Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series

by David Farland

  “Yes,” Ayuvah offered. “The child is zhozedan—born of three. The mother, the father, and the goddess of love.”

  Tull stared at Phylomon curiously.

  “Well, think back!” Phylomon said. “Wisteria began throwing up two weeks from your wedding night. Few women take ill so quickly. In my experience, that is a good indication that she became pregnant on the first night. Now, may I ask you, what are the chances of that?”

  Tull shrugged.

  “Slim,” Phylomon said. “After all, her father was a Dicton—as close as he could come to being a full-bred human—and you are Tcho-Pwi. In such a marriage, a woman might get pregnant twice in all of her child-bearing years. Why, the odds that Wisteria would conceive in the first week of your marriage are about six hundred to one. The odds that you would conceive on your first night might well be four thousand to one. I wouldn’t call it a miracle, but it’s damned lucky. Damned lucky!”

  Tull grinned at Wisteria, put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a kiss. “Zhozedan! That is what we should call our child,” he told her. He looked back at Phylomon. “What will our child look like?”

  “Considering the frequency with which she’s lost her breakfast,” Phylomon answered, “I suspect that Wisteria is carrying a boy. The male hormones flowing in her blood from the baby make the sickness harder to bear. I think you’ll be surprised at how much your son will look like you. He’ll have your skull and your broad shoulders, though his hands will be smaller. He will have some of your red in his hair, though it will tend to be darker than your own hair.”

  “That is,” Scandal laughed, “if you’re the father!”

  And Wisteria had a sudden thought—what if Tull were not the father?

  In her mind, she was lying on the floor while Garamon, drunken and smelly, penetrated her again and again. It had been less than twelve hours later that she married Tull.

  She suddenly began counting in her mind … surely she had begun getting sick when they were going over the Dragon Spines—a week later than Phylomon claimed. The poison stew had made her sick earlier—had made her vomit for days.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that it might not have been the stew. Certainly the Dryad had recovered quickly. And now that she considered it, she remembered being sick even earlier … feeling cold and nauseous in the redwoods while the giant Dryads followed them. Feeling ill at Frowning Idols when Phylomon killed the glass seller. Could these phantom chills have really been a symptom of a child? she wondered.

  Wisteria remembered her mother once saying that she had never got sick before the fifth week. So even if Phylomon were wrong, what did it matter? She’d definitely been vomiting by her fourth week.

  She tried remembering when her last bleeding had occurred, but she could not recall with precision. The days before her father’s execution seemed ages ago. Had it been two weeks before their departure, or four? And what had been her safe days? In Smilodon Bay, her life had been so clinical. Back then, she did not have to count days to know she was safe. She’d always been safe.

  In her mind, Wisteria conjured up an image of the child as it would be. She imagined he would be pale of skin, almost white, as if his blood were drained. And she imagined Garamon’s black eyes staring out from him, Garamon’s dark hair. He would have the boxlike head of a human, and he would cry out in harsh syllables. He would look down upon Tull, a mere Neanderthal, and her son would be fiercely proud to be a bastard rather than son to a Tcho-Pwi.

  Wisteria spent the rest of the morning suffering from chills. She did not hear the others talking around her. When Born-in-Snow returned from his morning forage and hooked the mammoth to the wagon, she dutifully climbed the mammoth’s tusks and stepped up onto his neck. Her muscles were tight, cramped with fear, and her skin crawled.

  She saw Scandal watching her and wondered what he read in her face. Did he know? Had he guessed all along that she carried someone else’s child? Had that been what he meant when he said she was an adulteress?

  With fear came the desire to run. All morning she wondered how to escape this dilemma.

  When she bore the child, everyone would learn the truth. But how would Tull take it? She imagined he’d be stoic. He’d comfort her, assure her it did not matter, play the part of the hero.

  But inside he’d suffer quietly, envious of the child that was not his, yet scorned by his son. She tried to imagine him becoming angry but knew Tull would not be angry.

  He’d be hurt, the way a faithful dog is hurt when it takes an undeserved beating from its master. Yes, he’d take it, and in her mind’s eye, she imagined he’d be weakened and destroyed by that pain, just as a house can be felled by a single rotten timber.

