A Narcissus from a Viper

Wealthgiver 9

This is the NINTH chapter of Wealthgiver, an alternate history serial romance about nationalism and cave-Thracians. For the back-of-the-book description and an index of chapters, click here. For the beginning, click here. For the previous chapter, click here.

MOOD MUSIC

In a cave under a mountain, a doctor pressed his back against a corner of his cell and stared into nothing. He had scratches all down his back from the rocks of the cavern floors. His fingertips still throbbed from when he'd tried to claw his way back out, and the iodine stung like the very devil.

"Better than Crossing the Balkan Mountain in January," he told himself.

At least there was no snow. No mud or bombs. Nobody was shooting at him. Just silence and cool, absolute darkness. Andrei might as well close his eyes as open them.

What good was light to him now? No need to plan or run. Andrei had been well and truly caught. Just not by the right people.

Was a hissing collection of trogladytic cultists better than a court martial? Were these cave-Thracians likely to be any more merciful than the Major General? Was it better to be sacrificed to some pagan god or cleanly executed?

The devil you know, Doctor, or the devil you don't?

Andrei had been given a basin of hot water, a cloth, a bowl of bread and milk, and a bundle of clothes. Doing the appropriate things with the first two had used up maybe a half an hour. Now the rest of the night stretched before him. The rest of his life, however short that might be.

He reached for the clothing. Groping in the dark, Andrei first found the undershirt and drawers, which seemed to be cotton as modish as any found in Paris. Under them, however, lay a voluminous, ankle-length robe, and a broad woolen sash to hold it tight, like the vestments of a monk or a dervish. The robe was lined with felted wool, but its outer covering was some coarse, papery fabric that rustled loudly with even the slightest movement. Andrei understood why when his fingers found the slippers. Their soles had been pierced by an arc of metal tacks. Wearing these clothes, Andrei would click with every step and rustle with every gesture.

That was all. There didn't seem to be any fox-fur cap included in Andrei's kit. Maybe you only got one once you'd sacrificed somebody to Hades.

What would these people do to him? Why do any of this to a runaway physician? Why march Andrei across a continent, kill his patients as quickly as he fixed them, chase him up a mountain, and imprison him in the darkness? What next?

Andrei sank to the chilly floor, pulling his knees closer to his chest, and stared at his hands.

He frowned. Rotated his wrists. Wiggled his fingers. Was his skin glowing?

In green and purple blotches. That can't be healthy.

Andrei closed his eyes. No difference. The bruise-colored outlines continued to wave against the blackness.

He opened his eyes again, again to no discernible effect, and traced up the green and purple outlines of his arms and shoulders. His waving hands stood out much more clearly than his unmoving torso. When he breathed, though, there was his chest, clear in his non-sight. When Andrei stretched his legs and wiggled his toes, he could see them right through his slippers. The corner of the cell's bed, however, failed to reveal itself until Andrei's kicking leg whacked it.

Ow! So. No preternatural senses, then. Andrei was only hallucinating.

A man could always feel where his own body was, and he could remember the general positions of the few items in this room. Starved for real light, Andrei's brain helpfully confabulated vision for him. Why should that lie make him feel better?

How many times have you told a doomed patient that he would recover?

Andrei hissed out a breath through his teeth, and the walls of his cell seemed to brighten.

Lies and hope. What was the difference? When these cave-Thracians told him that if he passed their tests, they wouldn't kill him. What did that even mean? Would they only torture him to insanity? Crown him emperor? Put him to work polishing the idols and sorting the snakes? Or whatever work it was that cultists needed done.

And what work do you need to do, Doctor?

Andrei blinked, and green and violet wheeled. He'd said he'd take these people. He'd entered their house, certainly, and there was sickness here for him to cure.

He pulled his knees back up to his chin. There was no point in thinking about medical ethics. What Andrei needed was to work out a way to convince them to let pass their "test" and live. Did they need a doctor in this mountain? Or did they already have one?

Ask instead if they need a god.

"Shut up." The walls of the cell rang with his voice. They seemed very close.

