“Snakes, it feels good to be alone with you again.” She glanced at him. “What is happening to you? Salamander? Please, tell me.”
“You said Anhinga and Night Rain were expecting us?” At least that thought was lucid. Maybe his belly was eating through his grief.
“They are at my house. We thought it better. The food is there.” And I have you alone for the first time in weeks.
“They do not expect us yet. Night Rain has just stepped outside. She can see the smoke plume through the rain.”
“How do you know that? You can’t see through walls—let alone that far across the plaza.”
“She doesn’t think we’re coming yet. She’s ducking inside, telling Anhinga we will be longer.”
“Salamander, you are frightening me! It’s as if you can hear my thoughts. Talk to me. Are you well?” Just tell me that the spirits haven’t taken possession of your souls!
The corners of his lips curled, threads of smoke rising from the confines of the tentlike buffalo hide. “I am the only one in possession of my souls. They bind me like rawhide. They suffocate me. It is so hard to breathe.”
“What?” She placed a hand to her breast, searching his eyes for an answer.
“My souls are cages, like fish traps. I can’t get free of them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve never flown,” he whispered sadly, and closed his eyes.
“Flown?” she asked. “How did you fly?”
“Masked Owl comes. He shows me the way.” His eyes were still closed, expression turning blissful. “Why can’t I ever do it on my own? Why can’t I break the cages that surround my souls?”
“Because you’ll die,” she cried.
“Death is release.” He smiled. “I never understood until the Serpent told me.”
“You really did talk to his souls?”
“It isn’t like speaking, Pine Drop. It’s different. Dreaming. I Dreamed him. I Dreamed them all. Saw into their souls.”
“What do you mean, Dreamed them all? The other Speakers? The Clan Elders?”
“They are so bitter. Their souls taste like green walnut rind. They leave a yellow cast within me.”
She nodded. “So many hands are raised against you, and I never hear a cross word, never see your temper flash. And sometimes, like today, you are gone somewhere, flying on Masked Owl’s wings, I think.”
She saw his smile growing. Her words had touched him.
“Salamander? They are drawing the net around you. You know that, don’t you?”
He gave the barest nod.
“You can’t just let them trap you.”
“I am who I am.” He was talking to emptiness again, eyes still closed. “I learn, watch, and absorb the lessons. I am Salamander, the one never seen. I have Danced with the mushrooms. I am floating.”
“Mushrooms?” she asked, heart tapping hard against her breastbone. “What mushrooms?”
“I see your soul, Pine Drop. I see our daughter’s life, glowing like an ember inside you.”
You really are scaring me.
“I’m sorry. You have no reason to fear me.”
Are you a mystic, or an idiot?
“You must understand: I am caught between Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow. The Serpent told me the night he died. Masked Owl killed White Bird.”
“What?” She was suddenly oblivious to the water that ran down her forearms from the soggy fabric.
“He was warned, but his pride wouldn’t let him stop. The goosefoot seeds, they would have changed this place. Changed us as a people. Masked Owl doesn’t think it’s time. So he killed White Bird.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Brothers, the Hero Twins. Born of Light, Born of Dark. Wolf Dreamer, Raven Hunter: the Two who make One.”
“You see this in the Dream?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a Serpent?”
“No. I am the place where Dreams cross.” His smile seemed to cast a glow into the gloomy interior.
“But … but Masked Owl. He is your Spirit Helper,” she stammered, trying to understand. “And he killed your brother?”
“It is a battle for the souls of men. Just like the one being fought here. Between the clans. Power sways and rises, like mating copperheads, twining and spinning, Dancing, and pulling apart. Look at it! So very beautiful—and so deadly! We are all part of the One, forever split apart, lonely, yet united. I see now. I begin to understand.”
He spread his arms wide. The buffalo robe unfolded like huge wings.
She gasped at the sight of his naked body. Lit from below, his thighs, the tip of his penis, his bony rib cage, and his jaw glowed orange. Shadows were cast across the hollows of his hips, over the twin arcs of his breasts. His eyes were hidden in blackness atop his lighted cheeks, his brow golden under a dark forehead. A man of fire and shadow, he stood before her, and she felt Power swelling within him.