Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “I am sorry-”

  “Hold her,” Snake said. “We have the night to go”

  During Mist's second convulsion, the young man held her firmly and was of some real help. Afterward, Snake answered his interrupted question. “If she were making poison and she bit you, you would probably die. Even now her bite would make you ill. But unless you do something foolish, if she manages to bite, she will bite me.”

  “You would benefit my cousin little, if you were dead or dying.”

  “You misunderstand. Mist cannot kill me.” She held out her hand, so he could see the white scars of slashes and punctures. He stared at them, and looked into her eyes for a long moment, then looked away.

  The bright spot in the clouds from which the light radiated moved westward in the sky; they held the cobra like a child. Snake found herself half-dozing, but Mist moved her head, dully attempting to evade restraint, and Snake woke herself abruptly. “I must not sleep,” she said to the young man. “Talk to me. What are you called?”

  As Stavin had, the young man hesitated. He seemed afraid of her, or of something. “My people,” he said, “think it unwise to speak our names to strangers.”

  “If you consider me a witch you should not have asked my aid. I know no magic, and I claim none. I can't learn all the customs of all the people on this earth, so I keep my own. My custom is to address those I work with by name.”

  “It's not a superstition,” he said. “Not as you might think. We're not afraid of being bewitched.”

  Snake waited, watching him, trying to decipher his expression in the dim light.

  “Our families know our names, and we exchange names with those we would marry.”

  Snake considered that custom, and thought it would fit badly on her. “No one else? Ever?”

  “Well . . . a friend might know one's name.”

  “Ah,” Snake said. “I see. I am still a stranger, and perhaps an enemy.”

  “A friend would know my name,” the young man said again. “I would not offend you, but now you misunderstand. An acquaintance is not a friend. We value friendship highly.”

  "In this land one should be able to tell quickly if a person is worth calling `friend.' "

  “We make friends seldom. Friendship is a commitment.”

  “It sounds like something to be feared.”

  He considered that possibility. “Perhaps it's the betrayal of friendship we fear. That is a very painful thing.”

  “Has anyone ever betrayed you?”

  He glanced at her sharply, as if she had exceeded the limits of propriety. “No,” he said, and his voice was as hard as his face. “No friend. I have no one I call friend.”

  His reaction startled Snake. “That's very sad,” she said, and grew silent, trying to comprehend the deep stresses that could close people off so far, comparing her loneliness of necessity and theirs of choice. “Call me Snake,” she said finally, “if you can bring yourself to pronounce it. Speaking my name binds you to nothing.”

  The young man seemed about to speak; perhaps he thought again that he had offended her, perhaps he felt he should further defend his customs. But Mist began to twist in their hands, and they had to hold her to keep her from injuring herself. The cobra was slender for her length, but powerful, and the convulsions she went through were more severe than any she had ever had before. She thrashed in Snake's grasp, and almost pulled away. She tried to spread her hood, but Snake held her too tightly. She opened her mouth and hissed, but no poison dripped from her fangs.

  She wrapped her tail around the young man's waist. He began to pull her and turn, to extricate himself from her coils.

  “She's not a constrictor,” Snake said. “She won't hurt you. Leave her-”

  But it was too late; Mist relaxed suddenly and the young man lost his balance. Mist whipped herself away and lashed figures in the sand. Snake wrestled with her alone while the young man tried to hold her, but she curled herself around Snake and used the grip for leverage. She started to pull herself from Snake's hands. Snake threw them both backward into the sand; Mist rose above her, openmouthed, furious, hissing. The young man lunged and grabbed her just beneath her hood. Mist struck at him, but Snake, somehow, held her back. Together they deprived Mist of her hold, and regained control of her. Snake struggled up, but Mist suddenly went quite still and lay almost rigid between them. They were both sweating; the young man was. pale under his tan, and even Snake was trembling.

  “We have a little while to rest,” Snake said. She glanced at him and noticed the dark line on his cheek where, earlier, Mist's tail had slashed him. She reached up and touched it. “You'll have a bruise, no more,” she said. “It will not scar.”

  “If it were true that serpents sting with their tails, you would be restraining both the fangs and the stinger, and I'd be of little use.”

  “Tonight I'd need someone to keep me awake, whether or not he helped me with Mist.” Fighting the cobra had produced adrenaline, but now it ebbed, and her exhaustion and hunger were returning, stronger.

  “Snake. . .”

  “Yes?”

  He smiled, quickly, half-embarrassed. “I was trying the pronunciation.”

  “Good enough.”

  “How long did it take you to cross the desert?”

  “Not very long. Too long. Six days.”

  “How did you live?”

  “There is water. We traveled at night, except yesterday, when I could find no shade.”

  “You carried all your food?”

  She shrugged. “A little.” And wished he would not speak of food:

  “What's on the other side?”

  “More sand, more bush, a little more water. A few groups of people, traders, the station Y grew up and took my training in. And farther on, a mountain with a city inside.”

  “I would like to see a city. Someday.”

  “The desert can be crossed.”

  He said nothing, but Snake's memories of leaving home were recent enough that she could imagine his thoughts.

