and closed. Casting pollen, he thought about endings, about
the closing of cycles. Then to the east, thinking of all the
mornings he had known and of the next one which would
come out of it. Seeing for a great distance into the east with
unusual clarity, he thought of the land over which his vision
moved, adding features from the internal landscape of mem-
ory, wondering why he had ever wished to deny this Dinetah
which was so much a part of him.
For how long he looked into the east he could not tell.
Suddenly the air about his head was filled with spinning
motes of light accompanied by a soft buzzing sound. It was
like a swarm of fireflies dancing before him. Abruptly they
darted off to his right. He realized then that it was a warning
of some sort.
He looked to the right. There was a green glow moving
among the trees in the distance. He looked away, placing his
gaze upon his trail once again, and then he moved off along
it.
Shortly he was running, ice particles stinging his face,
driven by gusts of wind which raised them in occasional brief
clouds. The snow did not obscure the trail, however. It was
visible through everything with perfect clarity. Continuing to
follow it into the distance with his eyes, he saw that it ran
into an arroyo twisting off to the left. It seemed to narrow as
it entered that place. Following, he saw that the narrowing
continued until it appeared the thinness of a Christmas
ribbon toward the center of the declivity. Strangely, how-
ever, the portion he was traversing appeared no narrower,
though he knew that he had already reached and passed
beyond the place where the thinning had begun. Instead, he
detected a new phenomenon.
At first it was only that the arroyo had seemed somewhat
deeper and longer than his initial impression had indicated.
As he moved more deeply into it, however, the place itself
seemed larger, a huge canyon with high walls. And the
farther he progressed, the steeper the walls became, the
greater the distance from wall to wall. It also was now.
strewn with massive boulders which had not been apparent
at first. Yet the red way he followed remained undiminished.
There were no signs of the contraction he had noticed
earlier.
An enormous white wheel flew past him, sculpted and
brilliant, five-limbed like a starfish. Immediately another
moved slowly overhead, descending. He realized that it was
a snowflake.
The place was larger than Canyon del Muerto, much-
larger. In moments, its walls had receded into the distance,
vanished. He increased his pace, running, leaping, among
the huge rocks.
He topped a rise to discover a massive glassy mountain
looming before him, its prismatic surfaces retailing rainbows
at peculiar angles.
Then he was descending toward it, and he could see where
his trail ran into a large opening in its side, a jagged slash-
mark through stone and sheen, like a black lightning bolt
running from about a third of its height downward to the
earth.
A gust of wind blew him over and he regained his footing
and ran on. A snowflake crashed to the earth like a falling
building. He raced across the top of a small pond which
vibrated beneath him.
The mountain towered higher, nearer. Finally he was
close enough to see into the great opening, and he saw that it
shone within as well as without, the walls sparkling almost
moistly, rising in a pitched-tentlike fashion to some unseen
point of convergence high overhead.
He rushed within and halted almost immediately. His
hand went to his knife before he realized that the men who
surrounded him were multiple images of himself reflected in
the gleaming walls. And his trail running off in all directions
...Twisted images.
He bumped into a wall, ran his hands down its surface.
His trail seemed to go straight ahead here, but he saw now
where the real only seemed to join the illusory. It slid to the
right, he could tell now.
Three paces and he bumped into another wall. This could
not be. There was nothing else for the trail to do. It pro-
ceeded directly ahead here, with no deviations, reflected or
otherwise.
He reached forward, felt the wall, searched it. His reflec-
tion mimicked his movements.
Abruptly, there was nothing. His hand moved forward as
he realized that only the upper portion of his way was
blocked. He dropped to all fours and continued onward.
As he crawled, the reflections shifted in the shadows
around him. For a moment, from the corner of his eye, to the
right, it seemed that he was a slow, lumbering bear, pacing
himself. He glanced quickly to the left. A deer, a six-pointer,
dark eyes alert, nostrils quivering. Multiple reflections
caused them all to merge then, into something that was bear
and deer and man, something primeval, working its way, like
First Man, through narrow, dark tunnels upward to the new
world.
The reflections ahead showed him that the overhead space
was growing larger again, turning into a high, narrow,
Gothic arch. He rose to his feet as soon as he noticed this,
and the animal images slipped away, leaving nothing but the
infinity of himself on all sides. All colors, in various intensi-
ties, lay ahead. He went on, and when he saw that he was
heading toward a way out, he began to run.
The area of light seemed to grow slightly smaller as he
advanced upon it. The reflections which ran beside him now
varied through prisms and shadows. And he noted that they
were all differently garbed. One bounded along in a pressur-
ized suit, another in a tuxedo; another wore only a loincloth.
One ran nude. Another wore a parka. One had on a blue
velveteen shirt he had long forgotten, a sandcast concho belt
binding it above the hips. In the distance, he saw himself as a
boy, running furiously, arms pumping.
Smiling, he ran out through the opening, along the red
way. The canyon walls appeared and closed in on him,
diminishing in height as he advanced.
He halted and looked back.
There was no shining mountain. He retraced his steps a
dozen paces and stooped to pick up a piece of stone contain-
ing a cracked quartz crystal which lay on the ground. He
held it up to his eyes. A rainbow danced within it. He
dropped it into his pocket, feeling as if it held half of time and
space.
He ran for nearly an hour then, and ice crystals scratched
like the claws of cats at rocks and tree limbs, at his face. The
frozen earth made noises like crinkling cellophane beneath
his feet. Streaks of snow lay like crooked fingers on the
hillsides. A patch of sky lightened and thunder rumbled
nearby. His way led into the mountains, and soon he began
to climb.
When I call,
they come to me
out of Darkness Mountain.
Pipelines cross it,
satellites pass above it,
but I hold the land before me,
and all things that hunt
and are hunted within it.
I have followed the People
across the eons,
giving the proper hunter his prey
in the proper time.
Those who hunt themselves,
however, fall into a special category.
Certain sophistications were unknown
in ancient times.
But you are never too old to learn,
which is what makes this business interesting
and keeps me black-winged. Na-ya!
Out of Darkness Mountain, then:
Send an ending.
And climbing, Everything strange. He had lost track of
time and space. Sometimes the countryside seemed to roll
by him, other times it seemed that he had moved for ages to
cover a small- distance. The trail took him among more
mountains. He was no longer certain as to precisely where
he was, though he was sure that he was still heading north.
The snow turned into rain. The rain came and went. The trail
led upward once again and moved through rocky passages.
In places, streamlets rushed by him, and he passed through
narrow necks with his back pressed against stone, fingertips
and heels his only purchase. The clouds were occasionally
delineated by a bright scribbling, to be wiped away by the
grayness moments later.
