The City in the Lake (8 page)

The next day, she found herself walking without paying much attention to the path, listening to the green silence that surrounded her. From time to time she thought she caught an echo of slow thought, ponderous memory, speech in the sound of leaves moving in the wind. . . . If she had not been listening to the trees, perhaps she would not have been so surprised when a voice spoke to her suddenly in human language.

“You look a fine, strong, young person,” said the voice, husky and sweet as clover honey. “Surely you will help me?”

Timou jerked around so quickly in her astonishment that she caught her foot on a twisting tree root and fell abruptly to her knees, gasping.

“Or perhaps not . . .,” said the voice doubtfully.

It was not a man speaking, nor a woman. It was a serpent, coiled about the branch of a tree a little above the level of Timou’s head. It was jet-black above, with an intricate pattern of gold worked into the scales of its throat and belly. Its head was tapered and graceful, its eyes golden, slit-pupiled like the eyes of a cat, utterly unreadable. Its tongue, when it spoke, was long and black. Its delicate fangs were as long as Timou’s thumb.

Timou got to her feet, rubbing her knee where it had struck a rock. She knew, of course, that the serpent was a creature of the forest. But she did not know what this creature intended, or whether it was well- or ill-disposed to travelers. She said cautiously, “If I can, I might.”

The serpent seemed to smile. Its black scales gleamed even in the dimness; its white fangs seemed almost to glow. It said, “There has been rain far away. A stream has risen and threatens my eggs. As I have no hands, I cannot move them. But you could move them for me, if you were kind.”

Timou considered this. “Where are your eggs?”

The snake pointed with its long narrow head back into the forest. “That way. Not far.”

But, obviously, off the path. Timou hesitated.

“If you do not help me, they will be ruined by the water,” said the serpent piteously.

“But to help you, I must leave the road, and then I will be lost in the forest.”

“I will guide you back to the road.”

“Will you?” Timou dusted leaf mold off her knees—at least, as her traveling skirt was charmed against dirt, it did not stain—and swung her knapsack more comfortably over her shoulder. Then she looked back at the serpent, meeting its unhuman golden eyes.

“If you help me now, I will guide you when you most need guidance,” promised the serpent.

This was not the sort of promise one disregarded. Timou smiled politely. “Then of course I will help you.”

The creature flowed down out of the tree. It was larger than Timou had suspected: six feet, perhaps as long as eight feet, but slender and graceful. It led Timou into the forest with quick assurance, clearly knowing exactly where it was going. Timou could well believe it knew its way about the forest and never got lost. It moved quickly—as quickly as she could walk—gliding smoothly along the ground, slipping delicately around rocks and roots that presented a hazard to Timou’s feet.

Not far,
the serpent had said. Timou did not know what a serpent would consider far, but it seemed long enough before she heard the sound of a running brook. So there really was a brook, and indeed, when Timou paused on its bank, steep and thickly overhung with ferns, she could see it had been rising. The serpent wove its way up a tree near at hand and wrapped itself around a low branch a little higher than Timou’s head. It turned its head from side to side, regarding the water anxiously.

“Where are your eggs?” asked Timou.

“In a hollow place in the bank,” answered the snake swiftly. “Where that root twists out of the bank, just above the water—do you see?—there is a hollow above and behind that root. My eggs are there.”

Timou could see the place the snake described. She could also see that to get to that place, she was going to have to step into the water. She sighed. She removed her boots and put her knapsack down beside them. She drew a circle in the soft soil around her things and whispered a word her father had taught her so they would not disappear and could not be stolen. Then she tucked her slit traveling skirt up through her belt, caught a handful of ferns to steady herself, and stepped gingerly into the stream.

The water was knee-high and cold—shockingly so. Timou set her teeth and waded cautiously along the bank, feeling sand and pebbles shift under her feet. The snake tilted its head to the side and watched intently. When she reached the protecting root, Timou peered into the dark hollow behind it. She could see nothing. Taking her little mirror out of her pocket, she angled it to throw light into the shadows. By that light she saw the eggs, just as the snake had described. They were small oval things, creamy white in the light the mirror cast. Nothing else was there. She thought she would be able to hold perhaps three of the eggs in her hand at one time.