Andrei stood with the convulsion of an insomniac and groped along the wall until he came to the bed he'd kicked. Now, along the bed to explore the opposite wall.

The sheets on the bed were finer than those in his family house, but the rest of the cell seemed monastically bare. At least, Andrei's hands found nothing when he paced the perimeter of the chamber but bare walls and a locked door. The floor was stone, smoothed by generations of feet and eons of water, very slightly canted to one side. Andrei had to adjust his pacing.

He had made three dozen laps around the cell when something clicked in the darkness. Wood scraped against stone and the breeze on Andrei's face shifted. Someone had opened the door. He turned to face it, breathing hard, trying to remember what he'd planned to say to his captors.

"What do you mean to do with me?"

"I would have that this was already clear." The voice seemed to come from a long way up, as if a goblin clung to the ceiling. It spoke in Russian.

"Oh," Andrei said. "Nikolai Igorevich. Look, I don't suppose you'll drop this idea of ritually sacrificing me and just join me in my escape? Two sons of Russia together, eh? Making a break for freedom?"

An aggravated pause, followed by "No." The very darkness seemed to scowl.

Andrei essayed another try. "Is this how you treat a guest? So as to make him want to run away? I'm a doctor who could be useful to you, not a sacrificial victim."

"We are all victims in the end, Andrei Trifonovich. And in the end, use can be found for all of us, as well." Nikolai chuckled, pleased at his own insight.

Andrei nodded. So much for the hope that he'd been wrong in his first estimation of Nikolai's character. High priest of Pluto or not, the man fit a mold. He reminded Andrei of his youngest brother.

The family's plan was for the boy to study agriculture, but somehow he'd fallen in with the Narodniks. After Andrei's intervention and certain other disasters, his brother had left both his friends and his university to become a monk.

At the time, Andrei had breathed a sigh of relief. His youngest brother had a tendency to follow, to find people to worship. Now, Andrei wondered what might happen if ever his brother was so unfortunate as to be elected abbot.

"How about breakfast, then?" he asked. "Fatten me up before you pop me into the oven?"

"Fool," whispered the priest. "Your life hangs by a thread."

Note this, Doctor: he thinks you worth frightening.

"I suppose you had better tell me what I can do to increase my chances of survival, then."

A wet sound in the darkness. Andrei imagined lips parting in a smile. "You have come to us as a gift, Andrei Trifonovich, but it is left to us to determine the nature of that gift. We must hone your shape. Cut away the worldly clay so that the divine metal may ring true. Only then can we hear your resonances."

"Comforting," said Andrei.

"There is to be a ritual."

"Yes? The equinox, was it?"

"The equinox approaches, yes, and with it the Un-Descent." Now Nikolai sounded a bit disappointed under his sepulchral tone, as if he'd been hoping for more pleading on Andrei's part.

"And the Un-Descent would be?"

"The Fruit-Bringer will leave the Sacred Depths for the season and go among our people, spreading the flowers of hope and the fruit of victory."

"I see." Andrei squinted into the pitch-blackness. "I understand, in any case."

"A sense of humor," said Nikolai, "is unbecoming in the vessel of Grim Hades."

You're in for a surprise, priest.

Andrei chuckled to himself.

"Stop that!"

"My sincerest apologies," said Andrei. "So, then. Aside from grimness, what's expected of me during this ritual?" Again, Andrei's imp of the perverse had him by the voice box. "What am I to do with the Maiden? What Hades does with Persephone?"

A hiss. A choke. A noise like "Hrrpm!" as Nikolai forced his lips closed.

Andrei took note of the audible symptoms of acute flusterment.

"No! Of course we do not believe that the Maiden is actually Persephone." Nikolai bit the words off like flesh from a wormy apple.

Ah, thought Andrei, a lie.

Nikolai's hands brushed over his robes, as if straightening them. "Mademoiselle Chthamali is the vessel of the goddess. What we must determine is whether you, Andrei Trifonovich, do the same for—"

"Her lover."

"Ssht!"

