People of the Wolf (53 page)

Dancing
Fox
watched him from the cover of Singing Wolf's tent. Situated slightly above, she could see him as he stepped out, pushing past Raven Hunter and Four Teeth as if they didn't exist. Father Sun, at the peak of the Long Light, illuminated his face with a shaft of ocher light. Even over the distance, she could feel his vibrating presence. The People stepped back in fear.

Dancing Fox watched him, heart pounding. He'd drawn the wolf on his forehead, just as he had that day so long ago in Mammoth Camp. That day, he'd gone from her. And again, she saw the Dream in his eyes—a living ecstasy.

A dull ache filled her. A sense of premonition. This man, this Dreamer, she didn't know.

* * *

"I. . .
am . . . alive!"

Like mist, he rose in the darkness, feeling the pulsing soul of the rock around him. Each of the tremors of the geyser surged through him, its waters like the blood in his veins. A shared reality—Oneness.

He walked in a Dream, passing the worn caribou flap into the light. Low now, hanging on the horizon, Father Sun blinded him with a painful brilliance despite his closed eyes. He lifted his arms, feeling the warmth—living in the Light.

"Born of you," he whispered, feeling the warmth on his skin. Before him, the Renewal pulsed, the souls of the People gleaming and glowing in their bodies. They shimmered and blazed like breakers in the moonlight. He saw them, knew them, felt them with his very soul.

The Light pervaded everything.

Like a spirit himself, he floated toward them, feeling them, their mutterings of awe sputtering disjointedly in his mind. Raven Hunter he recognized, curious at the Power of his brother's soul. As he approached, his brother retreated, surprised by the Power he projected. Already Raven Hunter had regrouped, strengthened himself. Then he passed, finding his' way among the People.

"The earth is renewed," he explained, the rightness of their efforts heady within him. "You've shown Father Sun your gratitude. About you* the souls of the animals smile, warm, happy as they rise to the Blessed Star People."

A blackness, a foul corruption, stirred the silent crowd. Wolf Dreamer girded himself.

"Come forth, darkness! Our time is now. Our place is here. That which you've sought stands before you."

The black lesion among the People wavered, shimmering, changing shape as a space opened around it. The Dream spinning fire around the edges, Crow Caller's shape solidified.

Wolf Dreamer tensed, aware of those eyes, one black, one white. One of sight, one of darkness, opposites crossed. Each a lie.

"You have no purpose here, witch man," Crow Caller's ancient voice rolled in Wolf Dreamer's mind. "Go, boy. Leave us. You interrupt the Renewal. We've tired of your games and claims. We ..."

Wolf Dreamer reached forward, grabbing the darkness with his hands, feeling the horror of the darkness, the confusion, the fear of such a corrupt soul. Like the sucking mouths of the Soul Eaters of the Long Dark, the blackness reached for him, trying to encircle his soul, to choke it away, drown it in the shadows of corruption. Wolf Dreamer weaved, darting this way and that, spearing the blackness with shafts of Light, driving it back, forcing the insidious feelers from his soul, his life.

The corrupted filth staggered away, seeking to flee, but he held it, surrounding the shapeless mass with Light, exposing it to Father Sun. The shadows shivered and writhed in the brilliance. He twisted it, and heard a cry of agony before he cast the thing down before him.

"Recognize yourself for what you are, Crow Caller!" he thundered. "Go! Cleanse yourself of the filth and rot which have possessed you. It is not too late to save your soul. Purify it for Father Sun."

The blackness shivered, backing away, crawling slowly to its feet.

"I curse you," came the voice. Hate battered at Wolf Dreamer's mind. A vile stench of wrongness tainted his nostrils. The blackness waved arms, tracing symbols for which Crow Caller had no understanding.

' 'I condemn your soul to be buried! I condemn it!'' Crow Caller shrieked, frantic.

Around him, the People flooded back, as if washed by the waves of hatred.

