Playing with Serpents (Len's Song, 2022 edition, Snippet 12)

A story fragment from the Dustsong Cycle

(Read Len’s Song, 2022 edition, Snippet 11.)

Len wandered a bit, aimless. When a wind blew down from the mountain, he tensed, expectant and listening, but it was a mundane kind of wind. It carried no voice; it only rippled the yellow-green grass. The Wright had nothing to say to him. Well, he’d nothing to say to the Wright, either, just now.

Soon he happened upon a small dip in the earth, where the grass had hidden a narrow creek from view. It chattered cheerily. Len knelt to splash water on his face.

Then he noticed an object lying in the grass on the other side of the creek. Rising to his feet again, he splashed across and picked it up, amazed. It was a familiar piece of stone, long and flat. Memory could be a funny thing, but he knew this to be identical to the crude stone blade he’d carried down the mountain upon a time. He’d discarded it, leaving it in the grass to follow Egwae. But this wasn’t the spot where he’d left it—not even close. How did it get here? He held onto it and tried to ponder the question out.

A shivery, crawling sensation raised the hairs on his back, up to the nape of his neck. Then came a rasping whisper, bestial and feminine, from behind him.