Two

The Time of Gestation

Buckthorn knelt on a willow-twig mat before the low fire in his mother’s home. The small square house, last in the solid line of the village, spread three body-lengths across. Dried vegetables hung from the rafters: corn, beans, squash, whole sunflowers, and red prickly pear cactus fruits. Rising smoke helped to keep insects and rot away. It also coated the plants with a shiny black layer of creosote. Through them, Buckthorn could just make out the pine ceiling poles. Swirls of soot marked the gray-plastered walls, covering the faded images Mother had painted there long ago. Since then, a collection of baskets had been hung over them.

In one corner stood a collection of reddish-brown glazed pots, storage for special possessions. In another corner, three big pots, their sides corrugated and rims weighted with sandstone slabs, held what was left of their winter corn and beans. Smaller cooking pots sat to one side, the outer surfaces charred from countless fires.

How familiar and safe it all seemed on this long-hoped-for and terrible day.

Buckthorn’s fingers tugged nervously at the fringes on his knee-length shirt. The white buckskin warmed his skinny body and reflected the firelight’s wavering patterns like a pyrite mirror. His mother had painted the black-and-yellow images of the Great Warriors of East and West on the shirt’s chest, and the Rainbow Serpent, a slithering line of red, yellow, blue-black and white, that encircled his waist. In the fluttering gleam of the flames, the Great Warriors blazed. The lightning lances in their upraised hands wavered, ready to fly across the face of the world in a great roar, to slit open the bellies of the Cloud People and offer life-giving rain to Our Mother Earth—or to bring eternal destruction to wicked human beings.

Buckthorn had not eaten in four days, a holy number, and he felt lightheaded and frightened. Soon, very soon, his life would change forever. He would no longer be the strange, lonely youth that the other children shunned and laughed at. His soul would tumble down the dark tunnel to the First Underworld, and he would either become a revered sacred Singer … or he would be dead.

Buckthorn frowned down at the Great Warriors. Do they already know which it will be?

In the Age of Emergence, just after the First People had climbed through the four underworlds to get to this Fifth World of light, the Great Warriors of East and West had vanquished many monsters that threatened to eat the new people. In the last horrifying battle, the Warriors’ bodies had been turned to stone, but their heroism had earned their souls special places in the skyworlds, sparkling on either side of Father Sun. Father Sun often told them about things that would happen in the world of humans. When necessary, the Warriors soared to earth as shooting stars and walked among men, advising, helping. Sometimes they even killed.

Buckthorn had once known a boy named Little Shield who had been chosen by the elders, as Buckthorn had been, to journey into the underworlds. He had died horribly. At the first sign of trouble, the elders had dragged the boy up from the kiva, the womblike subterranean ceremonial chamber, and stretched him out on the plaza while they raced about gathering herbs and Power bundles, anything that might help tie his soul to his body again.

Buckthorn had been six summers old at the time. He vividly recalled the way Little Shield had thrashed about and screamed that he saw the Great Warriors swooping from the sky to tear his flesh from his bones. It had taken half a day, but the holy twins had finally sunk their talons into Little Shield’s soul and ripped it apart; then they had carried its pieces to the skyworlds and cast them loose in the brilliant light of Father Sun.

The elders said that Little Shield had not been strong enough to make the journey to the underworlds, and that the Great Warriors had killed him so his soul would not be lost forever in the darkness.

A shudder climbed Buckthorn’s spine. Little Shield had died with his eyes wide open, staring in terror at the evening sky.

Will that happen to me?

A low drumbeat outside reminded him that his heart, that all hearts, beat in rhythm with that of the Creator, and that she alone had the Power to decide how long a boy might live.

Buckthorn tugged at his turquoise necklace, fighting vainly to loosen it so he could get more air into his lungs.

Just breathe.

He’d been choking since dawn, when he’d bathed in the icy river and his mother had twisted his wet black hair into a bun on top of his head.

He forced himself to inhale and exhale.

Beyond the door, Our Mother Earth slept beneath a soft blanket of snow, gathering her strength for spring. The Wind-flower Clan tiptoed about—so as not to wake her. Yucca sandals crunched the snow, and dogs padded by his door. During the Time of Gestation, the forty Blessing days, no digging, plastering, or wood chopping was permitted. No one could cut his hair. Women had to clean their houses only after sundown, and then very quietly.

