Heron kicked him in the ribs, hard, and got a groan.
“Come on,” she growled. “Get up.”
Lifting, she got him to his feet, slipping on the irregularity of the snow beneath. Mammoth trail. Must have been the old bull headed for the hot springs. The boy had followed the tracks.
“Black,” she called, supporting the staggering man’s weight. “Home, Black.”
Obedient, the dog loped away, a charcoal splotch in the windswept night.
Forever they walked. Her breath tore at her lungs. He faltered, trying to keep erect. Even through the many layers of his clothing, she could feel his bones. Starved. One foot at a time, they progressed, Black racing back and forth, leading the way, nose to the piling snow.
An hour later, on the verge of collapse, they crested the ridge, the stranger falling to his knees, almost dragging her down. Huffing condensed clouds of breath, Heron grabbed his hood and slid him down the trail.
He shivered, the spasms violent.
“You gonna die after I’ve done all this work?” she grumbled. Pulling off her mittens, she undid his parka with stiffened fingers, the dogs nosing about, anxious, reading her disquiet.
The stiff leather came off with difficulty. Heron turned her face away at the odor of him. Sickness and stale sweat hung heavily about him. Teeth chattering, she yanked the last of his clothing off and stripped herself, dragging him over the rocks, heedless of his tender skin until she had him in the warm water of her hot springs.
In the darkness, steam swirled wildly in the wind, enveloping them in a blanket of moist warmth. She held him, feeling the strangeness of human flesh against hers. Keeping his head above water, she listened to his heart, to his breathing. He stirred.
“You’re safe,” she assured. “Now tell me what you’re doing here?”
The boy muttered, voice thick, the words only half-formed. In the darkness, she could read his confused eyes. She knew this boy. Something inside tensed.
“Long ago …” she muttered. “You’ve finally come.”
The next evening Heron ducked under the door flap, leaving the wide-eyed boy to stare at her back. He’d remained quiet, absorbed in his own thoughts. She hadn’t wanted to push him yet, but would have to soon.
Stepping along the mist-slick rocks at the edge of the pool, she stopped suddenly. The old mammoth lumbered down the hillside and into the pool, soaking up water with his trunk and spraying it over his back.
“Back again, are you? Brought me a human, you know? Followed your trail.”
An explosive exhale and a grunt were her only answers as he scented the air warily. He always came before a storm. Regular as the call of a plover, the huge animal plodded to the hot springs to suck up the mineral waters and wade in the steaming pool. She accepted that, understanding how joints ached prior to the storm. Her own, stiff now with pain, reacted the same way.
She waited, speaking softly to her two dogs who watched with pricked ears. She motioned with a flat hand, keeping them steady, silent.
While they had a truce of sorts—she and the old bull—they didn’t crowd each other’s territory. On a rock, she waited, keeping a cautious eye on the mammoth who stood up to his belly in rolling mist. He swayed his trunk, splashing slightly as though the odor of the mineral springs was distasteful to his sensitive nose.
In the lee of the rocks, the wind didn’t touch her, though tiny flakes of snow drifted down from the sky to disappear as they landed on the warm rocks. Magically, from the mist, caribou appeared. Young “one antler” held his head irritably, shaking it, as the itch to shed tormented his lopsided head. Warily, the caribou drank, feeling Heron’s serenity.
Black shifted uneasily. She signaled the dog to quiet.
White stifled a low whine, her eyes on the caribou, speculative.
The old mammoth grunted, lifting his trunk, stepping gingerly toward shore. A ponderous beast, his huge legs ran silver-crested waves toward the rocky beach, the swirling fog from the hot water almost obscuring him from her view. Amidst splashes, the patriarch of the herd gracefully placed his treelike feet; rock grated under the weight. Rivulets of runoff drained in threads from his coarse red-brown hair.
“Yes,” Heron cooed. “You’d best get back to your cows. What have you got up there? Three now? And two calves to keep track of? Better beware, old man. The Long Light is growing. Other young sprouts will be coming, trying to drive you off and keep the old dames to themselves, eh?”
