Light from the entrance struck them. “Let me pass.” The people in front of Snake moved aside for their leader. She stopped in front of Snake, ignoring the satchel her foot almost touched. “Will Stavin live?” Her voice was quiet, calm, gentle.

“I cannot be certain,” Snake said, “but I feel that he will.”

“Leave us.” The people understood Snake’s words before they did their leader’s; they looked around and lowered their weapons, and finally, one by one, they moved out of the tent. Arevin remained with Snake. The strength that came from danger seeped from her, and her knees collapsed. She bent over the satchel with her face in her hands. The older woman knelt in front of her, before Snake could notice or prevent her. “Thank you,” the leader said. “Thank you. I am so sorry… ” She put her arms around Snake, and drew her toward her, and Arevin knelt beside them, and he embraced Snake too. Snake began to tremble again, and they held her while she cried.

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.

Chapter 2

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.