"The Dance," he repeated.
He leaned back in the water until it stroked his ears. The sounds of the birds vanished, a soft hum of flowing water filling in. Faintly, he heard Heron take up the chant again, the song rhythmic and haunting, a string of nonsense words. Because they made no sense, he shifted his concentration to the wavering sounds, imagining himself dancing to the cadence.
He blinked, lost, the world out of focus. He sat in Heron's shelter. His senses whirled with familiar shapes and smells. The skulls glared sightlessly at him, observing his very soul. The effigies and the colorful shapes drawn on the walls seemed to pulse with a life of their own through the thin layer of soot. The acrid odor of the geyser clogged his nose.
"Not . . . not the pool?" He looked around, seeing Broken Branch where she huddled in the far corner muttering to herself, a bright spark in her eyes.
"Not the pool," Heron told him. "Look at your hand."
He stared, gasping. An angry red blister rose from the center of his palm, the flesh seared. As he looked, bright pain brought tears to his eyes. He cried out.
Heron kept her taloned grip on his wrist, unperturbed. She rubbed grease mixed with herbs on the burn, binding his hand carefully.
"I see the question in your eyes. What happened? I put a coal on your hand, Wolf Dreamer. You never knew when it burned you. You know what that means?"
Despite the pain he nodded. "I found my Dance."
"That you did."
"But the Coal burned me."
"Yes, you only shifted your mind. You didn't Dance with the fire."
"Then why'd you put the coal in my hand?" he asked a little resentfully, the pain increasing to a throb.
She grinned impudently. "I wanted to see where you were."
"Why couldn't you wait and ask me?"
"It's not the same."
He lifted a disbelieving brow. "Uh-huh."
"You're not far enough along yet."
He flexed his searing palm. "I can see that."
She hesitated, her jaw grinding softly in the crimson glow of the fire. "You see, to truly Dance, you need to Dance with everything around you . . . not just yourself. Then you have to become the Dance to touch the One. Then stop the—"
"But I made another step."
"Yes," she agreed. "Another step, Wolf Dreamer. Another step, but I wonder, will we have time?"
"What do you mean?"
She blinked, eyes on a distance only she could see. "Things are happening too fast. I wanted another couple of years. We may not even have all of this one." She patted him on the shoulder. "Next summer may even be too late."
"For what?"
She frowned, the lines in her ancient forehead deepening. "A terrible Dream rolled over me last night. I couldn't really see the images, they were fuzzy, but I felt the truth beneath them."
"What truth?"
"They're coming," she said hoarsely, pinning his eyes. "They'll be here before we turn around."
"The Others?" he guessed, swallowing hard. He'd meet his father.
"Something worse than them . . . some terrible darkness. I couldn't see clearly."
"Like the darkness I saw?" He shuddered lightly. "How much time do we have?''
"I don't know."
"How can we find out? If I'm not far enough along—"
"I . . ." She swallowed with difficulty, fear in her eyes. "I wonder if I'm still strong enough."
Reluctantly, she got to her feet and reached toward a high niche in the stone wall. Her hands trembled suddenly and she retracted them, rubbing the sweaty palms on her dress as she stared wide-eyed at the crevice.
"What is it?" he asked, frightened. "Can I get it for you?"
"No," she whispered darkly. "Only I can touch them." Again, she lifted her hands, wetting her lips anxiously as she reached into the niche to take down a carefully folded fox-hide bundle.
Dread prickled up Wolf Dreamer's spine. He stood next to her as she carefully unwrapped each of the folds, exposing thin shriveled black things.
"What are those?"
"Mushrooms. Remember? I showed you last summer, the ones growing where I dump the gut piles. Powerful things, they live off death, grow out of rot and corruption. Rebirth, Wolf Dreamer. Treat them with respect—Power grows in them."
He squinted at her, heart beginning to thunder in his chest. "Birth? You said they'd kill me."
She turned. A sharpness lay in her old black eyes. "They will. You're not ready for them."
"Why not?"
"You haven't seen the Dancer yet."
His eyes darted over the shelter, Broken Branch, and Heron, studying, thinking. What could that have to do with eating mushrooms?