Read Online The Revenants by Sheri S. Tepper - Free Book Online Page A

by winding over, under, and around the network of trunks in pursuit of a wingshot bird with Jaer’s arrow still in it. He would have given up, but it was his favourite arrow. A curtain wall of leaves gave way, and he fell through onto soft turf in a clearing improbably bright with sun. The Serpent was reclining on a rock outcropping in the centre of the clearing. Inasmuch as the Serpent had arms and a not-too-snaky face, Jaer thought at first it was a person. His education, though both broad and deep, had not covered what one does when one meets a person. Jaer’s usually raccoony mind went into a frantic pattern of freeze/flee/ faint while his eyes froze onto the being. It, in turn, looked Jaer over from head to heel and flickered a tongue remarkable for both its length and sinuosity before remarking, ‘You don’t have to be frightened. I’m not hungry, and I wouldn’t eat anything your size anyhow.’
    Jaer didn’t move. Though ears had registered sound, mind had failed to deal with it. The Serpent looked amused. After a long, silent moment, it said, ‘What… is … your … name?’
    Jaer, jerked into consciousness, closed his hanging jaw with a snap, swallowed painfully, and said, ‘Jaer. I’m Jaer.’
    ‘Jaer. I am not dangerous. I am not hungry. Do you understand what I am saying?’
    Jaer shivered all over. ‘Yes. It’s just-you surprised me. I was looking for a bird.’
    The Serpent’s coils flowed over one another in glinting ovals, wandering spirals, the upper body rearing back to display a belly and throat of pale armour, a triangular line of jaw pointed to the sky. The Serpent yawned. ‘I ate your bird. I removed your arrow first. I wasn’t hungry, but it was flapping about….’
    ‘It was a bad shot. A hasty shot.’
    ‘Now you’ll have it all to do over.’
    ‘I don’t think so. It’s getting late.’ He stared at the being in frank curiosity. ‘I don’t know who … what you are?’
    The Serpent’s laughter was slithery, a scaly cascade of sound which raised the hairs on Jaer’s neck. ‘What do you think I am?’
    ‘Ephraim says answering a question with a question is a sign of either arrogance or ignorance.’
    ‘Which in my case?’
    Jaer flushed. ‘You could be either, I guess. An ignorant person, or an arrogant one. Unless you’re mythical. In that case, you’re not a person at all.’
    The Serpent’s head swayed, joyfully. ‘Could I not be an arrogant mythical person?’
    ‘I don’t know. Could you?’
    ‘Let us believe so. A male, arrogant, mythical person. Now, what are you?’
    Jaer sat down and crossed his legs to consider the matter. ‘I’m not mythical – I don’t think. Really, I’m not one thing or the other.’
    ‘On the contrary. You are one thing or the other, but never both at once.’
    ‘How did you know?’ asked Jaer suspiciously. ‘I’ve never seen you before.’
    ‘No, but I’ve been here and there, near where you have been. I’ve looked and listened. I’ve smelled your trail. I’ve lain along the tower wall in the sun and listened to the old men jabbering away about you. I know you.’
    ‘Then why haven’t you let me see you before this? You scared me half to death.’
    The Serpent coiled and recoiled. ‘Ephraim and Nathan wouldn’t have been eager to meet me. If you’d been younger, you might have felt you had to tell them about me. The age you are now is an age which can keep secrets.’
    ‘I’ve never had a secret.’
    ‘Oh, Jaer. Why, you are a secret. Wouldn’t the village Speaker go into a fit if he knew you were here? What about your mother’s mother? Wouldn’t she like to know? What about your father?’
    ‘I didn’t have a father.’
    ‘Oh, come now. You had a father.’
    ‘I know. I mean, I don’t know who it was, and Ephraim says it doesn’t matter who it was….’
    ‘Why would the old man say a thing like that?’ The Serpent sounded both amused and curious, so Jaer attempted reprise of an argument he had