At times they spoke of small, simple things, and she seemed to be growing stronger. But when morning came and he could see her face more clearly, it seemed that the flesh was almost melting away, that he could see the bones beneath the skin.
She spoke again, twice, during the next night, but as time passed it became more and more difficult to understand what she was saying.
She is going to die, Frog thought.
And for the first time since childhood, he cried.
Chapter Forty-two
The moist black soil on Great Earth’s northwestern slopes was perfect for the multitude of berries and fruits the dream dancers used in meals and ceremonies throughout the year. The nameless girl had been there all morning, picking the fingernail-sized purple fruit Stillshadow used for dye. Her fingers were thorn-pricked and blue-stained, but she had filled two baskets and felt content. Young Whirling Pool waved her arms in greeting as she ran along the eastern trail, and T’Cori stood to greet her.
Pool’s little round face was neutral, hard to read. “The boy who saved you,” she panted.
“Frog Hopping?” T’Cori asked, and straightened, wiping perspiration from her forehead. She thought of his gap-toothed smile, both warmed and worried. “What has happened to Frog?”
“It is his woman,” Whirling said. “Her baby tore her, and she bleeds. They have called for a dancer to heal her, or ease her way.”
T’Cori hesitated. Since losing her special sight, she was no longer confident in her ability to heal. Perhaps it would be better to send another—
“He asked for you,” Whirling said.
“Then I must go,” T’Cori replied. She would go and do her best. And the rest would be up to Great Mother. Please, Mother, she thought. Let me do this good thing. I owe him so much.
And another thought: And I wished for his woman’s death. I am chosen. This is my chance to undo an evil thing. Let me atone for my sin, please.
T’Cori and Whirling were at Fire boma by sundown of the third day. She stood at the boma gate with their hunt chief escorts until they were seen, and thumped her staff upon the ground. “The dream dancers are here!” she called, and the people gathered around.
Hot Tree herself and a woman named Gazelle took them to the hut, where an exhausted Frog crawled out to meet them.
Frog collapsed to his knees before her in the dust. “Please,” he said, “save my woman.”
“If it is Great Mother’s will,” she replied. It had been almost a year since she had last seen Frog, but not a day had passed that she had not thought of him.
Perhaps this was why Frog had remained so powerfully in her heart. Perhaps what she had thought was love was the urging of her heart, telling her to be strong so that she could repay his kindness and courage as only a dream dancer might.
By saving his woman.
That would be a proper thing for a dream dancer. Surely that would be the gift Great Mother and Father Mountain needed to give her back her sight.
As Whirling Pool stood by silently, T’Cori studied Glimmer’s sweat-streaked face.
Once she had considered this girl her rival. Now she was merely another patient, and by all the oaths of the dream dancers, T’Cori had to consider her a sister.
How satisfying and frightening to hold the girl’s life in her hands. She, T’Cori, could either send this girl up the mountain or heal her and thereby prove her own mettle.
Glimmer was a sister. T’Cori’s own tragedies and needs had no place in this room.
T’Cori inhaled strongly, then let the breath out slowly through her nose, allowing her sense of self to drift away. The human T’Cori had no place in this room. This was a place for Great Mother, and Great Mother alone. T’Cori could be but a riverbed conducting Her healing waters. And here, at last, having no name might prove an advantage.
Let the nameless one be gone. Let Great Mother manifest.
If Frog cannot be my man, he can be my brother. Then his woman is my sister, and I have chosen the path of love. Please, Mother. Give me the strength to be weak, to step aside and let Your wisdom flow.
For the next three days and nights sleep was but a distant memory. She danced, she waking-dreamed, with the greatest of difficulty she read the num-fire flickering above and around Glimmer’s body. But no matter how she pled, what she tried, how she massaged Glimmer’s hand-and foot-eyes or how she pressed her own body against the girl, trying to share heartbeats, Frog’s wife’s continued to weaken. Her chest’s rise and fall grew more and more shallow, and then imperceptible, and then she simply stopped breathing.
