“I wonder if it’s as hungry as these others?” the trooper commented, immediately regretting giving voice to his curiosity. His comrades were not hesitant in responding.
“Why don’t you try feeding it and find out?” The suggestion from the back of the crowded kitchen sparked a minor but much needed outburst of laughter.
“Snakes of this kind need to be fed only rarely.” Turning away from the cage and its inquisitive but slow-moving occupant, Slale surveyed the rest of the kitchen. “This is as good a place as any to do what we came for, I suppose. Bring forth the box.”
The soldiers who had been charged with transporting the silver crate promptly wrestled it forward and set it down in front of the basin that was used for the washing and cleaning of food. Being forced to look after it all the way from Malostranka had left them with a less than sanguine opinion of its bulk, not to mention its contents.
Approaching the crate, Slale bent to unfasten the straps that secured it. Removing the lid, he gestured to his soldiers. From the midst of thick horsehair packing, they removed a smaller container. Simply fashioned of silver inlaid with an assortment of attractive but in no way remarkable semiprecious stones, they set it gently on the sturdy wooden table that dominated the center of the room. It lay there waist-high, the silver shining dully in the muted, cursed gray light as if relieved to be free of its prison. In unblighted sunlight the carnelians and agates, amethysts and citrines that decorated its sides would have twinkled brightly. But there was no such liveliness in them now. They were as subdued as the rest of the world, reduced to lackluster lumps of rock that, like everything else, had been smothered by the Mundurucu hex.