The cabin on the mountainside had once been Hart’s alone, her retreat from the world. Higher up the slope, the feathered serpent Tessien had laired, but the dragon was gone now. Like so much else.
The countryside around the cabin was mostly deserted. The tribe of elves and elf-friends whose village was situated at the base of the mountain rarely ventured this far up the slope. It was lonely country, but Sam would never be alone again. The dancers, those who had sacrificed themselves, would always accompany him. He could feel them all. Well, almost all—Howling Coyote was only a memory; Sam didn’t know why. He had seen the old man’s body as the elder shamans carried him away from the sprouting tree and had felt the gift of power that had let him overcome Spider. It seemed that Howling Coyote had been a sacrificial participant in the Dance like the others, but Sam had no sense that the Coyote shaman had stayed with him like the others. Maybe that was as it should be—a final trick of the Trickster.
Sam turned his gaze to the north, where the Seattle metroplex lay, infested with its corporations, crime, struggles, good citizens, and its shadows. The glow of the ’plex was losing its dominance of the night to the graying of the eastern sky. In the urban sprawl, the lights still cast shadows, and somewhere in those twilight realms, Ghost, Sally, and Kham still roamed. They were welcome to it. He was done with that world now. For him to run the shadows again would be suicide. His edge had been the magic and he was free of that now, burned clean by the searing power of the Great Ghost Dance.
Once he had denied the magic, and thought that being free of it was his greatest desire. He had believed its absence from his life would bring him happiness. Now he knew that the presence or absence of the magic wasn’t important. What was important was how he dealt with what life handed him. Now that he was without magic, he wasn’t joyful or sad. He just accepted it as the way he was.
While fighting Spider at the last, he had stood in the realm of the totems. Borne by the Dance, he had seen more than he could tell now that he was back in his body. And when he had been there, he had understood more than he had seen. Then, he had seen as a shaman sees. Then, he had known the shapes of all things in the spirit and the shape of all shapes. He had learned the greatest secret of power: that all must live together like one being, and in that harmony find the beauty residing in all things.
The sublime understanding of that truth was slipping from him now that he was mundane flesh, but its core burned in his heart. From here on, all he could do was live as best he could, trying, always trying, to find that beauty.
“Walk in beauty,” a brave man had once said to him.
It had been intended as a benediction, but now Sam knew it as a command as well. Life bought with death owed a duty to those who had sacrificed. He intended to pay that price.
Inu barked to call him back, and he started down the slope. Seeing a light in the cabin window, he smiled. She was awake. There hadn’t been much chance to talk since Willie had brought her home. She’d been undergoing treatment and was unconscious much of the time. If she had awakened by herself, it meant she had turned the corner.
“Feeling better?” he asked, coming through the door.
“Not much, but I can feel my fingers.” Hart held up a hand swathed in pictograph-decorated bandages.
He sat on the bed and gently brought the hand to his lips. “Glad to hear it. Kelly Grey Eyes will be pleased, too. But you’d better not stress it before the next healing ritual. You how those Bear shamans are about patients who don’t follow orders.”
“Too well,” she said.
He reached over to the telecom, brought up the medical file, and fed it the data from the monitors. The medical expert system said it would be another few days before she was up to light exercise, but from the insistence of her roaming hand, he doubted she’d want to wait. He captured her fingers in a double-handed grip and held them still in his lap. He didn’t want to wait, either, but one of them had to be disciplined.
Thwarted, she seemed subdued. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes. Inu padded over and nosed his way under Sam’s left arm, insisting on being petted.
“Did we win?” she asked softly.
“We’re alive.”
“What about Spider?”
“Gone.”
“Destroyed?” she said incredulously.
Sam shook his head. “Not even the Great Ghost Dance in all its power could destroy Spider, for that would violate the Dance’s own magic. Spider is a part of the earth as much as any totem. Spider will be diminished for a time; harmony demands it.”
Hart watched the dog for a while, then said, “I have a vague memory of someone saying something about you being mundane. Was I dreaming?”
“No.”
“That’s awful.”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said with a shrug. Then he smiled at her. “That is, unless it means that you don’t want me around anymore.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” she teased. “But during the raid on Weberschloss, you touched my mind and used the Dance to send magic to help. You were there with me.”
“Yes.
“I mean we shared…you know…”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want to leave me?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
She used her good hand to grab his arm and pull herself to a sitting position. Slipping both arms around him, she gave him a fierce hug. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Should I argue?”
Inu barked and Hart shushed him while Sam said, “Who asked you?” The brief flurry of excitement exhausted Hart’s reserve. Sam laid her down and closed her eyes with kisses. But she wasn’t ready to sleep, and he no longer had the power to compel her. She reopened her eyes.
“Sam, maybe when I’m healed we can find a way to open you to the power again.”
“Why? I’m content with the way things are.”
“I couldn’t live like that.”
“You don’t have to.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“I walked the paths of power when it was time for me to do so. Now it’s time for me to find another path. I don’t miss the magic much, and it’s left a lot of good things in my life.” He touched her nose. “Having been a magician has made some positive changes in my life.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Well, for one thing, I’ve learned to sing a lot better.”
“This is a major improvement in your life?”
“Uh-huh.” Sam cleared his throat, then began.
“The world before me is restored in beauty.
“The world behind me is restored in beauty.
“The world below me is restored in beauty.
“The world above me is restored in beauty.
“All things around me are restored in beauty.
“My voice is restored in beauty.
“It is finished in beauty.
“It is finished in beauty.
“It is finished in beauty.”
He could see in her eyes that she understood.
