Arevin looked at his friend, for he had told no one about the sand viper before, thinking they would not be able to believe him. The leader was startled, but she did not dispute his word.
“How can she explain how we feared what she offered? She will tell her teachers she made a mistake and because of it the little serpent was killed. She blames herself. They will too, and they’ll punish her.”
The leader of the clan gazed across the desert. She reached up and pushed a lock of her graying hair back behind her ear.
“She is a proud woman,” she said. “You’re right. She wouldn’t make excuses for herself.”
“She won’t come back if they exile her,” Arevin said. “I don’t know where she will go, but we would never see her again.”
“The storms are coming,” the leader said abruptly.
Arevin nodded.
“If you went after her—”
“I can’t! Not now!”
“My dear,” the leader said, “we do things the way we do them so we can all be as free as possible most of the time, instead of only some of us being free all of the time. You’re enslaving yourself to responsibility when extraordinary circumstances demand freedom. If you were a partner in the group and it was your job to hold this child, the problem would be more difficult, but it would not necessarily be impossible to solve. As it is, my partner has had much more freedom since the child’s birth than he expected to have when we decided to conceive it. That is because of your willingness to do more than your share.”
“It isn’t like that,” Arevin said quickly. “I wanted to help with the child. I needed to. I needed—” He stopped, not knowing what he had started to say. “I was grateful to him for allowing me to help.”
“I know. And I had no objection. But he was not doing you a favor. You were doing one for him. Perhaps now it’s time to return his responsibilities.” She smiled fondly. “He is inclined to get too engrossed in his work.” Her partner was a weaver, the best in the clan, but she was right: he did often seem to drift through life in dreams.
“I should never have let her go,” Arevin said abruptly. “Why didn’t I see that before? I should have protected my sister, and I failed, and now I’ve failed the healer as well. She should have stayed with us. We would have kept her safe.”
“We would have kept her crippled.”
“She could still heal — !”
“My dear friend,” Arevin’s cousin said, “it’s impossible to protect anyone completely without enslaving them. I think that’s something you’ve never understood because you’ve always demanded too much of yourself. You blame yourself for your sister’s death—”
“I didn’t watch her carefully enough.”
“What could you have done? Remember her life, not her death. She was brave and happy and arrogant, the way a child should be. You could only protect her more by chaining her to you with fear. She couldn’t live that way, not and remain the person you loved. Nor, I think, could the healer.”
Arevin stared down at the infant in his arms, knowing his cousin was right, yet still unable to throw off his feelings of confusion and guilt.
She patted his shoulder gently. “You know the healer best and you say she cannot explain our fear. I think you’re right. I should have realized it myself. I do not want her to be punished for what we did, nor do I wish our people to be misunderstood.” The handsome woman fingered the metal circle on the narrow leather thong around her neck. “You are right. Someone must go to the healers’ station. I could go, because the clan’s honor is my responsibility. My brother’s partner could go, because he killed the little serpent. Or you could go, because you call the healer friend. The clan will have to meet to decide which. But any of us might be leader, and any of us might have feared her little serpent enough to kill it. Only you became her friend.“
She looked from the horizon to Arevin, and he knew she had been leader long enough to reason as the clan would reason.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’ve lost so many people you’ve loved. There was nothing I could do when we lost your parents, or when your sister died. But this time I can help you, even if that might take you from us.” She brushed her hand across his hair, which was graying like her own. “Please remember, my dear, that I would not like to lose you permanently.”
She climbed quickly down to the desert floor, leaving him alone with her family group’s new child. Her trust reassured him; he no longer needed to question if following the healer, if following Snake, was the right thing to do. It was, because it had to be done. At the very least the clan owed her that. Arevin eased his hand from the baby’s damp grasp, moved the sling to his back, and climbed from the boulder to the desert floor.
On the horizon, the oasis hovered so green and soft in the dull dawn light that at first Snake thought it was a mirage. She did not feel quite capable of distinguishing illusion from reality. She had ridden all night to cross the lava flow before the sun rose and the heat grew intolerable. Her eyes burned and her lips were dry and cracked.
The gray mare, Swift, raised her head and pricked her ears, nostrils flaring at the scent of water, eager to reach it after so long on short rations. When the horse broke into a trot Snake did not rein her in.
The delicate summertrees rose around them, brushing Snake’s shoulders with feathery leaves. The air beneath them was almost cool, and thick with the odor of ripening fruit. Snake pulled the end of her headcloth away from her face and breathed deeply.
She dismounted and led Swift to the dark clear pool. The mare plunged her muzzle into the water and drank. Even her nostrils were beneath the surface. Snake knelt nearby and cupped water in her hands. It splashed and ran between her fingers, brushing ripples across the pool’s surface. The ripples widened and cleared, and Snake could see herself reflected above the black sand. Her face was masked with dust.
I look like a bandit, she thought. Or a clown.
But the laughter she deserved was of contempt, not joy. Tear tracks streaked the dirt on her face. She touched them, still staring down at her reflection.
Snake wished she could forget the past few days, but they would never leave her. She could still feel the dry fragility of Jesse’s skin, and her light, questioning touch; she could still hear her voice. And she could feel the pain of Jesse’s death, which she could do nothing to prevent, and nothing to ease. She did not want to see that pain or feel it again.
Plunging her hands into the cold water, Snake splashed it across her face, washing away the black dust, the sweat, and even the tracks of her tears.
She led Swift quietly along the shore, passing tents and silent campsites where the caravannaires still slept. When she reached Grum’s camp she stopped, but the tent flaps were closed. Snake did not want to awaken the old woman or her grandchildren. Farther back from the shore Snake could see the horse corral. Squirrel, her tiger-pony, stood dozing with Grum’s horses. His black and gold coat showed the effects of a week of energetic brushing, he was fat and content, and he no longer favored his shoeless foot. Snake decided to leave him with Grum another day, and disturb neither the tiger-pony nor the old caravannaire this morning.
Swift followed Snake along the shore, nibbling occasionally at her hip. Snake scratched the mare behind the ears, where sweat had dried underneath the bridle. Arevin’s people had given her a sack of hay-cubes for Squirrel, but Grum had been feeding the pony, so the fodder should still be in camp.
“Food and a good brushing and sleep, that’s what we both need,” she said to the horse.
She had made her camp away from the others, beyond an outcropping of rock, in an area not much favored by the traders. It was safer for people and for her serpents if they were kept apart. Snake rounded the sloping stone ridge.