by Clare Bell
Legs and tail trembling, Thakur forced himself to walk to the edge and peer over. He was afraid he would see nothing except the sea washing back and forth over the rocks, or perhaps a limp form, broken by the fall. When he looked down, he saw at once that the cliff was not as high or sheer as he had feared. It fell away in a series of ledges. On the lowest one, he caught sight of Newt, lying with one paw dangling and her head turned to one side. A tail length below her, the waves surged against the sandstone shelf.
Anger and guilt clawed at him. This wasn’t his fault, he growled to himself. Newt had provoked him into using the name he had learned from Ratha. She had run down the path and blindly over the edge. If anything had killed her, it was her craziness and unpredictability. Thakur argued with himself, but he could not turn away. Something held him frozen at the clifftop, staring down at Newt.
She lay still, but she was breathing. He could see there was no blood. Nor were there contorted limbs or other indications of serious injury. It was likely that she had slid down the steep slope, bounced over the upper ledges, and knocked herself out before coming to rest at the bottom.
Quickly Thakur began searching for a safe path down to the ledge where she lay.
A network of narrow shelves and ledges wove down the sloping face. Thakur found that he could keep his balance by leaning against the rock wall and placing one foot directly ahead of the next. He kept his eyes on the path, not letting them stray to the surf crashing below. Slowly he crept down each downsloping ledge until it intersected the next or gave out. Those were the worst moments—when he had to back himself over the edge, hind feet searching for the shelf below while he hung by his foreclaws. On one such drop he nearly unbalanced and toppled over but managed to catch himself.
Slowly he worked his way back and forth across the cliff face until he was a few tail lengths above Newt. He saw her stir, draw the dangling paw up, turn her head, swallow. He went a few more steps along the narrowing ledge then saw something else. The seawater beneath Newt’s ledge churned, and then the shape of a seamare loomed underneath. The creature lifted its head above the waves and pointed its muzzle at the shelf where Newt lay. Another shape surfaced beside the first—smaller, more agile.
Thakur halted and watched the seamare and seacolt. Were these the two Newt had befriended? Now both muzzles pointed upward at the rock, as if the pair could sense Newt was there and needed help. Splayfoot reached up with her black paws, but she could only scrabble uselessly at the sandstone base. A wave lifted Guzzler, and he tried to reach the ledge, but the retreating swells dropped him back before he managed a hold.
Thakur lowered his head and crept on down the path. The seamares couldn’t get to Newt. She would need his help. Two startled bellows from below made him stare at the beasts, who glared back at him and showed their tusks. He wondered how long he would last if he fell into the water with them.
He went another few steps. Splayfoot started to roar, throwing herself as high against the cliff as she could. Though unnerved by the noise and by the seamare’s frenzied efforts, Thakur did everything he could not to threaten her. He kept his teeth covered and his ears forward. He talked to her in the same tone he used when dealing with restive herdbeasts.
“Easy, easy. I’m Newt’s friend, just as you are, you duck-footed dappleback. You just stay down there and keep quiet.”
An indignant roar nearly blew him off the shelf as soon as he laid a paw on Newt. Again he fought to keep his balance and not to look down into the long, cavernous vault of the seamare’s open jaws. He ignored her long enough to give Newt a quick going-over. She had a few bruises and a lump on her head but nothing worse. He looked back the way he had come. Could he take her back up that steep path? He had barely made it down himself, and she was both shaky and lame. No. He knew if he tried, they would both fall.
Splayfoot roared at him again, accompanied by honks from Guzzler.
“You know, both you and I are after the same thing,” Thakur said reasonably. “We’ve got to get Newt off this cliff. Perhaps we can come to an understanding of sorts.”
The seamare clamped her jaws shut, eyeing Thakur as she bobbed in the water. It became clearer and clearer to him that the only way to get Newt off the ledge was by sea. And he’d have to do it soon. He could see that the tide was retreating, pulling the water level down and increasing the drop from the ledge into the breakers below.
