People of the Wolf (25 page)

"How'd you learn to hunt? Seal Paw took you out. You listened to the stories—watched the animals. You had teachers."

"Teachers ..." He sighed, closing his eyes, feeling the threads of destiny pulling tight around him, so tight he couldn't breathe.

"Of course, teachers. Heron offered, didn't she?"

He nodded.

"She's the best. That fool Crow Caller? A sham, a mocker hanging on to his position by making things up. Oh, sure, he heals, but he doesn't cure. You get my meaning, boy? Like, take old Gray Rock. Remember when her tooth went bad? Any simpleton can punch a hole to drain pus."

"But the People still listen to him."

She sighed, gesturing irritably with a clawlike hand. "They've forgotten what real Dreamers are like. I'll tell you, boy, we don't have Dreamers anymore. Not like the old days. Maybe it's the world changing, but People forget . . . and the old ones who remember are fewer and fewer. These young sprouts—like Raven Hunter—they don't know how powerful Dreaming can be!"

"Powerful. . . more powerful than the Monster Children's War."

She sniffed and nodded. "You
do
know, eh? And you're
still
tagging along behind the band, going to sneak into the clan gatherings and make believe it'll all go away? It won't."

He hugged himself fiercely, as though he might disappear any instant into the void expanding in his breast. "I know. And it's tearing me apart."

She smacked her gums and rocked back and forth. "Well,

do something about it. You've only got two choices. Forget it all, go back, find a nice wife with a good disposition ... and hope the Others don't stick your guts with a dart. Or follow the call Wolf gave you—
save the People.'"

"And lose myself?"

"No, young idiot. Find yourself! It's high time you quit fooling around. You're like a fox with two rabbit holes, unsure which to watch. Choose. Now."

She braced her hands on her hips, watching through hard eyes. "It doesn't get any easier. Only harder. You put off, and put off, and next thing you know, you've got a wife and four kids and you've never taken responsibility for yourself in all your life—and you'll never be able to again."

His thoughts spiraled in confusion. The old woman watched, a keen light in her eyes. On the far horizon, a pack of wolves loped, running south. He grimaced after them, feeling the hurried beating of their hearts inside his own chest, seeing the world through their eyes for a moment. He tried to swallow, but it stuck in his throat like a swollen rawhide knot.

"Let's go, Grandmother." He said it slowly, feeling like his life had been uprooted, blown away in Wind Woman's chill breath.

She chuckled dryly and patted his shoulder as they started back down the trail.

Ice Fire shivered, sensing hands on his body, voices slowly penetrating the numbing haze in his mind.

"Wake up!" someone yelled in his ear. Red Flint. No one else had a scratchy voice like that.

He blinked his eyes open, seeing hides and feet and knees where they pressed into the soft ground.

"What happened?" His voice cracked and broke. Red Flint bent down to hear him.

Out of the blur of vision, he could see the sky, puffed with white clouds. The sun slanted down from an angle—early morning. The camp lay just behind him from the sound of women and children. Around him, scrubby wormwood clung to the thin gravelly soil. The southern horizon seemed to glow orange, like red filaments of ... webbing. . . .

Red Flint spread his hands in mystification. "I don't know. You were walking out toward the hill again and you cried out. We all saw you spin around and stare into the sun. Then you screamed, raising your arms and batting at the air, like flies or something were swarming around you."

"Like you were batting away darts in battle," Walrus offered, frowning fearfully. "You know . . .
struggling."

Ice Fire tensed, the vision coming back. "Yes," he gasped, seeing the blood-red threads searching for him. "I remember."

"Tell us," Red Flint pleaded. "What did you see?"

"Red spindles, like strands of a web, spinning out from-the south. The Enemy Dreamer was there, spinning the web-like some strange spider."

"Do they make magic against us?" Sheep's Tail demanded, clattering his darts against the ground.

"They'll wish they hadn't!" Horse Cry added vehemently. "They'll see! They'll see what Mammoth People do to those who—"

"No," Ice Fire croaked, fighting his way to sit up, still dazed as he cataloged the faces around him and braced himself on his arms. "It wasn't magic against us. I was afraid at first. Feared the web he'd spun. But in the end . . . yes, in the end it wrapped around me. Drawing me, drawing me south to the ... to the . . ." He frowned, shaking his head.

"Was it the Watcher again? Did she do this to you?" Red Flint dropped to stare intently into his eyes.

"No, not the Watcher. I didn't feel her."

"What? Think. Remember, old friend," Red Flint pleaded.

Ice Fire looked up, shaking his head. "I can't . . . can't remember more. The vision broke then."

"South.'' Horse Cry looked around with a predatory smile. "To the Enemy."

Ice Fire looked at him, a curious premonition rising within. "Beware, Horse Cry, things are not to be as you imagine."
Not when Power wraps its threads around the lives and souls of men.

Broken Branch and Runs In Light struggled together up Heron's ridge. The old Dreamer stood alone, watching them weave along the rocky path. Her eyes riveted on Runs In Light.

As they neared, she turned to Broken Branch. "Back? You like punishment, old woman?"

"Oh, shut your mouth," Broken Branch muttered, craning her thin neck to look up at the Dreamer. "Kill me if you want to, but do it when I'm lying in your hot springs soaking my aching bones."

Heron guffawed, eyes twinkling. "Go soak. I'll come kill you when I have time."

"Come to talk, first," Broken Branch said tenderly. "No one remembers the old ways like we do. I miss them."

