Across the Spectrum (50 page)

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 formless shadows projected from the
ground. Here, near the edge of the desert, enough water existed so clumps and
patches of bush grew, providing shelter and sustenance for all manner of
creatures. The black sand, which sparkled and blinded in the sunlight, at night
was like a layer of soft soot. Snake stepped out of the tent, and the illusion
of softness disappeared; her boots slid crunching into the sharp hard grains.

Stavin’s family waited, sitting close together between the
dark tents that clustered in a patch of sand from which the bushes had been
ripped and burned. They looked at her silently, hoping with their eyes, showing
no expression in their faces. A woman somewhat younger than Stavin’s mother sat
with them. She was dressed, as they were, in long loose desert robes, but she
wore the only adornment Snake had seen among these people: a leader’s circle,
hanging around her neck on a leather thong. She and Stavin’s eldest parent were
marked close kin by their similarities: sharp-cut planes of face, high
cheekbones, his hair white and hers graying early from deep black, their eyes
the dark brown best suited for survival in the sun. On the ground by their feet
a small black animal jerked sporadically against a net, and infrequently gave a
shrill weak cry.

“Stavin is asleep,” Snake said. “Do not disturb him, but go
to him if he wakes.”

Stavin’s mother and the youngest partner rose and went
inside, but the older man stopped before her. “Can you help him?”

“I hope so. The tumor is advanced, but it seems solid.” Her
own voice sounded removed, ringing slightly false, as if she were lying. “Mist
will be ready in the morning.” She still felt the need to give him reassurance,
but she could think of none.

“My sister wished to speak with you,” he said, and left them
alone, without introduction, without elevating himself by saying that the tall
woman was the leader of this group. Snake glanced back, but the tent flap fell
shut. She was feeling her exhaustion more deeply, and across her shoulders Mist
was, for the first time, a weight she thought heavy.

“Are you all right?”

Snake turned. The woman moved toward her with a natural
elegance made slightly awkward by advanced pregnancy. Snake had to look up to
meet her gaze. She had small, fine lines at the corners of her eyes and beside
her mouth, as if she laughed, sometimes, in secret. She smiled, but with
concern. “You seem very tired. Shall I have someone make you a bed?”

“Not now,” Snake said, “not yet. I won’t sleep until
afterward.”

The leader searched her face, and Snake felt a kinship with
her in their shared responsibility.

“I understand, I think. Is there anything we can give you?
Do you need aid with your preparations?”

Snake found herself having to deal with the questions as if
they were complex problems. She turned them in her tired mind, examined them,
dissected them, and finally grasped their meanings. “My pony needs food and
water—”

“It is taken care of.”

“And I need someone to help with Mist. Someone strong. But
it’s more important that they aren’t afraid.”

The leader nodded. “I would help you,” she said, and smiled
again, a little. “But I am a bit clumsy of late. I will find someone.”

“Thank you.”

Somber again, the older woman inclined her head and moved
slowly toward a small group of tents. Snake watched her go, admiring her grace.
She felt small and young and grubby in comparison.

His body tensed to hunt, Sand slid in circles from Snake’s
wrist. She caught him before he could drop to the ground. Sand lifted the upper
half of his body from her hands. He flicked out his tongue, peering toward the
little animal, sensing its body heat, tasting its fear. “I know thou art
hungry,” Snake said. “But that creature is not for thee.” She put Sand in the
case, took Mist from her shoulders, and let the cobra coil herself in her dark
compartment.

The small animal shrieked and struggled again when Snake’s
diffuse shadow passed over it. She bent and picked the creature up. Its rapid
series of terrified cries slowed and diminished and finally stopped as she
stroked it. It lay still, breathing hard, exhausted, staring up at her with
yellow eyes. It had long hind legs and wide pointed ears, and its nose twitched
at the serpent smell. Its soft black fur was marked off in skewed squares by
the cords of the net.

“I am sorry to take your life,” Snake told it. “But there
will be no more fear, and I will not hurt you.” She closed her hand gently
around the animal and, stroking it, grasped its spine at the base of its skull.
She pulled, once, quickly. It seemed to struggle for an instant, but it was
already dead. It convulsed; its legs drew up against its body and its toes
curled and quivered. It seemed to stare up at her, even now. She freed its body
from the net.

Snake chose a small vial from her belt pouch, pried open the
animal’s clenched jaws, and let a single drop of the vial’s cloudy preparation
fall into its mouth. Quickly she opened the satchel again and called Mist out.
The cobra came slowly, slipping over the edge, hood closed, sliding in the
sharp-grained sand. Her milky scales caught the thin light. She smelled the
animal, flowed to it, touched it with her tongue. For a moment Snake was afraid
she would refuse dead meat, but the body was still warm, still twitching, and
she was very hungry. “A tidbit for thee.” Snake spoke to the cobra: a habit of
solitude. “To whet thine appetite.” Mist nosed the beast, reared back, and
struck, sinking her short fixed fangs into the tiny body, biting again, pumping
out her store of poison. She released it, took a better grip, and began to work
her jaws around it. It would hardly distend her throat. When Mist lay quiet,
digesting the small meal, Snake sat beside her and held her, waiting.

She heard footsteps in the sand.

“I’m sent to help you.”

He was a young man, despite a scatter of white in his black
hair. He was taller than Snake, and not unattractive. His eyes were dark, and
the sharp planes of his face were further hardened because his hair was pulled
straight back and tied. His expression was neutral.

“Are you afraid?” Snake asked.

“I will do as you tell me.”

Though his form was obscured by his robe, his long, fine
hands showed strength.

“Then hold her body, and don’t let her surprise you.” Mist
was beginning to twitch, the effect of the drugs Snake had put in the small
animal. The cobra’s eyes stared, unseeing.

“If it bites—”

“Hold, quickly!”

The young man reached, but he had hesitated too long. Mist
writhed, lashing out, striking him in the face with her tail. He staggered
back, at least as surprised as hurt. Snake kept a close grip behind Mist’s
jaws, and struggled to catch the rest of her as well. Mist was no constrictor,
but she was smooth and strong and fast. Thrashing, she forced out her breath in
a long hiss. She would have bitten anything she could reach. As Snake fought
with her, she managed to squeeze the poison glands and force out the last drops
of venom. They hung from Mist’s fangs for a moment, catching light as jewels
would; the force of the serpent’s convulsions flung them away into the
darkness. Snake struggled with the cobra, aided for once by the sand, on which
Mist could get little purchase. Snake felt the young man behind her, grabbing
for Mist’s body and tail. The seizure stopped abruptly, and Mist lay limp in
their hands.