The lilting voices of the Singers in the great kiva wafted to him on the west wind. The kiva nestled on the west side of the rectangular plaza, while two- and three-story buildings stretched eastward under the sheer face of the buff sandstone cliff. The Singers prepared the way for him.…

“They’re coming,” he whispered to reassure himself. “They’ll be here soon.”

He let out a taut breath.

To lessen his fears, Buckthorn counted the beautiful baskets that decorated the walls, large ones on top, smaller ones on the bottom. Black geometric designs and tan people adorned the weaves. His mother, Snow Mountain, had arranged them in order of descending height along the wall to his left.

“Oh, Spirits,” he whispered, “I’m scared.”

From the time he’d turned four summers, the great Singers of Windflower Village had looked at him differently than at other children. Their sharp old eyes had watched the other children tormenting him and noted the times when he’d sought the solitude of the canyons that cut down through solid rock to the River of Souls—and they were many. The elders had marked every fight he’d broken up, and every moment he’d sat with tears running down his face listening to them Sing. Those Powerful elders had seen in him more than an odd lonely child—a boy who had lost his father before he’d seen one summer.

At a Winter Solstice celebration at Talon Town when he’d seen ten summers, old gray-haired Black Mesa had come to sit beside him, his deeply wrinkled face mottled with firelight, and asked, “Why do you cry when you lift your voice to the gods?”

Buckthorn had looked at Black Mesa, but hadn’t known the answer. His only reply had been that he couldn’t help himself. But he knew better now. Deep inside him, he felt such agonized love, such longing to hear the gods speak to him, to feel their comforting touch that it manifested itself as despair.

Seven days ago, Black Mesa had entered his mother’s home, and asked to speak with Buckthorn alone. Snow Mountain had bowed respectfully and left. Buckthorn couldn’t conceive any reason why the elder needed privacy to speak with him. He’d shifted uneasily as Black Mesa placed a gnarled hand on his shoulder. The old man’s seamed face had been somber.

“Buckthorn, I have been sent to ask you if you wish to give your life for love. For your people.” Black Mesa had paused, then added, “You may say ‘no’ and no shame will come of it.”

“Oh, but I do!” Buckthorn had answered with his whole soul in his voice. “I do.”

He forced himself to inhale again. His stomach had knotted. But what if I’m not strong enough? What if I can’t travel into the underworlds and return alive?

He frowned down at the two dead field mice lanced on the stick beside him. Black Mesa had instructed him to offer the mice as a tribute to the masked god who would come to drag him away to the underworlds. If the god refused, Buckthorn had been told to expect death.

Perhaps I should have shot a deer, instead? That would seem a far better tribute for a god than a couple of measly …

Feet pounded across the snowy plaza.

He whirled to stare at the door curtain. It fluttered gently in the cold breeze.

The feet stopped outside.

Buckthorn gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

A rumble of voices rose, getting closer, louder … the whole house suddenly erupted in shrillness when the Dancers began scraping the exterior walls with what sounded like knives.

Buckthorn’s heart nearly burst through is chest. Blessed gods, what’s going on?

The Monster Thlatsina threw back the door curtain and stepped inside. Buckthorn gaped in horror.

She was huge. A red-and-white mouth dominated the bottom half of her jet-black mask, and a greasy gray beard hung to her waist. Long tangled black hair, dotted with tufts of cotton, fell over her menacing yellow eyes. Her mouth puckered in an eternal whistle. All his life he had been told that if he didn’t listen to his elders, the Monster Thlatsina would sneak up on him and suck his brains out through his ears. In her left hand she held a crooked staff to catch her victims. Her right fist gripped a huge obsidian knife: for dismembering those who refused to obey her.

“Here!” Buckthorn yelled, and thrust the two dead mice at her. “These are for you!”

The Monster slapped them from his hand, and Buckthorn watched the mice fly across the room, strike the wall, and fall to the floor with a dull thump.

“Get up!” the Monster shouted. She slammed him in the shoulder with her crooked staff.

Buckthorn jumped to his feet.

The Monster pointed to the door. “Get out!”

He scrambled beneath the door curtain and into the late afternoon glare. His mother’s room lay at ground level, on the east side of the building complex. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the twin knobs of rounded sandstone, the Great Warriors, that rose above the cliff.

The River of Souls cut down through sandstone here, and the Straight Path people had found the rich bottomlands perfect for growing corn, beans, and squash. Over the years the village had grown from several small square houses into a three-story structure that rose under the sheer north wall of the cliff, watched over by the ancient bodies of the Great Warriors.

