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.
“A Dreamer has to clear his mind to be able to think and feel without worrying about who’s squabbling with who. Without being interrupted by nonsense.”
She rubbed her nose. “Here … before the People came … you could hear, feel, let the world wrap around you. The land breathes, the animals follow their ways. Seasons, cycles, it all goes around. Everything’s inseparably locked together. Grass grows where mammoth dung falls. Seeds blow in the
wind. Mammoth eats the grass and makes more dung. The People know this, but not what it means. And who can think about the One Life when three kids are howling for food and someone is telling jokes in the back of the shelter?” “So, all I have to do is be alone?” he asked skeptically. It sounded far too easy to be true.
She bowed her head and laughed. “All you have to do is set yourself free.”
“How do I do that?”
She grinned insolently. “First you have to learn to walk.”
“To walk?” he asked, bewildered.
“Sure, then you learn to Dance.”
“Dance?”
“Uh-huh. Then you learn to stop the Dance so you can get a good look at the Dancer.”
He shook his head. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“The One Life. It’s all a Dance and you have to feel its motions before you can understand it.”
“And you think I don’t know how to walk yet?”
She sniffed lightly. “Wolf Dreamer, you can’t even crawl.” He twisted the fur on his parka hem, forming it into a sharp point as he thought.
“You’ll teach me?”
“Are you ready to learn?”
An unaccustomed dryness parched his mouth. Am I? “Yes.”
“Come.” She stood, joints cracking, and pushed the door flaps out of the way.
On the way out, he noted the bear skull, empty orbs staring at him darkly. He clenched his fists in determination. He’d learn.
She led him along the ridge to a high place above the hot springs. Below, the water splashed and bubbled, sizzling. In the blackness of night, she placed a robe on the rock. “Sit. Stay here until I come get you. The only thing you must do is still your mind … find the silence beneath all the sound.”
He squinted incredulously. “There’s no silence here. It’s all a mass of constant sounds.”
He saw her broken teeth flash in the dim light of the Star
People. She put hands on hips and gazed out over the rolling hills to the distant ridges. “You think there’s a hole there?”
He followed her gaze, staring at the jagged peaks of ice. A soft pain twined through him. “Yes.”
“You have to find the hole inside you before you’ll find the one in the ice.”
He squeezed his eyes shut a moment, clamping his jaw in disbelief. “This is all gibberish. The One Life, the Dance, the hole. What are you—”
“They’re all the same. Everything is nothing.” She cackled, hilarious.
He lifted a brow. “You’ve lost your mind.”
Heron shoved his shoulder playfully. “Exactly! And you must, too. Come. Sit. Clear all words from your head. Not a thought. Not a single image in your mind. You have to lose your mind, be empty before you can be full. Sound easy?”
He nodded in the dark. “Of course. Just shut off the voice in my mind.”
“I thought you’d say that.” She turned and walked off, steps fading in the darkness. Softly he heard her add, “Remember, your only enemy will be yourself.”
Wolf Dreamer rubbed his chin dubiously as he watched the steam rise from the geyser, glowing silver in the starlight.
“Well.” He sighed. “Here goes.” He closed his eyes and stilled all the words in his mind, concentrating on the sound of the hot springs. It was easy … for all of a half-dozen heartbeats.
Then words crept into his thoughts. Scenes remembered glowed to life in his mind. Slips of conversation oozed from nowhere. The sound of the springs disappeared in his struggle. Nothing helped. Around him, only the cold of the night and his discomfort on the rock agitated his constant battle to keep his mind clear.
Dancing Fox’s face floated in his memories and he felt a tearing confusion, longing, desire to see her again. Hurt, he tried to force her away, his mind chattering to itself.
No sooner had he vanquished that vision than Seagull’s voice began, the subtle tones of her speech welcome and comforting. Daydreams followed, all erupting out of the turmoil in his mind.
“Your only enemy will be yourself,” Heron’s words reminded,
mocking his effort. His butt hurt. The first tendrils of hunger drifted through his stomach.
The long hours continued.
He caught himself musing at the sunrise, smiling at the red and blue bands drenching the sky. Desperately, he battled to still his thoughts about the day. His imagination wove patterns out of the steam lifting from the gurgling water. The gentle breeze filled with familiar voices.
His butt had gone numb. A loud rumble reminded him of his empty stomach.
It got worse.
He didn’t remember rolling over on his side, but the flies brought him awake. Tiny gnats plagued him.
“Fine Dreamer you are,” he chastised himself, feeling frustrated to the point of screaming. Viciously, he swatted an insect and wiped the remains on his pant leg.
The day wore on. Had Heron forgotten? Gone drifting off on her own, unaware of time? Maybe he ought to go look for her?
“I won’t leave.”
The sun heated the sky, a thirst growing as he began to perspire. The insects got worse, drawn by the odor of his sweat. A shimmering cloud, they hummed around him. The black flies and mosquitoes sought his flesh. Gnats rattled in his nose, bit at his waist and neck. In desperation, he rolled over and pulled his hood up to cover his head. Sweet oblivion …
A sharp kick to the ribs brought him scrambling up. To the west, a faint glow marked the vanishing path of Father Sun.
“Asleep?” Heron mused, looking down at his bite-swollen face. “You Dreamed?”
“Uh … yes. I was back in the—”
“Didn’t you ever find the silence?”
“There’s no silence here!” he insisted adamantly, glowering at her.
“Great Mammoth, you’re worse off than I thought.” She spun on her heel.
He got up unsteadily, dusting himself off, feeling like a gruesome failure. Crestfallen, he followed her.