The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Dama Lizea practically spat. “My Lord Father, that would not—”

  “Silence!” barked the old man, and his daughter bit her lip and subsided.

  Nico might be honest, but he was not entirely stupid.

  “Under whose rule?” he asked.

  “Mine,” said Prince Arthos. “And Drakan’s. He has the army. One must also recognize the power of the sword.”

  He hadn’t reached the age of ninety, I supposed, without learning a thing or two along the way. If Nico agreed, then the resistance the Weapons Master was trying to build would crumble like a badly built house. The rightful heir would be the castellan of Dunark. But Drakan would still remain as Overlord over the entire western coastlands.

  Nico took a deep breath and grimaced. “No,” he said. “It wouldn’t work. It’s probably better that you kill me.”

  Oh, Nico, why can’t you lie? Couldn’t you just say you agree, and then do as you please once we are out of here? But apparently he couldn’t. You had to admire that stubborn honesty of his, I supposed, but right then I wished he had just a bit less of it.

  Prince Arthos nodded slowly. “The Ravenses always were a stubborn family,” he said. “Stiffnecks, the lot of them. But even stiff necks may learn to bend. Take him, Vardo. See if you can make me a faithful servant out of him.”

  Nico looked uneasy. More so now than when the talk had been about executions and the like. I didn’t quite understand him. Having acted in one of Master Vardo’s little educational performances I was in no hurry to be part of another one. But it was still better, wasn’t it, than being the main attraction on the scaffold?

  Dama Lizea looked like a cat who had been cheated out of half its prey, but she knew better than to defy her father’s will openly.

  “The Shamer’s son, then?” she said. “We can execute him, at least. No one will make a martyr out of him.”

  “People know him,” said Nico quickly. “And they know his mother. His death will arouse much anger.”

  Blood hammered through my body, loud enough to roar in my ears. If only I had been able to run, or hit somebody, do something. Standing here like this, bound and helplessly waiting while others coolly decided whether to kill me or not… it was unbearable. It was just as well that I had Nico to speak on my behalf, because I couldn’t manage a single word. But I was afraid there wasn’t much Nico could do. Dama Lizea was right. My death would not make half the stir that Nico’s would.

  She was smiling now.

  “Oh, I doubt there will be much outcry because we hang a simple murderer,” she said.

  “I am no murderer,” I said angrily, finding I had a tongue after all.

  Now it was my turn to be spitted by the Prince’s predatory gaze.

  “Did you not kill my grandson Valdracu?”

  I fought a strong urge to stare at my feet, but denying it would do no good. Dama Lizea obviously knew all about the events in Hog’s Gorge. A few of Valdracu’s men must have escaped to tell the tale.

  “Yes,” I said hoarsely. “But it was in battle.” While Valdracu was crawling through the mud of the Gorge, but I tried not to think of that. He would have killed Dina. I had had to stop him as best I could.

  “There you are, Sire. He does not even bother to deny it.”

  Prince Arthos tilted his head to look at me.

  “We may execute him at any time. It seems to me a little… lacking in imagination. It would entertain me more to see what Vardo can make of him. Perhaps an executioner. I seem to be in need of a new one. Yes. That would be very suitable. He seems to have the knack.”

  I stared at him in disgust. Did the old vulture really think that I would ever lift a sword for him? Would kill at his word? No. Better my own neck on the block.

  A servant came to whisper something in the Prince’s ear. Prince Arthos nodded briefly. Then he rose from his chair.

  “Take them both, Vardo,” he said. “And teach them well.”

  Master Vardo bowed, and I was almost certain that I saw the shadow of a smile play at the corners of his beardless mouth.

  “As My Lord pleases,” he said. But it occurred to me that it might also please Master Vardo quite well. He regarded us for a moment. Then he nodded at the guards.

  “Take them to the Hall of the Whisperers,” he said.