"You have nothing within," said Wolf Dreamer's voice. "No strength, no Power of soul. Only blackness and rot power your words." As he spoke, the soul of Crow Caller split open before his eyes. "Ah . . . I see. Look within yourself, Crow Caller. See the lies? See the fear? Look what you have done to yourself. See what you would do to others!
Look inside yourself!"

"No!" Crow Caller protested, the voice forced. "I condemn you! Hear me? Condemned to be buried—your soul lost in darkness! Trapped by the earth to . . . to . . ."

Wolf Dreamer closed, the Dream spinning out, showing him the way. Crow Caller danced back, the blackness quivering, fearing exposure.

"Look, within," he repeated. "You fear only yourself, Crow Caller. Your greatest death is ridicule. See the mockery you've made of yourself? Don't fear me, Crow Caller. Fear yourself. Fear what you've made your soul into. The lie you live is that of a coward—a man who's never faced himself!"

"No!" Crow Caller growled, his soul ripping at itself, growing angry. "I curse you, Runs In Light!
Curse you!"

Wolf Dreamer straightened. "Runs In Light is no more."

Before him, Crow Caller produced a white bone, seemingly from out of thin air. The People gasped.

"With this, I curse you, Runs In Light!" His voice wavered, the cracks weakening it, causing it to tremble. "I blow your soul to the Long Dark!"

Crow Caller leaned forward, blowing hard through the hollow tube of bone.

Wolf Dreamer backed at the stench of the breath, hearing a horrified outcry from the People. He waved at the foul putrid air, fighting the sudden urge to vomit from the corruption.

From his pouch, he took a handful of the yellow crusted · rock that formed along the banks of the geyser stream. Like Heron had showed him, he offered it to the four directions. At the top of his lungs, he shouted, "I clear the corruption from the air!"

He threw the yellow-caked stone into the fire, a stinking puff of yellow-green smoke arising. People backpedaled.

' 'And I blow it away!'' Wolf Dreamer took the white crystals, laboriously gathered from under the dung piles, and poured them into the fire. They sparkled, hissed, and flared in an explosion like water on coals.

"You are darkness!" Crow Caller hissed. "Dark and bad. You are death for the People! Go back to darkness,
witch!"

"Darkness?" Wolf Dreamer smiled. "I am Light. I am one with fire. You are illusion." So saying, he bent, driving his fingers deeply into the bed of coals, hearing the cries of the People as he lifted them high.

"I cleanse myself of your corruption, Crow Caller." The Dream spun coldly around him as he rubbed the blackness Crow Caller had blown on him away, willing it into the coals as he scrubbed his arms and face.

Around him, the souls of the People wavered in a rainbow of colors, shimmering in horror and doubt and awe.

"Cleanse yourself," he offered, handing the glowing coals to Crow Caller. "Dream yourself clean, man of the People! Drive the corruption from within. Here is Light." He spread his fingers to reveal the glowing coals. "I offer you a new way, reach out and take it!"

Crow Caller backed away, shaking his head, pathetically crying, "No!
No!"

"Do it!"

"N-no!" he wailed, the blackness crumpling, folding in on itself, destroyed in the Light of the spitting smoking fire and its cleansing odor.

"A husk, like a maggot casing," Wolf Dreamer moaned, shaking his head. "That's what you've become, Crow Caller."

"No!"

Wolf Dreamer placed the coals reverently to his lips before dropping them in the fire. He turned, looking to the People. "Pity this creature for what it has done to itself. Forgive it for what it has done to you."

"Don't," Crow Caller muttered from where he crouched, looking up, blinking his one good eye. "Don't do this to ... to ..."

His mouth opened, pink tongue darting out between the stained pink gums as he grabbed at his chest.

Wolf Dreamer reached down, the Dream showing him the way. "His heart," he called. "His heart is jumping around, quivering. His soul is killing him. He dies . . . still a coward."

Crow Caller cried out, huddling there on the ground.

Wolf Dreamer straightened, feeling the corrupt soul writhing in agony. "One Who Cries." He recognized the soul as it parted from the crowd. "Take him, he'll be dead soon. Make him comfortable. He must deal with his soul now. Later all of us will sing him to the Blessed Star People."

