Dreamsnake
by Vonda N. McIntyre
Chapter 1
The little boy was frightened. Gently, Snake touched his hot forehead. Behind her, three adults stood close together, watching, suspicious, afraid to show their concern with more than narrow lines around their eyes. They feared Snake as much as they feared their only child’s death. In the dimness of the tent, the strange blue glow of the lantern gave no reassurance.
The child watched with eyes so dark the pupils were not visible, so dull that Snake herself feared for his life. She stroked his hair. It was long, and very pale, dry and irregular for several inches near the scalp, a striking color against his dark skin. Had Snake been with these people months ago, she would have known the child was growing ill.
“Bring my case, please,” Snake said.
The child’s parents started at her soft voice. Perhaps they had expected the screech of a bright jay, or the hissing of a shining serpent. This was the first time Snake had spoken in their presence. She had only watched, when the three of them had come to observe her from a distance and whisper about her occupation and her youth; she had only listened, and then nodded, when finally they came to ask her help. Perhaps they had thought she was mute.
The fair-haired younger man lifted her leather case. He held the satchel away from his body, leaning to hand it to her, breathing shallowly with nostrils flared against the faint smell of musk in the dry desert air. Snake had almost accustomed herself to the kind of uneasiness he showed; she had already seen it often.
When Snake reached out, the young man jerked back and dropped the case. Snake lunged and barely caught it, gently set it on the felt floor, and glanced at him with reproach. His partners came forward and touched him to ease his fear. “He was bitten once,” the dark and handsome woman said. “He almost died.” Her tone was not of apology, but of justification.
“I’m sorry,” the younger man said. “It’s—” He gestured toward her; he was trembling, but trying visibly to control himself. Snake glanced to her shoulder, where she had been unconsciously aware of the slight weight and movement. A tiny serpent, thin as the finger of a baby, slid himself around her neck to show his narrow head below her short black curls. He probed the air with his trident tongue, in a leisurely manner, out, up and down, in, to savor the taste of the smells. “It’s only Grass,” Snake said. “He can’t hurt you.” If he were bigger, he might be frightening: his color was pale green, but the scales around his mouth were red, as if he had just feasted as a mammal eats, by tearing. He was, in fact, much neater.
The child whimpered. He cut off the sound of pain; perhaps he had been told that Snake, too, would be offended by crying. She only felt sorry that his people refused themselves such a simple way of easing fear. She turned from the adults, regretting their terror of her but unwilling to spend the time it would take to persuade them to trust her. “It’s all right,” she said to the little boy. “Grass is smooth, and dry, and soft, and if I left him to guard you, even death could not reach your bedside.” Grass poured himself into her narrow, dirty hand, and she extended him toward the child. “Gently.” He reached out and touched the sleek scales with one fingertip. Snake could sense the effort of even such a simple motion, yet the boy almost smiled.
“What are you called?”
He looked quickly toward his parents, and finally they nodded.
“Stavin,” he whispered. He had no breath or strength for speaking.
“I am Snake, Stavin, and in a little while, in the morning, I must hurt you. You may feel a quick pain, and your body will ache for several days, but you’ll be better afterward.”
He stared at her solemnly. Snake saw that though he understood and feared what she might do, He was less afraid than if she had lied to him. The pain must have increased greatly as his illness became more apparent, but it seemed that others had only reassured him, and hoped the disease would disappear or kill him quickly.
Snake put Grass on the boy’s pillow and pulled her case nearer. The adults still could only fear her; they had had neither time nor reason to discover any trust. The woman of the partnership was old enough that they might never have another child unless they partnered again, and Snake could tell by their eyes, their covert touching, their concern, that they loved this one very much. They must, to come to Snake in this country.
Sluggish, Sand slid out of the case, moving his head, moving his tongue, smelling, tasting, detecting the warmths of bodies.
“Is that — ?” The eldest partner’s voice was low and wise, but terrified, and Sand sensed the fear. He drew back into striking position and sounded his rattle softly. Snake stroked her hand along the floor, letting the vibrations distract him, then moved her hand up and extended her arm. The diamondback relaxed and wrapped his body around and around her wrist to form black and tan bracelets.
“No,” she said. “Your child is too ill for Sand to help. I know it’s hard, but please try to be calm. This is a fearful thing for you, but it is all I can do.”
She had to annoy Mist to make her come out. Snake rapped on the bag, and finally poked her twice. Snake felt the vibration of sliding scales, and suddenly the albino cobra flung herself into the tent. She moved quickly, yet there seemed to be no end to her. She reared back and up. Her breath rushed out in a hiss. Her head rose well over a meter above the floor. She flared her wide hood. Behind her, the adults gasped, as if physically assaulted by the gaze of the tan spectacle design on the back of Mist’s hood. Snake ignored the people and spoke to the great cobra, focusing her attention by her words.
