Chapter IX: Even Serpents Have Families

When Josip Duančić, a man most unremarkable, arrived in Zadar after ten years of absence, he did not recognize the city. He was a different man now, and he served a different cause. His petty excitement and private concerns no longer mattered, but his actions did more than ever before. He inhaled deeply, catching up to his uncle. He pretended to appreciate the picturesque scenery of a rose garden with Cypress trees, and flower beds topped with delicate white blossoms. The Drašković residence was close by.

"You look anxious." His uncle twisted his long mustache and beamed at him. "Domagoj Drašković is not that scary, you know. He will be happy to see us. We bring good news."

Josip squeezed out a soft smile, pushing away the grim thoughts swarming in his head: he had a task to fulfill, not a day to enjoy. Nodding absentmindedly, he brushed his hand through his cropped brown hair, pretending to scratch his nape. Short and thin, he had olive skin and droopy eyes, both of which he shared with his uncle Hrvoje - an old friend of the Drašković brothers.

Josip knew little about Domagoj Drašković, whose reclusiveness and strange habits had become a legend in the last decade. Gossip and myths surrounding his name had been successfully spread by both his enemies and allies. Josip often wondered how much of what he had heard about Domagoj and his late son, the Dalmatian Serpent, was rooted in reality. Domagoj's younger brother Tomislav, on the other hand, was more of a public star. He was a war hero, with the life of a rogue hotshot, the reputation of a ruthless cutthroat, and little political influence. Josip knew even less about Gordana, the Serpent's younger sister and Domagoj's daughter.

"I am looking forward to meeting Lord Drašković," he said, concealing his displeasure. Hrvoje snarled, showing his white teeth and patting him on the back.

"He's not like Tomislav, you know." His uncle sighed. Josip could not decide whether he heard disappointment or acknowledgement in his voice. "We have a lot in common, Domagoj and I. His son chose the Alka over the family, like mine did."

Josip nodded. Those similarities went deeper: Domagoj's late wife chose death over life, much like Hrvoje's own wife.

"Lord Domagoj also has a daughter," Josip said with a thoughtful frown.

"Gordana! She is a gravity-switcher, born to lead." He squeezed Josip's shoulder and laughed. "Whatever they say about the Dalmatian Serpent, it is Gordana who is a true Drašković. Pity Domagoj does not see it that way. People would not shut up about the Serpent's heroism, but they know nothing about the man. I met him. He was nothing like his passionate and brave sister! He was an ice-cold snake with creepy eyes! Obsessed with his science! Gordana should be an example for our youth, not an Alkar chemist."

His uncle valued recklessness over calculation, and his attitudes did not surprise Josip. He wondered why Hrvoje never missed a chance to marvel at the propaganda surrounding the image of the Dalmatian Serpent. For one reason or another, Hrvoje found his fame undeserved. Josip wanted to know more.

"Why is Dragomir Drašković hailed as the greatest gravity-switcher, if he was not?" he asked. Hrvoje sulked, biting his lips.

"Our people are cowards. They chose an Alkar to worship so that they could justify their own fear of those Psychic abominations. Despite his genius, Dragomir negotiated with our enemies instead of destroying them, and he paid the price. That was a mistake, not a heroic sacrifice. Gordana would never do such a thing. I hope you wouldn't either."

"Of course, I would not." Josip tried to sound convincing. He did not.

Had Hrvoje known his true intentions, he might have killed him. But Josip cared little about his opinion: he had found a true purpose in life - a way to serve his people and bring them to greatness. Hrvoje was too blind to see it: he thought it was brute force that won wars, but the Red Bond, the Alka's intelligence, had taught Josip a different lesson. His parents and younger brother were casualties of a senseless war, and Josip was not going to allow history to repeat itself. He would work to stop wars.

He found the cottage small and simple. It had a terrace with a porch, two floors and a tidy garden in front of it. Situated on the outskirts of the city, it faced a vast area of rocky hills and fields. As far as Josip knew, Domagoj Drašković was the only permanent resident of the place, and he avoided meeting people unless some important Offcast affairs required his presence.

