Raven tucked his wings yet again and dove. Like a cast dart, he shot through the tunnel mouth into utter darkness.
Frightened, Ti-Bish followed.
Deep in the belly of the Ice Giants, light glowed, pale and flickering.
“This is the way,” Raven said. “Follow me.”
He flapped over a great dark lake streaked with a phosphorescent brilliance, as though the fish themselves left sinuous trails of light through the water.
“Through there,” Raven said, and flew up the shore. “Do you see it?”
Raven sailed along the lakeshore, swooping down occasionally to examine the gigantic bones of monsters that eroded from the ice. A trail wove around the ancient skeletons—a Monster Bone Trail—and here and there Ti-Bish saw the skeletal bodies of dead humans.
Raven soared to where a wide river spilled out into the fiery lake. For a moment the great bird hovered on the draft. Raven shot a look over his wing, meeting Ti-Bush’s surprised gaze; then, with a caw that sounded like laughter, Raven dove into the cavelike opening.
Ti-Bish, squealing in fear, sailed after him.
Only the sound of Raven’s flapping wings led him through the blackness. On each side the Ice Giants chittered and cackled. Often their deep groans were loud enough to scare Ti-Bish’s Spirit from his body. He flew harder, trying to catch up with the ever-elusive Raven.
For what seemed an eternity they flew through a quaking, moaning world of darkness. The first twinkle of light might have been an illusion, a thing of desperation. No more than a pinprick, it beckoned, luring him forward.
“This is the way,” Raven said. “You must be the guide who leads the people this way.”
Emerging from the hole, the effect was as if the Ice Giants split wide. They flew out into a dark sky filled with thousands of Star People. Far beneath them, herds of mammoth, long-horned buffalo, and caribou grazed together along the shore of a vast ocean.
“What is this place?”
“This is the land of the Long Dark … the place you heard of in stories told by the Elders.”
“The land Wolf Dreamer led the people away from so long ago?”
Fear slipped away like elk’s winter coat in spring, and Ti-Bish flew wild and free, darting and diving after Raven, who flipped over onto his back and plummeted straight down toward a long-horned buffalo.
Raven alighted on Buffalo’s hump. Ti-Bish hesitated, aware of Raven’s mocking eye as he backed air, and dropped worriedly onto the buffalo’s back. The thick fur compressed under his taloned feet. The animal’s massive shoulders rolled up and down as it walked through belly-deep grass.
Raven said, “Buffalo shows you the way. Just as I have. If I’d flown here, to the Long Dark, where there is plenty to eat, I wouldn’t have needed to scavenge the shell midden, and you wouldn’t have had to kill me. My life is a gift. Use it to grow strong so that you can guide our people back to this paradise.”
Ti-Bish burrowed down into Buffalo’s thick fur and sighed. Had he ever enjoyed anything so warm and soft? In the distance, he saw mammoth calves running and trumpeting, playing in the starlight. Caribou stood in ponds, moss hanging from their antlers; and high overhead, crimson waves of light rolled across fluttering curtains of green and blue: the brilliant fires of the Monster Children’s war that never ceased.
“This was ours once,” Raven said. “Before Wolf Dreamer led our people through the ice. But you can lead them back.”
“I can?”
“The world is changing. People are turning on each other. Even the Ice Giants moan and wail.You must not fear the conflict, but embrace it, for it will strengthen the people.” Raven was watching him with a knowing eye. “It will be difficult, and many will call you a fool.”
“They already do.” He hated being known as the Idiot.
“You must only believe.” Raven paused. “Finally, you must seek out Nashat.”
“He hates me. And I’ve only seen him once since he returned from the south.”
“He will lead the Nightland Council soon. He will understand your value. And, finally, you must have him bring the Sunpath woman known as Skimmer to you. Only through you will she believe in me.”
“Skimmer?” His heart warmed as he remembered the Nine Pipes woman who had shared her food with him.
“She is my legacy, Ti-Bish. The future of the Dream.” The world seemed to shrink, growing ever smaller. “And you must be good to her.”
The last thing Ti-Bish remembered was Raven’s gleaming eye. The sensation was as if he were falling into it. Dropping into an endless darkness …
Two
FIVE WINTERS LATER: MOON OF THE MELTING SNOW