He passed through an opening so narrow that he had to
strip off his pack and jacket and go sideways. It cut sharply
to the left, and he knew that he could have missed it even in
full diylight without the guiding trail that led him on. Glow-
ing forms seemed to writhe in crevasses he passed before the
way widened again, like the mating movements of the tall,
spindly anklavars on the world called Bayou.
When he turned and stretched his cramped muscles, he
halted. What was this place? There was a ruin built.into the
cliff face to the right. Farther ahead there was another, to the
left and higher, at a place where the canyon continued its
widening. Stone and rotted adobe, they were ruins with
which he was not familiar, though he had once thought that
he was aware of almost all of them. He was tempted to pause
for a quick investigation, but the drumbeat commenced
again, slowly, and his trail ran on to greater heights.
The canyon turned to the right, its floor rising even
farther, its walls spread wider. He climbed, and there were
more ruins about. The name "Lukachukai" passed through
his mind as he remembered the story of a lost Anasazi ruin.
The wind grew still and the pulse of the drum quickened.
Shadowy shapes darted behind broken walls. He stared at
the high, level place before him. He saw the end of his trail.
A chill passed over his entire body, and he felt the hairs rise
on the nape of his neck.
He took a step forward, then another. He moved cau-
tiously, slowly, as if the ground might give way beneath him
at any point; It was right, though, wasn't it? Of course. All
trails end the same way. Why should this one be any
different? If you tracked anything through its entire life,
from its first faltering step until its final faltering step, the end
was always the same.
Back beside a rock, beneath an overhang, his trail ended
before the vacant gaze of an age-browned human skull.
Beyond that, he could not see the way.
The rhythm of the drumbeat changed. Mah-ih, the Trick-
ster, Coyote, He-who-wanders-about, peered at him from
beyond the corner of a nearby ruin. A white rainbow yei
formed an arc from the top of one canyon wall to the other.
He heard the shaking of rattles now, accompanying the
drumbeat. A green stem poked through the ground, rose
upward, put forth leaves and then a red flower.
He walked on. As he advanced, the skull seemed to jerk
slightly forward. A flickering occurred within it, and then a
pale green light grew behind all of its apertures which faced
him. Far off to the right, Coyote made a sudden, low,
growling sound.
As he neared the end of the trail the skull tipped backward
and turned slightly to the right, keeping the eyesockets fixed
directly upon him.
A rasping voice emerged from the skull:
"Behold your chindi."
Billy halted.
"I used to play soccer," he said, smiling and drawing back
his foot. "Those two rocks up by the ruin can be the goal
posts."
The ground erupted before him. The skull shot upward to
a position perhaps a foot higher than his head. It rode upon
the shoulders of a massive, nude, male body which had
grown up like the flower before him. The green light danced
all around it.
"Shadow-thing!" Billy said, unslinging his weapon.
"Yes. Your shadow. Shoot if you will. It will not save
you."
Billy continued the movement which brought the snub-
gun forward, reversing it in his hands, driving its butt hard
upward against the skull. With a brief crunching noise the
skull shattered, and its pieces fell to the ground. The trunk
beneath dropped to one knee and the arms shot forward. A
massive hand caught hold of the weapon and tore it from
Billy's grasp. It cast it backward over its shoulder, to fall
with a clatter among rocks far up the canyon and to vanish
there.
The left hand caught his right wrist and held it with a grip
like a steel band. He chopped at the other's biceps with the
edge of his left hand. It had no apparent effect, and so he
drew his hunting knife, cross-body, and plunged it into the
headless one, in the soft area below the left shoulder joint.
Suddenly his wrist was free and the thing before him was
falling backward, knees folding up toward the chest, arms
clasping them.
Billy watched as the other rolled away, darkening, losing
features, growing compact, making crunching noises in pass-
ing over gravel and sand. It had become a big, round
boulder, slowing now....
It came to a halt perhaps fifteen meters distant, and then,
slowly, it began to unfold into a new form. It unwound limbs
and shaped a head, a tail...
An eye.
Cat stood facing him across the canyon of the lost city.
We. shall continue where we left off before the interrup-
tion, he said.
MERCY SPENDER WAS JERKED
out of a deep, dreamless sleep. She began to scream, but the
cry died within her. There was a twisted familiarity to what
was happening. She drew herself into a fetal position and
pulled the blankets up over her head.
Alex Mancin was spinning figures across his video console
when it hit. When his vision wavered and dimmed, he
thought that he was having a stroke. And then he realized
what was happening and did not resist it, for his curiosity
was stronger than his fear.
Elizabeth Brooke twisted from side to side. It was getting
better every second. In just a few more moments... Her
mind began to twist also, and she shrieked.
Fisher was in communication with Ironbear when the
mental storm broke and they were sucked into another state
of awareness.
What the hell is it? he asked.
We're being pulled back together again, Ironbear replied.
Who's doing it?
Sands. Can't you feel him? Like a broken lodestone,
reassembling itself -
Nice image. But I still don't under - Ah!
Plosion ex. Im noisolp.
ashes falling back into bonfire, fireflame along the
across the night arcing east drawn. tgthr brainbow four
containing ffth reassembling spring pushing upward beneath
erth snows clds sorting moisture bright spikes fling waters
flwng hllw-eyd ruins facing knifemanhanded and rockdreamt
beast lost within this place of old ones weeeel frthgo
endlessly unwrapping thoughtveiling countereal ity downow
bhind substances tessences and above fireflame waterfiow
and blow weI fish the toilet of the world and let the spiral
remain powr now the pwr ander seav nightebbing kraft tofil
manshadow in shdworld he travel and wI the fireflame Iwe
like blude tofil circulate and recur along the mariform out-
reach hmsel
fireflame along the
plosion
HE STANDS, CROUCHING,
blade in his left hand. He moves the weapon slowly, turning
it, raising it, lowering it, hoping for a glint or two to catch the
vision behind the eye. The beast takes a step forward. The
green light is trapped within the facets of that eye. Whether
the blade holds any fascination for it he cannot tell.
The beast takes another step.
A gentle rain is falling. He is uncertain when it com-
menced again. It increases slightly in intensity.
Another step...
His right hand moves to his belt buckle and catches hold
of it. He turns to extend his left shoulder, continuing the
movements of the blade.
Another step...
The beast's tongue darts once, in and out. Something is
not right. Size? Pattern of movement? The cold absence of
projected feelings when it had communicated?
Another step.
Still a little too far to spring yet, he decides. He turns his
body a little more. He releases the belt buckle and slides his
hand farther to his left, the movement masked by the flap of
his jacket, by the angle at which he now stands. Is it reading
his mind at this moment? He begins the Blessingway chant
again, mentally, to fill his thoughts. Something inside him
seems to take it up. It runs effortlessly within his breast, the
accompanying feelings flowing without exertion.
Another...