The door opened before Josip lifted his hand to knock. In front of him stood a young blond woman in a white linen dress, with straight thick hair arranged in a messy bun and a nose that seemed too small for her face. He recognized Gordana Drašković's image from the light-messages he had previously received.

"Lady Drašković!" Hrvoje greeted her warmly. "It is a great pleasure to see you. I think you might remember me…"

"You are Duaničić, I know." She dismissed his pleasantries with a wave of her hand. The 'exemplary gravity-switcher' from Hrvoje's tales was an annoyed thirty-year-old woman with little patience.

"Allow me to introduce my nephew." Hrvoje pointed at Josip. Gordana nodded and stared into Josip's eyes, her gaze intense and unwavering.

"We have met, haven't we? "

"Once. Years ago. I doubt I have produced any impression on you."

"I am not impressionable."

"I believe not."

She measured him with an assessing look, then pursed her lips tightly together, as if deciding whether she was going to eat him for dinner or let him be.

"Come in," Gordana said after a long pause, letting the guests into the house. Josip assumed she had found him too scrawny for her taste.

Hrvoje laughed, elbowing him. "Be careful with this girl, she's a Drašković after all."

"I will," he murmured, entering a small living room bathed in bright sunlight. Josip opened his mouth to explain the reasons for their visit, but Gordana beat him to the punch.

"I arrived yesterday from Zagreb to talk to my father. He refused to discuss anything happening in the Realm with me. I doubt you will be more successful."

"We bring important news," Hrvoje said, making himself comfortable in a squeaky armchair. Gordana rolled her eyes, then disappeared behind a large wooden door, leaving her guests alone. Josip paced around the room, scrutinizing grey cobwebs hanging from the twisted legs of a massive table. Gordana startled him when she returned with two coffee cups and a pot. Her coffee was nothing short of terrible – black goo reeking of petrol. Josip coughed, much to Gordana's amusement.

"I can get you milk if you don't die before I bring it."

"I could get used to it."

Gordana shrugged, then turned to Hrvoje.

"My father does not care about politics. He is nothing like uncle Tomislav."

"I am sure he will want to hear what we have to say," Hrvoje insisted. "We have located the traitor, Gordana."

Her pale eyes lit up with blazing fire.

"You mean…"

"Slavoj Kosar," Josip elaborated. "Your uncle wanted us to come to Zadar in person to deliver the news. He doesn't trust the light networks."

"Tomislav is paranoid." She grew serious. "But he might not be wrong now." Her eyes widened. "We must catch that scoundrel at any cost. After we apprehend him, he'll pay for all his crimes."

"Certainly." Hrvoje nodded. "Kosar betrayed our people, the Alkari, your brother… I cannot even pronounce his name without disgust! He murdered a fellow Alkar, slaughtered the Gothars together with their children and stole the biggest blood lily stone in existence."

"One of the Gothar boys might live…" Gordana uttered quietly.

"Even if he does, this does not redeem Kosar!"

"Nothing does." Her eyes narrowed. Josip wondered if she was imagining all the gruesome tortures she could test on the traitor.

"We need to locate him before the Alka Guard does," Hrvoje said, clenching his fists. "They will not execute one of their former Magisters. And his extermination must be our priority."

"We must interrogate him first," Gordana hesitated. "I want to know what he has done to the Gothar boys and the blood lily stone. We'll have to explain something to the Council after we kill him."

Josip suppressed his desire to argue with her: She was a pampered brat, born to power and money. Cautiously, he probed the ground.

"Do you think it makes sense to kill someone without a trial? Councilor Lovren will not cover this up before the Council, even at our request."

"It is a matter of honor!" Gordana slammed her hand on the table, leaning forward. "Kosar sold my brother to the Byzantine scum! That scum murdered him! Then Kosar turned on the Alka and killed the Gothars!"

