“Where is she?”
“She’s safe,” North said. “She can stay with us. You needn’t worry,
she’ll be happy here.”
“She didn’t want to come in the first place. This isn’t the kind of
happiness she wants. Let her go home.”
“As I said before, I have nothing against her.”
“What is it you have against healers?”
North gazed at her steadily for a long time. “I should think that
would be obvious.”
“I’m sorry,” Snake said. “We could probably give you some ability to
form melanin, but we aren’t magicians.” The frigid air flowed from a
cave behind her, billowing around her, raising goose bumps on her arms.
Her boots were gone; the cold stone sucked heat from the bare soles of
her feet. But it also numbed the ache in her shoulder. Then she shivered
violently and pain struck with even more ferocity than before. She
gasped and closed her eyes for a moment, then sat very still in her own
inner darkness, breathing deeply and shutting away her perception of the
wound. It was bleeding again, in back where it would be hard to reach.
She hoped Melissa was somewhere warmer, and she wondered where the
dreamsnakes were, for they needed warmth to survive. Snake opened her
eyes.
“And your height—” she said.
North laughed bitterly. “Of all the things I’ve said about healers, I
never said they didn’t have nerve!”
“What?” Snake asked, confused. She was lightheaded from loss of
blood, and in the middle of replying to North. “We might have helped if
we’d seen you early. You must have been grown before anyone took you to
a healer—”
North’s pale face turned scarlet with fury. “Shut up!” He leaped to
his feet and dragged Snake up. She hugged her right arm to her side.
“Do you think I want to hear that? Do you think I want to keep
hearing that I could have been ordinary?” He pushed her toward the cave.
She stumbled into the wind but he dragged her up again. “Healers! Where
were you when I needed you? I’ll let you see how I feel—”
“North, please, North!” Snake’s crazy sidled out of the crowd of
North’s emaciated followers, whom Snake now only perceived as vague
shapes. “She helped me, North, I’ll take her place.” He plucked at
North’s sleeve, moaning and pleading. North pushed him away and he fell
and lay still.
“Your brain’s addled,” North said. “Or you think mine is.”
The interior of the cave glittered in the dim light of smoking
torches, its walls flawed jewels of ice. Above the torches sooty stone
showed in large round patches. Melt-water trickled into pools of slush
that spread across the floor and ran together in a rivulet. Water
dripped everywhere with a cold sound of crystal clarity. Every step
Snake took jarred her shoulder again, and she no longer had the strength
to force the sensation away. The air was heavy with the smell of burning
pitch. Gradually she became aware of a low hum of machinery, felt rather
than heard. It crept through her body, into her bones.
Ahead the tunnel grew lighter. It ended suddenly, opening out into a
depression in the top of the hill, like the crater of a volcano but
clearly human-made. Snake stood in the mouth of the icy tunnel and
blinked, looking stupidly around. The black eyes of other caves stared
back at her. The dome above formed a gray, directionless sky. Across
from her the cold air flowed from the largest tunnel, forming an almost
palpable lake, drained by the smaller tunnels. North pushed Snake
forward again. She saw things, felt things, but reacted to nothing. She
could not.
“Down there. Climb.” North kicked a coil of rope and wood and it
clattered into the deep crack in the rock in the center of the crater.
The tangle unrolled: a rope ladder. Snake could see its top but its
lower end was in darkness.
“Climb,” North said again. “Or be thrown.”
“North, please,” the crazy moaned, and Snake suddenly realized where
she was being sent. North stared at her while she laughed. She felt as
if strength were flowing into her, drawn from the wind and the earth.
“Is this how you torture a healer?” she said. She swung herself down
into the crevasse, clumsily but eagerly. One-handed, she lowered herself
by steps into the freezing darkness, catching each rung with her bare
toes and pulling it outward so she had a foothold. Above, she heard the
crazy break down in helpless sobs.
“We’ll see how you feel in the morning,” North said.
The crazy’s voice rose in terror. “She’ll kill all the dreamsnakes,
North! North, that’s what she came here for.”
“I’d like to see that,” North said. “A healer killing dreamsnakes.”
From the echoes as the rungs clattered against the walls of the
crevasse, Snake knew she was nearing the bottom. It was not quite dark,
but her eyes accustomed themselves slowly. Damp with sweat and shivering
again, she had to pause. She rested her forehead against cold stone. Her
toes and the knuckles of her left hand were scraped raw, for the ladder
lay flush against stone.
