The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  His voice had risen to a shout.… dead… dead… dead… echoed back and forth, so sonorously that for a while it overwhelmed the hissing scorn of the Whisperers.

  “At least you didn’t stab anybody from behind,” I muttered bitterly.

  … stab from behind… stab from behind…

  … murderer… coward… stabs from behind…

  Nico tilted his head almost like Prince Arthos. He was listening to something, but I wasn’t sure he heard the same things I heard.

  “I think it’s best if we say no more,” he finally said.

  I only nodded, while the walls whispered their… no more… no more… the dead live no more…

  Sorry coward. Killer. Murderer. Was it inside my head or outside? It wasn’t just Valdracu’s face I saw now. Dead eyes were staring at me from dead faces, and sometimes the faces were Mama’s, or Melli’s, or Dina’s. At some point it occurred to me that I might be able to knock myself out. If I beat my head against the floor hard enough…

  It didn’t work. All I got for my pains was a worse headache than I already had. My throat was as dry and parched as if I had been screaming for hours. And the whispering voices had not faded. On the contrary. There was a constant rushing roar in my head, and the roar had words in it.

  … evil… killer… sorry coward…

  If only I could sleep. But when I closed my eyes, I saw even worse things than when I kept them open.

  Nico shook my shoulder.

  “Davin. Look!”

  He held something up in front of my eyes. A doll, I suppose it was meant to be. Clumsily made from rags and string, with eyes and mouth drawn in coal.

  “I found it behind that column.”

  His eyes were no longer so guilt-ridden and inward-turned. They flashed with fury.

  I couldn’t quite understand his outrage.

  “Don’t you see what this means?” he said.

  I shook my head numbly. And what did it matter whether I understood or not? I was just a sorry coward anyway. Coward and killer.

  … killer… killer… killer…

  “They do this to children!”

  I licked my lips, or tried to. It was as if my mouth contained no spit at all.

  “That’s a shame,” I croaked.

  … shame… shame… shame…

  “Davin. We can’t let them win.”

  I looked at Nico. The blood was pouring down his throat. How could he talk when his throat had been half cut? I closed my eyes. Opened them again. The blood was still there.

  “I’m not sure I can stand this,” I said. “I just want it to stop.”

  … stop… stop… whispered the walls.

  But there was no end to it, and no escape.

  I was lying on the floor even though it made the voices clearer. I couldn’t keep upright anymore. Master Vardo was standing in the doorway. He was saying something to Nico, but I couldn’t hear the words, my ears were too full of whispers. Nico shook his head and turned his back on the Educator. A guard spun him around and forced him to his knees, and Master Vardo spoke again, holding out his hand. I don’t know what Nico did, but it must have displeased Master Vardo, because shortly afterward there was a cry of pain from Nico, loud enough to drown the Whisperers for a little while. He was lying curled up on the floor now, and the guards stepped over him and came toward me.

  I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t take my weight. The guards seized my arms and dragged me forward, until I was lying at Master Vardo’s feet.

  “How are you, my son?” he asked.

  Old stoneface, I thought. A lot you care.

  “Answer the Educator,” said one of the guards and hauled me to my knees.

  “No,” said Vardo. “He doesn’t have to speak. It is sufficient if he shows his willing spirit.” He held out his hand to me. His gloved black hand bore a ring with the double dragon crafted in silver. “Kiss it.”

  No way. Over my dead body. You can take your rotten dragon mark and go to hell.

  That was what I thought, but I didn’t say any of it. From the walls, Valdracu’s dead eyes were staring down at me, and I felt small and sorry and cowardly.

  I kissed the dragon.

  “Well done, my son,” said Master Vardo. “Now you may rest.”

  It was still dark outside. Had another day passed? Two, even? Or had the sun decided never to rise again? The room was the same one, small and bare, just the pallet and the white walls. I lay down, stretching my bruised and battered body. Silence. Sleep. Thousands of people all over the world had both every night, every day, for hours. They had no idea how precious a gift it was, the silence. I closed my eyes.

  small… sorry… cowardly…

  killer… killer…

  “No!”

