People of the Earth (78 page)

 
          
 
"I don't like it," Gray Needle added
quietly. "I feel as if the world turned. Power will be offended. You don't
have a murder at a Gathering without offending Power."

           
 
Bone Ring glanced at her. "You've been
hanging around Wolf People for too long."

 
          
 
Gray Needle shifted her son to the other
breast. 4t Power is Power. We keep the Spirits happy, but I can't call the Wolf
People fools for what they believe. Fire Dancer came down out of their
mountains when he led us here. I just wonder how much we've changed."

 
          
 
"A lot, I suppose." Bone Ring
glanced back to make sure that everyone—especially the children—was following.
Children tended to lag on a day as hot as this. "And that's another thing.
We haven't seen anything of the Wolf People. Someone should have been down. I
know they just had Blessing, but some of the Traders would have left early to
make the Gathering."

 
          
 
"It's not like them."
Squawapple
looked around nervously. "I've just got a
bad feeling."

 
          
 
"No wonder," Bone Ring grunted.
"A murder happened at the Gathering. I can tell you this, we'll walk a
long day's journey around that place from now on." Her eyes narrowed.
"If Three Forks feared witching before this, they'll be crawling with fear
now, knowing they're the closest camp to Black Hand's angry Spirit."

 
          
 
A sense of wrongness tightened in Gray
Needle's gut. "Maybe we should call the men back. I'd feel better."

 
          
 
"Nerves, girl." Bone Ring glanced
around uneasily. The land had gone unusually quiet. "And I share
them."

 
          
 
The men had walked out of the trees, climbing
up a low terrace truncated by the
Spirit
River
. Heat shimmered on the tan ground, making
their images hazy.

 
          
 
"The People will pay for this Gathering,
I tell you," Bone Ring added, waddling along. "We've brought some
sort of disaster down on us."

 
          
 
"Two more days and we'll be home."
Squawapple
pointed toward the
Sideways
Mountains
rising in a silvered, wavering mirage ahead
of them. "Maybe we could call Singing Stones down to Sing Spirit
protection around our camp."

 
          
 
"Good idea, child," Bone Ring
agreed. "If anyone can ward off evil, it's Singing Stones."

 
          
 
They had reached the bottom of the terrace.
Gray Needle started up, following the dimpled tracks of the men. The sun beat
down mercilessly now that they'd left the protection of the cottonwoods. Sweat
raised a sheen on Gray Needle's bare arms and trickled down her neck. From the
top of the terrace they would be able to see the
Badwater
,
and could follow it to the clan shelters. Fortunately, most of the trip would
be made in the cottonwood-shaded floodplain.

 
          
 
Gray Needle reached the top and waited for
Bone Ring.

 
          
 
Two weathered knobs of sandstone protruded
from the cobble-strewn top of the terrace. The men had already passed through
the narrow gap between them. The premonition of trouble grew, almost
suffocating Gray Needle as she stared across the dusty white clay.

 
          
 
Fool! It's the heat. Black Hand's Spirit is
weighing on you. You 're worried, that's all. It's just the talk of witches
that 's eating you.

 
          
 
As the rest of the women reached the top, she
started forward. "When we catch sight of the men, let's call for them to
wait," Gray Needle said, the unease beginning to turn into panic.

 
          
 
"I was going to suggest the same
thing," Bone Ring agreed.

 
          
 
Heat rolled off the deflated cobbles, burning
through the bottoms of Gray Needle's moccasins. She followed the trail between
the sandstone knobs, winding through the chest-high boulders that littered this
end of the terrace. She made it to the slope that dropped down to the
floodplain before she saw
Squawapple's
husband, Half
Moon. He lay on his face, his body sprawled on the slope.

 
          
 
The ambush had been laid cunningly.

 
          
 
Frightened cries erupted behind her. Gray
Needle whirled to run, but a man sprang out from behind one of the rocks. He
wore oddly tailored hide clothing, the hunting coat hanging down to mid-thigh.
Strange figures had been tattooed into his face, and he wore his shining black
hair in a high roach. Powerful hands seized her. Burdened by her child, she
tried to fight back. Her screams split the air.

 
          
 
Warriors seemed to appear from the very rocks
as her captor dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the ground. Another of the
hideous warriors ripped her child away from her. Holding the infant up, he
screamed triumph in an alien tongue.

 
          
 
"Let me go!" she pleaded.

 
          
 
Wolfish eyes stared into hers. Then the
warrior laughed and spoke to her in a tongue she couldn't understand. He jerked
her arms behind her and bound them with sinew thongs. Dragging her to her feet
and pointing down the slope, he ordered her to move forward.

 
          
 
Fear pumped bright through Gray Needle's
charged veins. Little Toe—where are you? What was happening?
Squawapple
and a whimpering Elderberry were being driven
along by other warriors.

 
          
 
"Who are you?" Gray Needle cried
out. "What are you doing?"

 
          
 
Then she saw Little Toe. He lay farther down
the slope, where he'd fallen into the sage. Two long war darts protruded from
his body.

