Grass lay cut almost in two, his entrails oozing from his body, half-turned over, and as she watched, shaking, he writhed once, flicked his tongue out once, and in. Snake made some sound, too low in her throat to be a cry. She hoped his motions were only reflex, but she picked him up as gently as she could. She leaned down and touched her lips to the smooth green scales behind his head. She bit him quickly, sharply, at the base of his skull. His blood flowed cool and salty in her mouth. If he was not already dead, she had killed him instantly.
She looked at the parents, and at Arevin; they were all pale, but she had no sympathy for their fear, and cared nothing for shared grief. “Such a small creature,” she said. “Such a small creature, who could only give pleasure and dreams.” She watched them for a moment more, then turned toward the tent again.
“Wait—” She heard the eldest partner move up close behind her. He touched her shoulder; she shrugged away his hand. “We will give you anything you want,” he said, “but leave the child alone.”
She spun on him in a fury. “Should I kill Stavin for your stupidity?” He seemed about to try to hold her back. She jammed her shoulder hard into his stomach, and flung herself past the tent flap. Inside, she kicked over the satchel. Abruptly awakened, and angry, Sand crawled out and coiled himself. When someone tried to enter, Sand hissed and rattled with a violence Snake had never heard him use before. She did not even bother to look behind her. She ducked her head and wiped her tears on her sleeve before Stavin could see them. She knelt beside him.
“What’s the matter?” He could not help but hear the voices outside the tent, and the running.
“Nothing, Stavin,” Snake said. “Did you know we came across the desert?”
“No,” he said with wonder.
“It was very hot, and none of us had anything to eat. Grass is hunting now. He was very hungry. Will you forgive him and let me begin? I’ll be here all the time.”
He seemed so tired; he was disappointed, but he had no strength for arguing. “All right.” His voice rustled like sand slipping through the fingers.
Snake lifted Mist from her shoulders, and pulled the blanket from Stavin’s small body. The tumor pressed up beneath his rib cage, distorting his form, squeezing his vital organs, sucking nourishment from him for its own growth, poisoning him with its wastes. Holding Mist’s head, Snake let her flow across him, touching and tasting him. She had to restrain the cobra to keep her from striking; the excitement had agitated her. When Sand used his rattle, the vibrations made her flinch. Snake stroked her, soothing her; trained and bred-in responses began to return, overcoming the natural instincts. Mist paused when her tongue flicked the skin above the tumor, and Snake released her.
The cobra reared and struck, biting as cobras bite, sinking her fangs their short length once, releasing, instantly biting again for a better purchase, holding on, chewing at her prey. Stavin cried out, but he did not move against Snake’s restraining hands.
Mist expended the contents of her venom sacs into the child, and released him. She reared up, peered around, folded her hood, and slid across the floor in a perfectly straight line toward her dark, close compartment.
“It’s done, Stavin.”
“Will I die now?”
“No,” Snake said. “Not now. Not for many years, I hope.” She took a vial of powder from her belt pouch. “Open your mouth.” He complied, and she sprinkled the powder across his tongue. “That will help the ache.” She spread a pad of cloth across the series of shallow puncture wounds without wiping off the blood.
She turned from him.
“Snake? Are you going away?”
“I won’t leave without saying good-bye. I promise.”
The child lay back, closed his eyes, and let the drug take him.
Sand coiled quietly on the dark felt. Snake patted the floor to call him. He moved toward her, and suffered himself to be replaced in the satchel. Snake closed it, and lifted it, and it still felt empty. She heard noises outside the tent. Stavin’s parents and the people who had come to help them pulled open the tent flap and peered inside, thrusting sticks in even before they looked.
Snake set down her leather case. “It’s done.”
They entered. Arevin was with them too; only he was empty-handed. “Snake—” He spoke through grief, pity, confusion, and Snake could not tell what he believed. He looked back. Stavin’s mother was just behind him. He took her by the shoulder. “He would have died without her. Whatever happens now, he would have died.”
