Chapter Thirty-Three: Sevan's Story (Part One)
The second course arrived. It was another wooden figure, carrying a plate of roasted vegetables I'd never seen before. As it set the plate down, it said, "These were picked from the garden this morning," then left.
The third course was meat. The fourth was bread with cheese.
Each time a dish arrived, the wooden figure serving it would say a few words to me. Their conversations varied—sometimes introducing the dish itself, sometimes commenting on the weather, sometimes mentioning that a particular plant in the garden had bloomed three days earlier this year than usual.
If you closed your eyes and ignored the occasional clicking sounds, you'd think a real restaurant server was describing the courses to you. It took me a little time to adjust, but eventually I could even nod slightly in response to their words.
Sevan ate quietly across from me.
She would interject occasionally. When she spoke to those wooden figures, her tone was somewhat gentler.
Most of the time, the only sound between us was the clinking of knives and forks against plates. I wanted to find some topic of conversation, but didn't know where to begin.
"I know what you want to ask." She knew my thoughts without even raising her eyes to look at me.
"Go ahead. I don't mind."
"In the garden," I said.
Her hand paused, and she finally looked up at me.
"There's a grave."
I thought she might find it offensive, but she only wiped her mouth and elegantly set down her knife and fork.
"That's my husband's."
My movements froze. Actually, I should have asked what she did, why she was here, what those snakes were about. But instinct told me I should ask the most central, most compelling question.
"May I ask what happened?"
"You're someone who asks the right questions." She nodded approvingly, while gesturing for the wooden figures to clear all the empty plates from the table. "It's not a secret, just a very long story. I'm happy to share it—after all, as you can see, such opportunities aren't frequent."
"I have all the time tonight."
"Good." She said, "I haven't told anyone anything for many years."
She picked up her wine glass and took a sip.
"Twenty years ago."
Holding her wine glass in one hand, she raised the other and made a slight gesture toward the center of the dining table.
A pale gray mist rose in the air above the tablecloth. The mist slowly took shape under the guidance of her fingers. I saw a scree slope, viewed from some overhead angle, and at the bottom of the slope lay a woman whose left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle below the knee.
"That was me," she said.
The woman in the mist didn't move. She lay on the scree slope, the shadows around her representing blood seeping into the darkness.
"I fell from a ridge. Everything below my knee was destroyed. I lay in that position for nearly a day."
The scene in the mist changed. The light shifted from pale to deep, then from deep to pale again. A full day and night passed within the shadow-play.
"The next morning I started running a fever. I was prepared to die there."
The lying shadow began to convulse. Sevan's finger moved slightly, and the shadow grew still.
"Then he appeared."
A second silhouette emerged in the misty scene.
The silhouette was much larger than the woman's shadow. The upper body was roughly humanoid, but from the waist down it became a long serpentine tail. The snake tail moved smoothly across the scree slope, not like a predator approaching prey. His movements carried hesitation and curiosity as he circled around her.
"Serqathi," she said.
When she had spoken of her injury and waiting for death, each segment had maintained a steady rhythm. But when she pronounced "Serqathi," emotion showed through for the first time.
I was completely captivated by her story. She was a skilled narrator.
The serpent-tailed silhouette in the mist approached the prone woman and stopped. His upper body leaned down, one hand reaching out. The woman in the mist seemed somewhat afraid, still trying to back away. But then the serpent creature actually lifted her up.
"The way he lifted me was so gentle, I didn't even feel pain," she said.
Her finger moved lightly in the air, and the scene in the mist changed.
A stone house appeared in the mist.
"He brought me here," she said. "At that time, this estate had no garden, no snakes, none of this."
The estate's outline in the mist was much simpler, just a stone framework. Sevan's finger continued to move in the air. The misty scene switched several times, each transition representing a passage of time.
"He cared for me here for three months."
The mist showed scenes of the serpent-tailed silhouette and the woman's shadow together. These scenes were fragmentary: one sitting by the fireplace, one standing by the window; one spreading papers on a table, the other watching nearby; the two on a hillside outside, the serpent coiled in a circle with the woman leaning against the inside of that circle.
These fragments had no sound, but they were warm. I could feel the gradually deepening connection between them.
"After those three months," she said, "I stayed."
The scenes in the mist continued to shift.
I saw different seasons. The hillside outside the misty estate changed colors several times—green, yellow, white, then back to green. The silhouette and the shadow changed positions in the scenes, but never separated.
"He showed me places on this continent that almost no human has ever seen," she said.
The mist revealed several landscapes I didn't recognize. A deep valley with a glowing river at its bottom. A mountain range whose peaks had been cut flat at a certain height, exposing the orderly rock strata beneath. A plain with stones standing upright, arranged in a pattern.
"He knew the history of this continent," she said. "He knew which tree had grown from which seed that fell from which mother tree. He knew which direction the grain in a rock ran, determining where it would split in the next earthquake. He had lived longer than I could imagine."
"How long?" I asked.
She paused at that question. The scene in the mist froze on the stone estate, now taking proper shape.
"By human standards," she said, "over five centuries."
"Five centuries."
"At least," she said. "During those long years, his kind had almost entirely disappeared from this continent. He was the last one."
The scenes in the mist flowed faster.
Sevan didn't narrate what happened in those scenes. She let the scenes speak for themselves.
A person and a silhouette at a desk, a large paper spread before them, both looking at what was drawn on it.
A person sitting on the ground, back against a stone wall, the silhouette's tail coiled behind her, his entire upper body leaning toward her as if listening to her speak.
Two figures in a cave I'd never seen before, filled with luminescent plants, water dripping from the ceiling forming an even mist, the silhouette's upper body using one hand to shield the woman's head from the droplets.
One evening, the silhouette coiled in a circle, the woman sleeping inside that circle, her head resting on part of the coil, her whole body relaxed to a profound degree.
"Those five years," Sevan said.
Her finger paused in the air.
"I can't describe it. I only know I was happy."
The scene in the mist froze after this sentence.
The final image lingered for about ten seconds.
That scene showed Serqathi coiled in a circle with the woman sleeping within.
Sevan gazed at that scene for a long time, the candlelight softening her expression. Even I was infected by that atmosphere of beauty, smiling involuntarily.
Finally, she gently drew her finger back.
The mist dispersed.
Above the tablecloth was only air again.
"I hope I haven't bored you."
Still immersed in those warm scenes, I said softly:
"Not at all. Please continue."