The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  “Is someone following us? Or following you?”

  He looked at me without answering.

  “If you are unhurt, we should move on,” he said.

  But I wasn’t about to let it go.

  “Who is it?”

  “Nobody. The sun and the wind. A mountain goat. Come on.”

  I couldn’t wring an answer from him. But after we had walked for a bit, he said, “Stay close to me. I don’t want you to fall too far behind, or get too far ahead. It isn’t safe.”

  DINA

  Dreams

  Being afraid of Sezuan was bad enough. Being frightened also of some mysterious creature following us… it was almost more than I could bear. All day I stuck closely in his shadow and kept eyeing the mountainside above us, or throwing nervous glances downhill to see if there was anyone behind us. When a pair of grouse flew up from the shrubbery right under our noses, I leaped like a startled foal. My shoulder was hurting again now, and I had dirt everywhere: in my ears, in my nose, in my hair. Even in my navel.

  Maybe your belly can only handle one fear at a time. At any rate, I was almost grateful that Sezuan was there. When he walked beside me, solid and visible and real, he didn’t seem anywhere near as frightening as he had been back when he was mostly an invisible threat, a voice in the mists, a distant scary presence that spoke to me through words scratched on tablets or letters hidden inside hollow eggs. I might almost start to think that he cared about me and would look after me if anything happened.

  And then my thoughts stopped short. Because wasn’t that what he would want me to think? Never trust him, Mama had told me, more than once. There might not even be anyone following us. Perhaps the rockslide had happened by itself. Or perhaps Sezuan had made it happen, by throwing a stone, or… or loosening a boulder when he went for water, or something. The noises by the barn might have been anything.

  But the man in the tree. That hadn’t been Sezuan.

  Or had it? At first I had thought so, when I caught a glimpse of black hair and a red shirt. And perhaps I had been right the first time. There had been time, hadn’t there, for him to throw away the red shirt and appear in his blue robe, pretending that the noise had disturbed him? And there was Beastie. And the coppertail. Who other than Sezuan would have known that I would be walking along that path at that precise time? After all, he was the one I had been going to meet.

  Thinking this hard could make a person dizzy. I stared at Sezuan’s back and wanted to be able to look inside him, into his heart. Black or white?

  Perhaps he could feel my eyes. At any rate, he turned around and smiled at me, a bit more tentatively than he usually did.

  “Do you want to borrow the flute?” he asked. “You could practice as we walk.”

  “No, thank you,” I said sharply.

  “You liked it,” he said in an oddly gentle tone. “I could see that.”

  “I don’t want it!”

  I was practically shouting at him, and his smile vanished. His face closed up again, almost as if ice had formed on the surface.

  “As you please.”

  We walked on in a chilly kind of silence. The hooves of the donkey beat against the hard ground in a swaying, clip-clop rhythm. It was practically the only sound we could hear.

  Then I could no longer hold back the question. It struggled out of me, the way a chick forces its way out of the egg.

  “Do I have it?”

  “Do you have what?”

  “Your… your gift. The serpent gift.”

  He stopped. So did the donkey, as he was holding its lead. He looked at me across its woolly gray back, and something moved in his face.

  “Would that make you very unhappy?” he asked.

  Tears stung my eyes. I didn’t say anything, but it probably wasn’t difficult for him to see the answer.

  “Dina. It is not some horrible and evil power. It is also the ability to make people dream. Is that so terrible?”

  My stomach was a rock at the bottom of a lake. Hard, cold, and slimy.

  “Do I have it?” Don’t lie to me, I prayed. Don’t lie.

  His silence seemed to me to last a small eternity.

  “How would I know?” he said. “Some things you have to find out for yourself.”

  And I didn’t know whether he was lying or telling the truth.

