The Skrayling Tree (6 page)

“Do you always act according to your dreams?” I was intrigued. This was, after all, my own area of expertise.

“Only after due consideration. And if the appropriate dance and song bring the harmony of joined worlds. I was always of a
spiritual disposition.” He began carefully cleaning one of his beautifully fashioned hardwood paddles, curved in such a way
that they were also war-axes. His bow and quiver of arrows were already secured in the canoe. He paused. “White Buffalo Woman,
I am on a long spiritual journey which began many years ago in the forests of my adopted home in
what you know as upper New York. I am bound to link my destiny with others to achieve a great deed, and I am bound not to
speak of that part of my destiny. Yet when that deed is done I will at last possess the wisdom and the power I need to speak
to the councils of the Nations and begin the final part of my destiny.”

“What of the Kakatanawa? Do they join your councils?”

“They are not our brothers. They have their own councils.” He had the air of a man trying to hide his dismay at extraordinary
political naivete.

“Why do you call me White Buffalo Woman? And why would I go with you when I seek my husband?”

“Because of the myth. It has to be enacted. It is still not made reality. I think our two stories are now the same. They must
be. Otherwise there would be dissonances. Your name was one of several offered in the prophecy. Would you prefer me to call
you something else?”

“If I have a choice, you can call me the Countess of Bek,” I said. In the language we were using this name came out longer
than the one he had employed.

He smiled, accepting this as irony. “I trust, Countess, you will accompany me, if only because together we are most likely
to find your husband. Can you use a canoe? We can be across the Shining Water and at the mouth of the Roaring River in a day.”
Again, he seemed to speak with a certain sardonic humor.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, I found myself afloat. Ayanawatta’s canoe was a superb instrument of movement, with
an almost sentient quality to its
responses. It sometimes seemed hardly to touch the water. As we paddled I asked him how far it was to the Kakatanawa village.

“I would not call it a village exactly. Their longhouse lies some distance to the north and west.”

“Why have they abducted my husband? Is there no police authority in their territory?”

“I know little about the Kakatanawa. Their customs are not our customs.”

“Who are this mysterious tribe? Demons? Cannibals?”

He laughed with some embarrassment as his paddle rose and fell in the crystal water. It was impossible not to admire his extraordinarily
well-modeled body. “I could be maligning them. You know how folktales exaggerate sometimes. They have no reputation for abducting
mortals. Their intentions could easily be benign. I do not say that to reassure you, only to let you know that they have no
history of meaning us harm.”

I thought I might be assuming too much. “We are still in America?”

“I have another name for the continent. But if you lived after Longfellow, then your time is far in my future.”

Such shifts of time were not unusual in the dream-worlds. “Then this is roughly 1550 in the Christian calendar.”

He shook his head, and the breeze rippled in the eagle feathers. I realized I had never seen such brilliant colors before.
Light sparkled and danced in them. Were the feathers themselves invested with magic?

He paused in his paddling. The canoe continued to
skim across the bright water. The smell of pines and rich, damp undergrowth drifted from the distant bank. “Actually it’s
A.D.
1135, by that calendar. The Norman liberation of Britain began sixty-nine years ago. I think the settlers worked it out on
the date of an eclipse. Well, they just picked a later eclipse. They were trying to prove we took the idea of a democratic
federation from them.”

He laughed and shook his head. “And before them was Leif Ericsson. When I was a boy I came across a Norseman whose colony
had been established about a hundred years earlier. You could call him the Last of the Vikings. He was a poor, primitive creature,
and most of his tribe had been hunted to death by the Algonquin. To be honest I’d mistaken him for some sort of scrawny bear
at first.

“They called this place Wineland. He was bitter as his father and grandfather were bitter. The Ericssons had tricked his ancestors
with stories of grapes and endless fields of wheat. What they actually got, of course, was foul weather, hard shrift and an
angry native population which thoroughly outnumbered them. They called us ‘the screamers’ or ‘skraelings.’ I heard a few captive
Norse women and children were adopted by some Cayugas who had survived an epidemic. But that was the last of them.”

