Serpent's Tooth

A cordon of guards entered the cavernous hall that Manticor had wandered into. A dozen pistol-equipped cobra men moved in unison, like a single entity. Manticor immediately recognized them as the ring of living armor that surrounded the queen matron as she moved among her citizens. The snake man dropped to one knee, lowering his head in deference to the grand matriarch. The phalanx of bodyguards halted in front of Manticor.

“Manny, child, rise and gaze upon your queen,” Yun said.

Had she been human, her age might have proved more readily apparent. Still, six decades had done little to dull the copper-and-black leopard pattern of her scales, and her golden eyes were as bright and fiery as freshly lit bonfires. The only sign of her advanced years was a looseness of her skin and a softening of the firmness of her once tight, perfect musculature. Her lips turned up in a smile matched by the warmth in her gaze as she extended a delicate hand to Manticor.

“Matron,” Manticor announced, nodding as he bent and kissed the scaled wrist offered.

“Manny, it’s good to see you in health. How does my daughter-to-be fare?” Yun asked.

“She fares well,” Manticor replied, kicking himself for not being looser, more genial with the Nagah queen. The response stuck uncomfortably in his throat.

“Ah, I take it my son is sampling the wine before he pays for the vinyard,” Matron Yun suggested. Sarcasm dripped from her lips.

Manticor couldn’t suppress a flash of a grin at the queen’s crack. While Prince Durga’s decades of warfare had expanded the safe zone around the Nagah’s subterranean homelands, and had been responsible for tripling the population of the cobra folk, Yun had little patience for her son’s recent, violent activities. She was troubled by the wanton murder of travelers, as well as the growth of Durga’s increasingly militaristic personal guard. The rumors of his disrespectful relations with Hannah were particularly distressing. Hannah had survived far longer than her preceding suitors, young women who had died in accidents or quietly withdrew themselves from public life after a few meetings with the prince.

It had become an increasing concern that the matron would never have a grandchild to carry on her bloodline.

“I apologize, Matron Yun,” Manticor said, catching himself. He knew the queen’s feelings in the matter of her sole surviving child, but he didn’t want word passing through the ranks that he had been amused at Yun’s sharp criticism of Durga’s behavior.

“My fault entirely,” Matron Yun replied, releasing Manticor from his guilt. She winked at him, indicating that her cadre of defenders would not betray any indiscretion between the two of them. “My son has just returned from an expedition along the old Pakistani border and he claimed that he has found several items of interest. Since you seem weighted by your thoughts, I wonder if you would enjoy a distraction with an old, wrinkled serpent hag.”

“If there were a wrinkled hag present, I’d do so,” Manticor answered. “But for now, I am overjoyed to accompany a resplendent goddess of the blood.”

Matron Yun laughed, resting her hand on Manticor’s shoulder. “If I were a few decades younger, Manticor, I’d believe you.”

She offered her hand and the cobra warrior crooked his arm for her. Yun smiled appreciatively. “It might even be that you carry some of the spark of Garuda in you. You resemble my husband, and his genetic code runs through every pilgrim.”

“I’m flattered, my queen,” Manticor replied. “But your son has likened the process to adding two drops of wine to sewage. It still remains vile waste, while adding two drops of sewage to a gallon of wine turns the whole to sewage.”

“The Nagah, however, are neither waste runoff nor beverage,” Matron Yun responded. “My son, in his advancing years, seeks to overturn the teachings of both great Nagah and humans, including the lessons of those who despised the institutional bigotry of caste systems.”

“And yet, we are still a monarchy,” Manticor countered.

“With safeguards and the ability to impeach those of royal blood. A human said once that the tree of liberty, at times, must be watered with the blood of tyrants and free men alike.”

“Thomas Jefferson,” Manticor said. “Words from nearly five hundred years ago.”

“Truth does not cease to become truth because of age, my boy,” Yun chided him.

The pair and the silent cordon of cobra escorts entered the alcove where Durga had deposited his discoveries. Off to one side of the underground hangar, the Nagah fleet of twentieth-century Black Hawk and Deathbird helicopters rested, a hundred aircraft only minutes from life should the children of Enki need them.

The airfleet had been recovered thanks to raids on Indian government installations. The Battle of Sky Spear taught the Nagah the need for air power as they had suffered terrible losses, aside from Garuda himself, to the Magistrates’ assault helicopters. The Deathbirds and their utility transport counterparts were the backbone of a secure homeland, now.

Quarantined and protected by Durga’s expeditionary troopers sat a strange and impressive object. It was sleek and silver, the size of the Black Hawk, and covered in burns and scars, as if it had been engulfed in lava.

