Riding the Serpent's Back Read Online Free

by a simple choice to avoid possible conflict.
    Although he had not contributed to the debate, Leeth, too, felt uncomfortable as this town swallowed them up. All the straight lines, the square buildings, the numerous temples with their red and gold friezes of serpents and eagles and painted statues of Habna, Samna, Qez, Michtlanteqez and the rest of the pantheon...the people, stopping to stare at the ramshackle procession, the men in their sturdy overalls and serge suits, the women with their faces shielded beneath the peaked brims of their bonnets...Leeth couldn’t help but think of the Scrips, the district around his college in Khalaham.
    This was a Church town, a toehold for the Embodiment on the island continent of the Serpent’s Back. Leeth had not realised, until that point, quite what a powerful force the new evangelism had become, to penetrate so far south.
    The travellers dispersed, leaving Jaryd and Bean watering the horses and mokes from a barrel bought from a reluctant trader who charged an additional one-tenth tributary tax for his local temple.
    Leeth tagged along with Chi and Cotoche, revelling in the curious looks this wild-looking couple received as they walked along the busy streets, past all the busy people. His own looks were still remarkably conventional and, alone, he was sure he would have passed unnoticed.
    “What do we do?” he asked, hurrying to catch up.
    Chi half-turned, and it was then that Leeth saw how tense he had become. “We push the limits,” he said, his dark eyes narrowed. Then he grinned. “But first of all we’re going to buy some liquor.”
    A few traders had stalls in the street, but their wares were of no interest to Chi. Shortly, they found a building with a sign that declared its proprietor was a general trader, licensed by the Governor’s Office. “I didn’t know the Serpent’s Back had a Governor,” said Cotoche.
    Chi just grunted. He pushed through the swing doors and approached a man standing behind a counter. “A case of rye, and two of gin,” he said. “How much?”
    The man looked at him, his eyes passing down the traveller’s dusty clothes and then back up again until he met Chi’s eyes. Leeth guessed the two of them were probably close in age – mid-fifties – but they had little else in common. Chi was dirty, lean, fit, with wild hair and beard and his eccentric ornamentation of feathers; the trader was clean, bald, with a belly even rounder than Cotoche’s.
    “You have a card?” asked the man, in an incongruously deep and musical voice. “You are registered for labour?”
    Chi leaned over the counter towards him. “Make that two cases of rye,” he said. “I’m thirsty.”
    The trader stepped back, shaking his head. “I’m afraid, sir...”
    Chi slammed his purse hard onto the counter. There was movement in a doorway at the back of the shop and Leeth saw a teenaged boy’s anxious face peering out.
    “I’ll put your order aside,” said the trader. “You can go to the Town Hall and register and then I shall serve you. But not before then.”
    Cotoche went to stand at Chi’s side and put a hand on his arm. He rounded on her as if he was about to lash out. Then Leeth saw Chi meet Cotoche’s eyes and then follow her sideways glance. The boy hiding in the shadows of the backroom had levelled an army musket, holding it steady against the doorframe.
    Cotoche picked up Chi’s money and guided him out of the shop.
    There was a poster outside on a wall: another reminder of Khalaham, another new intrusion into life on the Serpent’s Back. As they drew near, a printed face leapt into a crudely animated semblance of life. “Praises be to Habna, for He created all that is our world. Praises be to Samna, sustainer and preserver. Praises be to the Embodiment of the Gods which is all that we are, all that—”
    Chi snatched at the poster, tearing it from the wall. He scrunched it up into a ball and rammed it into his mouth. For a few seconds, a