The second pack mounded on the dwarf’s back like a shapeless bundle—a soft thing that he used as a pillow when they stopped. This was made of fabric, beautifully dyed and woven with geometrical patterns.
To Star Shell’s surprise, the wizened Magician made good time, considering his age and the shortness of his bowed legs.
But from the expression on his worn face, the journey was exacting a heavy toll.
They had few cares for shelter, for a different clan occupied each little valley they entered. Travelers, especially Traders, were always welcome, given a hot meal and a place to stay in a warm clan house.
“It’s not far,” Tall Man puffed as he looked up at the darkening sky. “We’re in the Hackberry clan country. The clan house is at the bottom of the valley.”
Star Shell glanced up at the brooding sky. Flakes of snow fell, drifting idly to the white ground.
“Why did you come?” she asked.
“You will need me.”
“But you won’t tell me why?”
“Young Star Shell, there are times when a person shouldn’t ask too many questions. I worry about these Flat Pipe people.
They must measure and study everything. I’ve heard the ghosts whispering among themselves. They wonder and marvel at the things men are doing.”
“Maybe that’s the beauty of being dead. You can watch without worrying.”
He made a snuffling sound. “And what makes you think ghosts are free from worry? Mica Bird’s grandfather is harassing Mica Bird for just that reason. He knows the Power of the Mask.
It wasn’t until the Power abandoned him that he really understood its strength.”
“You sound as if you pity him.”
The Magician’s little feet crunched in the snow. “I knew him.
A bright and ambitious young man. He changed—and never realized it until he took the Mask back to the mountain.”
“I still have trouble understanding this. Why didn’t the High Heads—why didn’t you go and reclaim the Mask?”
Tall Man walked in silence for a moment. “Sacred objects don’t belong to a person. They belong to themselves. People only care for them. Power fills them. True, one of my ancestors made the Mask in the first place. Think of it not as an article of adornment, but rather as a house. Many Colored Crow’s Spirit moved into it, that’s all. Once that happened, it wasn’t just wood and feathers anymore.”
She shook her head. “It makes no sense! You tell me that Many Colored Crow is really this Raven Hunter. Many Colored Crow did good things! He came into this world and told people how to care for their ancestors. He rid us of the ghosts that were haunting people. Now you tell me he’s wicked.”
“Not wicked, young Star Shell. The world balances between opposites. Can you have life without death? Happiness without sorrow? Would you have appetite without starvation? Would you have mice without hawks? Deer without lions? No! It’s all a balance. If night never fell, the fireflies would never shine.
Were it not for winter, the fields would never replenish themselves.
The stars would never gleam unless darkness cloaked the heavens.”
She trudged on, saying nothing.
The Magician raised his short arms. “The world is locked together like fingers from both hands, always pulling and struggling.
When the High Heads grew complacent and slothful, someone made the Mask. Humans, and the Spirits, too, need that element of competition. Unless you periodically burn an old forest, a new one never grows. Fire and shadow. Always shifting, changing.”
She shook her head in frustration.
Tall Man lowered his arms. “The point of all this is that Raven Hunter’s Mask is becoming too Powerful. I don’t know why. Perhaps it sucks some of a person’s Power into itself when it’s worn—like a tick under the skin. Whatever it’s done, it sows discord. Discord makes people uncomfortable. Once they are uncomfortable, they work to change the situation.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with a little harmony.”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. But if all we did was sit around in harmony, what would get done? Think about the clans. They constantly bicker and compete. No matter how fertile a field is, it will grow goosefoot for only so long. Then it ceases to produce healthy plants. Balance is the key. You must have enough harmony to provide security, and enough trouble to keep things moving.”
Star Shell glanced up at the hillsides and the winter-bare trees above the pristine snow. Here and there, fields had been cleared, and she could see a lonely farmstead on one of the terraces. The place looked abandoned. The people had no doubt packed up what was left of their harvest and journeyed to a relative’s holdings, where they could socialize the long winter nights away.