Soon. Soon the rush. His right hand comes upon the butt
of the tazer. His fingers wrap about it.
Almost...
Two more steps, he decides.
One...
Now is the time of the cutting of the throat...
Two.
He draws the weapon and fires it. It strikes home and the
beast halts, stiffens.
He drops the tazer, snatches the knife into his right hand
and lunges forward.
He halts several paces before the creature, for it begins
melting and turning to steam. In moments, the form has
dissolved and the vapors have collected into a small cloud
about three meters above the ground. Lowering the knife, he
raises his eyes.
Smokelike, it now drifts, passing to the left toward a huge
pile of rubble from some ancient landslide. He follows,
watching, waiting.
Neat trick, that.
I am not the beast you slew. I am that which you cannot
destroy. I am all of your fears and failings. And I am
stronger now because you fled me.
I did not flee you. I followed a trail.
What trail? I saw no trail save your own.
It is the reason I am in this place, and I presume I am the
reason you are here.
The smoke ceases its movement, to hover above the rock
heap.
Of course. I am the part of yourself which will destroy
you. You have denied me for too long.
The smoke begins to contour itself into a new form.
I no longer deny you. I have faced the past and am at
peace with it.
Too late. I have become autonomous under the conditions
you created.
De-autonomize, then. Go back where you came from.
The form grows manlike.
I cannot, for you are at peace with the past. Like Cat, I
have only one function now.
Cat is dead.
...And I lack a sense of humor.
The form continues its coalescence. Billy regards an exact
double of himself, similarly garbed, holding a knife the exact
counterpart of his own, looking back at him. It is smiling.
Then how can you be amused?
I enjoy my one function.
Billy raises the point of his blade.
Then what are you waiting for? Come down and be about
it.
The double turns and leaps to his left, landing on the
farther side of the heap. Billy rushes around it, but by the
time he reaches him the other has regained his footing. He
wipes his brow with his free hand, for the rain still descends.
Then he drops into a crouch, both hands extended, low,
knees bent. The other does the same.
Billy backs away as the other advances, then shuffles to
his right, feinting, beginning the circle. He studies the
ground quickly, hoping to steer the other into a slippery
place. As his eyes move, his double lunges. He blocks with
his left forearm and thrusts for the body. The point of the
other's blade pierces his jacket sleeve and enters his arm.
He is certain his own blade has bitten deeply into his
adversary's left side, but the double gives no sign of it and
Billy sees no blood.
"I am beginning to believe you," he says aloud, feeling his
own blood dampen his arm. "Perhaps I cannot kill you."
"True. But I can kill you," the other replies. "I will kill
you".
Billy parries the blade, slashes the other's cheek. No
wound opens. No blood appears.
"So why do you not give up?" the other says.
"Supposing I were to throw down my knife and say to hell
with it?" he asks.
"I would kill you."
"You say you will kill me whether I fight or do not fight?"
"Yes."
"Then I might as well fight," Billy says, thrusting again,
parrying again, slashing low, moving back, thrusting high,
circling.
"Why?"
"Warrior tradition. Why not? It's the best fight around."
As he backs away from a fresh attack, Billy almost
stumbles when his right foot strikes an apple-sized stone.
But he recovers and brushes it backward as if it were an
annoyance. He slashes and thrusts furiously then, halting
the other. Then he takes a big step back, positioning his foot
just so....
He kicks the stone as hard as he can, directly toward his
double. It flies as from a catapult, striking the other's right
kneecap with a satisfying thunk.
The figure bends forward, blade lowering. His head falls
into a tempting position and Billy swings his left fist as hard
as he can against the right side of his adversary's jaw.
The double falls back onto his left side, and Billy kicks
again, toward the knife hand. His boot makes contact and
the blade goes clattering across rocks into the distance. He
flings himself upon the fallen form, his own blade upraised.
As he drives the blade downward toward the other's
throat, his adversary's left hand flies up and the fingers wrap
around his wrist. His arm stops as if it has encountered a
wall. The pressure on his wrist is enormous. Then the right
hand rises and he knows somehow that it is about to go for
his throat.
He drives another left against the other's jaw. The head
rolls to the side and the grip on his wrist slackens slightly.
He strikes again and again. Then he feels a powerful move-
ment beneath him.
His adversary bunches his legs, leans forward and begins
to rise, bearing Billy along with him. He strikes again, but it
seems to make no difference. The other's movement carries
them both to their feet and that right hand is coming forward
again. Billy seizes the extending wrist and barely manages to
halt it. He pushes as hard as he can but he is unable to
advance his knife hand.
Then, gradually, his left hand is forced back. His right
wrist feels as if it is about to snap.
"You chindis are strong sons of bitches," he says.
The other snarls and flexes his fingers. Billy drives his
knee into his groin. The double grunts and bends forward.
Billy's knife advances slightly.
But as the other bends forward, Billy sees over him,
beyond him. And he begins singing the song the old man
taught him, the calling of Ikne'etso, the Big Thunder, recall-
ing now when he had transferred power from the sandpaint-
ing to his own hand.
Sees ...
First, to where the totem stands - the same four figures
below; but now, crowning the spirit pole, the shadowy fifth
form has grown more distinct and is shining with an un-
earthly glow. It seems to be smiling at him.
You have, I see, gambled. Good, it seems to say, and then
the pole begins to elongate, stretching toward the now
brightened heavens....
To where, second, the rainbow now arches in full spec-
trum.
And his gaze continues to mount, to the rainbow's crest.
There he sees the Warrior Twins regarding him as on that
occasion so long ago. A dark form circles above them.
Nayenezgani strings his great bow. He puts an arrow to it,
draws it partway back and begins to raise it. The dark form
descends, and Black-god comes to sit upon Nayenezgani's
shoulder.
The double tightens his grip and twists, and the knife falls
from Billy's hand. He can feel the blood running up his left
arm as the strength begins to ebb and the other draws
him nearer. He continues to utter the words of the song, call-
ing....
The pole stands to an enormous height now, and the figum
atop it - now a man from the waist up - is raising his right
hand and lowering his left, pointing at him. He is reaching,
reaching....
The drumbeat grows louder, comes faster. The rattling
sounds like a hailstorm.
Despite a final effort to thrust him back, the double stands
his ground and draws Billy into a crushing embrace. But
Billy continues to choke out the words.
Nayenezgani draws his bowstring all the way back, re-
leases the arrow with a forward snapping motion of his left
arm.
The world explodes in a flash more brilliant than sunlight.
In that moment he knows that he has entered his double and
his double has entered him, that he has fused with the
divided one, that the pieces of himself, scattered, have come
home, have reassembled, that he has won....
And that is all that he knows.
