“I don’t know, Maggie. I don’t know if we have a choice.”
“I think we can trust him,” Traupman said.
“Did you understand what they were saying?” Tucker asked. “Waving their hands around like that?”
Traupman shook his head. “No. But it begins to lend credence to our earlier suspicions.”
“What suspicions?” Jamie wanted to know.
“That you people know more than you’re letting on,” Gannon said.
The vehemence had left his voice and he looked uncomfortable. Tucker knew just how he was feeling. It was weird being just . . . shut down like this. It was like every time you started to get angry, something cut in and mellowed you out. The drumming.
“It’s not true,” Jamie replied. “I’ve never seen that . . . man before.”
“Then where did Blue find him?” Tucker asked. “How come they can communicate?”
“I don’t know. Blue’s got a thing about Indians—he used to live with some down in Arizona. Maybe he picked it up there.”
Tucker nodded. He remembered Blue mentioning that. But that still didn’t explain what the Indian was doing here or how Blue had got in touch with him.
“I think we’d better go up,” he told Traupman. “We won’t interrupt or anything, but I’ve got to know what’s going on up there.”
Traupman hesitated, then stepped aside. One by one they went up the stairs.
Ur’wen’ta paused in the doorway of Jamie’s study, his attention caught by the painting that was propped up on the desk beside Memoria’s terminal. Glancing at Blue, he crossed the room to study it, removing his totem mask as he did so.
How can this be? he signed. This is my drum-brother A’wa’rathe—He-Who-Walks-With-Bears. My drum-brother and Redhair from across the Great Water. He reached out to touch the painting, drawing his fingers back before actual contact. Turning back to Blue, he signed, Powerful are the medicines of the Great Lodge. They drum all around us.
Remembering how easily Ur’wen’ta had stopped the confrontation downstairs, Blue signed back, Powerful are the medicines of Ur’wen’ta as well.
The old Indian smiled. This is so. Come. We will see your drummer.
Ur’wen’ta’s humor died away as he approached the bed where Tom lay. Whatever it was that kept his drum playing by itself quickened its tempo. Ur’wen’ta replaced his totem mask. For long minutes he stood studying Tom’s pale features. Then he climbed on the bed and knelt beside him. He took a pinch of pollen from the medicine bag at his side and, murmuring, touched it to each of the wizard’s eyelids. Then he laid his hand on Tom’s brow, fingers spread so that his thumb and little finger each gripped a temple. Abruptly, the drumming ceased and Ur’wen’ta moved away from the bed.
I know this drummer, he signed. He is a man driven by devils. Always it has been so. He stalks Mal’ek’a—the Dread-That-Walks-Nameless—and it stalks him. He was my drum-brother’s brother, and so is kin to me. But I cannot help him.
What is wrong with him?
He has confronted that which he hunted and that meeting has sent his soul fleeing. It hides deep within him, lost and shaken. Given time, I could draw him back, but time I do not have now, Blue-Rider. A’wa’rathe’s daughter Ha’kan’ta has summoned our tribe to a meeting that I must attend. When I am done there, I will return.
When?
Before moonset, Ur’wen’ta signed.
Thanks are given to you, Blue replied. His hands were moving more deftly as the half-forgotten movements returned to him. We will wait for you until that time.
I will return. Ur’wen’ta paused, then added with a quick cutting motion: The others—your people. They do not trust you. Some of them mean you ill. I tell you this because I sense in you an echo of my totem.
You honor me.
Ur’wen’ta shook his head. It is Mother Bear who honors us both. I will return, Blue-Rider, perhaps with others of my tribe. Toma’heng’ar is known amongst my people. Many have drum-ties with him, though there are some who frown on his enmity with—He made an unfamiliar sign that translated into “Silver-Brow.” Redhair. It is an evil time when enemies are blooded to the same tribe.
He looked to the door where Tucker and the others were now gathered.
Your own people have come, Blue-Rider.
Ur’wen’ta’s drum began to speak once more and smoke arose to wreathe about him.