 
          
 
Her legs collapsed under her. The warrior
kicked her roughly as an anguished cry of disbelief broke from her lips.

 
          
 
Another of the warriors stood aloofly to one
side. He watched through impassive eyes, darts grounded before him. Five black
circles had been tattooed into the dark skin of his forehead. The warrior said
in halting but intelligible speech, "We are Sun People. These warriors are
Black Point. You belong to this man. He is Fire Rabbit."

 
          
 
For a moment, disbelief overwhelmed her grief.
Then tears broke free to run down her face. No warrior would run to warn the
Earth People.

 
          
 
White Ash concentrated on relaxing. She sat,
legs crossed, on a pile of soft hides in Singing Stones' shelter. She kept her
eyes closed. Within, she could feel the blood pumping in her veins. The beat of
her heart and the expansion and contraction of her lungs became eternal. She
turned inward until even those sensations were left behind.

 
          
 
The radiance of the Wolf Bundle hovered in the
nothingness nearby, its Power twining around her. She resisted the urge to
surrender to it and turned inside, away from the direction the Wolf Bundle
might have taken her. Must it always hover at the edge of her awareness, a
constant distraction?

 
          
 
She let go of herself and used all of her
willpower to blank her thoughts. When she'd filled herself with nothingness,
she began to peel away the layers of herself.

 
          
 
A drifting feeling—as if she were
falling—began to possess her. The feathery touch of the One closed around her
like blue smoke on a misty morning. Her body moved with it, seeming to float on
waves.

 
          
 
The feathery voice drifted out of the One.
Seek . . . seek . . .

 
          
 
"Where are you?"

 
          
 
The image broke, awareness of the One
shredding as she returned to her body. White Ash blinked and glanced dazedly
around. She took a deep breath and sighed. I can't do it. I get so close . . .
and that's as far as I can go.

 
          
 
"You try too hard," Singing Stones
said. He sat naked to the waist on his robes in the rear of the shelter. On the
wall the Spiral caught the flickering firelight. Shadows danced on the
soot-stained rock and played over the bundles hung from their pegs.

 
          
 
White Ash lowered her head; pain nagged her
cramped legs. "I felt it, and I think I heard the voice of First
Man." She shook her head. "It seems like the closer I get, the
farther away the One is."

 
          
 
Singing Stones touched the tips of his fingers
together, ancient eyes knowing. "You will find the way."

 
          
 
She straightened her legs and winced at the
tingling agony. He always said that, but this time the words came too close on
the heels of her failure. "When? How much time is left? I have to
Dream." She rubbed her legs. "Maybe . . . maybe I'm not the
one."

           
 
The lines in Singing Stones' face deepened.
"If you believe that, you will never find the way. Only belief, and denial
of yourself, will bring you to the One."

 
          
 
"Belief? Denial? Words, Singing Stones.
Just words."

 
          
 
Still Water groaned softly, asleep in his
robes. His old battered pack—the one that held the Wolf Bundle—lay at the head
of his bed. He started awake and rubbed a knotted fist into this eyes. He fixed
White Ash with a pained stare and said, "It's begun."

 
          
 
White Ash shot him a withering look and asked,
"What?"

 
          
 
Still Water sat up. "Sun People are in
the
Wind
Basin
. I— I Dreamed. Flew with the Wolf Bundle. I
saw people being killed. Women taken captive."

 
          
 
She stared. "But Brave Man wouldn't be
there. Not that quickly."

 
          
 
Still Water's expression didn't change.
"I didn't see him. But the last time I had a Dream like this, it happened.
Just like the Dream. I saw the camp that Brave Man killed. I saw the Dancers
that night around the fire. Saw him . . . you. I saw it!"

 
          
 
She shifted her attention to Singing Stones.
The old man sat immobile. "Power waits for no man ... not even for a
Dreamer."

 
          
 
Outside in the night, an angry breeze sighed
through the pines. The fire cracked and popped in the silence. From just beyond
the shelter hangings, the
hoo
hoo
hooo
of an owl cried plaintively.

 
          
 
White Ash cringed. Brave Man? In the
Wind
Basin
?

           
 
"What about our people?" Still Water
asked. "We have to do something. We can't just let the Sun People—"

 
          
 
"You can do nothing," Singing Stones
interrupted. "Unless you want to go down and die with the rest of
them."

 
          
 
Still Water ground his jaws and thumped his
fist into the robes. "What's happening? Why? What's the purpose of so much
war and dying and pain?"

 
          
 
Singing Stones looked up at the magpie; the
bird sat on its perch, its head stuffed under one wing. "A new way has
come to the Spiral. Power cares nothing for human suffering. Only First Man
Dreams to keep the Spiral in balance. He is the link between people and the
Spirit world. It is up to White Ash to Dream a new way for the Sun People. Only
through the Dream can the Sun People be made to understand."

 
          
 
The Dream. It always comes back to the Dream .
. . and me. She ran nervous hands over her face. "Maybe I can Dream only
when Power comes to me. Maybe only when—"

 
          
 
"That's because you are caught in the web
of your own illusion." Firelight gleamed in Singing Stones' obsidian eyes.

