The Serpent Mage

The Serpent Mage by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: The Serpent Mage by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online
Authors: Greg Bear
upbringing — and a few months of deprivation — he had nothing against plain food.
    "If we start talking now, we won't finish eating until midnight, and it will all be cold," Mrs. Dopso said. "So we will… um… skirt around the main topic and just fill our tummies. Then we'll… yes." She smiled and placed a modest forkful of casserole into her mouth as an example.
    They exchanged only light pleasantries until the meal was finished. Michael felt slightly apprehensive. Mrs. Dopso and her son were being politely mysterious, and that bothered him; they behaved as if they were privy to knowledge that he might find useful.
    Robert cleared the table and brought out a bottle of wine. Mrs. Dopso bit her lower lip as he held out the bottle for Michael's inspection.
    The label was similar to that on the bottle he had found in the newly opened cellar. The double-shadowed sundial, the rose and the red grapes, the fraktur lettering.
    "This is our last bottle. We thought we would open it tonight," Robert said. "Mr. Waltiri gave it as a gift to my father almost fifty years ago. You might have heard of the gentleman who provided it to Mr. Waltiri."
    Michael raised an eyebrow.
    "His name was David Clarkham. He was a friend of Mr. Waltiri's, although I gather they had a falling out before I was born."
    "Yes, dear, a year or two before you were born," Mrs. Dopso reiterated.
    "My father met Mr. Clarkham several times and was very impressed by him. Mr. Clarkham was a connoisseur of wine. He tended to talk about unusual vintages. German wines mostly. Many of them my father had never heard of, and he was himself quite a connoisseur."
    "But all this," said Mrs. Dopso portentously, "is neither here nor there."
    "No. Father last drank one of these bottles fifteen years ago, and judged it quite good, if unusual."
    "Do you remember what he said?" Mrs. Dopso asked.
    "Yes, 'A bit otherworldly, with a most unusual finish.'"
    They seemed to expect a reaction from Michael. "I found several bottles like that today," he said.
    "Good! Then this isn't the last. Notice there's no clue as to what kind of wine it is. Red, obviously — but what variety of grapes?"
    Michael shook his head.
    "What we're leading up to is that we're curious about that house. We've lived next to it for a very long time."
    "One morning, very early," Mrs. Dopso said, her face almost radiant in the candlelight, "I got out of bed and looked over the cinderblock wall. It was foggy, and I wasn't sure I saw things properly. My husband was on a business trip, so I called out Robert — poor, sleepy child — to confirm or deny ."
    "I confirmed," Robert said. "1 was eight."
    "The house was absolutely covered with birds," Mrs. Dopso said breathlessly. "Large dark birds with red breasts and wing-tips. Blackbirds and robins the size of crows."
    "She means, with the characteristics of blackbirds and robins, but crow-sized."
    "And sparrows. And other birds I recognized. They blanketed the roof, and they lined up along the wall. All silent."
    "Hitchcock, you know," Robert said with a grin. "Scared the daylights out of me."
    "And when the fog lifted, they were gone. But that's not all. Sometimes we'd see Mr. Waltiri and Golda — dear Golda — leave the house in their car, the predecessor of the one you drive now — funny-looking thing — and after they had gone, when the house must have been empty—"
    "We'd hear somebody playing the piano," Robert said breathlessly, leaning forward.
    "Playing it beautifully , just lovely music."
    Robert uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into crystal glasses. Michael sipped the deep reddish-amber liquid. He had never tasted anything like it. It was totally outside his experience of wines, which admittedly was not broad. The aftertaste was mellow and complex and lingered long moments after he had swallowed, succession upon succession of flavors discovering themselves on his tongue. The flavors stopped suddenly, leaving only a clean blankness. He took

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