People of the River(5)

Lichen peered at the bird from the comer of her eye. "Yes," she replied as she watched Wanderer move about. Because of the low ceiling, he had to stand in a hunched position while he gathered the makings for a fire. "A Spirit Dream."

Wanderer's rumpled shadow swept the room as he arranged the twigs and kindling in the stone-lined hearth in the middle of the floor and used his firebow to get a small blaze going. Flickers of light pranced across his long, beaky face. Then he propped two stumpware supports on the outskirts of the flames and braced his pot on top of them. After that, he wilted onto his tumbled blankets.

"Well," he said, "let's hear about it while we wait for the water to heat up. The Dream must have been frightening to drive you to me again."

Lichen cast a sideways glance at Flycatcher. He sat rigid, his eyes on Wanderer. He had twined a hand in one sleeve of her dress, grasping it tightly lest she try to get too far away from him. He seemed to be examining the Power designs on Wanderer's robe. A stylized tortoise spread its red legs across the old man's chest. From the end of each red leg, a green spiral spun out.

Lichen leaned forward eagerly. "I heard a voice calling me. Wanderer. I followed it through a dark mist where fireflies flashed all around me, until I saw wooden stairs built into the side of a huge mound. When the mist cleared, I walked up the steps into this big, round room. Seashells lined every wall. It was beautiful. Firebowls streamed out around a raised platform like sunbeams."

"Ah . . .the Sun Chamber at the Temple Mound in Cahokia."

Lichen's heart stopped. In hushed awe, she whispered, "You've been there?" Only the greatest holy people were ever allowed to enter that forbidden space.

"Oh, yes, many cycles ago, when I was teaching Nightshade. That was before Tharon cast her out of Cahokia, of course. It's a magnificent place." He shoved a larger piece of oak into the fire and prodded the kindling until the flames leaped beneath the pot. "I wonder what the Cahokians want with you. Tharon, the Sun Chief, is not a good person to be wanted by. Many people call him a sorcerer."

"I've heard my grandmother speak of him. Didn't he bum up Hickory Mounds this winter?"

"Yes. Great wickedness walks with him." He reached into a blue-and-red basket, pulled out a handful of leaves, and dropped them into the boiling pot. Steam rose in a glittering veil around his face.

"What's that strange smell?" Flycatcher sat up straighter to sniff the flowery fragrance that filled the room.

"My own tea mixture," Wanderer answered. "It's made from mint, elderberries, and prickly pear blossoms."

"What does it do to a person?" Flycatcher demanded.

"Do? Why, it clears the head and takes the soul up—"

Wanderer stopped abruptly to scowl at a fly buzzing around the ceiling, and Flycatcher quit breathing. To make matters worse, the raven on the windowsill let out a low shriek and took wing, squawking as it soared away.

Flycatcher rose to his knees, clearly getting ready to bolt. "Up where?"

"Up where?" Wanderer repeated as if he had never heard the words before. He snatched at the fly, missed, and grumbled, "Where what?"

"You said that your tea takes the soul up somewhere. I want to know where." A tremor had invaded Flycatcher's voice.

Wanderer broke into a broad grin. "You're an inquisitive little reptile, aren't you? Did you know that a person's entire future can be read in the wrinkles of dried elderberries? I've spent the past forty cycles making collections for nearly everyone in Redweed Village—barring the youngest babies, of course. I couldn't know about them. Here, let me see if I can find yours. If I recall correctly, it's . . ."He grabbed a basket and proceeded to ransack it, sending black, shriveled berries jumping like popcorn. "Great Mouse! I hope I didn't throw any of those berries into my tea."

"Wanderer," Lichen sighed, "we were talking about my Dream. About the Sun Chamber."

He studied her as though he hadn't the vaguest notion of what she was talking about. "Were we?"

"Yes."

"Well, what was I saying? . . . Oh, wait! I remember." He threw the basket down, heedless of the fact that about twenty berries bounced out onto the hard-packed surface. Flycatcher looked appalled, as if half of his life had just rolled into the crevices in the floor. "That's right, we were talking about Tharon. His madness started with Nightshade . . ."A distance filled his gaze, as if he looked back across time. His voice gentled. "Yes, Nightshade."

"Who?"

Wanderer made a delicate gesture, the way he would push aside a cobweb. "Twenty or so cycles ago, the great priest, Old Marmot, had a Dream that the reason Mother Earth had turned against the Cahokians and the com wouldn't grow anymore was that the people needed to go south and west, into the Forbidden Land of the Palace Builders, to steal a little girl and a Power Bundle. The great warrior Badgertail led that battle-walk. But Old Marmot got more than he bargained for in Nightshade. By the time she'd turned ten, she had more Power than Marmot had ever dreamed of. Gizis, Tharon's father, had hired certain artisans to produce his famous Wellpots—those are the black ones Tharon trades to special leaders—but when Nightshade got hold of the pots, she started breathing terrible Power into them. Gizis forced her to teach all of the other priests and priestesses how to do it too, of course, but Old Marmot hated—"