Hunting the Ghost Dancer

by A. A. Attanasio

  Thorn shrubs peeked from among the shale, and mats of recumbent juniper flourished on the pebbly ground where the tall rocks blocked the wind. With Duru's help, he culled the thick brush for dead branches and used stripped thorn-vine to tie up a large bundle of faggots.

  At the edge of the glacier, among the ferrous rocks, Baat fed a big fire with bales of the dried tundra shrub. He dragged scraggly hassocks from under shelves of rock, where the wind had wedged them, and threw them onto the flames. The fire watched the ice weep and shadows of orange stones appear in the bleary depths.

  "Now what will happen?" Duru asked apprehensively.

  "While the fire does its work, I will speak with the ul udi. They'll show me where Yaqut is and your brother."

  "Let me see."

  "No. You must watch for danger around us. We dare not rely on the ul udi to alert us. This is their weak season."

  Duru obediently sat in the buffeting warmth of the fire and observed Baat observing the stony shadows darken in the ice. He sat on a flat rock, eyes narrowed as if about to fall asleep. He slid into trance.

  As before on their journey when Baat was unconscious, Duru selected a high point to watch for enemies. This time, she chose a tall rock at the spur of the glacier. From there, she could see across the flat moraine to the door of the mountain they had come through. The enormous boulders crowded there defeated any attempt to view the tundra beyond them, and she sat staring at the lichen blotches on the wind-torn rocks.

  The frigid air smelled empty of life as it flowed from the north over the glacier and tumbled into the dense thorn and shards of granite. Rising and falling with the wind, the sound of rivers echoed, a murmur of torrents from inside the glacier. Every now and then, she heard deep groaning of invisibly shifting ice.

  Though no sounds or scents of trouble intruded, Duru reminded herself that Yaqut stalked somewhere nearby, among the rock crannies, drawing closer each moment. Timov accompanied him—if yet he lived. That he, too, might be dead she tried not to think about.

  Still, the cold immensity of her aloneness closed in. Soon the ul udi would take Baat away, and if Timov were dead, then no one, truly no one, remained who knew her.

  Duru looked back at the ghost dancer, saw him with his head hung forward, shoulders slumped, and silver sparks glinting around him. He dwelled with his spirits now, receiving their last instructions. And regarding that, the strangeness of the whole last season gripped her: She wondered if all this continued as a dream, a confused spirit journey such as the Mothers recounted in their fire-songs.

  Maybe she was still in a fever back among the Blue Shell. Maybe when the spirits took Baat away, she would wake and find Mother and Cyndell laughing together, Aradia full with Hamr's child, Hamr in the vest he had taken from the Boar to avenge Father's death, and her brother lazing among the old women.

  A cold wind blew over Duru. She relinquished her hope with a forlorn sigh and stared at the glaring snow peaks until her eyes hurt with the conviction of her wakefulness. Sparkles wisped in the indigo sky.

  She thought these ul udi until they flurried around her. Snow slanted through sunlight, and Duru turned a slow, amazed circle on her tall perch, searching for clouds. The sky shone overhead like a deep pool.

  )|(

  In the cold eye of the wind, Baat floated. An updraft of magnetic current tugged at him, and he held back. If he soared now, he risked being out of his body when Yaqut came. Death then would give him to the Dark Traces.

  Their murderous yearning surrounded him in the cold: Kill Yaqut. He will stab the eyes from Duru for helping you. He will leave her blind and bleeding for the wolves. Kill him first.

  "Where is he?"

  Baat noticed his body and the crackling fire swerve off, and he rose above the snake-length of the glacier. Broad desert, sere and vast, stretched away toward tumbled layers of mountain ranges and silver horizons. Beyond the ice ramparts from where the glacier descended, storm clouds churned, coming closer.

  Never before had Baat flown free of his body into a day sky, and he marveled at the vistas. The cold reminded him of his vulnerability to the Dark Traces, and he focused his attention on the terrain near the door of the mountain.

  Immediately, he spotted his hunters. They had drawn closer than he had feared. Already, the tiny figures of their distant bodies flitted among the towers of rock that the glacier had shoved ahead of itself. That maze of boulders alone separated Yaqut from Duru and his recumbent body.

