“Come on!” he cried. “Get up! All of you! Get up! Dance with me! Sing! Power moves the earth! Wolf and Crow twist and circle!
Green Spider reached down and pulled up the young woman who’d been in the canoe. As he taught her the steps, her friends rose to join in.
Pearl leaned over to whisper to Otter, “Green Spider said that forward. He must be seriously worried about Tall Fisher’s talk of the Mask.”
“It does seem that way.” Otter watched warily. Green Spider Danced and Sang as never before. Distracting them all? For what purpose? Wouldn’t everyone benefit from hearing more about the Mask?
Pearl gripped Otter’s hand and tugged on it. “Come on.
There’s probably something sacred about this Dance anyway.
Let’s do it.”
She laughed at the look on his face as he stood, and they began to imitate Green Spider’s shuffle, hop, shuffle, hop, step.
Tall Fisher ceremoniously stood, helping her husband rise, and when he, too, took the step, following the circle to the left around the fire, the rest of the people joined in. They learned the Song, and voices rose and fell with the chant. Dust kicked up from bare feet, and the fire seemed to burn with a greater intensity as shadows wavered blacji% on the hofrse walls surrounding them.
Black Skull sat quietly, his heavy war club in hand as he watched the people passing around him. Only when a brave young girl tugged him to his feet did he, too, join the Dance.
Otter Sang, holding Pearl’s hand, enjoying the moment. Nevertheless, he continued to watch the Contrary’s face.
What does he know? One thing was certain. Pearl was right.
Green Spider hadn’t wanted Tall Fisher to talk about the trouble the Mask was causing. That was particularly perplexing. Does Green Spider fear that such information would make us abandon our quest to save the Mask? And who was this Star Shell?
A woman of the Starsky Clans?
His thoughts vanished when Pearl put her arm around his waist and forced him to match steps with her. Apparently, he’d lost the rhythm.
Green Spider is hiding something. And a High Head dwarf, a very Powerful and feared man, is involved. Why? To counter the Power of the Contrary?
Power had chosen its champions, was that it?
Blessed Mysterious One, why hadn’t Green Spider told them?
Had the skinny little Contrary known all along that going after the Mask would thrust them into the midst of a Starsky clan war?
Otter gazed across the circle at Black Skull, Dancing in the company of two smiling young women. The warrior looked happy, truly happy, for the first time.
Then Otter’s gaze met Green Spider’s.
And fear filled Otter’s breast. Those usually joyous brown eyes, untouched by anything in this world, brimmed with tears. They traced lines through the dust on Green Spider’s cheeks …
Forty-three
Black Skull allowed himself to flow with the Song, his feet rising and falling to the Contrary’s lead. Not since he was a child had he Danced like this. And even now, he held tight to his war club, ever a partner in a different kind of Dance.
The spreading warmth in his chest caught him by surprise, and he grew light. He could imagine himself floating on the rhythmic chant of the people, all Singing in their own language, the words as close as they could come to the Contrary’s Trade pidgin. The words themselves didn’t matter. Green Spider had touched their souls—and that shared awareness had become a spirit with a Power all its own. The harmony and step flowed over and through them, becoming one with the night, one with Black Skull.
How long did they Dance? Circling around and around the fire, faces caught the yellow light, white teeth flashed in ecstatic smiles, gleaming black hair swung with the gyrations of bodies and the clapping of hands.
Black Skull didn’t care. Set free for the first time in more years than he could remember, he Danced and Danced until his legs ached and trembled. Only then did he realize that most of the older people had stopped and that he alone remained in the minded himself, was that they could always replenish their resources.
Black Skull continued to Dance anyway, holding on to the wondrous sense of freedom and life that flowed in his veins, until at last he drifted to the edge of the circle and -sank down beside Green Spider and Shinbone. He gasped happily, wiping at the sweat that ran down his scarred body. Green Spider, too, he noticed, had been sweating profusely. Beads of moisture clung to his eyelashes.
A bowl of food was thrust into Black Skull’s hands, and he plucked up bits of fish and meat with gusto. A gourd of water came his way, and he drank with complete satisfaction.
“You do make a man welcome,” he told Shinbone.
The one-eyed chief nodded, a thin smile on his lips. “I think, rather, that you carry enjoyment with your Contrary.” Shinbone looked back at the shining bodies of the Dancers. “Look at them, smiling, laughing. The solstice is little more than a moon away. No one is getting married at any time soon. This unexpected celebration is a welcome pleasure for them.”