And then I’m in the Dreaming, kneeling by the fallen elk.
My hand is on his chest, feeling his slow breathing. Flecks of foam are starting to form at the edges of his mouth. Mark is standing next to me—I can feel him, the heat of him. He is a human-shaped furnace, and I wonder why I didn’t notice that, that he’s too hot to be a real person.
The other elks are crowded around, in a circle, looking down at their leader, their eyes brimming with sadness. Their heads low. Forming a kind of honor guard, a phalanx—is that right?—all around us. A barrier no wolves or snakes can get through.
Except that it’s too late now.
Come on, says Mark. We need to go. We need to continue on to the castle. To the Child.
But I will not leave the elk, not while he is alive.
No, I say. No, I’m not going anywhere.
Mark puts his hands on his hips. We must hurry, he says. The Crone—
Can wait, I say. I’m not leaving him on his own.
Mark sighs.
All right, he says. I will scout this side of the river. Make sure it’s safe. Then I will build a fire.
He turns and walks off, away upstream, looking all around. Once he is out of earshot, I am surprised to see the eye of the dying elk roll toward me—I thought he was nearly gone, and this movement startles me.
Be careful of him, says the elk in a quiet voice. As if using the last of its strength.
What? I say. Why?
He is Coyote, says the elk softly. He is the Player of Tricks. He is the First Liar.
I sit cross-legged next to him, still with my hand on his warm body. The breathing is getting even slower now, I can almost feel the life force leave him. He doesn’t seem like a liar, I say. He seems … nice.
It is easier to trick with charm than with aggression, says the elk. Just remain vigilant.
The dying elk’s great soft eyes, fringed with long lashes, flutter up to the sky. The spirits and First Man and First Woman made the stars in patterns. They laid them out on a rug, to plan them. Then Coyote said it was taking too long, and he picked up the rug and scattered the stars across the heavens, a great mess of fire in the firmament.
I look up, at the vast glittering chaos of space.
Then I look down at the elk again, and see that his eyes are beginning to shut. Something sharp drives itself into my heart. But only he can bring rain, I say. He said that.
The elk breathes out, slowly. Yes, that is true, he says. It is given to Coyote to control the rain.
The rain is disruptive, says one elk.
The rain is disorder, says another.
The rain is chaos, they all say.
But you need it, I say. For the grass. To eat.
Reluctantly, the elks nod. We do.
Coyote is not evil, says my elk. He simply plays tricks. But he is not to be trusted.
Before Coyote, says another elk, a female, there was no death. Then Coyote threw a stone in a lake, and he said to First Man and First Woman, if the stone sinks, then there will be death. And the stone sank, so there was death.
But stones always sink, I say.
Yes, says the leader. That is the nature of Coyote.
So you’re saying I shouldn’t kill the Crone? I shouldn’t rescue the Child.
No, says the elk. You must do these things. Otherwise all will be lost. I am only saying you must be careful of Coyote.
I lean against him, feeling the departing warmth of him. I don’t understand any of this, I say. I don’t even understand what this place is. The Dreaming.
It is the First World, says the elk. It is the place before time, before Coyote stole the sun and moon and—
Ah, says Mark, coming between two of the honor guard of elks, breaking into the circle. You are telling my tales?
First Angry, says the elk.
Elk, says Mark.
Look after the Maiden, says the elk. Keep her safe.
I promise it, says Mark.
Your promises are nothing, says the elk. You are Coyote.
Then, quite abruptly, it closes its eyes, takes one last deep breath, and dies. I sense it, I almost see it, like when a bright light goes off and a person’s shadow jumps back into them; there is an energy that is pulled back in, and disappears.
The body is still beneath my palm.
Mark closes his eyes. Let his spirit be reborn, he says.
Let his spirit be reborn, say the other elks.
I touch my eyes—they are wet, and my breath is hitching. I have never seen anything die before, and the elk was so beautiful.
And now, of course, I don’t know what to think. Who to trust. The elk said not to believe Mark, to be careful of him. But at the same time it said the same thing as him—that I need to kill the Crone, and rescue the Child. So why would I not trust Coyote?
I mean Mark. I mean Mark.
I can hear the crying of the Child now, faintly, even without Mark doing that magic spell—a kind of constant, low soundtrack, like the moaning of the wind. It is calling me, a dull ache inside me, I feel the urge now that the elk is dead to follow it and make it stop.
To pick up the Child, and hold it in my arms, and make the crying cease.