A rumble came from the seamare, warning him of another indignant blast, but at the last minute Splayfoot seemed to change her mind. With a snort that blew spray from her nostrils, the seamare reared up. He could see her snuffle the wind that blew across his coat, and he was suddenly thankful he still bore the pungent stink of seamare dung.
Splayfoot bobbed in the surf, turning her head from side to side as if she didn’t know what to make of this strange intruder.
Thakur tried to wake Newt. She responded, but she was still groggy. Gently he turned her head so she looked down into the ocean.
“There are your friends,” Thakur said softly. “They will help you.”
“Newt go,” she whimpered, peering over the edge. Splayfoot heaved herself up again, lifted by a wave, but this time she didn’t roar, only stretched her neck to touch noses with Newt. Thakur watched as Newt tried to climb down. She was too shaky and frightened to do much more than lean down off the shelf.
“Here. Turn around. Lower yourself feet first, like I did,” he said, nudging her. Taking her scruff in his jaws as she backed over, he dug in his rear claws to hold himself and braced his forepaws to keep from sliding. Carefully he lowered her, stretching until his neck ached so that she would have as short a drop as possible.
Just before he let her go, he lost his clawhold. Reflexively his jaws opened, but he couldn’t save himself and fell into the surf between the two seamares. The surging water caught him, tumbled him over and around until he no longer could find the surface and thought he would drown. A blunt nose underneath the belly pushed him roughly, and somehow his head rose above the water. He gasped. Then a broad back rose beneath him until he lay on top of it, his paws clasping the sides of the big sea-beast.
Splayfoot rolled her eyes and gave a disapproving grunt, as if she wasn’t sure she should be helping him. Nearby Newt paddled weakly, buoyed up by Guzzler. She still looked dazed, but she had recovered enough to recognize Thakur. Slowly the odd party swam away from the cliff base, around a small point, and landed at Splayfoot’s cove near the jetty.
Shivering, Thakur waded to shore. Newt hobbled up the beach, shaking herself as she went. She disappeared between two rocks, and Thakur guessed she was heading for her hideaway.
He turned to look at the two seamares, who were lying half-submerged in the lapping waves, staring back at him.
“I don’t know if you did that for Newt’s sake or mine,” he said aloud, watching their ears swivel, “but I’m grateful.” He thought then about leaving Newt to herself, for he was wet and tired, but he knew he should go after her.
He was halfway up the beach before he realized that Newt’s fear and headlong flight had proved something he could not have learned in any other way. There was no doubt now. Though he swore he would never say that name to her again, he knew Newt was Ratha’s daughter, Thistle-chaser.
Newt huddled against the sandstone wall of her cave, trying to isolate herself from the one who had crept in after her. Part of her knew it was Thakur, but the frenzied, frightened part of her knew him only as a shadow who walked with the Dreambiter. He had tried to curl up next to her and speak to her, but his words were only a dim buzzing in her ears, and his presence drove the cold fear deeper. She struck out at him, clawing and biting, trying to drive him out. But though he withdrew, he stayed close, and she could only huddle by herself.
She remembered when she had been able to see Thakur as warm and real, not just as a shade allied with the enemy of her dreams. She knew she could lay her head against his flank and gain comfort from him. Sometimes she had been able to
let herself slide into the fantasy that he was the kind one with the dark-copper face and amber eyes, who had loved her without judging.
But now all she could see were Thakur’s eyes, and they burned green, like the Dreambiter’s.
Newt curled up tightly, shuddering. She knew Thakur was there, but she could not let him come near. Not after he had spoken the word that broke through the barriers around her memories. Not after he had let the Dreambiter loose.
Her head throbbed and buzzed. She buried her muzzle between her paws, trying to fend off the rising panic. She could feel the Dreambiter prowling the caves of her mind, pacing deliberately toward the hole Thakur had made with that terrible word... that was somehow her name. She trembled, knowing the demon was real and could come down on her at any time, no longer held back or confined by her will.
