The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  He took a step forward. Then another. I had told him not to do that, but right now I couldn’t remember why.

  “I only want to help you.”

  He only wanted to help me. Why had I thought his face looked too smooth, too hard? Now it looked gentle. Like the face of a father who might scold you a bit but would never, ever be really angry with you. Someone who was always constant, always the same. Not like Sezuan, who never let you be sure of your ground.

  “Give it to me,” he said gently, reaching for the flute.

  No.

  No. It was just the tiniest of voices, inside me, but it was enough to make me take a step backward. No. This was wrong.

  “No,” I said. “Stay away from me!”

  He snatched at the flute with his gloved hands. I jerked away from him, turned and ran, through the aisle, toward the steps leading to the galleries. I flew up the dusty wooden stairs, hearing him behind me, on my heels—

  He grabbed my ankle. I fell, striking my chin on one of the top steps so that my whole head buzzed with it. I kicked back to free myself, but he had both hands on me now and was dragging me so that I thumped down the stairs, step by step, scraping my elbows and knees. But it wasn’t me he wanted, it was the flute. I clutched it close to me and curled my body around it so that he couldn’t get at it even though he hurled me against the banister to make me let go.

  “Leave her alone.”

  Thump. The Educator let go of me all at once, turning around.

  Sezuan was standing in the aisle, swaying. A thread of blood was still seeping from his lip.

  Master Vardo glanced at me and then turned his full attention to Sezuan.

  “I see,” he said. “So here is the real Blackmaster. It wouldn’t be an untrained child, of course. True evil. Who is the girl, then? Your apprentice?”

  Sezuan shook his head. “No. Just a servant.”

  With a quick movement, Master Vardo grabbed me by the hair and hauled me to my feet.

  “No,” he said. “More than that, I think.”

  He held up his free hand close to my face. He was wearing a ring, a heavy silver ring shaped like the two dragon heads of the Draconis family. He made a smooth, quick motion with his thumb, and there was a slight click, like a lock opening. Suddenly something jutted out between the dragon heads, a slim spike or a thick silver needle.

  “Do you know what this is, Blackmaster?”

  It seemed my father did know, although he didn’t answer directly.

  “Let go of her,” he whispered. “If you hurt her—If she dies because of you…”

  “There is no reason why she should die,” said Master Vardo. “Come closer, Blackmaster.”

  Why didn’t Sezuan do something? Why didn’t he make Master Vardo look at something else? Why didn’t he disappear in a haze of dust and morning light? You see Sezuan only when he wants to be seen. Why didn’t he just vanish? I eyed the needle, less than a hand’s breadth from my cheek. It was about an inch long, and sharply pointed, of course. It might leave me with a bad scratch, or even a real cut. Nothing that would kill me. Get on with it, I thought. Do something! But perhaps he needed a bit of help?

  Vardo still had hold of my hair, forcing my head backward. It made my throw clumsy and a little short. But still, the flute sailed through the air, hit a bench, and clattered to the floor a few steps in front of Sezuan.

  Master Vardo cursed and nearly jabbed the needle into my chin. I could feel the sharp point now, though the skin had not broken.

  “Do not touch it,” he told Sezuan. “Come here. Now!”

  Sezuan walked past the flute as if it wasn’t even there. A few steps from the Educator, he stopped.

  “Now let go of her,” he said.

  “Kneel,” said Master Vardo. “And I’ll let her go.”

  Sezuan knelt. Master Vardo let go of my hair. And hit Sezuan with the back of his hand across the face, leaving a long, bloody scratch across my father’s cheek.

  Sezuan made no sound. They were staring at each other so hard that neither of them paid any attention to me. I backed a few steps. Then I crept toward the flute.

  Still no one noticed me. Hands shaking, I raised the flute and blew into it, a shrill and shaky note that sounded like nothing at all.

  It was enough.

