Dreamsnake (26 page)

Moonlight shone dimly on the excellent road to Mountainside. Arevin
rode late into the night, so immersed in his thoughts that he did not
notice when sunset burned daylight into dusk. Though the healers’
station lay days behind him to the north, he still had not encountered
anyone with news of Snake. Mountainside was the last place she could be,
for there was nothing south of Mountainside. Arevin’s maps of the
central mountains showed a herders’ trail, an old unused pass that cut
only through the eastern range, and ended. Travelers in the mountains,
as well as in Arevin’s country, did not venture into the far southern
regions of their world.

Arevin tried not to wonder what he would do if he did not find Snake
here. He was not close enough to the crest of the mountains to catch
glimpses of the eastern desert, and for that he was glad. If he did not
see the storms begin, he could imagine the calm weather lasting longer
than usual.

He rounded a wide curve, looked up, and shielded his lantern,
blinking. Lights ahead: soft yellow gaslights. The town looked like a
basket of sparks spilled out on the slope, all resting together but for
a few scattered separately on the valley floor.

Though he had added several towns to his experience, Arevin still
found astonishing how much work and business their people did after
dark. He decided to continue on to Mountainside tonight: perhaps he
could have news of Snake before morning. He wrapped his robe more
tightly around himself against the coldness of the night.

Despite himself, Arevin dozed, and did not awaken until his horse’s
hooves rang on cobblestones. There was no activity here, so he rode on
until he reached the town’s center with its taverns and other places of
entertainment. Here it was almost as bright as day, and the people acted
as if night had never come. Through a tavern entrance he saw several
workers with their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing, the
contralto slightly flat. The tavern was attached to an inn, so he
stopped his horse and dismounted. Thad’s advice about asking for
information at inns seemed sound, though as yet none of the proprietors
Arevin had talked to had possessed any information to give him.

He entered the tavern. The singers were still singing, drowning out
their accompaniment, or whatever tune the flute player in the corner
might have been trying to construct. She rested her instrument across
her knee, picked up an earthernware mug, and sipped from it: beer,
Arevin thought. The pleasant yeasty odor permeated the tavern.

The singers began another song, but the contralto closed her mouth
quite suddenly and stared at Arevin. One of the men glanced at her. The
song died raggedly as he and her other companions followed her gaze. The
flute melody drifted hollowly up, down, and stopped. The attention of
everyone in the room centered on Arevin.

“I greet you,” he said formally. “I would like to speak to the
proprietor, if that is possible.”

No one moved. Then the contralto stumbled abruptly to her feet,
knocking over her stool.

“I’ll—I’ll see if I can find her.” She disappeared through a
curtained doorway.

No one spoke, not even the bartender. Arevin did not know what to
say. He did not think he was so dusty and dirty as to stun anyone mute,
and certainly in a trader’s town like this one people would be
accustomed to his manner of dress. All he could think of to do was gaze
back at them and wait. Perhaps they would return to their singing, or
drink their beer, or ask him if he was thirsty.

They did nothing. Arevin waited.

He felt faintly ridiculous. He took a step forward, intending to
break the tension by acting as if everything were normal. But as soon as
he moved everyone in the tavern seemed to catch their breath and flinch
away from him. The tension in the room was not that of people inspecting
a stranger, but of antagonists awaiting an enemy. Someone whispered to
another person; the words were inaudible but the tone sounded ominous.

The curtains across the doorway parted and a tall figure paused in
the shadows. The proprietor stepped into the light and looked at Arevin
steadily, without any fear.

“You wished to speak with me?”

She was as tall as Arevin, elegant and stern. She did not smile.
These mountain people were quick to express their feelings, so Arevin
wondered if he had perhaps blundered into a private house, or broken a
custom he did not know.

“Yes,” he said. “I am looking for the healer Snake. I hoped I might
find her in your town.”

“Why do you think you’d find her here?”

If all travelers were spoken to so rudely in Mountainside, Arevin
wondered how it managed to be so prosperous.