Nikolai hissed and rustled while Andrei wondered if he wanted the priest to regain his self-control. How could he best get information? Andrei was reminded of the time when his infirmary had run out of lamp oil, and he had been forced to extract bullets in the dark, by feel.

"I'm supposed to be possessed by Hades?" Andrei groped. "And this is the Un-descent, right? So, I'll have to, what, let Persephone go?"

"That is broadly correct, yes. I suppose an uneducated Fool could not do better."

Imagining a scalpel, between his fingers, Andrei considered what to ask next. "Then, in the autumn when my wife returns to me—"

"You have no wife," snapped Nikolai, "and you will not live to see the harvest."

Aha. Andrei had struck a nerve. He'd learned that, one: Nikolai worshiped Kori Chthamali as his literal goddess, despite what he'd said. Two: he was fanatically jealous. Three: Perhaps, he had reason to be.

"Let me make something clear to you, Fool," said Nikolai. "The Maiden of the Sacred Depths is a treasure that you will not be admitted to tarnish. She says you were sent to us by the Wealthgiver. Very well. But he sends the viper as well as the narcissus. Show which you are, and I will deal with you appropriately. Is that understood?"

Andrei considered telling the priest what he did to poisonous reptiles when he found them. But a threat in his position would make him look weak. "Well understood, Your Serenity," he said. "How can I prove myself worthy to, ah, contain your god?"

A dry smile colored Nikolai's voice. "Speaking his language is the absolute minimum."

"Beg pardon?"

"May the Wealthgiver guide you or not, as he wills." The smile had grown. "Now. Attend. Indésa na Bessikése glóe!"

Andrei's neck prickled. The smell of the old man. The hissing gibberish he'd spoken. Ádass ni vu it.

Nikolai tapped Andrei on the forehead with a fingernail. "Attend, I said."

"Uh?"

"Bessikáta glóa! Repeat it!"

Andrei considered making a break for it. He could push this misplaced princeling aside and run down the corridor, but no. They would only re-capture Andrei and punish him with even more language lessons.

"Bessikáta glóa!"

"Bessikáta glóa?" Andrei said.

Robes rustled. "That was not bad," Nikolai admitted. "I expected you to have more trouble with the pronunciation."

"I picked up some Romanian and Greek on the march down here," said Andrei. "And this Bess–"

"Sht!"

Nikolai smacked Andrei on the mouth.

"Ow! Why did you do that?" Andrei rubbed his face. "How did you do that? You can't see my face."

"In tamssése, vu brémat tsiss put. That is, 'In the dark, it is clear what pules.'" Nikolai's voice was smug. "As to why: it is permitted for initiates to speak and be spoken to in their Fool languages when that of the Good is still unknown to them. However, a Good word may never be embedded in a Fool sentence."

"That's ridiculous," said Andrei. "How am I supposed to learn this language of yours if neither of us can utter a sentence such as 'the Thracian word for darkness is tarabara or whatever."

"Good. The Good word." A foot-tap on the floor. "An Bessíke, aió ésta 'támssa.' Repeat that."

"In Bessíke, aió ésta 'támssa.' What does that mean?"

"In Good, it is 'dark.'"

"Oh, like temnota," said Andrei.

"Yes. The Russian for 'dark' is kin of the Good word." For the first time, Nikolai's voice took on an emotion other than sullen rage or sneering arrogance. He sounded eager. "Good is part of the great family of languages that includes Russian, as well as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. In many ways, in fact, it is a bridge between these ancient languages and the modern Slavonic."

"Uh, oh?"

"Let me think. What's an example that would make sense to you?"

Andrei had the impression that Nikolai was waving his hands.

"Take for instance the Good word for 'land.'" In Russian, that was zemlya. "The Reaper of Grain uses the name Kori Chthamali amongst Fools. Chthamali is Greek. The Latin cognate: humilitas. Do you see the resemblances?"

Nikolai continued without waiting for Andrei to say "no." "La Bessíkit ié nim ésta Sára Zeméla. Do you hear? Sára Zeméla. That is her true name."

Zeméla did sound a bit like zemlya, but Andrei was still inclined to think that Nikolai just one of those over-studious boys whose mind had cracked under the weight of old books.

