“Why?” Her eyes were wide, the partially finished net bag forgotten in her hands.
“To learn to fly,” he said wistfully. “It was the only way I could become Condor.”
“Condor?” She hesitated. “Did you eat dead things?”
“It’s not so bad.” He gave her a somber look. “What was wonderful was Dreaming the One. And don’t ask. I can’t explain. It’s a … harmony. A sharing of life and light.” He clamped his eyes shut. “If I could only go back.”
“Go throw another rock at Keresa.”
He smiled, but it hurt. “It’s tempting. But I have things to do.”
“Like what?”
He stared into her eyes. “The voice you hear in your Dreams is Raven Hunter’s.”
Her interest was replaced by suspicion, and not a little fear. “Loon Spot told you?”
“No. I saw us. In the future.”
Her expression had turned wary. “In the future?”
“After our world is destroyed.”
“You’re starting to sound like the Prophet.”
“He is Raven Hunter’s tool. Wolf Dreamer was lost in the One, Dreaming the harmony. He didn’t understand. Opposites crossed. There’s great Power in that. Harmony and order must be crossed with chaos and creativity. Life must be balanced by death. Only when male and female are joined can new life be created. Wolf Dreamer didn’t understand. The battle between him and his brother was just beginning.”
“He’s not the only one who’s confused. You’re sounding peculiar yourself.”
“The Ice Giants are melting.”
“Tell me something that I don’t know.”
“You’ve heard of the great lakes beyond the Southwind People’s lands?”
“Of course. The Traders tell how the whole southern rim of the Ice Giants is one endless lake after another.”
“Water runs downhill.”
She laughed. “That was a good bump on the head. If you didn’t know that before, you needed it.”
“And all that holds it back is a narrow dam of ice.”
She stared at him, thinking. “But the Ice Giants are melting.”
“As Condor, I flew over the last dam, looked down at the cracks and tunnels. Wolf Dreamer and I saw it. In the One, I watched it give way.” He looked down at the Wolf Bundle, hearing its soft whispers and feeling its growing warmth.
“You have to warn people.”
He nodded. “Many will listen. Others won’t believe a boy who was hit on the head. They will say I’m too young to be a Dreamer.”
“Then what will you do?” She was giving him a serious look that he would come to love.
“I’ll take you with me.”
“But … what about my mother? She’ll come looking for me here.”
“That’s just it, Ashes.There will be no ‘here’ left.” He looked around. “All of this, it will all be washed away.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “And what if I don’t go?”
“Then you will never become my wife, and our children will never struggle to find the balance between Wolf Dreamer and Raven Hunter.”
Forty-five
“Skimmer … Skimmer … Skimmer …”
She jerked awake at the sound of her name being repeated over and over, and stared up into Ti-Bish’s worried eyes. He carried an oil lamp with a moss wick. Two long braids framed his boyish face and hung down over the front of his bearskin cape. In the fluttering light, the tiny black ravens painted on the cape seemed to move, to be flying.
“Is it morning?” she asked, and sat up.
“There is no morning here. Are you hungry?” He lifted the basket in his left hand, and she smelled the distinctive aroma of roasted fish.
“Starving.”
Ti-Bish started for the mouth of the cave. “Come, I want you to see something. We’ll eat there.”
Skimmer rose, swung her cape around her shoulders, and followed him out into the tunnel. The endless moaning of air flowing through the crevasses and tunnels mixed with the low groaning of the ice.
Her mouth dropped open at the size of the winding irregular passage. She’d had no idea when she followed him here in the darkness. This stunned her. The tunnel arched three body lengths over her head and spread five wide. Sand and gravel dotted the floors and walls. Occasionally a massive boulder jutted out through the ice.
“I thought the Nightland Caves were pure ice,” she said.
“The ones near the surface are,” he replied softly, but his voice reverberated from the walls, almost as though he’d shouted. “Here, in the lowest tunnels, the Stone People live with the Ice Giants.”