  Master Vardo swung around, holding both hands to his ears. And Sezuan flung himself at the Educator’s legs, pitching him forward. They both rolled among the benches, and for a few moments I couldn’t see what was going on. Then one bench overturned, and then the next. Sezuan was flat on his back now with Master Vardo on top of him. His hands were clenched around the Educator’s wrist—the one with the needle glove. Vardo in turn had his other hand at Sezuan’s throat, and it didn’t look as if my father was winning.

  I could think of only one thing to do.

  I raised the flute like a club and hit Vardo as hard as I possibly could.

  The Educator collapsed on top of Sezuan, but my father just kept lying there, making no attempt to push him away. Finally I grabbed hold of Vardo’s shoulder and tumbled him to one side, so that I could help my father rise.

  I couldn’t get him to his feet. He ended up sitting with his back against one of the overturned benches.

  “Leave me a moment, Dina,” he said, out of breath. “I just have to rest a little.” He looked at Vardo’s prone form. “What did you do to him?”

  “I hit him. With the flute.” It was still dangling from my hand.

  “Good.” That was all he said.

  I held it out to him. “It was all I could think of. I hope I didn’t break it.”

  He shook his head faintly. “Keep it. It’s yours, now.”

  “Mine?”

  “If you want it?” He looked at me uncertainly.

  “I… I’m not sure.”

  He closed his eyes. “Take it or leave it,” he said tiredly. “It’s a very nice flute. You don’t have to play dreams on it. You can just play music.”

  Vardo was stirring. Would I have to hit him again? Or should I tie him up with something? I kicked off one shoe and began rolling down my stocking.

  “What are you doing?” asked Sezuan.

  “I’m going to tie him up.”

  “No!” He spoke very sharply. “Don’t touch him!”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer. With great care he took hold of Vardo’s needle hand and pressed it against Vardo’s neck, just below the chin. The needle sank in, and a jerk went through the Educator, who was by now only half-unconscious. But it was just a small pinprick wound, and certainly no more than an inch deep. Nothing like the long bleeding scratch on Sezuan’s cheek.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked.

  “So he won’t hurt you. Ever.”

  I stared. “What do you mean?”

  At first he didn’t answer. It was as if he was growing more and more out of breath, not less.

  “Dina,” he said. “Will you please take the flute? I never really gave you anything else.”

  “If… if you want me to have it. But what will you do, then?” The flute was so much a part of him, it was hard for me to imagine him without it.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll need it,” he said. “Where is Nico? Why doesn’t someone come?”

  Why was his breathing so bad? And what did he mean, he wouldn’t need the flute?

  “Papa, is something wrong?”

  He nodded. “You mustn’t touch that needle, do you hear me, Dina? You had better not touch him at all. Or me. Don’t touch me either, not even after… not even later.”

  Only then did I realize what he meant.

  Poison.

  The needle had been poisoned.

  “Little Dina,” my father murmured, “who cried for Shadow. Will you cry for me too?”

  I was crying already, but I don’t think he could see it.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Stay with me,” he said. “For a little while yet.
But don’t touch me.”

  He was quiet for some moments, fighting harder and harder just to breathe.

  “Dina, if it becomes necessary, remember… the Wyrm is just a serpent. And in my family… we are good at snakes.”

  Was he delirious? Why was he talking about snakes now? Did he mean—

  “Do I have it?” I suddenly said. “Do I have the serpent gift?” He opened his eyes and looked at me. For a long time.

  “No,” he said.

  And then he said no more. Ever again. Because a little while later he died.

  I sat on the cold stone floor, with a small space between me and Sezuan and Master Vardo. The sunbeam had crept even farther along the aisle and now fell on one of the flat tombstones, EDVINA DRACONIS, it said. SAINT MAGDA GRANT HER GOOD REST.

  I wasn’t even sure I believed in Saint Magda. If I asked Mama, all she said was that that was the kind of thing people had to figure out for themselves. But if Saint Magda did exist, I hoped she would grant Sezuan good rest as well. He had been so tired, at the end.

  I had stopped crying. You can’t cry forever. But it still felt as if someone had stuck a knife in my belly. It was strange that something could hurt so much without being visible at all.

