“Yess.”
“It can’t be. You’ve been dead for years.”
“Not dead. Ssleeping.”
“I haven’t seen you since I was a kid. You were injured. You disappeared. I thought you’d died.”
“I ssleep. I ssleep to heal. I ssleep to forget. I ssleep to renew mysself.”
I extended my arm. The shaggy snake head rose higher, extended itself, fell upon my forearm, climbed, wrapped itself.
“You certainly chose elegant sleeping quarters.”
“I knew the jug to be a favorite of yourss. If I waited long enough I knew you would come by again, sstop to admire it. And I would know and rise up in my ssplendor to greet you. My, you have grown!”
“You look pretty much the same. A little thin, perhaps…”
I stroked her head gently.
“It is good to know you are with us still, like some honored family spirit. You and Gryll and Kergma made my childhood a better thing than it might have been.”
She raised her head high, stroked my cheek with her nose.
“It warmss my cold blood to ssee you again, dear boy. You’ve traveled far?”
“I have. Very.”
“One night we shall eat mice and lie besside a fire. You will warm me a ssaucer of milk and tell me of your adventuress ssince you left the Wayss of Ssawall. We will find ssome marrow boness for Gryll, if he be sstill about-“
“He seems to serve my uncle Suhuy these days. What of Kergma?”
“I do not know. It hass been sso long.”
I held her close to warm her.
“Thank you for waiting here for me in your great drowse, to greet me-“
“Iss more than friendliess, helloss.”
“More? What then, Glait? What is it?”
“A thing to show. Walk that way.”
She gestured with her head. I moved in the direction she indicated-the way I had been heading anyhow, to where the corridors widened. I could feel her vibrating against my arm with the barely audible purring sound she sometimes made.
Suddenly, she stiffened and her head rose, swaying slightly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Mi-ice,” she said. “Mi-ice nearby. I musst go hunting-after I show you-the thing. Breakfasst…”
“If you would dine first, I will wait.”
“No, Merlin. You musst not be late for whatever brought you here. There is importance in the air. Later-feasst-vermin…”
We came into a wide, high, skylighted section of the gallery. Four large pieces of metal statuary-bronze and copper, mostly-stood in an asymmetrical arrangement about us.
“Onward,” Glait said. “Not here.”
I turned right at the next corner and plunged ahead. Shortly, we came to another display-this one resembling a metal forest.
“Sslow now. Sslow, dear demon child.”
I halted and studied the trees, bright, dark, shiny, dull. Iron, aluminum, brass, it was most impressive. It was also a display that had not been present the last time I had passed this way, years before. Nothing odd about that, of course. There had also been changes in other areas I had passed through.
“Now. Here. Turn in. Go back.”
I moved on into the forest.
“Bear right. The tall one.”
I halted when I came to the curved trunk of the tallest tree to my right.
“This one?”
“Yess. Negotiate it-upward-pleasse.”
“You mean climb it?”
“Yess.”
“Right.”
One nice thing about a stylized tree-or, at least, this stylized tree-was that it spiraled, swelled, and twisted in such a fashion as to provide better handholds and footholds than at first seemed apparent. I caught hold, drew myself up, found a place for my foot, pulled again, pushed.
Higher. Higher, still. When I was perhaps ten feet above the floor I halted.
“Uh, what do I do now that I’m here?” I asked.
“Climb higher.” ‘
“Why”
“Ssoon. Ssoon. You’ll know.”
I drew myself about a foot higher, and then I felt it.
It is not so much a tingling as it is a kind of pressure; only feel a tingling, too, sometimes, if they lead someplace risky.
“There’s a way up there,” I said.
“Yess. I wass coiled about a branch of the blue tree when a shadowmasster opened it. They sslew him afterwardss.”
“It must lead to something very important.”
“I ssuppose. I am not a good judge-of people thingss.”