Name: Kate Jackson
Player: Jennifer Lochabay
E-mail Address: zhannon@juno.com
Chronicle: Santa Cruz/Bastet
Breed: Homid
Pryio: Daylight with Twilight Tendencies
Tribe: Qualmi
Jamak: Butterfly
Concept: Visionary
ATTRIBUTES:
Physical: Strength-2, Dexterity-2, Stamina-2
Social: Charisma-3, Manipulation-2, Appearance-3
Mental: Perception-3, Intelligence-5, Wits-3
ABILITIES
Talents: Brawl-2, Empathy-2, Expression-2
Skills: Drive-2, Firearms-2, Repair-4, Singing-2, Storytelling-2
Knowledge: Computer-3, Eco-Building-3, Enigmas-4, Linguisitics-2, Occult-2, Science-3
ADVANTAGES:
Background: Resources-2 (Small Business Grant & 1 acre of land & building supplies), Rites-1
Gifts: Cat's Claws, Monkeys Uncle (Free from Butterfly Jamak), Sense the Truth, Spirit's Sight
Jamak: Butterfly Jamak (Gives the Gift Monkeys Uncle and +2 to Bastets' Frenzy Roll Difficulty
Ban : Can never attack in anger, only in defence)
{NOTE: Monkey's uncle is all well and good, but I picture whatever human form I take as having the same coloration as I do. I waffled about that but my thought was (a) if one's genetics have the flaw of albinism in one's first form, I don't see how the flaw would be corrected merely by taking another form based off of those same genetics and (b) if I may quote from Champions, "A disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth any points!" In other words, with an unmodified gift of Monkey's uncle, I could say, "Oh, I don't want anyone to notice my coloring today so I will use Monkey's Uncle to just change it...." This strikes me as nothing short of dishonest. It is therefore my contention that my disadvantage, that of albinism, would carry over into all forms regardless of Monkeys Uncle.)
Merits: Calm Heart (+3), Destiny (+4)
Flaws: Banned Transformation (-1), Diving Goal (-3), Soft Hearted (-1)
RITES: Rite of Talisman Dedication
RENOWN RANK 1
Ferocity-0/0
Honor-1/0
Cunning-2/0
Rage-2
Gnosis-2
Willpower-5
DESCRIPTION
Kate is tall for a normal bastet, let alone a Qualmi, standing six foot even in her stocking feet. Her most noticible features are her albinism, which naturally carries over into all of her forms. In homid form, the one she uses most often, her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes are white, and her eyes are a sort or pinkish color. Her skin is very pale and will burn given the slightest opportunity. This condition makes her eyes extremely light-sensitive, and while direct daylight is tolerable it is unpleasant. As a consequence she normally wears sunglasses when outdoors, and generally tries to avoid taking any of her cat-forms outside in direct sunlight, though cloudy or overcast days are fine. As an albino she has no markings of any sort on her pelt but it is presumed that she is a lynx from the tufts on her ears when in cat form, and her love of puzzles. Kate has never met or seen any other Bastet.
[Battle Scars]None
[Metis Deformity]Albinism
POSSESSIONS
[Gear Carried]
Sunglasses and sun protection at all times
Dedicated Clothes
[Equipment Owned]
Small VW bug: not much to look at but runs perfectly (wildly painted)
Building supplies
Rifle
Laptop computer
Desktop computer
Web Site
Prelude
I am Bastet.
Which doesn't say a lot in this day and age. Some would say a member of a dying race, or at least one on the endangered species list. Some would say a monster. Perhaps others would say a god. Truth be told, they would all be wrong. I simply have more than one shape, no more, no less.
I never knew or met my birth-parents. They were Bastet also, they must have been, but my family were all humans, as human as I in many ways. None of my brothers or sisters can change as I do, or perhaps they just don't know it yet, for they are all adopted.
My father was very wise. I think he must have known that I would find my other forms, for when I discovered them he wasn't nearly as shocked as I was. It was Father who taught me everything I know. I didn't leave until we buried him. In my mind's eye, I can still see his piercing gaze. "What," he would ask, over and over, "Is the problem? Never run into a fight without knowing why. First define the problem."
I have several problems, I suppose. I'm new in the area, and I don't have a den yet, and I have no idea whether the other Bastet around here are even going to tolerate my presence. It is my purpose to establish a den here, for the area is delightful, but I've never actually established a den before (problem one,) I've been in the area less than a week and want to know the population better before I make a decision (problem two) but it's been a while since I left the old den and I don't know how long I can stand not having one of my own (problem three.) Father taught me that there are levels of problems. Those that I just listed are on a personal level, which are the most compelling, but not necessarily the most important.
The most important problem, at least in the immediate time-frame, is the open season that has been called on the big cats. Mostly the hunt has been against the cougars and mountain lions, and being mainly of lynx stock it doesn't directly affect me... but it will, given enough time. It will.
The spark that set off this particular keg of gunpowder was an attack on three hikers. The newspapers are blaming it on the cats and the hunters are having a field day. But one of the papers ran a photo, and I saw it. That was no big cat who ate those hikers: that was a garou attack, I'm certain of it.
But why? Now I grant you that Garou are not the brightest of creatures on the face of Gaia, certainly not as clever as the Bastet. But why attack three hikers? Particularly three humans? They must have seen the consequences of such a thing.
I wonder if perhaps the hikers violated a Garou holy place, but the explanation still doesn't satisfy me. On some subconscious level humans will usually sense Garou (the humans call them werewolves) and steer clear of the holy places. Even if they had come there deliberately, the term 'excessive force' sticks in my mind. Perhaps they were Magi... but I don't think so. The corpses in the photos didn't seem to be placed in a fashion that indicated much planning, and I believe that the Magi are planners if nothing else.
I digress. Tempting as it is, 'why' isn't the issue. (more of Father's words. "Stick to the issue," he always insisted. "Don't let yourself be sidetracked.") The issue is that it is open season on big cats, which includes me.