“If she isn’t here, she must never have reached the mountains at
all—she must still be in the western desert. The storms are coming.”

“Why are you looking for her?”

Arevin permitted himself a slight frown, for the questions had passed
the limits of mere rudeness.

“I do not see that that is any of your business,” he said. “If common
civility is not the custom in your house, I will ask elsewhere.”

He turned and nearly walked into two people with insignia on their
collars and chains in their hands.

“Come with us, please.”

“For what reason?”

“Suspicion of assault,” the other one said.

Arevin looked at him in utter astonishment. “Assault? I’ve not been
here more than a few minutes.”

“That will be determined,” the first one said. She reached for his
wrist to lock shackles on him. He pulled back with revulsion, but she
kept her grip. He struggled and both people came at him. In a moment
they were all flailing away at each other, with the bar patrons shouting
encouragement. Arevin hit at his two assailants and lurched almost to
his feet. Something smacked against the side of his head. He felt his
knees go weak, and collapsed.

Arevin woke in a small stone room with a single high window. His head
ached fiercely. He did not understand what had happened, for the traders
to whom his clan sold cloth spoke of Mountainside as a place of fair
people. Perhaps these town bandits only preyed on solitary travelers,
and left well-protected caravans alone. His belt, with all his money and
his knife, was gone. Why he was not lying dead in an alley somewhere, he
did not know. At least he was no longer chained.

Sitting up slowly, pausing when movement dizzied him, he looked
around. He heard footsteps in the corridor, jumped to his feet,
stumbled, and pulled himself up to look out through the bars on the tiny
opening in the door. The footsteps receded, running.

“Is this how you treat visitors to your town?” Arevin shouted. His
even temper took a considerable amount of perturbation to disarrange,
but he was angry.

No one answered. He unclenched his hands from the bars and let
himself back to the floor. He could see nothing outside his prison but
another stone wall. The window was too high to reach, even if he moved
the heavy-timbered bed and stood on it. All the light in the room was
reflected downward from a vague sunny patch on the wall above. Someone
had taken Arevin’s robe, and his boots, and left him nothing but his
long loose riding trousers.

Calming himself slowly, he set himself to wait.

Halting footsteps—a lame person, a cane—came down the stone corridor
toward his cell. This time Arevin simply waited.

The key clattered and the door swung open. Guards, wearing the same
insignia as his assailants of the night before, entered first,
cautiously. There were three of them, which seemed strange to Arevin
since he had not even been able to overpower two the night before. He
did not have much experience at fighting. In his clan, adults gently
parted scuffling children and tried to help them settle their
differences with words.

Supported by a helper as well as by the cane, a big darkhaired man
entered the cell. Arevin did not greet him or rise. They stared at each
other steadily for several moments.

“The healer is safe, from you at least,” the big man said. His helper
left him for an instant to drag a chair in from the hall. As the man sat
down Arevin could see that he was not congenitally lame, but injured:
his right leg was heavily bandaged.

“She helped you, too,” Arevin said. “So why do you set upon those who
would find her?”

“You feign sanity well. But I expect once we watch you for a few days
you’ll go back to raving.”

“I have no doubt I’ll begin raving if you leave me here for long,”
Arevin said.

“Do you think we’d leave you loose to go after the healer again?”

“Is she here?” Arevin asked anxiously, abandoning his reserve. “She
must have got out of the desert safely if you’ve seen her.”

The dark-haired man gazed at him for some seconds. “I’m surprised to
hear you speak of her safety,” he said. “But I suppose inconsistency is
what one should expect of a crazy.”

“A crazy!”

“Calm yourself. We know about your attack on her.”

“Attack—? Was she attacked? Is she all right? Where is she?”

“I think it would be safer for her if I told you nothing.”

Arevin looked away, seeking some means of concentrating his thoughts.
A peculiar mixture of confusion and relief possessed him. At least Snake
was out of the desert. She must be safe.