Newt cried her misery to the cave wall, wishing it could somehow move or answer. The cave only seemed to close in around her, becoming a trap instead of a shelter. If the Dreambiter rose again, where would she flee? Would the terror chase her blindly over a cliff again or just make her run until she died from exhaustion?
A strange calmness settled over her, though she knew it was just a lull. It gave her strength to remember the other times when the Dreambiter had attacked, wounded, and then fled. She knew those skirmishes were over. The Dreambiter had grown strong. Now it would attack to kill.
Thakur crouched at the mouth of Newt’s cave, alarm making the fur rise all over his body as he watched her. He desperately wanted to comfort her, but each time he tried to curl up beside her, he had been met with a blind, slashing attack that drove him away. And then she writhed and muttered or drew up in a pitiful huddle.
That he could only watch and do nothing made him feel trapped and helpless. The scratches she had given him stung and bled, but because her swipes were wild and uncontrolled they were only annoying. Pity and anger wrenched at him, making him creep closer once again.
Her smell alone made him flatten his ears, for rage and despair poured from her like a thick, choking fluid. But it was her words that held him close, that made him risk another flurry of claws and teeth.
“... kill you, Dreambiter, find you kill you... smell is real, you are real, no more hurting ever ever ever... ”
“Newt!” Thakur hissed, but she only jerked and started to writhe in a way that made him wonder if she was dying.
He felt cold and exhausted. Closing his eyes, he confessed to himself that he did not have the strength to endure any more or the skill to soothe her pain. He had to have help. He could feel himself shaking and knew he would be useless both to himself and Newt if he kept struggling. Perhaps one of the females: Bira could be gentle and comforting.
He grimaced in irony. No. The one who really held the key was the Dreambiter herself: Ratha. He had allowed her to evade responsibility for what she had done to her daughter. Not just Ratha alone, but perhaps all of the Named together could do something to help. And if Thistle-chaser was dying, Ratha should know.
“Newt,” he hissed softly. “I can’t do this alone. I need help. Stay here. I won’t be gone long.”
Thakur turned away from the cave, but he could not help hearing the tortured voice saying over and over again that the price of this pain would be the Dreambiter’s life.
Chapter Twelve
Ratha paced toward Fessran’s new lair, hating the tightness that grew between her shoulders with every step she took. Fear stole the fluidity from her stride, the suppleness from her muscles, until she felt wooden.
She wished that Fessran had taken Mishanti and gone beyond her reach. But no. Instead, the Firekeeper had chosen to den nearby and, even worse, to walk on Named ground, leaving footprints whose mixed odors said that the Firekeeper had fostered the witless cub and openly defied the orders of the clan leader.
Sand and salt grass lay under Ratha’s feet now, but the path she trod was the same in bitterness as the trail she had taken before to Fessran’s den when the Named had lived on clan ground.
Last time, Thakur had made the journey with her. This time she would make it alone. There was only one cub to carry from the lair, but that would not lessen the difficulty of the task. The ache in her jaw from the litterling’s weight would be the least of the pains she would know.
And Fessran had already named the cub and kept the name, in defiance of Ratha’s order: Mishanti. The word beat in Ratha’s mind, whispered like the salt grass tearing past her legs. A name worthy of a cub who could bear it and know what it meant to be set apart by the gift of a word—a name—that carried the essence of selfhood. Ratha drew back her lip in scorn at Fessran’s foolishness. A name was worse than useless to a cub who could not use it.
She clung to one hope: that the remaining rags of the friendship she and Fessran had known might make Fessran surrender the cub without a fight. That hope dwindled when she topped a rise that led to the den and looked down to see a sand-colored form pacing the ground. A fire burned beside the lair.
Now the tightness crept from between Ratha’s shoulders to a place in her chest, between her front legs. Would Fessran use the Red Tongue against her? The Firekeeper looked rough, wild, her belly drawn except for the swollen teats she used to nurse the cub. Her face was taut.
