river mouths, to protect us as we swarm? Why have we seen nothing of the generation that went before us?'
Maulkin's voice went soft with pity. 'Have not you grasped it, Tellur? Draquius told us what became of them. Some perished in the rain of smoke and ash. Those few who had a chance at survival were slain and their memories stolen. They are the silver ones we have encountered from time to time. They smell to us like Ones Who Remember, because at one time they were. All that is left is their stolen memories.'
For a moment, all was silence. Slowly the sick realization settled into Shreever. This tangle was all that was left. They had to survive, on their own, if their species was to continue. They must puzzle out for themselves which river led to the cocooning grounds. They must defy predators to swarm up the river. Somehow, they must create their own cases, without the loving aid of grown dragons. And once encased and helpless, they would have to trust to luck to survive the winter. There would be no dragons standing watch over them. Her gaze traveled from serpent to serpent. How many of those tangled here would spread their dragon wings next spring? Would there be enough survivors to select suitable mates when the time came? How many would survive to guard the nests until the eggs hatched? When the young serpents wriggled from the beach to the sea, to begin their first cycle of migrating and feeding in the sea, there would be no grown serpents to teach them the ways of the sea. The odds against the survival of her kind suddenly seemed insurmountable. If she survived to become a dragon, she faced a long, long life of watching dragons and sea serpents vanish from the three realms. How could it be endured?
'They belonged to us,' Tellur declared bluntly.
'What does?' Shreever asked distantly. The future, she thought to herself. The tomorrows belonged to us. No longer.
'The memories. The memories stored in the silver ones. They are ours, and having them makes us stronger.' He suddenly broke free of the tangle with a lash of his tail. 'We should take them back!'
'Tellur.' Maulkin gently untangled himself from the others. He moved to flank the smaller serpent without challenging him. 'We do not have time to take vengeance.'
'Not vengeance! I am talking of taking what is rightfully ours, what is greater sustenance to us than the food we eat. The memories were shared amongst us. What one should have possessed was divided amongst many; nevertheless, we became wiser, and each has shared what was learned. How much more would we benefit from a greater portion of those memories? We should seek them out and take back what is ours.'
Swifter than a school of herring changes direction, Maulkin wrapped him. He had glided up to the small minstrel so easily and calmly that Tellur had never seen it coming. Maulkin's golden eyes twined about Tellur's green coat, and his great head wound up face-to-face with Tellur's small one. Maulkin opened wide his jaws, and breathed a fine mist of toxin at the minstrel. Dominated, the smaller serpent became quiescent in his coils. Tellur's eyes spun in lazy dreams.
'We have no time for that,' Maulkin asserted quietly to all of them as he towed his lax companion back to the tangle. 'If the opportunity to take another silver presents itself, we shall have it. That I promise you. But we cannot delay our migration to seek them. Rest well, Maulkin's tangle, for tomorrow we press on.'
Tomorrow, Shreever thought to herself as the tangle writhed, coiled and re-anchored itself. There is yet another tomorrow that is ours. She lidded her eyes against silt and let herself dream of wings.
SHE WAS CRIPPLED. SHE WOULD NEVER SWIM AS EASILY AS A DRAGON RIDING an updraft. She had been kept too long in confinement and fed too restricted a diet. She could not straighten her body to its full length, stunted though that was. She was heavy and thick where she should have been sleek and muscular. Perhaps it was permanent, perhaps it was hopeless.
But without doubt she was free.
And without doubt or regret, she had slain the Abominations who had imprisoned her. Never would they torment another young serpent as they had tormented her. She wished she could kill them over and over again, endlessly, and forever take satisfaction in the act. Even as she desired it, she recognized it as yet another of the deformities they had inflicted on her. She tried to cast it out of herself.
She had seen the little two-legs taken up in a rowboat, and then followed it protectively until it was taken up by a greater vessel. The scent of the ship troubled her. It smelled like a serpent, and yet it was not. Moreover, it smelled like One Who Remembered, and yet it was a tongueless thing that answered her not. She did not want to consider how that could be. The answers could be hidden in the boy's knowledge that she had shared so briefly. She considered taking the time to follow the ship and puzzle these things out.
But a greater urgency beckoned her. After all the seasons of imprisonment, fate had freed her. She was destined to be a guide to her own kind, yet here she was, still close to the beach where she had hatched. She had not migrated with them; she had not fed with them and grown in bulk, as she should have. Yet as twisted and stunted as she might be, she still held that which was most essential to them. In her glands and toxins resided the ancient knowledge of her race. It was to be shared with them, before they swarmed up the river to begin their change. As she humped and writhed through the water, she doubted that she herself could make the arduous journey up the river. Yet she would seek out the others and share with them the stored memories.
She came briefly up into the Lack, tasting the free salt wind. On the deck of the silver vessel, men cried out at the sight of her. She dove swiftly again and made her decision. The silver ship was bound back toward the islands. Beyond the islands was the mainland, and in the mainland was the mouth of the river that led to the cocooning grounds. That was her destination. She would stay alongside the silver vessel as long as their paths lay in the same direction. There was something, perhaps, to be learned here. Besides, she was intrigued with the small thinking animals on the ship. She would study them. When at last she rejoined whatever remained of her own kind, she would have memories of her own to share as well. Let her confined life offer at least that much to her kind. She Who Remembered dove deep and tried to stretch her crippled muscles. As she returned almost to the surface, she found that position where the wake of the ship helped draw her along after it. She settled into it, and continued toward her destiny.
