“Don’t worry.” He put a hand on her cheek and bent down to look directly into her anxious eyes. “If I cannot go by myself to Dune’s house, Mother, how will I ever be able to make the lonely journey over the sacred roads to find the gods?”
Snow Mountain squeezed her eyes closed for several moments, and nuzzled her face against his hand. “Learn all that you can. I’ll be waiting for your return, my son.”
“I will make you proud of me, Mother. I promise. I will come back a Singer.”
She smiled. “I know you will, Buckthorn. I’ve known that for many summers.”
Buckthorn picked up his three packs and slipped his arms through the shoulder straps, testing the weight. Heavy. But not too heavy. Wood clattered against stone in one of the gift packs.
“Mother?” Buckthorn said softly. “May I…” He hesitated. “If I ask you a question, will you promise to tell me the truth?”
Snow Mountain wet her lips, as though afraid what he might ask. Wind ruffled through the feathers of her cape and tossed her long graying black hair about her face. “I will tell you what I can, my son. Ask.”
The pain in her eyes told Buckthorn she had phrased that carefully.
He shifted the weight of his packs and gripped the shoulder straps, holding them to steady himself. “My father…”
She seemed breathless. “Yes? What about him?”
“Was he truly a Trader?”
“… Yes.”
“His name really was Sitting-in-the-Sky?”
In toneless words, she said, “Yes, my son.”
Buckthorn frowned at the kiva where his vision had come to him. The Spirits had no reason to lie. That meant his mother did. She was a good, loving woman. The truth must hurt her very much. He couldn’t twist it from her soul, like a rabbit from a hole. He would not even try. People had the right to keep secrets if they needed to. Besides, he knew that she would tell him someday, and that was enough.
Buckthorn kissed her on the forehead, and whispered, “Thank you, Mother. For caring for me. For loving me. You are the most important thing in my life.”
Snow Mountain’s eyes blurred, and she hugged him, awkwardly putting her arms around his heavy packs. Hoarsely, she said, “I love you, Buckthorn. I always have.”
“I promise I won’t disappoint you.”
She released Buckthorn and gazed up through swimming eyes. “Black Mesa asked me to give you a message.”
“What?”
She spoke the words slowly: “He said to remind you that ‘You must have the heart of a cloud to walk upon the wind.’”
A smile warmed Buckthorn’s face. He touched a hand to his chest. “Please tell him I will not forget the many kindnesses he has shown me. I carry the words inside my heartdrum.”
Snow Mountain nodded and stepped back. “Have a safe journey, Buckthorn. Save some of the blue corncakes for your first dinner with Dune. I put in extra pine nuts. I’ve heard he likes those.”
“Thank you, Mother. I wish…” He stopped himself. “I wish I didn’t have to go, but I will return as quickly as I can. Goodbye.”
Time after time, he turned to wave at Snow Mountain as he followed the familiar path down to the river. Once he’d been ferried across, he’d really be on his way.
He glanced back at the Great Warriors, the twin pillars of rock. Watch over me, please. At least until I reach the holy Derelict. They jutted up in silence, stern guardians of Windflower Village, and of the lush bottomland they surveyed.
Buckthorn’s next landmark would be World Tree Mountain. Her roots sank deep into the First Underworld, and her trunk twisted up through the other underworlds until it popped through Our Mother Earth’s skin. The branches spread out through the four skyworlds, but they were too great and powerful to be visible to humans, though, now and then, a shaman claimed to have seen misty green limbs wavering through the clouds above the jagged peaks.
Buckthorn trotted past the waiting fields, remembering the sweet voices of the gods that had thrilled his soul. However this journey ended, it would be marvelous.
Four
Cornsilk knelt on the north side of the plaza with two grinding slabs, one coarse and one fine, before her. An empty black-and-white bowl and a plain clay pot filled with red corn sat to her left. She had been here for over a hand of time and hadn’t made any apparent headway on the corn, though meal covered her hands and the skirt of her brown dress. As she studied the situation, it appeared that she had more cornmeal on her than on her slabs. Five paces away, a large pot tilted sideways on the hot coals of her firepit, reminding her of her duties. She leaned forward and pounded a handful of corn with the pointed end of her handstone, cracking the kernels.