Try again with Singer, Elizabeth said. Perhaps this time he"ll listen.
Now you travel your own trail, alone.
What you have become, we do not know.
What your clan is now, we do not know.
Now, now on, now, you are something not of this world.
Walking. Through the silver and black landscape. Slow here. Confuse the way. As if for an ambush from behind those rocks. Erase the next hundred feet or so with a branch of shrubbery. Good. Go on. The way is clear. Vaguely red- and-white flecked. Walking. Skyflash mirrored in waters twisting. Faint drumbeat once again. Consistency of wind- sound within the slant of walls. Small spray gla.s.smasking face here, eyelash prisms spectrumbreaking rainbows geo- metric dance of lights. Wipe. Shadows leapback. Coyotedog smile fading between the light and the dark. Cross here, splashing. Wherever trail runs follow the feet. Around.
Over. Masked dancers within the shadows, silent. Far, far to the rear, a faint green light. Why look back? To turn is to embrace. Climb now. Descend again. It narrows soon, then widens again. A thing with many eyes sits upon a high ledge but does not stir. Frozen, perhaps, or only watching. Louder now the drumbeat. Moving to its rhythms. Fire within the heart of a stone. Rain yei bending, bridgelike, from above to below. Birdtracks behind a mooncurved wall. Thighbone of horse. Empty hogan. Half;burned log. Touch the mica that glistens like pollen. Remember the song the old man - ... Singer.
Faint, faint. The wind or its echo. Tired word of tired breath.
Billy Blackhorse...
Across again now, to that rocky place.
I feel you - up there, somewhere - tracker...
Something. Something he should remember. This journey.
To follow his trail. But.
Your friends did not stop me. I am still coming, hunter.
Ghost of the echo of the wind. Words in his head. Old friends, perhaps. Someone known.
Why do you not answer me? To talk gives nothing away.
Ghost-cat, chindi-thing. Yes. Cat.
I am here, Cat.
And I follow you.
I know.
It is a good place you have chosen.
It chose me.
Either way. Better than cities.
Billy paused to muddle his trail, create the impression of another possible ambush point.
... Coming. You cannot run forever.
Only so far as I must. You are hurt...
Yes. But not enough to stop me. We will meet.
We will.
I feel you are stronger here than you were before.
Perhaps.
Whichever of us wins, it is better this way than any other.
We are each of us the last of our kind. What else is there for us?
I do not know.
It is a strange country. I do not understand everything about it.
Nor do I.
Soon we will meet, old enemy. Are you glad that you ran?
Billy tried hard to think about it.
Yes, he finally said.
Billy thought of the song but knew that it was not the time to sing it. Thunder mumbled down the canyon.
You have changed, hunter, since last we were this close.
I know where I"m going now, Cat.
Hurry then. I may be closer than you think.
Watch the shadows. You may even be nearer than you think.
Silence. The big widening and a clear view far ahead. He halted, puzzled, suddenly able to see for a great distance.
Like a ribbon, his trail led on and on and then wound upward. He did not understand, but it did not matter. He broke into his ground-eating jog. In the darkness high over- head, he heard the cry of a bird.
Farther yet, he returns with me, Nayenezgani, spinning his dark staff for protection.
The lightnings flash behind him and before him.
To the ladder"s first rung, to the Emergence Place he returns with me;
and the rainbow returns with me and the talking ketahn teaches me.
We mount the ladder"s twelve rungs.
Small blue birds sing above me, Cornbeetle sings behind me.
Hashje-altye returns with me.
I will climb Emergence Mountain, Chief Mountain, Rain Mountain, Corn Mountain, Pollen Mountain....
Returning. Upon the pollen figure to sit.
To own the home, the pre, the food, the resting ploce, the feet, the legs, the body, to hold the mind and the voice, the power of movement. The speech, that is blessed.
Returning with me. Gathering these things, Climbing. Through the mists and clouds, the mosses and gra.s.ses, the woods and rocks, the earth, of the four colors. Returning.
"Grandchild, we stand upon the rainbow."
RUNNING. THE WIND AND WA-.
ter-sounds now a part of the drumbeat. Path grown clearer and clearer. Blood-red now and dusted as with ice flakes.