  By mid-morning, she felt dizzy with grief. She thought of killing the child, of managing a fall so that it would abort while still small. Perhaps if the fetus were small enough, she thought, Tull might not recognize it as being human.

  And the next minute she laughed bitterly out loud, thinking how she had vowed to destroy the town in her anger and her pain, and now, despite her best efforts to the contrary, she would destroy Tull, instead.

  She thought about Tirilee, how she had kissed Tull and driven him blind with lust, and how at home Fava had gazed at him longingly, wanting to unite her spear with Tull’s. Better to leave him to them, she thought. Better to die.

  And when she thought of death, Wisteria thought of Garamon suffering with grief for his dead brothers. She imagined what he would do to her. Tull had promised to protect her from the beast, but who knew if Tull was strong enough?

  As they marched slowly along, Wisteria played a dangerous little game. They came to a ridge, and she wove the mammoth in and out, in and out, letting it get close to the ridge. She looked down below her, two hundred feet, and wondered how close she would need to get before the wheels of the wagon slipped over the edge. The thought made her dizzy, so she closed her eyes.

  When she opened them, she realized the mammoth had stopped. They were at the top of a hill, and below was a valley filled with dark pines and thick mountain raspberry. Phylomon, Ayuvah, and Tull were working ahead of her, feverishly trying to move a dead tree out of the way, while behind her Born-in-Snow had been pushing the wagon. Wisteria had steered the mammoth for an hour without even realizing it. She looked at the men raising and dropping their axes, drenched with sweat.

  It all looked so far away, as if none of it were real, as if she were cut off from them. The trail was narrow, and the wagon was already at a ten degree slant, the barrel with its precious cargo leaning precariously towards the drop. Wisteria looked at the hill and saw that if she nudged the mammoth to the left, the left wheels would go into a dip, perhaps enough to spill the wagon. Perhaps not. Perhaps the whole wagon would fall over the edge and down the hill, and in her mind she saw the mammoth being pulled by his harness down the hill, rolling over and over, crushing the life out of her, crushing her child. It did not matter which. Whatever happened, it would be better than to live like this, better than to let Tull find out the truth.

  She did not know if the wagon would tip, in fact did not believe it would. Wisteria nudged the mammoth’s right ear with her toe, just to see what would happen. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  As if in a dream, the great hairy beast shook his head to warn her against such action, then began to walk to the left. She did not feel the wagon tip behind her, did not hear Born-in-Snow’s mighty scream.

  Instead, she felt the wagon tug, and heard the mammoth’s harness snap. She turned to look back, and the wagon tipped toward the dark forest below. Beside her she saw a dark flash as the tug, the pole attached to the singletree, swung up. It glanced off the mammoth’s shoulders, then hit her in the kidneys and swept her into the air. “Help!” she screamed.

  The mammoth trumpeted and she heard it skidding downhill beside her, then she hit a leafless bush, and everything went dark.

  When she woke, she felt sure that t
he mastodon had fallen upon her, at least one of its legs. The sky was dark, especially right in front of her, and something heavy lay on her chest. She heard a high wheezing sound from far away, and she swallowed because her mouth was filled with foamy blood. There was a buzzing in her ears, almost the sound a hummingbird makes when it hovers in the air nearby.

  She felt … disconnected. There was no pain, only the heaviness, and a faint numbness across her face. Not pain really, just the absence of feeling.

  Somehow she wanted to vomit. Someone stood over her and touched the side of her face, looked into her eyes. It was a fat woman with frizzy hair. A woman whose name she could not recall … the nurse who had helped care for her in childhood. I didn’t really want to do this. I don’t want to die! she wanted to tell the woman.

  The fat nurse prodded her and a sharp pain filled her belly, as if something had been ripped out. An overwhelming sense of hope filled her.

  Is it dead? Wisteria tried to say, but it only came out as “Ishtda.”

  “What?” the fat nurse asked.

  Wisteria spat the blood from her throat and smiled. “Garamon’s bastard child,” Wisteria asked. “Is it dead? Is it dead yet.”