  I leaped to my feet. Looked around wildly. White walls. Moonlight. No stone faces. And yet, I could still hear them.

  sorry… cowardly… killer…

  My legs buckled, and I fell back down on the pallet. Tears burned my face. I had done what he told me to do. I had kissed his damn dragon, though it made me sick to think of it. And still I couldn’t sleep. Still I felt small, and sorry, and cowardly. Even more so.

  My breath came in harsh, jagged sobs. I wanted it to stop. I wanted everything to stop. I turned my face to the white wall and felt like the sorriest human being on earth.

  DAVIN

  The Golden Cup

  He has courage, I’ll say that. That’s what people often said about me, or something like it. And I had been proud of that. I had this idea of myself as someone who dared more than most. Dared ride the fastest horses, and the wildest. Dared fight, even with those I knew were stronger than me. I admired brave people. Callan, for example, and others who put themselves in harm’s way without showing fear.

  I suppose I had also felt a fair amount of contempt for those who weren’t so brave. Gutless. Weakling. Yellowbelly. Coward. Oh yes, there were names aplenty.

  Nico was afraid of the dark. More than afraid—terrified. He didn’t like swords and would rather run away than fight. He couldn’t even skin a rabbit without getting the shakes. But Nico hadn’t kissed the dragon. And I had.

  And if they wanted me to do it again, what then? Or if they wanted me to do worse things? It would entertain me more to see what Vardo can make of him, Prince Arthos had said. Perhaps an executioner. And I had sworn to myself that I would rather die than kill on his orders. But what if that was not the choice? What if the choice was kill or go back to the Hall of the Whisperers? The mere thought made something inside me curl up and break, like straw in a fire. I was scared. I was so scared that I didn’t think I could ever be brave again.

  Weak. Sorry. A gutless coward.

  Nico wasn’t any of those things. I was.

  If only I had been able to sleep. But the Whisperers had bored their way into my skull, like maggots in a sheep’s brain.

  I leaned against the wall next to the window. Outside the wall dropped steeply and dizzyingly down. The moon shone on sharp rocks far below me, and on the black waters of the lake. If someone was to fall, there would be silence. No voices. Nothing. But the window was too small, I couldn’t squeeze through.

  Morning. I stood by the window, watching it dawn, from the first faint rose-gold warning to the full white sunlight of a summer’s day. There was such a good smell from outside, of lake winds and warm rock. I had dozed now and then, I supposed, upright, leaning on the wall. But to sleep properly, deeply and without dreams, no. It had been beyond me.

  Farther off, I heard tradesmen reporting at the gates with their goods and washerwomen teasing each other and giggling over what one’s daughter had been doing with the other’s son last night. It was so strange to think that all that continued. That the world outside was ordinary and full of everyday living, that there were people out there thinking about what might be for dinner, or what price they might get for two sacks of barley and a cartload of kale. While I was in here, knowing now that I was someone other than
I thought I was, and Nico was on the stone floor in the Whisperers’ Hall, losing his mind bit by bit, whisper by scornful whisper.

  The door opened. In the passage outside stood Master Vardo, accompanied by the same two guards who had dragged me back to the Hall of the Whisperers the last time.

  “Come here, my son,” he said.

  If I obeyed, would they spare me the Whisperers? Would he give me water again?

  “Master,” I said hoarsely. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Soon you will drink. If you are brave and obedient and serve the will of the Prince.”

  Brave. I would never be brave again. My heart sank. What did the Prince want me to do?

  They led me through the castle and down the long stairs to the dock we had arrived at that first evening. Outside the cavern, sunlight played on the living water, and above our heads, bats hung in clusters from the ceiling, like bunches of dark, furry fruits.

  Two more guards came down the steps, holding Nico. His eyes flickered around the cave, from me to the boats by the dock, to Master Vardo, then back to me again. There was an accusation in that look, I thought, and I dropped my glance. Weak. Cowardly. Oh, he didn’t need to say it. I knew what he was thinking.

