—My elk galloping across the prairie, Coyote running beside me, flowing over the ground.
Then I see that he’s slowing, and my elk begins to slow too—the whole herd comes to a stop, on the dark grassland beneath the million billion stars of the Dreaming.
Coyote turns and my elk wheels around too and I hear the susurration of the grass beneath the hooves and I’m glad; my heart fills with it. We look back and the chasm is just a dark scar in the distance.
There are no wolves pursuing us, not a single one. It’s just us, and our long shadows, on the prairie.
We should go back, says Coyote/Mark.
Why? says the elk. There is a nervous whinnying from the others.
To make sure, says Coyote. If you are afraid I will go alone.
The elk snorts. We are not afraid, it says. We are Elk. We are many.
Good, says Coyote/Mark.
Okay, it’s not going to work, me writing Coyote/Mark. When he’s in Coyote form I’m just going to call him Coyote, okay? But remember that he is Mark too.
We all canter back until we reach the lip of the canyon. I slide down from the elk and walk over beside Coyote, then we peer down the devastated slope. I can’t see anything at first, but then I just make out the tail of a wolf, poking out from beneath a grave of stones.
They are gone, says Coyote. Crushed.
The closest elk nods its head. This is good, it says.
Then Coyote ripples and shifts, twisting, until Mark is standing there beside us. We must keep moving, he says. To the castle. You can remain here if you wish. It may be safer. The wolves will keep coming, even if these are dead.
An elk stamps its feet beside me. No, we will continue to carry you, it says.
I look across the prairie and see the distant spire of the castle, small on the horizon, beyond a smudge that may be woods.
The elk nearest me, a male with huge antlers, bends down to allow me to mount.
The elk closest to Mark bows down too, and Mark doesn’t waste time with polite protesting, he just swings himself up, and after a second I do the same. We take off at a quick canter across the plain.
We ride for what feels like several days, though it’s always night; I sleep on the back of my elk, lulled by its motion, my face pressed into its fur, smelling its deep and ancient scent; musky, comforting. Above me the stars wheel, impossibly slowly, the whole night sky shining, like mother of pearl.
It’s hard to tell, but it seems like the elks aren’t just cantering, actually, though the movement is smooth. We’re eating up the miles, the ground moving past at what is actually kind of a scary—
Whoa, okay, note to self: don’t look too closely at the ground. The elks’ hooves are barely touching the forest floor; it’s as if they could take off into the air and fly if they wanted to, but are holding back out of self-sacrifice, or maybe to spare me fear.
Yet, when the ache in my ass subsides, the speed gets gradually less scary and I come to love the riding—the constant motion of the elk, the warmth of it beneath me, the sense that we are one organism, moving together. The hypnotizing rhythm of it. I feel like, if I die right now, my ghost will keep on riding, forever, happy.
I wake and the landscape has shifted—we’re starting to enter thin woods, not a forest like before, with pines, but a deciduous one, like something you’d expect to see in Europe or something. Starlight filters down through the leaves and branches, dappling everything. Here, too, the trees are dry and dying.
But they’re not like the trees from before, I realize. They’re sharp and gnarled, angry looking. They have spikes growing from them.
The Forest of Thorns, says Mark, from the elk beside me. We’re getting closer to the castle.
It’s creepy, I say, looking at the twisting branches, the knifelike thorns.
Yes, says Mark. Soon we’ll stop, for the elks to rest. And to light a fire. The creatures that serve the witch do not like fire.
We’re on a broad path that leads through the forest but it is getting narrower and narrower, and the elks are having to slow more and more. As we ride, I listen to the whistling of the wind in the thorns, in the leaves. It sounds like crying.
We carry on, for maybe another hour, the path getting trickier all the time, thorns starting to push in toward us from the trees, to catch on the fur of the elks, on my sleeve.
And the wind …
It is crying, I realize. It’s the crying of the child, from my dream. And as we ride, it’s getting louder, like a vibration that lies under everything, like I imagine the sea must be, if you live near it.
Can you hear it? I say to Mark. I have to turn because we are riding single file now, and he is behind me.
The Child? he says.
Yes, I say.
He nods. We must save it, he says.
I don’t say anything. But the sound feels like it’s crowding everything else out of my mind, taking me over. I would do anything to make it stop. Anything. I just want to get to that child and help it, to protect it from the Crone, or whatever it is that is hurting it.
I didn’t care about the Crone or the Child or any of that stuff before, it was all abstract, but then the snake bit the elk and now … now the crying in my ears, exactly the same as in my dream …
Hell, doing what Mark said—killing the Crone and saving the Child—it would be worth it even if it just stopped me having that dream again. And then there is the anger too. Now that I have had my hand on an elk as its flame went out, as it went dark, I would be happy to kill the Crone.
I am looking forward to killing her.
Maybe a half hour later, Mark calls for the elks to stop. It’s getting too hard for them to press on through the forest. We come to a halt just before a small clearing in the thorny, nasty woods. Mark dismounts and I swing myself down too—the ground is sharp with stones underfoot, little flinty stones.
I don’t think you can go any farther, he says to the elks. We will go from here on foot.
The elks nod. We will wait here. For your return journey.
We will not be returning, says Mark. Whatever happens.
I stare at him.
Don’t worry about it, he says. You will see.
Good luck, say the elks.
Thank you, says Mark. He turns and waves them back. Go, he says. You have served. You have stood.
We have stood, says the elk that Mark was riding, not proud, just like a statement of fact. We are Elk. Make the rain return, Coyote.
I will, says Mark. I will, with the Maiden’s help.
Then the elks turn and in a blur of hooves, they’re gone. I feel almost like crying, they were so beautiful, and so gentle.
Mark doesn’t look at me, he just pushes through the branches—I see the thorns raise red welts on his arms, raking him as he passes. I follow him, cursing as the thorns scratch me too.
We emerge into the little clearing. All around us, the forest presses in, sharp and many-sided, busy with thorns. But this is a small, round haven, roofed with stars.
There are still good places, within the Crone’s territory, says Mark. This is one of them. The last, I think.
Places can be good and bad? I ask.
Oh yes, says Mark. You haven’t noticed?