  “Yes, child,” the nurse said, “it’s dead.”

  Wisteria laughed, and the buzzing in her ears began to fade. She tried to focus on the nurse, but it was far too dark, and the strain hurt her eyes. She heard someone screaming in the distance, a little child screaming for its baby doll, and a flock of butterflies, like colored sparks of purple and iridescent green, fluttered past her head, whistling a little song.

  The nurse said, “Hush now, Wisteria. The pain won’t last for long. Not for long.”

  She felt a sharp twinge in her side, and a desire to run, and she kicked her feet a little and tried to scurry away. And then she felt a great wrench, as if she were jerked sideways. And there was no more.

  The air smelled vaguely of ash, and the butterflies whirled about her—red and gold, silver and midnight blue, cinnabar and the soft colors of mother-of-pearl. They rushed past as if swirling in the heart of a dust devil. She turned to see where they were going, and longed to float after them into the empty land.

  ***

  Chapter 20: An Empty Heaven

  Phylomon had been hacking the roots of a rhododendron, sweat glistening on his long blue arms, trying to clear the trail, when he looked up and saw Wisteria urge the mammoth forward. She was mumbling and wore a strange expression, a look of regret mingled with curiosity. She turned to glance behind her at the wheels of the wagon. Then the axle cracked and the left rear wheel buckled.

  Phylomon had seen death come to a thousand men, and just as it did nearly every time, time seemed to slow. The wagon toppled. The great wooden tugs that connected to the wagon’s singletree to the hames at the side of the mammoth’s neck broke free, and one tug caught Wisteria in the kidney. The torque of the rolling wagon was so great that the girl flew thirty feet into the air and disappeared downhill, and upon some curious impulse, Phylomon tracked her trajectory thinking, At least I’ll know where to find the body.

  Tull shouted, and the mammoth, still tied to the wagon with his huge collar, trumpeted and flipped to his side, sliding over the embankment. Wagon, barrel and mammoth rolled downhill in a cloud of dust and scree.

  Tull ran forward, and when he hit the slope his legs kept moving even though he stood in midair. Phylomon followed. Below them, the wagon and mammoth had cleared a wide trail in the thick brush. At the end of the trail, they lay in a bloody tangle.

  The barrel was broken, and a serpent wriggled from beneath the wreckage and sunk its teeth into the mammoth’s front leg. The mammoth did not flinch. Tull zigzagged down the trail, peering beneath brush on both sides of the clearing as Born-in-Snow rushed past him. The great white Hukm stopped in mid-stride and just stared at the dead mammoth.

  Scandal stood at the top of the hill, calling to Wisteria, and Phylomon rushed downhill and grabbed Tull, shouting “This way! She should have landed down here!” for he could see from her trajectory that she should have landed in the very center of the sideway where the wagon had rolled.

  Ayuvah beat the brush, looking for Wisteria off to the left, but Phylomon found a spot of blood on the ground near the roots of a broken bush. “There’s where she landed! The wagon pushed her downhill!”

  Tull stood in shock, looking at the blood, and Phylomon grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the dead mammoth and the wrecked wagon. Tull stopped at the foot of the hill, shaking his head, and Phylomon climbed over the mammoth. The wagon was only a pile of splintered timbers, far too dangerous to walk on.

  Young serpents lay on the ground by the mammoth, crushed to bloody bits. Another lay gasping, its gills opened wide, trying to breathe in the harsh sunlight, its tiny fins extended out to its sides, raking the air with its claws.

  Phylomon stood atop the mammoth and searched for Wisteria beneath the wreckage. Behind the mammoth’s body was a wall of twigs and bent trees, and he could see nothing. He heard a cough to his left, down beneath the wagon, and marveled that anything could be alive down there. “Here!” he shouted, jumping from the mammoth, picking his way through the shattered timbers to the back of the wagon.

  Phylomon pulled broken boards from the wagon bed and soon saw a pale hand sticking out from beneath the wagon as if to catch the sunlight. Ayuvah began pulling boards, and Scandal stood behind them and threw the boards away while Phylomon and Ayuvah cleared the debris. Phylomon glanced back at Tull. The young Tcho-Pwi stood in the sunlight and watched them work, as if performing the labor of witness were labor enough. Ayuvah pulled off a board from the wagon, and Wisteria gasped as sunlight struck her eyes.

