"You could pity them? They stole my daughter! You've seen how they desecrate those they capture! They're beasts!"
"Not beasts," Ice Fire corrected. "They've grown des-
perate. And that's a message in its own right. This broad valley is the last of their hunting grounds. They fight, but in the end they'll lose."
"Perhaps. It's the way, I guess. Like our cousins to the west." Red Flint pursed his lips, moving his fingers nervously. "You think we're going to be caught like that someday? Like these Enemy?"
Ice Fire spread his wide hands. "Once, I would have said we couldn't be crushed by anything. Now? I don't know."
Red Flint rubbed his hands together uneasily. "Have you sought visions of our fate? Do the Glacier People—"
"I've had visions. It's not the Glacier People. They, too, are running. Fleeing the disease that comes from the west. They're moving southwest along the southern salt water. They'll end up leaving in their floating trees. Finding a land that rises from the salt water."
"But what of us?"
Ice Fire shrugged. "Too many things can happen. The disease rises in the west. If we turn back? Well ... I don't see it all. The Watcher—"
"The old woman? The one who watched when you raped that woman.'' He glanced away at the look in Ice Fire's eyes.
"I met the Watcher."
"You . . ."
Ice Fire brushed his hair over his shoulder, staring into the smoky air. "She told me the world's changing, but we can save ourselves."
"How, Elder?"
"My sons are part of it."
"Sons? But you have no—"
"Two. Twins. Like the Enemy's story of the Monster Children—locked in constant battle. But someday soon, one will triumph."
"Which one? What does it mean for us?"
He waved it away. "I don't know. It's worse in my head than the way I tell it."
"Tell me what you've seen. Maybe I can help interpret the images." Red Flint edged closer, listening intently.
Hesitantly, Ice Fire explained, "There's a young man, tall, straight, bitter with anger. He leads our clan across the back of the world. Through rock and snow and ice into a different
place. Leads us to a great Dreamer and healer, who is me. I see myself, the angry young man, and ... a child ... all bound by red lines—like a web. And . . . and above, in the sky, a spider of stars holds the tendrils of web. We're drawn south by the sky spider. Unable to escape the web."
He shook his head. "I can't make it out. Sounds crazy. One vision shifting to another. Changing shape, changing existences in my head."
Red Flint ripped up some of the tussock grass. "Do our people follow the Enemy to this different place?"
"I haven't seen."
"It's a frightening thought."
"Visions are always frightening," Ice Fire agreed solemnly. There were so many things he could never tell anyone. Even his closest friends would think him mad. "I wish I'd never made that wretched trip twenty years ago. It seemed like I tore the world loose, sent it spinning like children fling dried buffalo-dung patties."
"Look." Red Flint pointed to a figure who raced across the camp. "It's Sheep's Tail."
Ice Fire stood, shuffling his leg to get the circulation back in it as he squinted into the bright light. Sheep's Tail's face twisted anxiously.
"So, young man, the Enemy have raided your village again and stolen another of your women?''
Sheep's Tail lowered his flashing eyes, jaw muscles jumping in embarrassment.
"What's happened?"
He looked up, a curious fire in his eyes as he addressed his words to Red Flint, the Singer. "Moon Water's back. Your daughter's safe. She just came in with Walrus's people. She escaped from the Enemy. She tells a strange story you should hear. The Enemy have a great new Dreamer. He's taken them underneath the world through a ghost hole to a land of riches beyond belief!"
Red Flint broke out of the group, running for where his daughter stood in the distance. She was being carried into his tent by a cheering crowd.
Ice Fire stiffened, bits of vision floating up from the depths of his mind so recently stirred by Red Flint.
"From under the world . . ."he mused. "I'd better hear this tale of Moon Water's."
He battled the flies that sought his warm blood on the way across the camp, seeing people huddled beneath the tents, swatting at the beasts with tail quirts, waving wormwood and sedge over their heads.
Moon Water looked young, gaunt, and flushed with pride as he ducked under the flap into the muggy interior of Red Flint's family tent. She glanced up, recognized him, and dropped her eyes before turning to embrace her father.
He strolled closer, and when Red Flint released his daughter, Ice Fire clapped the girl on the shoulder. "First, let me welcome you back to the people. You have shown courage and bravery worthy of our songs." Then he raised a silver-shot eyebrow. ' 'But I also hear you know of a ... a ghost hole?"