Dreamsnake

Snake turned her back on him and slowly, carefully began lifting dreamsnakes from the basket. There were so many of them she could not see Melissa, even as a vague shape. She took dreamsnakes out of the basket by pairs, and, once they could no longer reach her daughter, dropped them on the ground. The first one slid over her foot and coiled itself around her ankle, but the second one glided rapidly away toward the trees.

North scrambled up. “What are you doing? You can’t—” He started after the freed serpents, but one of them raised itself to strike and North flinched back. Snake dropped two more serpents on the ground. North tried once again to capture a dreamsnake, but it struck at him and he nearly fell avoiding it. North abandoned the serpent and flung himself toward Snake, using his height to threaten her, but she held a dreamsnake out toward him and he stopped.

“You’re afraid of them, aren’t you, North?” She took one step toward him. He tried to stand firm but when Snake took a second step he backed abruptly away.

“Don’t you accept your own advice?” She was angrier than she had ever been before: the sane part of her mind, driven deep, watched with shock how glad she was to be able to frighten him.

“Stay away—”

As Snake approached him he fell backward. Scrabbling at the ground he pulled himself away, and stumbled again when he tried to rise. Snake was near enough to smell the odor of him, musty and dry, nothing like human scent. Panting, like an animal at bay, he stopped and faced her, his fists clenched to strike as she brought the dreamsnake closer.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do it—”

Thinking of Melissa, Snake did not reply.

North stared at the dreamsnake, mesmerized. “No—” His voice broke. “Please—”

“Is it pity you want from me?” Snake cried with joy, knowing she would give him no more mercy than he had offered her daughter.

Suddenly North’s fists unclenched and he leaned toward her, stretching out his hands to her, exposing the fine blue veins of his wrists.

“No,” he said. “I want peace.” He trembled visibly as he waited for the dreamsnake’s strike.

Astonished, Snake drew back her hands.

“Please!” North cried again. “Gods, don’t play with me!”

Snake looked at the serpent, then at North. Her pleasure in his capitulation turned to revulsion. Was she so much like him, that she needed power over other human beings? Perhaps his accusations had been true. Honor and deference pleased her as much as they pleased him. And she had certainly been guilty of arrogance, she had always been guilty of arrogance. Perhaps the difference between her and North was not of kind, but only of degree. Snake was not sure, but she knew that if she forced this serpent on him now, while he was helpless, whatever differences there might be would have even less meaning. She stepped back, dropping the dreamsnake on the ground.

“Stay away from me.” Her voice, too, trembled. “I’m going to take my daughter and go home.”

“Help me,” he whispered. “I discovered this place, I used its creatures to help others, don’t I deserve help now?” He looked pitiably at Snake but she did not move.

Suddenly he moaned and lunged for the dreamsnake, grasping it in one hand and forcing it to bite his other wrist. He whimpered as the fangs sank in, once, again.

Snake backed away from him, but he no longer paid any attention to her. She turned toward the huge wicker basket.

The dreamsnakes had begun to escape of their own accord now. One slithered over the basket’s side and fell to the earth with a soft thud. Several more peered over, and gradually the weight of the whole mass of them bulged out the wicker and tilted the basket. It tipped over, and the serpents squirmed out in a writhing pile.

But Melissa was not there.

North swept past Snake, oblivious to her, and plunged his pale blood-spotted hands into the mass of dreamsnakes.

Snake grabbed him and pulled him around. “Where is she?”

“What—?” He strained feebly toward the serpents, his translucent eyes glassy.

“Melissa—where is she?”

“She was dreaming…” He gazed at the dreamsnakes. “With them.”

Somehow, Melissa had got away. Somehow, her will had defeated North, the venom, the lure of forgetfulness. Snake looked around the camp, searching again, seeing everything but what she wished to see.

North moaned in frustration and Snake let him go. He grabbed at escaping serpents as they slid away into the forest. His arms were a mass of bloody pinpricks, and each time he recaptured another of his creatures he forced it to strike at him.

“Melissa!” Snake called, but there was no answer.

Suddenly North grunted; then, after a moment, he made a strange moaning sound. Snake looked over her shoulder. North rose slowly, a serpent in his bloody hands, thin trickles of blood flowing from a bite in his throat. He stiffened, and the dreamsnake writhed. North fell to his knees and balanced there. He toppled forward and lay still, and his power drained away from him as the alien dreamsnakes escaped back into their alien forest.