  DAVIN

  The Hall of the Whisperers

  Vardo stopped in front of a massive-looking door on heavy iron hinges.

  “Unchain them,” he told the guards. “There is nowhere for them to run.”

  He didn’t say it in any threatening tone of voice, but it still sounded ominous. I glanced at Nico. He looked uneasy, too. I knew he would be thinking mainly of one thing: would it be dark in there?

  The Educator unlocked the door and put his hand on Nico’s arm. Nico didn’t shrug it off, but he looked as if he wanted to.

  “The Hall of the Whisperers,” said Vardo. “Listen and learn.”

  I stepped across the threshold without waiting for the guards to shove me, and so did Nico. There was no reason to give them an excuse to rough us up. The door fell shut behind us, and Vardo’s key rattled in the lock. The Hall of the Whisperers? Why did they call it that?

  At least it wasn’t completely dark. Shafts of dim blue light filtered down from somewhere above us. I took a few steps forward, and Nico followed.

  It wasn’t so much a hall as a long gallery. Our steps echoed between gray stone walls, an echo that wouldn’t go away. I looked up. And up. The vaulted ceiling was so high it hardly seemed like a ceiling, more like a… a distant, dark sky. Or dark treetops in a forest. And then there were the faces. They were everywhere—on the walls, the vaults and columns, even in the floor.

  Stone faces, of course, and it wasn’t as if I thought they were real, but it still unnerved me a little. Every single one of them had its mouth open, a dark and gaping hole that seemed bottomless. I shivered. It was almost as if one could hear their silent cries. Were they the Whisperers?

  There was a door at the other end of the gallery. I tried the handle just to be sure, but it was locked, of course, and as massive as the one we had entered by. No escape. The Educator had been right. Chains were unnecessary here.

  At least it was not a dark, damp, and flea-infested dungeon. It could have been worse.

  Nico turned slowly, looking at the stone faces.

  “They’re watching us,” he said. “Everywhere.”

  His voice echoed strangely under the vaulted ceilings.

  … watching us… watching… watching…

  … ware… ware… beware…

  “Watching?” I said. “I think it looks more as if they’re yelling at us.”

  The echoes started up again, blending with the slightly weaker echoes of Nico’s voice.

  … yelling… yelling… yell… hell…

  … ware… hell… ware… hell…

  I shivered again. I didn’t like the way the echo kept whispering at me. It made me almost afraid to talk.

  I found a place where I could crouch without sitting on top of a face and leaned back against the wall behind me. Then I straightened again. There was a strange rustling and buzzing as I touched the wall. As if it was a live thing. Not live as a human being, perhaps, but the way a forest was alive, or… or something more alien and magical. What was this place? Even though Nico and I had both been quiet for a good while, it was still not silent. A tuneless whistling, a hissing, a whispering… was there a wind somewhere, passing through the open mouths, in or out, as if they had breath? Perhaps their cries weren’t as soundless as I had first supposed.

  Nico spun, staring at me. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. Not a word.”

  … word… word… word…

  … word… hurt… hurt…

  His eyes looked haunted. “I’m sorry. I thought…”

  … sorry… sorry… sorry…

  … thought… ought… ought…

  Nico didn’t finish his sentence. I n
ever found out what he thought.

  … sorry… sorry… sorry… the gaping faces kept whispering. And suddenly I thought I could hear something else, something more, something that couldn’t just be the echo of what we had said:

  … sorrow… sorrow…

  … sorry and small…

  I got up quickly. The small noise of my rising surged through the gallery and came back to me sounding as if a hundred invisible people had suddenly moved, as if a hundred shoes had scraped against stone floors and a hundred sleeves brushed against the wall.

  … evil and small…

  … cowardly small…

  There was someone whispering. Narrowing my eyes, I peered at the faces, but didn’t think mouths carved in stone could talk like living people. The masks stared back at me. I licked my dry lips. They really were staring at us. There was a glimmer of light in some of those empty eyes. No, I didn’t believe it, but—

  … sorry and small…

  … cowardly creature…

  … evil… evil… evil…

  The accusing whisper kept on and on. Where was it coming from?