  Something stirred inside me, something sickening and nasty. An anger, as slow and cold as a reptile’s. Who did he think he was? What gave him the right to look at me like that, so superior and condemning? Just because he had seen me kiss Master Vardo’s dragon ring. What was so terrible about that? Under the circumstances, it was the only sensible thing to do. Only fools tortured themselves unnecessarily. Fools like Nico.

  Master Vardo put his gloved hand on my arm—the hand wearing the dragon ring.

  “Look at me, my son,” he said softly, and I was suddenly reminded of my mother. It shook me, because what could Master Vardo possibly have in common with a Shamer?

  More, apparently, than you would think. At any rate, I raised my eyes to meet his, even though I didn’t want to.

  “What is your deepest desire right now?” he asked.

  “Water,” I said without thinking. I was so terribly thirsty. “And sleep.”

  Master Vardo nodded, as if that was the correct answer. I breathed more easily. So far, I had done nothing wrong.

  “I can give you both,” he said.

  Then he moved over to Nico and put his hand on Nico’s arm also.

  “Look at me, Nicodemus.”

  It took longer, with Nico. But in the end, he too looked up to meet the Master’s eyes.

  “What is your deepest desire right now?”

  Nico stared silently at the Educator for a very long time. When he finally spoke, there was defiance in his tone.

  “Freedom,” he said, glancing at the cave mouth and the blue air outside.

  “No,” said Master Vardo. “Wish for something else.”

  Nico just shook his head. Vardo frowned.

  “Nicodemus, I’ll have you know that the Prince in his mercy has granted me the power to grant a wish of yours. Do you want to mock that mercy with your obstinacy?”

  Nico looked gaugingly at Master Vardo.

  “Very well, then,” he said. “Mira’s freedom.”

  “Mira? Aurelius’s daughter?”

  “Yes. If the Prince is sincere in his wish to be merciful, then let Mira go home to her parents.”

  Master Vardo studied Nico for a very long time. Then he nodded.

  “As you wish. It is within my power. If you can earn it. The Prince wishes to test your faith, courage, and strength. In the water, a precious treasure lies hidden, a golden cup. He who finds this cup and delivers it into my hands shall be rewarded by the granting of his wish. The one that fails in this task, he must return to the Hall of the Whisperers until he has learned to serve better.”

  He nodded at the guards, and they let go of us.

  “Begin,” ordered the Educator.

  Nico was at the edge of the dock in three paces. I was only slightly slower. We both threw ourselves into the water as if we meant to save a drowning man.

  The water was cold. It was more than cold. The chill numbed me instantly, and for a moment I was afraid my heart might stop. But Nico had already begun his dive, and if I didn’t find the cup before he did, they would drag me back to the Hall of the Whisperers and leave me there until I lost my mind completely, or found some way of killing myself.

  I took a deep breath and dived. The water was glass-clear like ice, and deep. It was a green and white world down here, a mountainscape with rocky spires and deep valleys, dark as night. A little ahead of me, I saw Nico. He was swimming downward with strong strokes, and tiny bubbles from his hair and clothes rose behind him in a glittering stream, almost like smoke.

  I couldn’t see the cup anywhere. The blood was singing in my ears, and I was nearly out of air. But Nico still hadn’t turned back. If he found the cup before me…

  I took another few desperate strokes, but my arms barely obeyed me, and there was a burning in my chest as if my lungs were on fire. I couldn’t stand it anymore. If I stayed down here a second longer, I would drown. I streaked back up to the surface, treading water while I snatched air in huge, sobbing gasps. Then I dived again.

  A shadow in the water, a movement. Nico streaked past me, on his way up. Had he—? No. His hands were empty. He had not found the cup. I swam downward, farther out, toward the opening of the cave. The rocks out there were sharp like fangs and rough to touch. As my hand brushed one of them, the edge rasped away the skin, and a thin thread of redness swirled away from me in the water. Would the Wyrm notice something like that? And did she ever come into the cave? I wished I hadn’t thought of that.