  You must kill Yaqut. Wickedness veered with the wind from all directions.

  )|(

  Evil faces watched Yaqut from the soft-edged shadows of the boulders. Necrotic shapes of half-rotted bodies wavered in and out of view like the crinkled air above a just-dead campfire. Those are the ghosts of the bonesuckers I have slain, come back to distract and baffle me. Since spotting the glacier, he had sensed them nearby. Now he could see them if he looked.

  Yaqut tried not to look. He carried no fear of the dead. They could not harm him. He knew they had come close only because the demon land of the north held little sun-power. As soon as the killing ended, their split-chestnut-shell eyes would disappear, their jaws without lips and their faces like slugs' underbellies vanish.

  For now, Yaqut ignored the dead bonesuckers lurking in the shadows and concentrated on following Baat without showing himself. Timov and Kirchi trailed far enough behind not to expose him, yet near enough for him to look back and get direction from the boy.

  They clattered noisily over the rubble-stones, within range for him to turn and quickly slay them the moment he located the bonesucker. Otherwise, they would surely try to kill him. Yaqut noticed that Timov kept a stone in his sling now. The hunter did not fear him. The weather threatened to be far more deadly.

  Flurries had begun earlier out of an empty sky and quickly thickened to heavy snowfall. Footing had become tricky: The slicked surfaces among cobbles and serried boulders, as well as his blurred vision, increased the chances of his twisting an ankle or toppling into a bone-breaking crevasse in the torn ground.

  Also, he needed to stay out of sight, so that the bonesucker would not see him coming and jump him from behind. That tactic had slain his family among these very monoliths. Yaqut kept his back to the giant rocks whenever he could and carefully peered through the snowfall for signs of attack from above.

  Fortunately, the air hung still. Without wind, the cold proved bearable and the snow settled evenly, without deceptive drifts. That could change at any time, however, and Yaqut moved purposefully, eager to stick the bonesucker with his poisoned lance and be done with the hunt.

  Worry leads to hurry, a familiar voice spoke the ancient Longtooth adage.

  Yaqut immediately crouched low and hugged his lance. At first, he thought Timov had spoken, the voice had sounded so clear. The voice did not belong to the boy. Yaqut looked about frantically.

  Watching from the violet darkness of an overhanging rock stood the lean figures of his clansmen, who had been killed here in his childhood. A peculiar silver shine engulfed them, blurred their features yet left enough familiarity for him to recognize his mother and older brothers, his uncles and their wives—and there stood his father, who had spoken.

  Who hurries, the hunt buries, his father completed the old adage.

  "Father—I've come to avenge you."

  Wet with radiance, Yaqut's dead clan nodded encouragement and faded into the dazzle of snow. In their places, dead bonesuckers appeared, putrid eyes staring, flesh-shorn jaws working with hate.

  Yaqut looked away.

  We are with you, son, his father's voice whispered from the back of his head.

  Yaqut averted his glance from the dark crannies, reluctant to face again the family he had lost. His whole life had been given to avenging their deaths. Yet, he could not face them—not now.

  From the deathly day that he had crouched in one of these crevices and watched the bonesuckers stone his family, he had suffered terrible recollections. He had hear
d their skulls crack, seen their bodies topple and the ghost dancers leaping down and braining them dead—then monstrously tearing the limbs from them and beating them with their own severed legs. Grief had stormed in him. Everywhere he went, he met rage. The rage had grown as he grew, not knowing where to settle except to rampage back into himself.

  Yaqut's rage had knotted into a fierce will. It had made him a superb hunter, of beasts and of bonesuckers. Its invisible flames ate his heart and burned his face. No lightning had scarred his face—that, he well knew, was his own rage burning itself back into him.

  Now, he could not face the specters of his family. His rage would not allow it, and he feared that when they looked at him closely they would not recognize him for what his rage had made him.

  Son, you are my flesh in the world, his father's voice said. Go and kill the bonesucker. Stab him with your poison. His head shall be your trophy.

  Yaqut peered to where he had heard the voice and saw not his father but a gray flutter of the air that blackened under his gaze to a mulch-face of hanging fangs.

  "Who are you?" Yaqut yelled.