  “Is there anyone here?”

  … hear… hear… hear…

  … anyone… one… one…

  … one who has killed…

  … here…

  … here…

  … murderer…

  So softly. Almost inaudible—but I heard it. One who has killed. Murderer.

  “I’m not a—”

  I stopped myself with an effort before I flung that last word at the walls. I didn’t want to hear them whisper murder murder murder at me for the next hour or so.

  I stood there tensely, poised to run though there was nowhere to run to. My heart pounded along, and though my body was screaming for rest, I couldn’t make myself sit down again.

  “Shut up. Can’t you be still?” cried Nico, loudly, desperately, so that I leaped like a frightened colt.

  … still… still… still… whispered the walls.

  … so still… so dead…

  … dead… dead… dead…

  Before my eyes, one of the stone faces changed into a human face, a face I knew. Or had known. It was Valdracu’s face I saw, with Valdracu’s dying gaze, and his throat half cut and the blood spurting.

  “No!”

  I couldn’t hold back the word. And the echo seized it and gave it back to me.

  … no… no…

  … no life…

  … coward and murderer…

  … you…

  I pressed my knuckles against my teeth to keep myself from calling out, from saying anything at all, from trying to drown the accusation in an angry shout. Valdracu stared at me, blood running from his throat. I closed my eyes and stumbled backward, but when I opened them again, he was still there, only in a different place, four places, five places… a hundred Valdracu eyes were staring at me, dying, dead, like the eyes of a butchered pig. And it was me, I had killed him, hacking at him from behind while he was crawling in the mud. I had butchered him, yes, like one butchers a pig. Murder. Coward. Small and sorry.

  I was crouched in the middle of the floor with no memory of having sat down. I wrapped my arms around my head like someone expecting a blow, but I still couldn’t shut out the sound, the stubborn whisper telling me I was a murderer, a weak and sorry coward who stabbed people from behind.

  … sorry… sorry… sorry…

  “Davin.”

  It took me a moment to realize that that voice was not one of the Whisperers’ but Nico’s. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

  “Davin, please, tell me. Is there blood on my hands now?”

  I stared at him. His face was gray, and his eyes utterly despairing. He looked like someone more than halfway mad. He held out his hands in front of him with spread fingers, keeping them stiffly away from his body, as if afraid of soiling his clothes.

  “No,” I said. “No blood.”

  … no… no… no…

  … blood… blood… blood…

  He drew in his breath in what sounded almost like a sob.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God.”

  But the walls kept whispering… blood… blood… blood… for a long time after that.

  I don’t know how long it was before they came to get us. It was dark outside, but it couldn’t still be the same night. Could it? We had been in there longer. We had been in there forever. Perhaps it was the next night. My lips were dry and cracked from thirst, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the silence. In the Hall of the Whisperers there was no sleep, only nightmares. Only one thing worse than being awake—and that was falling asleep.

  They led us along a short passage and into two separate chambers. I was so dizzy that the guards had to support me, and when they closed the door behind me I didn’t even think of checking whether they locked it.

  The room was small and bare, with naked white walls. Moonlight streamed through a small square window. And it was silent.

  Oh, the silence.

  I drank it in as though it were water.

  I dropped down onto the narrow pallet, drew the blanket over my head, and fell into deep, deep sleep.

  Only not for long. When the guards shook me awake, the moon was still in the sky. Same moon. Or at least I thought so.

  Master Vardo waited until he was sure that I was not asleep on my feet.

  “Here, my son,” he said, offering me a beaker. “Drink.”

  My hands were shaking, and I sniffed suspiciously at the cup, but it seemed to be just water. I drank in long greedy gulps.

  “Look at the cup, my son.”

