Moonheart

  Further afield, in the camp of Ko’si’tye, Tall-Deer, who was the chieftain of the tribal folk whose hunting lands bordered closest to the round tower, the tribe’s old Healer lifted his grey head from his blankets and left his lodge to learn what had called him from the paths of sleep. His name was Ho’feyn’to, Wind-That-Shakes-the-Moon, and he had seen sixty-three winters. Stamping his feet in the dewy grass, he lifted his head to regard the night skies, his nostrils flaring like a hare’s. For a long moment he stood, listening with his sen’fer’sa, before he returned to his lodge.

  “What is it?” his craftdaughter asked from her blankets.

  “Spirit talk.”

  “But what do they say?”

  The old man regarded her through the lodge’s darkness, his old eyes bright and seeing as clearly as if the sun had already risen.

  “If you must ask,” he said, “then there is no need for you to know. Kha?”

  His craftdaughter sighed and turned, seeking sleep once more. “Kha,” she said softly.

  Ho’feyn’to sat awake for a long while, his gnarled fingers toying with the rough fringes of his medicine bag, as he considered what he had heard. At length, he too returned to his blankets, but sleep was long in coming.

  Further afield still, three tragg’a paused in the midst of their hunt.

  Their heads swiveled on their thin necks. Yellowed tusks gleamed in the starlight and long talons clicked loud in the still night air as they opened and closed their clawed hands.

  Listening, they regarded each other, weasel grins tightening their lips into grimaces of amusement. This herok’a they sought would not be so hard to find if she kept up this call. Instinct gave them a direction and, judging the distance between themselves and the call, they began a shuffling lope towards it. If they kept to this pace they would reach the herok’a long before sunrise.

  The talisman medicine she carried they would deliver to Mal’ek’a. But her hornless soul would be theirs. They would feed on her body and make a medicine necklace from her bones.

  For a long time Sara was simply a part of her call. It was like an old stately tune that kept tempo to the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, to the drum of her heartbeat. The call grew fainter, fainter, then died away. She opened her eyes. Pukwudji had come.

  The little man stood a few feet away, regarding her with his big solemn eyes.

  “You came,” she said.

  Pukwudji nodded.

  “I am like the tide. I always keep my trysts.”

  Sara smiled. “I didn’t know we had one.”

  “Oh, yes.” He sat down, taking his time about crossing his legs.

  “You seem at peace,” he said at last. “At least, more so than the last time I saw you.”

  “It’s very peaceful here. Something about this stone and the air and . . . well, everything. But all my fears and worries are still there, underneath the calm, banging around against each other in a big jumble. I don’t really want to think about them, to be honest, but now that you’re here, I suppose I should.” She was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Pukwudji, if I was just dreaming the last time we met, how come you remember it too? Was it real?”

  “It was real. I came to you as a totem would come: through a dream to warn you. I thought what they did was wrong. What they expected of you was unfair if they would not allow you foreknowledge.”

  “They?”

  “Taliesin and his totem. The stag. The Forest Lord from across the Great Water.”

  Sara remembered what Taliesin had told her last night after he’d come walking out of the forest. He said he’d met with a “stag who caught the moon.” So it hadn’t been just bardic doubletalk, or rather, it had been, only she hadn’t pursued it far enough. An image came to mind of a small bone disc with a stag’s antlers inscribed on one side and a quarter moon on the other.

  “You were very vague last night,” she said.

  Pukwudji nodded. “I was . . . afraid.”

  “Of what? Taliesin?”

  “Of him? No. Of his totem. Forest Lords are very powerful, Sara. I knew I was meddling in what didn’t concern me. They can be quick to anger.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  The honochen’o’keh looked uncomfortable.

  “That’s okay,” Sara said. “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to. I don’t want you getting into trouble because of me.”

