Dreamsnake

The big man leaned back in his chair and glanced at his assistant. “Well, Brian, he certainly doesn’t talk like a crazy.”

“No, sir,” the older man said.

The big man stared at Arevin, but his eyes were really focused on the wall of the cell behind him. “I wonder what Gabriel—” He cut off his words, then glanced at his assistant. “He did sometimes have good ideas in situations like this.” He sounded slightly embarrassed.

“Yes, mayor, he did.”

There was a longer and more intense silence. Arevin knew that in a few moments the guards and the mayor and the old man Brian would get up and leave him alone in the tiny squeezing cell. Arevin felt a drop of sweat roll down his side.

“Well…” the mayor said.

“Sir—?” One of the guards spoke in a hesitant voice.

The mayor turned toward her. “Well, speak up. I’ve no stomach for imprisoning innocents, but we’ve had enough madmen loose recently.”

“He was surprised last night when we arrested him. Now I believe his surprise was genuine. Mistress Snake fought with the crazy, mayor. I saw her when she returned. She won the fight, and she had serious abrasions. Yet this man is not even bruised.”

Hearing that Snake was injured, Arevin had to restrain himself from asking again if she was all right. But he would not beg anything of these people.

“That seems true. You’re very observant,” the mayor said to the guard. “Are you bruised?” he asked Arevin.

“I am not.”

“You’ll forgive me if I insist you prove it.”

Arevin stood up, intensely disliking the idea of stripping himself before strangers. But he unfastened his pants and let them fall around his ankles. He let the mayor look him over, then slowly turned. At the last moment he remembered he had been in a fight the night before and could very well be visibly bruised somewhere. But no one said anything, so he turned around again and put his pants back on.

Then the old man came toward him. The guards stiffened. Arevin stood very still. These people might consider any move threatening.

“Be careful, Brian,” the mayor said.

Brian lifted Arevin’s hands, looked at the backs, turned them over, peered at the palms, let them drop. He returned to his place by the mayor’s side.

“He wears no rings. I doubt he’s ever worn any. His hands are tanned and there’s no mark. The healer said the cut on her forehead was made by a ring.”

The mayor snorted. “So what do you think?”

“As you said, sir, he doesn’t talk like a crazy. Also, a crazy would not necessarily be stupid, and it would be stupid to ask after the healer while wearing desert robes, unless one was in fact innocent—of both the crime and the knowledge of it. I am inclined to take this man at his word.“

The mayor glanced up at his assistant and over at the guard. “I hope,” he said, in a tone not altogether bantering, “that you’ll give me fair warning if either of you ever decides to run for my job.” He looked at Arevin again. “If we let you see the healer, will you wear chains until she identifies you?”

Arevin could still feel the iron from the night before, trapping him, enclosing him, cold on his skin all the way to his bones. But Snake would laugh at them when they suggested chains. This time Arevin did smile.

“Give the healer my message,” he said. “Then decide whether I need to be chained.”

Brian helped the mayor to his feet. The mayor glanced at the guard who believed in Arevin’s innocence. “Stay ready. I’ll send for him.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The guard returned, with her companions and with chains. Arevin stared horrified at the clanking iron. He had hoped Snake would be the next person through that door. He stood up blankly as the guard approached him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She fastened a cold metal band around his waist, shackled his left wrist and passed the chain through a ring on the waistband, then locked the cuff around his right wrist. They led him into the hall.

He knew Snake would not have done this. If she had, then the person who existed in his mind had never existed in reality at all. A real, physical death, hers or even his own, would have been easier for Arevin to accept.

Perhaps the guards had misunderstood. The message that came to them might have been garbled, or it was sent so quickly that no one remembered to tell them not to bother about the chains. Arevin resolved to bear this humiliating error with pride and good humor.

The guards led him into daylight that momentarily dazzled him. Then they were inside again, but his eyes were misadjusted to the dimness. He climbed stairs blindly, stumbling now and then.

The room they took him to was also nearly dark. He paused in the doorway, barely able to make out the blanket-wrapped figure sitting in a chair with her back to him.

“Healer,” one of the guards said, “here is the one who says he’s your friend.”

She did not speak or move.