“We’re all dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. More so when we’re obsessed with living than at any other time.”
Black Skull winced, wishing that just this once, the fool would speak like a normal man. “It seemed so real, so eternal.”
“Little Mouse, I will tell you this truth: The made-up things are those that last the longest. The harder you seek, the poorer your ability to comprehend. Last night when you let go, you finally found yourself. Do you understand?”
Black Skull rubbed his offset jaw as he squinted out at the endless expanse of water. The low swells reflected the blazing sky in the stillness of the morning. He’d never seen water so glassy, as if it alone in all of the universe were pure and unsullied.
“Then you know what a coward I was?” Shame began to leak out from the place where he’d tried to hide it.
Green Spider’s gaze began to wander. He picked mindlessly at a splinter on the side of his paddle. “You should fight all battles with such courage.”
“Don’t mock me, Contrary. Not now, not this morning.”
Green Spider’s gaze cleared, and he stared with eerie intensity through Black Skull’s defenses, into his very soul. “We all face our storms, Killer of Men. Last night you faced yours—and you’ve awakened to a new dawn, having survived. You will come to understand. It seems like cowardice to you because you don’t know the difference between what is brave and what is spineless. Last night I saw you being true for the first time.”
“True? I was so frightened that I … ” He closed his eyes.
What would Granduncle have said?
The Contrary’s hand rested for a moment on Black Skull’s shoulder, the touch birdlike and fleeting; it imparted, all the same, a sense of understanding. “No man should regret such courage. Facing oneself is the hardest thing of all.”
Black Skull swallowed with difficulty, aware of the naked loneliness in his soul. Every one of his defenses had been battered or shattered. In this new confusion, how was he going to put himself back together again?
He tried to look away, but when he finally met the Contrary’s eyes, he saw respect there.
“Thank you, Green Spider.”
Green Spider made a face and stuck out his tongue. Tongue still protruding, he added in a very slurred speech, “I did nuht’ing.”
And Black Skull couldn’t help but chuckle. “Very well, fool.
But I think you did.” He paused. “Which is a truly terrifying thought.”
Green Spider sucked his tongue back in and pretended to swallow it. “Scares you? Think of what it does to me!”
Black Skull sat’ with his arms braced on his knees, his hands dangling loosely as he watched the water around his feet swaying in time to the movement of the canoe. For the moment, he was content just to breathe, to enjoy the feel of air entering and leaving his lungs, and to listen to the shrill calls of the gulls.
He lifted his head to stare around at the eternal water. The sun would be obscured by clouds soon, and any sense of direction would vanish.
“Which way, Contrary? With no landmarks, how do you tell directions out here?”
“Seas are like souls.” Using both hands, Green Spider pointed this way and that. “At dawn, as at birth, the way is clear. In midlife, all goes adrift in the glare of the noon sun.
Only in the evening of life do we look back and wonder at where we’ve been, what we missed, and why.”
“So, it’s morning. There’s the sunrise. Where’s shore?”
“That way!” Green Spider pointed west, which at the mopeople of the Likes 545
merit lay off the right rear of the drifting canoe.
“East it is, fool.” Black Skull found his paddle, waterlogged and heavy, shoved between the packs and the hull. He settled himself and began paddling toward the sunrise.
How many are ef? Wolf of the Dead scanned the expanse of white beach visible from this high dune. To his astonishment, the blue water was placid, as if the Fresh Water Sea slept in dreamless oblivion. He and his warriors had barely escaped drowning out there in the mountainous violence. Had those been these waters?
Shading his eyes, he studied the pale sands that stretched northward in a slight curve around the still water. Those tiny dots far to the north might be some of his warriors. That, or Ilini. A shiver of doubt stole along his spine. It was one thing to cross Ilini lands at the head of two tens of tens of warriors … and quite another to be a small Khota party in hostile country.
He narrowed his eyes, the crow’s-feet deepening in the side of his face. Like the wolf from which his legendary ancestors had sprung, he scented the quiet air, drawing the damp freshness of the morning into his soul. A grim smile played around his mouth, the skin puckered like beaten copper.