SPIRIT WALKER

Chapter 3: Homecoming (part 2of 2)

"Look!" Scandal said, "People are talking. Already they're calling this whole affair 'Scandal's Wondrous Blunder.' Why, when I told the town of my plan and asked for volunteers, men evacuated their seats so fast they left turds on their stools. We haven't even hooked the mastodon to the wagon yet, and already things are falling apart. So I need your help. I'm begging. When I'm lying cold in my grave, eating dirt and breathing worms, I don't want to lose my eternal sleep worrying that people are still laughing at me. If you won't do it for me, do it for the town. Get it through your thick heads: no fish, no money-and without the serpents to drive the fish in from the sea, we can't catch them! After last spring's failure, the town is doomed! You don't have to piss in the wind to see which way it blows."

"We don't know that the serpent hatch failed," Ayuvah protested. "The great mothers could have gone to the nesting grounds in the south this year."

"For two hundred years they've followed the currents north!" Scandal answered with a sigh. He'd voiced this same argument a dozen times in the last week, yet no one seemed to want to believe the danger. "I tell you, there are no serpents lying in the hatching grounds at the Haystack Islands. Not one! I went down last week, and I've seen with my own eyes--not only are the young serpents gone, but the old ones that patrol the oceans between here and Hotland are gone as well. The sea lanes are open."

Scandal let the pronouncement hang like a smokehouse ham in the hot air.

"Ayaah, I've heard," Tull said. "But you've gotten ahead of yourself. Even if you can bring some serpents back alive, will they do any good? You might put a hundred in the bay and let them grow to eighty feet over the winter, but we don't know why the old ones are dying. What if yours die, too? No, before you run into the wilderness you should wait for Chaa to return from his spirit walk."

That damned Pwi shaman again, Scandal thought. "Use a little common sense!" Scandal said. "He started his spirit walk five days ago. We've barely got ten weeks to make it to the Seven Ogre River in time for the hatch. We can't wait for him. As for the serpents-I'm sure it's only a local problem. Why, I've talked to a dozen captains, and all of them have seen serpents this spring down in South Port! You figure it-we've had four warm years in a row, and with each warm year, the dinosaurs in Hotland get a little more active, and you know as well as I that a serpent can't always take on a saur and come out alive. Maybe there's been an explosion in the number of sailfins over the last few years, and they've cut into the serpents. That would explain why the serpent hatch has been low. But I tell you, that this year, here in the East, the serpents are wiped out!"

Ayuvah said, "You have no proof. We can only hope that the serpents come back"

Scandal smiled. "That's just Pwi talk, not to be taken seriously by real men. We both know the world doesn't work that way. We must do more than hope."

At another table, a brawny trader with a high voice began swearing loudly, drunkenly. Everyone turned to watch him, and Scandal frowned at the disturbance. The young servant, Valis, brought in more dishes: meat pies and rolls, blueberries in cream. "Do you really want me to roast a hog?" he asked.

"No," Scandal sighed. "I really want you to get in the kitchen and wash the dishes." The servant left.

Scandal shook his head in wonder, "I have to leave that idiot in charge. He'll burn this place down to a heap of ashes while I'm gone. Here, try these blueberries." Scandal said with a sigh, urging bowls on Tull and Ayuvah. "I got these fresh this morning from a hermit up on Finger Mountain. He grows them special. They're marvelously piquant, almost tart I'd say-yet still deliciously sweet."

Tull and Ayuvah scooped some berries from the bowls with their wide fingers, and tasted them. "Aaah," Tull said. "They taste as blueberries should only taste in a dream."