  Pukwudji remained serious for a long moment, then a broad grin blossomed. “I changed in here,” he said, tapping his chest. “Who are the Forest Lords, I thought, to tell Pukwudji what to do? I have been here as long as they have. And especially a Forest Lord from across the Great Water! What have I to fear from him?”

  Watching him, Sara knew that what he said was ninety percent bravado. Still there was nothing wrong with that. Bravery was in knowing the odds and still going against them.

  “Thank you for helping me,” she said.

  The little man continued to grin, then asked: “What have you decided to do?”

  “Go back to my own time. Now that I know the way here, I can always come back, can’t I?”

  Pukwudji shook his head. “Magics don’t work so well in the World Beyond. You will not find the going hard. But returning? That will take more strength than you have now.”

  “I kind of thought it’d work out that way. But I’ve got to go back. I don’t feel I have much choice. I just disappeared as far as my friends and family are concerned. They must be worried sick. And then there’s this test of the Old Ones. . . .”

  “But if you go back,” Pukwudji said, “you do what they want you to do. It will be dangerous for you.”

  “I know. Kieran’s demon. But I have to try.”

  Pukwudji stole the reference from her mind and shivered when he saw what Kieran’s demon was. Mal’ek’a did not yet exist in this time. He did not think he would like a time when it did exist.

  “That thing is worse than a tragg’a,” he said. “You mustn’t go, Sara. Here you are strong and have the potential for greater strength. In the World Beyond the learning will be all that much harder.”

  “I know that too.” Sara sighed. “Why’s it so important to the Old Ones that I face this thing of Kieran’s anyway?”

  “It is not the demon itself,” Pukwudji explained, “so much as the challenge. Redhair’s people seem to set great store by personal challenges.”

  It was then that he related the conversations he’d overheard between Taliesin and his grandsire.

  “Taliesin sounds as confused as I am,” Sara said when the honochen’o’keh was done.

  Pukwudji nodded. “His heart and his reason war with one another.”

  “This makes it worse than ever,” Sara said. “If he’s willing to give up so much for me . . . the least I can do is see this thing through. The demon isn’t even after me‌—it’s after Thomas Hengwr, Kieran’s mentor.” But then she remembered what the future Pukwudji had shown her, and the little man caught the image from her mind. They both knew she was glossing over the truth.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “Look at yourself. You belong here.”

  He referred to the dress that Mayis had given her. With her moccasins, leggings and braids, perhaps she did fit it. Then she shook her head.

  “No, I don’t. I don’t know where I belong. I did before. I belonged right where I was. But that was before I knew what I know now. How can I go back to being so . . . so mundane, when I know that magics are real and there are worlds upon worlds to explore? When I can have that deep quiet inside me and be at peace, how could I ever be happy not striving to attain it?”

  They were quiet then, wrapped in their own thoughts. From a sidepocket of her dress, Sara took out her tobacco pouch, rolled and lit a cigarette. When she offered a puff to the honochen’o’keh, he shook his head.

  “Sharing Mother Bear’s smoke is for tribesfolk,” he said, “not for folk such as I am. I bind my vows heart to heart, without need of the s
acred smoke or the mingling of blood. Besides, my blood and the blood of mortal folk do not mingle well.”

  “Why not?”

  “It changes them. Fills them with a . . . wildness . . . like. . . .” He projected an image to explain what he lacked words to tell. For a moment, Sara felt as though she was on acid. A rush of sensation filled her, sight and smell and sound all so strong that her head spun. Then the moment was gone, but she leaned back against the Bearstone, still feeling weak.

  “Like being high,” she said. “Only all the time.”

  Pukwudji caught the thought behind her words and nodded.

  “It brings madness to some,” he said. “To others, a certain fey wisdom.”

  He paused, regarding her for a long moment, then shook his head. Sara didn’t need the ability to read minds to know what had passed through his. If Pukwudji and she mixed blood. . . .

  “No thanks,” she said. “That’d be all I need. I feel certifiable as it is.”