Light snow had fallen last night and blanketed the village like a glittering layer of crushed gypsum. The high cliff dwarfed the gray clay-washed houses. To his right, southward across the mighty River of Souls, cornfields covered the floodplain. There, but a brief run from the village, the river flowed silver in the sunlight. Buckthorn could imagine those murky waters lapping against the cliffs that hemmed it on the south.

People perched on the flat roofs, wrapped snugly in blankets, smiling, happy for him. His mother stood by the ladder that led down into the great kiva. She looked radiant in her red dress with black and yellow triangles around the hem. Eagle down fluttered on the crown of her head. He had to step up onto the circular lip of the kiva. Only about two hands of the structure stood aboveground; the other twenty hands sank deep into the flesh of Our Mother Earth.

The Monster Thlatsina’s staff came down hard on Buckthorn’s shoulder. “Pay attention!”

He spun to look at her. What should he pay attention to?

At that moment his mother stepped back, and a long line of unearthly figures emerged from the black belly of the kiva. They trotted forward in a swinging gait, their feet kicking up sparkles of snow. Ruffs of pine encircled their necks, and their naked torsos gleamed with blue paint. They peered at Buckthorn with great bulging eyes. Their masks, part animal, part wondrous god, bore sprinkles of stars, zigzags of lightning, and dark ridges of sacred mountains. The slant of the sun threw their ethereal shadows across the plaza like leaping beasts. They shook gourd rattles as they came toward him in their loose-kneed shuffle. Their Singing resembled a breeze soughing through a thick stand of pines.

Buckthorn waited in nervous silence.

With each tramp of their sacred feet the Dancers wrested Power from the world, pulling shreds from all living things, and then drawing the Power about them like cloaks of iron—Power that could tremble the distant mountains and mold the thunderheads gathering in the deep blue sky.

The Monster pricked Buckthorn in the back with her obsidian knife and ordered, “Walk!”

He stumbled forward. People on the roofs lifted hands to him, their faces alight. Buckthorn tried to smile back, though he felt a little queasy. Two of the Buffalo Clan elders sat side by side, their legs dangling over the edge of the roof as they shared a pipe of sacred tobacco. Each puff of smoke that rose into the frosty air emulated the creation of clouds … of life itself.

They smoked for him, for his life. Silently, desperately, he prayed to the Great Warriors, asking that they help him find the First Underworld.

When he reached the middle of the snowy plaza, the Dancers split and veered around him. Linking arms, they formed two concentric circles with Buckthorn at the center. The circles of Dancers moved in opposite directions, kicking out their legs and trilling in voices as sweet as a mating piñon jay’s.

Flute music rose from the kiva, akin to the fear and joy that filled Buckthorn. The melody twined across the village like a beautiful solitary vine, twisting through the air. The booms of a pot drum grew stronger, keeping time with the flute.

The Dance circles broke apart and veered outward, then reformed into one large circle around Buckthorn. With a ululating cry that prickled his scalp, they took off running for the kiva, forcing Buckthorn to run with them.

As they neared the kiva, the Bear Thlatsina climbed the ladder and stood beside Buckthorn’s mother. A helmet of bear fur covered his head and draped down over his back and shoulders. Three black dots, for eyes and mouth, painted his white buckskin mask. Naked to the waist, the thlatsina had two blue lines running down his right breast and two yellow lines down his left. His forearms were painted blue, his hands white. Around his waist, he wore a plain white cotton kirtle, secured with a red sash. The frayed ends of his sash whipped in the icy wind.

The Bear Thlatsina lifted a white hand and dismissed Buckthorn’s mother. He watched her walk through the middle of the plaza, smiling at the people on the roofs. She entered their home and vanished.

The protective circle of Dancers which had carried him this far split and retreated, leaving Buckthorn alone before the kiva. The sweet notes of the flute brought tears to Buckthorn’s eyes.

Buckthorn’s gaze riveted on the Bear Thlatsina. He had to stand by himself now. Either worthy … or not.

His knees shook.

The Bear Thlatsina took four steps toward Buckthorn, extended his left fist, and opened it to reveal a small sack covered with glimmering turquoise beads. The thlatsina opened the sack and sprinkled corn pollen to the four directions. He lifted it to Brother Sky, where his gaze lingered a long moment on the building clouds, then reverently touched the bag to Our Mother Earth.

Without a word, he lifted the empty bag over his head.

