Hunting the Ghost Dancer

by A. A. Attanasio

  Yaqut envied Hamr. The Beastmaker blessed only the rarest hunter with such a pyre. Truly, he thought bitterly, Hamr is a Great Man—a horsemaster, witch-lover, lion-slayer.

  Staring down into the fiery portal to the afterworld, Yaqut remembered when he had first thrown the oaf from his horse and nearly killed him, not knowing that the beardless, inept hunter walked the earth beloved of the Beastmaker.

  He frowned, recalling the anger that had knifed into him inwardly two days before, when Hamr held him on the ground and made him swear not to harm the witch or the boy—with the boy, all along, urging Hamr to kill him.

  Ashes now, Yaqut thought. There would be no need to avenge his pride on Hamr. Beloved as he is of the Beastmaker, the horseman was no hunter of ghost dancers. And as for the boy—

  Yaqut looked over his shoulder into the darkness under the oaks, where Timov and Kirchi huddled, sobbing for Hamr. Yaqut had the tracking stone now. It chilled perceptibly when pointed northeast, and at dawn he would follow its icy guidance and finish the bonesucker.

  The witch would come with him. Neoll Nant Caw would want her vengeance for the ghost dancer's death. Far better that the sacrifice be Kirchi than myself. He would turn the young witch and the stone over to the hag once he had Baat's head. Meanwhile, she would warm him well on the chill nights to come.

  As for the boy… Yaqut had sworn on the Beastmaker not to harm him—and that vow had died with Hamr. I will leave Timov to find his own way in the Forest. Before the moon is full, the boy will be bear scat.

  That decided, Yaqut rose and strode through the fireshadows to the witch, jerked her to her feet. "Tonight, you sleep under me."

  Timov rose, as Yaqut knew he would. The old hunter placed the tip of his lance under the crossed lion-claws at the boy's chest. "Hamr is dead. My vow to him chars with his bones. Leave us alone, boy. When morning comes, if you are still here, I will kill you."

  Timov flinched.

  Kirchi pushed away from Yaqut, her face slick with tears. "I won't have you, Yaqut."

  "Flee, and I will kill you too." The bad eye in the mangled face peered calmly. "You are coming with me, to get the ghost dancer's head."

  The wet shimmer in Kirchi's eyes dimmed with alarm, and she looked to Timov. He stood small in the bulkiness of the lion's pelt, and she knew there would be no salvation from him. When she faced Yaqut again, her gaze held steady. "He comes with us."

  Yaqut traced the line of Timov's jaw with the tip of his lance, saw in the boy's blood-smoked eyes the fright that had broken through his grief. The old man lifted the boy's chin disdainfully. "No."

  "If you want any pleasure from me, he comes."

  Anger flared out of Timov's fear. "Kirchi—no. He'll kill me anyway. I'll leave tonight."

  "Where will you go?" the witch asked.

  "There is only one place for him," Yaqut sneered. "The belly of the Beast."

  Kirchi stepped closer to Yaqut. "I want him to stay with us. After you take the ghost dancer's head, I want you to let us go."

  "You know your wants, witch."

  "Timov has the inner sight. I promise if he comes with us, he will help find his sister—and the ghost dancer."

  Yaqut squinted at Timov, hating the boy not only for wanting Yaqut dead but for the shiver now in his bottom lip, the nervous skitteriness of his dark stare, and the bonesucker blood with its fevered voices whispering in his veins. He wanted to stick him now, be done with him, and discipline this witch with terror. The flame-shadows moving in and out among the oaks goaded him to do it. But the witch's promise held him in check. She is a witch. He knew he should kill her quickly.

  "All right, the boy comes with us," Yaqut decided. "He may prove useful tending our camp."

  Timov groaned. He knew the vengeful hunter would eventually kill him and Kirchi.

  "You swear you will free us when the hunt is over?" Kirchi asked.

  Yaqut nodded assurance—a mean joy knotting and unknotting in his belly—knowing that indeed he would free them, Timov to his death and the witch to Neoll Nant Caw. "But first, you must satisfy my wants."

  "I will," Kirchi assured. "But not now. Tonight I mourn Hamr." She turned away and returned with Timov to where they had sat before.

  Yaqut let them go. He went back to watching the fire, taking the twitchings of his little revenge plot with him.