Although I am less vulnerable to such things than most. I understand that most Bastet hate cities: I feel as much at home in the city as in the countryside. I am comfortable around the humans, and more importantly since I live among them, I can study them. My human form is one of the most comfortable and familiar to wear, and I use it virtually all the time.
I suppose I learned Father's lessons well. He believed that knowledge is power, though I am not yet sure I agree, but I cannot dispute his methods. Define the problem. Envision the solution. Then follow your heart....
So, the problem defined: it is open season on big cats. What solution do I want for this problem? What is the best possible thing that could happen here?
First and foremost, the hunting and killing of the big cats MUST stop. Secondly, the ties between Garou and Bastet must not be allowed to fray further, and perhaps these events could serve as a catalyst to bring each race a clearer understanding of the other.
I don't like that solution, but what choice is there? Shall the Bastet war on the humans and Garou both? What would a war accomplish save more bloodshed, and more warriors of Gaia cut down in their prime?
What possible good could come of that? No, something has to happen, preferably before war erupts between our two peoples. I want to say that I can't do this and I don't care whether war erupts or not. How could the Garou have done such a thing! What were they thinking! And the big cats are being shot by the score and they are doing nothing! I want to rip the throats out of the lot of them. That, alas, is a luxury I do not have. I either serve Gaia or I do not, and starting a war between the Garou and the Bastet will benefit neither the earth nor the moon.
Therefore I shall go to the Garou, or at least to the area where the campers were killed. If nothing else I can find out more about the attack; perhaps I will speak the tribe there - for where there is one Garou there are bound to be more. After gathering what knowledge I can I will be in a better position to determine what must be done to save the big cats. And Gaia help the garou who gets in my way.
HISTORY:
Kate grew up as a human in a small town in New Mexico. She never knew her birth parents and the family of six children, all adopted, was raised by a lone father. The father claimed to be a normal man, but wasn't at all surprised at Kate's first change. Furthermore he taught Kate for most of her First Year. When she asked how he knew these things, he would smile and promise that he would tell when she got her name.
They hurried hard through their first year, for Father was dying. The cancer eating him up inside was resistant to all treatments, and both Father and Kate knew that he would not last long. Finally Father sent Kate on her spirit-quest, promising that when she returned she would receive both her new name and the answers to her questions. But when Kate returned from her spirit-quest, Father was dead. The cancer won after all. In the end there was no new name and no answers to the original questions.
But Kate did not dispair. Father taught her many sorts of magic, but the first and foremost sort of magic he taught was the magic of hope. The family was dirt poor, but none of the members really noticed. (Of course WE are not poor - the poor are people you bring food baskets to.) The bookshelves (books came second only to food in the family budget) were stuffed with such titles as 'How to win friends and influence people,' 'The magic of thinking big,' 'Dare to dream,' 'Chicken soup for the soul' (All three volumes) and 'The power of the possibility thinker.' Next to them sat novels detailing the life histories of noteworthy individuals: Helen Keller. George Washington Carver, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell, along with many, many others. The lessons were there between the pages, and she tried to learn them well.
In addition Kate had found her Dream. So she and her kin buried Father, and the family went their seperate ways. Kate looked for someone to sponsor her Dream, a quest that eventually led her to California...
Thursday, July 20th, 1995
I didn't get to the area where the campers were killed today, and I probably won't be able to for another couple of days. Why? Good news and bad news. The good news? The grant money came through today. The bad news? The grant money came through today.
I have to admit that I am surprised that the money came through at all, in spite of the fact that I have been fighting for it since my freshman year. And the timing is great because next semester is indeed the semester I need to begin the research for my doctorate. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the final form of the project that I started doesn't strongly resemble what I originally proposed, and the amount of money I have been allotted is only a third of what I had hoped for. What's worse is that I can't get any of the sites that I had requested - thank God for fourth choices!
Nevertheless, it is some funding, enough to do what I want if I am extraordinarily frugal, and my choice of sites, while not my favorites, look good on the map. I will visit each one personally and can drop by the site of the Garou attack at the same time. When I am done with construction I won't have two cents to rub together, but that is another story.
The problem to which I wish to dedicate a major portion of my life remains the same regardless of the final shape of the project, and it can be summed up in this way: granted there are evil creatures in the world such as Vampires and the minions of the Wyrm (needless to say I didn't put this part in my proposal.) But the supernaturals, both good and bad, are far and away outnumbered by the humans, whose population reaches well into the billions. Humans fall into strata - at the far end are those who are evil, at the other are various saints. These numbers represent tiny portions of the general human population.
The problem is that humans are using up their natural resources at a rate to boggle the mind. The fact of the matter - as painful as it is to admit - is that the Wyrm has been clever enough to realize that most humans are simply lazy. It is easier, and very often cheaper, to rape Gaia than it is to preserve Her. It is my contention that the vast majority of the abuse of Gaia occurs because the humans are either too lazy to do otherwise, or cannot afford it, as many wonderful resource-saving devices are very expensive.
But take that situation and turn it around. Suppose it was easier and cheaper to preserve the face of Gaia, and more difficult and expensive to waste Her resources. If that were the case, wouldn't most of the humans preserve resources instead of wasting them? Of course they would!
The original proposal was fairly simple: for my doctorate thesis I would purchase a little land and build a house on it. The house I would build would cost no more than 10% more than an average house, and preferably 10% less. I believe that I can not only run the house for something like 5 or 10 percent of the energy that our current houses use, but I can cut the waste produced by my household by probably 60% or more. Granted that doesn't sound very impressive, but picture how those numbers would affect Gaia if people start building houses using those new systems. If you were going to build a house, and it would cost you 10% less to build a house which would save you 95% of your various utilitiy bills, wouldn't you build it using the new way? Of course you would, and that's what I am aiming for in the long run.
The first guy I pitched my idea to turned me down. I thought, "That guy is the biggest idiot in New Mexico." You would not believe the intense competition for that title! In the end the only interest I got at all was from California - so here I am.
The grant money, combined with what I had saved prior to coming here, should be sufficient to purchase one of the approved sites and buy the necessary materials to build my design. I had hoped for a BIG site, but finances dictate a small one, something like a half-acre, or maybe a whole one if I am lucky. I am also going to have to do without some things that I had really wanted, like furniture, and hiring a company to do the construction for me.