Two women, attired in white doeskin dresses, climbed from the kiva and shuffled through the snow in white boots, their cheeks painted with black spots. They passed very close to Buckthorn—but sacrosanct, untouchable. Two long eagle feathers adorned their freshly washed hair. The Deer Mothers circled Buckthorn four times, Dancing, moving through the dazzling white sunlight, supernatural beings that had just stepped from the haze of myth and legend.

The other masked Dancers drew back with strange haunting mutters, withdrawing from the divine Deer Mothers. Some hunched in terror. Others bleated like animals about to be slaughtered. The people on the roofs placed hands over their mouths, keeping silent.

The Deer Mothers took up their places at Buckthorn’s sides.

He clenched his fists and forced a swallow down his tight throat.

The Bear Thlatsina held out a pollen-covered hand.

Buckthorn walked forward and bravely put his fingers in the thlatsina’s palm. Gazing up into that bizarre half-human, half-animal face, he nearly buckled at the knees.

The sky god led him to the ladder jutting from the kiva’s packed roof and went down first, descending into the belly of the underworlds to announce Buckthorn’s coming.

Buckthorn stood at the yawning mouth and peered into the firelit darkness below. The blessing scent of cedar wafted up through the opening. Juniper fires burned all year long in the kiva, in honor of the Grandmother of Life: flame. At the core of the universe and in the hearts of people a flame burned always—until the day a person’s soul escaped and returned to the underworlds for good.

The flute stopped, but the pot drum continued to boom in its rhythmic bass.

With thuds and creaks his relatives on the roofs stood up, their blanket-wrapped bodies silhouetted against the translucent blue of Brother Sky, faces joyous. Little children stared at Buckthorn in awe. They would watch, he knew, until he vanished from sight completely.

The Bear Thlatsina’s deep voice began:

The Creator calls you,

The divine Mother has seen you on your journey,

She has seen your worn moccasins,

She offers her life-giving breath,

Her breath of birth,

Her breath of water,

Her breath of seeds,

Her breath of death,

Asking for your breath,

To add to her own,

That the one great life of all might continue unbroken.

Buckthorn gripped the pine-pole ladder, the use-polished wood smooth under his fingers. Then, swallowing hard, and vowing to be brave, he climbed down into the warm firelit womb of the underworlds.

The ceiling represented the Fourth World through which the First People had journeyed, known as the Feather-Wing World. The Fog World, or Third World, was represented by the bench that encircled the chamber. The floor level, or Second World, was called the Sulfur-smell World; lastly, the masonry-lined hole in the floor, the sipapu, represented the tunnel to the First Underworld—the Soot World. Sacred cedar smoke purified him as he descended, bathing his frail human body, and stinging his eyes.

Two old men and two old women sat on the low Fog World bench that curved around the great circular chamber. A flute nestled on the bench between the men, a drum between the women. All wore long turkey-feather capes. Not one of them looked at Buckthorn. They had their gazes fixed on the four massive masonry pillars that supported the weight of the roof, which represented the four directions. For them, servants of the unseen Powers that hid at the corners of the world, nothing else existed.

The Bear Thlatsina stood silently beside Buckthorn.

Waiting. But for what?

Buckthorn’s gaze took in the softly gleaming chamber. A fire burned in the middle of the floor; honeyed light danced over the breathtaking thlatsinas painted on the white walls. Some Danced around, bent forward, a foot lifted, ready to stamp down. Others stood with their feet planted firmly on the sacred earth, their awesome beaks and muzzles tipped toward the Blessed Evening People, howling their praises.

He tried to draw himself up straighter, but his stomach felt as if it were shriveling.

Twenty-eight wall crypts filled with magnificent offerings separated the thlatsinas, one for each day of the moon. Macaw and parrot feathers gleamed in the crypts, along with ritual pots and painted dance sticks. A wealth of shining black obsidian glittered around the base of each offering.

From the mouths of the elders, the most eerie of all the sacred chants began in a whisper: “Hututu! Hututu!”

Buckthorn whispered the name of the Rain God with them, knowing that by the end of this evening, that name would rise to a cry so hoarse and piercing it would sunder the skyworlds. Rain would fall tonight. It always did.

He had sat on the roofs through many long nights listening to this ritual, his heart aching to know how the young Singers-in-the-making felt.

Now I know. They all wanted to faint.

The Bear. Thlatsina quietly pointed to the floor, his hand indicating the slender line of cornmeal. The Road of Life. It ran eastward, linking the firepit to the sipapu, the dark opening to the lowest underworld.

Buckthorn walked the Road, placing his feet carefully.

Hututu! Hututu! Hututu!