She shook his hand away. “He might have lived. It might have gone away. We—” She could speak no more for hiding tears.
Snake felt the people moving, surrounding her. Arevin took one step toward her and stopped, and she could see he wanted her to defend herself. “Can any of you cry?” she said. “Can any of you cry for me and my despair, or for them and their guilt, or for small things and their pain?” She felt tears slip down her cheeks.
They did not understand her; they were offended by her crying. They stood back, still afraid of her, but gathering themselves. She no longer needed the pose of calmness she had used to deceive the child. “Ah, you fools.” Her voice sounded brittle. “Stavin—”
Light from the entrance struck them. “Let me pass.” The people in front of Snake moved aside for their leader. She stopped in front of Snake, ignoring the satchel her foot almost touched. “Will Stavin live?” Her voice was quiet, calm, gentle.
“I cannot be certain,” Snake said, “but I feel that he will.”
“Leave us.” The people understood Snake’s words before they did their leader’s; they looked around and lowered their weapons, and finally, one by one, they moved out of the tent. Arevin remained with Snake. The strength that came from danger seeped from her, and her knees collapsed. She bent over the satchel with her face in her hands. The older woman knelt in front of her, before Snake could notice or prevent her. “Thank you,” the leader said. “Thank you. I am so sorry… ” She put her arms around Snake, and drew her toward her, and Arevin knelt beside them, and he embraced Snake too. Snake began to tremble again, and they held her while she cried.
Later she slept, exhausted, alone in the tent with Stavin, holding his hand. The people had caught small animals for Sand and Mist. They had given her food and supplies; they had even given her sufficient water to bathe, though that must have strained their resources.
When she awakened, Arevin lay sleeping nearby, his robe open in the heat, a sheen of sweat across his chest and stomach. The sternness in his expression vanished when he slept; he looked exhausted and vulnerable. Snake almost woke him, but stopped, shook her head, and turned to Stavin.
She felt the tumor, and found that it had begun to dissolve and shrivel, dying, as Mist’s changed poison affected it. Through her grief Snake felt a little joy. She smoothed Stavin’s pale hair back from his face. “I would not lie to you again, little one,” she whispered, “but I must leave soon. I cannot stay here.” She wanted another three days’ sleep, to finish fighting off the effects of the sand viper’s poison, but she would sleep somewhere else. “Stavin?”
He half woke, slowly. “It doesn’t hurt any more,” he said.
“I’m glad.”
“Thank you…”
“Good-bye, Stavin. Will you remember later on that you woke up, and that I did stay to say good-bye?”
“Good-bye,” he said, drifting off again. “Good-bye, Snake. Good-bye, Grass.” He closed his eyes.
Snake picked up the satchel and stood gazing down at Arevin. He did not stir. Both grateful and sorry, she left the tent.
Dusk approached with long, indistinct shadows; the camp was hot and quiet. She found her tiger-striped pony, tethered with food and water. New, full water-skins bulged on the ground next to the saddle, and desert robes lay across the pommel, though Snake had refused any payment. The tiger-pony whickered at her. She scratched his striped ears, saddled him, and strapped her gear on his back. Leading him, she started east, the
way she had come.
“Snake—”
She took a breath, and turned back to Arevin. His back was to the sun, and it outlined him in scarlet. His streaked hair flowed loose to his shoulders, gentling his face. “You must leave?”
“Yes.”
“I hoped you would not leave before… I hoped you would stay, for a time… There are other clans, and other people you could help—”
“If things were different, I might have stayed. There’s work for a healer. But…”
“They were frightened—”
“I told them Grass couldn’t hurt them, but they saw his fangs and they didn’t know he could only give dreams and ease dying.”
“But can’t you forgive them?”
“I can’t face their guilt. What they did was my fault, Arevin. I didn’t understand them until too late.”
“You said it yourself, you can’t know all the customs and all the fears.”
“I’m crippled,” she said. “Without Grass, if I can’t heal a person, I can’t help at all. We don’t have many dreamsnakes. I have to go home and tell my teachers I’ve lost one, and hope they can forgive my stupidity. They seldom give the name I bear, but they gave it to me, and they’ll be disappointed.”