Even if I only have a half-acre, though, it should be large enough for house and garden (I want to do some additional studies on recycling waste in relation to both manufacturing and farming, but that's later down the road.) I will build it with my own two hands, I guess, and then project general construction costs based on standard industry labor rates and mark-up for materials. This is more variance with reality than I had originally wanted to have, but if it becomes necessary for the thesis to have hard date rather than projections, I will purchase a second site and have another home built. (Don't ask me where the money will come from - I will figure that out when I get there.)
I have enough left over for basic living expenses for a little while, but I am going to have to get a job, and soon. I want to do on-line consulting work, which is going to be tough without yet having earned my doctorate, and it won't make me a lot of money. But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. By doing the majority of my work on-line I would make a minimum of live appearances and thus my need for transportation is minimized, allowing me to take buses when possible and taxis when necessary. (I have a number of ideas about improving the energy effeciency of transportation vehicles such as cars, but this is another matter.)
It's going to be a tough way to live, particularly at first when I am building the house and will have neither a roof over my head nor income in my pocket. It's a hard way to live... but it's the best way. It's the only way. You may think I am speaking figuratively. I am not.
The true task of the Bastet, and of the Garou for that matter, is to serve the healing of Gaia. But how are we to do this thing? I used to think - when I was very young - that the way to accomplish this was to utterly destroy the Wyrm, to hunt down and kill all of its minions and any humans who helped them. Father taught me the folly of this philosophy, though I managed to kill two little wyrm-things before he found out. (There wasn't much I could do to keep him from finding out as I broke my arm in the process.)
"Look here," he said once the arm was set and I was home. I didn't understand all of what he said at the time, but gradually, as I grew older, I came first to understand and then to believe in what he told me that day.
The essence of his argument was this: the Bastet, while fierce, are few in number. The Garou are just as fierce, and more numerous, but like the Bastet they are divided. For the sake of our argument, however, let's say that they were not so. Let us pretend that it was possible to ally Bastet and Garou, and to gather every last one of them to one single point on the earth, perhaps Mexico City, one of the most populated and dirtiest cities in the world.
Then what?
Let us say that we all fell on Mexico City and slaughtered everyone, down to the newborn, suckling babe. Even if we were able to do such a thing, even if we receive no resistance from Vampire or Magi - who are opponents to be respected - even if we achieve our goal and Mexico City lies as a city full of corpses with blood running in the streets, what would we have accomplished?
Nothing.
For the humans are - just - too - numerous. Four would be born for every one that we killed. In the shadow of the murdered city there would be a hunt of Bastet and Garou unlike any the world has ever seen as the humans seek to avenge their murdered friends and family, and the Magi and Vampires would join them. Fifty years later Mexico City would rise again, like a Phoenix from the ashes, and the Wyrm would laugh at all we had accomplished for it.
This is not even to mention the moral implications of this scenario, or to address the number of assumptions in it which are impossible tasks in themselves, such as uniting every Garou in the world (which is what it would take in order to overrun Mexico city) or being able to take out the entire population without resistance from the Vampires, Magi, Fae, the Wyrm, or anyone else.
In spite of all of the drawbacks this scenario has been played, in a somewhat smaller and less directed form, all over the world, with both Bastet and Garou as players. We kill a few humans here, and a few wyrm-creatures there, and the cities creep forwards as the forests dwindle. The way we are approaching this issue is simply not working.
The key to the problem lies not with the Wyrm but with the humans. When we expect the humans to love Gaia, to protect her and nourish her as we do - and please understand me when I say this - we are expecting them to know something they haven't been taught, to be a follower of Gaia when there is no one to lead, to reconstruct their lives with no pattern to follow or tools to utilize. The Wyrm is winning the war because we are letting it pick the battles. The battles which the Wyrm picks distract us and divide us and squander our energies instead of concentrating them.
And so we must spot the true battles and go where they are. The true battle against the wyrm cannot be waged with tooth or claw. The true battleground is a battle of heart and soul and mind, and can only be waged on these fields. The humans will follow if only they have someone to lead. Not all, but some. The actions of a single individual can produce an exponential curve which can change the world, if only someone is willing to take the risk.
This is my Dream. And I am willing to do whatever it takes to make it come true.
Thursday, July 20th, 1995
Locating a site on which to build a home is a process that involves body and soul. Most construction companies will insist that little more than surveying is required -- HA! Nothing, in my opinion, could be further from the truth. It is no more possible to know the land from surveying it than it is to accurately estimate a woman's measurements from a photograph of her eyebrows.
Thus selecting a site becomes a difficult and time-consuming matter. Knowing the land involves understanding its spirit and learning its song. One should never build a house on a site where one cannot join harmoniously with the song of the land. Surveying a site of an acre by an acre square (actually it is a little bigger, like an acre and a quarter) can be done in a couple of hours; coming to an understanding of the land can require days. This process -- listening to the song of the land, I mean -- is much easier in Feline form, and I am not at all surprised that most humans don't have the hang of it.
My feline form is as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of slippers, but my coloring is much more obvious. As a person, if I am wearing sunglasses and a hat, someone might think I am merely a platinum blonde. As a cat, however, my fur is as white as snow and my eyes and nose are as pink as rose quartz, and there can be no mistaking the fact that I am an albino. In addition my feline form is my smallest. I tend much more towards bobcats than the larger sorts of lynx, which live in Canada and the northern regions. In feline form I am perhaps three feet long from nose to tail, and weigh possibly 25 pounds. This is an unimpressive size, particularly considering that those Bastet who can turn into lions or tigers can be 9 feet long and weigh 800 pounds or more.
But my feline form is my favorite of all except for my Homid (or human) form. I couldn't begin to explain, to someone who has never been a cat, the magic that lies in the way that a string will twist, or the electric quality in the flight of a bird. Stalking and pouncing is no less an art than opera or ballet. To feel the texture of a tree as one sharpens ones claws, or to lie with the sunshine warming ones fur, these are the things that happiness is made of.