  Timov felt cold in his lion-skin despite the waves of heat reaching them from the holocaust below. He wanted to ask Kirchi to run away, tonight—though he knew the hopelessness of that ambition: Yaqut would track them down before the sun crested the treetops.

  The boy took only one glance at the witch squatting in the dark under the trees, her face pressed to her knees, her masses of red hair bright even in darkness. Then, he looked away, not wanting to see her grief.

  Hamr is dead, Timov told himself. Just the other night, Timov was the one who had died. He had dropped his body and flown into the sky. Now, the fires of the auroras had come down to earth. They blazed below, reducing trees and shrubs and Hamr to ash, reducing them to the tiniest parts that once—and only once—had been put together in seed and in womb to build those lives.

  From the ash, he knew, more lives will be built—but never again Hamr. Never again Blind Side of Life. Or Cyndell. Or Aradia, Mother, Biklo, Father. None of the dead returned to ash will rise again.

  )|(

  Kirchi sobbed herself toward sleep. She cried for the man the Great Mother had sent to save her. What remains for him now? What prayer can I give? That the Mudman honor Hamr? That Hamr's spirit watch over us and maybe even call Yaqut to join him? The fear in those chants mocked the great man. Tears are all I can truly offer in prayer.

  Ash from the burning Forest fluttered like moths through the red shadows. Those are the souls of all the animals burned in the blaze with Hamr, accompanying him to the western kingdom. The smoke visible there, among the trees, is the tide of the afterworld, the waves of shadow risen for the dead hero of the Tortoise clan. When that tide departs, I will go with it.

  Only slavery and death awaited her in this world. Many deep woods separated her from her tribe, the Longtooth—Yaqut's tribe—where her seeress mother, counselor of chiefs and hunters, would immediately return her to Neoll Nant Caw. She had broken too many laws ever to go back to the witch. Death alone seemed plausible.

  The roaring warmth of the blaze soothed those chill thoughts as sleep closed in. Hamr's body heat had journeyed into the world and returned to comfort her. He wanted her to live, to struggle, as he had, to carry greatness with the same strength that he had carried death.

  )|(

  The Forest blaze ran through dells and low hills to the west, looking molten to Baat from his high bluff. Long ago, this scarp had been carved by the Big River, and since then the meander of the river had silted to a meadow, which at the moment seethed, a smoky vat of moonlit fog. The fire ran farther on, burning to the very edge of the water, lighting the bend scarlet.

  Baat kept his gaze on the distant flames. They quieted the gibbering voices of the Dark Traces. On the hurried passage away from the danger, the fear of the wind shifting and bringing smothering smoke to them had excited the ul udi, and their jubilant voices had melted into each other and become frantic yammering. But the wind had not turned. The fire retreated, the spices of its burn sifting down to them out of the hazy moonlight. Even so, the Dark Traces continued to harangue him.

  Yaqut's poison did not help. The venom had put his left arm into paralysis and hollowed out his chest to a breathless cavern. The rush through the Forest and uphill had only spun the toxin faster through his body. He felt its chill coursing through the length of him, blooming like a canker on his heart. He did not want to be afraid—for then the Dark Traces' ravening din would become unbearable—but the needle-stabs in his heart told him death approached.

  Duru knew. She had smeared the gash with the same healing tar that he had used to cure her leg wound. She had diligently built a fire and heated rocks, immers
ing them in his wooden bowl until the river water there boiled and the sprinkling of herbs and grasses became a brew. He had tried to drop several red toadstools into the hot potion, knowing the amanita would kill him faster than Yaqut's poison, but she had caught him and thrown the toadstools out—as if she thought he could yet live. But she knew. She heard how shallow his breath had become, and she could see the cold fire on his flesh giving up its strength.

  "Drink," Duru ordered and held the burl cup to Baat's lips. He sipped, and the liquid drooled from his slack lips into his hackled beard.

  "Don't bother anymore with me, Doo-roo. I am dead. But I'm not afraid to be dead. Go back to your brother. I did not let the Dark Traces kill him. And I regret now—oh, I regret very deeply now that I let them use me to kill the beardless one. I had thought only of killing Yaqut, but the Dark Traces filled me with murdering strength and I killed your clansman. When you learn that, you will be happy I am dead."