The shimmering multicolored soul that was One Who Cries lifted the old man lightly from the ground, bearing-him through the People.

Wolf Dreamer raised his hands and pointed northward. The souls around him shifted, fluttering and changing colors

anxiously. He lowered his voice to a calming murmur. "There, the Others come. You must all make a choice. Our young men can die, kill their young men. Blood will stain the snow, leach into the rocks, trickle through the gravels. But nothing will stop them. See? Look out there! Beyond the hills, see them crouching? Hear the beat of their countless hearts as they close around to smother us? Look close, my people."

And he turned to look himself. A cry of fear rose in his throat at the vision that met his eyes. It came ... the blackness rolling like waves toward them. "See?" he screamed. "The blackness there beyond the far horizon! Who can stand against that? Feel the Power coming, each step crushing our world?"

Someone cried out in anguish and a rumble of voices rose.

"But life can be ours. ..."

"How?" someone called piteously. "Tell us!"

He pointed toward the Big Ice where it loomed darkly on the horizon. "Heron Dreamed. . . . She said we would find nothing here but pain, and death. She saw us ground away, bitter, angry, rotting within as we torture, and glut ourselves in an orgy of blood. Ground away! Like a sandstone cobble in a sea of flint! See us ground away? "See us buried?"

He whirled at their gasp.

"Yes, buried! Covered by the Others! The ways of the People gone . . . forever!''

"Tell us how we can—"

"Wolf Dream!" Singing Wolf bellowed from somewhere far away. "Wolf will save the People."

"Wolf," he murmured. "Wolf ..."

One Who Cries struggled to keep himself from shivering as he laid the old man down in the thick robes of the shelter he'd borrowed. The low structure had been closest to the Dance, the easiest to carry the dying shaman to.

"There, rest easy," One Who Cries said, comforting.

"I was . . . powerful . . . once," Crow Caller whispered. "I led the People. Led them well. Tried to do the best. Tried, you understand?"

One Who Cries nodded somberly. ' 'We remember.''

"Did my best." Crow Caller swallowed hard. "But the

People, they always want so much. ... So much . . . They suck away your soul. Suck you up ... like the Long Dark . . . sucks up heat. They want ... so much. Always . . . hungry. Demanding . . . Can't . . . can't be wrong. Always have to be ... perfect. All the time. Had to ... pretend. Lie." He closed his ancient eyes. "I tried ... best I could. ..."

"We know," One Who Cries soothed. "Rest now, Grandfather."

"Pain," Crow Caller gasped. "Deep. All along my left side and arm. Pain."

"Don't worry, you'll be . . ." One Who Cries stopped cold, staring at the place he'd left his darts.

"Dying," Crow Caller whispered hoarsely. "Dying from the inside."

But One Who Cries was scuttling out from the caribou-hide cover, staring about frantically as the crowd watched Wolf Dreamer, hands raised, tell them of his Dreaming.

One Who Cries ran, skirting the crowd, searching. High. Look high! He sprinted, leaping from boulder to boulder up the ridge. He'd be up here, somewhere. The throng ignored him, staring at Wolf Dreamer, enthralled by the haunting tones as the Dreamer talked.

Must be high, nothing else would make sense.

He saw him as he scrambled over the rocks.

"No!" The cry was torn from One Who Cries' throat as he jumped, fingers outstretched. "He's your brother!" Too far away. The man's arm had started forward, the familiar dart beginning its journey.

A rock rolled underfoot as One Who Cries crashed into Raven Hunter's legs, pitching the big hunter sideways. The dart's path was disrupted, striking a child who stood at Wolf Dreamer's feet. The tiny boy screamed in pain. The other darts went clattering away in the rocks. Confusion swelled as One Who Cries howled his rage.

Raven Hunter smashed him across the head with his atlatl, ripping his cheek open. "Let go of me! I'm saving the People!"