What would he see when he gazed down that black tunnel into the First Underworld? Legends said that all of his dead ancestors would be gazing up at him.

A well of disembodied eyes …

The Bear Thlatsina knelt on one side of the sipapu and indicated Buckthorn’s place.

He sat cross-legged facing the god. Afraid to look into the opening until told to, he stared at the thlatsina’s white mask. Through the black eye holes, he saw nothing staring out. Nothing at all. Just darkness.

The four elders, Keepers of the sacred directions, sat down around Buckthorn and the Bear Thlatsina, their wrinkled faces drawn.

Old Woman North removed a small pot, red-brown and painted with intricate designs, from beneath her turkey-feather cape. Cupped in her gnarled fingers, she held it out to the thlatsina. The god took it in pure white hands and blew down into the pot four times, adding his breath, bringing life to whatever resided inside.

Hututu! Hututu! Hututu! Hututu!

The thlatsina reached out with two fingers and closed Buckthorn’s eyes. Buckthorn trembled. He couldn’t help it.

A strange musty smell taunted his nostrils and he felt something touch his lips. He opened his mouth. A thin dry slice of something like desiccated hide was laid upon his tongue. Chalky bitterness coated his mouth. He shuddered involuntarily. Working it around, mixing it with his saliva, just made it worse. He chewed. Within moments, nausea began. Weakness prickled his muscles.

“I … I’m going to throw up,” he said.

A pot was placed in his hands.

Buckthorn’s stomach heaved and heaved until he felt like a quivering mass of bruised flesh. He set the pot aside and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Despite the effort, he had not opened his eyes. Nor would he, until told to do so.

Faintly, the drumbeat echoed through the gleaming chamber.

He saw the beat pulsing on the gold-tinged backs of his eyelids. The four sacred colors lanced out from each beat, soaring away like glowing arrows, flying to the farthest edges of his vision, and beyond into a shimmering haze.

The passing of time vanished until he might have sat there forever, but he jerked when fingers touched his eyes and gently pulled up his lids.

Buckthorn blinked lazily.

The flute joined the drum …

His balance fled. He fell forward, bracing his hands on either side of the tunnel to the underworld, looking straight into the sipapu. The darkness wavered. Ripples flowed out like windblown waves journeying across a lake without a shore. In the heart of that blackness, a crystal pillar took shape, rising, growing, shimmering like a thousand diamonds as it rushed upward, building crystal upon crystal.

Fear, bright and glowing, shot through Buckthorn. “It … it’s coming too fast. It’s going to lance right through me!”

The darkness around the crystal pillar changed from pitch black to deep blue. Then, as if the tunnel had been pierced by an unseen shaft of light, the blue turned a magnificent shade of turquoise, and a blue-green cave took shape. Light flashed. Thousands of falling stars cascaded down like points of white fire. In the heart of the cave, flame sparked, and the crystal pillar caught fire. The blaze roared out of control, devouring the cave, and in the midst of it he saw a young woman’s face, beautiful, crying, with long black hair falling about her shoulders … and a jagged mountain peak sheathed in starlight.

“Ah!” Buckthorn cried out. “Help me! I—I’m falling! I’m falling in!”

A soft voice said, You are going where the world is born, Buckthorn. Just let yourself go. Let go.

The golden ceremonial chamber spun, and Buckthorn dove headfirst through breathtaking flame-colored skies, falling, falling …

*   *   *

Black Mesa stood beside Snow Mountain, watching Buckthorn, who sat in the middle of the plaza, making a drum. The snow had melted in the rain that had fallen for two days, leaving the sand clean and sparkling. Pools of water shone on the terraced fields stretching out from the base of the sandstone cliffs. Scruffy patches of saltbush and grass edged the fields with dull colors. Rivulets had incised the plaster covering the village’s stone walls, giving them an aged look. They would have to be replastered.

Scattered around Buckthorn lay pieces of leather, stone tools, strips of sinew and rawhide, and a single perfect turkey feather.

The youth hadn’t said a word in three days. Not since he had emerged from the kiva.

People moved around the plaza, enjoying the warm sun, weaving blankets on large looms, grinding corn, and attending to mending. They patted Buckthorn’s head or shoulder and spoke to him in gentle tones as they passed.

Buckthorn only smiled in return. Silent. His narrow face glowing as if from an inner radiance. No one pushed him. Everyone knew he must return to them in his own time, that part of his soul still hovered in the First Underworld, walking among the ancestors, studying the strange plants and animals that lived there.

