Demon

"But you haven't fought them hard enough."

"But what about Nova?"

"What about her? If she can't accept you the way you are, then she isn't the person you hoped she would be."

Robin thought about it for many hundred steps.

"She's grown up," Cirocco said. "She can make her own decisions."

"I know that. But-"

"She represents the unforgiving weight of Coven morality."

"But ... can't I make her get over it?"

"No. I'm not even sure you can help her. But ... maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think time is going to cure your problem. Time, and a Titanide."

Robin questioned her about that, but Cirocco would say no more.

"So you think I should let Conal move back in?"

"Do you love him?"

"Sometimes I think I do."

"I don't know a lot of things for sure, but one thing I'm pretty sure about is that love is the only thing that's worth much."

"He makes me happy," Robin admitted.

"All the better."

"We're ... very good in bed."

"Then you're a fool to be anywhere else. It was good enough for your great-great-great grandmaw. You are descended from a long line of lesbians, but there's a touch of perversion in your blood."

Another hundred steps went by, then still another.

"Okay. I'll think about it," Robin said. "You told me what sin is. What's evil?"

"Robin... I know it when I see it."

That was all there was time for, as, to Robin's surprise, she found herself at the bottom of the Dione stairs.

It was nothing like the other regional brains. Robin had seen three of them: Crius, still loyal to Gaea, Tethys, an enemy; and Thea, one of Gaea's strongest allies. The twelve regional brains had chosen sides long ago, during the Oceanic Rebellion, when the land itself had become disloyal to Gaea.

It had been Dione's misfortune to be located between Metis and Iapetus, two of Oceanus' strongest and most effective supporters. When war came, she was squeezed between the two and mortally wounded. It had taken her a long time to die, but she had been dead now for at least five hundred years.

It was dark at the bottom of the staircase. Their footsteps echoed.

The moat surrounding the huge conical tower that had once been Dione was dry. Where Tethys had glowed with a red i

When the flashlight turned the other way, the reflections were only two. The twin gleams were about two meters apart, and came from inside a big, arched tu

"Come on out, Nasu," Cirocco whispered.

Robin's heart turned over. She fell back through the years, twenty and more ...

... to the day when, as a young girl, she had been given the tiny snake, a South American anaconda, Eunectes murinus, and selected it as her demon. No cats or crows for Robin; she would have a serpent. She named it Nasu, which someone told her meant "little pig" in some Earth language, after watching it devour six terrified mice in one meal.

... to arriving in Gaea, Nasu in her handbag, terrified and confused by Customs, and by the low gravity. Nasu had bitten her three times that day.

... to losing the snake somewhere in the depths of Gaea between Tethys and Thea. She and Chris had looked for a long time, had set out bait, called endlessly, to no avail. Chris had tried to convince her the snake would find prey down there in the darkness, that she could survive. Robin had tried to believe it was so, and had failed.

She had meant to keep the snake all her life. She had intended to grow old with this reptile. She knew they could grow to ten meters in length and outweigh a mere python, inch for inch, by a factor of two. A truly remarkable snake, the anaconda... .

Nasu made a hissing sound that raised the hairs on the back of Robin's neck. There must have been sounds like that, though not so deep or so loud, in the swamps of the Cretaceous Period. A remarkable snake, but they didn't grow that big.

"Sh-sh-sh ... Cirocco ... let's get-"

Nasu moved. Surely there could never had been a slither like that since the dawn of time. It was a slither to make tyra

To stop Robin's heart.

The anaconda's head came out of the tu

"Talk to her, Robin," Cirocco whispered.

"Cirocco!" Robin hissed, urgently. "I don't think you understand! An anaconda isn't a puppy dog or a kitty cat."

"I know that."

"You don't! You can care for them, but you never own them. They tolerate you because you're too big to eat. If she's hungry ... "

"She's not. I know a little about this, babe. There's big game down here. You don't think she grew that big eating chickens and rabbits, do you?"

"I don't believe she grew that big at all! In twenty years? That's impossible."

There was that awful slithering sound again, and twenty more meters of Nasu entered the dark chamber. She paused, and tasted the air again.

"She won't remember me. She's not a pet, damn it. I had to handle her carefully, and even then I got bites."

"I promise you, Robin, she's not hungry. And even if she was, she wouldn't bother with anything as small as us."

"I don't understand what you want me to do."

"Just stand your ground and talk to her. Say the things you used to say to her twenty years ago. Get her used to you ... and don't run away."

So Robin did. They were three or four hundred meters from the snake. Every few minutes there would be more slithering, and another fifty meters would emerge from the tu

There came a time when the head was no more than two meters away. Robin knew what came next, and braced herself for it.

The great tongue came out. It touched her lightly on her forearms, flirted briefly with the textures of her clothing, flicked over her hair.

And it was all right.

The tongue was moist and cool, but not unpleasant. And in that moment of touching, Robin somehow knew the snake remembered her. The touch of the tongue seemed to pass some sign of recognition from Nasu to Robin. I know you.

Nasu moved again, the great head lifted slightly off the floor, and Robin found herself in a semi-circle of white snake higher than her head. One fearful yellow eye regarded her with reptilian speculation, yet she was not afraid. The head tilted a little...

Robin remembered something Nasu had liked. She had sometimes rubbed Nasu on the top of the head, with her forefinger. The snake would rise to it, coil around her arm, and present herself for more.

She reached up and, with both fists, rubbed the smooth skin on top of Nasu's head. The snake made a relatively small hissing sound-no worse than an ocean liner coming into port-and retreated. The tongue touched her again, and Nasu moved around her from the other side and tilted her head the other way for more rubbing.

Cirocco moved slowly up to join them. Nasu watched placidly.

"Okay," Robin said, quietly. "I've talked to her. Now what?"

"Obviously, this is more than an anaconda," Cirocco began.

"Obviously."

"I don't know what changed her. Diet? Low gravity? Something, anyway. She's adapted to living underground. I've spotted her two or three times, bigger each time, and she's stayed out of my way. I have reason to believe she's a lot more intelligent than she was."