Heron's smile turned soft, she lowered her eyes. "So do I."

"And teach this boy what to do with the images floating around his head." Broken Branch hooked a thumb at him. "He'll go crazy if he doesn't learn soon."

His heart fluttered madly as he met Heron's eyes. A flame burned there he didn't understand, but it made his gut go tight.

"You're no longer Runs In Light, you know that?"

"Yes," he rasped anxiously, "I know that now."

The next night, he sat awkwardly in front of Heron's fire, the shelter walls glowing softly around him. The skulls in the

corners seemed to glare suspiciously at him—as though they doubted his resolve. He shifted uncomfortably, pulling up his knees and propping his chin on them. He'd been listening to the old Dreamer for over three hours, listening, but understanding little. On the other side of the fire, Broken Branch sat quietly, preparing freshly snared hare for dinner.

"Magic? The world's full of it. But it's not the kind you think." Heron pointed. "I can't make that rock move. I can't breathe life into the dead. There's rules that keep everything together. A Dreamer has to sink into the world—let it swallow him until he doesn't exist anymore." She cocked her head, eyeing him seriously. "You listening to me?"

"Yes."

"What do you think happens when you call the animals and they come?"

"They hear me calling and—"

"Wrong." Heron leaned forward to stare him hard in the eye. He swallowed nervously.

"Then what?"

"They don't hear you. They hear their own voices calling them to die."

"What do you mean?" he asked in confusion, restlessly prodding the fire with a long stick.

"I mean the basic rule of all magic, or all Dreaming, is that there's only
One Life."
In a swift violent motion, she stabbed another piece of wood into the fire. Sparks whirled upward.

Her eyes gleamed as she waited pensively, expecting him to respond, but his gut roiled so madly he could think of nothing to say. Finally, "Go on."

"You've seen a mother charge Grandfather White Bear with a rock when he's grabbed one of her children."

He nodded.

"Why does she do it?"

"To save her child."

Heron spat derisively into the fire. "Great Mammoth, no."

He squirmed. What was she getting at? He searched his own feelings and thoughts. "I don't . . . understand."

"She does it to save
herself."

"But Grandfather White Bear has her child."

"Child is Self," she whispered cryptically. "People sometimes touch the One Life—feel inseparably linked to others, or places. That's what it's all about, never letting that link go." She spread her arms wide, pinning him with her glinting gaze. "That's why the caribou came. For a single moment, you touched the One, and when you called, begging them to give themselves, they heard their own voices and came. Offering the sacrifice so they themselves could live."

"If there's only One Life, then why doesn't everyone feel it. Why aren't we always in contact with it?"

She stared, hardly aware that Broken Branch sat quietly roasting meat. "Thoughts get in the way. People block their minds to the Dream, disbelieve, shut themselves off from the voice of the One. If they listen to themselves, they can hear it, but a person has to tear down the walls he's built in his mind before he's free to listen. Most people won't. It's too hard. Instead, they fill their minds with petty nonsense, gossip, thoughts of revenge."

"But creatures
are
different." Wolf Dreamer spread his hands. "Look at how we're shaped. Nothing else uses darts, to hunt. Nothing else warms itself by fire."

Heron reached over, plucking an age-darkened skull from the wall. "This is human." She pulled another. "This is bear. Both have teeth, both have the same bones . . . just differently molded. Two eyes. See? One nose. You peel the hide off and bear looks just like man. The feet have the same bones. So, outside of the fur coat and the different shapes of bone, all animals share things. You have fingernails. A bear has claws. A caribou hooves. It's the pattern. All the same."

Broken Branch huffed, disturbing the tension. She pushed a strand of brittle gray from her withered face, whispering, "In the legends of the People, all creatures were stars once, each formed from the same star dust. Father Sun sent us tumbling to earth and breathed life into us. People were the worst of the lot. Father Sun forgot to give us a fur coat. The caribou let us use theirs when we eat them. A gift to a brother. We didn't get mammoth's trunk, but we got hands to do the same thing."

Wolf Dreamer blinked contemplatively. "I remember, Grandmother."

Heron shook a finger in his face. "Do you? What is it in you that remembers?"

He pointed quickly to his stomach. "My liver. I—"

"Bah!" she growled, slicing the air with a fist. "I know the People believe that but it's wrong. It's your brains that remember—and Dream."

"What makes you think brains do that?"

Heron leaned back, lips pursed. "You've seen a man hit in the head? What happens? He forgets things. When his arm is cut off, he doesn't forget. When his stomach is sick, he still thinks the same as he always did. Ah, but when he hurts the bone around his brains, he thinks differently. If the damage is bad enough, he doesn't think at all. Same with anything. Club a caribou in the head, and it dies. Shuts off the mind."

"I guess so."

"Don't guess," she told him. "See for yourself. Learn. Think on your own. Don't believe everything the People have always told you. Question!"

Broken Branch bristled. "You telling him I was wrong about Father Sun and the star dust?"

Heron blinked as though it hadn't occurred to her. "No. That's one of the few things you've ever been right on."

"You old witch. I ought to—"

"Why do you know all this?" Wolf Dreamer interrupted. Inside him, a horrifying anxiety built. What was he doing? If he learned what Heron sought to teach him, he'd lose the world he loved completely. "Why doesn't everyone?"

Heron chuckled at Broken Branch, then shrugged. "In the camps of the People, no one has time. Hides need to be tanned. Meat needs to be hunted. Moss has to be gathered. Children
always
need something, or are fighting, or are hurt, or are curious.