When the back door opened with a loud squeak, Gordana was still hovering over the table. A slender silhouette floated into the room, his morbidly pale skin reflecting sun rays like a polished mirror. Tall and slim, Domagoj Drašković wore dark-colored flannel trousers and an old white shirt. Scrutinizing his simple attire, Josip noticed a round medallion hanging on a golden string from his neck.

"Hrvoje? I heard you from the other side of the house." Domagoj brushed long ashy strands away from his angular face and took Hrvoje's coffee cup. He drained it without wincing. "What brings you here?"

Josip moved forward to greet him, but Domagoj waved a dismissive hand, forcing him to retreat. "Josip, I presume."

"Yes, my nephew," Hrvoje answered. "Domo, we have brought news you will appreciate."

"I don't care." Domagoj frowned and put the cup back to the table. "You have mistaken me for Tomislav. I don't know who conspires against whom these days. And I don't give a damn."

"Domo, it's not about politics."

"No?" Domagoj lifted an elegant eyebrow.

"We have found Slavoj Kosar!" Hrvoje breathed out. Domagoj's face expression did not change, but the dark flame in his pale eyes seared Josip's soul. He recognized all-consuming obsession when he saw it.

"Kosar," he hissed. "Slavoj Kosar."

"We have located him," Hrvoje confirmed. "Tomislav has advised me to share the information with you in person. He thought you'd be pleased."

Without uttering a word, Domagoj seized Hrvoje by the hand and pulled him to the other room. Josip wanted to follow them, but much to his annoyance, Gordana grabbed his elbow.

"Not the best idea. Give them a minute to kill each other."

She filled his cup with her disgusting coffee once again. "He means no disrespect to you or to anybody else," she said. "It is just his way. No offense."

"None taken." Josip squeezed out an almost sincere smile. "Has your father always been this way?"

"A grim weirdo?"

"I didn't mean that, but…"

"As long as I can recall, he has been," she answered, staring at a dry cactus on a nearly empty bookshelf. "Uncle Tomislav says he changed after my mother's suicide."

"I am sorry for your loss," Josip murmured. He was not good at offering condolences.

"Do not be. I don't remember her."

Josip nodded: he did not know what to say, and Gordana did not seem to care.

Her eyes strolled from one corner of the room to another until they focused on a hovering photograph on the bookshelf – an old-fashioned light-beam.

It was an image of a gaunt man in the recognizable red-and-black Alka uniform. The Dalmatian Serpent himself. Everything about him was unnatural: his pallid skin seemed transparent, his black hair had a strange reddish undertone, and his emaciated features lent a frightening eeriness to his otherworldly appearance. His most distinguishing trait was his piercing eyes of transparent green. Cold calculation and shrewd intellect glowed inside them. Josip shivered at the thought of ever encountering those slits of emerald ice. They were daggers, sharp and bizarre, unlike anything Josip had ever seen.

"The woman who killed my brother is out there somewhere, enjoying breath," Gordana said, balling her fists.

"The Lascaris were exiled to Hungary," Josip retorted. "They have lost everything. One of them was killed."

"It was not Leudora Galbur." Gordana's voice trembled with rage. "I am going to find that Byzantine abomination and slit her throat."

Josip nodded, feigning understanding: what else could he expect from Domagoj's daughter?

"Your brother was an Alkar," he said cautiously. "And an Alkar would not approve of revenge on his behalf. It's against their principles, is it not?"

Gordana only snarled.

"It's not against my principles! And I am no Alkara. The Council failed. They were afraid of her, but I am not."

"You think you can bring down a lightning-bearer?" he asked. She seemed crazy enough to accomplish the task. As a member of the Red Bond, he should have foreseen such possibilities. Gordana perplexed him: could their Red Leader be wrong in his assessments of her vengefulness? Could this woman be dangerous?

"The Basilisk is not immortal," Gordana said. "She stands no chance against a gravity-switcher. We have three times their strength."

"I doubt Leudora Galbur would agree to a fist fight."

