He shook his head, confused.
"Ah, Little Dancer. Old Six Teeth told me once long ago that life is the Great Mystery, that only within ourselves can we know what we think is real. I can't prove to you that you're real. I can't prove that this fire is real—that it isn't just a tool of the Dream. Sure, it will burn me if I let it, but is the pain real? Or is it imagined? Illusion?"
"It's real."
She pursed brown lips over toothless gums. "I wonder. Six Teeth told me he'd seen a Dreamer Dance with fire once. The old legends, the ones you youngsters don't hear anymore, say the old Dreamers learned from First Man—and they Danced with fire."
He went pale before quickly adding, "That could mean a lot of things. Maybe they waved it around on sticks and-"
"No," she insisted. "Memory is a tricky thing—like a Dream, it changes. Memory itself is illusion. But I remember Six Teeth so clearly, remember the look in his eyes, like crystal beads of water lit by spring sunshine. He'd seen it. He said the Dreamer Danced with the coals in his hands, Danced barefoot in the Fire, and didn't get burned. According to Six Teeth, the way it was done was to retreat to the One, to change the Dream so it was real and this world illusion."
"I'd trust in a sharp dart, myself," he added. "I mean, think about it. I do things to myself all the time, cut myself flint knapping when I don't know it and I see the blood afterward and wonder when I did it. If I made the world up, like you suggest, I wouldn't imagine myself getting hurt. That doesn't make sense."
"Unless the rock Dreams it's hurting you."
"The rock . . ."
Through slitted eyelids, she watched him. "And you don't think the world around you Dreams? How do you know you're not the illusion of a rock? Or a bat? Or maybe a tree? What if a mouse is curled in its burrow somewhere, Dreaming your thoughts and experiences for you at this very moment? Can you prove to me beyond any doubt that you aren't part of someone's . . . something's Dream?"
He jumped to his feet, twirling around, arms out. When he stopped, he looked at her. "There, see, I just decided to do that, I decided to get up and spin around. Me." He pointed to his head. "In here, inside. I thought to do that."
She laced her fingers, cocking her head. "Did you? Or did whatever Dreams you plant the idea? Am I talking to Little Dancer? Or to the Dreamer through the illusion of Little Dancer?"
Frustration reddened his face. "I'm me. This is crazy! How can I prove to you that I'm me? Anything I think up, you'll say it's Dreamed. That I only think it, or someone else only thinks it. I—"
"Exactly my point!" she cried, and clapped her hands.
He looked crestfallen. "Then how can you believe in anything? Why even talk to another person? Ignore me. I'm not real."
She winked at him. "Because for whatever reason we're here, alive and living, there's a purpose. So what if we're Dreams? For the time being, act it out. Besides, accepting the illusion works, for the most part."
"I think it's crazy." But he didn't look any too sure of himself as he said it. A frown had engraved itself into his forehead.
"Maybe," she whispered, dropping her chin on her fingers. For the moment, she lost herself in the images of Six Teeth and his wonder that man could Dance with fire. But how? She blinked and looked up, seeing the amused disbelief in Little Dancer's eyes.
"Thinking about not being real?" he asked.
"No, I was thinking about what it would take to Dance with Fire."
"Skin made of water. Even if you don't exist, that's impossible," Little Dancer replied.
"More things are never tried because they're impossible than are tried because people believe in them." She reached for her stick to stir the fire. "And what kind of world would we have if people believed in the impossible? Think of what we could do. Now, there's a Dream for you."
She pointed with her walking stick. "That line there means the worst of the cold is over. When the sun rises there, it's halfway to the summer solstice."
Little Dancer moved around the outside of the circle, seeing how the rocks aligned. Only the gray tops of the stones stuck out of the windblown snow that had mounded and begun to melt as Father Sun picked a more northerly path through the sky.
Where they stood on the ridge top, the cruel fingers of the wind shot through hide and flesh like obsidian-tipped darts, chilling the very soul. Still, this high ridge had an unrestricted view of the irregular horizon.
"But how did you figure this out?" he called against the gale.
"Time, boy." She cackled like a sage hen over a green sprout. "By watching the sky, the path of Father Sun, and how the Starweb has been woven over the earth. It's all part of the Circles. You see, when you come stand here and look down this line, you'll find that on the day the sun comes up over that rock, it's the height of summer. Days get shorter until just after the beginning of the deep cold. Then, on the shortest day, the sun comes up over that rock down there."