Chapter

Fifteen

There was only one very narrow patch of shore where solid ground met the water. The rest of the pond was surrounded by forest and muddy grass that floated on the water and would let you sink straight in if you tried to stand on it. The trees grew straight out of the water, so only the very middle of the pond was free from any kind of plant life.

He panicked a bit when they arrived, because he suddenly remembered that this little village had absolutely no taboos about nudity. Most people bathed by wiping themselves down with a wet washcloth, but when they did use a bathtub, more often than not it would be a big wooden tub that they set outside right out in the open.

Luckily, whatever the kids had in mind didn’t involve swimming. They took off their shoes and the girls tied their skirts up above their knees, but that was it.

“What are we doing here?” asked Brin.

“Catching snakes,” said Zilly.

The kids spread out in the shallows of the pond, wiping away the scum floating on top, looking underneath to peer into the murky depths. Brin took off his shoes and walked in as well, feeling the soft, heavy mud beneath his toes. He couldn’t see anything in the dark water, and honestly, he didn’t think he really wanted to find a snake, but he went through the motions anyway.

Brin heard a splash, then saw Davi pull something out of the water. “I got one!” he shouted.

Davi pulled what looked like a squirming, wriggling foot-long rainbow out of the water. The snake was a light show of bright, shifting colors. It didn’t bite Davi, instead it seemed determined to slip out of his grasp. He quickly dashed out of the water, onto land. Just in time, too, because the snake slipped out of his hands, only to hit the ground where Davi could quickly snatch it up again. This time he grabbed it right under the head and stroked it while murmuring shushing sounds.

Surprisingly, the snake seemed to settle down after a minute or two of that. Davi sat down and put the snake in his lap, continuing to make shushing sounds.

“Why didn’t it bite you?” asked Brin.

“They’re nice.”

“Is it dying?” Brin asked. He was surprised that he actually sort of cared about the colorful noodle. “If it lives underwater then it probably can’t live out in the air.”

“They’re amphibious,” said Myra. “That means they can live on both land and water.”

“I know what amphibious means,” said Brin. “But usually they still only breathe water or air. Nothing breathes both.”

“These do,” said Myra.

“She’s right,” said Zilly.

“Can I pet it?” asked Brin.

“No. Get your own,” said Davi.

Looking closer, the snake was even stranger than at first glance. It had a ridge on its head, going partway down its back, almost looking like a spine. There were six little bone nubs on its sides and one big nub at the end of the tail.

And the colors! They shifted and swirled in a repeating pattern, and he noticed the individual scales shifted color, like each of them was a little LED. He looked closer, and when he was so close that his nose nearly touched the snake, [Know What’s Real] pinged him, very softly. It was using illusion magic.

“No way,” said Brin. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Snakes don’t look like this.”

“Actually, it’s not really a snake,” said Myra. “It’s warm-blooded. These little guys are scaly mammals.”

“That can’t be true,” said Brin.

“It’s true,” said Zilly.

“Well, if anyone knows how to recognize a snake, it would be you, Myra,” said Brin.

That made Myra go red in the face, but instead of biting back with an insult, she looked down and muttered, “Thanks.”

Davi stared down at his rainbow snake with renewed fascination. Zilly’s eyes darted back and forth between Myra and Brin as she rested a fist on her chin. Myra said, “I’m going to catch one of my own.”

“I’ll go with her,” said Zilly.

As soon as they were back in the pond, making splashing sounds and whispering furiously at each other, Brin hissed at Davi, “What did I say?”

“Why do you have to flirt with every girl, Brin?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You called her a snake!”

Brin ruffled his hair in frustration. “Snakes are creepy, slimy liars.”

“No they aren’t. Snakes are dragons!”

“What?”

“How is it that you grew up in the next town over and you don’t know the simplest things?” asked Davi.

“I don’t know! I don’t remember anything from before I got this scar on my head,” said Brin.

“But you remembered those stories,” said Davi. “So how could you forget that snakes are dragons?”

“How is a snake a dragon, Davi? That makes no sense,” said Brin.

“They’re descended from dragons!”

Brin stood up and paced back and forth, then remembered this conversation needed to be quiet, so he sat down next to Davi again. “I take it that calling someone a snake is actually a compliment.”

“Obviously,” said Davi.

“Well, what do I do? It’s not like you can apologize for complimenting someone,” said Brin.

“Just tell her you didn’t mean it.”

“You don’t understand the way girls’ minds work. That’ll just make them think I mean it even more,” said Brin.

“Ok… alright. I’ve got a plan.”