Until moonset.
Until moonset, Blue signed. He pulled Ur’wen’ta’s totem stick from his belt and offered it back.
Keep it until my return, the shaman signed.
The smoke billowed and then he was gone, taking the drumming with him. In the ensuing silence, Blue knew a sharp sense of loss. Ur’wen’ta had filled him with a sense of peace. Of control. Sighing, he turned to face the door, knowing what he still had to go through and not looking forward to it.
Tucker stepped back as Blue turned, eyes locked on the totem stick still in the biker’s hand. Blue grinned. So it made them nervous, did it? Well, he’d play that up for all it was worth. Maybe it would stop them acting like such a bunch of assholes.
“I guess we’d better talk,” he said.
“You’ve got a real glow about you,” Sally told him hours later. “Ever since you got back.”
Blue nodded. He felt it too. It was like the rhythm Ur’wen’ta had played that twinned the pulse of his blood through his own body and never stopped. He heard it like a soft drum echoing still. Like the distant sound of a horse’s hooves against the ground.
His confrontation with Tucker and the rest of them had come off a lot smoother than he’d thought it would. A lot smoother from the way it had been shaping up before Ur’wen’ta showed. The shaman had left them all subdued, which suited Blue just fine. They’d brought up Merrier and quietly accepted his version of what had happened. Even Gannon and Chevier did—though there was a flicker of something in the latter’s eyes. Gannon remained impassive.
“You scared me, going off like that,” Sally said.
“I scared myself. But we had to do something. We’re just lucky things worked out the way they did.”
“You really think he’ll come back?”
“He’ll be back, babe. He’s the kind of guy that plays it straight.”
“I don’t know how you can be so sure.”
Blue tapped his chest. “In here. He reads okay in here. Just like you do.”
“Well, in that case,” she said, snuggling closer to him, “he’s got to be okay.”
Blue grinned. “I kinda thought you’d see it that way.”
“I wish you didn’t have to do that.”
Tucker looked up from the table where he was dismantling and cleaning his gun.
“Why not?” he asked.
Maggie shrugged. She was wearing a blue workshirt and some jeans that Fred had found for her. “It just reminds me of too much that’s ugly,” she said at last.
Tucker sighed. “I can’t take a chance on it not working at its optimum performance level. Especially not now. You know that.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just all on edge.”
“Still thinking about this afternoon?”
Maggie nodded.
“Well, Gannon worries me, too,” Tucker said. “He’s a dangerous man and I’m getting the feeling that he’s getting too jumpy. That just makes him more dangerous. Him and his whispering goon. I haven’t seen them around for awhile, have you?”
“No. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“We’ll get out of this,” Tucker said.
He peered down the inside of the .38’s barrel. Satisfied, he set aside the swab and cleaning cloth.
“How?” Maggie wanted to know. “There’s a feeling of . . . wrongness in the air tonight.”
Tucker nodded. “I know. I can feel it too. That’s why I’m cleaning this sucker. Something’s going to break tonight.”
“I just hope it isn’t us,” Maggie said softly.
“The biker does, but Tams doesn’t.”
“There’s that.”
Gannon looked out of the window into the darkness and frowned. “Did you find a place we can work on him?” he asked.
“It’s got to be the cellars. Nobody goes down there and the walls are so thick that no one’ll hear anything. Even if they miss him, in a place this big they’ll never find us. At least not before we get what we need from him.”
“Good,” Gannon said. “Good.”
But he kept thinking about the biker. The anger that gripped him wasn’t very professional and he knew it. But nothing had been professional about this operation. Still, the biker would have to wait. And Tucker. Until Jamie Tams gave them what they needed.
“What are you thinking about?” Jamie asked Traupman.
Traupman looked up from where he’d been studying Thomas and shrugged. “Just trying to work out how the shaman did it—calming us all down without speaking a word. And the way he diagnosed what’s the matter with our patient here.”
“We don’t know that he’s right,” Jamie said.
