One great mother eeled through the waters at the mouth of the bay, only her nostrils and huge dorsal fins showing above the surface. She stopped in front of him, and her nose was so wide that he could have lain between her nostrils. She was black and silver, the color of basalt and cloudy morning sky, and blood seeped from her gills.
The gill slits opened, and he could see her gills beneath the water, like branches of giant red coral, waving in the water as she struggled to inhale. She watched him from blood-red eyes.
“I mean you no harm,” Tull said. “I come only for the eggs.”
She watched him steadily, with large knowing eyes.
“You cannot keep them from me much longer,” Tull told her. “Give them to me, and I will protect them.”
The serpent opened her mouth, arched her back so that her head rose from the depths. She thrashed and roared. The force of her voice struck Tull like a blow. “You cannot take them!”
Tull woke, and the dream had been so real that he sat and listened for the sound of the serpent’s voice. But all he heard was the sigh of the gravitational wind blowing through the rocky hills of the island.
Thor had risen, shining full and orange with green storms racing across its surface, and one of the red drones added its light.
He got up and looked out. Snow blew off a nearby peak into the night air, and the light reflecting from the snow glittered like a million fireflies.
Tull walked down to the bay and peered into the water. One of the great mothers was there, floundering, suffocating in the shallows. She bellowed—not the cry of rage and warning he’d heard before, but a plaintive sound.
He realized that he must have heard her in his sleep, that she had inspired his dream. Tull wondered how Ayuvah would have performed this hunt, and he thought, Not in haste. A Man of the Pwi does not hunt for food; he waits for the animal to give itself to him.
The next morning, low tides came before dawn. Tull rose early and went to the bay, thinking that he’d find the great mother dead, but she was nowhere in sight. The tides were higher than they had been before, and Tull realized that they would go no lower. The extreme tides were gone.
He wandered among the rocks, cutting his feet, and realized his chance was gone. He had been over these rocks twenty times.
Half a mile away, Tull could see Scandal and Phylomon hunting among the rocks off the mainland. The tide was low enough so that they made it partway to him, yet the waters still held between them like a great lake.
One mother leapt into the air out in the bay. She did not roar a warning, and Tull saw blood streaming down her sides. She did not have long to live.
Tull had eaten only a crab in three days, and he kept hoping to find another. Soon he realized that he was searching for food more than eggs. He tried cracking some orange snails between his teeth, but they were gritty and filled with a black ooze.
He pulled a large cockle from a rock and tried to pry the blue-black halves of its shell apart. It resisted his effort, so he went over to a ledge where a dozen purple starfish and green anemones hung from an outcropping of basalt, and he began to pound the halves apart.
Yet when he struck the rock, it yielded like leather. He stood back, amazed, and studied the stone. Though it appeared to be black rock, the exact color of basalt, it was subtly different in texture.
He touched it, pushed on it, and it yielded. He lifted part of it, and found that it was fastened to the rock like a sponge. He pulled his long knife from its sheath and cut around the leathery edges, pried thing away.
It was an egg mass.
The mass was twelve feet long, two feet wide, a foot thick, and as he looked at it, Tull saw that it held dozens of small eggs, each as large in diameter as the onions Ayuvah raised in his garden.
The mass was covered with strands of seaweed, alive with starfish and snails and anemones that looked as if they’d lived their whole lives upon it.
It was not sandy brown, like the mass that Phylomon had seen years ago. Instead, they were the color of obsidian. The eggs were newer, smaller. And instead of just a few eggs, this clutch held at least a hundred.
These past three days, Tull realized, I’ve been searching for the wrong thing.
Tull shouted in triumph, and began pulling the eggs. He found a cord beneath it, a long black strand that attached to the rocks, and he chopped it, pulled the mass free, dragged it into the sunlight. The mass was heavy, weighing as much as four hundred pounds, and Tull strained to drag it at all.
Within the jelly of each individual egg, a great eye as large as a baby’s fist stared at him. He could see the pumping of the tiny serpent’s hearts, a soft fluttering motion.
