Work Text:
In the dark, Frog flattens his arms and legs, hands and feet, until he is nothing more than a slim grass-blade. His heart is beating very fast in his chest, and in his ears he keeps hearing Sticks’ voice, saying,
Come, come with me, we have to go.
Sticks was crying. Frog did not want to go, and was nasty to her. He punched her stomach and kicked at her legs. Sticks was stronger than he was, though, and she dragged him away.
Over his shoulder, in the light of the dust-filled sun, the silent people are screaming.
Through the rafters, there are two lanterns on the Snake Man’s table. One for him, and one for—
“You must wonder, Cosomoco, how I knew to come.”
The Snake Man shrugs, and says, “You have your sources.”
“Do you begrudge me them?”
Faster, now. A quick-draw answer. “Your operation.”
“So it is. And my lad, too—the pretty redhead.”
The Snake Man drags a finger along the river-run of rough wood that makes his table. “Not so pretty now.”
“Not after today.”
Frog shuts his eyes, feeling a stone in his throat.
Carefully, the Snake Man says, “We almost had a mutiny on our hands.”
“Indeed?”
“Had to take down one of my own men.”
“Ah. That must have been…difficult.”
“More inconvenient, if I’m being right and honest. But I can’t let such a thing slide. Bad for morale.”
“So you nearly killed him?”
“I gave him the rope’s end for a count of thirty.” The Snake Man’s fingers are still. “He’ll live.”
“He will live because I came quickly.”
Frog saw today: Silas, shining the great black shoes. Silas’s eyes were swollen, as if he’d cried.
And Frog saw Russandol burning, Russandol dead.
“I sent for you,” the Snake Man says. “Knox is halfway up with a message, shouldn’t doubt.”
“It might have come too late. I sent for supplies already, fortunately, and I have assigned one of your thralls to him.”
Frog swallows the stone, but feels no better for it. He does not like the laugh that trickles through the air around him.
“I told you that he would be more than you could manage.”
“And I told you we ought to put a bullet in his head.”
Frog’s breath eats through the silence. He draws one hand back from its flat perch and puts it over his mouth.
“Indeed you did. Now, upright southern fellow that you are, I presume some knowledge of the Good Book. One cannot serve both God and Mammon. I am God here, Cosomoco. Have a care—a great care—who you choose to become, in industry and pride.”
The Snake Man is stonily silent for two breaths. Then he tips his hat.
“I shan’t forget it.”
Eyes, turned. Eyes…eyes…up the wall, higher, higher, and Frog’s heart is screaming.
“It seems you have a visitor.”
A chair scraped black. Polished shoes, tick tick.
Frog is all alone in the roof.
“A visitor?”
“Such a little creature.” Long white fingers, throat between them, no no no—
And the little sand-brown lizard is dead, its neck crushed. It is dropped into a black pocket, and Frog knows he shall never see it again.
It climbed the wrong side of the wall.
“I shall not trouble you longer.”
“No trouble, Bauglir.” The Snake Man stands, too.
“If you lash him again, Cosomoco—”
“I—”
“Tell me first, so that I may be there, too.”
One lantern is gone. The Snake Man smokes his pipe. Frog waits and waits and at last sneaks down into the cool dark night, to see if Russandol is really dead.