More importantly, as a cat I can listen to the spirits. Have you ever seen a cat, who one moment seems to be peaceful, and the next moment races about the house, fur standing on end, whiskers stiff as little toothpicks, around and around until she finds your best curtains and climbs them to the top? And you watch and think, What in the world has gotten into that cat? This is a cat that has been listening to the spirits, or perhaps even watching them if she is clever enough.
I'm not particularly adept yet at watching spirits, but I am quite good at listening to them. It is rather like trying to listen to the sound of your own blood; you must be absolutely quiet, so quiet you're not even breathing, and you can hear them whispering far away. Then, if you can focus beyond that, it is possible to hear the music in the wind, and the low thrumming in the ground, and the high silvery singing of the stars if it is at night. Song isn't really the right word to for it, but language is such a limiting way of describing things that it will have to do. If you were a cat I could tilt my whiskers just so, and you would understand, but humans must make do with the written word, and that is that. It is the most absorbing and beautiful thing in the world, and it can take days to really be able to grasp the tune well.
So as a consequence it has taken me a while to select a place to live, for I had several choices. It seems that I am able to harmonize best with a site off Bonny Doon Road. This is a beautiful site that borders the State Park. Its melody is delightful, and I selected it almost without hesitation although I have already had some trouble with it.
When I began listening to the song of that particular site, I was also listening to the song of the surrounding area, which included the State Park. The park is a wonderful place to explore as it is untouched by people, and is a good sweet place with clear air and bright skies. Near the edge of the park, perhaps a mile from the fence that separates it from the site I was testing, there is this delightful rock. Its big and has pleasant flat spaces, and it is dark-colored so that the sun warms it. I had found the rock and was lying on it with my feet tucked under me, purring madly to myself because the rock was so warm and the stream next to it had such sweet water, and because the song among the enormous redwoods was intoxicatingly beautiful. In other words, I wasn't paying attention.
Which is why I heard the humans before I smelt them, and I heard them because they stepped past one of the bushes that bordered the clearing around the stream. It was two park rangers, two men. I could tell they were park rangers because they wore uniforms, name tags, and funny park-ranger hats. The younger one had the word trainee under his name and carried a box with vials and a chart inside. The older one was saying, "So once a year we take a sample from each of the streams to make sure they don't get..." The younger one stopped in his tracks when he saw me, and the older one followed his gaze and saw me too. "Don't move," he said to the younger one in a low keep-calm sort of a tone.
My ears were half-back and my tail was twitching. I was angry at the park rangers for disturbing the song with their clumsy human feet and silly human scent, and I was angry at myself because I knew better than to let park rangers so close, particularly with all the hubbub about hunting big cats.
Luckily neither one was armed. Both were carrying backpacks and I hadn't heard a vehicle so they must have hiked from the nearest ranger station, wherever that was. If I had been more familiar with the territory I would have run, but as it was I stayed put. I had nowhere to run except back to the site, somewhere I didnt want to draw their attention, and if I ran randomly in the woods I was likely as not to run into a full-fledged Garou as a silly monkey-boy human.
"Its not very big compared to the mountain lions," said the first park ranger. "And its an albino. None of the hunters who stopped by the station mentioned seeing an albino bobcat. Come to think of it I haven't seen any bobcats around here since I started."
"Don't make any sudden moves," said the older one. "Its big enough for a small lynx and lynx have been known to bring down elk. See how its ears are back? Weve blundered into its territory and it doesnt like trespassers."
"But its lying on its feet..."
"You make a move that scares it and see how quick that changes," spat the older one in kind of a stage whisper. "Bobcats can run considerably faster than we can. Back up slow and gentle. If we can get out of its immediate area without it attacking, well probably be all right."
They looked almost comical trying to back through the bush without looking at it. I heard them breathe a sigh of relief once they were through and listened to them talking while they walked away. That was close, said the older one when they were all the way through.
It didnt look that close to me.
"Have you ever seen a bobcat attack a buffalo?"
A buffalo?
"You heard me. Ever seen it?"
"Um... no."
"I'll show you a videotape when we get back to the ranger station. You'll have a lot more respect for bobcats after you see it, I promise." There was a silence and a sound as if they were walking through tall grass.
"Do you think bobcats killed those hikers...?"
"Oh, that? No way. As you just saw, bobcats don't attack people much." More silence. I could hear hiking boots on loose gravel, farther away now.
"I've never seen an albino bobcat before."
"You're not likely to see one again. Albinos of most species don't last long because their coloring makes it almost impossible for them to hide, or to hunt."
Their voices were fainter now. "Should we try and tag it?"
"We didn't bring the equipment. Still, it would be an interesting study, and I think it deserves to be tagged. There hasn't been much observation of bobcats in the area, let alone albinos. Well mention it to the other rangers and see what they think. Their voices were almost out of my range now.
"What will we do about the river sample?"
"We'll hike around about five miles and get the sample from...," their voices finally faded away. I fumed on my rock, out of sorts.
I should add here some details about the process of changing forms back and forth from Homid to feline and back again. The matter of clothes is a tricky one for many shape-changers as it is of course impossible to wear them in feline form, but one hardly wants to be without them in Homid form. The answer to this dilemma is a little sing entitled Rite of Dedication. A sing is exactly what it sounds like, a song that is chanted in order to create a magical effect. Father was a shaman, and he taught me all of the sings I know.
The Sing of Dedication is a ritual that binds the objects specified (like clothes) to the person doing the sing. The Rite only binds them to one form, so that if they are bound to Homid form, upon the change to Feline the clothes will wait in the near-Umbra until the proper form comes back, and which time they resume their rightful place. Most of my clothes are dedicated, and all of my jewelry is.
The jewelry I also inherited from Father, and it is beautiful. I would no more consider myself dressed without the appropriate jewelry than I would if I were standing naked on the evening news. As an albino I haven't the skin tone for gold, and so all of my jewelry is made of German silver set with turquoise.