At first, T’Cori couldn’t quite believe it. It simply could not be. Great Mother would not, could not fail her in such a way. Certainly her prayers and songs and shadow-play had reached the depths of Great Earth and the top of Great Sky. Surely the gods would reward their daughter with this most precious victory.
No.
Glimmer was gone, cooling even as T’Cori’s tears welled and fell. A vast emptiness opened in the nameless girl, an abyss so deep and wide it recalled her terrible days with the Mk*tk. She clutched her fist over her heart and wailed.
T’Cori closed her eyes, picturing Great Sky’s summit, as she had seen it just the last dawn. Mighty, beautiful and a bit strange now, oozing plumes of cloud-stuff. Was this where the girl would go? Despite what Stillshadow said, some whispered that the dead remained beneath the earth. Others swore that they danced atop Great Sky. She prayed that one day, however distant, she might learn the truth.
But what were these new clouds? Were all clouds born from a mountain womb? But…why not Great Mother, then? Were clouds more like Father Mountain’s seed? Then…where did clouds go to mate? Her head spun.
She felt an overwhelming sadness, knowing that these thoughts existed for but one reason: to distract her from the pain of failure, her anguish at Glimmer’s death. Frog had saved T’Cori’s life, and she had rewarded him by letting his woman die.
Namelessness was not her greatest curse. She was also useless, and worthless.
She had once prayed that Glimmer would die. And now she had. Surely Frog would see her complicity in her eyes. Surely he would hate her now, as she so richly deserved.
In defeat and misery, T’Cori gathered her tools and herbs together and left the hut.
The people of Fire boma stood outside the hut, forming a double line for her to pass through on her way from the boma. She faced them, found it difficult to swallow, even harder when they drummed their feet against the earth: their dance was one of loss, but they sang of gratitude, gratitude for T’Cori and Whirling Pool, who had tried to save their kinsman’s wife.
T’Cori stood between the lines for a time, so numb with fatigue and sorrow that she could barely feel anything at all. Then one step at a time she walked toward the gap in the boma wall.
At the end of the line stood Frog, his tearstained face glowing. For just a moment, a barest moment, she saw his num-fire shining about him, and it pierced her to the core. There was nothing but bright, clear yellow there. Nothing but gratitude.
Just for a moment she saw it, and then it was gone, as if the gods, in one moment of kindness, had lifted the obscuring mists enough to give her the knowledge she so desperately needed.
Following his people’s custom, Frog dug a trench with his hands and, after wrapping Glimmer in skins, laid his mate within it. He burned sweet herbs atop her grave, then added twigs and finally built a fire atop it, so that the heat would drive the flesh from her bones.
Fire Ant and Hawk stood beside him, Uncle Snake and Gazelle behind him. Little Wasp held Snake’s hand, his eyes never leaving his adored big brother. Scorpion chanted and danced the funeral dance in a little circle, voice sad and strong.
Flamingo handed Frog his son. The boy had no name, would have none until at least another moon had passed. Then Hot Tree or the dream dancers would throw the bones and find his totem.
But now…
Poor boy, Frog thought. Poor boy. No name. N
o mother.
His nameless son’s wrinkled face seemed impossibly small. How could a hunter grow from such a small and helpless thing? The tiny eyes opened, focused on Frog’s face, and held it for a moment before wobbling off. Frail moist fingers clutched at him, gripping at Frog’s arm.
My mate is gone, Frog said to himself. But my son lives.
His son, who needed both a name and a father. Frog swore that the boy would get the very best of both, if his life or skill had any say in it at all.
Frog was afraid of crushing the boy as he clutched him, but the smell and feel, the small strong heartbeat, the wet pursed lips, all combined to create a shock like a kick over the heart.
This is life. Not the worst of your nightmares or the best of your dreams. We live. We love. We die.
Above him, Great Sky’s slopes rose slowly up from the plain, so huge that the incline could barely be felt until you suddenly realized that the bomas lay impossibly far below. Today no clouds cloaked its white-shrouded peak. Today he could see it clearly, and to his eyes, nothing lived atop the great mass of rock and mysterious white.