Matron Yun gasped in horrified recognition.

“What is it?” Manticor asked.

The queen’s lips drew into a tight line of concern. “The dragon kings. That is one of their craft, and if they have returned…”

“Returned?” Manticor asked. “But Tiamat was struck from the skies.”

Yun’s golden eyes flashed as she looked at the skimmer. “Death is no impediment to a god.”

Chapter 6

Austin Fargo was glad to be in a set of clean clothes, and after the luxury of a hot shower, he felt like a new man. He cast a cursory glance toward the doorway of the locker room, noticing Lakesh brooding there. The Indian scientist looked far younger than the consortium’s initial intelligence had described him. Fargo didn’t think that nanotechnology existed at such a level to create that drastic a change of physiology, but the scientist was living proof. With such a display, it wasn’t hard for the consortium explorer to agree with the theory of nanorobotic augmentation creating a posthuman species such as the Nagah.

“You had something to ask me?” Fargo spoke up.

“No, I came here to thank you,” Lakesh grumbled in a tone belying his words. “It’s not every day that the woman I love volunteers for such a dangerous journey just to babysit me.”

“This is my fault?” Fargo asked, strapping on his gun belt.

“Absolutely,” Lakesh challenged with a grimace. “You are the one who literally stirred up a nest of snakes. And don’t think that we’re not aware that you just might be setting us up.”

“I’ve been threatened and bullied ever since your pale little bitch pointed her crossbow at me, Lakesh,” Fargo snarled. “This shit has positively grown ancient fast. Do you honestly think I’m so smug that I don’t realize your crew can kill me like a mouse in a trap?”

Lakesh’s cheek twitched at Fargo’s insult of Domi. His words came out in a controlled tone. “No one from the consortium has ever proved to be anything close to reliable or trustworthy, unless you specifically want a knife in the back. You cost them a lot in terms of your murdered expedition, so even if you’re not offering us to the consortium on a silver platter, they’ll be watching you.”

“And I’m not going to lie that I don’t expect them to make another go at the Nagah and their stockpiles,” Fargo told Lakesh. “But you checked me over. No transmitters, no hidden comms, no locator devices.”

“If Domi gets hurt, I will hold you personally responsible,” Lakesh warned.

“Understood,” Fargo answered.

Lakesh stepped forward and handed Fargo his confiscated revolver. “You’ll need something more if you expect to pull your weight.”

“I escaped the last time only because I carried a minimum of gear,” Fargo answered. “I don’t know about guys like Grant, but I don’t carry the kitchen sink with me.”

“I’m not a pack mule, either,” Lakesh noted. He looked conscientiously toward the Detonics .45 on his hip. Domi insisted that Lakesh carry the pistol, and she had spent hours familiarizing him with the powerful sidearm. As neither Domi nor Lakesh had large hands, the .45 was ideal, being slim despite its power.

“I just can’t see slogging all the way back to the Kashmir with bags of guns and grenades.” Fargo sighed.

“Who said that we were walking?” Lakesh inquired.

“Yes. The mat-trans system,” Fargo noted. “But would the facilities in the subcontinent be sufficient to get us close to the Nagah?”

“We have the means to travel…” Lakesh paused, debating whether to continue. He realized that he would not be able to disguise the interphaser’s improvements on mat-trans technology.

“Your new invention? The one that lets you pop in on ancient temples?” Fargo asked.

Lakesh winced. The millennialists had representatives present at the tomb of Huan Di, intermediaries between the ancient Chinese warlord and the Annunaki to recover his rejuvenating armor. Obviously, they had reported back about the interphaser. Fargo cut into Lakesh’s recollections with a new question. “How does it work? Magnetic fields?”

Lakesh maintained his silence.

“Come on, Lakesh. Who am I going to tell? And how could I even decipher the necessary mathematical formulae?” Fargo asked. “I’m a tomb digger, not a theoretical physicist.”

“No, but that won’t keep gun-toting thugs from trying to abscond with it,” Lakesh stated. “It’s been sought after before, and lives have been lost in the process.”

“Do I look like I can let them in on your secrets? Do I have some magic, invisible phone to call them with?” Fargo pressed. He pointed to the Commtact behind Lakesh’s ear. “Or a bionic transceiver, like you guys have?”

“No,” Lakesh returned. “We searched you carefully. Nothing popped up.”

“But you’re still worried about me,” Fargo said. “What kind of a trap could I put you all in?”

