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"Certainly Your present course will bring you there in tiain, this ti the river And if she understood the wrinkled old monk properly, Oliver would have almost had to stop there

"Thank you," she said "So verythe holes upon his flute "The truth is freely given But surely you lint in his eyes when he said this gave Julianna pause But Halliwell’s face lit up

"Starved," the detective said "I don’t suppose you have--"

"Certainly," the monk said

With his flute in one hand, he leaped easily down froile than seemed possible for one so ancient When he stood before them, Julianna was startled by his size He had looked small there upon his perch, but now she saw he truly was no larger than a child, perhaps four feet tall at rateful expression on his face She wondered if the wrinkled little uard Certainly, he did not seem to pose any threat HisHe had been nothing but kind and helpful

But what had that htly little ed with a knapsack of the saround, unlaced the ties, and reached inside, withdrawing first a sle banana Cru it to Halliwell

Julianna frowned, staring at the banana It was perfectly yellow, ripe, with only a hint of green at the stem There was not a trace of a bruise on it, not a brown ble as well This was just a stop along the way for hi food supplies, unless he had taken the banana off a nearby tree, it seemed incredible to her that it would be so perfect

Incredible

Small, wrinkled brown hands held out the bread and the banana Halliore a neighborly siven

Which iven so freely

"Ted, wait"

Hallias about to pluck the food fro at Julianna, one eyebrow rising in a question

"Don’t take them," she said

The old man’s eyes narrowed and he reached to put the banana in one of Halliwell’s outstretched hands Julianna lunged forward, slapping at the old rip It struck the ground, where it instantly changed, transfor first into a flute, and then into a pale yellow serpent with a line of green dia down its back

"What the hell?" Halliwell snapped, as the snake hissed and coiled, drawing its head back as though to strike But it only swayed and watched them

Halliwell and Julianna both backed away fro at him The detective’s hands bunched into fists

"It’s in every fairy tale, Ted Every legend," she said, heart ha in her chest Julianna licked her dry lips and stared at the old arded them coolly, still with that benevolent expression that had lulled the fro in those stories, and the cost is always so terrible"

As they stared at hirin widened

And widened

The sides of his face split,so far that the entire top of his head tilted back like it was on a hinge His mouth stretched from ear to ear, and within were rows of yellow, crooked teeth The front ones see and thin, some of them broken and pitted

When he spoke, his voice was like the hiss of the snake

"How fortunate for you that the woman is with you," the ht hand in trade, friend And her body for my pleasure, had she partaken"

Horror shook Julianna, yet the danger seemed to have passed Thesnake upon the ground

"We’ll be going now," Halliwell said, and he took a step backward

The snake hissed

The hed and bent down to scoop the serpent into his hand, where it becaain

"If you insist," he said, the words stretched out by the vastness of his jaws In his left hand, he still held the small loaf of bread "But the bread is real Have it, if you would Your prize for surviving Freely given"

Julianna’s breath caught in her throat "Freely given," she said, looking at Halliwell "I don’t think he can break his word on that There are rules"

"To hell with rules," Halliwell said, still staring at the ry as she was, she could not have eaten anything this creature touched They backed away sloatching the little risly smile Only when they were fifty yards away and he had ain They went quickly, glancing back every few seconds

When they had gone so far that they could no longer see the rock, or the old man and his flute, Halliwell let out a breath

"I owe you," he said

"Not a probleot to keep each other alive"

"Daht"