  That night we found no farm to stay at but had to camp in a small laurel grove. I lay for a long time, thinking, and when I finally did fall asleep, I had a horrible, horrible dream I couldn’t wake from. I was walking through endless underground tunnels looking for Davin, and the tunnels were full of fog and darkness. I called and called, and finally I heard his voice answering. I ran toward the sound, and suddenly I was in a cell exactly like the one I had shared with Nico in Dunark. I raised my torch and caught sight of Davin. He had been chained to the wall. What held him wasn’t ordinary chains, but snakes. Fat, scaly snakes, opening their mouths to hiss at me.

  “Get them off me,” screamed Davin. “Dina, get them off me.”

  I didn’t dare. I simply didn’t dare. I was so afraid they would bite me.

  Something touched my leg. I looked down and saw that a snake had wound itself around my ankle and was slithering up my leg. I screamed and kicked and tried to get it off me, but suddenly there were snakes everywhere. One fell down from the ceiling and wrapped its scaly length around my neck. There were snakes on my arms, on my legs, and when I opened my mouth to scream I found I couldn’t, because something was coming out of me, there was a snake inside me—

  “Dina. Hush now, Dina, it’s only a dream.”

  I knew that, sort of, but I couldn’t wake. I could hear myself crying, and I could feel somebody touching me, but at the same time I was in the dungeon with Davin, choking on snakes, hundreds of them now, I was buried in them, they crawled over one another and over me, and I could feel their cold scaly bodies against my skin.

  “Dina. Look at me.”

  It sounded almost like Mama, and somehow I wrested my eyes open. But it wasn’t Mama. It was Sezuan.

  I tried to stop crying, but it was hard. The snakes were still there somewhere, waiting for me. And Davin was a prisoner, together with Nico, and suddenly it seemed perfectly hopeless to think that we could free them, just Sezuan and me.

  “Stop crying now,” said Sezuan, patting my shoulder awkwardly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how it was done. “Wait. I’ll drive away the bad dreams.”

  He took out the flute and raised it to his mouth.

  “No,” I whispered. “Not the flute.”

  I could only just make out his face in the glow from the embers of our bonfire. His eyes glittered, and at first I thought he might be angry with me. But I don’t suppose he was. At any rate, he put away the flute, sat down on the ground next to me, and started singing instead.

  Nightbird is flying through the darkness

  Nightbird is bringing me a dream

  A dream as fine as you are

  A dream as fine as you

  Night winds are blowing through the valley

  Night winds are bringing me your name

  A name as fine as you are

  A name as fine as you

  Often have I dreamed I found you

  Often have I thought of you

  Were you happy? Were you strong?

  Did you never think of me?

  Nightbird has closed her eyes now

  Tucked her beak under a dark wing

  Sleep, my daughter, sleep and be easy

  The night winds bring nothing ill.

  He didn’t have a particularly beautiful voice. It was not at all like when he played the flute. When he sang, he sounded like an ordinary human being. But that felt better. I grew calmer. The snakes slipped away from my half-waking dream, one by one. And he stroked my hair as if he hadn’t even noticed that it was actually quite filthy and “unsavory.” Never trust him, Mama had said, but there wasn’t anyone else, and I needed so badly to trust somebody.


  “Did you make it?” I asked. “The song?”

  It was a while before he answered.

  “Yes,” he finally said, very quietly.

  I grew very quiet myself. Because if that was true, then he had made it for me. He had no other children, he had said. Often have I dreamed I found you. Had he really dreamed about me?

  “How long have you been looking for me?”

  “For years,” he said. “Twelve years, to be exact.”

  Somewhere in my chest something tight loosened, and I could breathe more easily. In the end I fell asleep, without evil dreams, while my father sat stroking my hair.

  DINA

  The Donkey Thief

  The next morning, the donkey was gone. The donkey and most of our supplies. The water skin. The flatbread. The rye biscuits and the white goat’s cheese that Sezuan had bought at the last farm we had passed.

  “Did it get loose, do you think?” I asked.

  “Picking up two saddlebags as it went?” said Sezuan. “Hardly. This thief had hands.”

  I wanted to look for the donkey, but Sezuan said that would do no good.

  “If this was done by robbers, we must be grateful they didn’t just slit our throats while we slept,” he said harshly. “I should have kept better watch.”

