Eyes streaming, holding her breath, she led the mare after Squirrel into the cave.
The wind died away abruptly. Snake could hardly open her eyes, and she felt as if sand had been driven into her lungs. The horses snorted and blew while Snake and Melissa coughed and tried to blink the overwhelming sand away, brush it from their hair and clothes, spit it out. Finally Snake managed to rub or brush or cough away the worst of the scratchy particles, and tears washed her eyes clean.
Melissa unwrapped her headcloth from Squirrel’s eyes, then with a sob flung her arms around his neck.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “He saw me and sent you away.”
“The gate was locked,” Snake said. “He couldn’t have let us in if he’d wanted to. If it weren’t for you we’d be out there in the storm.”
“But they don’t want you to come back. Because of me.”
“Melissa, he’d already decided not to help us. Believe me. What I asked him for scared him. They don’t understand us.”
“But I heard him. I saw him looking at me. You asked for help for—for me, and he said go away.”
Snake wished Melissa had not understood that part of the conversation, for she had not wanted her to hope for what might never happen. “He didn’t know you’d been burned,” Snake said. “And he didn’t care. He was looking for excuses to get rid of me.”
Unconvinced, Melissa blankly stroked Squirrel’s neck, slipped off his bridle, uncinched his saddle.
“If this is anybody’s fault,” Snake said, “it’s mine. I’m the one who brought us here—” The full impact of their situation hit her as violently as the storm winds. The faint glow of lightcells barely illuminated the cave in which they were trapped. Snake’s voice broke in fear and frustration. “I’m the one who brought us here, and now we’re locked outside—”
Melissa turned from Squirrel and took Snake’s hand. “Snake—Snake, I knew what could happen. You didn’t make me follow you. I knew how sneaky and mean all these people here can be. Everybody who trades with them says so.” She hugged Snake, comforting her as Snake had comforted Melissa only a few days before.
All in an instant, she froze and the horses screamed and Snake heard the furious echoing snarl of a big cat. Swift rushed past the healer and knocked her down. As Snake struggled back to her feet to grab the bridle she glimpsed the black panther, lashing its tail at the entrance of the cave. It snarled again and Swift reared, pulling Snake off her feet. Melissa tried to hold Squirrel as pony and child backed quivering into a corner. The panther sprang toward them. Snake caught her breath as it brushed by like the wind itself, and its sleek coat touched her hand. The panther leaped four meters up the back wall and disappeared through a narrow fissure.
Melissa laughed shakily with relief and release of terror. Swift blew out her breath in a high, loud, frightened snort.
“Good gods,” Snake said.
“I heard—I heard somebody say wild animals are as scared of you as you are of them,“ Melissa said. ”But I don’t think I believe it any more.“
Snake unfastened the lantern from Swift’s saddle and held it high, toward the fissure, wondering if human beings could follow where a big cat led. She mounted the skittish mare and balanced herself standing on the saddle. Melissa took Swift’s reins and calmed her.
“What are you doing?”
Snake leaned against the cave wall, stretching to cast the lantern’s light into the passageway.
“We can’t stay here,” she said. “We’ll die of thirst or starve. Maybe there’s a way to the city through here.” She could not see very far into the opening; she was too far below it. But the panther had vanished. Snake heard her own voice echo and return as if there were many chambers beyond the narrow crack. “Or a way to something.” She turned and slid down into the saddle, dismounted, and untacked the gray mare.
“Snake,” Melissa said softly.
“Yes?”
“Look—cover the lantern—” Melissa pointed to the rock over the entrance of the cave. Snake shielded the lantern, and the indistinct luminous shape brightened and reached toward her. She felt a quick chill up her spine. She held out the lantern and moved closer to the form.
“It’s a drawing,” she said. It had only appeared to move; it was a spidery shape crawling against the wall, merely paint. A clever optical illusion that now, though Snake knew better, looked as if it