Water bounded three sides of the land, east, south, and along the far west. On the northern side of the bowl, she could see white snow fields fading into green basins. Mountains, rounded and worn, ran down from the ice-packed plains. Silver rivers threaded out of verdant valleys and followed their twisting courses to the sea.
The scene seemed to expand, to broaden, until she could make out the tiny details of forests, creeks, and plains.
Looking closer, she was overtaken with wonder. She could see herds of animals, smell the richness of vegetation. The faint sighing of the wind, of the leaves and the water, lingered at the edge of her senses.
The beasts she saw surprised her. While some were animals she knew, others defied description. Monster creatures walked the land, along with deer, foxes, beaver, and raccoons. Some had long trunks that made Star Shell think their tails had grown from their faces. Others looked like oddly shaped bears, furry, with three hooked claws for toes, which they used for pulling succulent branches down to prehensile lips. Oversized wolves, weirdly misshapen bears, long-toothed lions, and fleet-footed grazers—all these delighted her.
As she watched, Star Shell realized that the ice was melting in the north. To her amazement, the vantage shifted, until she seemed to have fallen into the bowl, and whimsical air currents carried her above a grassy plain.
In the distance, the ice still rose, white and gleaming. A Song lilted on the wind—a human Song. Star Shell watched as a lone wolf, magnificent in its rippling coat, ran powerfully toward the south. Behind it, following in its tracks, came people: human hunters streaming out of the ice.
They began filling the land, crossing the plains, following natural pathways through the mountains. At the swollen rivers, they hesitated only long enough to lash rafts together and pole across the braided channels to the far banks.
As they went, they killed the giant beasts and lived off of the succulent flesh. More and more humans walked the land, all of them hunting their way across the world. As they spread, the animals became fewer and fewer. She watched a worried man on a far western beach struggle to draw a maze in the sand, only to have his efforts washed away by the pounding surf.
Hot winds blew, and the last of the great beasts vanished.
Deserts spread around fading lakes, and people watched in alarm. Soaring, she looked down on a blazing mountain, oddly famijiar to her. In the foothills beneath the flame-swept mountain, people Danced.
Others came down from the north, bringing new ways and warring with the peoples they found. In the glow of a fire, a beautiful woman and a crippled man raised a bundle to the flames, and thunder cracked in the distance.
As if borne on the wings of Eagle, she was carried to the east. There at the edge of the endless blue ocean, wide rivers poured into a large bay. A man and a woman crouched on a mound of shells and talked thoughtfully while serene water flowed past. They studied a small fetish that lay between them.
Again she was carried aloft, across the bones of old mountains and into a land she was familiar with. She stared down on Starsky, seeing the immense geometry of the Octagon, the Great Circle, and the earth-lined ways.
The wind rushed her northward to an immense freshwater sea, then along its undercut shores to a river. The clear water seemed to seethe and was’ hemmed by tree-lined banks. She hovered over an island where the river split and could hear a faint roaring like endless thunder. As the channels rejoined, she saw twirling white mist rising to the west.
For long moments she studied the scene, feeling her heart race. The Mask stared back at her from the mists, slowly sinking into the roar of the mighty falls. It dropped from sight like a rock from a child’s hand. Down, down into the engulfing torrent.
Star Shell screamed, twisting and pulling back.
She staggered on the jumbled rock, and the bowl fell, dashing itself to tiny white shards on the jagged black stones.
With a start, she came awake, sitting bolt upright while cold sweat ran down her sides.
“What is it?” the Magician demanded, sitting up in his blankets.
Blinking owlishly at the wall of Clamshell’s cramped hut, Star Shell gulped the chilly air. “Dream. Horrible and wonderful.
I saw a bowl. And the world was inside it.”
She placed a knotted fist against her heart. “And the bowl fell … and shattered.”
She exhaled wearily and closed her eyes. The vision from the Dream filled her, as perfectly as before. Fragments of the bowl gleamed whitely on the cracked rock.
“Power is loose,” the Magician said softly. “Go back to sleep.”
Star Shell could hear the old dog’s low whining. She turned, and her next breath died in her throat.
Old Clamshell’s face had a tortured expression. That glassy look—one of a soul looted clean—might have been Mica Bird’s.