He shouted in triumph and whipped off his cape, waved it for Phylomon and Scandal to see, but they were too far away, and for all his waving, they only scrambled upon their own rocks in the distance as they headed for shore.
Tull grabbed the mass and began dragging it uphill, sweating with exertion. The tide was rushing in, and he wanted to get his treasure. Three hundred feet out in the bay, one of the great mothers leapt into the air, and the ground shook momentarily with the thunder of her splash.
He kept working, dragging the egg mass to higher ground, when suddenly he heard the water explode a second time, and the serpent shot forward out of the bay, over the ground, eeling toward him.
She was twenty feet tall at the back, and her dorsals were again that size. She snaked through the boulders slowly, as if trying to smell a way through the rocks, using the hooked claws on her forward fins to pull herself forward. Her iron scales rasped against the rocks.
Tull began tugging the eggs in earnest, dragging them a dozen yards up hill in a great rush of adrenaline, then turned and checked behind him. The great mother was grounded. Though she was powerful, she could not propel the cold tonnage of her body through the rocks.
She lay on the ground, her gills fully extended, panting. Tull dragged the eggs the rest of the way uphill, set the boat upright, and loaded the eggs in. He stood panting and dizzy from the exertion, and wiped the sweat from his face. He glanced down into the bay to see if the serpent had struggled any closer. She lay dead.
“Be at peace, Little Mother,” Tull whispered. “I will protect your children as if they were my own.”
***
Chapter 40: The Kinship of Walls
When the tide rose, Tull pulled his boat down to the water’s edge and bathed the eggs with salt water.
That night, the air warmed again and filled with the wet scent of snow. Tull watched all night for a chance to put his boat out, but the serpents became active, thrashing in the water, screaming their pain and outrage at what he’d done. He heard their great booming voices in the stillness of the night and wished he could understand their words.
How would Ayuvah have performed this hunt? he wondered. Ayuvah had once told Tull how his father had convinced a bear to stop coming around their house by talking to it, so Tull went down to the sea and tossed five pebbles in, and wished peace to the serpents. I came for your eggs, and now I have them, he told the spirits of the serpents. I am a man of the Pwi, and I wish you no harm.
He stood and watched where each pebble dropped, watched the ripples expanding, reached out in his mind for the serpents. In the east, near my home, the great serpents have all died. I wish to take your children there, give them a new life away from the beasts that eat at your gills. They will grow and be strong. I know that some things, like love, cannot be taken—only given. I ask that you give the eggs of this dead mother into my care.
Tull listened for serpent voices and reached out again. Please, give them to me. I do not wish you harm, he said, and his heart filled with anger at the frustration, but if you do not give them, then I must steal them. And if you try to take them back, I must kill you if I can.
Out at sea, serpents murmured to one another. He felt a sense of peace, as much as he could under the circumstances. Perhaps they will not listen, he thought, but I have done
all that I can.
And in the late night, when the tides receded and Thor sailed into the west, he pulled his boat half a mile over the snowy ground, taking it beyond the edge of the bay, and set her softly into the water. He shoved off lightly, and for an hour he did not paddle, but only sat in the boat, letting the tides carry him where they would.
The sea remained as calm as a lake, and there was no wind. For a long time it lulled him, and he kept snapping his eyes open, trying to stay awake. The air felt chill and his hands numb.
He felt untouchable, as if he were sailing through a dream, and he suddenly roused himself and wondered if he’d fallen to sleep, for he was only four hundred feet from the island, just drifting east, when the sun began to rise.
He took his single oar, stood, and began to paddle quietly. His oar made little grating noises as it scraped in the oarlock, and he stopped from time to time to let the boat glide over the water.
A peninsula jutted from the mainland, keeping much of the water in shadow, and when he was three quarters of the way across the channel, the sun touched him.
Tull tried to imagine what his boat looked like from underwater—a black object on the surface of the ocean, lit from behind by golden sunlight. He felt uneasy, and saw the shadows cast by the peninsula only two hundred yards away. There, he reasoned, he would be safer. He dug his oar into the water and hurried.