  I turned it in my hand. The dragon mark of the Draconis was stamped into the metal.

  “You have nothing. Everything good—water, food, rest, and life itself—comes to you by the hand of the Prince. Show your gratitude, my son. Kiss the dragon.”

  I looked at Vardo. Everything about him was clad in black except the hairless, beardless face. It floated over me like a mask, a mask with no body and no human soul behind it. He reminded me of the Whisperers.

  “Go to hell,” I said hoarsely and slung the beaker on the floor. It hit the tiles with a bell-like chime.

  Vardo did not move a muscle. His beardless features might have been carved from stone. He nodded briefly at the guards, and they seized my arms.

  “Back to the Whisperers,” was all he said.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  This time, I fought them. I dug in my heels and fought them with everything I had, hitting, biting, and kicking, never mind that it made my back split and bleed all over again. But they were wearing mail shirts and gauntlets, and I hurt myself more than them, I think. One of them lost his patience and clouted my ear with a mailed fist.

  Master Vardo stopped him.

  “Guardsmaster. If you have to hit him, make it a body blow. His head must be clear.”

  A clear head was the last thing I wanted. Passing out would suit me just fine right now, but I wasn’t that lucky.

  They dragged me into the gallery and flung me down on the gray stone floor. One of them kicked my stomach, rather casually, just to keep me occupied until they had left the Hall, I think.

  I curled up, hugging the pain to me as if it could blank out everything else. There was a roaring in my ears, especially the one touching the cool, smooth tile.

  … killer… killer… killer…

  “Shut up,” I whispered. “Leave me alone.”

  … lone… lone… lone…

  … leave… leave… leave…

  The sound of the door opening and closing again momentarily drowned the whispering voices. Footsteps reverberated around the Hall.

  “Davin?” A hand touched my shoulder.

  It was Nico, of course. His face was still almost as gray as the stone, and there was a movement by one eye, as if some tiny animal caught under the skin was struggling to get out.

  “Nico.” I began to sit up and
then gave up the effort. It hurt my stomach too much.

  “Did they hurt you? Are you in pain?”

  … hurt… hurt… hurt…

  … pain… pain… pain…

  I was, of course, to some extent, but I shook my head. It wasn’t so bad, and I was feeling almost grateful for the pain because it had made it possible to think of something other than the whispering voices for a little while. But the faces behind Nico had already begun to change. They were glaring at me, full of scorn and accusation. Light glittered in the empty eye holes, cold as contempt itself.

  … coward… they whispered… sorry… cowardly… killer…

  Valdracu’s eyes were on me again. The blood was dripping from his throat.

  I turned to Nico, to the only face I was sure was real. He stood there hunched up with exhaustion, hugging himself and hiding his hands in his armpits.

  “Is there blood on your hands now?” I asked.

  … blood on your hands… blood on your hands…

  He nodded. “I see it all the time now.”

  “Why?”

  “In Dunark, in the cell. I had blood on my hands then, and on my clothes. My father’s blood, and Adela’s, and little Bian’s. And they didn’t let me wash. Not until Dina came and shamed them into it. I sat there for a day and a night with my dead family’s blood on my hands.”

  I suddenly remembered the day I had tossed a dead rabbit at him. Now I knew why he had been in such a hurry to scour off the blood.

  “It wasn’t you who killed them,” I said.

  … killed them… killed them… killed them…

  … you who killed them…

  “Davin, please don’t say any more.”

  any more… any more… not alive anymore…

  “But you didn’t!” I persisted, loudly, so as to drown out the Whisperers. “Drakan did!”

  “And I made it possible! If I hadn’t gone—” He broke off.

  … gone… gone… gone… whispered the walls.

  “When my brother died, I promised Adela that she could always come to me. That I would look out for her. But where was I when Drakan killed them? Dead drunk in my chambers. Or in hers. I don’t even know that. Can’t you see that it’s my fault they are dead?”