Now I know what you are thinking. Silver! You say. Bastet have a weakness to silver and they cannot wear it! German silver is a little different, and although it is not well known it has a long and honorable history with many plains and southwestern Indian tribes. Despite its name it is an alloy containing no silver at all, but rather is composed mostly of nickel (I believe the other main component is zinc.) From an esthetic point of view it is indistinguishable from silver without resorting to chemical analysis. It will not rust or tarnish, takes exactly the same shine as silver, solders identically, and so on. But because of its composition I can wear it as I please.
And oh, how I love to wear German silver. I almost never go anywhere without at least a Concho belt and squash blossom necklace -- I own several of each. I also have a pair of favorite ketohs (ceremonial wrist-guards, originally created for archery and since evolved into a jewelry form) that I am virtually never without. My shirts have silver buttons and the buttons on my moccasins are set with turquoise. I make jewelry in my spare time, my only activity that could be called a hobby, using German silver and the raw turquoise that Father left me, from a mine called, simply, number 8.
Thus when I went back to the site and changed form, I was fully dressed, with silver around my neck and waist. I believe I have mentioned that the site is beautiful, and when I finally got back I was glad to see it. From my backyard I have a wonderful view of the redwood forest, and there is a little stream that flows nearby, not on my site but close enough to be heard. Even better, in a kind of a corner of the site is a gigantic tree. I don't believe it is a redwood, or it if is, then it is a very young one that has not attained its true height yet.
Nevertheless it is magnificent. It is tall and stately, with branches that seem to catch the stars. It effectively shades the entire site so that it is never too hot, but still with plenty of warm sunbeams to lie in. Beneath it grows a variety of plants, and in its branches the birds roost. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.
After making the decision that this was the site I wanted, I went about introducing myself. The tree was clearly the guardian of this wonderful site and so that was where I started. Trees see time differently than creatures that are made of flesh and blood, and introducing oneself to a tree is a daunting affair.
I began formally, explaining who I was, why I was here, and what I intended to do. I expressed my goodwill for the tree and its surroundings and presented it a gift of a number of small fresh fish, which I buried at strategic places around its roots. I introduced it to each of my forms (technically there are five,) and stated my goodwill in each form.
Father once told me that I have a gift in relating to the near-Umbra, or the spirit-world, as the humans would call it.
"That came from your mother," he said at that time.
"Who was my mother?" I asked him, for he said very little about my parents. I asked him that several times, and his answer always varied. Once he told me my mother was a Cheetah and my father was a Lynx. Another time he told me my mother was the moon, and my father was a stone that fell from the sky onto her body. A third time he explained that my parents were a pine cone, a salmon, and a burst of sunlight.... You get the idea.
At any rate, I find that I often see into the spirit-realm, and most of the time I don't even mean to. The only pattern I have been able to figure out is that if there is something in the near-Umbra that knows I am there and wants me to be able to see it, then I am gifted with a vision of that thing. If it does not want to be seen, and I want to see it anyway, I must force contact. This can be done using a Sing called spirits-sight, but I rarely do so. At the very least it is rude.
Seeing into the near-Umbra is unusual, but it has happened often enough that I wasn't surprised when, some nights after my introduction to the tree, I had a Dream. I dreamt of a tall and stately matron standing in the precise spot where the tree stood, though in the dream there was no tree. She was a great and beautiful woman wearing robes of the purest emerald green, with stars in her hair. "I accept your gift of goodwill," she told me, "and offer you one in return." Then I heard Butterfly's voice. "Come and see," he said.
Butterfly is my Jamaak. Jamaak are spirits something like totems, but with less power. Butterfly is a beautiful and loving creature and we are great friends.
I was surprised because his voice came from beneath the ground, and always before when I had heard or seen him he has been in the air, flitting from thing to thing as it pleases him. His voice came from almost directly beneath the matronly woman, or more specifically from the stand of rocks some fifty feet away. The rocks rise in the distance to become a ridge, and they give about half the sight a sort of uneven hilly terrain.
I wanted to see what Butterfly had discovered, and in the wishing I found myself sinking feet-first into the earth, until at last it seemed that I was standing in some sort of opening or cave, looking directly at him. Now it so happens that Butterfly is a fantastic creature to gaze upon. He constantly changes colors and sizes and the most brilliant and beautiful patterns flash on his wings. He remains generally butterfly-shaped, now with the shape of a swallowtail, now with the shape of a monarch, now with the shape of a lunar-moth, and so on. But his wings are as if someone had cut them from a kaleidoscope while it was working.
Around me was a large opening of some sort. The colors glowing from his wings made the walls shine in the most delightful shades, and the shadows flitted and danced. I woke up thinking it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
For a while I looked all up and down and sideways on those rocks, and saw neither Butterfly nor anything of importance. It was in my feline form that I finally found the hole in the rocks. It was a small hole, not very noticeable and awkwardly placed. Its not an easy thing to get into, either: even in my twenty-five-pound feline form I had to drop to my stomach and sort of creep. But after a few feet of this the hole widened and I was able to stand and even turn around.
The hole had turned into a sort of cave, as big around as a tire from a car and about ten feet long. At the end I found a sort of loose graveled slope that went down seemingly for a long way. When I got to the bottom -- finally -- I was in was the place I had dreamed about, and it was more magical in real life than it had been when I had dreamt of it.
Just when I entered a beam of light shot straight down from the ceiling, so fast I thought for a moment it had reacted to my entrance. The sunlight lit the cave and revealed the most magnificent colors on the walls: rusty reds and gentle browns and dusty ambers in horizontal stripes. In the light from the ceiling I was able to explore it from end to end. It was a sinkhole of some sort, maybe twelve feet around and two or three times that high. There were no other entrances except the one I had come through. The light, when I looked up at the ceiling, came from a little rugged crack. Around the edges of one wall I could see tree roots where they had tentatively entered, and then dived back into the soil.
It was a wonderful place, and when I saw it I knew I had found my home. I wondered if I imagined the feeling of latent power...? But power or no, it was a place where one could sit and meditate, a place to heal a broken heart or find rest if one is weary, a calming place. Butterfly came flitting through the crack in the ceiling and circled until he could land on my tail. "See," he said proudly.
