Lichen sniffed and patted Vole's cheek gently. "I'll be all right. Mother," she said bravely. "Wanderer will take care of me."
"I know he will," Vole answered. She rose slowly to her feet. When she turned to him, he could see the pleading in her face. "Should I come and get her in ten days. Wanderer?"
"No, let me bring her home."
Lichen objected. "I can go home by myself. I've done it a hundred times."
"Yes, but things change once you sprout a Dreamer's wings," Wanderer said with a wink. "Your soul will be concentrating on other things. I don't want you to get lost. I'll take you."
Lichen blinked, curious and not understanding, but accepting his decision just the same.
Vole touched Lichen's hair lovingly before she began backing away. "Good-bye. I'll see you before the next new moon." She ran through the oak thicket, leaving the branches flailing against one another. Wanderer watched her until she vanished over the crest of the hill.
Lichen bit her lower lip as she looked up at Wanderer. "Well, I guess I'm here."
"Yes, and I'm so glad. How did you manage it?"
"I had a bad Dream last night—the one about the little girl. I woke Mother. After that, she decided it would be all right."
"Um," Wanderer murmured, studying the anxious twist to her mouth. "And how about you? Do you think it's all right?"
She flapped her arms helplessly. "I have to find Bird-Man, Wanderer. You know I do. I want you to teach me how."
"I'll do my best. Why don't you take off your pack? We'll get started."
Lichen looked startled. "Right now? So soon?"
"Yes. This is as good a time as any. We've a long way to go in the next ten days."
Lichen hesitantly unslung her pack and dropped it atop the one her mother had left. When she came back to stand beside him, she wrung her hands nervously. "What do I have to do?"
"First," he said, "you learn to fly."
"Already?"
"Oh, yes. I was doing it this morning. The ravens were teaching me. But I'm not nearly as good at it as you'll be. Come on, let's go back up to the overhang and I'll show you."
Lichen stopped dead in her tracks. "Is that what you were doing when we got here? When you were balancing on your stomach on that pointed rock that hangs over the edge of the cliff?"
"Yes."
Astonished, she said, "That didn't look like flying. Wanderer. "
"No? What did it look like?"
"Well, I don't know exactly. Mother said you were thrashing around like a turtle whose head was being chewed off by a wolf."
"Ah!" he exclaimed in sudden delight. "That's exactly it! Learning to fly is like having your head chewed off. Come on. As soon as your human head gets devoured, you'll grow bird eyes and be able to see the road that ties the sky to the earth."
"Wanderer," she remarked reprovingly, "maybe you shouldn't put it that way. I don't like the idea of getting chewed up."
He grinned as he hiked toward the path that zigzagged up the dusty overhang. "No one does, Lichen."
Eleven
"Tharon murdered your own brother, Uncle!" Petaga slammed a fist into the wall poles. "Are you such a coward that you'll do nothing to avenge my father's murder?"
Aloda, Star Chief of Spiral Mounds, slitted his ancient eyes. "Do not call me a coward, young chief, or you'll get more than you expect here. I may be fifty-two summers, but I can still swing a war club."
Petaga gritted his teeth to hold back his anger. He began pacing the council lodge, his sandals scraping on the uneven dirt floor. He had dressed simply, wearing a golden robe with a red band of squares decorating the hem. His headdress of owl feathers accentuated the triangular shape of his face and made him seem a little older, an attribute he needed just now. Hailcloud guarded the door. The tall warrior bore a stoic expression, but his eyes glared.
The room spread around Petaga in a hundred-hand square. Newly built after Badgertail's last attack, it had almost no adornment. Hardwood benches lined the walls. In the four comers, fetishes of hawk feathers hung from the ceiling poles. Four finely woven baskets with red and black designs sat on the floor near Aloda, who reclined on a thick pile of old buffalo hides. The traditional conch shell, traded up from the southern coast, rested beside the chief's elbow, half full, and growing cooler by the moment. Patches of hair had fallen out of the hides, leaving them ratty. Smoke from the pipe curled in fragrant wreaths through the room. Aloda's elderly body had grown as thin as a spruce needle since Petaga had seen him last, three cycles ago. But his black eyes had not lost their keenness. He wore only a finely tanned deerhide kilt and a necklace made of galena and copper nuggets.