The Fourth Day
DISK IV
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA COMPUTER
PLEADS NOLO CONTENDERE
STRAGEAN TRADE AGREEMENT NEARER REALITY
DOLPHINS SETTLE OUT OF COURT
ILI REPORTS MISSING METAMORPH
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.
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO
PREMIERE LEVIATHAN" SYMPHONY
Charlie, an aged humpback whale who makes his home in
Scammon Lagoon, will hear the first instrumental perfor-
mance of his composition via a satellite hookup to full-
fidelity underwater speakers. Although he has refused to
comment on the rehearsals, Charlie seemed
TAXTONIES DO IT AGAIN
When their leader's clone's bullet-riddled body was found
in the East River, a potential riot situation was only tempo-
rarily averted
SMUDGE POTS IN VOLCANO CRATER CAUSE PANIC
ALIENS REPRIMANDED
A pair of tourists from Jetax-5, whose culture is noted for
its eccentric sense of humor, admitted to
GENERAL ACCEPTS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
crawling, he made it into a sheltered place. He leaned his
back against a wall and dipped his finger into the blood.
Reaching out
WHOOPING CRANE FLOCKS TO BE PRUNED
Hunting permits will be issued to deal with the overpopu-
lation problem in flocks of the once rare crane which has
now become a nuisance.
"Who can sleep with all that whooping?" complained
residents
BERSERK FACTORY DESTROYS OUTPUT
HOLDS OFF NATIONAL GUARD FOR 8 HOURS
HOSTAOES RELEASED UNHARMED
There was an old bugger from Ghent
Spilled his drink in the sexbot's vent.
He screamed and he howled
As if disemboweled.
Instead of coming, he went.
COMPUTER THERAPIST CHARGED WITH MALPRACTICE
BLACK HOLE TO BE AUCTIONED
At Sotheby Park Bernet next Wednesday
A WET SPRING FOR MUCH OF THE NATION
t otempl fling across beside the
waters andown theating of thearth after fireflow fromigh
wright but rong oh sands the merger each with sands sands
sands sands ourglass runneth over days roulette struck fire
andown thever narrowing tunnels of being we go fireflow
part a part freverdreaming newslvs dreams tove touched the
shaman mind beneath the bead fireflow across the windrawn
days andown conditions of being focused through fireflood
lens anew the hunted self achieved rainwet snowblow
windcut daythrust knifeslash fireflown are the hunted and
hunting selves the landscape dreamspoken nder earth of
mind through heart of stars toth still the running the
burgeoning the everrun foreverrun one frevermore as lps
that kss the lightning creationheat everflow firetotem apart a
part one frever and run
Mercy Spender, awakening with a taste for tea and the
desire to attend a dog race - strange thought - called Fisher
and asked him to join her in the dining room. Then she
showered, dressed, combed her hair and thought about
makeup for the first time since her early singing days.
Fisher rummaged through his thoughts, wondering
whether his illusions could use a touch more class. How long
since he had been to an art gallery? Studied himself in the
mirror. Perhaps he ought to let his hair grow longer.
Out the window, new day clearing, snow melting, water
dripping. He hummed a tune - Ironbear's, now he thought of
it. Not bad, that beat.
Alex Mancin decided to undertake a retreat at a monas-
tery he had heard of in Kentucky. The money market could
take care of itself, and the dogs would be fed and groomed
by the kennel keeper, poor bastard. They were such stupid
little things.
Ironbear turned and sidled, passing through the narrow,
rockfallen place between sheer rises. As he had progressed,
his ability to read the trail signs had grown better and better,
exceeding perhaps what it had been in those long-forgotten
days in the Gateway to the Arctic. Now, as he entered the
canyon, he felt that he was nearing the trail's end.
He did not pause to study the ruins about him but moved
directly to the area amid charred brush and grasses where
the ground indicated that a struggle had occurred. He squat-
ted and remained unmoving for a long while when he
reached it, studying the earth. Chips of turquoise, dried
blood... Whatever had gone on here had been very vio-
lent.
Finally he rose and turned toward the ruin to his left.
Something had crawled or been dragged in that direction. He
opened his mind and probed carefully but could detect
nothing.
Vague images passed through his awareness as he ap-
proached the ruin. He had been present as part of the being
which the Sands construct had formed here under highly
symbolic circumstances, had felt the telekinetic power
reaching, felt the blast. But after that event, nothing. He was
swept away at that very point, to continue his tracking.
... And then he saw him, propped against a wall near a
corner of the ruin. At first Ironbear could not tell whether he
was breathing, though his eyes were open and directed to his
right.
Moving nearer, he saw the pictograph Singer himself had
drawn on the wall with his own blood. It was a large circle,
containing a pair of dots, side by side, about a third of the
way down its. diameter. Lower, beneath these, was an up-
ward-curving arc.
Inhaling the moment, Ironbear shook his head at what was
rare, at what was powerful. Like the buffalo, it probably
would not last. A life's gamble. But just now, just this
instant, before he advanced and broke the feeling's spell,
there was something. Like the buffalo.
High on the mountain of fire
in the lost place of the Old Ones,
fire falling to the right of me,
to the left of me,
before, behind, above, below,
I met my self's chindi,
chindi's self.
Shall I name me a name now,
to have eaten him?
I walk the rainbow trail.
In a time of ice and fire
in the lost place of the Old Ones
I met my self's chindi,
became my chindi's self.
I have traveled through the worlds.
I am a hunter in all places.
My heart was divided into four parts
and eaten by the winds.
I have recovered them.
I sit at the center of the entire world
sending forth my song.
I am everywhere at home,
and all things have been given back to me.
I have followed the trail of my life
and met myself at its end.
There is beauty all around me.
Nayenezgani came for me
into the Darkness House,
putting aside with his stag
the twisted things, the things reversed.
The Dark Hunter remembers me,
Coyote remembers me,
the Sky People remember me,
this land remembers me,
the Old Ones remember me,
I have remembered myself
coming up into the world.
I sit on the great sand-pattern
of Dinetah, here at its center.
Its power remembers me.
Coyote call across the darkness bar...
I have eaten myself and grown strong.
There is beauty all around me.
Before me, behind me, to the right
and to the left of me,
corn pollen and rainbow.
The white medicine lifts me in his hand.
The dancer at the heart of all things
turns like a dust-devil before me.
My lightning-bead is shattered.
I have spoken my own laws.
My only enemy, my self, reborn,
is also the dancer.
My trail, my mind, is filled with stars
in the great wheel of their turning
toward springtime. Stars.
I come like the rain with the wind
and all growing things.
The white medicine lifts me in his hand.
Here at lost Lukachakai I say this:
The hunting never ends.
The way is beauty.
The medicine is strong.