  The next set of convulsions came, much sooner than Snake had expected. By their severity, she gauged something of the stage of Stavin's illness, and wished it were morning. If she were to lose him, she would have it done, and grieve, and try to forget. The cobra would have battered herself to death against the sand if Snake and the young man had not been holding her She suddenly went completely rigid, with her mouth clamped shut and her forked tongue dangling.

  She stopped breathing.

  “Hold her,” Snake said. “Hold her head. Quickly, take her, and if she gets away, run. Take her! She won't strike at you now, she could only slash you by accident.”

  He hesitated only a moment, then grasped Mist behind the head. Snake ran, slipping in the deep sand, from the edge of the circle of tents to a place where bushes still grew. She broke off dry thorny branches that tore her scarred hands. Peripherally she noticed a mass of horned vipers, so ugly they seemed deformed, nesting beneath the clump of dessicated vegetation; they hissed at her: she ignored them. She found a narrow hollow stem and carried it back. Her hands bled from deep scratches.

  Kneeling by Mist's head, she forced open the cobra's mouth and pushed the tube deep into her throat, through the air passage at the base of Mist's tongue. She bent close, took the tube in her mouth, and breathed gently into Mist's lungs.

  She noticed: the young man's hands, holding the cobra as she had asked; his breathing, first a sharp gasp of surprise, then ragged; the sand scraping her elbows where she leaned; the cloying smell of the fluid seeping from Mist's fangs; her own dizziness, she thought from exhaustion, which she forced away by necessity and will.

  Snake breathed, and breathed again, paused, and repeated, until Mist caught the rhythm and continued it unaided.

  Snake sat back on her heels. “I think she'll be all right,” she said. “I hope she will.” She brushed the back of her hand across her forehead. The touch sparked pain: she jerked her hand down and agony slid along her bo
nes, up her arm, across her shoulder, through her chest, enveloping her heart. Her balance turned on its edge. She fell, tried to catch herself but moved too slowly, fought nausea and vertigo and almost succeeded, until the pull of the earth seemed to slip away in pain and she was lost in darkness with nothing to take a bearing by.

  She felt sand where it had scraped her cheek and her palms, but it was soft. “Snake, can I let go?” She thought the question must be for someone else, while at the same time she knew there was no one else to answer it, no one else to reply to her name. She felt hands on her, and they were gentle; she wanted to respond to them, but she was too tired. She needed sleep more, so she pushed them away. But they held her head and put dry leather to her lips and poured water into her throat. She coughed and choked and spat it out.

  She pushed herself up on one elbow. As her sight cleared, she realized she was shaking. She felt as she had the first time she was snake-bit, before her immunities had completely developed. The young man knelt over her, his water flask in his hand. Mist, beyond him, crawled toward the darkness. Snake forgot the throbbing pain. “Mist!”

  The young man flinched and turned, frightened; the serpent reared up, her head nearly at Snake's standing eye level, her hood spread, swaying, watching, angry, ready to strike. She formed a wavering white line against black. Snake forced herself to rise, feeling as though she were fumbling with the control of some unfamiliar body. She almost fell again, but held herself steady. “Thou must not go to hunt now,” she said “There is work for thee to do.” She held out her right hand, to the side, a decoy, to draw Mist if she .struck. Her hand was heavy with pain. Snake feared, not being bitten, but the loss of the contents of Mist's poison sacs. “Come here,” she said. “Come here, and stay thy anger.” She noticed blood flowing down between her fingers, and the fear she felt for Stavin was intensified “Didst thou bite me, creature?” But the pain was wrong: poison would numb her, and the new serum only sting . . .

  “No,” the young man whispered, from behind her.

  Mist struck. The reflexes of long training took over. Snakes right hand jerked away, her left grabbed Mist as she brought her head back. The cobra writhed a moment, and relaxed. “Devious beast,” Snake said. “For shame.” She turned, and let Mist crawl up her arm and over her shoulder, where she lay like the outline of an invisible cape and dragged her tail like the edge of a train.

  “She did not bite me?”

  “No,” the young man said. His contained voice was touched with awe. “You should be dying. You should be curled around the agony, and your arm swollen purple. When you came back-” He gestured toward her hand. “It must have been a bush viper.”

  Snake remembered the coil of reptiles beneath the branches, and touched the blood on her hand. She wiped it away, revealing the double puncture of a snakebite among the scratches of the thorns. The wound was slightly swollen. “It needs cleaning,” she said. “I shame myself by falling to it.” The pain of it washed in gentle waves up her arm, burning no longer. She stood looking at the young man, looking around her, watching the landscape shift and change as her tired eyes tried to cope with the low light of setting moon and false dawn. “You held Mist well, and bravely,” she said to the young man. “Thank you.”

  He lowered his gaze, almost bowing to her. He rose, and approached her. Snake put her hand gently on Mist's neck so she would not be alarmed.

  “I would be honored,” the young man said, “if you would call me Arevin.”

  “I would be pleased to.”

  Snake knelt down and held the winding white loops as Mist crawled slowly into her compartment. In a little while, when Mist had stabilized, by dawn, they could go to Stavin.