Perhaps there were no gods. There was nothing.
And yet…and yet…
As never before, Frog hoped that he was wrong. How wonderful, he thought, it would be to be wrong. If gods there were, then perhaps his father was there. And grandfather. And his good friend Lizard. And his beloved Glimmer.
Frog stood, handing the baby back to Flamingo. You never tasted your mother’s love, he thought. But you will know your father’s.
I swear.
Then, his family singing the death song, Frog returned to the boma.
Great Sky Woman
Chapter Forty-three
Moving gingerly and leaning on her bamboo cane, Stillshadow walked her young students south around Great Earth’s curve, their four hunt chief guards ever looking to right and left, laughing and speaking of men’s things as the women they accompanied busied themselves with dream dancer work.
Stillshadow seemed aware of everything and nothing as she walked. She talked and told stories, demanding that the tales be repeated back, correcting for accuracy. But while listening to every word, she remained on the lookout for roots and berries and herbs.
T’Cori knew that sometimes Stillshadow made her potions to heal, and sometimes to aid her dreaming. At other times she seemed to compound smoking or drinking mixtures merely to entertain herself. On such occassions she became more jovial, less apt to sink into one of her sour moods.
The third night Stillshadow lectured the girls until they were about to fall over from lack of sleep, then took one of her potions and spent the rest of the night ranting at the moon.
T’Cori tried to sleep, but due to Stillshadow’s ravings, it was almost impossible to do so until near dawn.
Then, finally, the effect of the herbs seemed to die out. Stillshadow remained unconscious until the sun was directly overhead, then dragged herself up to a sitting position and joined them.
“Why do you do this?” T’Cori asked.
“You do not ask me questions!” the old woman said. Her wrinkled face puckered, as if immediately ashamed of the outburst, and grew thoughtful. “Father Mountain speaks,” she said after a pause. “I confess I do not understand what he says. I must learn. I can feel that he is…disturbed. And I do not know why or what it means.”
“What must you do?” Small Raven asked.
“I will have to go into the shadow,” the old woman said, “where I am closer to death than to life. It is there that Great Mother speaks to me.”
“But isn’t that dangerous?” T’Cori asked.
She thought that perhaps the old woman would scold her, but instead Stillshadow nodded. “Yes. The dream dancer’s life is not for cowards.” She sniffed. “Men think that they are the brave ones, the ones who hold the power of death. But we hold the gift of life, and if we do not keep that gate open, all the thorns in creation cannot protect us. We place our bodies between our people and the forces that would destroy.”
She leaned closer to T’Cori, smelling of pepperspice. “We are the ones who stalk death. We are the real hunters.”
“What is that?” T’Cori said, pointing up at Great Sky. Its peak was wreathed in thin white clouds. They seemed to ooze from the mountainside itself.
Stillshadow shook her head. “Only this past moon have I seen their like.” She frowned. “I ask my dreams, but so far they say nothing.”
All the next day T’Cori felt the ground rumble through her soles. Several times they saw more of the strange white clouds up far on the mountainsides. When Boar Tracks came to her hut that night, after the sex but before sleeping, he told her that birds were winging away from Great Sky’s slopes in the hands of hands of hands. “The world is strange,” he said. “Five days ago we saw beast-men creeping out of the sacred caves. Once we would have chased them out. Or hurt them. Now we dare not do a thing.”
The elder women rebuilt the eternal fire, moving the stones out into a larger circle. They sang more loudly, danced with more dedication, hoping to learn the meaning of the mountain’s signs.
Even more disturbing, the waters of Fire River reeked with a strange salt-bitter aroma, becoming barely drinkable. They worried that it might sicken the bomas and the bhan…but then it grew clear and flavorless once again.
That night Stillshadow took several more of her herb concoctions and rolled onto her hides to enter the world of dream. The girls took turns watching over her.