Traupman shook his head. He crossed the room and took a chair across from Jamie.
“I believe he went right into Thomas Hengwr’s mind,” he said. “He went right in and, mind to mind, found the problem.” He looked beyond Jamie, eyes slightly unfocused. “It’s so frustrating. To find out after all these years that it’s all real, all possible. After sifting through so much garbage looking for even a shred of evidence. I’d give anything to be twenty years younger so that I could begin again with what we’ve learned in these past few days.”
Jamie nodded. “Perhaps it was simply our own inability to come to terms with the reality of it all that was holding us back.”
“Perhaps,” Traupman agreed.
“I’m going down to talk with Sam,” Jamie said, rising from his chair. “I think I’ll give him a hand with those journals.”
“Why don’t you bring a few up and I’ll go through them while I’m babysitting our patient.”
“All right. Want a drink to go with them?”
“Tea would be fine.”
Blue sat up suddenly, looking around.
“What is it?” Sally asked. “Your medicine man?”
“Don’t know, babe. I just have this feeling.”
He crossed to the window and looked out into the darkness. There was something out there. Not just the tragg’a, not just the night. He could see the moon from where he stood, still above the trees. He didn’t think it was Ur’wen’ta coming. He didn’t know what it was. He just had this feeling inside that . . . something was coming.
“I’m going to check out the windows and doors,” he said. “Want to come?”
“We’re not going outside?”
“I’m not planning to, babe.”
He shouldered the Weatherby and went to his pack, taking out Mercier’s .38. He’d already given Tucker the Margolin. He handed the weapon to Sally.
“Use both hands, okay?” he said. “It’s got a hell of a kick if you’re not expecting it.”
Sally swallowed and took the gun. It was heavy and looked huge in her small hands.
“You okay, babe?”
She nodded.
“Don’t shoot until you know what it is you’re shooting at, okay?”
“I don’t know about this, Blue. . . .”
“It’s probably nothing,” he replied.
“I’ll be all right,” Sally said.
“Then let’s go.”
Blue didn’t know what they were looking for. He just knew he had to get moving, because something else was moving. They ran into Tucker and Maggie in the Silkwater Kitchen. Tucker had just finished cleaning the Margolin.
“What’s up?” he asked, taking in their weapons and their attitude.
“Don’t know,” Blue said. “It’s just a feeling I’ve got.”
Tucker nodded. There it was. He wasn’t the only one. He regarded the biker steadily, realizing that his attitude towards him had changed over the past few days. He was glad they were on the same side—whatever was shaping up.
“I’ll take the west side of the House,” he said.
Blue nodded. “Something’s coming,” he said, “but I don’t know what it is.”
Tucker waited for him to explain.
“What I’m trying to say is, don’t shoot first and ask questions later. It could be Ur’wen’ta.”
“That’s not making it easy,” Tucker replied. He’d been about to tell Blue that he didn’t need to be told a thing like that, but he’d bit the comment back.
“Nothing about this is going to be easy,” Blue said.
Chapter Five
Sara followed the clifftops east. Her moccasins whispered against the rocks. Low-growing twigs brushed against the soft leather of her dress. The wind tugged loose hairs from her braids to tickle her cheeks. The tang of the sea was strong in the air, mixed with the heady rich resin scent of the spruce and cedars. Stars glimmered like distant candles and the Northern Lights danced.
She came out of the woods into May’is’hyr’s Glade of Study—Rathe’feyn, the Moon’s-Stone-Bear. Here the night was silent. Standing under the height of the Bearstone, she had the sensation of entering a cathedral whose lofty ceiling was the night sky itself, whose walls were the forest and the cliffs. Stepping close to the Bearstone, she laid her cheek against its rough surface and thought she felt the earth breathe through it.