  The tip of Mist's white tail slid out of sight. Snake closed the case and would have risen, but she could not stand. She had not yet quite shaken off the effects of the new venom. The flesh around the wound was red and tender, but the hemorrhaging would not spread. She stayed where she was, slumped, staring at her hand, creeping slowly in her mind toward what she needed to do, this time for herself.

  “Let me help you. Please.”

  He touched her shoulder and helped her stand. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm so in need of rest . . .”

  “Let me wash your hand,” Arevin said. “And then you can sleep. Tell me when to waken you-”

  “No. I can't sleep yet.” She pulled together the skeins of her nerves, collected herself, straightened, tossed the damp curls of her short hair off her forehead. “I'm all right now. Have you any water?”

  Arevin loosened his outer robe. Beneath it he wore a loincloth and a leather belt that carried several leather flasks and pouches. The color of his skin was slightly lighter than the sun-darkened brown of his face. He brought out his water flask, closed his robe around his lean body, and reached for Snake's hand.

  “No, Arevin. If the poison gets in any small scratch you might have, it could infect.”

  She sat down and sluiced lukewarm water over her hand. The water dripped pink to the ground and disappeared, leaving not even a damp spot visible. The wound bled a little more, but now it only ached. The poison was almost inactivated.

  “I don't understand,” Arevin said, “how it is that you're unhurt. My younger sister was bitten by a bush viper.” He could not speak as uncaringly as he might have wished. “We could do nothing to save hernothing we had would even lessen her pain”

  Snake gave him his flask and rubbed salve from a vial in her belt pouch across the closing punctures. “It's a part of our preparation,” she said. “We work with many kinds of serpents, so we must be immune to as many as possible.” She shrugged. “The process is tedious and somewhat painful.” She clenched her fist; the film held, and she was steady. She leaned toward Arevin and touched his abraded cheek again. “Yes . . .” She spread a thin layer of the salve across it. “That will help it heal.”

  “If you cannot sleep,” Arevin said, “can you at least rest?”

  “Yes,” she said. “For a little while.”

  Snake sat next to Arevin, leaning against him, and they watched the sun turn the clouds to gold and flame and amber. The simple physical contact with another human being gave Snake pleasure, though she found it unsatisfying. Another time, another place, she might do something more, but not here, not now.

  When the lower edge of the sun's bright smear rose above the horizon, Snake rose and teased Mist out of the case. She came slowly, weakly, and crawled across Snake's shoulders. Snake picked up the satchel, and she and Arevin walked together back to the small group of tents.

  Stavin's parents waited, watching for her, just outside the entrance of their tent. They stood in a tight, defensive, silent group. For a moment Snake thought they had decided to send her away. Then, with regret and fear like hot iron in her mouth, she asked if Stavin had died. They shook their heads, and allowed her to enter.

  Stavin lay as she had left him, still asleep. The adults followed her with their stares, and she could smell fear. Mist flicked out her tongue, growing nervous from the implied danger.

  “I know you would stay,” Snake said. “I know you would help, if you could, but there is nothing to be done by any person but me. Please go back outside.”

  They glanced at each other, and at Arevin, and she thought for a moment that they would refuse. Snake wanted to fall into the silence and sleep. “Come, cousins,” Arevin said. “We are in her hands.” He opened the tent flap and motioned them out. Snake thanked him with nothing more than a glance, and he might almost have smiled. She turned toward Stavin, and knelt beside him. “Stavin-” She touched his forehead; it was very hot. S_ he noticed that her hand was less steady than before. The slight touch awakened the child. “It's time,” Snake said.

  He blinked, coming out of some child's dream, seeing her, slowly recognizing her. He did not look frightened. For that Snake was glad; for some other reason she could not identify she was uneasy.

  “Will it hurt?”

  “Does it hurt now?�
�

  He hesitated, looked away, looked back. “Yes.”

  “It might hurt a little more. I hope not. Are you ready?”

  “Can Grass stay?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  And realized what was wrong.

  “I'll comeback in a moment.” Her voice changed so much, she had pulled it so tight, that she could not help but frighten him. She left the tent, walking slowly, calmly, restraining herself. Outside, the parents told her by their faces what they feared.

  “Where is Grass?” Arevin, his back to her, started at her tone. The younger husband made a small grieving sound, and could look at her no longer.

  “We were afraid,” the older husband said. “We thought it would bite the child.”

  “I thought it would. It was I. It crawled over his face, I could see its fangs-” The wife put her hands on the younger husband's shoulders, and he said no more.

  “Where is he?” She wanted to scream; she did not.

  They brought her a small open box. Snake took it, and looked inside.

  Grass lay cut almost in two, his entrails oozing from his body, half turned over, and as she watched, shaking, he writhed once, and flicked his tongue out once, and in. Snake made some sound, too low in her throat to be a cry. She hoped his motions were only reflex; but she picked him up as gently as she could. She leaned down and touched her lips to the smooth green scales behind his head. She bit him quickly, sharply, at the base of the skull. His blood flowed cool and salty in her mouth. If he were not dead, she had killed him instantly.