SONG of EMBER

44

PORTENTS

🙜

Ember wished—hoped—fervently prayed with every fiber of his being that he was still, somehow, asleep.

But he knew it wasn't a nightmare, because he'd been in the midst of a perfectly good dream, the sirena's sweet hum accompanying him throughout his pleasant wanderings. Then he had awakened to the cold hard stone beneath him, her humming drowned by a dry, scaly rustling about his ears, and—by far the worst of all—a soft weight pressed round his ribs, as if someone had draped a heavy coil of rope over him in the night.

One of the coils slipped, bunching up his shirt, and a soft hiss echoed in the hall.

He kept his eyes closed; hardly moving, scarcely breathing. The same fear that screamed at him to get up and run kept him pinned to the floor, lest he find himself poisoned and dying of a serpent's bite.

"Wake up, Ember."

He cracked his eyes open, mouth tightly shut, and clenched his arms more tightly to his body as he searched for Ky's familiar shadow. She sat cross-legged and cross-armed on an elevated bit of path, staring down with a blank face and shining eyes.

"Friends come while you are resting," said Ky simply, as if it were a simple situation that required the simplest of explanations.

"What—" he croaked, choking on the rest of the words.

"Perhaps it is because you are warm," she mused. "Or a man. Their songs are unlike that of any other. The magic of this mountain, or some magic long ago, has shaped them into… this."

A flick of one finger was all the acknowledgment she gave his plight, but that flash of yearning he had seen before lit up her face.

It was almost a jealousy.

"Just get them off of me," he hissed through clenched teeth, barely moving his lips. Primal fear surged through his veins, manifesting in uncontrollable shakes.

"They adore you," Ky said helplessly, shrugging her thin shoulders. "And they will not let me near."

Ember scrunched up his face as a lithe scaly body slithered around his neck. He reflexively twitched his shoulder and was confronted by a salutatory hiss. He froze, heart pounding, and noticed the faintest of very faint smirks upon Ky's pale lips.

"Can't you… ugh…" He lowered his voice to a breath. "…sing—s-sing to them?"

Ky shrugged again.

Her smile widened.

"Ky," he whispered, sweat dampening his shirt. "I can't—I don't—I can't—do something!"

She reached out with one finger and was met with a scarcely lifted snake-head. It rose up slightly from the pile, just enough to give her pause, and emitted a lazy hiss. Its fanged mouth remained open until she withdrew her finger.

Ky tilted her head at him. "You see? A few came to listen when I sang, but they will not stay with me."

Ember squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to calm his breathing as the nest of serpents rustled and hissed around him.

"What do I do?" he growled at last.

Ky shrugged a third time and murmured, "Hmm. I suppose you can ask them to go away."

The snakes slithered and hissed quietly, stirred—perhaps even pleased—by her voice, but none of them turned toward her. If anything, they snuggled more tightly against Ember.

"I have to… I have to get up… now," he huffed, lifting himself up on one elbow. A long body slipped from around his neck, landing on the floor with a whispery thud. "S-sorry… I have to go… ahh…"

Shuddering violently, Ember slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, and the snakes wended their way down his ribs and slithered to the floor.

"Maker's breath," he muttered tightly, trembling from head to toe.

The rest of the snakes fell or slithered onto the stone, encircling him with their slender black bodies. He bit back a curse and shifted onto his knees, careful not to accidentally injure any of the rustling heads and tails.

Ky hummed, and the snakes all hissed very quietly in unison.

One of them reared its head, rising out of the pile to stare at Ember.

He stared back, paralyzed.

It observed him for a moment with beady eyes, blue tongue flicking in and out.

"Ky…"

She shrugged.

Clearing his throat, Ember decided to address the snake directly. His mouth felt numb and he had a difficult time enunciating the words, but he hoped the intent would be clear.

"We have to… we have to leave… now… sorry…" He cleared his throat again. "Please… let me up…"

The snake tilted its head at him—an intelligent gesture that took Ember by surprise—and then rescinded into the pile. The snakes all hissed once or twice, and then began to weave their way in opposite directions. Some of them disappeared into cracks along the wall, and others slipped down the hall until they disappeared from view. A few purposefully brushed up against Ember's arms and ribs as they departed, in much the manner of an affectionate cat.