  We are the dead.

  "No! Not my dead." Yaqut jumped up and jabbed his lance at the grisly shadow. It shriveled to a dark blob, darkened again to a rooty body with a face like a dried leaf and tiny, needlefine teeth.

  We are your allies, Yaqut. We know your grief and your rage, and we are here to complete them.

  "You are the Dark Traces!" He stabbed the apparition again, making it curl into a brown tremor. "Ul udi!"

  Yes. We have come down from the night, down into the boreal day, to help you.

  "Get away from me."

  You need our help, Yaqut.

  "You dare wear the likeness of my family and say you want to help? Get away from me." He turned and ducked into the shadow of a ledge-stone. This is truly an evil place. He clutched his genitals and then touched that hand to his forehead, imparting enough life-force to his senses to keep the Dark Traces away.

  Briefly, he considered falling back to the young witch and availing himself of her moonstones' protection. He had kept her alive to guard him from the evil spirits he knew haunted these northern ranges.

  He closed in on his prey and did not want to reveal himself to the bonesucker, who could be watching from any of these pinnacles. He muttered a prayer for the Beastmaker's protection and hurried on.

  You need us, Yaqut, the Dark Traces persisted.

  Yaqut rushed away, to search through the snowfall, hoping to spot the bonesucker farther on. He picked his way over humped rocks toward the icefield ahead. The gray emanation fluttered in the space beside him. The darkening rot-face appeared among the snow's flakes, a black leaf cankered with eyes and a weeping sore for a mouth.

  "Get away!"

  Hold out your hand, Yaqut, the Dark One spoke in an oceanic rumble. Hold out your hand, and we will enter you.

  "Away!" Yaqut spun about to flee and faced a tattered corpse. A dead woman reached to embrace him with arms like brown stalks and a body hacked out of shaggy peat. Her face, hardened and black as a beetle's shell, grimaced at him with the features of his mother. He staggered back, and moaned.

  When we enter you, his mother said, you will have the secret knowledge you seek. You will know where Baat hides. Neither will he hide nor will he surprise you.

  Yaqut's heart beat like a club. "Mother! Do you want this of me?"

  Oh, yes, Yaqut. I want this of you.

  Why resist? His mother belonged among the dead. His whole clan had been murdered before his eyes, and the Dark Traces would lead him to the murderer. He glanced back at Timov and Kirchi, caught them huddled together in the falling snow, watching him nervously. Let them see my rage—let them see how much more death means to me than life.

  He held out his left hand. "Come into me, Dark Traces. Come into me and let me be the weapon that will kill the ghost dancer."

  Black lightning wove about Yaqut's extended hand, and a hiss seared the snowy silence. He dropped to his knees under a spasm of spine-jolting pain. A scream clogged in his throat and came out a strangled cry.

  Frozen in the posture of his agony, left arm up, mouth wrenched open, Yaqut opened into joy, free of hurt. The ghosts evaporated. Snow spun emptily in the windless air. No whisperings or haunting sounds troubled him.

  He rose, astonished, and unfathomable strength pointed him northeast. The Dark Traces lived in him now—but did they deceive him? He dared not kill the boy and the witch until he knew. Among the bison-shaped rocks, he moved slowly, cautiously, securing each step before committing himself to the next.

  "You saw that?" Timov whispered, clutching Kirchi's arm.

  "The Dark Traces have him," the witch acknowledged. "We should flee now."

  "Duru—"

  Kirchi nodded. "I know. We've come this far. We must try to save her. But Yaqut is no longer just a man."

  "I thought only the Old People could carry the ul udi?"

  "This far north, the sky power comes to the earth. I've heard it said that the Invisibles sometimes even ride animals up here."

  "Can you drive the Dark Traces out with your moonstones?"

  Kirchi stared harshly at him. "You saw the black fire. It would enter me. No, we should run while we can."

  Timov looked desperately through the plummeting snowflakes. "Maybe I can find Duru first. We can go our own way."

  "No. If we lose sight of Yaqut, we'll be looking over our shoulders all the time. And he'll come for us, too. We have no choice, Timov."