The ghost train doesn't stop here
anymore. I am the hunter
in the eye of the hunted. If I call
they will come to me
out of Darkness Mountain.
the closing of cycles. Then to the east, thinking of all the
mornings he had known and of the next one which would
come out of it. Seeing for a great distance into the east with
unusual clarity, he thought of the land over which his vision
moved, adding features from the internal landscape of mem-
ory, wondering why he had ever wished to deny this Dinetah
which was so much a part of him.
For how long he looked into the east he could not tell.
Suddenly the air about his head was filled with spinning
motes of light accompanied by a soft buzzing sound. It was
like a swarm of fireflies dancing before him. Abruptly they
darted off to his right. He realized then that it was a warning
of some sort.
He looked to the right. There was a green glow moving
among the trees in the distance. He looked away, placing his
gaze upon his trail once again, and then he moved off along
it.
Shortly he was running, ice particles stinging his face,
driven by gusts of wind which raised them in occasional brief
clouds. The snow did not obscure the trail, however. It was
visible through everything with perfect clarity. Continuing to
follow it into the distance with his eyes, he saw that it ran
into an arroyo twisting off to the left. It seemed to narrow as
it entered that place. Following, he saw that the narrowing
continued until it appeared the thinness of a Christmas
ribbon toward the center of the declivity. Strangely, how-
ever, the portion he was traversing appeared no narrower,
though he knew that he had already reached and passed
beyond the place where the thinning had begun. Instead, he
detected a new phenomenon.
At first it was only that the arroyo had seemed somewhat
deeper and longer than his initial impression had indicated.
As he moved more deeply into it, however, the place itself
seemed larger, a huge canyon with high walls. And the
farther he progressed, the steeper the walls became, the
greater the distance from wall to wall. It also was now.
strewn with massive boulders which had not been apparent
at first. Yet the red way he followed remained undiminished.
There were no signs of the contraction he had noticed
earlier.
An enormous white wheel flew past him, sculpted and
brilliant, five-limbed like a starfish. Immediately another
moved slowly overhead, descending. He realized that it was
a snowflake.
The place was larger than Canyon del Muerto, much-
larger. In moments, its walls had receded into the distance,
vanished. He increased his pace, running, leaping, among
the huge rocks.
He topped a rise to discover a massive glassy mountain
looming before him, its prismatic surfaces retailing rainbows
at peculiar angles.
Then he was descending toward it, and he could see where
his trail ran into a large opening in its side, a jagged slash-
mark through stone and sheen, like a black lightning bolt
running from about a third of its height downward to the
earth.
A gust of wind blew him over and he regained his footing
and ran on. A snowflake crashed to the earth like a falling
building. He raced across the top of a small pond which
vibrated beneath him.
The mountain towered higher, nearer. Finally he was
close enough to see into the great opening, and he saw that it
shone within as well as without, the walls sparkling almost
moistly, rising in a pitched-tentlike fashion to some unseen
point of convergence high overhead.
He rushed within and halted almost immediately. His
hand went to his knife before he realized that the men who
surrounded him were multiple images of himself reflected in
the gleaming walls. And his trail running off in all directions
...Twisted images.
He bumped into a wall, ran his hands down its surface.
His trail seemed to go straight ahead here, but he saw now
where the real only seemed to join the illusory. It slid to the
right, he could tell now.
Three paces and he bumped into another wall. This could
not be. There was nothing else for the trail to do. It pro-
ceeded directly ahead here, with no deviations, reflected or
otherwise.
He reached forward, felt the wall, searched it. His reflec-
tion mimicked his movements.
Abruptly, there was nothing. His hand moved forward as
he realized that only the upper portion of his way was
blocked. He dropped to all fours and continued onward.
As he crawled, the reflections shifted in the shadows
around him. For a moment, from the corner of his eye, to the
right, it seemed that he was a slow, lumbering bear, pacing
himself. He glanced quickly to the left. A deer, a six-pointer,
dark eyes alert, nostrils quivering. Multiple reflections
caused them all to merge then, into something that was bear
and deer and man, something primeval, working its way, like
First Man, through narrow, dark tunnels upward to the new
world.
The reflections ahead showed him that the overhead space
was growing larger again, turning into a high, narrow,
Gothic arch. He rose to his feet as soon as he noticed this,
and the animal images slipped away, leaving nothing but the
infinity of himself on all sides. All colors, in various intensi-
ties, lay ahead. He went on, and when he saw that he was
heading toward a way out, he began to run.
The area of light seemed to grow slightly smaller as he
advanced upon it. The reflections which ran beside him now
varied through prisms and shadows. And he noted that they
were all differently garbed. One bounded along in a pressur-
ized suit, another in a tuxedo; another wore only a loincloth.
One ran nude. Another wore a parka. One had on a blue
velveteen shirt he had long forgotten, a sandcast concho belt
binding it above the hips. In the distance, he saw himself as a
boy, running furiously, arms pumping.
Smiling, he ran out through the opening, along the red
way. The canyon walls appeared and closed in on him,
diminishing in height as he advanced.
He halted and looked back.
There was no shining mountain. He retraced his steps a
dozen paces and stooped to pick up a piece of stone contain-
ing a cracked quartz crystal which lay on the ground. He
held it up to his eyes. A rainbow danced within it. He
dropped it into his pocket, feeling as if it held half of time and
space.
He ran for nearly an hour then, and ice crystals scratched
like the claws of cats at rocks and tree limbs, at his face. The
frozen earth made noises like crinkling cellophane beneath
his feet. Streaks of snow lay like crooked fingers on the
hillsides. A patch of sky lightened and thunder rumbled
nearby. His way led into the mountains, and soon he began
to climb.
When I call,
they come to me
out of Darkness Mountain.
Pipelines cross it,
satellites pass above it,
but I hold the land before me,
and all things that hunt
and are hunted within it.
I have followed the People
across the eons,
giving the proper hunter his prey
in the proper time.
Those who hunt themselves,
however, fall into a special category.
Certain sophistications were unknown
in ancient times.
But you are never too old to learn,
which is what makes this business interesting
and keeps me black-winged. Na-ya!
Out of Darkness Mountain, then:
Send an ending.
And climbing, Everything strange. He had lost track of
time and space. Sometimes the countryside seemed to roll
by him, other times it seemed that he had moved for ages to
cover a small- distance. The trail took him among more
mountains. He was no longer certain as to precisely where
he was, though he was sure that he was still heading north.
The snow turned into rain. The rain came and went. The trail
led upward once again and moved through rocky passages.
In places, streamlets rushed by him, and he passed through
narrow necks with his back pressed against stone, fingertips
and heels his only purchase. The clouds were occasionally
delineated by a bright scribbling, to be wiped away by the
grayness moments later.