The front of Timou’s skirt already made a pouch. She made sure this was secure. Then she gathered the eggs into her skirt, using her right hand to pick them up and her left to hold the mirror. The eggs were cool, and soft to the touch, not like the eggs of a hen.

“Carefully!” said the snake. “Don’t let them fall into the water!”

“I will be careful,” Timou assured it. When she had all the eggs tucked into her skirt, she waded slowly back along the stream to the place she had entered the water, and paused. It was clearly going to be difficult to scramble out of the stream without risking her burden. Finally she turned, leaned against the bank, and hitched herself awkwardly back and up, like she was trying to jump up and sit on the top rail of a fence. It was not easy and for a moment she thought she would slide down and find herself sitting in the stream, but then she was far enough up to grab a solid rock ledge and heave herself the rest of the way to the bank.

She turned to the snake. “Where shall I put them?”

“Anywhere,” said the serpent. “It does not matter. At the base of this tree, if you like.” It uncoiled half its body and hung down from the branch as Timou made a little hollow in the leaves and soil and placed the eggs into it.

“Thank you,” said the serpent. It lifted its graceful narrow head so that its eyes were level with Timou’s. Then it opened its mouth, and opened it, wider and wider. Its fangs gleamed. The fine scales of its stretching throat flashed gold.

Timou stepped back, and back again, warily. The creature laughed and dipped its head, no longer narrow, but two handwidths wide, at least. Catching up one of the eggs, it swallowed it whole. Timou, horrified, watched the smooth oval of the egg pass down its distending throat. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

The serpent looked up and met her eyes. It was no longer black, but white as frost. Its eyes were black. “They’re best near hatching,” it said in its sweet husky voice.

“Are they not yours?” Timou asked it, and found her voice was shaking.

“Oh, yes,” said the serpent. “Only my own are worth consuming.” It swallowed another egg and added, a little indistinctly, “Would you like one?” In its sweet voice was a thread of amusement and malice.

Timou put her boots back on with hands that trembled, picked up the knapsack, and walked away blindly.

“Wait!” called the snake behind her, the malice clearer still in its voice. “Wait only a little while, and I will guide you back to the road, as I promised!”

Timou did not wait. She was lost almost at once; enormous trees rose all around her, the same in every direction. She went on thoughtlessly, in no particular direction, for a long time.

The forest’s silence eventually brought her calm. Timou stopped at last and sat down at the base of a tree, where it spread its knobby roots out across a rocky ledge. Her breathing slowed. Green shade spread out around her. It was very quiet. Not even the leaves spoke in their continual breeze.

Timou found in her pocket the little ball of road dust she had made and kept with her. This she now warmed in her palm. She whispered to it, reminding it that it was part of the road, that it remembered the road, that it
was
the road, the one road that ran straight and clear from the farthest reaches of the Kingdom all the way to the shores of the Lake. Then she cast the little ball into the shadows, rose to her feet, and stepped after it. She found the path before her. Her foot was on it already. It wandered up a gentle hill to her left and spilled down a starker slope to her right, with trees crowding close on each side, but it was indisputably the right road. It felt right. It almost felt safe.

Timou made her fire high and bright that night, and even so did not fall asleep for a long time. She watched the shadows under the trees for the swaying head of a serpent with a sweet voice. When she might have slept, she thought she heard a voice crooning,
Only my own are worth consuming,
and woke again with a start. Only at dawn, with the light coming green and pearly through the trees, did she finally slip into a light doze.