A flaw in a stone block caught the light. Arevin gazed at the
sparkling point, calming himself.

He looked up, nearly smiling. “This argument is foolish. Ask her to
come see me. She’ll tell you we are friends.”

“Indeed? Who should we tell her wants to see her?”

“Tell her
…
the one whose name she knows.”

The big man scowled. “You barbarians and your superstitions—!”

“She knows who I am,” Arevin said, refusing to submit to his anger.

“You’d confront the healer?”

“Confront her!”

The big man leaned back in his chair and glanced at his assistant.
“Well, Brian, he certainly doesn’t talk like a crazy.”

“No, sir,” the older man said.

The big man stared at Arevin, but his eyes were really focused on the
wall of the cell behind him. “I wonder what Gabriel—” He cut off his
words, then glanced at his assistant. “He did sometimes have good ideas
in situations like this.” He sounded slightly embarrassed.

“Yes, mayor, he did.”

There was a longer and more intense silence. Arevin knew that in a
few moments the guards and the mayor and the old man Brian would get up
and leave him alone in the tiny squeezing cell. Arevin felt a drop of
sweat roll down his side.

“Well
…
” the mayor said.

“Sir—?” One of the guards spoke in a hesitant voice.

The mayor turned toward her. “Well, speak up. I’ve no stomach for
imprisoning innocents, but we’ve had enough madmen loose recently.”

“He was surprised last night when we arrested him. Now I believe his
surprise was genuine. Mistress Snake fought with the crazy, mayor. I saw
her when she returned. She won the fight, and she had serious abrasions.
Yet this man is not even bruised.”

Hearing that Snake was injured, Arevin had to restrain himself from
asking again if she was all right. But he would not beg anything of
these people.

“That seems true. You’re very observant,” the mayor said to the
guard. “Are you bruised?” he asked Arevin.

“I am not.”

“You’ll forgive me if I insist you prove it.”

Arevin stood up, intensely disliking the idea of stripping himself
before strangers. But he unfastened his pants and let them fall around
his ankles. He let the mayor look him over, then slowly turned. At the
last moment he remembered he had been in a fight the night before and
could very well be visibly bruised somewhere. But no one said anything,
so he turned around again and put his pants back on.

Then the old man came toward him. The guards stiffened. Arevin stood
very still. These people might consider any move threatening.

“Be careful, Brian,” the mayor said.

Brian lifted Arevin’s hands, looked at the backs, turned them over,
peered at the palms, let them drop. He returned to his place by the
mayor’s side.

“He wears no rings. I doubt he’s ever worn any. His hands are tanned
and there’s no mark. The healer said the cut on her forehead was made by
a ring.”

The mayor snorted. “So what do you think?”

“As you said, sir, he doesn’t talk like a crazy. Also, a crazy would
not necessarily be stupid, and it would be stupid to ask after the
healer while wearing desert robes, unless one was in fact innocent—of
both the crime and the knowledge of it. I am inclined to take this man
at his word.“

The mayor glanced up at his assistant and over at the guard. “I
hope,” he said, in a tone not altogether bantering, “that you’ll give me
fair warning if either of you ever decides to run for my job.” He looked
at Arevin again. “If we let you see the healer, will you wear chains
until she identifies you?”

Arevin could still feel the iron from the night before, trapping him,
enclosing him, cold on his skin all the way to his bones. But Snake
would laugh at them when they suggested chains. This time Arevin did
smile.

“Give the healer my message,” he said. “Then decide whether I need to
be chained.”

Brian helped the mayor to his feet. The mayor glanced at the guard
who believed in Arevin’s innocence. “Stay ready. I’ll send for him.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The guard returned, with her companions and with chains. Arevin
stared horrified at the clanking iron. He had hoped Snake would be the
next person through that door. He stood up blankly as the guard
approached him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She fastened a cold metal band around his
waist, shackled his left wrist and passed the chain through a ring on
the waistband, then locked the cuff around his right wrist. They led him
into the hall.