“Let me come with you.”
She wanted to; she hesitated, and cursed herself for that weakness. “They may take Mist and Sand and cast me out, and you would be cast out too. Stay here, Arevin.”
“It wouldn’t matter.”
“It would. After a while, we would hate each other. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. We need calmness, and quiet, and time to understand each other well.”
He came toward her, and put his arms around her, and they stood embracing for a moment. When he raised his head, there were tears on his cheeks. “Please come back,” he said. “Whatever happens, please come back.”
“I will try,” Snake said. “Next spring, when the winds stop, look for me. The spring after that, if I haven’t returned, forget me. Wherever I am, if I live, I will forget you.“
“I will look for you,” Arevin said, and he would promise no more.
Snake picked up her pony’s lead, and started across the desert.
Chapter 2
Mist rose in a white streak against darkness. The cobra hissed, swaying, and Sand echoed her with his warning rattle. Then Snake heard the hoofbeats, muffled by the desert, and felt them through her palms. Slapping the ground, she winced and sucked in her breath. Around the double puncture where the sand viper had bitten her, her hand was black-and-blue from knuckles to wrist. Only the bruise’s edges had faded. She cradled her aching right hand in her lap and twice slapped the ground with her left. Sand’s rattling lost its frantic sound and the diamondback slid toward her from a warm shelf of black volcanic stone. Snake slapped the ground twice again. Mist, sensing the vibrations, soothed by the familiarity of the signal, lowered her body slowly and relaxed her hood.
The hoofbeats stopped. Snake heard voices from the camp farther along the edge of the oasis, a cluster of black-on-black tents obscured by an outcropping of rock. Sand wrapped himself around her forearm and Mist crawled up and across her shoulders. Grass should be coiled around her wrist or around her throat like an emerald necklace, but Grass was gone. Grass was dead.
The rider urged the horse toward her. Meager light from bioluminescent lanterns and the cloud-covered moon glistened on droplets as the bay horse splashed through the shallows of the oasis. It breathed in heavy snorts through distended nostrils. The reins had worked sweat to foam on its neck. Firelight flickered scarlet against the gold bridle and highlighted the rider’s face.
“Healer?”
She rose. “My name is Snake.” Perhaps she had no right to call herself that any longer, but she would not go back to her child-name.
“I am Merideth.” The rider swung down and approached, but stopped when Mist raised her head.
“She won’t strike,” Snake said.
Merideth came closer. “One of my partners is injured. Will you come?”
Snake had to put effort into answering without hesitation. “Yes, of course.” Her fear of being asked to aid someone who was dying and of being unable to do anything to help at all was very strong. She knelt to put Mist and Sand into the leather case. They slid against her hands, their cool scales forming intricate patterns on her fingertips.
“My pony’s lame, I’ll have to borrow a horse—” Squirrel, her tiger-pony, was corralled at the camp where Merideth had stopped a moment before. Snake did not need to worry about her pony, for Grum the caravannaire took good care of him; her grandchildren fed and brushed him royally. Grum would see to Squirrel’s reshoeing if a blacksmith came while Snake was gone, and Snake thought Grum would lend her a horse.
“There’s no time,” Merideth said. “Those desert nags are no good for speed. My mare will carry us both.”
Merideth’s mare was breathing normally, despite the sweat drying on her shoulders. She stood with her head up, ears pricked, neck arched. She was, indeed, an impressive animal, of higher breeding than the caravan ponies, much taller than Squirrel. While the rider’s clothes were plain, the horse’s equipment was heavily ornamented.
Snake closed the leather case and put on the new robes and headcloth Arevin’s people had given her. She was grateful to them for the clothes, at least, for the strong delicate material was excellent protection against the heat and sand and dust.