At her words, he turned, facing her, grunting again.
“Oh, go on with you.” She waved him away. “What’s one old woman to you?”
He lifted his trunk, working his mouth noisily, and turned into the storm, a moving mountain of hair and meat. His bulk faded into the darkness, becoming one with the haze.
Black shifted nervously, nose working as he watched the big animal vanish into the roiling mists.
The caribou eyed her warily. Heron waited until they’d drunk their fill of the water, splashing disdain at the taste with their noses. Uneasy, they moved off, licking black muzzles. They, too, had been enveloped by the steam before she stood, stripping in the icy air.
She picked her way over the rock, wading into the warm water until it reached her hips. Gracefully, she dove, letting the warmth tingle and eat into her skin. Bathed in radiant heat, she stroked across the pool, rising, spitting a mouthful of sulfurous water before standing on the other side.
Ah, how the heat helped. With callused fingers, she squeezed her hair dry and sighed, swirling the waters around her. Ice crystals formed in her hair as the breeze skimmed the surface, fraying the mists.
Black scrutinized her anxiously from the shore, stepping lightly along the rocks.
Heron lay floating as the dusk settled, feeling life in her old joints. Indeed, this was bliss. Such a treasure, this pool of hers. Above, higher in the rocks and hidden by mist, the
geyser hissed and gushed, steam billowing down as hot water shot to the sky. The fount splattered the rocks in a melodic staccato.
Refreshed, Heron paddled to shore, stepping from the water. Her breath fogged before her as she shook water from her arms and legs, shivering. Gathering her clothing, she walked a dart’s-throw to the mouth of her cave, feet tingling on the cold snow. Black followed, White trailing him, sniffing the wind.
She passed the caribou-hide door flaps and dropped another stick of birch onto the glowing coals, standing above them in the heat, letting her body dry before dressing. The boy sat across the fire, watching her hesitantly. He was a good-looking brat, perfect oval face with wide eyes and full lips. Tall, too, with broad shoulders.
Black paced nervously at the doorway, looking back over his shoulder.
“Hungry,” Heron muttered.
Black’s tail wagged and he sneezed, stretching his front legs playfully.
“Go! See what you can run down.” She waved a hand, White and Black both nuzzling under the flap and into the coming night.
Heron wrung out her damp hair, spreading it over the dry heat of the fire. “You look like you’ll live,” she commented.
The boy bobbed his head slowly. “I will, but I’m worried about my people. When I left, the three shelters were all crowded. I don’t know how many will be alive.”
“Tomorrow, when it’s light, we’ll go get them.” She sighed. “There goes my privacy.”
He said nothing, eating slowly of her pemmican. The mixture of berries and fat would provide nourishment for his skinny frame.
She nodded, unable to take her eyes from his. “You grew up to be much more handsome than I’d imagined.”
He looked up, frowning. “What?”
“Never mind. I’ll explain later. First, tell me why you’re here.” She nudged the end of another stick into the crackling blaze. “I thought old Crow Caller’s father had warned everyone away from this place.”
“He did.” He looked away, eyes pained, guilt in his expression. “I brought people here anyway.”
“Wise choice.” She fluffed her graying hair. She was unaccustomed to using her voice to speak to a human being. Her tones, once a smooth and sweet contralto, had gone gravelly over the long years.
He dropped his head in his hands. At the broken look, her heart went out to him. Some terrible burden weighed him down, betrayed by his anxious eyes.
“You want to tell me about it?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “I … I Dreamed. We were hungry. Hunger does strange things to a person’s mind.”
“Of course it does strange things, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Dreaming.”
“How do you know?” he asked, a twinge of fear and hope in his voice.
“I know.”
His face flushed as he ran a hand through his long hair. “Wolf … called me … I mean …”
Heron’s heart quickened. She reached across and lifted his chin. “Look me in the eyes, boy. Tell me what Wolf told you.”