“What?”

“Just trust me.”

Brin stared at Davi. The boy had brown eyes, but he noticed the green and golden highlights for the first time, like a brown net pulling up a trove of pirate treasure from beneath the sea. Then his eyes shifted to the object in Davi’s lap.

“Fine. I trust you. Can I pet your snake?” He was glad that they were both young enough that he got away with the unintended innuendo. He wasn’t trying to be weird, he just wanted to pet an exotic animal.

“No!”

“Come on! Just a little? I’ll be gentle,” said Brin.

“Fine. Just one time,” said Davi.

The scales were soft like skin, and the snake was surprisingly warm for something that had been pulled from the pond just a minute ago.

The girls splashed their way back onto shore, both of them snakeless.

“I don’t know how you can always catch one so easily,” said Zilly.

“You just have to have a magic touch,” said Davi.

“Does Brin have the magic touch, too? Because he’s got his fingers all over your dragon,” said Zilly.

Brin pulled his hand away like it had been burned, then glared at Zilly, who burst out laughing. Myra said nothing and had her eyes glued to the ground.

Davi cleared his throat. “So listen… I thought of a story I want to tell. Brin hasn’t heard it before. It goes like this:

On the earliest earth when the boughs bore buds

And the worlds were weak with frequent floods

The first and foremost of the fire-wyrms, Gardener, a dragon dread and dear

She who shaped the lands with fire and with fear

Brought forth three bairns, though none could shine as she

Three mighty dragons, lords of land and sea

But none as noble as their baleful bearer

She who ruled them all with gentle love and awful terror

Four followed from her sons, who fled to feast and fight

Each a new flame, though lesser in their light,

So wanes the wyrmkind, weaker with each whelp

Till nought remains but belly, bane, and bite

But still the old and awesome ones abide

They sleep beneath the hills and dream under the tide.”

“How are you doing that?” Zilly yelled, looking at Davi as if she’d never seen him before.

“What’s going on?” Myra moaned, in mock terror.

Brin laughed. “Davi. Davi. Davi… I don’t even know where to start.”

“What?” asked Davi, offended.

“Where did all that come from? You sound like a smart person!” said Zilly.

“It’s called memorization,” said Davi.

“You MEMORIZED all of that?” asked Zilly. “How much longer does it go?”

“I was only a quarter of the way there,” said Davi.

Zilly sat down, dumbstruck.

Davi’s face darkened just a little, and Brin got a bit worried about the little snake friend, but Davi didn’t tighten his grip.

“Just because I’m a farmer doesn’t mean I have to be stupid.”

“No one says that,” said Zilly.

“Yeah, no one is saying that,” said Myra.

“But we are all thinking it rather loudly,” said Brin.

Zilly burst out laughing, and they kept laughing until Davi’s frown broke and he joined in. Myra didn’t laugh but even she couldn’t resist a smile.

Brin found himself looking back to the water. Could it be that there really was a race of tiny dragons living in that pond? Maybe all snakes weren’t descended from dragons, just the magical glowing rainbow mammal snakes.

He wanted one. Brin walked back into the pond, walking the shallows back and forth, scanning with his eyes. [Know What’s Real] should warn him if he ever got a glimpse of one. When he looked at Davi’s snake it was very subtle, as if the Skill were telling him that the snakes were only kind of using illusions. Could it be natural camouflage? He didn’t actually know if his Skill would warn him about non-magical illusions. Hogg might know more about the snakes.

No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t see even a glimpse of color in the muddy water. [Know What’s Real] didn’t chime in at all.

After a half hour, the other kids gave up and started making sounds about leaving. Davi slid his back into the water, where it darted away in a flash of color.

“Why’d you do that?” asked Brin.

“Well, I can’t exactly bring it home.”

“Does anyone keep one of these as a pet?”

“Some kids try, but they’re expensive to feed,” said Davi.

Brin didn’t need to worry about money right now. Hogg was loaded, and Brin had a few coins stashed away himself. The twenty-two silver worth of coins he’d found in the ruins of Travin’s Bog were worth nothing to the Heroes, but in a small town like Hammon’s Bog, it was enough to live comfortably for an entire year.

Brin pulled off his shirt, then his pants. He kept his undershorts on; pre-industrial society or not, he wasn’t ready to get totally naked in front of his friends.

“What are you doing?” asked Davi, clearly worried.

Before anyone could talk him out of it, Brin dove into the water. He swam into the lake, further and further, going deeper and deeper. He could only see a foot or so in front of his face, and as the water got darker, that went to a couple inches.

