“This is what the world will be like without mammoths, Sunchaser.”
“Filled with the dead and dying? Why?”
Condor tipped her wings, and they soared northward, toward the land of the Great White Giant, where the Ice Ghosts creaked and groaned as they stretched their glacial bodies. Magnificent deserts passed below him. Red ridges snaked across the land, cut and honed by deeply eroded canyons. Enormous stone towers stood like lances, poking their heads up above the ridge tops to look around.
“Because everything is connected to everything else, Sunchaser.”
He heard the baby crying again, crying, and crying, and calling his name…. Good Plume awakened when Sunchaser sobbed. She sat up in her robes and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Wind buffeted the lodge, roaring with the strength of the Thunderbeings. The door hanging had come untied, and it napped like wings over Sunchaser’s head. His hair bore a thick coating of pure white snow. He tossed and turned, writhing as though trying to escape a pursuing monster. His hides had slipped down around his waist, baring his broad chest to the bitter wind.
Good Plume rose and tiptoed over to him. Tears beaded on his lashes. When she put her hand on his brow, relief made her sigh out loud. His fever had broken. But he felt cold, as cold as ice.
“You’re going to be all right, Sunchaser,” she whispered affectionately as she rearranged the hides to cover him again. “Above-Old-Man must have heard all those prayers your hundreds of followers have been sending up … and mine, too.” Before she relied the door flap, she stuck her head outside. Snow fell heavily, sheathing the forest in a thick, wintry blanket. On the wind’s chilling breath, cries and groans wavered from the village. Some man coughed and coughed. An infant sobbed.
Good Plume squinted when she caught movement in front of the lodge. A dog sat ten hands away, covered with snow. He wagged his tail when she looked at him. “Who are you?” she whispered. “I know every dog in this village, and you’re not one of them.”
The dog rose and trotted forward, whimpering softly.
“Are you cold? Well, no creature ought to be out on a night like this.”
Good Plume held the flap back, and the dog ran inside. She secured the flap. When she turned, the dog lay curled at Sunchaser’s side, his black muzzle propped on his paws. He was a pretty animal, all black except for the tan fur that encircled each of his eyes. The dog lifted his head and peered at Good Plume, and a tingle went up her spine.
“You’re not just a dog looking for shelter from the storm, are you? Hmm? No … I don’t think so. Did somebody send you here? Maybe one of the Steals Light People?”
The dog put his head down again, but the feel of Power that clung to him intensified. A Spirit Helper? Maybe.
Sunchaser had quieted, though lines pinched around his deep-set eyes, and he’d clamped his teeth, setting his square jaw at an angle that made his handsome oval face look longer, his fine cheekbones higher. In the scarlet glow of the dying fire, he looked old beyond his twenty-five summers.
“But Dreaming does that to a person,” Good Plume said softly to herself. “Never known a Dreamer to stay young … in either body or soul. Spirits won’t allow it.”
Good Plume massaged her aching hip bones and hitched her way back to her robes. Having lain down again, she stared at the wall paintings—and then her eyes sought the Steals Light People. They were watching her with a concentration that sent a shiver down her backbone.
“I know you were worried, but I told you he was going to get well,” she whispered. “It’s all those prayers from his followers. Takes that kind of Power to drive out Evil Spirits.”
She could hear the figurines speaking softly to each other, their voices like murmurs of wind. The Thunderbeing figurine stared at Good Plume with unnerving intensity. Her wings had started to look ragged. Good Plume would have to see to that.
“Are you trying to speak to me?”
Legend said that it took thousands of cycles for a Thunderbeing’s wings to mature. Before that, Thunderbeings
lived in the cocoons of clouds and fed upon the rain. Some versions of the story even said that Thunderbeings could become real children if they wanted to. They could send their souls down to earth in the form of a bolt of lightning; when the bolt struck near a woman’s womb, the soul could crawl inside the womb and grow into a human.
The Thunderbeing’s obsidian bead mouth seemed to move in the wavering firelight.
Good Plume cupped a hand to her ear. The Thunderbeing whispered so low that she could barely hear the words. “Speak up! What woman? What does she have to do with Sunchaser?”