"It is beautiful," I told him.
"The gift of the tree," Butterfly replied in his thin voice. "We will be happy here. I like this place." And he flitted away, back up through the little crack.
I stayed there until the sun had moved on and the room was dark again, and then returned the way I had come. After some searching I found the crack in the stand of rocks but it wasn't big enough for me to put my hand in it, even as a cat. Nevertheless I breathed a sigh of relief when it was definite that the entire cave was deeply within my property line.
The following morning I packed up my VW bug and headed to the university. I wanted to find out why there was a hole in the middle of my property, and also to find out whether there were any other holes that I ought to know about. When I went to the university and asked for surveying maps and told the fellow why, he laughed at me. "You bought property in that region? You were gypped, babe."
His tone put me off. "Oh, and why is that? And who are you to say so?"
He grinned good-naturedly and put out a hand. "Mark. Hi. I'm a geology major."
"Then why are you working in the library? Shouldn't you be in the geology department?
I gotta have another three credits to finish the semester. Here's the map you wanted. C'mere and let me give you a quick geology lesson." He laid it out on the table and we found my site. "Man, you're out in the boonies. Look here, see this river?" His hand traced a blue line across the page.
"Yes, but it's miles from me."
He grinned. He had a thin face, dark hair, and kind of a lopsided smile, and I found that I liked him. "You haven't been in the Shake-and-bake State long, have you?"
I hadn't heard that precise term before and laughed. "No, I guess I haven't.
Well, look, millions of years ago this river ran underground. The river is miles to the west of you now, but see this butte over here to the east of you? Those formations must have been pretty spectacular once although they're just sort of rounded hills now. This is probably where that river came out, and that puts its course right underneath your property.
What happened to it, then?
In California? Earthquake, probably. This whole area here collapsed and that would have diverted the river completely so that it runs north like it does now instead of east like it did then." He fished out a piece of paper and a pen, and started to draw. "Now, see, underground, stuff would have been going on behind the scenes. Pretend the surface is this level line here," he drew a line across the page, "And beneath the surface you have layers of various sorts of soil." He drew several parallel lines underneath the first one. "Now what happens is that these layers have different hardnesses - that is, some of them erode faster than others. Let's say this middle layer is soft, and these two layers are hard, and these here are sort of in between: if we called soft "1" and hard "10", these would maybe be "5"."
He fished around and came up with a blue pen. "As the river flowed it would erode the softest layer the most and the hardest the least, so over time you get these bizarre shapes." He began drawing loose circles, making them very wide in some places and narrow in others. "So what happens is," he took the original map and unfolded it again, "All through this area here there are underground pits, and partially eroded layers, and no one knows precisely where they are, and it would cost so much to find out that no one is willing to try. Nobody wants to build because there's no telling what they will run into when they are trying to build the foundation."
I smiled at him. "Perfect."
He looked surprised. "Really?"
"Really. I'm writing my thesis on alternative building methods and energy sources."
"Sounds interesting."
"It is."
"Hey, are you free today? We could go to a park. I know one that's right next to the river..."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you asking me out?"
He laughed a little nervously. "I guess I am."
"Humph," I said in pretended disdain. "Scoundrel."
"You don't know the half of it, babe."
I thought the matter over. "Actually, I'd like to go hiking." I dug the old battered article out of my backpack. "I read this article about this cat attack..."
"Oh, I saw the police taking casts after that," he replied when he saw the article.
"Really? What were you doing way out there?"
"Well, that was right near where I was camped out at the time..." He shut his mouth quickly but it was too late. I had seen the large backpack under the library counter when I had come in and I knew it was his because it had the same padaa.
I suppose I should pause here and explain quickly about a cat's special senses. Most creatures have five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. A sixth sense is generally regarded, among humans, as some sort of psychic phenomena. However, werecats have a sixth sense, and it is called padaa. It is not at all psychic but rather a combination of taste and smell that can be used at distances. It is possible, if one is in feline form, to follow a padaa trail for miles and miles, long after a normal scent trail has dispersed. This is why cats with ESP are known as having a seventh sense.
Padaa is specific and accurate. One would not confuse two individuals by using padaa, any more than one would confuse the smell of baking pepperoni pizza with the smell of baking brownies. It just isn't done. There was no question in my mind that the backpack -- the big hiker kind -- was his.
"You're between houses at the moment, aren't you?"
He looked chagrined. "Well, yeah, but don't spread it around, huh? Living expenses in California are so high that there are a lot of homeless students, but we don't necessarily want everybody to know. We have our pride, you know."
"That's a pretty classy attitude. Tell you what, can we hike up to the place you saw those policemen taking casts? I'll buy you lunch.
Now how can I resist an offer like that? Sure, but I'm not free from classes until Saturday."
"Saturday it is, then."
"You're sure this is the spot?" I asked Mark.
It had been a dry and dusty climb, and we were both winded. The area here was sort of scrubby, but in the distance I could see the redwoods. I took a drink from my water bottle, and offered Mark one, which he took gratefully. The area was almost unnaturally quiet. No birds, no bees, nothing. A lizard scurried away when I put my foot too close, but apart from that nothing moved. That would make sense at the scene of a Garou attack, but still...
"This area is all an upraised seabed. You can find fossil brachiopods, prehistoric sharks' teeth, crinoids, all around here." Looking at Kate, he added, "Sorry, but I'm a geology major. Can't help bringing it with me sometimes."
Geology majors," I laughed at him. "You're sure this is the place? I repeated, as he hadn't answered.
He climbed to the top of a small rise and looked down. There was a tall lonely oak tree here, but its shade didn't reach us. Some fifty feet on the other side of the rise the ground had been disturbed in the past, but now grass was growing in those spots as Gaia tried to heal the intrusion. Mark knelt and indicated some of the hollows, and also pointed out cigarette butts and water bottle caps that I hadn't noticed before. "This is where they were taking the plaster casts after the attack," he said. "It was some woman doing the work. The cops were just standing around shooting the shit. They had an awning set up over there with a table underneath it. Looked like there were several more casts in addition to the first one."