  There! A golden glint. I scissored my legs and shot downward, not caring that I got too close to another rocky spire, so that I tore both trousers and skin. Was it—? No. Metal, but no cup. A buckle of some kind, from a shoe or a belt. I didn’t like to think how it had come to be here, or where its owner was now. In the belly of the Wyrm, it might be.

  Air. I had to go back up. But which way was up? Panic writhed inside me. Water, darkness, rock… light. There! That way. Up.

  “Hhhhaahhh, hhhaaaahhhh, hahhhhh…” Air whistled in and out of me, and lake water burned in my nose and throat because I had started breathing a second too soon. I coughed and retched and snorted. Damn Prince Arthos and his miserable cup, damn him to the deepest hell. My arms and legs were heavy and stiff, and my chest hurt. But if I didn’t find it, if I didn’t find it, I would almost rather be eaten by the Wyrm. Down, down again, closer still to the opening of the cave.

  I saw it nearly at once. And saw that Nico had seen it before me. He shot downward, smooth like a seal. I forced my leaden arms and legs to swim after him, forced them to move faster, faster…

  Nico curled around a spire, scissored his legs once, and seized the golden treasure. He had it. I was too late.

  The Hall of the Whisperers. I couldn’t stand it. Perhaps, if I simply stayed down here, gave in to the urge to breathe, I could drag water into my lungs instead of air, and drown. It wouldn’t take very long.

  But wait… He who finds the cup and delivers it into my hands. That’s what he had said. Delivers it into my hands. And Nico hadn’t got that far yet.

  I caught him just before we reached the surface. He was completely surprised, and I wrested the cup from him before he recovered. Now, I only had to get up on the dock—

  Nico flung his arms around my waist and dragged me back down. I swallowed a mouthful of water, coughing and gasping, but I didn’t let go of the cup.

  “Give that to me,” hissed Nico, gasping just as hard. “I found it!”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I jabbed my elbow into his midriff and tried to wriggle free of his grasp. I couldn’t. He was good at this kind of thing, as I had discovered during our water fight back at the Foundation bathhouse. But this time, we weren’t fighting for fun. I clung to that wretched gold cup, and Nico clutched me equally hard and would
not let me get onto the dock. Both of us used arms, knees, elbows, whatever came to hand, but neither could get rid of the other. In the end we were so beaten and exhausted that we could do no more than cling to the edge of the dock side by side, like two half-drowned kittens.

  “Give it to me,” Nico gasped. “If I win, they’ll let Mira go. What did you ask for? Water!” He snorted, half in despair, half in scorn. “Couldn’t you have come up with a better wish? Look around you. You’re swimming in it.”

  “It’s not that,” I muttered. “It’s the other thing.”

  “The Whisperers?” He looked at me. Our faces were no more than a hand’s breadth apart. Water was dripping from his dark hair, and his eyes were reddened from tiredness and strain, but he did not let go of my arm. “Davin, can’t you… one night. Two, perhaps. Don’t you think you could stand that, for Mira’s sake?”

  I wanted to. I really, really wanted to.

  But I was a weak and sorry coward, and a killer to boot. The Hall of the Whisperers—no. I couldn’t stand it.

  With a last desperate heave, I wrenched myself free, kicked and wriggled, and flopped onto the dock with the cup clutched in one hand. The rough boards rocked and squelched beneath me. I did not have the strength to get up, so I crawled the last few feet on all fours.

  “Master,” I said, giving him the cup, “here it is.”

  His face was completely smooth and expressionless, and I couldn’t tell whether he was pleased that I had won. Would he rather that it had been Nico who had brought him the cup?

  All he said was:

  “Well done, my son. You shall be rewarded.”

  The cup glinted faintly in the sunlight from the cavern’s mouth. A precious treasure, he had said, but it looked more like brass than gold, now that it wasn’t a half-hidden glitter in the murky depths. He held it high, as though toasting somebody. And then he threw it, in a long, lazy arc, back into the waters. There was a small splash, and it was gone.