Ah, says Mark. You hear it.
The Child? I say. Yes.
It is calling you. There is not much time left.
I take his hand and he pulls me to my feet. The castle is still a long way away, he says. We have no time to lose.
What about them? I say, looking at the elks that are still standing in a circle around us.
What about them?
I turn to the elks. But they have been listening to our conversation.
We are coming with you, Maiden, they say. To the Crone. To the Child.
And with me? says Mark. You will suffer the presence of Coyote?
We do not know your goals, says the elk. But you are Coyote. You lived before the world. We will do as you ask.
I think to myself—as soon as he and I are alone Mark and I are having a serious talk about all this Coyote stuff. But now is not the time. I nod at the elks. Thank you, I say.
They begin to walk up the narrow, winding path leading out of the canyon. Mark and I follow.
We keep climbing, higher and higher, and I try not to look down.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, as I round a bend, I see a swift shape behind us. It’s shadow, gray, and it’s following us fast, gaining on us.
Then another.
And another.
Mark whirls around too, stops. More wolves, he says.
I see their muzzles now, their legs and tails, the sleek projectile speed of them. They are running flat out, trying to catch us. It looks like they’re going to succeed. The first one appears from behind a stone, races fluidly upward—a gray needle, stitching the yellow slope of stone. Of course! I think. Why worry about the drop when there are wolves to kill you?
Mark’s eyes skitter over the ground. The path is rocky, and the slope is mostly scree—bits of small stone and like, gravelly stuff, from when the river was much higher, I guess.
I’m going to make a landslide, he says. You get out of here. Ride.
Ride?
Elks run faster than people.
I can’t leave you, I say. I can’t leave you to—
I’ll be fine. Go.
He begins to kick rocks, sending them down the slope. Nothing much happens, and the wolves are gaining. I can see their teeth now, their slobbering tongues. Mark curses, keeps kicking. He picks up a really big rock and throws it, toward a large patch of loose-looking scree.
There’s a pause.
Then a slow movement, like molasses running down the side of a bottle.
Go, says Mark.
I run up the last section of slope with the elks. When we reach the top I see the prairie stretching out before us again, under the vastness of the stars. In the distance is the dark spire of the Crone’s castle, where we’re headed.
Maiden, says the big female elk. Mount. She bends her forelegs so that I can climb onto her back. Quickly, she says.
I grab the fur where her neck and back meet, and pull myself up. Barely are my legs around her before she rises, and begins to run. The sensation is completely different to that of crossing the river—it’s fast, and shakes my bones. I hold on for dear life as the elk flings itself along the ground away from the wolves.
The other elks are running too, their hooves flickering over the dry grass of the prairie. I look back, clinging to my elk’s neck, and see the side of the canyon give way behind us, or that’s what it seems like, rocks roaring downhill like a wave away from us, dust puffing up in clouds.
Holy— I start to think, but I don’t finish the thought, because then the whole world goes out. I mean, it just goes black, everything, the stars disappearing, the river, the gnarled trees clinging to the cliff face, the huddled elks—all of it just switches off.
Click.
What the hell? I say to myself, in the darkness. The elk keeps running, but I can sense its fear, I can feel its head turning from side to side, and it slows, as it tries to work out what is happening.
Everything is gone—no sky, no prairie, no castle spire in the far distance. I freeze, because if I took a wrong step I would fall to my death.
And the crying of the Child is loud now, so loud, not just a sighing like the breeze, underneath everything, but an all-encompassing noise I can’t block out, exactly as if someone turned out the light in a baby’s room, and the baby is screaming—
Something is wrong, says Mark’s voice, loud and breathless in my ear. I look to the side where his voice came from, searching for him in the utter darkness, and—
suddenly there is a burst of light, like a bolt of lightning except that there is no lightning, just that instant the stars are blazing again and there he is, but he is Coyote, streaming along beside my elk, muscles flowing, fur shadowy in the starlight. His mouth is open, long sharp teeth visible, pink tongue lolling, panting as he runs—more like some enormous gray bird flying just over the ground, than an animal.
Something is wrong in your world, he says. Shouts, more like.
Is it Mom? I say, is it—
And at that moment the world disappears again, I mean the Dreaming disappears, everything turning off, the stars gone, and I hear my elk snort and whinny in panic, it is weaving from side to side now, terrified.
I don’t know, says Mark’s voice from the blackness.
Then hands are touching my head, stroking my hair.