Dreamsnake

He led her along the width of the top floor until they reached the south tower. Rather than containing a single imposing room, it was divided into several smaller chambers, less overwhelming and more comfortable than the mayor’s quarters. Snake’s room was a segment of the circumference of the tower. The curved hall behind the guest rooms surrounded a central common bath.

“It’s nearly suppertime,” Gabriel said as he showed her her room. “Would you join me?”

“No thank you. Not this time.”

“Shall I bring something up?”

“No. Just come back in three hours.” She paid him little attention, for she could not wonder about his problems while she was planning the operation on his father. Absently she gave him a few instructions on what to have ready in the mayor’s room. Because the infection was so bad it would be a dirty, smelly job.

After she had finished he still did not leave.

“He’s in a great deal of pain,” Gabriel said. “Don’t you have anything that would soothe it?”

“No,” Snake said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to get him drank.”

“Drunk? All right, I’ll try. But I don’t think it will help. I’ve never seen him unconscious from drink.”

“The anesthetic value is secondary. Alcohol helps the circulation.”

“Oh.”

After Gabriel had left, Snake drugged Sand to make an antitoxin for gangrene. The new venom would have its own mild local anesthetic, but that would not be much help until after Snake had drained the mayor’s wound and his circulation was not so seriously impeded. She was not glad she would have to hurt him, but she did not regret it as much as with other patients she had been forced to hurt in the course of a cure.

She took off the dusty desert clothes and her boots, which badly needed an airing. She had strapped her new pants and shirt to the bedroll. Whoever had brought it upstairs had laid them out. Getting back into the kind of clothes she was used to would be pleasant, but it would be a long time before they were worn as comfortable as what the crazy had destroyed.

The bathroom was softly lit with gas lamps. Most buildings as large as this one had their own methane generators. Whether private or communal, the generators used trash and garbage and human waste as a substrate for bacterial production of fuel. With a generator and the solar panels on the roof, the castle was probably at the very least self-sufficient in power. It might even have enough of a surplus to run a heat pump. If a summer came along that was hot enough to overwhelm the natural insulation of stone, the building could be cooled. The healers’ station had similar amenities, and Snake was not sorry to come upon them again. She ran the deep tub full of hot water and bathed luxuriously. Even perfumed soap was an improvement over black sand, but when she reached for a towel and discovered it smelled of peppermint, she simply laughed.

Three hours passed slowly while the drug worked on Sand. Snake was lying fully clothed but barefoot, wide-awake, on the bed when Gabriel tapped on the door. Snake sat up, held Sand gently behind the head and let him wrap himself around her wrist and arm. and let Gabriel in.

The young man looked at Sand warily, fascinated enough to overcome an obvious trepidation.

“I won’t let him strike,” Snake said.

“I just wondered what they feel like.”

Snake extended her arm toward him, and he reached out to stroke Sand’s smooth patterned scales. He drew back his hand without comment.

Back in the mayor’s bedchamber, Brian, looking not so downcast, was content to have his master under his care once more. The mayor was a lachrymose drunk. Moaning almost tunefully, he wept as Snake approached him, fat tears sliding down his cheeks. The moans ceased when the mayor saw Snake. She stopped at the foot of his bed. He watched her fearfully.

“How much has he drunk?”

“As much as he will,” Gabriel said.

“It would be better if he were unconscious,” Snake said, taking pity on him.

“I’ve seen him drink till dawn with the council members but I’ve never seen him unconscious.”

The mayor squinted at them blearily. “No more brandy,” he said. “No more.” The words were forceful despite a slight slurring. “If I’m awake you can’t cut off my leg.”

“That’s quite true,” Snake said. “Stay awake, then.”

His gaze fastened on Sand, the rattler’s unblinking stare and flicking tongue, and he began to tremble. “Some other way,” he said. “There must be another way—”

“You are trying my patience,” Snake said. She knew she would lose her temper in another moment, or, worse, she would begin to cry for Jesse again. She could only remember how much she had wished to help her, while she could heal this man so easily.

The mayor lay back in his bed. Snake could feel him still trembling, but at least he was silent. Gabriel and Brian stood one on either side of him. Snake pulled the blankets loose from the foot of the bed and let them lie in a visual barricade across the mayor’s knees.

“I want to see,” he whispered.