She breathes, and her lungs fill with smoke.
She breathes, and the shadows shift.
She’s lost track of time down here. There is only the smoke, and the shadows, and the darkness. It’s a family tradition, or so says Uncle Janlenoux. Meeting the Serpent in one of the upper caverns was only the first step, a formal introduction before the main event. Everyone spends an hour here, in the deepest caves, with nothing but the burning pomanders and their own thoughts for company. Once they shed their own blood, and indeed the darkness has a certain crumbly feeling to it, but that was long ago. Now there is only the smoke by which they reach the mysteries of the deep earth. Somewhere, she can hear drums.
The air is starting to wobble now; with the scraps of thought left to her, she wonders what was in those pomanders. It doesn’t matter. Aether swells and recedes gently within her, pulsing like a second heart. The walls..were they always this squiggly? She thinks she might have remembered that.
The stone is polished smooth by generations of Duskwight hands, but now that smoothness has a distinctly textured quality to it. She lays on her back and reaches up to the ceiling, bare hands pale as a fish’s belly, and feels something dry and cold slide across her palms. It tickles, and without thinking she lets out a sleepy giggle and wiggles her fingers to tickle it back. Her head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.
Ah. Now she sees it, hovering on the edge of her vision. Iridescent scales, a forked tongue, slitted glowing eyes. A body twined with thorns and white flowers. She tries to greet it, to say something, but her tongue feels thick and useless in her mouth.
It descends upon her, jaws wide, and she feels no fear. It’s only her oldest old grandfather, after all. The serpent who encircles the world, who holds her so gently in his coils. She can feel them even now, smooth under her back.
Daughter, says a voice like the boom of a slit drum, and Beloved daughter says a voice like the chiming of crystal bells, but they are lost in the silence of the stone.