“Furious creature, lie down. It’s time to earn thy dinner. Speak to this child and touch him. He is called Stavin.”
Slowly, Mist relaxed her hood and allowed Snake to touch her. Snake grasped her firmly behind the head and held her so she looked at Stavin. The cobra’s silver eyes picked up the blue of the lamplight.
“Stavin,” Snake said, “Mist will only meet you now. I promise that this time she will touch you gently.”
Still, Stavin shivered when Mist touched his thin chest. Snake did not release the serpent’s head, but allowed her body to slide against the boy’s. The cobra was four times longer than Stavin was tall. She curved herself in stark white loops across his swollen abdomen, extending herself, forcing her head toward the boy’s face, straining against Snake’s hands. Mist met Stavin’s frightened stare with the gaze of lidless eyes. Snake allowed her a little closer.
Mist nicked out her tongue to taste the child.
The younger man made a small, cut-off, frightened sound. Stavin flinched at it, and Mist drew back, opening her mouth, exposing her fangs, audibly thrusting her breath through her throat. Snake sat back on her heels, letting out her own breath. Sometimes, in other places, the kinfolk could stay while she worked.
“You must leave,” she said gently. “It’s dangerous to frighten Mist.”
“I won’t—”
“I’m sorry. You must wait outside.”
Perhaps the fair-haired youngest partner, perhaps even Stavin’s mother, would have made the indefensible objections and asked the answerable questions, but the white-haired man turned them and took their hands and led them away.
“I need a small animal,” Snake said as he lifted the tent flap. “It must have fur, and it must be alive.”
“One will be found,” he said, and the three parents went into the glowing night. Snake could hear their footsteps in the sand outside.
Snake supported Mist in her lap and soothed her. The cobra wrapped herself around Snake’s waist, taking in her warmth. Hunger made the cobra even more nervous than usual, and she was hungry, as was Snake. Coming across the black-sand desert, they had found sufficient water, but Snake’s traps had been unsuccessful. The season was summer, the weather was hot, and many of the furry tidbits Sand and Mist preferred were estivating. Since she had brought them into the desert, away from home, Snake had begun a fast as well.
She saw with regret that Stavin was more frightened now. “I’m sorry to send your parents away,” she said. “They can come back soon.”
His eyes glistened, but he held back the tears. “They said to do what you told me.”
“I would have you cry, if you are able,” Snake said. “It isn’t such a terrible thing.” But Stavin seemed not to understand, and Snake did not press him; she thought his people must teach themselves to resist a difficult land by refusing to cry, refusing to mourn, refusing to laugh. They denied themselves grief, and allowed themselves little joy, but they survived.
Mist had calmed to sullenness. Snake unwrapped her from her waist and placed the serpent on the pallet next to Stavin. As the cobra moved, Snake guided her head, feeling the tension of the striking-muscles. “She will touch you with her tongue,” she told Stavin. “It might tickle, but it will not hurt. She smells with it, as you do with your nose.”
“With her tongue?”
Snake nodded, smiling, and Mist flicked out her tongue to caress Stavin’s cheek. Stavin did not flinch; he watched, his child’s delight in knowledge briefly overcoming pain. He lay perfectly still as Mist’s long tongue brushed his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth. “She tastes the sickness,” Snake said. Mist stopped fighting the restraint of her grasp, and drew back her head. Snake sat on her heels and released the cobra, who spiraled up her arm and laid herself across her shoulders.
“Go to sleep, Stavin,” Snake said. “Try to trust me, and try not to fear the morning.”
Stavin gazed at her for a few seconds, searching for truth in Snake’s pale eyes. “Will Grass watch?”
She was startled by the question, or, rather, by the acceptance behind the question. She brushed his hair from his forehead and smiled a smile that was tears just beneath the surface. “Of course.” She picked Grass up. “Watch this child, and guard him.” The dreamsnake lay quiet in her hand, and his eyes glittered black. She laid him gently on Stavin’s pillow.
“Now sleep.”
Stavin closed his eyes, and the life seemed to flow out of him. The alteration was so great that Snake reached out to touch him, then saw that he was breathing, slowly, shallowly. She tucked a blanket around him and stood up. The abrupt change in position dizzied her; she staggered and caught herself. Across her shoulder, Mist tensed.
Snake’s eyes stung and her vision was oversharp, fever-clear. The sound she imagined she heard swooped in closer. She steadied herself against hunger and exhaustion, bent slowly, and picked up the leather case. Mist touched her cheek with the tip of her tongue.
She pushed aside the tent flap and felt relief that it was still night. She could stand the daytime heat, but the brightness of the sun curled through her, burning. The moon must be full; though the clouds obscured everything, they diffused the light so the sky appeared gray from horizon to horizon. Beyond the tents, groups of
