All eyes turned to him, expressions ranging from Anhinga’s arched eyebrow to Night Rain’s sudden horror.
He pointed at the door. “A small crowd is loitering out there in the cold. It would do them good to wait, to watch the fire’s glow grow dim around the roof. Some can’t wait to rush back to their clans with fresh gossip.”
“Very well, for tonight,” Pine Drop agreed.
“And periodically after that,” Salamander amended. “If we are to survive this, we must do so together. From now on we are going to be a household.”
“Yes, yes, we are agreed.” Pine Drop looked at her sister, then at the crackling fire, and added with a wary chuckle, “Fortunately, someone carried in a good supply of firewood.”
Anhinga smiled ironically at Night Rain.
Salamander’s own smile was false, a mask to relieve his wives. His thoughts turned to Saw Back. The side of his face was crushed. He would be clawing at the walls for revenge.
Water trickled in the close darkness to explode into hissing, spitting founts of steam. Bobcat retracted the thin-walled stone bowl. The hot rocks sizzled, and invisible rolls of wet heat rose around Salamander’s body. He opened his mouth, gasping, feeling the steam eat at the insides of his nostrils and his throat.
“Is that better?” Bobcat asked, his form barely visible in the red glow of the hot stones.
“Better,” Salamander agreed. He used his fingers to slick sweat from his forehead, eyebrows, and nose.
The close darkness inside the sweat lodge cupped around him like hands, the rounded roof close over his head. It pressed the stinging heat into his skin, threading it through his muscles, blending it with the blood in his veins.
“You need to be cleansed every so often, Speaker.” Bobcat shifted in the darkness. “Water can only wash the outside of your skin, but steaming cleanses not only the whole of the body, but the souls as well. It maintains a purity of the blood, a balance of the organs. These things go back to the beginning of the world, to a time when First Woman used fire and water to cleanse herself.”
“First Woman?” Salamander smiled, feeling water dripping from his chin to spatter on the folds of his stomach. The tops of his thighs prickled, his sides burned, and only by rubbing his hands along the outsides of his arms could he stand the steam’s bite.
“So many stories are told about her,” Bobcat replied. “One of the things I have learned, talking to the Traders who come from all over the world, is that they have stories about the Hero Twins, and about First Woman. About how she was there at the Creation.”
“I know little about her.”
Bobcat rubbed the sweat from his arms. “It is said that she lives in a cave at the center of the world. It is said that her essence is released in steam. That she was the first to teach the values of hot water to the People. She was the First Dreamer, the one who taught Wolf Dreamer the way to the One.”
“Do you believe that?” Salamander asked, thinking about all the stories he had heard about First Woman. “Do you really think she lives in a cave at the center of the Earth, and that a huge tree grows out of the cave’s mouth?”
Bobcat shrugged. “I don’t know, my friend. She is reclusive. Few Dreamers, Serpents, or Soul Flyers see her. It is said that while the brothers and the lesser Spirit Helpers often interact in the world of men, she prefers her cave, her Dreams slipping in and out of the One, while she mourns a long-lost love. It is said that even the Hero Twins and Sky Beings defer to her. That she is the heartbeat of the One.”
“She must be very Powerful.”
“I would not want to be the individual who disturbed her Dreams, I’ll tell you.” Bobcat shivered.
After a moment, Salamander asked, “How is the Serpent?”
“Not well. I do not know what to do for him. I have had him here, day after day. In an effort to prolong his life I have been feeding him a diet of snake meat.”
“Snake meat?”
“Have you ever seen a snake that died from old age, Salamander? Snakes live forever, or until something eats them, be it a man, an eagle, a raccoon, or a weasel. Power lies in their meat.”
“But it isn’t helping?”
“No, my friend.” Bobcat sounded weary.
“I cannot prove this, but I think that men like the Serpent hear Dream Souls, Bobcat. I think the Dead talk to them, call to them, and the Dream Soul begins to long to talk back. Think about it. So many of the Serpent’s friends are dead. Perhaps he longs to join them.”
“Perhaps. But I do not think so in his case. Have you felt the lump in his belly?”
“No.”