  Duru did not understand the ghost dancer's words. She wiped the spilled brew from his beard with a wad of dried grass and laid her hand on his forehead. He felt cool as stone. Where she touched him, the crimson light around his body patched blue. She took his hurt hand, lifted it in both of hers so that he could see the shine brightening to blue in her grasp. "Baat—what does this mean?"

  The blue fluorescence gleamed in Baat's drowsy eyes, and he stared. Could it be? he thought. The flutter of hope in him inspired the Dark Traces to a shattering blat of screaming. He closed his eyes, trying to retrieve the mental space he needed to grasp fully this perception.

  Duru thought Baat had fainted. When his eyes opened again, a sharper intent fit his face.

  "Doo-roo." He pointed to the sky and then to her and offered his hand again.

  Realization dazzled the girl. "You want me to bring down the Bright Ones?"

  Baat saw from her expression that she grasped his meaning. And though she would not comprehend him, he said anyway, to convince himself and to defy the tormenting voices battering the inside of his skull; "Doo-roo—you can purge me of the Dark Traces. You can bring the Bright Ones down through you. Fulfill the bright calling. Just hold my hand. There's enough of the People in you to do it. Go on—take my hand and let the Bright Ones come down through you."

  Baat's fingers flexed for her grasp. When she took his hand in both of hers, the Dark Traces in him yowled. Their voices merged into one massive roar. Stab-pain hit him in his heart, and his head jolted back, eyes squeezed shut.

  Duru almost let his hand go, thinking she hurt him. His fingers clamped on hers. Then his eyes popped open, glaring with the intensity of his effort to stay alert against the battering voices only he could hear. His teeth clacked. "Doo-roo!" He raised her hands up, high enough to lift her to her toe-tips.

  Looking upward, at the silver brow of the moon, Duru searched for the ul udi. They did not hover there. They had already arrived inside her, dimly calling. A patient voice spoke from far within: Duru—be still. Be quiet as the oak that the lightning seeks out.

  Baat watched the azure light on Duru's hands climbing her arms, and he closed his eyes, knowing he had to hold out only a while longer. Already, their panic had splintered the Dark Traces' bellowing into distinct voices clashing between his ears: You are already dead, Hollow Bone! Yaqut's poison eats your blood! Convulse and die!

  The voices gathered to a scream that faded abruptly to silence.

  Baat eased his eyes open a slit, glimpsed Duru standing rigid, face lifted to heaven, eyes rolled white. Astral fire sheathed her small body. He sat taller. His left arm remained numb, and the needles of pain in his heart had sharpened. But the terrible noise had vanished.

  He listened deeper, for the Bright Ones, and heard their whispery voices talking to the girl: The Dark Traces are gone for now. But they watch. They wait. Baat is dying. Yaqut's poison has hurried his death closer yet. There is little time, perhaps too little for him to reach the door of the mountain, where his ancestors wait. He is listening. Baat, you were wrong to use the hunger music.

  "I know that now."

  "Baat!" the girl's small voice broke in. "I understand you!"

  "Yes—I hear you as well!" he cried into the darkness of his closed lids. "The Bright Ones have joined our minds."

  "I'm afraid for you, Baat," Duru began. She seemed to be standing on the bluff among moon-ghosts, kelpy shapes that drifted between her and Baat. Baat himself looked like a ghost, more shadow than shape. "Sometimes I think you're dying."

  "I am dying, young Duru. You heard the Bright Ones. I'm old—and Yaqut's poison has made me older yet. In a short while, this body will drop from me. This summer I had thought to journey to the door of the mountain for a vision, but I know now that if ever I get there, I will arrive to die."

  "That's why you took me from my clansmen, to help you find the right place for you to die, isn't it?"

  So now she knew that truth. "Among the People, those who have opened themselves to the ul udi, the ghost dancers, must go north at the end of their lives, to the door of the mountain, where the Bright Ones come to earth. If I die there, Duru, I will be taken by the Bright Ones. Otherwise, my soul belongs to the Dark Traces, who will torment me for time beyond reckoning."

  "I will help you."

  "You have helped me." Baat's shadow-shape leaned closer in her vision, and she discerned sad gentleness in his heavy features. "I must tell you a thing. Hamr is dead." Baat's ghostly shape became solid and larger, and his voice came out small: "I killed him."