"I will not ask for her consent!" Gordana's pale-blue eyes caught Josip's, and he frowned. A decade ago, he had also believed himself capable of taking down the Basilisk. But circumstances altered causes. Gordana ignored his somber expression, now smiling at the photograph.

"He was handsome, wasn't he?"

Josip looked at the light-beam once again. Handsome…? If reptiles could be handsome, the man was close enough. Yet so many worshipped him. Josip did not answer, staring at the papers strewn across old bookshelves.

"Well," Gordana patted him on the back, "we've given them enough time to warm up!"

Without knocking, she proceeded into her father's study - a small room with a huge window and scarce furniture. Flimsy bookshelves squeaked when Josip passed them, Domagoj's massive wooden table with mismatched legs wobbled like jelly at the touch of a spoon, one metal chair seemed misshapen like a peculiar sculpture abandoned by an eccentric artist and the other was too high for anyone to sit on. When they entered, Hrvoje darted away from the window. Domagoj did not bat an eyelid. He stood still leaning on the wall with his arms crossed on his chest and his eyes staring blankly at the hills outside the house.

"Kosar was last seen in Rijeka," Domagoj said after a long pause.

"Can we trust this information?" Gordana asked. Her father shrugged, and Hrvoje answered instead.

"I paid Otakar Lišák handsomely for the details. He's the best the Spy Guild can offer."

"That Czech can supply a legion with the same information," Gordana pointed out, her hand rising in an impatient gesture. Josip suspected she was not wrong in the matter, but kept his conclusions to himself. He had a different task to perform.

His eyes scanned the room, searching for the right place to attach the bug. If he succeeded, the bug would dissolve in two days, providing the Red Leader with all the necessary information. They were the Red Bond of the Alka, after all. They knew what they were doing.

Distracted by his thoughts, Josip missed Hrvoje's bitter comments about Otakar Lišák, Radmila Chlápková and the Spy Guild. They argued about Kosar, about the Veil and about the Psychics, paying no attention to their surroundings. By the time Josip managed to conceal the device behind a bookshelf in the corner of the room, Hrvoje and Gordana had long been absorbed by their ardent debate, and Lord Domagoj seemed mentally detached.

"If Lišák is right about Kosar, the traitor will not escape this time." Gordana shook her fist in front of Hrvoje's face.

Lord Drašković's fingers swirled the chain of his golden pendant. His pale-blue eyes were blank and empty. When Josip approached Domagoj, his presence suddenly reappeared behind his gaze as if he'd just awoken from a slumber. Domagoj flinched, and all the objects in the room flew against the wall with a whooshing sound of a bird flock taking off. A gravity drift.

With a deliberate gesture of his hand, Domagoj brought everything back to normal, not bothering to explain his lapse in control. To Josip's surprise, neither Hrvoje nor Gordana cared. It was Kosar who occupied their thoughts.

"Tomislav wants his kids Ante and Fabijan to bring you Kosar's head on a silver platter, Domo." Hrvoje smiled broadly, but Domagoj did not share his enthusiasm.

"What do Tomislav's kids have to do with all this?"

"They serve the cause!"

"The cause?" Domagoj frowned. "Do we still have a cause? Is it yet another political crusade to unite our kin?" When he turned to Josip, his eyes widened as if he now saw him for the first time.

"You are welcome to stay as long as you want." He bowed awkwardly, then retreated to the corner of the room. Carefully, Josip peered out of the window and spotted a bulky figure in front of the house. Domagoj's sudden withdrawal became clear to him: nobody in his sane mind wanted to cross the path of Tomislav Drašković. Even his brother.

Josip needed to leave. If the Red Leader had planned everything in advance, as he always did, Josip would be able to hear all he was interested in through the bug he planted. Now, his only task was to exit the room without attracting too much attention.

"You would not mind if I take my leave, would you?" Josip asked. "I must return to Zagreb for an appointment." To his satisfaction, nobody noticed him sneak into the garden through the backdoor. Readjusting his own implant, Josip pinched his earlobe and initiated the recording. He would deal with the implications of his actions later. Always later.