As he glided into the shadows, water swelled beneath the boat, and it slipped backward as a tower of silver shot skyward with a rush of spray.
Tull looked up into the sky, saw a great serpent falling toward him.
At that moment, Tull was so tired, his eyes so gritty, that he could not feel. He watched her falling, and knew his boat would be crushed. He mustered no sorrow for his own death.
Now I go to the House of Dust, he thought, and he took the eggs in hand, prepared to swim for shore with them.
But as the serpent fell, the great mother rolled to her side and raised the claws upon her forward fin, and Tull saw that the claws would crush him.
A light glowed from the serpent, and Tull heard that deep inward groaning—the serpent voice he’d heard coming from Scandal’s great barrel at Seven Ogre River—and he finally understood.
“We are walls, you and I,” she said, a tone of greeting in her words. “You have become one of us.”
“Yes,” Tull said, and he felt a surge of warmth from her, almost a caress.
“We protect the small things of the world.”
Tull considered her words, remembered how he’d gone mad with rage when he found Wayan in shackles, how he had slain the Thrall at Frowning Idols after Tchupa had dashed a child’s head in. “Yes.”
Tull felt the serpent’s curiosity, knew she wanted to understand fully what he planned to do with the eggs, yet she did not ask. She let him keep his privacy. “You have no fear of me,” the serpent said, and there was laughter in her voice, playfulness, but also a majesty.
“No,” Tull said. And then the light faded, and the great serpent was falling toward his boat. She twisted aside as she fell, and her splash nearly capsized him. He grabbed the gunwales and held on for life. Water poured over the sides, and the boat spun in circles.
When it stopped, Tull looked in the water in astonishment. There was no sign of the serpent, yet he could hear her there, groaning, could feel her watching him.
No, she is watching over me, he realized, and he felt a great sense of rightness. He could sense her there, as if she were connected to him by a long umbilicus, and Tull finally understood what Chaa meant when he used the word Connected. They were one. I have found my Animal Guide.
He had heard the attributes of many Animal Guides—the diligence of the bear, the grim determination of the dire wolf, the vigilance of the hawk. Each had its realm, each taught its own lesson. What are the attributes of the great serpent? he wondered. What lessons can it teach me?
He got up and rowed softly but quickly. He felt very strange, very tired, and wondered if the serpent had been an illusion. Yet his clothes were drenched in fresh seawater, and he felt her below him, sliding along the ocean floor.
When Tull reached shore, the walruses and seals scattered to make room for the boat. Scandal and Phylomon rushed down to meet him.
“By God’s bleeding ulcers, boy,” Scandal said, “I thought you were gone.”
Tull smiled noncommittally. “I got the eggs,” he said, but Phylomon was already at the boat, looking at them.
“You must have five hundred of them—perhaps a thousand. I’d heard that the serpents will lay more when their numbers are low, but I’d never thought you’d get so many. Is this all one egg mass?” Phylomon poked at a little dark eye within an egg.
“One mass,” Tull said.
“I thought they’d be tan,” Phylomon said, “but like the serpents, they take on the colors of the rocks around them. Let’s pull the boat up on shore, get it on the wagon. It will take a week to get beyond the straits, and every day longer that we take, the more likely we are to dry those eggs out. We leave in two hours.”
Tull looked at the eggs. “How long will it take to get past the strait if we sail?”
“Half a day,” Phylomon said.
“Then we sail,” Tull answered. Phylomon stared at him strangely. “It was no accident that the serpent didn’t take me. The serpents are my Animal Guides. They’ll give us free passage.”
“So, that’s why Chaa sent you,” Phylomon said, mouth falling open in wonder. “Only you can catch the serpents! Not since Terrazin the Dragon Tamer has a Pwi taken an artificially created life form as an Animal Guide!”
“You’ll not get me in that boat in serpent-infested waters!” Scandal said to Phylomon.
