Dreamsnake (4 page)

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.

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 when 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.

Merideth knelt beside him. “How is she?”

“She finally went to sleep. She’s been just the same. At least she doesn’t
hurt
…
”

Merideth took the young man’s hand and bent to kiss the sleeping woman
lightly. She did not stir. Snake put down the leather case and moved closer;
Merideth and the young man looked at each other with blank expressions as they
became aware of the exhaustion overtaking them. The young man suddenly leaned
toward Merideth and they embraced, silently, close and long.

Merideth straightened, drawing back with reluctance. “Healer, these are my
partners, Alex,” a nod toward the young man, “and Jesse.”

Snake took the sleeping woman’s wrist. Her pulse was light, slightly
irregular. She had a deep bruise on her forehead, but neither pupil was dilated,
so perhaps she was lucky and had only a mild concussion. Snake pulled aside the
sheet. The bruises were those of a bad fall: point of shoulder, palm of hand,
hip, knee.

“You said she went to sleep—has she been fully conscious since she fell?”

“She was unconscious when we found her but she came to.”

Snake nodded. There was a deep scrape down Jesse’s side and a bandage on her
thigh. Snake pulled the cloth away as gently as possible, but the dressing stuck
with dry blood.

Jesse did not move when Snake touched the long gash in her leg, not even as
one shifts in sleep to avoid annoyance. She did not wake from pain. Snake
stroked the bottom of her foot, with no result. The reflexes were gone.

“She fell off her horse,” Alex said.

“She never falls,” Merideth snapped. “The colt fell on her.”

Snake sought the courage that had seeped slowly away since Grass was killed.
It seem irretrievable. She knew how Jesse was hurt; all that remained was to
find out how badly. But she did not say anything. Resting one forearm on her
knee, head down, Snake felt Jesse’s forehead. The tall woman was sweating
coldly, still in shock.

If she has internal injuries, Snake thought, if she is dying
…

Jesse turned her head away, moaning softly in her sleep.

She needs whatever help you can give her, Snake thought angrily. And the
longer you swim in self-pity, the more likely you are to hurt her instead.

She felt as if two completely different people, neither of them herself, were
holding a dialogue in her mind. She watched and waited and was vaguely grateful
when the duty-bound self won the argument over the part of her that was afraid.

“I need help to turn her over,” she said.

Merideth at Jesse’s shoulders and Alex at her hips, they eased her up and
held her on her side, following Snake’s instructions to keep from twisting her
spine. A black bruise spread across the small of her back, radiating both ways
from the vertebrae. Where the color was darkest, the bone was crushed.

The force of the fall had almost sheared the spine’s smooth column. Snake
could feel shattered chips of bone that had been pushed out into muscle.

“Let her down,” Snake said, with deep, dull regret. They obeyed and waited in
silence, watching her. She sat on her heels.

If Jesse dies, she thought, she will not feel much pain. If she dies, or if
she lives, Grass could not have helped her.

“Healer
…
?” Alex—he could hardly be twenty, too
young to be burdened with grief, even in this harsh land. Merideth seemed
ageless. Deep-tanned, dark-eyed, old, young, understanding, bitter. Snake looked
at Merideth, glanced at Alex, spoke more to the older partner. “Her spine is
broken.”

Merideth sat back, shoulders slumped, stunned.

“But she’s alive!” Alex cried. “If she’s alive, how—”

“Is there any chance you’re wrong?” Merideth asked. “Can you do anything?”

“I wish I could. Merideth, Alex, she’s lucky to be alive. There’s no chance
the nerves aren’t cut. The bone isn’t just broken, it’s crushed and twisted. I
wish I could say something else, that maybe the bones would heal, maybe the
nerves were whole, but I’d be lying to you.”

“She’s crippled.”

“Yes,” Snake said.

“No!” Alex grabbed her arm. “Not Jesse—I won’t—”

“Hush, Alex,” Merideth whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Snake said. “I could have hidden this from you, but not for very
long.”

Merideth brushed a lock of brick-red hair from Jesse’s forehead. “No, it’s
better to know all this at once
…
to learn to live with
it.”

“Jesse won’t thank us for this kind of life.”

“Be quiet, Alex! Would you rather the fall had killed her?”

“No!” Looking down at the tent floor, he said softly, “But she might. And you
know it.”

Merideth stared at Jesse, saying nothing at first. “You’re right.” Snake
could see Merideth’s left hand, clenched in a fist, shaking. “Alex, would you
see to my mare? We used her badly.”

Alex hesitated, not, Snake thought, from reluctance to do as Merideth asked.
“All right, Merry.” He left them alone. Snake waited. They heard Alex’s boots in
the sand, then the horse’s slow steps.

Jesse moved in her sleep, sighing. Merideth winced at the sound, sucked in a
long breath, tried and failed to hold back the sudden deep sobs. Tears glistened
in the lamplight, moving like strung diamonds. Snake slid closer and took
Merideth’s hand, offering comfort until the clenched fist relaxed.

“I didn’t want Alex to see
…
”

“I know,” Snake said. And so did Alex, she thought. These people guard each
other well. “Merideth, can Jesse bear to hear this? I hate to keep secrets,
but—”

“She’s strong,” Merideth said. “Whatever we hid, she’d know.”

“All right. I’ve got to wake her. She shouldn’t sleep more than a few hours
at a time with that head wound. And she has to be turned over every two hours or
her skin will ulcerate.”