“Sunchaser?”
Which direction should she take? She scrutinized the knot of pathways. They resembled a twined heap of unraveled yucca cord, strand dropped upon strand, looping off in every direction.
“Kestrel… Kestrel….””
The sound of his voice made her frantic. “Where are you, Sunchaser? I’m at a trail crossing. I don’t know which way to go!”
“I’m here. Here!”
Kestrel ran back along the way she’d come, trying to find his tracks. Only her own moccasin prints showed on the sandy soil. A new voice called to her. “Kestrel?” It had a harmonic sound, like several people speaking at once. “Kestrel, you’ll never find Sunchaser if you stay on the trails. They’re being witched. You have to fly above them. Tell Sunchaser. He has to fly.”
She spun around, scanning the rocks. “Who are you?”
“Run, Kestrel. Fly over the trails. Fly… you must fly.”
“I don’t know how to fly! I’m not a Dreamer!”
“Try. Try to fly. Go on, Kestrel. You can do it. Just spread your arms …”
She turned, raced forward and leaped over the chaos with her arms outstretched. When she sailed through the air, suspended above the tangle, she could clearly tell the direction from which Sunchaser’s voice came. Joy filled her. She hit
the dirt running, heading for an orange needle of sandstone that gleamed like fire on the eastern horizon, and never let her gaze waver.
“Sunchaser, I’m coming!”
A hundred trails crossed her path, but she refused to look at them. Her route cut through the twists and turns like an arrow, slicing the knot in two.
And through some magic she did not understand, she seemed to be looking down on the desert from high above. As if following the route of a cat’s-cradle string woven between a child’s fingers she could make out the simple single strand that formed the basis of the chaos. It led to the heart of the maze, where the knot tied the two ends together.
The knot resembled a deep canyon filled with dark shadows…. Like the hole through which Wolfdreamer led humans into this World of Light.
She sprinted forward at a headlong pace, her shining black hair streaming out behind. Her slender body felt young again, as though she’d never undergone the travails of childbirth or abuse. A feeling of utter freedom possessed her. Her beaded moccasins barely seemed to touch the burning desert sands. The horrifying burdens that weighted her soul vanished. She no longer cared whether Lambkill would find her or not. Her husband didn’t exist here. She felt as though she had stepped out of her own life and into someone else’s.
And this someone was happy.
Buttes rose on either side of her, their blunt noses sniffing the belly of Brother Sky. Wind blew streamers of red sand from the crests and whipped them into spirals that curled upward into the sky.
“Kestrel, can you hear me? Where are you? Are you still coming?”
“I’m here, Sunchaser! I’m following the sound of your voice. Keep calling my name!”
“Kestrel… Kestrel… Kestrel…”
He sounded so forlorn, so lost.
She picked up her feet and ran like the wind, down a steep drainage filled with sage and up the opposite bank.
A broad plain fanned out before her, bordered on either side by scrubby bands of pinyon pine. A euphoric sense of purpose tingled along her limbs. For the first time in cycles, she knew why she was alive. She lived here now to help Sunchaser unravel the maze. He needed her.
I’ve escaped, Lambkill. You’ll never find me. Never.
After all the weary burdens she’d borne in the past five cycles, this wasteland affected her like a heady brew of fermented juniper berries. She didn’t want to go home. Not ever.
But Cloud Girl… oh, my baby … my baby.
Kestrel passed the central knot, her eyes focused solely on the orange spire, and trotted between two enormous ridges that rose like jagged rows of teeth on either side of her. They narrowed as they approached a deep, dark chasm.
She whispered, “Like the wing walls of a trap.”
The sheer sandstone walls funneled over a cliff. The ethereal orange spire sat across the gap, floating on a bed of fluffy clouds. Kestrel slid to a halt so fast that she stumbled backward and fell to the ground, breathing hard. Between the precipice and the spire lay nothing. Nothing but Darkness. “Sunchaser? Sunchaser, where are you?”
“Call me, Kestrel! Please, keep calling me!”
“Sunchaser? I’m here. Up here, on the cliff. Sunchaser, Sunchaser, Sunchaser .. ,”
Kestrel awoke with a start.
Clouds had rolled in and eaten the Star People. Tiny flakes of snow were drifting out of the black. The aspen limbs bore a white coating half a hand thick, as did the hide that covered Kestrel and Cloud Girl. Helper sat beside Sunchaser, his ears pricked, his tail thumping the rock happily.