"Does humilitas mean 'land' in Latin, then?" he asked.

"Well," said Nikolai. "No. But! Greek preserves da for 'earth' in such constructions as the Doric Dā Mā́tēr. Demeter. Mother Earth, you see?"

"Da doesn't sound like any of those other words."

More hand-waving. "The sounds have shifted!"

"And wasn't the Greek word for Earth gi?"

"Shut up! You're just like the rest of them! Bessikáta fála ésta 'Da.' Da, déla mi Don't you see? Da, déla mi! Da! Think of the don in 'Macedonia,' the dun in 'London!'"

Ah. So it was insanity. "I might study better after breakfast," Andrei suggested.

Nikolai clicked his tongue. "You have no need to practice eating. Now begins your practice of language."

"We haven't begun that yet?"

"Sht! We begin, as I say, with the conjugation of the verb 'to be.' Vas em Bátsa Órpei. Vas em kaft. Repeat that. Yes. Now. Vas em nir. Repeat that. Ti ié tse nir. Repeat that.

"But what does any of that mean?" asked Andrei.

Nikolai tapped the floor. "It means 'I am a man.' 'You are a man, too.' The cognates should be obvious."

Rather than ask "what the devil is a cognate," Andrei said. "This would be easier with a slate and chalk. And a candle to see them by."

"Light dazzles. The eyes distract. No light may enter the cells or corridors of the Sacred Depths. And the Good language has been taught this way for over a thousand years, novitiate. Now." Another tap. "Repeat after me. Vas em nir. Ti ié nir. Saráta ésta sára."

Meaning 'I am a man, you are a man,' and what? Sára? Andrei remembered Kori's cave-name. "Does Kori's name literally mean 'maiden?'"

"Of course."

"Does she plan to change her name once she marries?" Andrei wasn't sure whether he was digging for information now or just trying to get out of more conjugation exercises.

"She will not marry," said Nikolai, "any more than will I. I must be pure to hear the voice of the Maiden, and she must be pure to hear the voice of the goddess Persephone, also called Maiden."

"But Persephone, I mean, didn't Pluto…?"

"Carry her off? Yes. He sent a hatchling viper to bite her and bring her to his realm, but she transformed it into a yellow narcissus."

That wasn't the myth as far as Andrei knew it, but who was he to argue with a madman? Nikolai got upset enough over sound shifts in Greek. "That's a good trick," he said.

"Ta knéssa ápartka u áprake," pronounced Nikolai. "This is an aphorism: 'to know a narcissus from a viper.' It means that one must understand the difference between a danger and an opportunity."

"I see. Or rather, I hear and understand. What happened after she got carried off?"

Nikolai sniffed. "After their marriage, she became the Mistress of the underworld, but she was still the Maiden. Her relationship with the master was what one might call 'Platonic.'"

That definitely wasn't how Andrei remembered the myth. He wondered how the other priests interpreted it. And what about Kori? Andrei wondered how much of his current predicament had been caused by the loneliness of a young woman.

"But Mademoiselle Chthamali has a mother, presumably," he said.

"Some prophetesses do become mothers," admitted Nikolai. "In these degenerate times, the previous Maiden may change her name and resign from the duties of prophetess when her daughter comes of age. But in the past, things were purer. My research indicates that the original Maidens were elected, not born, and remained chaste their whole lives."

No need to ask why they did away with that tradition.

"Soon…" Nikolai's voice trailed off. "But we have wandered from the lesson. Novitiate, attend!"

Click went his slipper against the floor and Andrei's spine stiffened. Terrible memories of his Latin tutor surfaced.

"Say, 'I am a man' in Good!"

"Vas em nir!" Andrei surprised himself. The words came as if spoken by someone else.

"Néi."

"No?"

"No. It means 'yes.'"

"What?"

"'You are a man.' 'She is a woman.'"

This time, Andrei thought more, and so did less well. "Um, ti…nir?"

"Ti ié nir. Aió ésta zóna. Repeat that."

Andrei repeated. You are a man, she is a…woman, he assumed.