She stopped pacing and stood, her gaze fixed. Ratha slowed but did not stop.
“The trails we take turn back on themselves, clan leader,” Fessran hissed, reminding Ratha that she too remembered how they had stood facing each other when Ratha had come to take Shongshar’s cubs. That time, Fessran had seen the truth and backed down. Perhaps now...
“No, Ratha.” The Firekeeper’s voice was low and shaking. “I wasn’t sure then. I know now. You are wrong about Mishanti. The light in his eyes is hard to see, but it is there.”
“Has he spoken? Has he done anything to show he has the gift we seek?”
“Not yet. But that doesn’t matter. Not to me.”
Ratha ground her back teeth in frustration over Fessran’s willing blindness. She knew the depth of loss and loneliness that could twist things and make an impossibility into a forlorn hope.
“Let me see him again,” she said wearily. Fessran went into the den and brought Mishanti out. She lay beside him, guarding him with a forepaw, gazing down at him and licking the top of his head.
“I don’t know why I love him,” she said softly, “but I do.” She gathered him in with both forepaws. He fell against her breast, snuggled up against her with his paws waving. “Why do we love cubs?” she asked Ratha, looking up with eyes that were angry and pleading. “Why, when they cause so much fuss and trouble, when they grow up and forget who you are, or when they die and you have nothing left?”
Ratha found herself unable to answer. At last she said, “Fessran, this season has been difficult for all of us. And I didn’t realize... ”
“Do you know why I’m so sure about him, Ratha?” Fessran interrupted suddenly. “Because at night, when I’m lying in the den with him, smelling his scent, I can see what he will be. In the dark I can see him running along a hill crest with a torch in his mouth, his fur silver and his eyes flame. And that fire will burn for the Named, if you give it a chance.”
Ratha stared at Fessran, not knowing what to say. She wondered if the strain of the drought and the move had somehow pushed Fessran onto trails that led beyond reality.
She tried to steer Fessran away from her vision and her strange conviction. Softening her voice, she said, “I know you can’t help loving cubs. It’s part of what you are. Most of the clan sees the Fessran who is the Firekeeper leader, who calls others soft as dung about treelings, who chews the ears of anyone who gives her any nonsense. I have seen the one who ran beside me with the Red Tongue, and I also see the one who loves cubs. But this cub is a mistake. He won’t be able to give back what you are giving him. Please understand. I’m not trying to be cruel either to you or to him.”
Fessran’s gaze pierced her. “Do you really know by looking at a cub’s
eyes what he will be like? Do you have some infallible gift that says this one can be Named and this one cannot? I don’t think so. It isn’t as easy as that. And I don’t think you are as sure as you pretend to be.”
“I’m not,” Ratha admitted. “But what my eyes and my nose and my belly tell me is that this cub is worthless to the clan. Khushi never should have brought him, and you never should have kept him.”
“Is that how you think of him?” Fessran’s gaze and voice had a raw edge. “As something that just happened? A creature that died and must now be buried?”
“An Un-Named one whose grandsire probably left those scars in your shoulder,” Ratha said, hardening her voice.
Fessran flattened her ears. “You think you’ll frighten me with that again? Oh no. Just because Shongshar’s blood may run in this cub is no reason to say he will have to grow up that way. It was not just Shongshar’s long teeth that led him to take the trail he did.”
Ratha broke off and stared at the cub, trying to find some indication that she was wrong after all. But Mishanti was diffident, refusing to answer her gaze and turning his head away in the shy way of the Un-Named. What Ratha could see of his eyes held little promise. She swallowed hard, wishing for Fessran’s sake that there was something. But she couldn’t lie to herself or to Fessran.
“I cannot accept him in the clan, Firekeeper.”
The dregs of Fessran’s hope seemed to run out of her, making her shrink down. To Ratha’s eyes she seemed to grow thinner, harder. Only her eyes held a trace of softness, and that was for the cub she guarded. Mishanti arched his back, rubbing his little spike of a tail under her chin.