“I can think of twenty or thirty,” Lakesh noted. “And with all of those, I doubt any redundancy with the suspicions of my cohorts. Even without your friends in the consortium…”

“They are not my friends anymore,” Fargo interrupted through gritted teeth. “Not after I blew it in India.”

“Well, without them, you have the Nagah and whatever they have. Not to mention other interested parties who have access to technology that we can’t detect,” Lakesh said. “The Annunaki and other parties have demonstrated access to extrasensory means of communication.”

“Others?” Fargo inquired.

“There are records of dozens of species of hybrid beings represented in mythology. The Nagah are only one such breed,” Lakesh stated. “My compatriots and I have encountered others in our travels.”

“The creations of the Annunaki?” Fargo pressed.

“Precisely,” Lakesh answered.

“But what about Tiamat? That fireworks display must have taken care of them and whatever freak armies they had,” Fargo said.

“Marduk is alive,” Lakesh countered. “And he’s looking for the means to regain his old status as a god. We stopped him once, but we may not be lucky the next time. There are also his surviving brethren, time travelers, colonies of malcontents in suspended animation…”

“So why are you rushing off to India?” Fargo asked. “If you’re so certain that there are all these deadly threats out there…”

“I’d rather die trying than let those monsters go unopposed,” Lakesh answered.

“Oh, so you lot are suicidal. Then why worry about me?” Fargo asked.

“Shut your fool mouth,” Lakesh growled. “Suicide is the furthest thing from my mind. I hate risking the lives of my friends.”

“But you are definitely damned if you sit on your hands,” Fargo mused. “At least this way, you’ve got a snowball’s chance in a lava flow.”

Lakesh glared at the archaeologist for a long silent moment. Fargo squirmed under the harsh gaze, realizing that he’d pushed too hard.

“You say another word about failure, and I will personally strangle you to death.”

Lakesh left Fargo alone in the locker room.

THERE WAS A GRIM SILENCE when Fargo finally joined Kane, Lakesh and the others in the mat-trans chamber. Obviously, Lakesh had spoken of their conversation. Domi’s eyes had a particularly demonic aspect to them, the blood-colored jewels glaring at Fargo as if lit from behind by the fires of hell. The archaeologist winced, looking to the others, whose quiet demeanors held more than just impatience. He looked down to the floor of the chamber, spotting a small pyramid-shaped device.

“That’s the interphaser?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Yeah,” Grant spoke up. “Go ahead and pick it up.”

Fargo heard the unstated threat in the giant Magistrate’s words, and wisely kept his distance from the pyramid.

“Dumb enough to talk shit about me,” Domi spoke up. “Smart enough not to commit suicide…more or less.”

“Enough,” Kane interrupted. “We’ve got work to do. Brigid, fire her up.”

Brigid input the coordinates, and the mistlike appearance of plasma waves surrounded the six travelers and the interphaser.

Fargo winced as the mat-trans chamber blurred from view. As reality opened around them, Fargo felt a momentary jarring, as if he were unplugged from the Earth. The reality of the situation wasn’t much different from his initial perception. His body, and those of the others, were shunted through a wormhole and hurled across the planet at the speed of thought. The transit felt as if it lasted minutes for the millennialist, and when his senses returned to normal, he was in a darkened, cavernous temple.

He recognized the markings on the floor, despite the cracks and wear of antiquity. They were in northern India, and he didn’t doubt that they were near the countryside where he’d encountered the murderous Nagah squadron. He remained still and glanced at the others, who were obviously accustomed to the disorientation of matter transfer.

“A temple?” Fargo asked.

“Many of the ancient peoples knew that there were places of power favorable to communicating with their gods,” Brigid said. “Those areas were actually parallax points, convergences of magnetic lines of force that allowed access to other dimensions.”

“Like Ley lines?” Fargo asked. “So where they cross, the fabric of reality is thin enough to open a wormhole?”

“Right,” Lakesh confirmed. “The interphaser is programmed with remote access points.”

“The little pyramid is useless otherwise?” Fargo asked.

Lakesh shrugged. “A good magician never gives away his secrets. You’ll have to pry the secrets out of my skull.”

“Don’t tempt him, Moe,” Domi cut him off. “Who knows who this bastard’s shacked up with.”

Lakesh nodded at Domi’s warning, causing Fargo to exhale an exhausted sigh. “What do I have to do to get you assholes to trust me?”

“Die taking a bullet for one of us,” Grant suggested.

“Or how about you quit calling us assholes?” Brigid added.

Kane returned from a perimeter sweep of the temple, and Fargo glanced at him for support. “They never let anything go, do they?”

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