People of the Wolf (36 page)

"Get away. Walk back there," Mouse ordered, pointing.,

"I walk where I please," Dancing Fox challenged, seeing Talon stop, turning. The old woman's eyes gleamed darkly.

"Your soul is cursed. I don't want you around my baby. You walk behind. Give us decent people some peace."

Dancing Fox moved like lightning, work-tough fingers clamping around Mouse's windpipe. As the woman croaked and struggled, Dancing Fox leaned close, peering into her eyes.

"The man who cursed me is a false Dreamer; he has no Power. That means his curse was meaningless." She tightened her grip, making Mouse gasp frantically. The woman futilely batted at her face.
"Understand?"

She shoved Mouse backward, hard. The woman's stagger made the infant under her hood start to bawl shrilly.

Mouse rubbed her throat, staring wide-eyed at Dancing Fox. "You . . . you're crazy," she coughed.

Dancing Fox smiled grimly. "Remember that. There's no telling what I might do if I'm crossed." Coolly, she turned on her heel and walked on, aware of Singing Wolf running back to see what the commotion was all about.

She had no more trouble with Mouse that night or any

other. But she noticed that when any of the other women were near, they kept their eyes lowered. Respect? Or fear? Only Talon looked at her, winking in silent endorsement. Dancing Fox walked straighter, weapons held proudly.

Wolf Dreamer floated in the hot spring, Heron's sweet chanting buoying him, enfolding him. The lapping of the waves caressed his naked flesh.

"Lose yourself in the song," Heron instructed. "Free yourself. Move with the sounds. Dream this world away. It doesn't exist. Nothing exists but the Dance."

"The Dance," he repeated.

He leaned back in the water until it stroked his ears. The sounds of the birds vanished, a soft hum of flowing water filling in. Faintly, he heard Heron take up the chant again, the song rhythmic and haunting, a string of nonsense words. Because they made no sense, he shifted his concentration to the wavering sounds, imagining himself dancing to the cadence.

He blinked, lost, the world out of focus. He sat in Heron's shelter. His senses whirled with familiar shapes and smells. The skulls glared sightlessly at him, observing his very soul. The effigies and the colorful shapes drawn on the walls seemed to pulse with a life of their own through the thin layer of soot. The acrid odor of the geyser clogged his nose.

"Not . . . not the pool?" He looked around, seeing Broken Branch where she huddled in the far corner muttering to herself, a bright spark in her eyes.

"Not the pool," Heron told him. "Look at your hand."

He stared, gasping. An angry red blister rose from the center of his palm, the flesh seared. As he looked, bright pain brought tears to his eyes. He cried out.

Heron kept her taloned grip on his wrist, unperturbed. She rubbed grease mixed with herbs on the burn, binding his hand carefully.

"I see the question in your eyes. What happened? I put a coal on your hand, Wolf Dreamer. You never knew when it burned you. You know what that means?"

Despite the pain he nodded. "I found my Dance."

"That you did."

"But the Coal burned me."

"Yes, you only shifted your mind. You didn't Dance with the fire."

"Then why'd you put the coal in my hand?" he asked a little resentfully, the pain increasing to a throb.

She grinned impudently. "I wanted to see where you were."

"Why couldn't you wait and ask me?"

"It's not the same."

He lifted a disbelieving brow. "Uh-huh."

"You're not far enough along yet."

He flexed his searing palm. "I can see that."

She hesitated, her jaw grinding softly in the crimson glow of the fire. "You see, to truly Dance, you need to Dance with everything around you . . . not just yourself. Then you have to become the Dance to touch the One. Then stop the—"

"But I made another step."

"Yes," she agreed. "Another step, Wolf Dreamer. Another step, but I wonder, will we have time?"

"What do you mean?"

She blinked, eyes on a distance only she could see. "Things are happening too fast. I wanted another couple of years. We may not even have all of this one." She patted him on the shoulder. "Next summer may even be too late."

"For what?"

She frowned, the lines in her ancient forehead deepening. "A terrible Dream rolled over me last night. I couldn't really see the images, they were fuzzy, but I felt the truth beneath them."

"What truth?"

"They're coming," she said hoarsely, pinning his eyes. "They'll be here before we turn around."

"The Others?" he guessed, swallowing hard.
He'd meet his father.

"Something worse than them . . . some terrible darkness. I couldn't see clearly."

"Like the darkness I saw?" He shuddered lightly. "How much time do we have?''

"I don't know."

"How can we find out? If I'm not far enough along—"

"I . . ." She swallowed with difficulty, fear in her eyes. "I wonder if I'm still strong enough."

Reluctantly, she got to her feet and reached toward a high niche in the stone wall. Her hands trembled suddenly and she retracted them, rubbing the sweaty palms on her dress as she stared wide-eyed at the crevice.

"What is it?" he asked, frightened. "Can I get it for you?"

"No," she whispered darkly. "Only I can touch them." Again, she lifted her hands, wetting her lips anxiously as she reached into the niche to take down a carefully folded fox-hide bundle.

Dread prickled up Wolf Dreamer's spine. He stood next to her as she carefully unwrapped each of the folds, exposing thin shriveled black things.

"What are those?"

"Mushrooms. Remember? I showed you last summer, the ones growing where I dump the gut piles. Powerful things, they live off death, grow out of rot and corruption. Rebirth, Wolf Dreamer. Treat them with respect—Power grows in them."