Merideth mounted, freed the stirrup, reached for Snake’s hand. But when Snake approached, the horse flared her nostrils and shied at the musky smell of serpents. Beneath Merideth’s gentle hands she stood still but did not calm. Snake swung up behind the saddle. The horse’s muscles bunched and the mare sprang into a gallop, splashing through the water. Spray touched Snake’s face and she tightened her legs against the mare’s damp flanks. The horse leaped across the shore and passed between delicate summertrees, shadows and delicate fronds flicking past, until suddenly the desert opened out to the horizon.
Snake held the case in her left hand; the right could not yet grasp tightly enough. Away from the fires and the water’s reflections, Snake could barely see. The black sand sucked up light and released it as heat. The mare galloped on. The intricate decorations on her bridle jingled faintly above the crunch of hooves in sand. Her sweat soaked into Snake’s pants, hot and sticky against her knees and thighs. Beyond the oasis and its protection of trees, Snake felt the sting of windblown sand. She let go of Merideth’s waist long enough to pull the end of her headcloth across her nose and mouth.
Soon the sand gave way to a slope of stones. The mare clambered up it, onto solid rock. Merideth held her to a walk. “It’s too dangerous to run. We’d be in a crevasse before we saw it.” Merideth’s voice was tense with urgency.
They moved perpendicular to great cracks and fissures where molten rock had flowed and separated and cooled to basalt. Grains of sand sighed across the barren, undulating surface. The mare’s iron shoes rang against it as if it were hollow. When she had to leap a chasm, the stone reverberated.
More then once Snake started to ask what had happened to Merideth’s friend, but she remained silent. The plain of stone forbade conversation, forbade concentration on anything but traversing it.
And Snake was afraid to ask, afraid to know.
The case lay heavy against her leg, rocking in rhythm to the mare’s long stride. Snake could feel Sand shifting inside his compartment; she hoped he would not rattle and frighten the horse again.
The lava flow did not appear on Snake’s map, which ended, to the south, at the oasis. The trade routes avoided the lava flows, for they were hard on people and animals alike. Snake wondered if they would reach their destination before morning. Here on the black rock the heat would build rapidly.
Finally the mare’s gait began to slow, despite Merideth’s constant urging.
The smoothly rocking pace across the wide stone river had lulled Snake almost to sleep. She jerked awake w
hen the mare slid, pulling her haunches under her, scrabbling with her hooves, throwing the riders back, then forward, as they came down the long slope of lava. Snake clutched her bag and Merideth and clamped the horse between her knees.
The broken stone at the foot of the cliff thinned out, no longer holding them to a walk. Snake felt Merideth’s legs tighten against the mare, forcing the exhausted horse into a heavy canter. They were in a deep, narrow canyon, its high walls formed by two separate tongues of lava.
Spots of light hovered against ebony and for a moment Snake thought sleepily of fireflies. Then a horse neighed from a long distance and the lights leaped into perspective: the camp’s lanterns. Merideth leaned forward, speaking words of encouragement to the mare. The horse labored, struggling through the deep sand, stumbling once and throwing Snake hard against Merideth’s back. Jolted, Sand rattled. The hollow space around him amplified the sound. The mare bolted in terror. Merideth let her run, and when she finally slowed, foam dripping down her neck and blood spattering from her nostrils, Merideth forced her on.
The camp seemed to recede, miragelike. Every breath Snake took hurt her as if she were the mare. The horse floundered through deep sand like an exhausted swimmer, gasping at the height of every plunge.
They reached the tent. The mare staggered and stopped, spraddle-legged, head down. Snake slipped from her back, soaked with sweat, her own knees shaky. Merideth dismounted and led the way into the tent. The flaps were propped open, and the lanterns within suffused it with a pale blue glow.
The light inside seemed very bright. Merideth’s injured friend lay near the tent wall, her face flushed and sweat-shiny, her long curly brick-red hair loose and tangled. The thin cloth covering her was stained in dark patches, but with sweat, not blood. Her companion, sitting on the floor beside her, raised his head groggily. His pleasant, ugly face was set in lines of strain, heavy eyebrows drawn together over his small dark eyes. His shaggy brown hair was tousled and matted.
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