He passed through an opening so narrow that he had to
strip off his pack and jacket and go sideways. It cut sharply
to the left, and he knew that he could have missed it even in
full diylight without the guiding trail that led him on. Glow-
ing forms seemed to writhe in crevasses he passed before the
way widened again, like the mating movements of the tall,
spindly anklavars on the world called Bayou.
When he turned and stretched his cramped muscles, he
halted. What was this place? There was a ruin built.into the
cliff face to the right. Farther ahead there was another, to the
left and higher, at a place where the canyon continued its
widening. Stone and rotted adobe, they were ruins with
which he was not familiar, though he had once thought that
he was aware of almost all of them. He was tempted to pause
for a quick investigation, but the drumbeat commenced
again, slowly, and his trail ran on to greater heights.
The canyon turned to the right, its floor rising even
farther, its walls spread wider. He climbed, and there were
more ruins about. The name "Lukachukai" passed through
his mind as he remembered the story of a lost Anasazi ruin.
The wind grew still and the pulse of the drum quickened.
Shadowy shapes darted behind broken walls. He stared at
the high, level place before him. He saw the end of his trail.
A chill passed over his entire body, and he felt the hairs rise
on the nape of his neck.
He took a step forward, then another. He moved cau-
tiously, slowly, as if the ground might give way beneath him
at any point; It was right, though, wasn't it? Of course. All
trails end the same way. Why should this one be any
different? If you tracked anything through its entire life,
from its first faltering step until its final faltering step, the end
was always the same.
Back beside a rock, beneath an overhang, his trail ended
before the vacant gaze of an age-browned human skull.
Beyond that, he could not see the way.
The rhythm of the drumbeat changed. Mah-ih, the Trick-
ster, Coyote, He-who-wanders-about, peered at him from
beyond the corner of a nearby ruin. A white rainbow yei
formed an arc from the top of one canyon wall to the other.
He heard the shaking of rattles now, accompanying the
drumbeat. A green stem poked through the ground, rose
upward, put forth leaves and then a red flower.
He walked on. As he advanced, the skull seemed to jerk
slightly forward. A flickering occurred within it, and then a
pale green light grew behind all of its apertures which faced
him. Far off to the right, Coyote made a sudden, low,
growling sound.
As he neared the end of the trail the skull tipped backward
and turned slightly to the right, keeping the eyesockets fixed
directly upon him.
A rasping voice emerged from the skull:
"Behold your chindi."
Billy halted.
"I used to play soccer," he said, smiling and drawing back
his foot. "Those two rocks up by the ruin can be the goal
posts."
The ground erupted before him. The skull shot upward to
a position perhaps a foot higher than his head. It rode upon
the shoulders of a massive, nude, male body which had
grown up like the flower before him. The green light danced
all around it.
"Shadow-thing!" Billy said, unslinging his weapon.
"Yes. Your shadow. Shoot if you will. It will not save
you."
Billy continued the movement which brought the snub-
gun forward, reversing it in his hands, driving its butt hard
upward against the skull. With a brief crunching noise the
skull shattered, and its pieces fell to the ground. The trunk
beneath dropped to one knee and the arms shot forward. A
massive hand caught hold of the weapon and tore it from
Billy's grasp. It cast it backward over its shoulder, to fall
with a clatter among rocks far up the canyon and to vanish
there.
The left hand caught his right wrist and held it with a grip
like a steel band. He chopped at the other's biceps with the
edge of his left hand. It had no apparent effect, and so he
drew his hunting knife, cross-body, and plunged it into the
headless one, in the soft area below the left shoulder joint.
Suddenly his wrist was free and the thing before him was
falling backward, knees folding up toward the chest, arms
clasping them.
Billy watched as the other rolled away, darkening, losing
features, growing compact, making crunching noises in pass-
ing over gravel and sand. It had become a big, round
boulder, slowing now....
It came to a halt perhaps fifteen meters distant, and then,
slowly, it began to unfold into a new form. It unwound limbs
and shaped a head, a tail...
An eye.
Cat stood facing him across the canyon of the lost city.
We. shall continue where we left off before the interrup-
tion, he said.
MERCY SPENDER WAS JERKED
out of a deep, dreamless sleep. She began to scream, but the
cry died within her. There was a twisted familiarity to what
was happening. She drew herself into a fetal position and
pulled the blankets up over her head.
Alex Mancin was spinning figures across his video console
when it hit. When his vision wavered and dimmed, he
thought that he was having a stroke. And then he realized
what was happening and did not resist it, for his curiosity
was stronger than his fear.
Elizabeth Brooke twisted from side to side. It was getting
better every second. In just a few more moments... Her
mind began to twist also, and she shrieked.
Fisher was in communication with Ironbear when the
mental storm broke and they were sucked into another state
of awareness.
What the hell is it? he asked.
We're being pulled back together again, Ironbear replied.
Who's doing it?
Sands. Can't you feel him? Like a broken lodestone,
reassembling itself -
Nice image. But I still don't under - Ah!
Plosion ex. Im noisolp.
ashes falling back into bonfire, fireflame along the
across the night arcing east drawn. tgthr brainbow four
containing ffth reassembling spring pushing upward beneath
erth snows clds sorting moisture bright spikes fling waters
flwng hllw-eyd ruins facing knifemanhanded and rockdreamt
beast lost within this place of old ones weeeel frthgo
endlessly unwrapping thoughtveiling countereal ity downow
bhind substances tessences and above fireflame waterfiow
and blow weI fish the toilet of the world and let the spiral
remain powr now the pwr ander seav nightebbing kraft tofil
manshadow in shdworld he travel and wI the fireflame Iwe
like blude tofil circulate and recur along the mariform out-
reach hmsel
fireflame along the
plosion
HE STANDS, CROUCHING,
blade in his left hand. He moves the weapon slowly, turning
it, raising it, lowering it, hoping for a glint or two to catch the
vision behind the eye. The beast takes a step forward. The
green light is trapped within the facets of that eye. Whether
the blade holds any fascination for it he cannot tell.
The beast takes another step.
A gentle rain is falling. He is uncertain when it com-
menced again. It increases slightly in intensity.
Another step...
His right hand moves to his belt buckle and catches hold
of it. He turns to extend his left shoulder, continuing the
movements of the blade.
Another step...
The beast's tongue darts once, in and out. Something is
not right. Size? Pattern of movement? The cold absence of
projected feelings when it had communicated?
Another step.
Still a little too far to spring yet, he decides. He turns his
body a little more. He releases the belt buckle and slides his
hand farther to his left, the movement masked by the flap of
his jacket, by the angle at which he now stands. Is it reading
his mind at this moment? He begins the Blessingway chant
again, mentally, to fill his thoughts. Something inside him
seems to take it up. It runs effortlessly within his breast, the
accompanying feelings flowing without exertion.
Another...