When all of them were gone, Ember let out the breath he had been holding in an oath, leaping to his feet and dusting himself off with his hands as best he could—he still felt their dry, dusty scales brushing against his skin.

Ky watched him silently, and then rose with a sly smile. "They are all gone. Have no fear."

"Gah-hah!" Ember tugged the hem of his shirt down and straightened his ragged sleeves. "Why didn't you warn me?"

"I woke up and three were already beside you," she explained, falling in step beside him. "I think one must have gone to fetch the rest of their clan, for the others appeared shortly after." The siren paused, and then asked innocently, "You do not like serpents?"

"I don't mind them," he said bluntly, ruffling his hair. "When there are one or two in the garden. But that was a horrific way to wake up."

"It is for the best, then, that your sentiments were not shared by all."

He cast a dark glance at Ky, but she was studiously observing a crack that ran along the ceiling.

Several long minutes passed in mutual silence, until Ember finally had to ask the nagging question in the back of his mind. "Answer me truthfully: could you have done it?"

Ky hummed, her mouth flat but her eyes sparkling. "Perhaps, if I am singing more powerful songs of the dust. But it will be a pity to lure them away while you are still asleep. It is so long since their kind have met one of yours, and they aren't likely to encounter another man so long as they live." Her voice fell to a thoughtful murmur. "I am understanding of their desire for human companionship. What is the harm?"

Her question was not meant for an answer, but it did put him into a more contemplative frame of mind. A part of him admired her affinity for the slithering, creeping things, and in other ways it made her an even more untouchable creature.

He would never understand the sirena—not fully, at any rate—but he could not bring himself to abandon the effort.

She was a riddle.

And though Ember had never been very good at deciphering such trickery of words, he had nothing to his name if not persistence.

❧

The hall grew warmer as they walked on and a fine white powder coated the floor, kicked up by their scuffling steps. Parched walls took on the appearance of a winter windowpane as the deep cracks branched into filigree, and the stone had a slightly yellowed cast, like fire-baked clay.

At first Ember enjoyed the warmth, even pausing now and then to rest his palm on the stone. It reminded him of hot summer days and buzzing insects and the touch of the sun on his face.

But soon he began to wonder where the warmth was coming from, and why it was growing steadily warmer.

Ky tugged the flask from Ember's pack, indulging in a few gulps of water. When she was finished he took a swig as well.

"I do not like it here," she said stiffly.

Ember fastened the flask to his heavy pack and wiped a few drops of sweat from his forehead. "I wonder why…"

He trailed off, staring down the long corridor.

Bleached bones jutted up from the stone floor—and even from a distance, he could tell it was a mostly intact ribcage. As they drew nearer, he made out a few other bones, though some appeared to have crumbled away. A black snake coiled between the ribs; when it saw them, it hissed quietly before disappearing into a nearby crevice. The white dust swirled a finger's-breadth above the ground, though no breeze touched his face.

He stooped, and felt a faint draft swirling across the floor. He thought it might have been coming from the deeper cracks along the wall, but it was hard to tell for certain.

They remained there for several minutes, Ember crouching near the corpse and Ky standing behind him, both peering down the tunnel. There was no alternate path—not that he could tell—but he was about to lay out the map again when the siren took an audible breath.

"Are we not meeting with such things before?"

He hesitated, uncertain. "Yes… and no. Maybe we should go back and try to find a way around."

"You see yourself that there is none." She shifted behind him. "I will not be the first of my kin to cower before dry bones."

Ember could think of no apt reply.

Ky padded past him, white powder coating the bottoms of her feet.

"Come, Ember," she called, her voice tense. "Let us pass through this quickly, and be done with it."

He followed after her with a cough, and then spat on the cracked stone floor, suddenly disgusted by the dust that swirled around them; Maker only knew where it had come from.

It tasted like death to Ember.