He squinted at her, heart beginning to thunder in his chest. "Birth? You said they'd kill me."

She turned. A sharpness lay in her old black eyes. "They will. You're not ready for them."

"Why not?"

"You haven't seen the
Dancer
yet."

His eyes darted over the shelter, Broken Branch, and Heron, studying, thinking. What could that have to do with eating mushrooms?

"You understand?" she asked, cocking her head in desperate seriousness.

"No."

"Can the mushroom kill you if you're the mushroom? Can you kill the mushroom if the mushroom is you?"

His breathing stilled. "The One."

"Yes. The most powerful Dreaming of all must be shared with this little plant. Father Sun's joke, the mushroom. Colorless, it grows from death—in the dark; it brings life and Light. Rebirth. These ..." She fingered the shriveled black slices. "These will let your soul go beyond the Dance to the—"

"But what if I come out of the Dream?"

Birdlike, she cocked her head. "And find yourself nowhere?"

"Something like that."

She laughed, throwing her back. "Then you'll know you're
there."

"Where?"

"Nowhere."

Rather than demonstrating his stupidity, he decided to ask, "And what will that do for my Dreaming?"

' 'If you can find nowhere—the hole inside you—then you'll be able to juggle fire without being burned . . . and handle the poison." She nodded. "Yes, I see it in your eyes, you understand."

He swallowed. "In the 'hole,' the mushroom and I will be One?"

She gritted her remaining teeth and assented. "That's right. The ultimate Dreaming. Dreaming while you hover over death. And through it all, your body rebels. There's pain, sickness, vile sickness, and you have to go deep . . . deep into your very blood and Dream beyond the union of you and the mushroom. Be both and neither."

He clenched his fists unconsciously. "When can I try?"

"Maybe never, for all I know. And time's so much shorter than I thought. Raven Hunter defies the Dream. Your brother has an extraordinary Power in his own way. Different."

"He doesn't Dream."

"Not like you. But something ... He has a Power all his own, an innate ability to Dream his will into other men's minds. To glimpse the way things might become. He's dangerous."

"Can I stop him?"

"I don't know. The two of you and the Other, your father, are the future of the People. Unless something is done, Raven Hunter will destroy the People from within while your father destroys them from without. And you?" She turned dark haunted eyes on him. "You have to find the hole inside— before you'll be able to find the one in the Big Ice to save them."

"What about this darkness you saw in your Dream? Is it—"

"It's something else, worse. It'll swallow all of us: the Others, the People—"

"Then . . ." He spread his arms wide, imploring. "We have to find out what it is before we can fight it. When will I . . . ?" He swallowed the rest, indicating the ominous mushrooms.

In a quick violent motion, she rewrapped them and clutched them to her breast. "Don't even touch them. A taste, a lick of the tainted fingers, and you'll die horribly. The life-sucking spirits of the Long Dark would be a pleasure next to this. I can't risk your life."

But the bundle drew his eyes, holding them like an eagle draws the stare of a hare.

Raven Hunter motioned the old man in, indicating a seat.

Crow Caller settled himself with the care of the elderly, arranging his hides, smoothing the folds of his outer parka. His good eye took in the surroundings, the smoke-stained poles supporting the hide walls and roof, the carefully placed weapons, the bundled wolf hides and caribou robes. Several brown bundles lay stacked to the side. Firelight flickered yellow, casting the shadows of the two men over the tent walls.

"Here, old teacher," Raven Hunter said,
offering
a cup of tea in a carefully crafted horn made from the forward boss of a dall sheep.

Crow Caller drank it down and pointed to the stew boiling in the paunch bag over the fire. "I haven't eaten tonight."

"Please, fill your cup."

The old shaman smiled and scooped up some stew. He slurped noisily.

Dinner out of the way, Crow Caller burped and looked at Raven Hunter. "What did you want to see me about?"

"Three Falls has arrived," Raven Hunter began. "Sheep

Whistle's band has been attacked by the Others. I want your blessing to take the young men and hit them in their camps. They won't expect a fight in the deep of the Long Dark."

Crow Caller fingered his chin, the white eye dead in his head. "The young men shouldn't risk dying in the Long Dark. What of their souls, hmm?"

Raven Hunter spread his hands wide. "Souls, Crow Caller? What of their future?
Our
future. Where does it all end? The Others will kill us, or absorb us. Three Falls sent a youth to watch the Others who took Sheep Whistle's camp. They, too, keep the young women they capture. Is that the future, Crow Caller? Our women bearing their young . . . more like Blueberry?"

"You have too much ambition for such a young man. Aren't an elder's words enough for you?" He gruffly started to stand.

Raven Hunter gently pushed him back to the ground. "Of course, I'm ambitious. I'm the salvation of the People. Do you Dream anything else?"

Indignantly, the old man said, "I Dream many things."

"Let's be honest, you and I. I've been keeping track of your 'Dreams.' Remember the prophesy at Mammoth Camp? Eh? All the hunters sinking darts into the calves? Hasn't happened yet. You Dreamed the birth of Strikes Lightning's first son. Remember? All that wondrous talk of him cradling the boy in his arms. It was another girl. Strikes Lightning is dead. Mouse is gone to One Who Cries' camp. And men there was the Dream about the—"

"Sometimes Dreams change."

"And sometimes the important thing is that people believe . . . whether Dreams are true or not."