People of the Wolf(159)

"Share the identity," she mused, bracing her chin on her palm.

"Yes," he whispered, handsome lines of his face puckering. "A healthy soul can extend itself, put itself in the place of another creature's experiences. From that comes wisdom. I learned it long ago." He stared at the fire, a sadness deep in his eyes. "Raven Hunter, however, has none of that compassion, that extension of the soul."

She reached over, touching his shoulder, meeting his eyes as he looked up. "But you saved him anyway?"

For a long moment, they stared into each other's eyes. He lifted an eyebrow._ "I'm not all that compassionate." He looked around, seeing Singing Wolf's slack face in the back where he slept soundly. "Perhaps I'm as much a monster as Raven Hunter. I provided him with the opportunity to steal the White Hide."

She started. "You let him steal the ..."

Ice Fire lifted a shoulder. "It's a means to an end which needs to be met." He gestured, mouth working, a conspiratorial light in his eye. He lowered his voice and she bent closer. "You must tell no one. Not your people, and especially none of mine. I've seen where my son Wolf Dreamer is going. I know the future of the People is in the south. And I know we were one, once, long ago. I don't know why, but somehow, I was set up. My wife died. My life changed. I loved her with all my heart. And when she'd been taken, I left. Just like that. Men who've been hurt terribly, they do strange things sometimes. We were camped along the salt water at the time, down where the land bends south, where the southern sea is only a month's journey away. That camp's under the water now, long buried, but something drove me east along the coast."

'' Something drove you?''

"At night, Dreams haunted me. My wife filled them, and I felt the presence of another woman. Like me, her soul cried out over the loss of a loved one." He studied her. "I don't know if you can understand, but I thought it was a Spirit Woman—to take the place of my wife." He swallowed. "Then, one day, I awoke, and the Dream was powerful. I walked in a daze, hearing a calling—a powerful calling. It stirred me and I felt desire for the first time since my wife

had died. And then I saw her. Beautiful." He reached up, gently touching Fox's long hair, a reverence in his eyes as he ran his fingers along her face.

"I knew it was the Dream woman. I ... I stalked her, afraid she'd disappear into the mists, back into the sea. That fear drove me to a madness, and when she saw me, and ran, I chased her down." His hands knotted and he closed his eyes. "I took her there on the sand, the Dream pounding in my ears. With each movement of my body, the Power built until my soul sang and seemed to explode with the glory of it.

"And I came to, lying there on her, totally spent. And I looked down into her eyes and saw pain and hurt and disbelief all rush up at me."

He frowned at the fire. "And I realized what I'd done. The edges of the Dream were there, the Spirit Woman watching from someplace else through a Dream. And I knew it wasn't that girl, so beautiful, so vulnerable. When I looked into those shattered eyes, I knew I could have loved her. That she could have loved me. Only Heron's Dream changed it. It -wasn't supposed to have happened like that. And the children that rape bore were different, changed by the violence of their conception. Circles within circles, everything changed and no reason why. Like a spiral, which is the outside and which the in?"

She stared at him, soul drifting in his soft eyes. "And you think it would have all been different without Heron?"

He nodded miserably. "The woman on the beach and I, we were to love, to unite the People. Instead, so many died. Raiding began because I wasn't the one to return with a wife of the People—to link our clans which had been split so long ago."

"Perhaps Heron had her reasons. I hear she was driven by things beyond her, too.''

He nodded contemplatively. "Maybe."

"Didn't you tell your—"

"I've told no one the whole truth. Oh, Red Flint knows some of the story. But not the Power of the symbolism. He doesn't know how important it is for us to go south. If he did, he'd probably kill me on the spot and assume the Most

Respected Elder robe, despite the fact that visions scare him to death."

Dancing Fox touched his hand, feeling his fingers twine strongly with hers. "Why did you tell me?"

"I don't know." He focused on the fire a moment, then asked, "Tell me about you? What drives you?"

"The survival of my people."

Ice Fire's eyes deepened and she seemed to fall into them. "And what would you give for that survival?"

"Anything."