Astcat wiped at the tears that ran down her cheeks. “Why don’t you come and sit with me? I haven’t had a woman to talk with for a long time—except the old hags in the Council, and they’re not much company.”
As Dzoo stepped into the lodge, her buffalo cape billowed, blocking the light.
For an instant, Astcat’s lodge went as black as the tunnel to the Underwater House.
Pitch yawned and shivered in his wet cape. Thunder rumbled over the mountains. Rain had begun to fall with the morning and softened the lines of the sea and shore. In the murky blue radiance before dawn, the bark lodges resembled a slumbering herd of wet animals. The only people awake—other than he and Rides-the-Wind—were guards. Occasionally, he glimpsed them fighting fatigue as they stalked the forest.
Pitch adjusted his arm. The pain wasn’t quite so bad, but the sling had started to cut into his shoulder. Best of all the swelling was down, and he could move his fingers.
Rides-the-Wind lay wrapped in hides to Pitch’s right, his gray head propped on his arm. He’d been silently staring at the fire for over a hand of time. A hide bag full of seal meat and onions simmered where it hung from a tripod beside the fire.
“Why don’t you try to sleep, Pitch. I’ll stay awake.”
He shook his head. Wet black hair stuck to his cheeks, making his beaked nose look long and sharp. He’d barely slept in the past day and a half. “I’m all right, Elder. Just worried. Does it always take this long before a Dreamer wakes?”
“It depends on how far he’s gone.” A pause. “And if he’s coming back.”
Pitch turned to look at Rides-the-Wind’s lodge where Tsauz still Dreamed. Raindrops beaded the roof like tiny glistening shells. The last time he’d checked, the boy lay on his back staring blindly at the ropes swaying above him.
Lightning flashed, strobing the peaks, and thunder rolled through the village.
“How many times have you done this?” Pitch asked. “Helped a young Dreamer to climb Grandfather Vulture’s ladder to the Above Worlds?”
A soft shishing could be heard as the rain increased.
“Many times. Two tens, maybe three tens.”
“Tsauz is so young. I was surprised you permitted him to try.”
“I generally know people’s souls, what they’re capable of.”
“Have you ever been wrong?”
“Yes,” he answered softly. “If he survives this, Pitch, he’ll become a very Powerful Holy man.”
Pitch twisted to look at Rides-the-Wind’s lodge again. Off to the right, a faint coil of gray rose through the smoke hole of Rain Bear’s lodge. He had seen the furtive shape slip from the doorway just before dawn and watched Evening Star scuttle to her own lodge. Neither he nor anyone else had missed the way she and Rain Bear had started to look at each other. People had begun to say unkind things. And even Roe was unsure if she approved of where this relationship might be going.
Rides-the-Wind indicated his lodge. “Make sure he’s all right.”
“Yes, Elder.”
He quietly walked to the lodge and pulled the flap back. He stared in for a long time, before calling, “Elder? I think you’d better come.”
“What’s wrong?” Rides-the-Wind sat up in his hides, and long gray hair fell around his shoulders.
“Tsauz is having trouble breathing. It—it sounds like he’s suffocating.”
Rides-the-Wind walked stiffly across the wet fir needles and knelt before the flap.
Tsauz lay on his back with his knees crooked and his arms spread. The position had drawn his black-and-white cape out like wings. Wet black hair haloed his head. He was having trouble breathing. He wheezed and sucked at the air as though he couldn’t get enough.
“He’s flying very high now,” Rides the Wind murmured. “The air is thin up there. Leave him alone and let him concentrate. This is the most dangerous part of the journey.”
In a hushed voice, Pitch asked, “Is he riding Thunderbird yet?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why is his hair wet? The hides are dry. Almost no rain blew in.”
“Thunderbird may be soaring through rain showers. We won’t know until Tsauz comes back to us. Now come, let’s go back to our fire.”
As Pitch turned to follow, lightning cut a brilliant gash across the sky. It took Thunderbird’s voice a few instants to reach them, but when it did, they both jumped and looked up into the rainy sky. Lightning flashed in all directions, creating an eerie luminescent web over the trees.
Pitch walked back and sat on the log, his gaze lost in the faint flickers of fire. Rides-the-Wind returned to his hides.