  “We will be heartfriends,” Pukwudji said. “Heartkin.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “And now. . . . You will go?”

  “I think so.”

  “Without bidding farewell to Redhair?”

  “I think he already knows what I’m going to do.”

  Pukwudji nodded. “I will help you. I cannot yearwalk myself, but I can lend you the strength to make your passage easier.”

  “Will you do something for me?” Sara asked. “After I’m gone?”

  “What thing?” he asked, but he already knew.

  “Be Taliesin’s friend. I think he’s going to need a few. Tell him that I think I love him and if I don’t come back it won’t be through want of trying. We’ll meet again somewhere.”

  “I will tell him. He too will be my heartkin. For your sake.”

  They stood up and Sara looked down at what she was wearing. She should have changed before coming out. Well, it was too late now. She turned to ask Pukwudji if she was supposed to stand in a certain way or something, then froze. The honochen’o’keh’s head was cocked as though he listened to something, and a strange expression settled on his features.

  “What is it?” she asked, for she too knew a sudden foreboding.

  “You must go quickly.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tragg’a,” he replied, pulling his whistle from his belt. “Gather your sen’fer’sa. Quickly!”

  Sara couldn’t concentrate. The air in the glade was oppressive now, where it had filled her with peace before. All her fears and confusions came roaring back and she didn’t feel brave or prepared enough to do anything except perhaps collapse where she stood.

  “Sara!” Pukwudji called.

  Her thoughts spilled from her mind to his and he knew what was happening inside her. “I will work the sending,” he said. “Farewell.”

  He leaned forward and, standing on his toes, kissed her cheek. She was aware of the dryness of his lips and the sudden warmth she felt emanating from him. It stirred the sluggish cold blood in her veins. She drew in a deep breath as he lipped his whistle, playing Taliesin’s Lorcalon tune. Finally she could move. The music set up a resonating reply in her own mind and she focused on home, on Tamson House and her own room. On safety.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered.

  Pukwudji’s form began to mist in her sight. That familiar sense of spinning away through nothing came back. Then the blackness came rolling over her mind and she was gone.

  The honochen’o’keh stared at where she’d been for long moments, stirring at last when he sensed the nearness of the tragg’a. He changed shape to that of a woman whose curly hair was captured in braids, who wore a beaded white dress and pale tan leggings. On her finger was a gold ring.

  He waited until the tragg’a broke from the woods and let them catch sight of him before he fled into the forest. He could have easily lost them, but he held his pace back to match theirs. Down the hill he led them, careening against the spruce, pretending to weaken, then rushing on when they drew too close. Not until he thought he’d led them far enough along this chase, did he allow them to catch up.

  The smell came first, roiling through the air like the stagnant water of a swamp that had been stirred up. The wildness of their feral thoughts, half formed and weasel fierce, struck him like a blow. He let the first draw near enough to reach out for him, saw the taloned paw sweep toward him.

  “Hai-nya!” he cried.

  He changed shape and was a sparrow hovering in the air above them, out of reach, taunting. Their growls rocked the forest as they leaped for him, raking the air with outstretched claws.

  Pukwudji grew weary of the sport. Sara was safe now and that was enough. Time he himself was gone. But just as he was about to leave, the creatures themselves paused. Their boarish snouts sucked the air, reading the wind. Suddenly, the largest of them roared and, with a whfft of displaced air, vanished. Moments later the other two were gone as well and all that remained of them was the sour reek in the air that they’d left behind.

  Pukwudji fluttered to the ground and returned to his own shape. Oh, Sara, he thought fiercely. Beware, beware.

  But he knew his warning wouldn’t reach her. She was too far away now, gone through the years to her own time, and he couldn’t follow. And what was she to do, hornless in a world of faded magics, when such creatures as the tragg’a confronted her?

