Dreamsnake

“Yes,” Snake said through clenched teeth. She drew her hands back as the crazy bent to kiss them. Now she had promised him, and though she knew it was the only way she could get his cooperation, she felt as if she had committed a terrible sin.

Chapter 11

Moonlight shone dimly on the excellent road to Mountainside. Arevin rode late into the night, so immersed in his thoughts that he did not notice when sunset burned daylight into dusk. Though the healers’ station lay days behind him to the north, he still had not encountered anyone with news of Snake. Mountainside was the last place she could be, for there was nothing south of Mountainside. Arevin’s maps of the central mountains showed a herders’ trail, an old unused pass that cut only through the eastern range, and ended. Travelers in the mountains, as well as in Arevin’s country, did not venture into the far southern regions of their world.

Arevin tried not to wonder what he would do if he did not find Snake here. He was not close enough to the crest of the mountains to catch glimpses of the eastern desert, and for that he was glad. If he did not see the storms begin, he could imagine the calm weather lasting longer than usual.

He rounded a wide curve, looked up, and shielded his lantern, blinking. Lights ahead: soft yellow gaslights. The town looked like a basket of sparks spilled out on the slope, all resting together but for a few scattered separately on the valley floor.

Though he had added several towns to his experience, Arevin still found astonishing how much work and business their people did after dark. He decided to continue on to Mountainside tonight: perhaps he could have news of Snake before morning. He wrapped his robe more tightly around himself against the coldness of the night.

Despite himself, Arevin dozed, and did not awaken until his horse’s hooves rang on cobblestones. There was no activity here, so he rode on until he reached the town’s center with its taverns and other places of entertainment. Here it was almost as bright as day, and the people acted as if night had never come. Through a tavern entrance he saw several workers with their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing, the contralto slightly flat. The tavern was attached to an inn, so he stopped his horse and dismounted. Thad’s advice about asking for information at inns seemed sound, though as yet none of the proprietors Arevin had talked to had possessed any information to give him.

He entered the tavern. The singers were still singing, drowning out their accompaniment, or whatever tune the flute player in the corner might have been trying to construct. She rested her instrument across her knee, picked up an earthernware mug, and sipped from it: beer, Arevin thought. The pleasant yeasty odor permeated the tavern.

The singers began another song, but the contralto closed her mouth quite suddenly and stared at Arevin. One of the men glanced at her. The song died raggedly as he and her other companions followed her gaze. The flute melody drifted hollowly up, down, and stopped. The attention of everyone in the room centered on Arevin.

“I greet you,” he said formally. “I would like to speak to the proprietor, if that is possible.”

No one moved. Then the contralto stumbled abruptly to her feet, knocking over her stool.

“I’ll—I’ll see if I can find her.” She disappeared through a curtained doorway.

No one spoke, not even the bartender. Arevin did not know what to say. He did not think he was so dusty and dirty as to stun anyone mute, and certainly in a trader’s town like this one people would be accustomed to his manner of dress. All he could think of to do was gaze back at them and wait. Perhaps they would return to their singing, or drink their beer, or ask him if he was thirsty.

They did nothing. Arevin waited.

He felt faintly ridiculous. He took a step forward, intending to break the tension by acting as if everything were normal. But as soon as he moved everyone in the tavern seemed to catch their breath and flinch away from him. The tension in the room was not that of people inspecting a stranger, but of antagonists awaiting an enemy. Someone whispered to another person; the words were inaudible but the tone sounded ominous.

The curtains across the doorway parted and a tall figure paused in the shadows. The proprietor stepped into the light and looked at Arevin steadily, without any fear.

“You wished to speak with me?”

She was as tall as Arevin, elegant and stern. She did not smile. These mountain people were quick to express their feelings, so Arevin wondered if he had perhaps blundered into a private house, or broken a custom he did not know.

“Yes,” he said. “I am looking for the healer Snake. I hoped I might find her in your town.”

“Why do you think you’d find her here?”

If all travelers were spoken to so rudely in Mountainside, Arevin wondered how it managed to be so prosperous.