  Foamy blood was running from her nose, and she choked and looked all around. She gagged softly, and Scandal said “What?”

  She smiled, as if she were as carefree as a little girl, and for a moment she cleared the blood from her throat. “Garamon’s bastard child,” Wisteria asked plainly, placing her hand upon her womb. “Is it dead? Is it dead yet.”

  “Yes, child,” Phylomon said, “it’s dead.”

  Wisteria laughed, a high clear laugh as if she were at peace, and Phylomon realized that he had never seen such an expression upon her face, such utter contentment, the face of a child who has just come in from a long day of play. But her laugh turned into a ragged cough, and she bent forward. Blood gushed from her mouth and nose, as if the coughing fit broke something inside her, and the blood rushed free.

  Phylomon held Wisteria by the shoulders. He looked up at Tull, and the sunlight shining full upon the Pwi made his red hair gleam the color of cinnabar. He was breathing shallowly, shaking. Ayuvah pulled the boards away.

  Scandal got a wine bottle, filled it with water, tried to force some down her. Phylomon let him give her a small drink, enough to clear the blood in her throat. Tull found a blanket to cover her, and for several moments, they just stared at Wisteria.

  “Is she going to live?” Tull asked.

  Phylomon looked up at the boy. “I’m no prophet. She seems to be breathing all right for the moment. I think we should let her rest for a bit. In a few hours we can try to move her.”

  The men stood and watched her for half an hour, then Scandal began cleaning up. Born-in-Snow was already preparing his mammoth for its journey to the spirit world, bringing it food. Scandal set aside the provisions he’d promised to pay the Hukm, the valuable spices, and for a while Scandal put his arms around the big furry creature and held him.

  After two hours, Ayuvah and Scandal went uphill to make camp. Wisteria moaned and thrashed her head from side to side in pain. Tull whispered softly to Phylomon, “If she’s going to die, I wish she’d get it over with. I don’t want to see her suffer.”

  Phylomon nodded, realized that the boy had already begun his mourning. Somewhere in the hills, a great-horned owl called softly, and a small gravitational wind sighed through the trees. Scandal set a fire and began to prepare a dispirited
supper.

  “What is she waiting for?” Tull asked.

  Phylomon began talking softly, telling Tull about a shipwreck he’d been in three hundred years before, how he’d washed ashore with a dozen women who had lain like this, unconscious for hours, yet all of them lived.

  Wisteria breathed deeper, as if struggling for breath, and suddenly she moaned, “Daddy? Daddy? Butterflies.”

  Phylomon bent over her and whispered, “Wisteria, you can go and catch the butterflies now.”

  Suddenly she stopped breathing, stopped moving at all, as if she merely held her breath. Phylomon laid her head back gently. “She’s gone,” he said.

  “Wait!” Tull cried, “Wait! What did you do to her?”

  “People who are ravaged by guilt often seek permission before they die,” Phylomon said. “I gave it to her.”

  ***

  Chapter 21: Of Death

  Up on the hill, Ayuvah began the grieving first, throwing his arms over his eyes as he wailed. But Tull only stood, hands clasped in front of him, blinking. “What’s to be done about it?”

  “What’s to be done about what?” Phylomon asked.

  “Death?” Tull answered. He stepped forward and took Wisteria’s shoulders, lifting her gently, but then he dropped her again and pulled his hands back, covered with clotted blood. Phylomon realized the girl must have been raked across the back by a large timber. Tull lifted her partway, and Phylomon saw that she was impaled upon a broken board. An inch-wide hole showed in her left lung. The girl’s eyes were turning white.

  Tull picked up his wife, ripping her free from the wreckage of the wagon, and stumbled uphill, carrying her.

  Scandal rushed down to help, but Tull shrugged him. Scandal asked Phylomon, “What can we do for him?”

  Phylomon had asked that question many times over the past thousand years. “You can never really take grief away, and you cannot lessen it. The most you can do is put your arms around him, help hold it in.”