  “What do you mean, if this was done by robbers?” I asked.

  He looked at me searchingly, as if to gauge my mood.

  “There is another possibility,” he said. “If it was him, then the donkey will come back by itself, or not at all.”

  I knew it. There was somebody following us.

  “Who is he?” I asked sharply. This time I wanted the truth.

  Sezuan hesitated. “A sick man,” he finally said. “A wretch, but a dangerous wretch. Once his name was Nazim, but you mustn’t call him that anymore, it makes him furious.”

  “What do I call him, then?” I asked. “If I see him.”

  Sezuan heaved a sigh. “I hope you won’t.”

  “But if I do?”

  “He calls himself Shadow.”

  “That’s not a name.”

  “No. But then, he is no longer a—a proper human being. Dina, if… if something happens, and I’m not there, speak nicely to him. Don’t anger him. And don’t look at him too much, he doesn’t like that. Often it’s better to pretend that you don’t see him at all.”

  The sun had already begun to heat the rocks around us, but I still felt shivers down my back.

  “Why is he following us?” I asked, aware that my voice was a thin, uncertain thing.

  “Because he is mad.”

  “That can’t be the only reason.”

  “To Shadow, it is reason enough,” said Sezuan tersely and would say no more.

  There was nothing we could make breakfast with. We didn’t even have water. The only remotely suitable container we had left was the tea kettle still sitting in the remains of last night’s fire. I shook it, but it was dry as bone.

  “I’ll get us some water,” I said.

  “No,” said Sezuan. “We’ll go together.”

  “But what about our things? What if he runs off with the rest?” The blankets, for instance. The nights would be cold without them.

  “We shall have to take them with us.”

  It wasn’t much we had left, but without the donkey and the saddlebags, it was still a cumbersome burden. We had to bundle everything up in the blankets and carry them like sacks at our backs. Mugs and spoons rattled around as I walked, and the ungainly bundle kept banging me in the small of my back. Sezuan carried our small ax in his free hand; I had the tea kettle.

  We stopped at a little stream and drank as much as we could. Then we filled the kettle and walked on. My belly hardly knew whether to slosh or growl. Cold water wasn’t breakfast, but if we didn’t find the donkey thief soon, or some kindly mountain peasant who would take pity on us, then the next meal might be a long time coming.

  The sun rose. So did the path—up and up in twists and turns. We saw no living creatures except for lizards and the like. No donkey thieves. No peasants, kindly or otherwise. Not even so much as a goat. Only hard sun and even harder rocks. Dust. Thorny bushes. Stones, stones, stones.

  My calves had begun to ache from walking uphill all the time. And when we finally reached the crest and could see what waited on the other side, the way ahead looked every bit as stony and steep and deserted as the road behind. At least we would be walking downhill, I thought, rubbing my poor calves. That had to ease some of those aches.

  It did. At first, anyway. Then my thighs began to ache instead. My back was soaked in sweat, and my fingers had turned into stiff sweaty claws from clutching the heavy wool blanket. About halfway down the next slope, my grip slipped, and clothes and mugs and spoons cascaded onto the mountainside. As if that wasn’t enough, I managed to drop the tea kettle as well in my attempt to save the blanket bundle. Now our drinking water was nothing more than a wet spot on the path.

  I rubbed my tired eyes. This heat, and then no water. Not good. You could get sick from that. And who knew when we might come upon the next brook or wellspring? Gushing streams and cool forest lakes weren’t exactly crowding each other in these parts.

  Sezuan didn’t scold. He merely helped me pick up the stuff and get my bundle together again. But he made no move to walk on.

  “This is no good, Dina,” he said. “I shall have to use the flute.”

  “What good would that do? There’s no one around.”

  “It may be that we are alone,” he said. “But you never know. Wait and see.” He pointed to a cluster of wolfsbane by the side of the path. “Sit there,” he said. “And pretend you aren’t here.”