“I’m not leaving here anyway,” Phylomon said. “I’ve got to get the little folk moved to safer quarters. I figure it will take eight weeks, then I can walk back to Smilodon Bay.”
“Eight weeks!” Scandal said. “We’ll be out here all winter!”
“Take your choice,” Phylomon said. “You can go with Tull or stay with me.”
Scandal looked at both of them. “Why, I’ve a business to run! I can’t fart around here all winter! You’d best come up to camp and have a bite before we leave, Tull.” Scandal said, chugging up the slope, muttering to himself. It took a moment for Tull to realize that Scandal still hadn’t decided what to do.
Tull ate his fill of biscuits and gravy, then took a short nap. When he woke, Scandal had the boat packed.
He gave Tull a small bundle wrapped in rabbit skin. It held Ayuvah’s knives and necklaces, a doll woven from reeds, some bright blue silk Ayuvah had stolen from a clothesline in Denai. “Take this to Ayuvah’s wife,” Scandal said.
“I thought you would come with me,” Tull said.
Scandal looked out at the ocean, and there was fear in his eyes. “I can’t,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Midwinter at the latest. I put your wages in the boat. Three steel eagles per day, plus a little extra.”
Tull laughed. He had not thought about wages at all, had completely forgotten that he had been hired for this job. He hugged Scandal good-bye.
“There’s plenty of food for you in the boat,” Scandal said. “Phylomon thinks you can reach home in ten days. The winds here are sharp, so you should have no trouble that way, but you might have to lay over in a storm. I gave you enough food for twenty nights. Watch for black sails.”
“I’ll be all right,” Tull said. He went down to the boat, found Phylomon there, soaking the eggs in water.
“Make sure to keep the eggs wet as much as possible,” Phylomon said. “Keep a wet blanket over them by day, and put them in water by night. When you reach the bay, fill a large bag full of rocks, tie the egg mass to it, and then dump it in deep water.”
Tull nodded, gave Phylomon a hug. “Will you be coming back to Smilodon Bay?”
“I’ll be back in early spring,” Phylomon said. “I’m going to sail north, beyond Bashevgo, to kill the
Creators, if I can. I can use some help, if you know any good men?”
Tull felt inside himself, remembered the gray birds, the horror of the leech that could eat into the human brain. These beasts would be waiting for Phylomon, and more. “In the spring?”
“Ten, twelve, weeks at the most.”
Tull nodded. “I know some good men.” He put the boat out to sea and hoisted his sail, waved goodbye to Phylomon and Scandal.
As he sailed, he did not worry about the slap of the boat against the water. He heard the voices of the serpents talking below him, felt their presence, and was comforted.
At evening, he passed the end of the Straits of Zerai and saw Bashevgo with its castles of black stone, the black-sailed pirate ships in its harbor, the legendary five hundred cannons pointed down to the sea. He saw the gleam of gold from its laser turrets up on the hill.
A single schooner set out to give him chase, a three-masted ship that followed quickly. Tull whispered to the serpents of his fear. We are walls, you and I. We are walls.
A single serpent rose from the water and swam beside his boat, only her nose and dorsal fins showing, and the captain of the pirate ship tacked to port and made a wide circle, retreating back to the island.
Thor rose, still nearly full, and since the wind was good, Tull sailed by moonlight, and then dropped anchor late at night in a small bay. He lay in the bottom of the boat, cradled by the sea, and let it rock him to sleep.
For a long time, he thought about home. He thought of how Wisteria had betrayed him, her warning about the mayor.
Garamon had always been a strong man. People said he was powerful, yet what they really meant was that they were afraid of him and his brothers. It was not a powerful fear, but a subtle thing—the way they felt compelled to let him keep his stegosaurus in town.
Even Smilodon Bay ran upon a subtle economy of fear. This observation surprised Tull, for he never before would have equated the gentle people of Smilodon Bay with the slavers of Craal.
He thought long about what he would do when he reached home. He wondered if he should confront Garamon, tell the town what had happened. Yet, he would have no proof. Better to watch him in silence.
Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series Page 24
