"I won't--'
“I'm sorry. You must wait outside.”
Perhaps the younger husband, perhaps even the wife, would have made the indefensible objections and asked the answerable questions, but the older man turned them and took their hands and led them away.
“I need a small animal,” Snake said as the man 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 narrow waist, taking in her warmth. Hunger made her 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 were unsuccessful. The season was summer, the weather was hot, and many of the furry tidbits Sand and Mist preferred were estivating. When the serpents missed their regular meal, Snake began a fast as well.
She saw with regret that Stavin was more frightened now. “I am 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 knew that his people taught 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 her 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 e truth in Snake's pale eyes: “Will Grass watch?”
The question startled her, or, rather, 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. “Thou wilt watch this child, and guard him.” The snake 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 shoulders, Mist tensed.
Snake's eyes stung and her vision was over sharp, 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 heat, but the brighten ness 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 a long loose robe, 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 the older husband 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.”
The wife and young husband rose and went inside, but the older man stopped before her. “Can you help him?”
“I hope we may. The tumor is advanced, but it seems solid.” Her own voice sounded removed, slightly hollow, 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, 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 me with Mist. Someone strong. But it's more important that they are not ` 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.
Sand began to unwrap himself from her wrist. Feeling the anticipatory slide of scales on her skin, 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, feeling its body heat, smelling its fear. “I know thou art hungry,” Snake said, “but that creature is not for thee.” She put Sand in the case, lifted Mist from her shoulder, and let her coil herself in her dark compartment.