  At some point, I heard shouting and scuffling outside the locked door, but I just closed my eyes. There was nothing I could do. No matter who came through the door in the end, I didn’t think I would have the strength to fight them.

  There was a splintering of wood and footsteps behind me. I just waited.

  “Dina? Dina, are you all right?”

  It was Davin. I turned my head. Davin, Nico, and a lot of others, most of them scarred and filthy with wild beards and bits of broken shackles still hanging from their ankles.

  “I’m all right,” I said, getting up. “Can I please go home now?”

  I heard that someone did actually make a fairy tale of it later. A fairy tale about a flute player who played so beautifully that he melted the stony heart of the Prince, so that all swords were thrown away, and all children became happy and free. It’s a very nice fairy tale. And I would have liked for things to turn out that way in real life too.

  But not all swords were thrown away. And I don’t think all the children were happy and free ever after, though some were.

  Nico had freed all the prisoners. Some simply walked away; but there were also some who had scores they wanted to settle. When we left the chapel, there was fighting everywhere, between prisoners and castle guards, and between guards wanting to leave and guards wanting to stay. There were even a few fights among the prisoners themselves, I could see. The House of Teaching was burning, and at the threshold, beneath IN EVERY THING A LESSON, lay a dead Educator. The Palace, too, was on fire, and we later heard that the Prince perished in the flames along with many of his Educators and most loyal guards. Of Dama Lizea we heard nothing definite. Nobody seemed to know whether she had died alongside her father or had escaped somehow.

  I don’t know what would have happened if the prisoners hadn’t helped us—the ones that Davin and Nico had been locked up with. Big bald Mascha had a voice like a roaring bull, and it was he that kept our small group together and blazed a path for us through the ruckus in the courtyard. Nobody wanted to get in Mascha’s way, it appeared. But even he couldn’t get us through the press by the drawbridge.

  “The boat,” called Nico. “Let’s make for the boat.”

  He was carrying a small fair-haired girl who clung to him like some kind of human vine. Mira, that would be, from the house on Silver Street.

  Mascha headed for some steps leading down into a cellar. That proved to be only the beginning. The stairs kept going down and down as if they never meant to stop. Finally, though, we reached a cavern, a cavern full of water. And in the water was a boat.

  People around here never sail on the lake, Sezuan had said.

  “Will it be all right?” I asked Nico. “I mean, the Wyrm?”

  “We’ll have to take our chances with her,” he said. “It’s less dangerous than trying to get through the gates now. They’re half crazy up there, and most of them hardly know their friend from their enemy anymore.”

  Mascha and five other men took the oars, and the boat shot forward through the black waters, toward the cavern mouth. I ducked involuntarily. Those rock spears looked too much like giant fangs, and it hardly seemed as if there was room enough for us to pass through unharmed.

  Naturally, there was. And then we were outside, under a clear blue sky. Above us, on the mountain, we could see the Sagisburg burning. The smoke was the only cloud in the sky.

  “What happened?” Davin asked. “How did they die?”

  It took me a moment to realize that he meant Sezuan and Master Vardo.

  “They killed each other,” I said hesitantly, because even though it was true, it wasn’t really the whole story. “With poison.”

  “How suitable,” muttered my big brother. “For a Puff-Adder and an Educator.”

  I wanted to yell at him or shake him and tell him that it wasn’t suitable at all, it was… it was terrible. But he looked so pale and battered and exhausted that I didn’t even say anything. He wouldn’t understand it anyway. Who would be able to understand that there was a dark hole inside me, a horrible lack where Sezuan had been? Who would understand that I would miss him, that it felt awful to know that I would never see him again, or even hear his voice. There was so much Davin didn’t know. Sezuan was my father, not his. And he had sung to me, and stroked my head, until the nightmares went away. What did Davin know about all that?

  The waters of the lake were as blue now as the sky above us. Hardly a breath of wind rippled the surface. If it hadn’t been for the column of smoke behind us, and the clenched faces of the rowers, anyone might think we were out for a pleasure cruise. But Mascha, Gerik, and the others kept a pace that had their veins bulging, and Mira hid her face against Nico’s chest and wouldn’t look into the water at all.

