People of the River(136)

"Where are we?" Lichen whispered.

Foxfire crouched down, a faraway look in his eyes. "This is the land of Mammoth and Horse. That two-tailed animal down there is an orphaned mammoth calf. It's the last mammoth alive. Humans killed its mother less than a moon ago. Now they're killing it."

"It's the last of its kind? Why don't you stop them?"

"We tried to. When the Spiral has been turned upside down, not all the Dreamers in the One can set it right again. Only a living Dreamer can do that. Power makes its choice and tries to hone the Dreamer like a fine arrow point — but sometimes Power loses the gamble."

Lichen squatted beside him, watching as the mammoth calf wailed and dropped to its knees. Even from this distance, she could see the blood that frothed and bubbled at the animal's mouth. The calf shoved itself up on trembling legs, but stumbled and fell, then flopped on its side in the snowfield. Humans shouted gleefully and hugged each other. As they cavorted. Dancing, Singing their praises to the sky, the mammoth calf's huge head sank into the drift, and the snow ran red with its blood.

"How could they do that?" Lichen gasped. "Didn't they know it was the last mammotii alive?"

"No. But even if they had known, it wouldn't have made any difference. They wanted its meat. That's all they cared about." Foxfire let out a taut breath. "It happens when the Spiral is knocked out of balance. Earthmaker created the universe to have equal portions—Pain and Happiness, Birth and Death, Heat and Cold. That's why the Spiral is so important. Its circles reach from the thinnest roots that dig into the ground to the perfect motions of the stars. Sometimes humans knock the Spiral out of kilter, sometimes animals do it. Every time a coyote runs through a flock of new lambs, killing for the sheer sport of it, without ever eating its prey . . . the Spiral tilts."

Tears blurred Lichen's eyes as she watched the hunters begin the laborious task of butchering Mammoth Calf. With sharp stone tools, they pulled back the hide, revealing muscles that quaked and jerked even as the blades carved.

"You see that man on the far right? The one with Owl's face painted on his shirt?"

Lichen wiped at her eyes and nodded. The man stood with his shoulders slumped forward, a hand braced on the head of a little girl who bounced joyfully up and down as she watched the piles of meat growing.

"His name is Tusk Boy. Power placed all of its strength and hope in him. He had Owl as a Spirit Helper from the day of his birth. But in the end, when Power called him to enter the Sea of Father Sun's Light so that he might learn the way to set the Spiral straight again, he couldn't do it. He was afraid."

Lichen's eyes widened. "Afraid that the Light would bum him?"

"Yes. Afraid that it would burn away his soul and there would be nothing left of 'him' to return to his family. His wife and children meant more to Tusk Boy than Mammoth Calf did. Humans are like that. It's not their fault that they care more about themselves than everything else in the world. Earthmaker gave them that trait to help them survive. Only a few are willing to sacrifice themselves so that yellow butterflies may continue to flutter over the wildflowers in springtime. It is those few that Power seeks out. But not even Power can know for certain who will succeed and who will fail. "Foxfire gave her a sad smile. "No one really wants to be a Dreamer, Lichen."

The grassy plains before her changed, glittering like a million gnat wings before fading into a new scene . . .

White water boiled up from the ground through fissures in the rocks, then spilled down, filling a deep aquamarine pool where people sat around the edges, eating and talking. The chill breeze captured billows of fog and dragged them through the surrounding valley in long streamers. Sitting alone on a rock, away from the rest, a young man cried, "I'm not the one . . . I'm no Dreamer."

"Who is he?"

"Wolf Dreamer. He succeeded. He Dreamed humans into the Spiral of this land . . . even though all he wanted out of life was to be a hunter and to raise a family with the woman he loved."

"Power wouldn't let him?"

"He wouldn't let himself. The survival of his people was more important to him than his own wants. Without his Dream, humans would never have found the way here."

Lichen knotted her fingers in her tattered hem. "So Wolf Dreamer understood that everything he wanted was nothing more than sparkflies flitting in the darkness?"

"Yes, but not until the very end." Foxfire methodically traced the face of Wolf that adorned his chest. His finger halted here and there, on eyes and snout. "When he realized that all of the Spiral was illusion, he knew in truth how much he loved my mother — enough that he could let her go to find her happiness with another man."