He was still pretty sure he’d be able to get to the middle of the lake without trouble. He was a pretty strong swimmer. As a teenager whenever he’d gone to the pool, he and his friends had always competed to see who could go the furthest underwater. He could go all the way across the twenty-five-meter pool and back without taking a breath or touching the surface.

He reached the bottom; it snuck up on him, so he didn’t know he was there until his nose nearly touched the ground. Instead of being flat, it rolled gently in lots of big, windy hills.

He started to see color in the water around him. Nothing close enough to see the snakes themselves, just the effect of the color they generated in the water around him.

Oddly enough, the water seemed to clear up the further towards the center he swam, until he could see six or seven feet in all directions. Some of the snakes swam into view, lazily turning circles in the water, their scales shifting in dazzling colors.

Something moved below him. Something huge, and then the whole pond lit up. The ground beneath him, what he’d taken for little winding hills, it was all moving.

Not hills at all—it was one gigantic snake.

It shook off the accumulated dirt, and it looked like the entire pond lit up. First a light blue, then shifting towards purple, then green.

Panicking, he swam up to get away, but the giant snake didn’t follow. It settled back down and was still again. He still wanted away. He was tiny compared to that thing. He was nothing. Maybe these snakes were friendly like Davi claimed, but even friendly animals might eat bugs, and that’s what he was. A bug.

He swam upwards, straining against the water. It was taking too long. From the pressure on his ears, it felt like he was only fifteen or so feet down, so it should only take a few seconds to get up, but the seconds passed by and he seemed no closer to getting to the surface.

He tried not to panic. If straight up didn’t work, he needed to go across. He needed to go back the way he came in. He turned and swam towards shore, or where he thought shore was. He might have gotten turned around a bit.

A snake appeared in front of him, swimming idly, as if Brin weren’t in a life-or-death situation here. He moved to swim around it, but it followed, staying right in front of his face.

He grabbed it, and rather than try to squirm away, it wrapped itself around his hand.

That very moment his head breached the surface and he took a hungry gasp of air.

He swam towards the shore, and it took him longer to get back, shaken the way he was. It was also sort of awkward to swim with the snake wrapped around his hand.

When he finally made it to shore, he fell down onto his back, uncaring of how he was covering himself with mud. Land. He was safe.

Congratulations!

You have gained an achievement.

Blessing of the Hidden Guardian (Rare)

You have been seen and accepted by the one who lays beneath.

An achievement! That was a good sign. But usually achievements gave some kind of bonus to attributes or something. This didn’t seem to have given him anything. Unless he included the snake wrapped around his hand.

“You were down there for a long time,” said Zilly. “I didn’t know people could hold their breath that long before they got a Class.”

“How are you keeping that snake so calm?” asked Davi.

“I don’t know. This little guy seemed to want to come with me,” said Brin. “I think I’m going to keep him. Actually, do you know how to tell if it’s a girl or a boy?”

“It’s a boy. Look how manly he looks,” said Davi.

“It’s the tail,” said Myra. “And you can’t keep him.”

“Why not?” asked Brin.

“How are you going to explain where you got him? You’re going to get us in trouble,” said Myra.

“Hogg will believe me if I say I don’t have any friends.”

Myra nodded. “Yes. That’s something that people will believe.”

Good, so they were back to this. It was good that accidentally complimenting her wasn’t going to make things weird.

He started stroking the snake down the back, the way Davi had before.

The snake popped his head up and opened his eyes, looking around. He seemed to meet the eyes of each of the kids in turn, including Brin. His eyes shifted colors the way the rest of his body did, never settling on just one color.

He seemed more alert than Davi’s snake had, like he was interested in the world and ready to be a part of it.

He started to lean into Brin’s scritches, so Brin scritched a little harder, and the snake shook a bit, making a soft growling sound, maybe something close to a purr. Then he yawned, and Brin got a look at the inside of his mouth.

He had a wide tongue, and his teeth were flat, almost like a human’s. It was unnerving but also kind of cute, especially with the way his yawn stretched out and he made a soft gasping sound. Then he slithered up Brin’s forearm and snuggled into the crook of his elbow and closed his eyes.

“What are you going to name him?” asked Zilly.

Brin noticed one last thing about the snake. He had a tiny line where he didn’t shift colors: a thin white scar on the back of his neck.

Brin knew the name at once. Then he remembered Little Red Riding Hood, whom he’d named “Vercappsi” in Frenarian. The “si” was something you could add to a word to mean “little” or “cute.” It was perfect. “Marksi. I’ll name him Marksi.”