone washed right down into a fish's mouth, quick as you please, and in a day or two, it was on Wiggulf s table, decorating his lunch. Of course, he knew what it was- that harpy had been using the stone to freeze the waters upstream from him for years. Little by little, she was advancing toward his kingdom, pushing his clans together and starving them out, trying to take control of his waterways, forcing his fishing farther and farther toward Rotapan and the Silver Sea.'
'And his poison,' added Cheyne.
'Yes. And drying up the sea at the same time, just to irritate Rotapan. So Wiggulf, or rather his family, has held the stone for awhile-as both a balance against his life with the ores and as a threat to Drufalden.'