  Mournfully, he headed off through the forest, making for the round tower. What lies should he tell Redhair? Oh, yes, she’s safe and all’s well, never fear. He knew what he’d like to tell the bard: Redhair, it was by your need of testing that she is endangered. But he remembered his promise to Sara. He was heartkin now. Well, there deserved to be truth between heartkin. Let the bard share his grief. Perhaps Redhair’s precious Forest Lord from across the Great Water would have a solution to offer them.

  Sick at heart, Pukwudji changed to his swiftest shape. High above the forest he winged to where the tower kept its watch across the sea. He dropped from the sky like an eagle, regained his own shape and stood before the door. He could hear the harping inside, and nothing else. Blinking back tears, he lifted his hand and rapped on the stout wooden beams that made the door.

  The yellow-haired man who opened the door stepped hastily back at the sight of a honochen’o’keh on his doorstep. Inside the harping died. Fierce-eyed as the tragg’a that had pursued him, Pukwudji stepped within.

  Sara was a little weak-kneed when the solid ground formed underfoot once more, but that was all. Her heart continued to thump from the scare she’d gotten in the Otherworld‌—and from her own hit and miss efforts at this strange mode of traveling, so she was a little afraid of opening her eyes. When she did, she found herself standing on Patterson Avenue, with Tamson House rearing out of the darkness in front of her. The street was quiet and there was only the faint murmur of traffic from the Queensway and Bank Street to tell her that she was back in a city again.

  She wasn’t sure whether she felt happy or sad. Too much kept happening too quickly. What had Pukwudji done when the tragg’a came? Was he all right? Would Taliesin understand why she’d gone so suddenly without saying goodbye?

  She started to reach for her keys, then realized they’d be back in the Otherworld still. Much good they’d do there. Stepping up to the door, she leaned on the buzzer. It was late, but somebody’d come down to let her in. Blue or Jamie, or one of the Houseguests.

  When a couple of minutes passed and there was still no reply, that all too familiar sense of foreboding returned to her. Why was no one answering? She peered through a window, trying to see if anyone was coming. It looked strange inside. Like there was nothing there. Fear began its quick march through her once more. What if there was something wrong? After all that had happened to her in just two days. . . . Oh, God! What if Kieran’s demon had shown up here?

  Feeling very panicky, she ran along Patterson until she came to the tower that housed her own rooms. She picked up a stone and, convincin
g herself that a window wouldn’t cost too much to replace, smashed one in. The breaking glass sounded loud to her ears and she hoped one of the neighbors across the street wouldn’t call the police, thinking she was a burglar.

  She’d used too much force with her blow and her stone fell inside. As she started to reach in for a latch, she realized that she’d never heard it hit the floor inside.

  She stood there, with her hand poised in front of the window, unable to move. Her throat was dry and she had difficulty swallowing. There was something terribly wrong here. Steeling herself, she reached in, but the latch wasn’t there. Heedless of the glass on the windowsill, she leaned forward to brave a look and withdrew in shock. There was nothing inside. The House simply wasn’t there.

  It was too much to take on top of everything else. How could everything have been so normal just a few days ago and now be as senseless as the worst nightmare imaginable? Houses. Simply. Didn’t. Disappear. It had to be her. She just thought it wasn’t there anymore. If she went in through the window, everything’d be okay again. Except there was no way she was going in through that window.

  She looked along Patterson again. It looked so bloody normal. So why had the House suddenly gone all surreal on her? The House was always there, no matter what else happened. When things had gotten weird these past few days, one of the things that had kept her going was knowing that the House at least existed. It was her anchor to reality.

  She backed away from the broken window. It had the look of an endless tunnel that went nowhere. The jagged edges of the glass looked smoother and the hole seemed smaller, as though the House was alive and healing itself. Where had the stone and broken glass gone to?

  No. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Don’t think about what’s happening to the window. Just step back on the sidewalk. Go back the way you came‌—

  She froze. Down the street, their shadows elongated by the streetlights, she saw them appear, first one, then another, then a third. She didn’t need Pukwudji to tell her what they were.