Dreamsnake

North’s follower pulled back with a yelp, tearing his hand away, and Snake spat out his blood. There was a flurry of motion as North and the others grabbed her by the hair and by her arm and by her clothes and held her while they took Melissa away from her. North twined his long fingers in her hair, holding her head back against the wall so she could not bite again. They forced her out of the narrow end of the crevasse. Fighting them, she staggered to her feet as one of the followers turned toward the platform with Melissa. North jerked her hair again and pulled her backward. Her knees collapsed. She tried to get up but she had nothing left to fight with, no more strength to overcome exhaustion and injury. Her left hand around her right shoulder, blood trickling between her fingers, she sagged to the ground.

North let go of Snake’s hair and went to Melissa, looking at her eyes and feeling her pulse. He glanced back at Snake.

“I told you not to keep her from my creatures.”

Snake raised her head. “Why are you trying to kill her?”

“Kill her! I? You don’t know a tenth what you think you know. You’re the one who’s endangered her.” He left Melissa and came back to Snake, bending down to capture several serpents. He put them in a basket, holding them carefully so they could not bite.

“I’ll have to take her out of here to save her life. She’ll hate you for ruining her first experience. You healers flaunt your arrogance.”

Snake wondered if he was right about arrogance; if he was, then perhaps he was right, too, about Melissa, about everything. She could not think properly to argue with him. “Be kind to her,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry,” North said. “She’ll be happy with me.” He nodded to his two followers. As they came toward Snake she tried to rise and prepare herself for one last defense. She was on one knee when the man she had bitten grabbed her by the right arm and pulled her to her feet, wrenching her shoulder again. The second follower held her up from the other side.

North leaned over her, holding a dreamsnake. “How certain are you of your immunities, healer? Are you arrogant about them, too?”

One of his people forced Snake’s head back, exposing her throat. North was so tall that Snake could still watch him lower the dreamsnake.

The fangs sank into her carotid artery. Nothing happened. She knew nothing would happen. She wished North would realize it and let her go, let her lie down on the cold sharp rocks to sleep, even if she never woke up. She was too tired to fight any more, too tired to react even when North’s follower relaxed his hold. Blood trickled down her neck to her collarbone. North picked up another dreamsnake and held it at her throat.

When the second dreamsnake bit her, she felt a sudden flash of pain, radiating from her throat all through her body. She gasped as it receded, leaving her trembling.

“Ah,” North said. “The healer is beginning to understand us.” He hesitated a moment, watching her. “One more, perhaps,” he said. “Yes.”

When he bent over her again, his face was in shadow and the light formed a halo of his pale, fine hair. In his hands, the third dreamsnake was a silent shadow. Snake drew back, and the grip of North’s followers on her arms did not change. The people who held her acted as if hypnotized by the black gaze of the serpent. Snake lunged forward, and for a moment she was free, but fingers like claws dug into her flesh and the man she had bitten snarled in fury. He dragged her back, twisting her right arm with one hand and digging the nails of his other into her wounded shoulder.

North, who had stepped away from the scuffle, came forward again. “Why fight, healer? Allow yourself to share the pleasure my creatures give.” He brought the third dreamsnake to her throat.

It struck.

This time the pain radiated through her as before, but when it faded it was followed with her pulsebeat by another wave of agony. Snake cried out.

“Ah,” she heard North say. “Now she does understand.”

“No…” she whispered.

She silenced herself. She would not give North the satisfaction of her pain.

The followers released her and she fell forward, trying to support herself with her left hand. This time the intensity of the sensation did not fade. It built, echoing and re-echoing through the canyon of her body, reinforcing itself, resonating. Snake shuddered with every beat of her heart. Trying to breathe between the agonizing spasms, she collapsed onto the cold hard rock.

Daylight filtered into the crevasse. Snake lay as she had fallen, one hand flung out before her. Frost silvered the ragged edges of her sleeve. A thick white coat, of ice crystals covered the tumbled rock fragments of the floor and crept up the side of the crevasse. Fascinated by the lacy pattern, Snake let her mind drift among the delicate fronds. As she gazed at them they became three-dimensional. She was in a prehistoric forest of moss and ferns, all black and white.