"Oh, these people!" I cried in momentary exasperation. "Can't they even keep a state park clean?" I fished out a bag and put the litter in it to dispose of later, before turning back to the problem at hand. "Was that it?"
Mark shook his head. "Sorry, that's all I saw before I was run out of here. I didn't come back for a while, I'll tell you. After the cat attack most of the other homeless, including yours truly, started sleeping in state parks for a while, which means we've been visiting the city jail more often than usual. But since the big-cat hunt... well, I'm out of the city parks again and back in the woods. Some of the other homeless are drifting back as well."
I nodded and looked around without comment. Now cleansed of the cigarette butts the place was pristine. I had expected that too much time had passed to get any kind of padaa, and in this I was not disappointed. The day was stifling but the trees were green, and the sky was a clear turquoise blue, and the redwood trees were the color of
(blood.)
There was a tambourine on the grass, in a spot I was quite certain had been empty when I looked at it a moment ago. It was in perfect condition except that it was all spattered and slobbered with gore. There were streamers tied to it, lying in random profusion on the ground, and they must have been beautiful at one time. Now they were all brown, with only a spot or two showing on the cleaner ones to indicate what color they had once been.
The blood was all dried and crusty, but as I watched it began to soften, to unglop and brighten until it was rich scarlet, so new that it hadn't attracted flies, and the rich salty smell of fresh blood floated to my nostrils. I closed my eyes hard. Was the near-Umbra thin here or were these just images that just wanted to be seen? It was so hard to tell, and presumably it would remain so until I learned how to get into the near-Umbra myself. But no, if the Umbra was thin it would be a cairn or at least a visionary-place to the Garou, and we wouldn't be permitted anywhere near it.
"Are you all right?" I focused on Mark's smell until I could no longer smell blood, and then opened my eyes. The grass was clear and green and nothing stained it.
"I'm all right," I told him. "My eyes are light-sensitive and it's very bright today." The images wanted to be seen, I was fairly certain, but I would have to come back tonight. It was not an appropriate thing to do in front of Mark. "We ought to go," I told him. "This is what I wanted to see. Thank you for bringing me. As promised, I'll give you a ride to town and buy you lunch. Do you have any idea how far we've hiked?"
Mark started back towards the fire-road we had come up on. "About four miles," he said. "You're sunburnt, too."
"Of course I am," I said resignedly. Its OK, I've got sunburn lotion in the car. Its great stuff - its made from aloe vera and herbs, all natural ingredients. I kicked at the surface of the neglected trail. Don't they ever use that fire-road?" I followed him as the site faded into the distance.
"Well... they do when there's a fire..."
I laughed, and we left the area of the hiker attack behind.
Saturday, July 22nd, 1995 6:46 p.m.
I don't go downtown very often as a rule. It's not that I don't enjoy all of its hustle and bustle, for I certainly do, but building a house by hand tends to keep one extremely busy. Nevertheless, while remote and beautiful sites in the mountains have many advantages, having pizza delivered is not one of them.
In spite of my newness to the area I already have a favorite pizza shop. It is a little place that is owned by a family from Italy. The owner is almost comically Italian, with dark hair that is graying at the temples, dark eyes, and a mustache. If he were short and fat instead of tall and skinny, he would be absolutely stereotypical. "Kate!" he said when he saw me. "How's the house coming? And who's this?"
I introduced Mark and we chatted for a while. The owner of the pizza parlor had recently brought his wife to the United States, and they had a baby on the way, so there was a lot to talk about. Eventually, though, we sat down at the table with the checkered red and white tablecloth and ordered a pizza. This is unusual for me, as the pizzas are so huge that I normally get them by the slice, but I had not previously had a guest.
In spite of caution, ketohs, and sunscreen, I was nicely sunburnt by that mornings activity. I smeared my sunburn lotion on my scarlet arms and burnt nose and cheeks before the pizza arrived. I ate one piece and let Mark have the rest. He gobbled it down so ravenously that I wondered when the last time was that he had eaten anything.
Behind him I could see the street through the windows. I hadn't been downtown before on a weekend, and I was surprised at how much more crowded it was. A lot of the people crowding the sidewalks were probably tourists from the way that they peeked in shop windows and consulted maps. I wondered why they weren't at the beach... maybe they just wanted to crash the "local" scene.
A growl attracted my attention. I was surprised at the thrill of alarm that ran through me. I couldn't see sufficiently through the windows, so with a muttered "Be right back" to Mark, I walked to the doorway and looked down the street.
There was a big pack of dogs on the corner. I mean that in both senses of word: there were a lot of dogs, and each one was very large. Some of them probably weighed as much as a dog as I did as a human, and as I am six feet tall I am no lightweight. The way that they growled, I would have thought that the tourists would have had enough sense to get out of the way. The locals gave the dogs plenty of room. But the tourists, apparently feeling superior, refused to move.
I have heard that other Bastet are courageous enough when faced with a threat, but I have always felt frightened. At this particular instant my heart was beating very fast. I wasn't at all surprised to hear the screams down the street. "Hey, that dog just bit me! Somebody call an ambulance!"
The tourists scrambled out of the way - finally - and the dogs trotted down the street as if they owned it, which they effectively did. With the tourists cleared out, I was able to get my first good solid look at the pack.
They were Garou. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that they were Garou. There were at least twenty, maybe more. Now don't get me wrong. It's not like I never met Garou before. But before I had always met them with Father, and only one at a time, and even at that I had only met three; two that claimed to be Stargazers and one that was a Child of Gaia. The pack coming towards me on the street was the largest gathering of shapechangers that I had ever seen in one place.
I wondered what they were hunting for, for beyond question they were hunting. There was the lead Garou: those were probably tracking by scent, those over there were looking for something, and the ones that peeled off the back from time to time were methodically smelling out each building. Some of this last group were brazen enough to walk right in the stores, sending the customers running out into the street. I watched as the pack walked down the street towards the pizza parlor.