The ground seemed to shake once, and something like a tower of smoke rose before him in a twisting at the side of the trail. Changing colors, the pillar braided itself as it climbed, and five shifting faces took form within it. He recognized his guardian spirits.
"Billy, we have come to ask you again," they said in a single voice. "The danger increases. You must leave the trail, leave the canyon. Quickly. You must go to a place where you will be met and taken to safety."
"I cannot leave the trail now," he answered. "It is too late to do that. My enemy approaches. My way is clear before me. Thank you again. There is no longer a choice for me in this."
"There is always a choice."
"Then I have, already made it."
The smoke-being blew apart as he pa.s.sed it.
He saw what appeared to be the end of the trail now, and a small atavistic fear touched him as he realized where it, would take him. It was to the Mummy Cave, an old place of the dead, that it ran, high up the canyon wall.
As he advanced, it seemed to grow before him, a ruin within a high alcove. A green light played behind one of the windows for an eyeblink and a half. And then the wind was m.u.f.fled, and then it rose again. And again. Again.
Now the sound came like the flapping of a giant piece of canvas high in the sky. He kept his eyes upon his goal and continued to follow his trail toward the foot of the wall. And as he ran the sound grew louder, felt nearer. Finally it seemed directly overhead, and he sensed each beat upon his body. Then a dark shape moved past, through the upper air.
When he raised his eyes he beheld an enormous bird-form dipping to settle atop the cliff wall high above the place of the Mummy Cave. He slowed as he neared the foot of the wall and encountered the talus slope. And he knew as he beheld the dark thing, settling now and staring downward, that he beheld Haasch"e"e"shzhini, Black-G.o.d, master of the hunt. He looked away quickly, but not before he met the merciless stare of a yellow eye fixed upon him.
Must I end this thing beneath your gaze, Dark One? he wondered. For I am both the hunter and the hunted. Which side does that put you on?
He mounted the slope, his eyes now following the trail gone vertical up toward the recessed ruin. Yes, that did seem the easiest route....
He approached the wall, took the first foothold and hand- hold and commenced climbing.
Climbing. Slowly over the more slippery places. A strange tingling in the palms of the hands as he mounted higher. Like the time - No. He halted. Everything he was was a part of the hunt.
But it was also a part of the past. Let it go. Climb. Hunt.
Position is what is important. That lesson comes with mem- ory. Achieve it now. He drew himself higher, not looking at the dark shadow far above, not looking back. Soon.
Soon he would enter the place of death and await his pursuer. The running should be nearing its end. Hurry.
Important to be up there and out of sight when Cat enters the area. Wet handhold. Grip tightly.
Glance upward. Yes. In sight now. Soon. Careful. Pull.
There.
After several minutes, he drew himself up onto a ledge, moved to the left. Another hold. Up again.
Half crawling. Okay now. Rise again. Move toward the wall. Enter. No green light. Over the wall...
He pa.s.sed along the rear of the wall, peering through gaps out over the floor of the canyon. Nothing. Nothing yet in sight. Keep going. That large opening... "
All right. Halt. Unsling the weapon. Check it out. Rest it on the ledge. Wait.
Nothing. Still nothing. The place was damp and filled with rubble. He ran his eyes across the open s.p.a.ces before him, the entire prospect palely illuminated through screens of phosph.o.r.escent mist. But waiting was a thing at which he excelled. He settled with his back against a block of stone, his eyes upon the canyon, one hand upon the weapon.
Nearly an hour pa.s.sed with no changes in the scene before him.
And then a shadow, slow, inching along the wall, far to his left and ahead. Its creeping barely registered, until at some point he realized that there was nothing to cast it.
He raised the weapon - it had a simple sight - and zeroed it in on the shadow. Then he thought about the accuracy of the thing and lowered it again. Too far. If the shadow were really Cat he did not want to take a chance on missing and giving away his position.
It stopped. It flowed into the form of a rock and remained stationary for a long while. He could almost believe that the entire sequence had been a trick of light and shadow.
Almost. He drew a bead on the rock and held it there.
You are somewhere near, Billy. I can feel you.
He did not respond.
Wherever you are, I will be there shortly.