  I looked dubiously at the tall violet flowers. Wolfsbane, Mama’s voice said in my mind, also known as monkshood or aconite. Poisonous. But then, I wasn’t planning to eat them, just hide among them. If possible—it didn’t look like a very effective hiding place.

  “Do you want me to hide in those?” I said uncertainly.

  He shook his head. “No, not hide. Just sit down and imagine you aren’t there.”

  It sounded like a very peculiar thing to do. He might be able to hide in broad daylight in that fashion—no one sees Sezuan unless he wants to be seen, or so Mama had said—but I wasn’t Sezuan.

  “Just sit,” he said when he noticed my hesitation. “And do not talk.”

  Well, that much I could probably manage. I sat down among the tall flowers and let yellow flies and small golden bees buzz undisturbed around me.

  I didn’t see him raise the flute, but suddenly the music was there, huge and overwhelming, harsh as a mountain. Not at all like when he had played for me. No roses and clover scents now; this was all thunder and trumpets, like a signal calling soldiers to battle. “Come,” shouted the flute. “Obey!” The notes marched across the valley in straight columns, and it almost made me want to march along. But I was not the one he was calling, so I remained where I was, on the ground among nodding wolfsbane flowers.

  Nothing happened. No mysterious Shadow peeked out from behind the boulders. No robbers either, for that matter. In fact, nothing and no one appeared.

  Sezuan didn’t give up right away. He played until there was a glistening sheen of sweat on his face and neck. But finally he lowered the flute.

  “Maybe he really is not here,” he murmured.

  I got up slowly. Sitting on the ground, so still and for so long, had stiffened my back and legs.

  “What do we do? Walk on?”

  “I suppose we shall have to.”

  Sezuan put his flute back in its sheath. I collected my bundle and swung it onto my back. We walked on.

  He stood on the path in front of us, suddenly, as if he had shot up from some hole in the ground. His mouth was hanging open, and he was breathing in shaky gasps, like an injured animal.

  My heart jumped into my throat, and I dropped my bundle once more. Don’t look at him, Sezuan had said, but it was hard not to. His faded red s
hirt was soaked in sweat, and his hair that had probably once been neat and short like Sezuan’s now stuck straight up into the air like a coxcomb. It was so sticky and clotted with clay and ashes that he had to have done it on purpose, and this made it impossible to tell its original color, but it wasn’t black, I thought, the way I had believed after that first glimpse in the chestnut tree.

  Because it was him. There was no doubt. Even the long stick was still with him. He stood there clutching it, and it was hard to say whether it was for support or because he wanted to hit us with it.

  Without a word, Sezuan raised the flute. The man’s eyes followed every move, but other than that he stood stock-still. Sezuan blew a short signal-like tune, like whistling for a dog. The stick clattered onto the ground, and the man—Shadow, I would have to learn to call him—fell to his knees in the dust at my father’s feet.

  “Master,” he whispered. “Master.”

  Sezuan lowered the flute and looked down at the kneeling form. I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.

  “Where is the donkey?” he asked, and his voice was so cold that I almost pitied the man on the ground.

  At first, Shadow didn’t answer him. Instead he raised his head and looked straight at me, and there was no doubt what he was feeling. Hatred narrowed his eyes into slits.

  “Little Serpent,” he said, and his voice sounded as if he hadn’t used it for a long time. “Little Serpent, beware. Or the big serpent will eat you.”

  Once again, my heart jumped in my chest. I had been feeling sorry for him a minute ago. Now, I was afraid of him. And I didn’t like the name he had given me. Little Serpent. Did he know that Sezuan was my father?

  “Where is the donkey?” asked Sezuan again, and this time his voice was even more glacial.

  “Gone away and run away,” chanted Shadow. “Gone, gone gone.” He smiled, and I could see that he had a tooth missing. “What will Shadow get if he can find it?”

  He looked up at Sezuan, and his face was lit up with expectation, like a child who knows that Grandfather has something nice in his pocket. And apparently, Sezuan knew perfectly well what Shadow wanted.