"The Satrap requires a bath. Have his tub brought, with clean towels, and buckets of hot water. Very quickly." She shut the door before he could react.

She returned to the desk and took up her pen.

"Oh, I do not wish a hot bath. I am too weary as it is. Cannot you wash me where I lie?"

Perhaps she'd allow him to use the water when she was finished with it. "Be quiet. I'm trying to think," she told him. She took up the pen and closed her eyes for a moment, composing her thoughts.

"What are you doing?" Satrap Cosgo asked.

"Drawing up a document for you to sign. Be quiet!" She considered terms. She was inventing a whole new position for herself, as the Satrap's permanent envoy to Bingtown. She would need a salary, and allowance for suitable quarters and servants. She inked in a generous but not outrageous amount. How much power should she allot to herself, she wondered, as her pen inscribed the flowing characters on the parchment?

"I'm thirsty," he whispered hoarsely.

"When I am finished, and you have signed this, then I will get you some water," she told him reasonably. In fact, he did not seem very ill to her. She suspected it was a combination of some true illness, sea-sickness, and wine and pleasure herbs. Put that with a lack of servants and Companions fawning over him, and he believed he was dying. Fine. It well suited her purposes that he believe he was dying. Her pen paused for an instant in its flight and she tilted her head as she considered. There were emetics and purges in the medical stores he had brought with them. Perhaps, in the course of «caring» for him, she could see that he did not recover too swiftly. She needed him alive, but only as far as Bingtown.

She set her pen aside. "Perhaps I should take time to prepare a remedy for you," she conceded graciously.

THE TANGLE HAD GROWN. MAULKIN SEEMED TO TAKE BOTH PLEASURE AND pride in this. Shreever had more mixed feelings. While the larger contingency of serpents that traveled with them now assured greater protection against predators, it meant that food supplies had to be shared. She would have felt better if more of the serpents were sentient, but many of those who followed the tangle were feral creatures who gathered with them only out of instinct.

As they traveled and hunted together, Maulkin closely observed the feral serpents. Any that showed signs of promise were seized when the tangle paused for rest. Kelaro and Sessurea usually overpowered the chosen target, bearing him down and letting him struggle against their combined weight and strength until he was gasping. Then Maulkin would join them, to shake loose his toxins and weave his body through the winding loops of the memory dance while they demanded that the newcomer recall his own name. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Not all of those who could recall their own names were able to retain their identities for long. Some remained simple, or drifted back into their animalistic ways by the next tide. But some few did recover and hold on to higher thought. There were even a few who followed the tangle aimlessly for a few days, and then suddenly recalled both names and civilized manners. The core group of serpents had grown to twenty-three, while easily twice that number ghosted behind them. It was a large tangle. Even the most generous provider could not keep them all satisfied.

Every rest period, they pondered the future. Maulkin's answers seldom satisfied them. He spoke as plainly as he could, and yet the words were confusing. Shreever could sense his own bewilderment behind his prophecies; her hearts went out to him. Sometimes she feared that the others might turn on him out of frustration. She almost longed for the days when it was only herself and Sessurea and Maulkin, seeking for those answers. When she whispered as much to Maulkin one evening, he rebuked her. "Our folk have dwindled. Confusion besets us from all sides. If any of us are to survive, we must gather as many as we can. It is the simplest law of the Plenty. A multitude must be born for a few to survive."

"Born," she said, the question unspoken.

"The recombination of old lives into new lives. It is what we all hear summoning us. Our time to be serpents is over. We must find She Who Remembers. That one will guide us, to where we can seek rebirth as new creatures."

His words made her shudder her whole length, but with dread or anticipation, she could not say. Others had drawn close to hear his words. Their questions swarmed thick as capelin on a moonlit tide.

"What sort of new creatures?"

"How can we be reborn?"

"Why is our time over?"

"Who will remember for us?"

Maulkin's great copper eyes spun slowly. Color rippled his length. He struggled. She could sense it, and wondered if the others did as well. He strained to reach beyond himself, grasping at knowledge and bringing back only disconnected fragments. It drained him more than a full day of traveling. She also sensed that he was as discontented with his fragmentary answers as the others were.

"We will be as we once were. The memories you cannot understand, the dreams that frighten, come from that time. When they come to you, do not chase them away. Ponder them. Pursue them into the open and share them." He paused, and when he spoke again, it was more slowly and with less certainty. "We are long past due to change, so long past due that I fear something has gone terribly wrong. Someone will remember for us. Others will come to protect us and guide us. We will know them. They will know us."

"The silver provider," Sessurea asked quietly. "We followed, but she knew us not."

Sylic twined uneasily through the heart of the resting tangle. "Silver. Silver-gray," he hissed. "Do you remember, Kelaro? Xecres found the great silver-gray creature and called us to follow it."

"I do not recall that," Kelaro trumpeted softly. He opened and closed his huge silver eyes. They spun with shifting color. "Except, perhaps, as a dream. A bad dream."

"It attacked us when we gathered close around it. It threw long teeth at us." Sylic turned a slow knot through his length, pausing when he came to a scar gouged deep. The scales that had grown over it were thick and uneven. "It bit me here," the scarlet whispered hoarsely. "It bit me but it did not devour me." He turned to look deep into Kelaro's eyes, as if seeking confirmation. "You tore its tooth from my flesh for me. It had pierced me and it stayed in me, festering."

Kelaro lidded his gaze. "I do not recall," he replied regretfully.

A rippling ran the length of Maulkin's body. His false-eyes shone brighter than they had in a very long time. "The silver being attacked you?" he asked incredulously. "He attacked you!" Anger was a rip tide in his voice. "How could it be that one who gives off the smell of memories turns on those who come to him for help?" He lashed his great head back and forth, his mane coming erect with toxins. "I do not understand!" he suddenly bellowed out. "There are no memories of this, not even the taste of a memory! How can it be that these things happen? Where is She Who Remembers?"

"Perhaps they forgot," Tellur said with black humor. The slender green minstrel had not gained much strength since he had recalled his own name. The effort of maintaining his identity seemed to consume all his energy. How he had been before he had forgotten himself, no one could say. Now he was a dour-humored, sharp-tongued whip. Despite recalling who he had been, he could seldom bring himself to sing.

Maulkin whipped about suddenly to face him. His mane was full standing, his colors rippling. "They forgot?" he roared in outraged astonishment. "Have you seen this in a memory or dream? Do you recall a song that speaks of a time when all forget?"