Vonda McIntyre - Dreamsnake

“Hi,” the young man said. He picked another piece of fruit and held it out toward Arevin. “Have a pear? The peaches and the cherries are all gone and the oranges aren’t quite ripe yet.”

Arevin saw that, in fact, each tree bore fruit of several different shapes, but leaves of only a single shape. He reached uncertainly for the pear, wondering if the ground the trees grew on was poisoned.

“Don’t worry,” the young man said. “It isn’t radioactive. There aren’t any craters around here.”

At this Arevin drew back his hand. He had not said a word, yet the youth seemed to know what he was thinking.

“I made the tree myself, and I never work with hot mutagens.”

Arevin had no idea what the boy was talking about except that he seemed to be assuring him that the fruit was safe. He wished he understood the boy as well as the boy understood him. Not wishing to be impolite, he took the pear.

“Thank you.” Since the youth was watching him both hopefully and expectantly, Arevin bit into the fruit. It was sweet and tart at the same time, and very juicy. He took another bite. “It’s very good,” he said. “I’ve never seen a plant that would produce four different things.”

“First project,” the boy said. He gestured back toward the older trees. “We all do one. It’s pretty simple-minded but it’s traditional.”

“I see,” Arevin said.

“My name’s Thad.”

“I am honored to meet you,” Arevin said. “I am looking for Snake.”

“Snake!” Thad frowned. “I’m afraid you’ve had a long ride for nothing. She isn’t here. She isn’t even due back for months.”

“But I could not have passed her.”

Thad’s pleasant and helpful expression changed to one of worry. “You mean she’s coming home already? What happened? Is she all right?”

“She was well when I saw her last,” Arevin said. Surely she should have reached her home well ahead of him, if nothing had happened. Thoughts of accidents, unlike viper bites, to which she would be vulnerable, assailed him.

“Hey, are you all right?”

Thad was beside him, holding his elbow to steady him.

“Yes,” Arevin said, but his voice was shaky.

“Are you sick? I’m not done with my training yet but one of the other healers can help you.”

“No, no, I’m not ill. But I can’t understand how I reached this place before she did.”

“But why’s she coming home so early?”

Arevin gazed down at the intent young man, now as concerned as Arevin himself.

“I do not think I should tell her story for her,” he said. “Perhaps I should speak to her parents. Will you show me where they live?”

“I would if I could,” Thad said. “Only she doesn’t have any. Won’t I do? I’m her brother.”

“I’m sorry to cause you distress. I did not know your parents were dead.”

“They aren’t. Or they might be. I don’t know. I mean I don’t know who they are. Or who Snake’s are.”

Arevin felt thoroughly confused. He had never had any trouble understanding what Snake said to him. But he did not think he had comprehended half of what this youth had told him in only a few minutes.

“If you do not know who your parents are, or whose Snake’s are, how can you be her brother?”

Thad looked at him quizzically. “You really don’t know much about healers, do you?”

“No,” Arevin said, feeling that the conversation had taken still another unexplained turn. “I do not. We have heard of you, of course, but Snake is the only one to visit my clan.“

“The reason I asked,” Thad said, “is because most people know we’re all adopted. We don’t have families, exactly. We’re all one family.”

“Yet you said you are her brother, as if she did not have another.” Except for his blue eyes, and they were not the same shade at all, Thad did not look anything like Snake.

“That’s how we think of each other. I used to get in trouble a lot when I was a kid and she’d always stick up for me.”

“I see.” Arevin dismounted and adjusted his horse’s bridle, considering what the boy had told him. “You are not blood kin with Snake,” he said, “but you feel a special relationship to her. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” Thad’s easygoing attitude had vanished.

“If I tell you why I have come, will you advise me, thinking first of Snake, even if you should have to go against your own customs?”

Arevin was glad the youth hesitated, for he would not have been able to depend on an impulsive and emotional answer.

“Something really bad has happened, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Arevin said. “And she blames herself.”

“You feel a special relationship for her, too, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And she for you?”

“I think so.”

“I’m on her side,” Thad said. “Always.”

Arevin unbuckled the horse’s bridle and slipped it off so his mount could graze. He sat down beneath Thad’s fruit tree and the boy sat nearby.

“I come from the other side of the western desert,” Arevin said. “There we have no good serpents, only sand vipers whose bite means death…”

Arevin told his story and waited for Thad to respond, but the young healer stared at his scarred hands for a long time.

“Her dreamsnake was killed,” he said finally.

Thad’s voice held shock and hopelessness; the tone chilled Arevin all the way to his almost impervious, controlled center.

“It was not her fault,” Arevin said again, though he had continually stressed that fact. Thad now knew about the clan’s fear of serpents and even about Arevin’s sister’s horrible death. But Arevin could see quite clearly that Thad did not understand.

The boy looked up at him. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “This is really awful.” He paused and looked around and rubbed the heel of his hand across his forehead. “I guess we better talk to Silver. She was one of Snake’s teachers and she’s the eldest now.”

Arevin hesitated. “Is that wise? Pardon me, but if you, Snake’s friend, cannot comprehend how all this happened, will any of the other healers be able to?”

“I understand what happened!”

“You know what happened,” Arevin said. “But you do not understand it. I do not want to offend you, but I fear what I say is true.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Thad said. “I still want to help her. Silver will think of something to do.”

The exquisite valley in which the healers lived combined areas of total wilderness with places of complete civilization. What appeared to Arevin to be virgin climax forest, ancient and unchanging, spread as far as he could see, beginning on the north slope of the valley. Yet immediately downhill from the tremendous dark old trees, an array of windmills spun gaily. The forest of trees and the forest of windmills harmonized.

The station was a serene place, a small town of well-built wood and stone houses. People greeted Thad or waved to him, and nodded to Arevin. The faint shouts of a children’s game drifted down the breeze.

Thad left Arevin’s horse loose in a pasture, then led Arevin to a building somewhat larger than the others, and somewhat removed from the main group. Inside, Arevin was surprised to observe, the walls were not of wood but of smooth white glazed ceramic tile. Even where there were no windows, the illumination was as bright as day, neither the eerie blue glow of bioluminescence nor the soft yellow light of gas flames. The place possessed a feeling of activity quite different from the placid atmosphere of the town itself. Through a half-open door Arevin saw several young people, younger even than Thad, bending over complicated instruments, completely absorbed in their work.