It was then, finally, that she heard the soft rustling slide of small
serpents. Clutching the ropes, Snake hung against the stone and squinted
into the dimness below. Light penetrated in a long narrow streak down
the center of the crevasse.
A dreamsnake slid smoothly from one edge of darkness to the other.
Snake fumbled her way the last few meters, stepping to the floor as
cautiously as she could, feeling around with her numb bare foot until
she was certain nothing moved beneath it. She knelt. Cold jagged chunks
of stone cut into her knees, and the only warmth was the fresh blood on
her shoulder. But she reached out among the shards, feeling carefully.
Her fingertips brushed the smooth scales of a serpent as it slid
silently away. She reached out again, ready this time, and caught the
next one she touched. Her hand stung at two tiny points. She smiled and
held the dreamsnake gently behind the head, by habit conserving its
venom. She brought it close enough to see. It was wild, not tame and
gentle as Grass had been. It writhed and lashed itself around her hand;
its delicate trident tongue flicked out at her, and in again to taste
her scent. But it did not hiss, just as Grass had never hissed.
As her eyes became more and more used to the darkness, Snake
gradually perceived the rest of the crevasse, and all the other
dreamsnakes, all sizes of them, lone ones, clumps of them, tangles of
them, more than she had ever seen before in her life, more than her
people could gather together at the station, if all the healers brought
their dreamsnakes home at the same time.
The dreamsnake she held grew quiet in the meager warmth of her hand.
One drop of blood collected over each puncture of its bite, but the
sting of its venom had lasted only an instant. Snake sat back on her
heels and stroked the dreamsnake’s head. Once more she began to laugh.
She knew she had to control herself: this was more hysteria than joy.
But, for the moment, she laughed.
“Laugh away, healer.” North’s voice echoed darkly against stone.
“We’ll see how long you laugh.”
“You’re a fool,” she cried with glee, with dreamsnakes all around her
and in her hand. She laughed at the hilarity of this punishment, like a
child’s story come true. She laughed until she cried, but for an instant
the tears were real. She knew that when this torture could not harm her,
North would find some other way. She sniffed and coughed and wiped her
face on the tail of her shirt, for at least she had a little time.
And then she saw Melissa.
Her daughter lay crumpled on the broken stone in the narrow end of
the crevasse. Snake moved carefully to her side, trying not to injure
any of the serpents she passed, nor to startle those that lay curled
around Melissa’s arms, or coiled together against her body. They made
green tendrils in her bright red hair.
Snake knelt beside Melissa and gently, carefully plucked the wild
serpents away. North’s people had taken Melissa’s robe, and cut her
pants off at the knees. Her arms were bare, and her boots, like Snake’s,
were gone. Rope bound her hands and feet, chafing her wrists raw where
she had struggled. Small bloody bites spotted her bare arms and legs. A
dreamsnake struck: its fangs sank into Snake’s flesh and the creature
jerked back almost too fast to see. Her teeth clenched, Snake remembered
the crazy’s words: “It’s best if they strike you all over at once
…
”
With her own body, Snake blocked the serpents away from Melissa and
freed her wrists, fumbling left-handed with the knots. Melissa’s skin
was cold and dry. Snake cradled her in her left arm as the wild
dreamsnakes crawled over her own bare feet and ankles. Once more she
wondered how they lived in the cold. She would never have dared let
Grass loose in this temperature. Even the case would have been too cold:
she would have brought him out, warmed him in her hands, and let him
loop himself around her throat.
Melissa’s hand slid limply against the rocks. Blood smeared in
streaks from the puncture wounds where her skin rubbed cloth or stone.
Snake managed to get Melissa in her lap, off the freezing ground. Her
pulse was heavy and slow, her breathing deep. But each new breath came
so long after the last that Snake was afraid she would stop altogether.
The cold pressed down around them, pushing back the ache in Snake’s
shoulder and draining her energy again. Stay awake, she thought. Stay
awake. Melissa might stop breathing; her heart might stop from so much
venom, and then she will need help. Despite herself, Snake’s eyes went
out of focus and her eyelids drooped; each time she nodded asleep she
jerked herself awake again. A pleasant thought insinuated itself into
her mind: No one dies of dreamsnake venom. They live, or they die of
their illness, in peace, when their time comes. It’s safe to sleep, she
will not die. But Snake knew of no one who had ever been given such a
large dose of the venom, and Melissa was only a child.