  “How long will… how long do we have to be on our guard?” I asked, deciding at the last moment not to mention the Wyrm by name. Who knew whether she might be down there listening?

  “Until we reach shallower waters,” said Mascha. “Perhaps another hour, if we can keep up this pace.”

  No one said anything much. I caught myself staring into the water several times, but all I could see was the sparkle of the sun in the ripply blue of the water.

  A heron flew by, on wide gray wings. In front of the keel, where the boat had not yet cleaved the waters, midges and pond skaters danced across the surface.

  The boat rose.

  At first I thought it was a wave. But there was no wind.

  “Hells,” hissed Mascha. “Not now!”

  Then the boat dropped steeply, hammering down so hard that the hull creaked and water cascaded over the gunwale. Mira screamed, clinging to Nico as if she meant to choke him. And in front of us, no more than an oar’s length away, the Wyrm rose. And kept on rising. Up. And up. And up.

  The Wyrm is just a serpent, Sezuan had said.

  Perhaps so. In the same way that a dragon is just a lizard.

  Sunlight glinted on scales that were almost silver-colored. Spiky fins fluttered, like tree branches in a storm. Her mouth was… I couldn’t describe it. Big enough, certainly, to swallow a human being alive. But I didn’t think anyone could stay alive inside her, for seven days or seven minutes.

  “Do we have anything we can throw?” hissed Davin frantically. “A lamb, or something?”

  Of course we didn’t have a lamb. Where would we get a lamb?

  “Not unless you fancy a swim,” snarled Mascha.

  Then no one said anything for a while, because the Wyrm suddenly dropped from sight, leaving only a huge frothy whirl to show where she had been.

  Was that it? Was she gone? Maybe she wasn’t as dangerous as people said she was.

  Then the boat rose again, higher than before. It tilted hazardously to one side, and Mascha roared at
all of us to lean the other way. Then we thumped back down with a whump that jarred the teeth.

  “Leak!” screamed Gerik. “We’ve sprung a leak!”

  “Then patch it, damn you!” Mascha yelled back at him.

  “With what?”

  “With a rag, with your shirt, with your arse, what do I care? Just patch it!”

  “She’s playing with us,” said Nico through clenched teeth. “She’s not even trying to snatch at us, she is just going to smash the boat so that she can pick us off one by one in her own sweet time.”

  Mira was weeping. Davin took my hand. His felt warm, but perhaps that was just because mine was so icy cold.

  “What about that?” he said, nodding at the flute I had stuck in my belt. “Can’t you throw that overboard? It might fool her for a while.”

  I clutched at it and knew at once how loath I’d be to lose it. And then I heard Sezuan’s voice in my head once more.

  The Wyrm is just a serpent.

  I let go of Davin’s hand. Raised the flute to my lips. And blew.

  It was a wild note, like the cry of a seagull when the sky is black with storm clouds. It shrilled across the waters, piercingly loud.

  “What are you doing, girl?” yelled Mascha. “Get that thing away from her, Davin!”

  Davin looked stunned for a moment. Then he reached for the flute, but I evaded him. I leaped onto the stern, feet wide apart for balance, and kept playing. Notes full of wind and water, of dark depths and black whirls. Of bird cries and sails, and the whisper of oars through the water.

  She came. She rose in front of me and stared at me with her cavernous eyes. Water dripped down her long gray neck, and the scales glistened like mother-of-pearl in the sun.

  She stared, and kept on staring. But she didn’t attack. And suddenly a sound came from her, a quivering whistle, like the song of the whales off Dunlain.

  “Holy Saint Magda,” whispered Mascha. “She’s singing!” And then, when he had recovered himself a bit: “Play on, lass. And the rest of you, row. Row, damn you!”

  I played on. The Wyrm sank back into the lake until only her eyes and her nostrils were showing. She didn’t whistle again. But she kept following us, until the water became too shallow for her, and she had to turn back. With a last snort of… I didn’t know—pleasure? curiosity? fellowship?—she dived for the depths and disappeared.