ity slackened her face, the lines softening as if she'd shed long years. Then she reached forward, placing both hands palms down on the coals, shifting, her weight full on them.
Wolf Dreamer gasped, glancing questioningly to Broken Branch. Frozen with fear, Wolf Dreamer stared as Heron scooped up the coals. The red eyes glowing between her fingers, she lifted them high over her head.
How long? He had to draw a breath. Then another, and another.
Still chanting, Heron placed the coals to her lips, her forehead. Finally she put them in her mouth, rolling them around before she spat them out. The coals landed on the hides before her. The pelt browned, blackened, and smoldered, a wisp of smoke rising as hair sizzled, shriveling and stinking. Eyes still closed, a translucent rapture spread across her face, the melody-hummed to a stop. She drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her nose.
Wolf Dreamer reached out to touch her face, to feel the places the fiery coals had seared. The flesh was smooth and cool beneath his fingers.
She opened her eyes, unfocused at first, then blinked. Cocking her head, she turned to Wolf Dreamer where he sat, unnerved.
"Your hands . . . your face . . ."he whispered in disbelief, a feeling of dread coursing with his blood.
She lifted and opened first one hand, then the other. She turned her face, exposing each cheek to the light. Frightened, he reached forward to finger the hole burned in the hide, sucking his breath in and yanking his hand back as he seared his fingers. "How?"
"Not even a blister." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, watching, challenging.
"It can't be! You said there were laws!"
Unruffled, Heron scraped the remaining coals and charcoal back into the fire pit, hardly aware of Broken Branch, frozen, face a mask of awe.
"Close your mouth, old hag," Heron reprimanded. "You'll be catching flies pretty soon."
Broken Branch obeyed without thinking, scowling. "How'd you do that?"
"I danced with the coals."
Wolf Dreamer watched her, feeling some inkling of her truth pound inside. "With?"
'' Instead of against."
"You mean you touched the coals' Dance . . . stepped into their tracks for a moment?"
"Not exactly. Beneath the coals' Dance is the One Dance. I stepped into the One's moccasins for a moment."
"How?"
"I found the stillness beneath the movement."
He squeezed the bridge of his nose. The cursed silence beneath the noise, the cursed stillness beneath the movement. The old witch was trying to drive him crazy. Through clenched teeth, he demanded, "How?"
"I quit my own Dancing."
"You quit your . . ." he uttered forlornly, shaking his head.
Broken Branch cackled, rocking forward to eye Heron severely. "I knew it. You're about as crazy as they come. You've got no mind left at all."
"I've been trying to tell you that for weeks." She glanced sideways at Wolf Dreamer, a sparkle of irony in her eyes.
He squeezed the hide of his long boots in a death grip. He was beginning to see what she meant, and it frightened him. ' 'No-mind means no self to get in the way of just moving with the Dance."
"Sure. No-mind frees you to stop your own Dancing and move with the One Dance."
To steal time in which to think, he pointed at the coals. "You must have gotten burned a lot when you first started."
She smiled wryly, knowing what he was delaying and giving him the time he needed. "I had welts all the time."
"Can I ..." He shook his head, not believing he was asking. "Can I do it?"
"I wouldn't have showed you if I thought you were too dumb to learn. But it's like crossing a mountain; the climb is hard. You can't understand anything about the whole world until you see the other side." She steepled her fingers. "This is another step on the way to ultimate Dreaming Power."
He shivered at the glow filling her eyes. "Another?"
"Oh, yes, one that you must be able to master, or all the
separate Dances going on around you will eventually trample you to death."
Chapter 33
Against the pastel blaze of sunset, Wolf Dreamer ran, his actions repeated in vast amorphous shadows on the towering gray stone wall at his side. Down on the distant plain, he could see Heron's hot springs throwing steam high in the air. The mist glowed softly yellow in the evening light.
"Run. Run, " he repeated over and over, trying to center his mind.
As his breath puffed white before him, his feet thudded into the thin crust of snow. His heels transmitted the shock, gravel crunching, as he vaulted smaller boulders and zigzagged around the bigger ones. A continuous cold wind blew off the ice to the south, chilling his face. Breath tore in and out of his heaving lungs, the dull pain in his chest barely masked by his burning legs.