Josip did not lie to his hosts: he did have an appointment with his cousin Mladen, via a light projector. Neither Gordana nor Hvroje needed to know the details, of course. In their eyes he was a simple marketing expert, who disliked company and mingled with the Natives too often for their taste. They were all too busy with their own troubles to notice Josip – Natives, Offcasts and everyone in between. For the first time, he did not mind being ordinary and unremarkable. His lips cracked, forming a smile: he did not hate himself as much as he used to.

Once, long ago, he had desperately wanted to be special. The empty void left by his parents' death and his uncle's apathy only exacerbated his indifference to the Realm around him. He had wanted to care, but he did not. He had wanted to remember his parents and grieve, but he did not. And above all, he had wanted to be extraordinary, but he was not. He tried to become a writer, a painter and a scientist, but none of his escapades yielded results. He was never terrible at anything, but neither was he outstanding.

His cousin Mladen, on the other hand, excelled at everything: he was likeable, good at sports and smart enough to study theoretical physics. Above all, he was accepted by the Alkari when Josip failed. It was when Josip was at his lowest that the Red Leader offered him a place in the Alka intelligence service. A ghostly man, whose face he had never seen, changed his life, opening a path that could be his alone. The Red Leader made Josip realize there was one skill he could hone to the point of being a master – a skill of being so ordinary that it could render him unnoticeable.

Hours later, when he returned to his apartment in Zagreb, he finally took his time to deal with the records obtained in Domagoj's house. Josip wondered which parts the Red Bond would be most interested in. He doubted they cared about the angry rebuttals exchanged by the two brothers, or the curses that peppered their speech – a mixture of Croatian and the Ancestors' tongue. Josip heard neither concern nor kindness in their interaction.

"You've been silent for a while." Was it Domagoj's voice? He hissed, making Josip flinch even in the comfort of his own home.

"The Glasscracker has progressed," Tomislav said. "However, there has been a problem."

"What kind of a problem?" Domagoj sounded annoyed.

"The usual one. Time-masters. The man we've hired has killed a Kolosy by chance."

A long pause followed, forcing Josip to strain his ears.

"Does it threaten our plan?"

"No. Ante has almost finished all the necessary preparations. Besides, my sons already have one perfect test subject."

"Do you trust Ante?" Domagoj interrupted him. Josip wondered why he would distrust his nephew.

"We need allies in the West. There are too few of us. We can't overpower the Byzantine scum by ourselves. The plan should work. If it does, and the subjects cooperate, it will be our realm. We will get rid of the Psychics and restore the Veil. Then we can finally join the Ancestors and leave this forsaken wasteland. The Natives won't miss us."

"Last time someone clever tried to manipulate the enhancements, the Great Collapse happened, wiping out all our kind in the West. We all know what a frenzied time-master can do! Had the Alkari not stopped those time freaks, the Veil would have failed even in Eastern Europe." Josip couldn't think of a refutation for Domagoj's argument.

"Because of the psychics! All of it!" Tomislav spat out. "That is why they need to be eradicated, one way or another. We have learnt from their mistakes."

"Have we?"

It was the last section of their conversation that Josip found relevant. The rest did not touch upon either politics or secret plans. Josip sighed, bringing his hands to his forehead and hunching over the table. He was too confused to think properly. Could it be that Grand Magister Blažetin and the Red Leader had been right all along? Local gravity-switchers had found some asset to start a war. He wondered what kind of a weapon or trick could allow them to increase their power. Could the Alka remain neutral and protect all Offcasts, when confronted by their own kin?

The quiet buzz of his light projector startled Josip, forcing him to drop the recorded file. Through a glowing beam of light, he distinguished a message. It contained five sentences, each of them sending shivers down his spine: "Leudora Galbur will cross the Hungarian border tomorrow around 5 p.m. Gordana Drašković will try to kill her. Prevent their encounter by any means necessary. Avoid bloodshed. You will find a slipper at the crossroads down the street." It was time to move.