When T’Cori’s turn came, she entered the low doorway to Stillshadow’s hut on hands and knees. The air within smelled of spices and smoke. Bits of bone and sacred rocks dangled from the ceiling, swaying in a wind she could not feel. Every handsbreadth of the hut’s wall was painted with magical symbols. Half the dirt floor was mazed with sand paintings, leaving only a narrow path to her straw. Even Stillshadow’s dream space was one of learning and teaching.
As the night passed, Stillshadow moaned, growing more restless as morning approached.
The girls whispered among themselves, worried.
“She is sick,” Blossom said.
Raven was not so certain. “I have seen her this way before. Always she heals herself. She can raise the heat in her belly and burn the poison away.”
“But never has she taken so much,” Willow said.
“I do not understand,” T’Cori said.
Raven sneered, as Raven often did. “Because you do not have the magic anymore,” she said. “For all her power, my mother is only human. She was wrong about you.”
Before T’Cori could reply, Stillshadow opened her mouth. She curled, gagging as brown mush gushed forth to spatter on the dirt, obliterating a stick-figure elephant.
As the others stared, T’Cori jumped to her feet. “Help her!” Before their eyes, their teacher’s skin was growing ashen.
“What do we do?” asked Whirling Pool.
Stillshadow feebly pointed to the south, through the body of the mountain. Although her voice was very weak, she managed to speak. “They are there,” she said. “Beyond the ridge. They are close. They watch us. Only Father Mountain keeps them away.”
The young dancers were startled and frightened. “The Mk*tk?”
Stillshadow continued. “They bring death,” she said. Her eyes were glazed, unfocused, as if the old woman only partially inhabited her body.
“When will this happen?” Dove asked.
“For moons they watch us,” the crone said. “Measure us.”
Stillshadow’s eyes slid up. Her head rolled back, and she was unconscious.
“She will heal now,” Raven said, but the tremor in her voice said otherwise.
T’Cori was not so certain. “And if she does not?”
Raven raised her head proudly. “Then, I will take her place. I am her daughter. I am the strongest.” T’Cori had known this girl all her life, and despite the bad feelings between them, she sensed that Raven’s words were not mere ambition—they were
an attempt to protect the lineage, an attempt to assure the other girls that the work of the dream dancers would continue, no matter what.
Despite this, she could not stop herself from blurting out, “But she is dying!”
“If it is Great Mother’s will,” the older girl said, perhaps already accepting what she considered inevitable.
As T’Cori suspected, despite the bluntness of her words, Raven did not sleep, barely ate and did everything in her power to help Stillshadow. T’Cori’s respect for Raven’s medicine skills increased greatly.
The other girls did the best they could to make their mentor comfortable.
But this was another matter to T’Cori. Even if she could never openly call her such, Stillshadow was the closest thing to a mother she would ever know. Even if she had not grown in her teacher’s womb, she could not accept Stillshadow’s death without attempting to prevent it. And so that night, T’Cori crept to Stillshadow’s side, as she often had as a child.
Mother, she said in her mind, and felt as if she had become an infant once again. If only she could, mightn’t Stillshadow hold her in her arms, sing to her, perhaps even regain her former strength?
“T’Cori,” Stillshadow murmured.
“You die?” she asked, glad that she could still frame it as a question.
“And you will not?” Stillshadow rasped, managing to smile at her old joke.
“Please,” T’Cori begged. “Help me save you.”
At that, the old woman chuckled without humor. “You cannot,” she said. “You can only lose your own life.” The old woman’s hand gripped hers. “Live, child.”
Hot tears ran from T’Cori’s eyes. “You gave me life,” she said. “You are all I have known. I’m not ready to lose you. If you die and I have done nothing to save you, my heart will cool.”
At this, Stillshadow seemed to find some mote of strength and struggled to push herself up from the straw. “You must not! Raven has my voice now.” Her eyes flickered to T’Cori. I’m sorry, she seemed to say. “When I go to the mountaintop, she will be the one. You must obey her.”
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