Dreamsnake

Larril shook her head, once, quickly, a gesture of denial that said no to her more than to Snake. “No one can help me, I think.”

“Tell me.”

Larril hesitated, then sat on the floor and angrily jerked up the cuff of her pants.

Snake sat on her heels beside her.

“Oh, my gods,” Snake said.

Larril’s heel had been pierced, between the bone and the Achilles tendon. It looked to Snake as if someone had used a hot iron on her. The scar accommodated a small ring of a gray, crystalline material. Snake took Larril’s foot in one hand and touched the ring. It showed no visible joining.

Snake frowned. “This was nothing but cruelty.”

“If you disobey them they have the right to mark you,” Larril said. “I’d tried to escape before and they said they had to make me remember my place.” Anger overcame the quietness of her voice. Snake shivered.

“Those will always bind me,” Larril said. “If it was just the scars I wouldn’t mind so much.” She withdrew her foot from Snake’s hands. “You’ve seen the domes in the mountains? That’s what the rings are made of.”

Snake glanced at her other heel, also scarred, also ringed. Now she recognized the gray, translucent substance. But she had never before seen it made into anything except the domes, which lay mysterious and inviolable in unexpected places.

“The smith tried to cut that one,” Larril said. “When he didn’t even mark it he was so embarrassed he broke an iron rod with one blow, just to prove he could.” She touched the fine tough strand of her tendon, trapped within the delicate ring. “Once the crystal hardens it’s there forever. Like the domes. Unless you cut the tendon, and then you’re lame. Sometimes I think I could almost stand that.” She jerked the cuff of her pants down to cover the ring. “As you see, no one can help. It’s vanity, I know it. Soon I will be free no matter what those things say.”

“I can’t help you here,” Snake said. “And it would be dangerous.”

“You mean you could do it?”

“It could be done, it could be tried, at the healers’ station.”

“Oh, healer—”

“Larril, there would be a risk.” On her own ankle she showed what would have to be done. “We wouldn’t cut the tendon, we’d detach it. Then the ring could come off. But you’d be in a cast for quite a while. And there’s no certainty that the tendons would heal properly, your legs might never be as strong as they are now. The tendons might not even re-attach at all.”

“I see…” Larril said, with hope and joy in her voice, perhaps not really hearing Snake at all.

“Will you promise me one thing?”

“Yes, healer, of course.”

“Don’t decide what to do yet. Don’t decide right after your service to Mountainside is over. Wait a few months. Be certain. Once you’re free you might decide it doesn’t matter to you any more.”

Larril glanced up quizzically and Snake knew she would have asked how the healer would feel in her position, but thought the question insolent.

“Will you promise?”

“Yes, healer., I promise.”

They stood up.

“Well, good night,” Snake said.

“Good night, healer.”

Snake started down the corridor.

“Healer?”

“Yes?”

Larril flung her arms around Snake and hugged her. “Thank you!” Embarrassed, she withdrew. They both turned to go their ways, but Snake glanced back.

“Larril, where do the drivers get the rings? I never heard of anyone who could work the dome material.”

“The city people give it to them,” Larril said. “Not enough to make anything useful. Just the rings.”

“Thank you.”

Snake went back to bed, musing about Center, which gave chains to slavers but refused to talk to healers.

Chapter 7

Snake awoke before Gabriel, at the very end of night. As dawn broke, the faint gray light illuminated the bedroom. Snake lay on her side, propped on her elbow, and watched Gabriel sleep. He was, if that were possible, even more beautiful asleep than awake.

Snake reached out, but stopped before she touched him. Usually she liked to make love in the morning. But she did not want Gabriel to wake up.

Frowning, she lay back and tried to trace her reaction. Last night had not been the most memorable sexual encounter of her life, for Gabriel was, though not exactly clumsy, still awkward with inexperience. Yet, though she had not completely been satisfied, neither had she found sleeping with Gabriel at all unpleasant.