You see, a sorcerer can have anything he wishes, Star Shell.
Power grants you that. I wanted her, and that night, I had her.”
“And she didn’t claw your eyes out?”
“You still don’t understand, do you? A witch, a sorcerer, has ways of bending people to his will. To her, I’m sure it seemed like a dream—and I don’t doubt that she thought I was her husband. You see, as I was coupling with her, she raised her head to look at me with such love and adoration that I couldn’t stand the thought of those eyes looking at me with hatred. And she would have hated me with all the passion with which she loved the rest of the world.”
“So you left her with the illusion?”
He nodded sadly. “I saw her off and on for the rest of her life. On those occasions when I could manipulate the circumstances, I used my Power to take her. And always, I left her with the illusion that she had dreamed of her husband. To her, I was just a very good friend—one with whom she shared the secret of my confessed love, and nothing else.”
“You afe vile!”
If he heard the disgust in her voice, he simply accepted it. “I went to see her when I heard that she was dying. I arrived too late. I’m not sure what I would have done. Perhaps I could have saved her, kept her alive for a while longer. In the end, however, the results would have been the same. Her soul would have been freed of her body, and veils of illusion would have fallen away.
She’s dead now, and her ghost knows.”
Star Shell turned the moccasins she’d laid to dry by the fire. “Let me guess. You’re starting to worry. You’re not a young man anymore, Magician. Her ghost is waiting for you, isn’t it?”
“You are a smart woman. A fact that grieves me a great deal.
Yes, she’s waiting. Too many of the ghosts are waiting for me.
Most I can face and bear. But how can I face her?”
“And that’s why Power sent you on this journey? First Man is willing to bargain? If you help to eliminate Many Colored Crow’s Mask, First Man will help you avoid facing this woman whom you … you … Sacred ancestors! I can’t even speak it!
You violated her.”
Tall Man’s eyes had lost their luster. “I don’t think you understand.
I’ll have to face her, young Star Shell. First Man won’t save me from anything. I may, however, be able to redeem a bit of myself before I die. For most, the opportunity comes too late. I’m struggling to earn at least a sliver of atonement—so that I don’t see hatred in her eyes when we meet.”
Star Shell shook her head. “You had better be glad that she’s not me. I wouldn’t forgive you for what you’d done, no matter what good deeds you attempted in penance.”
Tall Man’s expression seemed to sharpen, some of the depth less quality returning to his gaze. “Oh, I don’t know. A Trader would point out that we all have something with which to purchase a little good will.”
“You’d have to give her something back as precious as you took.” Star Shell reached down, placing a loving hand on Silver Water’s sleeping form.
“Yes,” he mused as he watched her hand. “I intend to do that. And perhaps in the end, she will forgive me.”
Thirty-nine
I have found that a sickness lies in wait for Dreamers.
A soul sickness.
It eats and eats at even the most devoted.
When you can see through the moss-colored pool of the world to the rocks lying on the bottom, you begin to wonder why the pool exists at all. What purpose is served by making it hard for humans to see the rocks? Why doesn’t Power just make all pools clear, or drain them away so the rocks are easily visible?
I understand that this is why Contraries and Tricksters are made. I do understand.
The bottom of the pool is invisible. So someone must pick up the rocks and throw them at people, because only a good bash to the brain will make a human stop rushing long enough to consider standing on his head for a better look around—and this includes Dreamers.
But it hurts just the same. Bashing and being bashed.
Yes, it hurts … The pain of those near me increases every day, and I feel their suffering like a disease inside me, sapping my strength, filling me with questions, sometimes with inexplicable bouts of rage, or grief … And all I can do is to keep throwing rocks.
Pearl had the fire crackling and one of the big round ceramic pots boiling when—accompanied by the waking cries of the gulls—Green Spider danced out of the false dawn. He looked like a skinny urchin, whirling and skipping through the bluish-gray mist that clung to the shores of the sea. As he squatted down next to her, he stuck his thin, hawkish nose over the pot and sniffed.