Vonda McIntyre - Dreamsnake

Sitting up slowly, pausing when movement dizzied him, he looked around. He heard footsteps in the corridor, jumped to his feet, stumbled, and pulled himself up to look out through the bars on the tiny opening in the door. The footsteps receded, running.

“Is this how you treat visitors to your town?” Arevin shouted. His even temper took a considerable amount of perturbation to disarrange, but he was angry.

No one answered. He unclenched his hands from the bars and let himself back to the floor. He could see nothing outside his prison but another stone wall. The window was too high to reach, even if he moved the heavy-timbered bed and stood on it. All the light in the room was reflected downward from a vague sunny patch on the wall above. Someone had taken Arevin’s robe, and his boots, and left him nothing but his long loose riding trousers.

Calming himself slowly, he set himself to wait.

Halting footsteps — a lame person, a cane — came down the stone corridor toward his cell. This time Arevin simply waited.

The key clattered and the door swung open. Guards, wearing the same insignia as his assailants of the night before, entered first, cautiously. There were three of them, which seemed strange to Arevin since he had not even been able to overpower two the night before. He did not have much experience at fighting. In his clan, adults gently parted scuffling children and tried to help them settle their differences with words.

Supported by a helper as well as by the cane, a big darkhaired man entered the cell. Arevin did not greet him or rise. They stared at each other steadily for several moments.

“The healer is safe, from you at least,” the big man said. His helper left him for an instant to drag a chair in from the hall. As the man sat down Arevin could see that he was not congenitally lame, but injured: his right leg was heavily bandaged.

“She helped you, too,” Arevin said. “So why do you set upon those who would find her?”

“You feign sanity well. But I expect once we watch you for a few days you’ll go back to raving.”

“I have no doubt I’ll begin raving if you leave me here for long,” Arevin said.

“Do you think we’d leave you loose to go after the healer again?”

“Is she here?” Arevin asked anxiously, abandoning his reserve. “She must have got out of the desert safely if you’ve seen her.”

The dark-haired man gazed at him for some seconds. “I’m surprised to hear you speak of her safety,” he said. “But I suppose inconsistency is what one should expect of a crazy.”

“A crazy!”

“Calm yourself. We know about your attack on her.”

“Attack — ? Was she attacked? Is she all right? Where is she?”

“I think it would be safer for her if I told you nothing.”

Arevin looked away, seeking some means of concentrating his thoughts. A peculiar mixture of confusion and relief possessed him. At least Snake was out of the desert. She must be safe.

A flaw in a stone block caught the light. Arevin gazed at the sparkling point, calming himself.

He looked up, nearly smiling. “This argument is foolish. Ask her to come see me. She’ll tell you we are friends.”

“Indeed? Who should we tell her wants to see her?”

“Tell her… the one whose name she knows.”

The big man scowled. “You barbarians and your superstitions — !”

“She knows who I am,” Arevin said, refusing to submit to his anger.

“You’d confront the healer?”

“Confront her!”

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.