  Anguish washed through Duru, and she felt as if she lifted away from herself. She flew above the wind to find Hamr.

  "You will not find him," Baat said. "His body is ash now."

  "And Timov?"

  "Your brother lives. I did not harm him. But Hamr is far from his old life now. I am sorry. Deeply sorry. My fear used me."

  Duru looked at the giant's hand held firmly in her small grip. The strange light of the ul udi joined them. Fervent emotion churned in her. She looked away to the great blaze of the moon-cast Forest.

  Hamr's death linked inside with all her other losses. Tears that had been burning in her since the fever took Mother burned hotter. She turned and pressed her face against Baat's hand. Grief and tears flowed through her, a current as strong as a river.

  Baat had expected her to rage at him, and when she did not, his remorse deepened. He had wanted to end the hunt, not hurt this child.

  The Dark Traces chortled from far away and just behind his eyes, distant and close—haunting, yet not owning him anymore. Duru's bright calling had broken the spell of the hunger music.

  With this strong child to guide him, he would find his way past the Dark Traces entirely—away from the irreversible sorrows of this world. The Bright Ones had given her that power.

  Duru cried until her grief settled into cold new thoughts. Hamr is dead. I am no longer a wife, no longer a clanswoman. Whatever the Great Mother wants of me is right here with this ghost dancer.

  Baat might just as soon have killed her as Hamr. He embodied all the evil and all the good in the world. If she left him here, she would only find him again in the first beast that came for her, as well as in whatever rock or club would defend her. She could not flee the Dark Traces or survive them without the Bright Ones. Her destiny clearly belonged here with this dangerous friend.

  At least, she could heal his pain and darkness. The blue fire shining from her showed her that. He needed her. Now that Hamr belonged to the Mudman, that need had become her whole life.

  She stared up at the night. As the tears cleared from her eyes, mists of starlight brightened, teemed, condensed to the Milky Way and huge cobalt glints of individual stars.

  )|(

  The fire in the valleys had burned to a smolder. Smoke, phosphorescent with moonlight, churned in the hill-hollows and wafted in chalky smudges over the ridges.

  Out of a furl of wood-smoke, Timov emerged. His thin body looked smaller in the bulky lion-skin. He had wandered away from Kir
chi and he hoped from Yaqut, too—to be alone with his grief.

  He thought he had come away to pray to the Beastmaker for Hamr. But as he ambled among the skinny, stunted trees on the stony shoulders of the river bluff, he realized that Hamr did not need anyone to speak for him to the Beastmaker.

  Timov knew then that he had come to speak for himself. "I am the last man of the Blue Shell," he began, and his chant to the Beastmaker faltered. No need to say any more. There was no clan to hear him, no mysteries to be revealed. If he were going to be initiated at all, he would have to initiate himself.

  With his hands gripping the claws of the lion-skin, Timov called all of his grief back into himself. He withdrew all his mumblings to the Beastmaker and to Hamr's spirit. If they could help him, they would have to help him as himself, he grasped coldly. He moved through the world alone, the last of the men.

  Yaqut would certainly kill him. The hunter no longer needed him to find the ghost dancer. He had the tracking stone. To live—to make his self-initiation mean life and not death—Timov knew he had to make himself a man. No one else could. Make myself what kind of man? I do not have the strength of Hamr or the murderous cunning of Yaqut. How can I make myself into something more than a helpless and frightened boy?

  "I am a man," Timov said to the night. "I am no longer a boy. I have put aside my childish fears. I will be brave. I will not disgrace the Blue Shell. If I am to be the last of our blood—I will be among the first in courage. Hamr showed me the way. I will walk that way to my death."

  Timov felt foolish. He felt like the brine-flowers he used to see in the tidepools, their blind faces waiting for sustenance. He could say anything he wanted—yet, still the fear persisted: The doomful solitude did not go away.

  He waited for some new power to come to him. But it would not come. He knew that. He had seen the curve of the world. He still vaguely remembered the beautiful music and icy pain of the ul udi. Indeed, the world extended into ranges far stranger than he could ever grasp. Even so, he felt sure, no new power would come to him that was not already in his hands.