Soon. Soon the rush. His right hand comes upon the butt
of the tazer. His fingers wrap about it.
Almost...
Two more steps, he decides.
One...
Now is the time of the cutting of the throat...
Two.
He draws the weapon and fires it. It strikes home and the
beast halts, stiffens.
He drops the tazer, snatches the knife into his right hand
and lunges forward.
He halts several paces before the creature, for it begins
melting and turning to steam. In moments, the form has
dissolved and the vapors have collected into a small cloud
about three meters above the ground. Lowering the knife, he
raises his eyes.
Smokelike, it now drifts, passing to the left toward a huge
pile of rubble from some ancient landslide. He follows,
watching, waiting.
Neat trick, that.
I am not the beast you slew. I am that which you cannot
destroy. I am all of your fears and failings. And I am
stronger now because you fled me.
I did not flee you. I followed a trail.
What trail? I saw no trail save your own.
It is the reason I am in this place, and I presume I am the
reason you are here.
The smoke ceases its movement, to hover above the rock
heap.
Of course. I am the part of yourself which will destroy
you. You have denied me for too long.
The smoke begins to contour itself into a new form.
I no longer deny you. I have faced the past and am at
peace with it.
Too late. I have become autonomous under the conditions
you created.
De-autonomize, then. Go back where you came from.
The form grows manlike.
I cannot, for you are at peace with the past. Like Cat, I
have only one function now.
Cat is dead.
...And I lack a sense of humor.
The form continues its coalescence. Billy regards an exact
double of himself, similarly garbed, holding a knife the exact
counterpart of his own, looking back at him. It is smiling.
Then how can you be amused?
I enjoy my one function.
Billy raises the point of his blade.
Then what are you waiting for? Come down and be about
it.
The double turns and leaps to his left, landing on the
farther side of the heap. Billy rushes around it, but by the
time he reaches him the other has regained his footing. He
wipes his brow with his free hand, for the rain still descends.
Then he drops into a crouch, both hands extended, low,
knees bent. The other does the same.
Billy backs away as the other advances, then shuffles to
his right, feinting, beginning the circle. He studies the
ground quickly, hoping to steer the other into a slippery
place. As his eyes move, his double lunges. He blocks with
his left forearm and thrusts for the body. The point of the
other's blade pierces his jacket sleeve and enters his arm.
He is certain his own blade has bitten deeply into his
adversary's left side, but the double gives no sign of it and
Billy sees no blood.
"I am beginning to believe you," he says aloud, feeling his
own blood dampen his arm. "Perhaps I cannot kill you."
"True. But I can kill you," the other replies. "I will kill
you".
Billy parries the blade, slashes the other's cheek. No
wound opens. No blood appears.
"So why do you not give up?" the other says.
"Supposing I were to throw down my knife and say to hell
with it?" he asks.
"I would kill you."
"You say you will kill me whether I fight or do not fight?"
"Yes."
"Then I might as well fight," Billy says, thrusting again,
parrying again, slashing low, moving back, thrusting high,
circling.
"Why?"
"Warrior tradition. Why not? It's the best fight around."
As he backs away from a fresh attack, Billy almost
stumbles when his right foot strikes an apple-sized stone.
But he recovers and brushes it backward as if it were an
annoyance. He slashes and thrusts furiously then, halting
the other. Then he takes a big step back, positioning his foot
just so....
He kicks the stone as hard as he can, directly toward his
double. It flies as from a catapult, striking the other's right
kneecap with a satisfying thunk.
The figure bends forward, blade lowering. His head falls
into a tempting position and Billy swings his left fist as hard
as he can against the right side of his adversary's jaw.
The double falls back onto his left side, and Billy kicks
again, toward the knife hand. His boot makes contact and
the blade goes clattering across rocks into the distance. He
flings himself upon the fallen form, his own blade upraised.
As he drives the blade downward toward the other's
throat, his adversary's left hand flies up and the fingers wrap
around his wrist. His arm stops as if it has encountered a
wall. The pressure on his wrist is enormous. Then the right
hand rises and he knows somehow that it is about to go for
his throat.
He drives another left against the other's jaw. The head
rolls to the side and the grip on his wrist slackens slightly.
He strikes again and again. Then he feels a powerful move-
ment beneath him.
His adversary bunches his legs, leans forward and begins
to rise, bearing Billy along with him. He strikes again, but it
seems to make no difference. The other's movement carries
them both to their feet and that right hand is coming forward
again. Billy seizes the extending wrist and barely manages to
halt it. He pushes as hard as he can but he is unable to
advance his knife hand.
Then, gradually, his left hand is forced back. His right
wrist feels as if it is about to snap.
"You chindis are strong sons of bitches," he says.
The other snarls and flexes his fingers. Billy drives his
knee into his groin. The double grunts and bends forward.
Billy's knife advances slightly.
But as the other bends forward, Billy sees over him,
beyond him. And he begins singing the song the old man
taught him, the calling of Ikne'etso, the Big Thunder, recall-
ing now when he had transferred power from the sandpaint-
ing to his own hand.
Sees ...
First, to where the totem stands - the same four figures
below; but now, crowning the spirit pole, the shadowy fifth
form has grown more distinct and is shining with an un-
earthly glow. It seems to be smiling at him.
You have, I see, gambled. Good, it seems to say, and then
the pole begins to elongate, stretching toward the now
brightened heavens....
To where, second, the rainbow now arches in full spec-
trum.
And his gaze continues to mount, to the rainbow's crest.
There he sees the Warrior Twins regarding him as on that
occasion so long ago. A dark form circles above them.
Nayenezgani strings his great bow. He puts an arrow to it,
draws it partway back and begins to raise it. The dark form
descends, and Black-god comes to sit upon Nayenezgani's
shoulder.
The double tightens his grip and twists, and the knife falls
from Billy's hand. He can feel the blood running up his left
arm as the strength begins to ebb and the other draws
him nearer. He continues to utter the words of the song, call-
ing....
The pole stands to an enormous height now, and the figum
atop it - now a man from the waist up - is raising his right
hand and lowering his left, pointing at him. He is reaching,
reaching....
The drumbeat grows louder, comes faster. The rattling
sounds like a hailstorm.
Despite a final effort to thrust him back, the double stands
his ground and draws Billy into a crushing embrace. But
Billy continues to choke out the words.
Nayenezgani draws his bowstring all the way back, re-
leases the arrow with a forward snapping motion of his left
arm.
The world explodes in a flash more brilliant than sunlight.
In that moment he knows that he has entered his double and
his double has entered him, that he has fused with the
divided one, that the pieces of himself, scattered, have come
home, have reassembled, that he has won....
And that is all that he knows.
