Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre Page A

have some techniques. They could cure very bad
wounds. But the spine? Maybe. I don’t know. And there’s no reason for them to
help me. Not anymore.”
    “You always told me how important blood ties are among the city’s families,”
Merideth said. “You’re their kin—”
    “I left them,” Jesse said. “I broke the ties. Why should they take me back?
Do you want me to go and beg them?”
    “Yes.”
    Jesse looked down at her long strong useless legs. Alex glared, first at
Merideth, then at Snake.
    “Jesse, I can’t stand to see you as you’ve been, I can’t bear watching you
want to die.”
    “They’re very proud,” Jesse said. “I hurt my family’s pride by renouncing
them.”
    “Then they’d understand what it took you to ask for their help.”
    “We’d be crazy to try it,” Jesse said.
     
     
Chapter 3
    « ^ »
    They planned to break camp that evening and cross the lava flow in darkness.
Snake would have preferred to wait a few more days before moving Jesse at all,
but there was no choice. Jesse’s spirits were too readily changeable to keep her
here any longer. She knew the partnership had already overstayed its time in the
desert. Alex and Merideth could not hide the fact that the water was running
low, that they and the horses were going thirsty so she could be cleaned and
bathed. A few more days in the canyon, living in the sour stench that would
collect because nothing could be properly washed, would push her down into
depression and disgust.
    And they had no time to waste. They had a long way to journey: up and across
the lava, then east to the central mountains that separated the black desert
into its western half, where they were now, and its eastern portion, where the
city lay. The road cutting through the west and east ranges of the central
mountains was a good one, but after the pass the travelers would enter the
desert again, and head southeast, for Center. They had to hurry. Once the storms
of winter began, no one could cross the desert; the city would be isolated.
Already the summer was fading in stinging dust devils and windblown eddies of
sand.
    They would not take down the tent or load the horses until twilight, but they
packed all they could before it became too hot to work, stacking the baggage
beside Jesse’s sacks of ore. Snake’s hand limbered up with the heavy work. The
bruise was finally fading and the punctures had healed to bright pink scars.
Soon the sand viper bite would match all the other scars on her hands, and she
would forget which one it was. She wished now that she had captured one of the
ugly serpents to take home with her. It was a species she had never seen before.
Even if it had turned out not to be useful to the healers, she could have made
an antidote to its venom for Arevin’s people. If she ever saw Arevin’s people
again.
    Snake wrestled the last pack into the pile and wiped her hands on her pants
and her face on her sleeve. Nearby, Merideth and Alex hoisted the stretcher they
had built and adjusted the makeshift harnesses until it rode level between a
tandem pair of horses. Snake went over to watch.
    It was the most peculiar conveyance she had ever seen, but it looked like it
would work. In the desert everything had to be carried or dragged; wheeled carts
would bog down in the sand or break in rocky country. As long as the horses did
not shy or bolt, the stretcher would give Jesse a more tolerable ride than a
travois. The big gray between the front shafts stood calm and steady as a stone;
apart from a sidelong glance as it was led between the back shafts, the second
horse, a piebald, showed no fear.
    Jesse
must
be a marvel, Snake thought, if the horses she trains will
put up with such contraptions.
    “Jesse says we’ll start a fashion among rich merchants wherever we go,”
Merideth said.
    “She’s right,” Alex said. He unfastened a strap and they let the stretcher
fall to the ground. “But