Read Online The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk - Free Book Online Page A

more and more people moving to live in the village. Meeme cleared the forest of foreigners, but there was no point in that anymore. The forest became ever emptier, and Meeme, who had made it his goal to save his people and kill the iron men, saw that his people were thronging to take up the beliefs of these same iron men, to buy themselves a little plot of land, turn their bums toward the sun, and cut grain from the ground on all fours with a sickle. Why should Meeme carry on fighting? He saw that people didn’t need his help. Then Meeme would only kill iron men when they got in his way; the rest of the time he ate mushrooms and slept.”
    “Now he drinks wine,” I said.
    “Makes no difference. There’s no order for him anymore; he’s given up on everything, and now he wants to rest alone.”
    I thanked Uncle Vootele and set off. Uncle’s story had been very interesting, but the main thing was that it confirmed my belief in the ring. Meeme, the former bold warrior, could be the man to give me the key. He didn’t keep it for himself because nothing interested him anymore, not even the Frog of the North. This was hard for me to imagine. How could he give up even on the Frog of the North? How could he be so tired?
    But that was not my concern. I hurried home and looked for my ring. I took it out of the pouch and stuck it on the end of my finger.
    I had secretly hoped that some mysterious power would lead me by the fingers toward the cave of the Frog of the North if I simply ran fast enough while wearing the ring, but no such thing happened. The ring sat on the end of my finger as a ringalways does, and I understood that the search for the Frog of the North would not be simple.
    At any fate I was ready to make the effort. But I didn’t want to search alone. I couldn’t find Pärtel—he wasn’t at home—but I met with Ints and invited him along with me.
    The adder agreed readily. Unlike the blooming fern, whose existence he vehemently denied, Ints thought it quite possible that the ring might lead us to the Frog of the North.
    “I don’t know anything about rings and other man-made things,” he said. “If you think that’s the key, then let’s try and find out. How does it work?”
    “I don’t know that,” I said. “We should simply keep walking, and the ring will lead us itself to the right place.”
    We set off. We tried to move completely randomly, not choosing the paths we usually wandered. I even tried shutting my eyes, so as to walk blind, but that proved too complicated in the forest, for I kept stumbling into thickets and scratching my face.
    “Open your eyes,” said Ints. “If the ring is really capable of anything, then you don’t need all this trickery and your skin will survive.”
    To snakes, skin is very important. Every snake is proud of his skin. Even the smallest scratch they experience as painful, and if anything does happen, they wait patiently for the time when they can slough off the old skin and wear a new undamaged coat. After moulting they are very sensitive about their appearance, and they may fly into a rage if you happen, say, to drip roasting fat onto them, or touch them with fingers stained violet from eating berries. Toward their old moulted skin, torn in several places, they feel only disgust or even horror. In the long winter months, when snakes don’t leave their lairs, mother adders telltheir offspring countless horror stories about moulted skins that move of their own accord in a mysterious way, chasing their former owners and wrapping themselves around them. The little adders shiver, and when Mother finishes the story they beg her: “Tell it again! Tell us about the skin again!”
    So much for that. For a while Ints wore a still quite fresh and moist glossy skin; he crawled carefully among the tussocks and tried to avoid decaying leaves, which might smudge him. We kept moving forward, chatting with each other, till we came unexpectedly to the edge of the forest, where