Black Mesa folded his aged arms across his breast. His black shirt hung to his knees and looked huge on his frail body. Over the long passing of the seasons, his muscles had evaporated to stringy masses, leaving a rickety bag of bones behind. He’d left his long gray hair loose today, and it fluttered around his wrinkled face.

Snow Mountain murmured, “He’ll be all right, won’t he?”

“Of course.”

Worry shone in her dark eyes. At the age of thirty-five summers, silver had just begun to streak her black hair and lines to etch her forehead. Her short pointed nose rode over thin lips. She wore a red and black dress today. “Did he tell you?” she asked anxiously. “Did he tell you what he saw in the First Underworld?”

“It won’t make much sense to you.”

“But I wish to know. If you can tell me, perhaps it will help me to understand him better. He has always been a … a mystery to me. And my greatest joy. I’m worried about him, Black Mesa.”

Black Mesa’s gaze drifted to the twin knobs that loomed over the valley—the stone bodies of gods, eternally watching. He had long wondered what their souls did in the skyworlds. Did they make bows and recount their exploits? Did they hunt? Or just Dance continually to keep the world vibrantly alive? The blue-gray thunderheads that had been gathering all day had crumbled to ruins in the sky. Shreds of their glory drifted northward, tinged with the palest of blues.

Black Mesa looked down into Snow Mountain’s worried face. “He saw his father,” he answered.

Snow Mountain’s taut expression slackened. “H-his real father?”

“Yes. His body was mumbling, telling what his soul saw as it passed through the worlds. He called the man ‘father,’ but I don’t know if he truly realizes the man’s identity in this world.”

“He can’t know, Black Mesa. I never told him anything! He has asked many times, but—”

“Snow Mountain,” Black Mesa gently interrupted, “you must understand. Everything that leaves, returns. Everything that dies is reborn. Everything that is hidden is revealed. We humans live in an immense and naked universe, a universe we barely understand.”

Life “moved,” Black Mesa knew, as inconstant and fickle as Wind Baby, frolicking, sleeping, but never truly still, never solid, or finished. Seed and fruit, rain and drought, belief and reality, everything traveled in a gigantic circle, an eternal process of becoming something else.

Snow Mountain’s gaze focused on her son. Buckthorn had finished hollowing out his two-hands-tall section of cottonwood log and had begun constructing the “heart” of the drum. He stretched a piece of sinew through the middle, tied it off, and attached the turkey feather to the taut strand. Black Mesa nodded when the youth bent forward and growled into the drum in the deepest voice he could muster, to give the drum a rumbling bass voice.

Without taking her eyes from Buckthorn, Snow Mountain asked, “What else happened to him in the Soot World?”

“His father taught him a Song. They Sang it together. While they were Singing, the earth began to tremble, and then rivers of fire consumed the earth. To escape, Buckthorn climbed into the sky, using the clouds as stepping stones.”

“I don’t understand.”

Black Mesa shrugged. “The vision was not given to you.”

“Did Buckthorn understand?”

He watched Buckthorn place two pieces of deerhide over the top and bottom, then lace them together by pulling strips of rawhide through holes he had punched around the edges. “No,” Black Mesa said through a tired exhalation. “But he will. Someday.”

“You will teach him?”

“I cannot. I have promised Buckthorn that the holy Derelict will teach him.”

Snow Mountain’s lips parted as she lifted a hand to her heart. Her eyes seemed to enlarge. “Dune? But I thought Dune never wished to see him again? That’s what you told me!”

Black Mesa lowered his gaze, searching for the right words. “The Great Circle has shifted. There are many things Buckthorn must know. Perhaps even the identity of his real father.”

“Should I be the one—”

“No.” He reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder to emphasize his words. “There is great danger in this revelation. If he must know, Dune will tell him. It is, after all, Dune’s right to decide if and when he is told.”

Buckthorn tentatively beat his drum with his forefinger to test the resonance. Black Mesa glanced at him, a great weariness settling on his heart. A soft smile came to the youth’s face. He looked up eagerly to see if anyone else in the village had heard the beautiful tone. Black Mesa gave him an approving nod, and Buckthorn’s smile widened. He tapped the drum again. “You must trust me, Snow Mountain. Dune will teach Buckthorn.”

Snow Mountain seemed to be digesting this news. “And does this mean my son will be a great Singer?”

“I can say only that he will be needed.” He peered at Snow Mountain. “Which of us dares ask for more than that?”