Though he was inclined to ramble on, he was full of interesting tales and explanations, making up for his years of silence.
Now that I knew we sought the Kakatanawa, I devoted myself to finding Ulric as soon as possible. There was a remote possibility
that we
would arrive before he did, such was the nature of time. But somehow Ayanawatta’s endless words had comforted me, and I no
longer felt Ulric to be in danger of immediate harm; nor was I so convinced that Prince Gaynor was behind the kidnapping.
The mystery, of course, remained, but at least I had an ally with some knowledge of this world.

I reflected on my peculiar luck, which again had brought me into another’s dream. I had been attacked by that wind, I was
certain. An aerial demon. An elemental. Ayanawatta was supremely confident. No doubt, since this was his final spirit journey
and he was back in his familiar realm, he had defeated many obstacles. I had some idea of what the man had already endured.
Yet he bore the burden of that experience lightly enough.

A current in the lake took our canoe gently towards the farther shore. Resting, Ayanawatta slid a slender bone flute from
his pack. To my surprise he played a subtle, sophisticated melody, high and haunting, which was soon echoed by the surrounding
hills and mountains until it seemed a whole orchestra took up the tune. Crowds of herons suddenly rose from the reeds as if
to perform their aerial ballet in direct response to the music.

Pausing, Ayanawatta took the opportunity to address the birds with a relatively short laudatory speech. I was to become used
to his rather egalitarian attitude towards animals, his way of speaking to them directly, as if they understood every nuance
of his every sentence. Perhaps they did. In spite of my fears, I was delighted by this extraordinary experience. I was filled
with a feeling of
vibrant well-being. In spite of Ayanawatta’s company, it had been ages since I knew such a sense of solitude, and I began
to relish it, my confidence growing as I was infected by his joyous respect for the world.

By evening we had reached the reedy mouth of a river on the far side of a lake. After we drew the canoe ashore, Ayanawatta
pulled some leggings and a robe from the pack. Gratefully I put the leggings on and wrapped myself in the blanket. The air
was becoming chilly as the sun poured scarlet light over the mountain peaks and the shadowy reeds. The sachem carefully restarted
his fire and cooked us a very tasty porridge, apologizing that he should have caught some fish but had been too busy recounting
that disappointing meeting with Hawthorne. He promised fish in the morning.

Soon he was telling me about the corrupt spiritual orthodoxy of the Mayan peoples he had visited on an earlier stage of this
journey. Their obscure heresies were a matter of some dismay to this extraordinary mixture of intellectual monk, warrior and
story-teller. It all turned on certain Mayan priests’ refusal to accept pluralism, I gathered. Any fears I had for Ulric were
lulled away as I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

In the morning, as good as his word, the Mohawk nobleman had speared us two fat trout which, spiced from his store of herbs,
made a tasty breakfast. He told me a little more of his dream-quests, of the stages of physical and supernatural testing he
had endured to have reached this level of power. I was reminded of the philosophy of the Japanese samurai, who at their best
were as capable of composing a haiku as of holding
their own in a duel. Ayanawatta’s dandified appearance in the wild suggested he cultivated more than taste. He was warning
potential enemies of the power they faced. I had traveled alone and understood the dangers, the need to show a cool, careless
exterior at all times or be killed and robbed in a trice. As it was, I envied Ayanawatta his bow and arrows, if not his twin
war clubs.

After we had finished eating, I expected us to get on the move. Instead Ayanawatta sat down cross-legged and took out a beautiful
redstone carved pipe bowl, which he packed with herbs from his pouch. Ceremoniously he put a hollow reed into a hole in the
bottom of the bowl. Taking a dried grass taper from the fire he lit the pipe carefully and drew the smoke deeply into his
lungs, then puffed smoke to the Earth’s quarters, by way of thanks for the world’s benevolence. An expression of contentment
passed over his face as he handed me the pipe. I could only follow his example with some dread. I hated smoking. But the herbs
of the pipe were sweet and gentle to the throat. I guessed they were a mixture containing some tobacco and a little hemp,
also dried spearmint and willow bark. I was no smoker, but this beneficent mixture was a secret lost to Ulric’s world. A peace
pipe indeed. I was at once mentally sharpened and physically relaxed. This world remained intensely alive for me.

