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“Yes,” said the voice. “I received your message. I am sorry I did not find you. Please
come in.”
“You want to turn a light on first?” she said. Voices could be impersonated, and she
wasn’t exactly confident in her safety even if this was the real Ch’ang Hao.
Ch’ang Hao laughed. “The electric lights are broken in here. But I’ll do my best.”
Several faint glows appeared on the floor of the room, sinuous ropes of greenish light.
Marla squinted, and saw that they were bioluminescent serpents, crawling steadily out
from the center of the room. Some of the snakes climbed up the walls, and from there to
the hanging overhead surgery lights, where they wound themselves. After a few
moments the room was filled with green light, and she saw Ch’ang Hao sitting on the
metal table that had, yesterday, held her friend Lao Tsung’s body. Ch’ang Hao held the
garter snake Marla had sent to him in his hand, where it wound around and around his
fingers like a set of living rings.
“So what happened?” she said.
“I tried to kill the master, and the apprentice attacked me. I performed a simple spell, to
see which mind lived in which body, but it failed. I believed I had done it incorrectly—
such magics are not the focus of my skill, after all. I think now that my spell was
blocked. At any rate, I lunged for the master, or the one I believed to be the master, and
the apprentice cast a spell that made me stop in mid-leap, hanging paralyzed in air.”
“A bug-in-amber spell,” Marla said. “Go on.”
“They would have done more, perhaps imprisoned me again, but I began to grow. I can
still grow a bit despite the cruel bondage you have chosen to leave me in. As I grew
larger, my hands and feet extended beyond whatever field paralyzed me, and I was able
to grab for them.”
“Not bad,” Marla said. “How did anyone ever imprison you in the first place?”
“I grew drunk at a celebration, and woke in chains,” he said. “But that was long ago,
before my enemy the sorcerer was even born. He inherited me from his own master,
who had inherited me in his turn. But this new master was still clever enough to escape
me. Before I could grow large enough to reach for them, they fled. The paralysis faded
soon after.”
“Why didn’t you go after them?”
Ch’ang Hao stared at her. “Ah,” he said, after a moment. “You have not tried to leave
yet, then.”
Something went cold in Marla’s chest. “Oh,” she said. “We can’t leave.”
Ch’ang Hao nodded.
“It’s a pitcher plant.”