"Say, 'You are a priest.' 'She is a prophetess.'"

"I don't know those words."

"Then attend more closely. Vas em kaft. Aió ésta semía."

"Vas em…" Andrei shook his head. "I mean, Ti—"

A slap on his cheek. "No embedding!"

Andrei tried his best to sigh in Good. "Ti ié kaft."

"'Iú éna,' neláhe. Remember that I am your teacher. Iú éna."

That must be the plural "you are," appropriate for a student addressing a teacher. "Iú éna kaft," said Andrei. "Aió ésta s…suh?"

"Aió ésta semía." A smile crept into the priest's voice. "Semía dzam—It means 'she who is compelled to song.' From the ancient—" He cleared his throat. "Ímata ié fála ésta 'saggeiméniâ.'"

"Oh." Andrei had no idea what he was talking about.

Nikolai sighed in Good. "Repeat your lesson, novitiate. Iú éna…?"

"Iú éna kaft. Aió ésta semía. Vas em…How do you say 'I am a doctor?'"

"You are no longer a doctor, Andrei Trifonovich. You are a vessel for the Unseen, or you join his household."

As a corpse, Andrei understood. He had forgotten that he was not 10 years old and speaking to his Latin tutor. He was a prisoner and his tutor was a mad priest, working for a lovelorn prophetess. Where were these broken characters coming from? Who sent them to Andrei and why?

Why indeed, Doctor.

To heal them? Andrei could saw open a skull if he had to, but then what? Andrei could do nothing with this a diseased mind, but grab hold of it and put it to use. He had to, if he wanted to ever see daylight again.

Andrei rubbed his face, spots dancing in front of his eyes, and tried to think. How could he escape? By playing along? Play Hades for this ritual, always one misconjugated verb away from execution?

No, his previous plan was still the best. Make himself useful.

Andrei leaned forward, smiling. "Hey, Nikolai Igorevich."

"Have you not been listening to anything I've said? The verb 'to have'—"

"What's your god's name?" asked Andrei. "In Good, I mean."

"Na Bessikése," said Nikolai. "In the Good Language, the god has many epithets. Ái vu kálit Plistráss tse Deséstass na Plest, Tabráss Stopán na Tamát na Nístet."

Andrei was certain he recognized words in that stream of nonsense, but he didn't hear the one the old man had used. "Ádass ni vu it," Andrei recited.

A click. Those were Nikolai's teeth when he snapped his mouth shut.

"What is it?" asked Andrei as the silence stretched. "I thought you would correct me."

"What did you say? How did you know that name?"

Andrei didn't answer. "What does it mean? Teacher, instruct me."

Nikolai drew in a breath and let it out. "It means 'We see the Unseen.' Literally, 'the Unseen One sees himself by us.' Third person reflexive, which I believe replaced the older mediopassive…" His voice sharpened. "Who taught you how to say that? Was it the shepherds? Someone in Russia?"

"Who do you think?" said Andrei, his mouth buying time while his brain thought, the old man must have been repeating that to himself, trying to remind himself. Not to forget that Death had appeared to him, when he slipped, and I caught him.

Nikolai breathed deeply. "You are playing a game more dangerous than you can possibly imagine, Andrei Trifonovich. Tsi ié ti?"

Andrei didn't understand the individual words of the question, but he didn't let get in the way of answering. Like stringing beads on a necklace, Andrei clicked the sentence together. "Vas em Ádass."

Silence swelled huge between them. Then, a muffled chatter that might have been Nikolai's teeth.

"Enough," said the priest. the echoes of his voice changed as he stood. "This lesson is over. Repeat it to yourself. I shall test you. You will be tested!"

The door screeched over the stone floor, the brass lock clanked, and Prince Nikolai Igorevich, high priest of the cave-Thracians, fled in a flap of robes.

Andrei stared after him, eyes uselessly wide. "What about breakfast?"

There was no answer, except, perhaps, in Andrei's mind.

Good work, Doctor. You have certainly seized that narcissus. Or is it a viper?

Next: Chapter 10: An Echo Speaks All Languages