 
          
 
"That's just it!" she cried,
gesturing her futility. "Maybe I can't let go of being me!"

 
          
 
"You try too hard."

 
          
 
"Wonderful! I try too hard. What else can
I do? Cease to try—and let everything fall to Brave Man? Maybe no one who's
awake ever touches the One. Maybe it's your own illusion that you
experience." As soon as the sharp words left her mouth, she regretted
them.

 
          
 
Frustration pulled its knot tight in her
breast. She'd given her heart and soul to following the old man's instructions.
For almost a moon now, she'd reached the edge of that feathery touch,
experienced the falling sensation. And each time, the feeling of the One
evaporated just as she struggled to cross that last threshold and fall into the
gray mist.

 
          
 
She ground her teeth, confused and irritated.
What's the matter with me? Maybe I’m not the hero they think I am. It's too
much to ask a human to do.

           
 
To Singing Stones, she said, "I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have said that."

 
          
 
The old man nodded, the barest movement of his
head. "I know the feeling that possesses you. Like an infant who can
stand, you can't take the first step without tottering and falling.

 
          
 
White Ash fingered the hem of her elk-hide
shirt. I'm not sure you can walk either, old one.

 
          
 
Singing Stones narrowed his eyes as if reading
her thoughts. "The One is all around." He gestured at the rock above
and then to the floor and walls. "Yet you remain blinded to it. You are
striving to overcome an entire lifetime of illusion. Now your thoughts are
telling you it can't be done. As long as you listen to yourself, you will
fail."

 
          
 
She bit her lip, then said, "I have only
your word . . . and the knowledge that once you sat in the middle of an elk
herd. That could be explained away. Maybe it was a trick of the wind. Or you
fed them or something."

 
          
 
Still Water watched them warily and pulled at
his bedding with anxious fingers.

 
          
 
The lines on Singing Stones' face rearranged
into a thoughtful pattern. "Would it help if you saw illusion overcome?
The seeds of doubt have been planted in your mind. Will you feed them with
illusion until they sprout and grow?"

 
          
 
"See illusion overcome?" Still Water
asked, skepticism large on his face.

 
          
 
Singing Stones glanced at Still Water, then
gave White Ash a benign look. "I feel the struggle in your soul. Driven by
desperation, you can never experience the One, never Dream. Desperation is an
illusion. Ignore it."

 
          
 
She clenched her fists hard enough to drive
nails into her palms. "Ignore it? With Brave Man and his twisted sense of
Power running loose? You've had visions of the future he will Dream. You've
heard Still Water describe his visions. How can we ignore the fact that Brave
Man is going to separate people from the One? He's going to Dream a terrible
way to live!"

 
          
 
"You must ignore it." Singing Stones
never wavered. "It is the only way. But in that direction lies the trap I
fell into. You must do what I failed to. You must Dream the One—and deny its
lure. Otherwise, you will be like Singing Stones, a moth drawn to the
flickering light of the fire—unable to resist the flames."

 
          
 
Her anger welled again. "You expect
me—who can't even touch the One—to do what you failed to do?" White Ash
threw her hands up, slapped her knees, and stared angrily at the soot-encrusted
rocks overhead. The fire popped and sent a swirl of sparks up to flicker into
nothingness.

 
          
 
Singing Stones nodded. "If I showed you,
would you cleanse the anger and worry from your soul? Would you trust me?"

 
          
 
"Show me?" she asked incredulously.

 
          
 
Singing Stones closed his eyes and began to
chant, centering himself as he'd taught White Ash to do. Back stiff, he sat
before the fire, his timeless face relaxed. The gentle melody of the chant
filled the shelter and woke the magpie. The bird peered about and paced
nervously back and forth on the stick that served as its perch, then quieted as
if stroked by the lilting Song.

 
          
 
The old man's chant rose and fell with the
leaping flames of the fire. White Ash's skin prickled, and she shot a nervous
glance at Still Water, who watched with wide eyes. The shelter seemed to echo
the chant, amplifying the sound until the very rocks Danced with it.

 
          
 
Power built, and White Ash forgot her anger
and frustration. She swayed with the rhythm of the chant. The very air snapped
with the Power of the Wolf Bundle. Like dancing smoke, it surged and flowed
through the static-charged air. She sensed Singing Stones calling on the Power
of the Wolf Bundle. She shivered when it wrapped the old man in its strength.

 
          
 
Singing Stones opened his eyes, the look
vacant, as if he were no longer within his body. The chant dropped to a
whisper, but the tones carried.

 
          
 
Absently, the old man offered his hands to the
light. He bent forward, reeling slightly, and reached into the fire. Face
raised to the rock overhead, he lifted coals from the hearth, chanting to them.
Lifting them to his lips, he kissed them and took them into his mouth. Long
moments later, he plucked them out and rubbed them along his bare arms and over
his sunken chest.

 
          
 
White Ash stared in disbelief and awe. No
blisters rose on the old man's flesh. No welts marred his lips. Nor did he
react as the burning coals ran along his skin.