He swallowed, jaw working under smooth skin in the grip of her hard fingers. “We were starving in the shelters. I heard Wolf scratching at my mother’s corpse. I … I thought only of meat.” Once started, the story flowed, hesitantly to be sure, but it all came out. She stopped him when he told of trying to call the animals, to find them that they might eat.
“And when you tried to call the animals? What then?”
He shook his head, hands extended to the fire. “I couldn’t feel them, couldn’t … I’m not a Dreamer. Look what I’ve done. Led my people to the ends of the world—”
“Your mind was clogged. You thought other things? You were desperate?”
He nodded, cowed.
Heron scowled. “Yet you say you stood up to Crow Caller, that the strength of Wolf was in you.”
He shot a hard look, a glint of defiance in his eyes. “Yes. I felt that! It was there … then.”
“Yes,” she said contemplatively. “I can tell it was. But why isn’t it now? Did no one teach you—”
“I don’t know why!” he shouted in frustration.
“Who Dreams among the People now?”
“Crow Caller.”
She lifted a brow. What had happened all those long years she’d been away? “I always felt a wrongness about him. He never Dreamed right … like only half Dreams. He changed visions. Never let himself be free. Takes freedom to Dream … solitude.”
“Broken Branch said—”
“Broken Branch?” Heron gasped. “Is that traitorous witch still alive?”
The boy winced. “Last time I saw her.”
Heron chuckled, slapping her thigh, then unpleasant memories came to the surface of her mind, hardening her heart. “I think maybe I’ll curse her joints.”
“You know her?”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I know her.”
“I didn’t think there was anyone in the world as old as her. She’s been around since—”
“Well, don’t get your hopes up. She may not be around much longer after I catch up to her.”
He frowned. “I think she’s my only friend right now. She believes in Dreaming, talks a lot about it.”
“Does she? Used to be she called me crazy when I had Dreams. Said I had bad spirits in my gut.”
Runs In Light held his breath, disbelieving. “You Dream?”
“I Dream.”
“Is that why you hate Broken Branch so much? The things she said about your Dreaming?”
She paused, memories stirring again. “No … no, that’s not it. Once, long ago, there was a man. A great hunter. He was known for hunting Grandfather Brown Bear. Taunted bears, made them chase him. He’d run past an ambush, circle back, drive a dart behind their shoulders just so. Killed a lot of bear that way. I loved that man. Would have stayed with him. Until Broken Branch—beauty that she was—wrapped her legs around him and turned his head. Besides, the Dreams—”
A sudden light of understanding dawned in his eyes, memories
of stories told flickering; he breathed, “You—you’re Heron?”
Through slitted eyes, she studied him, watching like the great white-headed eagle watches a fish. Carefully, she said, “Does she still bad-mouth me?”
“People said you were only a legend.”
“Except Broken Branch, I’ll wager.”
He nodded, backing crablike toward the far corner of the shelter. She enjoyed the growing fear, the tension relining his mouth. Crazy kid, what did he think? That she’d witch him?
“You won’t get far that way,” she added mildly. “The only other way out is up there.” She pointed at the soot-grimed smoke hole overhead. “Used it a time or two when Grandfather Brown Bear wasn’t discouraged by fire or darts.”
He stopped, wetting his lips nervously. “Crow Caller said—”
“And you listened? Not very bright, are you? Well, just to set your mind at rest, I don’t eat babies.”
Runs In Light didn’t look reassured. “Broken Branch says you used to talk to animals, call them to you.”
“Sure, every Dreamer does.”
He swallowed convulsively, guilt creasing his gaunt face.
“I can’t.”
“Well, you’re young.”
“Others said you talked to the spirits of the Long Dark and shared their Powers. That you can make dead men rise … or suck the soul from a live man and blow it out into the wind to wail forever.”
“Mouse dung!” she spat, irritated. Cocking her head, she studied him. “I do what any Dreamer does. Only I do it better out here away from confusion and old women’s spats and silly young lovers.”