A tiny dreamsnake slid between her leg and the side of the crevasse.
She reached out with her numb right hand and picked it up with wonder.
It lay coiled in her palm, staring toward her with its lidless eyes, its
trident tongue tasting the air. Something about it was unusual: Snake
looked closer.
It was an eggling, just hatched, for it still had the beak of horny
tissue common to the hatchlings of many species of serpents. It was
final proof of how North obtained his dreamsnakes. He had not found an
offworld supply. He did not clone them. He had a breeding population. In
this pit were all sizes and all ages, from egglings to mature
individuals larger than any dreamsnakes Snake had ever seen.
She turned to lay the hatchling down behind her, but her hand knocked
against the wall. Startled, the dreamsnake struck. The sharp stab of its
tiny fangs made Snake flinch. The creature slid from her hand to the
ground and on into shadows.
“North!” Snake’s voice was hoarse. She cleared her dry throat and
tried again. “North!”
In time, his silhouette appeared at the rim of the crevasse. By his
easy smile Snake knew he expected her to beg him for her freedom. He
looked down at her, noting the way she had positioned herself between
Melissa and the serpents.
“She could be free if you’d let her,” he said. “Don’t keep her from
my creatures.”
“Your creatures are wasted here, North,” Snake said. “You should take
them out into the world. You’d be honored by everyone, particularly the
healers.”
“I’m honored here,” North said.
“But this must be a difficult life. You could live in comfort and
ease—”
“There’s no comfort for me,” North said. “You of all people should
realize that. Sleeping on the ground or wrapped in featherbeds, it’s all
the same to me.”
“You’ve made dreamsnakes breed,” Snake said. She glanced down at
Melissa. Several of the serpents had insinuated themselves past Snake.
She grabbed one just before it reached her daughter’s bare arm. The
serpent struck and bit her. She put it and the others behind her with
stinging hands, ignoring their fangs. “However you do it, you should
take the knowledge out and give it to others.”
“And what’s your place in this plan? Should I bring you up to be my
herald? You could dance into each new town and tell them I was coming.”
“I admit I wouldn’t care to die down here.”
North laughed harshly.
“You could help so many people. There was no healer when you needed
one because we haven’t got enough dreamsnakes. You could help people
like you.”
“I help the people who come to me,” North said. “Those are the people
who are like me. They’re the only ones I want.” He turned away.
“North!”
“What?”
“At least give me a blanket for Melissa. She’ll die if I can’t keep
her warm.”
“She won’t die,” North said. “Not if you leave her to my creatures.”
His shadow and his form disappeared.
Snake hugged Melissa closer, feeling each slow, heavy beat of the
child’s heart through her own body. She was so cold and tired that she
could not think any longer. Sleep would start to heal her, but she had
to stay awake, for Melissa’s sake and for her own. One thought remained
strong: defy North’s wishes. Above everything, she knew she and her
daughter were both lost if they obeyed him.
Moving slowly so the work of drawing pain from her shoulder would not
be undone, Snake took Melissa’s hands in her own and chafed them, trying
to bring back circulation and warmth. The blood on the dreamsnake bites
was dry now. One of the serpents wrapped itself around Snake’s ankle.
She wiggled her toes and flexed her ankle, hoping the dreamsnake would
crawl, away again. Her foot was so chilled she barely felt the serpent’s
fangs sink into her instep. She continued to rub Melissa’s hands. She
breathed on them and kissed them. Her breath plumed out before her. The
dim light was failing. Snake looked up. The slice of gray dome visible
between the edges of the crevasse had turned nearly black with gathering
night. Snake felt an overwhelming sensation of grief. This was how it
had been the night Jesse died, lacking only stars, the sky as clear and
dark, the rock walls surrounding her just as steep, the cold as
exhausting as the desert’s heat. Snake hugged Melissa closer and bent
over her, sheltering her from shadows. Because of the dreamsnakes, she
could do nothing for Jesse; because of the dreamsnakes, she could do
nothing for Melissa.