She dreamed at once. She dreamed she was lost in the forest, and there was no road to guide her. She searched for it but could not find it; she realized she was searching, with mounting anxiety, for something else, but she did not know what it was and could not find that either. Light fell in sheer planes through the trees, which rose in smooth black columns around her and cast shadows that were chasms into darkness. A doe ran by, white as frost, pursued by a stag black as night, crowned with great antlers that brushed stars out of the sky; falling, the stars cried out in high sweet voices. The stag looked at her with the cold yellow eyes of an owl and leapt away.

Timou, trembling, backed away and ran, knowing that she must find . . . she must find . . . She did not know what she needed to find, but she knew it was important . . . but she could not
remember,
and there was no way out. . . .

Before her a black serpent reared up out of a shadow. It offered her an egg and said in a voice like smoke and honey,
Eat this and you will be able to find your way through any maze.

No,
said Timou, horrified.

Then I will,
said the serpent, and, opening its mouth, lowered its head toward the egg.

No!
cried Timou, and took the egg into her hands. It was much heavier than it looked, heavy as a stone. She could feel the life in it through its soft-walled shell.
When will it hatch?
she asked the serpent.

Very soon.

Even as the serpent spoke, the shell tore open and a tiny snake thrust out through the opening, twisting about so violently that Timou nearly dropped it and only just caught it back again, heart pounding. It was as long as her forearm, but not so big around as her smallest finger; it was white, with an intricate filigree of blue tracing down its throat; it looked at Timou with pale blue cat-pupiled eyes. Then, coiling itself around her fingers, it struck quickly, driving tiny delicate fangs deeply into the base of her thumb.

The pain was immediate and intense. It woke Timou, who sat up with a cry by the embers of her dying fire.

There was no black serpent, no tiny white baby snake. The forest, though immense as always, was held back by the boundaries of the path: she was not lost, not searching through the forest for something whose name she could not remember . . . there were no pinpricks of blood on her thumb where a baby snake had struck her. But she thought there might be a faint ache echoing all the way up her arm to her elbow. . . . She rubbed her arm slowly, wondering what besides the residue of dreams she might carry out of this forest. Her initial delight in the forest seemed inexplicable to her. She felt now she could not be out of it quickly enough. Rising, she cast soil over the remnants of her fire and turned her face again toward the end of this journey.

And it did end. Timou came out of the great forest at last on the evening of that same day, having walked without rest until the light had very nearly failed. She stopped now, with immense trees at her back, and looked out on country that had nothing to do with ancient forests and strange enchantments. The air at her face seemed much colder than the green-infused air that breathed out from the forest at her back, and she thought perhaps she had left autumn behind in the village and walked through the forest into winter, though the forest itself still lingered in a warm slow summer.

Gentle hills with copses of ordinary little trees stretched out before her; snow dusted the grasses. The sky seemed to stretch out forever. It was gray and heavy with the promise of more snow to come, but still held enough light that Timou could see how the road widened and turned off in a broad sweep to run into the distance. There was a village visible where the road turned, comfortable little houses with a gentle haze of wood smoke rising from their chimneys. It was almost a surprise to know that the Kingdom was inhabited by more than haunts and shadows and the folk Timou had left behind on the other side of the great forest. She went forward slowly, glad to leave the forest behind, and yet in the end finding herself somehow reluctant to pass again wholly into the human realm.

Timou walked past fields that held tall sheaves of gathered hay, past a pasture that held a dozen heavy-bodied cows the color of new butter. One lifted its head to look at her incuriously. Above her, the first stars came out into the sky.

This village was larger than Timou’s home; almost a town. There were dozens of neat little houses, of wood or a pale gray stone. Folk were inside, mostly, by this hour, although one man strode by on the other side of the road. Timou smiled at him and began to ask where she might find the village inn, but he only gave her an unfriendly stare when she spoke to him and did not even slow his step. She turned away, startled and a little dismayed by his rudeness.

The inn turned out to be at the northeast edge of the village square; it was fortunately not difficult to find. It was a large stone building, with its door set firmly open to show that anyone was welcome. The warmth and light spilling profligately out from within brought an unexpected lump to Timou’s throat. She went slowly across the square and, after only the briefest hesitation, into the light.