He didn’t relax, eyes searching for the door, as if judging his chances. “Why are you out here all alone, then? If you don’t do things the People would disapprove—”
“For the same reason you ought to be.” She narrowed her eyes, seeing him flinch. “For the Dream, boy! Because being around people clouds your mind. Keeps your thoughts from being pure.”
A trace of confusion shaded his eyes.
She nodded. “Oh, yes, I know you, Runs In Light. I saw
you the day you were born. The day you were conceived! You looked into my eyes. A Dreamer, even then. And your brother? What’s his name?”
“Raven Hunter.” It came as a pained whisper.
She nodded, the vision coming back. “Apt. He’s still clutching black feathers? Still seeking blood? He was born that way, you know. In blood.”
“He went with Crow Caller’s band to face the Others. He—”
“Death there,” Heron muttered. “Too many of them.” She looked up. “Oh, I’ve seen them coming. Things in the world are changing, boy. The ice is melting. Animals are moving, humans following. Let me tell you something.”
A little fearfully, he said, “What?”
“I used to cross to the salt water over those high mountains west of here. Used to sit out on a rock and watch the waves crash. You can see things in surf, you know. Good Dreaming there.” She frowned, seeing it again in her mind. “Last time I was there was three years ago. Waves swirl up over my rock now.”
“So?”
“Means the water’s rising, boy.”
They held each other’s eyes for a long moment, before he ventured, stricken, “Will it cover all the land?”
“How would I know?”
“Didn’t you Dream—”
“Great Mammoth, no! I just saw the difference when I went there.”
“Oh,” he exhaled in relief.
“If I had Dreamed it, would you have gone and cast yourself in the waves to drown?”
“Might have.”
She chuckled, slapping him on the arm. “I like you, boy. You got respect for your elders.”
He smiled weakly.
“Anyway, getting back to the Others. Nobody can beat them.” She made a gesture that caused him to start. “The People can do one of two things. They can fight … and die. Or they can join the Others, be absorbed by them like blood in fox hair.”
“Absorbed? But Sun Father gave us the land and animals.”
“Nothing’s forever, boy. Not mammoth, not you, not me, not even the People.”
His eyes went glassy as though seeing something far away. “The man from the White Tusk Clan said—”
“What man?”
“He was tall with graying black hair. He walked to me and I blew a rainbow out.” He swallowed hard as though expecting her to call him a liar. “I told him I’d trade him a son for a son. I … I asked him to choose between light and dark.”
“You knew him?”
“No.”
Heron stiffened, lips clamped into a white line. “His face, it was oval? His nose thin? Lips full?”
The boy’s nod came slowly, warily.
Heron squinted into the distance, searching the past, seeing a lean-faced man as he raped a woman of the People there on the gray sand, the surf pounding in the background. A white hide rested on his shoulders.
“Do you … know him?”
Heron nodded, exhaling slowly. “Your father.”
Runs In Light’s eyes narrowed in bewilderment. “Seal Paw was my—”
“Seal Paw adopted you. No, the man in the Dream is your real father.” Her smile twisted. “And you’d trade him a son for a son? Interesting. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
A long silence passed.
“Perhaps.” Heron pondered. “I’m missing something. A rainbow is the road of colors that leads to the Monster Children’s world up north; it takes a Dreamer smack into the middle of their war. Is that what this is about? Good fighting evil?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re helpful, aren’t you?”
He blinked in embarrassment. “I never understand my Dreams. They leave me … well …”
“We’ll have to do something about that.”
“What?”
“We’ll talk about it later. Right now, tell me how the Dream made you feel. Did you think that the People would die at the hands of the Others? At the hands of your father?”
“Wolf told me how to …” He floundered, tilting his head uncertainly.
“How to what?”
Runs In Light shifted his gaze to the glowing coals of the fire. “There’s a hole in the Big Ice.”
“Wolf showed it to you?”
He nodded tautly. “He said if we went that way, the People would be saved.”
Heron’s brow furrowed deeply. She puffed a long exhale. “Then you’d better get going. I’ve seen the Others coming fast. You don’t have much time.”