The Fourth Day
DISK IV
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA COMPUTER
PLEADS NOLO CONTENDERE
STRAGEAN TRADE AGREEMENT NEARER REALITY
DOLPHINS SETTLE OUT OF COURT
ILI REPORTS MISSING METAMORPH
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.
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO
PREMIERE LEVIATHAN" SYMPHONY
Charlie, an aged humpback whale who makes his home in
Scammon Lagoon, will hear the first instrumental perfor-
mance of his composition via a satellite hookup to full-
fidelity underwater speakers. Although he has refused to
comment on the rehearsals, Charlie seemed
TAXTONIES DO IT AGAIN
When their leader's clone's bullet-riddled body was found
in the East River, a potential riot situation was only tempo-
rarily averted
SMUDGE POTS IN VOLCANO CRATER CAUSE PANIC
ALIENS REPRIMANDED
A pair of tourists from Jetax-5, whose culture is noted for
its eccentric sense of humor, admitted to
GENERAL ACCEPTS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
crawling, he made it into a sheltered place. He leaned his
back against a wall and dipped his finger into the blood.
Reaching out
WHOOPING CRANE FLOCKS TO BE PRUNED
Hunting permits will be issued to deal with the overpopu-
lation problem in flocks of the once rare crane which has
now become a nuisance.
"Who can sleep with all that whooping?" complained
residents
BERSERK FACTORY DESTROYS OUTPUT
HOLDS OFF NATIONAL GUARD FOR 8 HOURS
HOSTAOES RELEASED UNHARMED
There was an old bugger from Ghent
Spilled his drink in the sexbot's vent.
He screamed and he howled
As if disemboweled.
Instead of coming, he went.
COMPUTER THERAPIST CHARGED WITH MALPRACTICE
BLACK HOLE TO BE AUCTIONED
At Sotheby Park Bernet next Wednesday
A WET SPRING FOR MUCH OF THE NATION
t otempl fling across beside the
waters andown theating of thearth after fireflow fromigh
wright but rong oh sands the merger each with sands sands
sands sands ourglass runneth over days roulette struck fire
andown thever narrowing tunnels of being we go fireflow
part a part freverdreaming newslvs dreams tove touched the
shaman mind beneath the bead fireflow across the windrawn
days andown conditions of being focused through fireflood
lens anew the hunted self achieved rainwet snowblow
windcut daythrust knifeslash fireflown are the hunted and
hunting selves the landscape dreamspoken nder earth of
mind through heart of stars toth still the running the
burgeoning the everrun foreverrun one frevermore as lps
that kss the lightning creationheat everflow firetotem apart a
part one frever and run
Mercy Spender, awakening with a taste for tea and the
desire to attend a dog race - strange thought - called Fisher
and asked him to join her in the dining room. Then she
showered, dressed, combed her hair and thought about
makeup for the first time since her early singing days.
Fisher rummaged through his thoughts, wondering
whether his illusions could use a touch more class. How long
since he had been to an art gallery? Studied himself in the
mirror. Perhaps he ought to let his hair grow longer.
Out the window, new day clearing, snow melting, water
dripping. He hummed a tune - Ironbear's, now he thought of
it. Not bad, that beat.
Alex Mancin decided to undertake a retreat at a monas-
tery he had heard of in Kentucky. The money market could
take care of itself, and the dogs would be fed and groomed
by the kennel keeper, poor bastard. They were such stupid
little things.
Ironbear turned and sidled, passing through the narrow,
rockfallen place between sheer rises. As he had progressed,
his ability to read the trail signs had grown better and better,
exceeding perhaps what it had been in those long-forgotten
days in the Gateway to the Arctic. Now, as he entered the
canyon, he felt that he was nearing the trail's end.
He did not pause to study the ruins about him but moved
directly to the area amid charred brush and grasses where
the ground indicated that a struggle had occurred. He squat-
ted and remained unmoving for a long while when he
reached it, studying the earth. Chips of turquoise, dried
blood... Whatever had gone on here had been very vio-
lent.
Finally he rose and turned toward the ruin to his left.
Something had crawled or been dragged in that direction. He
opened his mind and probed carefully but could detect
nothing.
Vague images passed through his awareness as he ap-
proached the ruin. He had been present as part of the being
which the Sands construct had formed here under highly
symbolic circumstances, had felt the telekinetic power
reaching, felt the blast. But after that event, nothing. He was
swept away at that very point, to continue his tracking.
... And then he saw him, propped against a wall near a
corner of the ruin. At first Ironbear could not tell whether he
was breathing, though his eyes were open and directed to his
right.
Moving nearer, he saw the pictograph Singer himself had
drawn on the wall with his own blood. It was a large circle,
containing a pair of dots, side by side, about a third of the
way down its. diameter. Lower, beneath these, was an up-
ward-curving arc.
Inhaling the moment, Ironbear shook his head at what was
rare, at what was powerful. Like the buffalo, it probably
would not last. A life's gamble. But just now, just this
instant, before he advanced and broke the feeling's spell,
there was something. Like the buffalo.
High on the mountain of fire
in the lost place of the Old Ones,
fire falling to the right of me,
to the left of me,
before, behind, above, below,
I met my self's chindi,
chindi's self.
Shall I name me a name now,
to have eaten him?
I walk the rainbow trail.
In a time of ice and fire
in the lost place of the Old Ones
I met my self's chindi,
became my chindi's self.
I have traveled through the worlds.
I am a hunter in all places.
My heart was divided into four parts
and eaten by the winds.
I have recovered them.
I sit at the center of the entire world
sending forth my song.
I am everywhere at home,
and all things have been given back to me.
I have followed the trail of my life
and met myself at its end.
There is beauty all around me.
Nayenezgani came for me
into the Darkness House,
putting aside with his stag
the twisted things, the things reversed.
The Dark Hunter remembers me,
Coyote remembers me,
the Sky People remember me,
this land remembers me,
the Old Ones remember me,
I have remembered myself
coming up into the world.
I sit on the great sand-pattern
of Dinetah, here at its center.
Its power remembers me.
Coyote call across the darkness bar...
I have eaten myself and grown strong.
There is beauty all around me.
Before me, behind me, to the right
and to the left of me,
corn pollen and rainbow.
The white medicine lifts me in his hand.
The dancer at the heart of all things
turns like a dust-devil before me.
My lightning-bead is shattered.
I have spoken my own laws.
My only enemy, my self, reborn,
is also the dancer.
My trail, my mind, is filled with stars
in the great wheel of their turning
toward springtime. Stars.
I come like the rain with the wind
and all growing things.
The white medicine lifts me in his hand.
Here at lost Lukachakai I say this:
The hunting never ends.
The way is beauty.
The medicine is strong.
The ghost train doesn't stop here
anymore. I am the hunter
in the eye of the hunted. If I call
they will come to me
out of Darkness Mountain.