For the first time since Taliesin and Pukwudji had spoken of them, she began to get a true sense of those shadowy Old Ones that moved just beyond the borders of one’s everyday perceptions. It didn’t matter then whether or not they were testing her, nor what their reasons might be. All that was important was that she be found worthy of their continued interest. What she’d told Taliesin was true: everything she’d been before, all her friends and her life up to now, had made her what she was. But the desire to become a moonheart, she realized suddenly, did not invalidate what she’d done thus far. Nor did it make her a different person.
What did she want? She repeated Taliesin’s question to herself. To reach her full potential. And if that entailed going back to her own time and facing the danger of Kieran’s demon, then that was what she had to do.
She’d come this far, mostly by drifting along with events, like a leaf on the wind. It was time she took to the Way using her own endeavors, with a clear goal in mind.
Closing her eyes, she drew up Taliesin’s tune in her mind and sent a silent call through the forest. Against her back, the Bearstone seemed to grow warm, adding its own deep resonances to her small thought-voice.
Pukwudji was no longer sure what it was he’d attempted to do by entering Sara’s dreams and drawing her to him. To prove something to the bard and his stag-browed Forest Lord from across the Great Water. Yes. To show them that there were many Ways and all of them true. And in doing so, he’d be helping Sara—which was no selfish deed in its own right. So. Given such motives, why did he sense such foreboding?
He knew the feeling well enough, for this would not be the first time he’d meddled in the affairs of those more powerful than himself—but none of them had been Forest Lords. It would be wise, he was once told by an old tribal Shaper of the quin’on’a, not to meddle in the affairs of the Old Ones. For they were powerful and quick to anger.
Miserably, Pukwudji stared at his toes and wondered what he’d begun. Should he go to the bard and tell him what he’d done? Thinking a moment, the honochen’o’keh mournfully shook his head. No. It was too late for that. Oh why, oh why, had he meddled?
Because, he told himself, such was his nature.
He lifted his head with sudden resolve. He was Pukwudji. Not so powerful as a Forest Lord, but he had strengths still. Not so wise as the quin’on’a, but cunning still. Yes. He was Pukwudj
i and he was what he was. Always alone, but never on his own, for all the world was his home.
His fears washed from him like tidal foam flowing from the shorebound rocks. His owlish eyes gleamed bright in the darkness as he stood up and looked about. He heard it then—Sara’s sen’fer’sa calling to him. Ah, he thought, feeling the strength of her call. Grandmother Toad herself might call like this, solemn as the mysteries of the old stones that once walked and now were still.
Hai-nya!
He liked this herok’a whom he’d only met in a dream, but had watched from afar all through the day. His future self had liked her as well—or so her memory showed him. There was in her something that was neither bear nor wolf nor any beast he knew. It was as delicate as the moon’s light, yet rooted deep in the earth’s bones. When she grew her horns. . . .
He lifted his head and called to the night sky: See her, Mother Moon? She is your daughter, this hornless one. And she will not be hornless for long.
The wind stirred the leathery cedar leaves and rattled the slender spruce needles one against the other.
Hai-nya-hey!
Pukwudji grinned. He opened his arms wide and took an owl’s shape. Silent wings beat the night air as he sailed above the dark trees, following the call back to its maker.
Other beings heard that silent call.
In the round tower overlooking the sea, Taliesin’s harping faltered for a moment, then began anew. Call him then, he thought. Perhaps a manitou can help you where I cannot. His harping took on an edge, reflecting his disappointment.
May’is’hyr nodded over her weaving. Yes, Little-Otter. Call Old Man Coyote’s cousin to you. But remember what I told you. What he will be will depend on what is inside you.
She glanced at Hagan who’d looked up, regarding first her, then the harper, before returning to his net. He heard nothing but the wind, but he’d lived with these two long enough to know that for them the night held more than he could sense. Something was brewing. The little maid was gone, Taliesin brooded like a lovesick bird, and Mayis was too quiet for his liking. But that was the way of druids—be they harper or shaman. They were always hearing things on the wind, reading import into the flicker of a fire’s honest flames, the turn of a bird’s wing in the sky. Bah! It was no concern of his.
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