  Timov peered hard at Kirchi. For a moment, she glimpsed his fear as he recognized the inevitable. Then his jaw set, and he nodded. "You're right. We have to kill Yaqut. We have to strike first."

  Yaqut had disappeared around a black shoulder of rock. Kirchi took Timov's hand, and they advanced, staying as much in the open as they could among the boulders jammed close together.

  The hunter's snowprints climbed a gravel slope. Timov let go of Kirchi's hand and led the way. He shifted the satchel from his back to his side so that he could whip his sling more effectively. Is Yaqut waiting for us at the crest of the slope? Is his lance poised to strike?

  From the lip of the gravel rise, Timov spotted Yaqut ahead, slinking along the base of a towering slab. When the hunter reached a place where he had to choose which way to go, he no longer peeked back to Timov for direction but moved unerringly among the maze of paths.

  Timov felt the accuracy of Yaqut's choices in his own body. Days of reaching inwardly for Duru had given him a sense of where she moved: She pulsed like music in him at the very limit of his hearing. And now Yaqut heard her, too.

  "He doesn't need me anymore," he said as Kirchi came up alongside. "The Dark Traces are guiding him right to the ghost dancer."

  They hurried to keep him in sight as he rounded another bend in the labyrinth. Again, Timov sidled into the opening first, sling ready. Yaqut already had traipsed far ahead.

  "Why doesn't he attack us?"

  "The Dark Traces want the ghost dancer, not us." Kirchi huffed. As she spoke, an idea became clear. She reached into her satchel and took out a moonstone. "Timov, wait."

  Timov looked back impatiently. He wanted to keep Yaqut in sight.

  "We saw the Dark Traces enter him," Kirchi went on. "They're leading him. Why not have the Bright Ones guide us?" She held up the moonstone. "Take it. See if you can feel them."

  Timov took the moonstone, felt nothing, and tried to hand it back. "We're losing him," he complained.

  Kirchi took his hand and closed his fingers on the stone. "We saw the Dark Traces," she said. "The Bright Ones must be here too. You can feel them if you try. Then we won't have to keep him in sight. Try."

  Timov closed his eyes. Fear moved sinuously through him, touching his thoughts toward Yaqut, toward Duru, who paced in danger somewhere nearby. At the thought of Duru, the musical signature of her direction sounded louder in him.

  Kirchi noted how the frown relaxed on Timov's face. She
knew he carried the strength in the stone. She had felt that strength before, in trances induced by dreaming potions. From them, she had learned how to call the Bright Ones by repeating the thoughts they had given her in previous trances. "Your bones were baked in stars," she whispered.

  We are all children of the stars, a gentle voice opened in Timov's mind.

  "I hear them!"

  "Calm down and listen," Kirchi coaxed.

  Timov listened and heard only tatters of wistful music. Then, a new sense of direction took over in him, and his body turned. The stone dulled in his grip, and the music vanished. He opened his eyes and distinguished a path disappearing in the snowsmoke. "They want us to go this way. But I feel Duru this other way, where Yaqut has gone."

  Kirchi took the moonstone and put it back in her satchel, then ran in the new direction. Gravel under the snow crackled beneath her swift feet.

  Timov followed, and when they came to a mound of stacked rocks, he helped her climb. Only this direction remained, and they clambered silently, afraid they had chosen wrong.

  Near the top, an overhang forced them to duck into a cramped shaft. The sun and snow penetrated in thin white rays. In semi-darkness, Kirchi slipped, scraped her way abruptly down into a wedged pit. She lay there dazed until Timov lowered his sling and pulled her out.

  Cold air braced them, and they gazed up into swirling snow. Pocks in the granite wall provided hand- and footholds, and Timov and Kirchi climbed up into the opening and ascended the flue.

  They emerged onto a stone-hobbled ledge in sight of the glacier. Below, a basin of rocks smooth as eggs sagged under the gray sky and, below that, flat moraine. At the far end, on the spur of the glacier, a feather of black smoke rose from a small fire.

  Kirchi pointed into the crevasse they had climbed out of. Down there, wending his way among the stand of rocks, Yaqut looked tiny. The Dark Traces guided him through the maze, while the Bright Ones had shown them how to climb out. If they hastened, they could descend to the basin and reach the moraine before he did.