The sensation had been of emptiness, as if the man were nothing more than a shell.
“Gods,” she mumbled. “It’s the hunger. I’m tired. So … tired.”
Fire Mountain rose before her like a gigantic cone with a snow-covered, chopped-off top. Her hazy vision focused on the cliff just above the tree line. Was that the Fire Village palisade wall?
She shook her head. Maybe it wasn’t even there. For three hands of time, she’d been seeing things. Sometimes just faces. Other times, she saw glimpses of the future. Pearl Oyster had come to speak with her. She thought he was trying to warn her about something. She’d seen him reach out to touch her; then he’d vanished like mist on a hot day … .
She stumbled again.
Hunter glared at her. “What’s wrong?”
She could feel her soul growing lighter, thinning like smoke in the wind. A pink tornado formed in the air before her. Round and round it went, Dancing and bouncing.
Hunter’s gaze jerked to the point on the trail where she seemed to be looking, then jerked back to her. “What’s wrong? Do you see something.”
The Noisy One, her Spirit Helper, solidified in the cold-spawned glitter, his arms moving like blades of grass underwater, sweeping up and down.
“Empty out your heart, Dzoo. Drain your soul onto the path to prepare the way.”
“Prepare it for whom?” she asked, the words barely audible even to her.
“Our purpose is the boy.”
“Which boy?”
“The bloody boy.”
“Ecan’s son?”
Hunter circled warily, his spear thrust forward. “Who are you talking to, witch?”
Dzoo couldn’t feel the ground. She might have been flying, rather than walking.
The Noisy One floated just ahead of her.
“You are almost home,” he whispered. “Like a winged seed coming to ground. But beware. You are being hunted. He is close … and, oh, so Powerful. I don’t know if you can beat him.”
The Noisy One raised his hands to Brother Sky, and lightning flashed through the approaching Cloud People. Warriors spun to look. Whispers broke out.
“Witch!” Hunter shouted. “Did you do that?”
With the next brilliant flash, the Noisy One’s face shattered and blew away like tumbling snowflakes.
“You had better keep walking, witch, or I’ll—”
Dzoo staggered, blinked, and pressed her bound hands to her forehead. The vision had been burned into her soul: a tall young man, muscular, his head back, arms raised to the blinding sun. Blood had trickled down his bronzed, sweat-slicked skin. Every muscle rippled on his naked body—a picture of male perfection. Then she saw his face. The nose was thin, aquiline, the jaw strong, slightly bearded. Wide cheeks caught the light. But where knowing and Powerful eyes should have been, dull stones filled the hollow orbits in his skull. As if he felt her presence, he turned his head, staring straight at her. The sensation was as if her soul were being sucked from her body.
Dzoo blinked and gasped, aware of the jouncing sensation. A terrible headache hammered through her skull. She forced her eyes open and saw Hunter. At first he appeared to be hanging upside down against the sky. As she fought to make sense of it, she realized that she was being carried on a sort of litter.
“Are you awake, witch?” Hunter asked.
“Yes.” She sat up and put her hand to her head.
Deer Killer carried the front poles. He kept glancing uneasily over his shoulder, taking her measure.
“What happened?”
“You collapsed,” Hunter sneered. “Dropped flat as a soaked cloth. Were it up to me, I’d have just cracked your skull and left you.”
Deer Killer added, “The Starwatcher told us to carry you. But I’d rather you walked.”
“Hurry up!” Wind Scorpion bellowed from behind. “We’re almost there.”
“I can walk,” Dzoo said softly, the image of the stone-eyed man hovering like a bat in the back of her soul.
She felt stiff as she swung out of the makeshift litter they’d made of coats and poles. She stood on unsteady feet, but the headache began to recede.
“Make time, witch!” Hunter growled. “We’re falling behind, and I, for one, don’t want to be the center of Ecan’s wrath again.”
She filled her lungs with the cool air and forced herself into the continuing climb. As she got her bearings, she recognized the village cupped by the brow of the ridge before them like a barnacle.
The twenty-hand-tall palisade of upright poles surrounding Salmon Village had been built since the last time she’d been here. People began to trickle out the front gate to stare at her. They wore beautiful clothing—shirts made of finely tanned mink and marten hides, capes of eagle feathers. The finest dyes had been used to create geometric designs on the clothing. She had forgotten the brilliant purples, yellows, and shades of crimson manufactured by the North Wind artisans.