In a short while Ayanawatta stood up with stately dignity. He was clearly in a semi-trance. Slowly he began to sing, a rhythmic
song that sounded like the wind, the whisper of distant water, the movement of distant thunder. As he sang he began a graceful
dance,
stamping hard on the ground while performing a complicated figure. Each nuance of movement had meaning. Although I had not
been prepared for this display, I found it deeply moving. I knew that he was weaving his being into the fabric of the worlds.
These rituals opened pathways for him. Unlike me, he had no natural gift for travel between the realms.

This particular ritual was, however, over swiftly. He made a somewhat shy apology and said that since we were traveling together,
he hoped I would forgive him if he performed similar rituals from time to time. It was as important to his religion as my
need to pray quietly to myself five times a day.

I had no objection. I knew of some cultures where people devoted their entire lives to learning ways of entering other worlds
and usually died before they could accomplish anything. What I had been doing naturally since I was a young child had been
inherited from my parents. Such movement was virtually impossible for most people and very difficult for everyone else. We
moonbeam travelers have little in common but our talents. We learn the disciplines and responsibilities of such travel at
the musram.

Even with my poor sense of direction it did not take me long to realize, as we set off downriver, that the current was not
flowing from north to south and that judging by the position of the sun we were probably heading east. Ayanawatta agreed.
“The road to Kakatanawa is a complicated one,” he said, “and you’re wise to approach with the appropriate charms and spells.
That, at least, is clear from the prophecy. It isn’t possible to go there directly,
just as some moonbeam paths are more circuitous than others. And, as yet, I haven’t worked out where to expect to find either
the giants or the dragon. I intend to dream on the subject as soon as possible.” He did not explain further.

With me settled in the front of the canoe, we were now paddling downstream at some speed, with huge stands of pines rising
on both sides and the water beginning to dash at the rocks of the banks. The air was misty with white spray, and above us
great grey clouds were beginning to build, threatening rain.

Before it finally started to rain, the river had turned a bend and widened and had become lazy, peaceful, almost a lake, with
the tall mountains massed in the distance, the forest making swathes of red, gold, brown and green as the leaves turned. All
this was reflected in the depths of the river. Heavy drops soon fell into the gentle waters and added to the sense of sudden
peace as the narrow torrent was left behind. Our paddling became more vigorous, just to keep us moving at any reasonable speed.

While I understood that my journey could not take place with any special urgency, I remained nonetheless anxious to continue.
I imagined a dozen different deaths for the man I loved as we actually headed away from the Kakatanawa territory. Yet I was
a dreamthief’s daughter. I understood certain disciplines. The direct path was almost never the best. I kept charge of my
feelings most of the time, but it had never been harder.

Ayanawatta being unusually laconic, I remarked over my shoulder how much more peaceful the river had
become. He nodded a little abstractedly. I realized that as he paddled he was listening carefully, his head cocked slightly
to one side. What did he expect? Was he listening for danger? There could be no alligators in these cold waters.

I began to ask him, but he silenced me with a gesture. The wind was rising, and he was straining to hear above it. He leaned
to his right a little, expectantly. Then, not hearing what he thought, he leaned forward to where I was now positioned and
murmured, “I have powerful enemies who are now your enemies. But we have the medicine to defeat them all if we are courageous.”

I shuddered with a sudden chill. It occurred to me to remind him that I was not here to help him in his spirit journey but
to find my kidnapped husband. Before my mother vanished, presumably absorbed at last into a dream she had planned to steal,
she would have been a more useful ally to him than I. Now, of course, it was unlikely she even knew her own name.

All too well, I understood the Game of Time. Mother had taught me most of what I knew, and the mukhamirim masters of Marrakech
had taught me the rest. But it was sometimes difficult to remind myself. Time is a field with its own dimensions and varying
properties. To think in terms of linear time is to be time’s slave. Half of what one learns as a moonbeam walker involves
understanding time for what it is, as far as we understand it at all. Our knowledge gives us freedom. It allows us some control
of time. I do not know why, however, there are more women on the moonbeam roads than men, and most of the legendary figures
of the
roads are women. Women are said to be more able to accommodate Chaos and work with it. There are honorable exceptions, of
course. Even the most intelligent man is inclined on occasion to hack a path through an obstacle. But he is also, in the main,
somewhat better with a stone lance when it comes to dealing with large serpents.