Salamander told him. “What you do after this night is no longer my affair. My business here is with the Speakers and Elders.”
“Pass,” Water Stinger told him coldly. “I, too, will be waiting to deal with you. And, while you are in there, know that I was Eats Wood’s friend.”
“Yes, he has found a great many friends in death, hasn’t he?” Salamander felt the man bristle in the darkness as he passed.
Without ceremony, he ducked through Mud Stalker’s door to find the interior well lit by the central hearth. Mud Stalker and Sweet Root sat at the back. Cane Frog and Three Moss to the right, while Deep Hunter, Colored Paint, Moccasin Leaf, and Half Thorn were to the left. All of them looked up as Salamander settled himself at the last open space between them.
“We expected you to have run by now,” Mud Stalker greeted jovially.
Food had just been set out. Two large ceramic pots were filled with baked lotus roots. A steatite bowl rested at the side of the fire, black drink steaming its invitation. The bark platters and gourd cups that were being passed back and forth had stopped short at his arrival.
“Good evening,” Salamander greeted, nodding from one to the next. “Please, do not let me interrupt. Continue with your feast.”
Mud Stalker scooped up some of the root paste. “What did you do to yourself today, Salamander?”
“What I had to, Speaker. Just as I have since the moment you made me Speaker.”
“You are Speaker no longer,” Half Thorn remarked arrogantly.
“No. I am nothing now.”
“Did you really kill Eats Wood?” Mud Stalker demanded. “Or was that a trick to save your barbarian bitch?”
“I could not let him cut my unborn daughter from Anhinga’s raped and murdered body, Speaker.” Salamander hesitated, seeing the design on the clay-tempered pot beside the fire. The interlocking owls couldn’t be mistaken. There, beside it, stood its twin. He smiled, feeling the last pieces of the future falling into place.
“Where is Anhinga?” Deep Hunter demanded. “We went looking for her today. No one has seen her.”
“She is far to the south.” His gaze remained fixed on the two pots. “After tonight, the ghosts that plague her will be laid to rest.”
“What is this about?” Cane Frog asked, her single white eye on Salamander. “Why did you just give up that way?”
Salamander watched Moccasin Leaf scooping the thick root paste from the pot and piling it on her wooden plate. “I had a vision after the Serpent’s cleansing last winter. Brother mushroom is not to be treated lightly. Some of you will remember when I was so sick? I fell so deeply into the tunnel I couldn’t find my way back. There, in the Dream, I was dying.”
“I don’t understand,” Half Thorn muttered.
“You never will,” Salamander replied. “A Spirit Helper came to me, Danced with me. She showed me bits and pieces of the future. Seeing is tricky. A great many things may change. People make decisions that alter the way events may unfold.”
“Now we are to believe that you are a seer?” Sweet Root asked derisively as she scooped some of the paste into her mouth.
“We have already discussed belief once today, Clan Elder. You may believe what you wish.”
“So”—Deep Hunter waved a taunting hand—“tell me of this future you saw.”
“There were so many futures,” Salamander said carefully. “Different visions of what might be. That is one of the lures of the One. When you Dance, you see different futures as you spin about. But, to get back to your request, we could have followed Many Colored Crow’s vision and made Sun Town influential beyond your most exotic imaginings. It would have happened under a great leader who bound our entire world together through Trade and war. Sun Town would have grown to cover a huge area. Other towns would have been built up and down the length and width of the river—as far as canoes can travel.”
“A great leader?” Mud Stalker asked. “Just one?”
“All that authority,” Salamander agreed, “all placed in one person who passed it on to his heir.”
Mud Stalker was smiling grimly, seeing himself in that place.
“What about this other future?” Cane Frog asked.
“Other futures,” Salamander corrected. “In some, my decision would have driven the clans into open warfare. Within moons, bodies would lie among the houses, and in the ensuing battles, the clans would be split, dispersing, raiding each other until Sun Town is only a memory. A no-man’s-land where we kill each other on sight.”
“Never,” Colored Paint muttered under her breath. “Stop trying to frighten us.”