In spite of the fact that I was in human form, and was wearing my hat and sunglasses and might have been just anybody except for my sunburn and white hair, I attracted the attention of the lead wolf. (Chalk another one up for unusual coloring, I suppose.) He peeled off the front and walked towards the door of the pizza parlor. One of the silly monkeys on the porch said, "Look at that German Shepherd. It must be hungry." The woman tossed the "dog" a piece of pizza. I overheard someone else telling her not to be stupid, and if she didn't feed it then it would go away.
The lead wolf was a large gray timber wolf with yellow eyes. It stood some four feet high and if it hadn't been acting like a terrorist, it would have been a noble and magnificent creature. As it was, he was merely terrifying. He ignored the pizza and walked right into the shop as if was intending to check something in it. I stood in the doorway and watched him. He stopped on the threshold and watched me.
I heard Mark's voice behind me. The shop had gone absolutely still. "Don't move, Kate. He shouldn't bite you if you don't move." Mark's voice was low and frightened and didn't do anything for my ease of mind. The hair on my neck was standing on end. Normally I wouldn't have expected to be attacked in broad daylight, in the middle of a bunch of shops with humans everywhere to be witnesses. But these dogs were so hostile! I don't think they cared what the humans saw.
But cats, unlike humans, will not be bullied. I suppose that I must run true to form, for when the huge timber wolf put a foot forwards as if he would enter the shop whether I was there or not, I was suddenly more angry than frightened. I recognized instantly, upon feeling the emotion, that being angry with a Garou while he is leading a pack of twenty or so other Garou is not necessarily a good idea.
Thank goodness for Tai Chi. I have been a faithful student for some years and can say without fear of conceit that I have gained some small measure of prowess in the art. The fighting moves of the style - which are excellent - are considered a secondary thing, or at least they were by my teacher in New Mexico. The primary goal of Tai Chi is to resolve a conflict in a non-violent fashion. Part of this involves acknowledging one's emotions, and another part involves managing them. I took a deep breath. Master Thai (my teacher in New Mexico) taught me how to feel air filling up my lungs, taught me to feel how much differently my blood flows through my veins after the oxygen has blessed it. It is the most soothing and calming sensation in the world and under most circumstances brings me instant peace. Today was no exception.
So when I knelt down and looked the lead Garou straight in the eyes - something none of the humans had done - I was completely calm. It was surprised. As a shapechanger myself, I can understand the expressions of animals or those in animal form. It had recognized me as a Bastet and I think it expected that I would do something... but probably not what I did. It growled but I wasn't frightened. Nor did I get out of its way. I continued looking into its eyes, and I waited. I was not going to allow him to bully me.
Both he and I knew better than to get into a fight. Any Bastet is fearsome when it attacks, even those who - like myself - are built more like a librarian than a warrior. If the Garou were alone I might stand a chance, but the presence of his friends made for long odds that I didn't like.
But that was if he attacked, and I didn't think that he would. There were too many people, too many cars, too much happening. Out of a crowd this size, somebody would get away, and somebody would remember, and that would lead to all sorts of trouble. This is not to mention the time it would take away from their hunt and the losses in their tribe, because at least some of them would be coming with me when they took me down. In addition there were the other Bastet to consider (I have never met another Bastet and the Garou could probably splatter me all over the pavement and the Bastet wouldn't care, but the Garou don't know that.)
So we sat and stared at each other for a while. Behind me I could hear Mark hiss, "Jeez, Kate, he's gonna bite you-"
He didn't, of course. After giving me a long hard look and a low dangerous growl, and seeing that I refused to flinch at them, he snorted at me and slowly turned back the way he had come. I saw several of the other wolves look at each other before continuing down the street. I stood up and watched them pass by. Most of them looked at me, and one of them even peeled off towards me, but was stopped by a sharp bark from the lead Garou. The stray wolf hastily resumed his position and I watched the pack until they turned the corner.
I turned back to Mark. He had forgotten to chew the bite he had started, and now he remembered and swallowed it hastily. "Jeez," he muttered as he took another bite out of the pizza, "Those dogs are getting pretty bold. I don't know why the police don't do something. They don't seem to have any stomach to pick on anything that'll fight back. They'd rather kick the homeless and poor around."
I was surprised to hear it. "Have the dogs been a problem for a long time?"
"Only for the past couple of months," Mark replied. "They'll attack anyone that gets in their way. You won't read this in the papers, but I heard that at least three homeless have been killed by them."
"These dogs have been killing people? And nothing has been done?"
He leaned down and whispered, "I heard that they were, " he grimaced a little, "'eaten.' In fact, I think maybe it was those wild dogs that killed those hikers and not cougars at all. I've never heard of cougars attacking a group of people ever."
"Well, of course it wasn't the cougars," I said impatiently, and then regretted my tone at Marks surprised look.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Look, picture yourself as a cat. You have acute sight and hearing, and you don't trust humans, right? The newspapers said there were originally about fifteen hikers although the rest ran away, and that they were singing and playing drums and tambourines! I hadn't intended to eat any more pizza but I took another slice and took a bite out of it. Have you ever shaken a tambourine at a wild animal? You know how fast a cougar would head for the hills if you shook a tambourine at it?"
"I hadn't thought of that," Mark admitted slowly.
"Yeah, most people haven't thought of that. Pardon me for dumping on you but it just makes me so mad when these dumb people get hold of some theory or other and believe in it implicitly without even bothering to check their facts. We won't even get into the hunting methods of the average cougar with details like they don't hunt at the time of day that the attack was reported, that they hunt individual prey and not groups. Oh, don't even get me started about that hiker attack."
"Um," said Mark with a mouthful of pizza.
I looked at him closely. He hadn't mentioned being hungry but the way that he was consuming the pizza spoke louder than the words he hadn't said. He was clean as a whistle, but thin, and his eyes were hollow. His jeans were patched so cleverly that I had never even noticed them in the library, and his tennis shoes had holes. In spite of all of this, he had no smell of the Unmaker about him, or even what the Garou would have called the Wyrm. And I liked him.
"You said you were looking for work," I finally said. "Let me give you a proposal here. You know I'm building a house, right? Well, I could sure use some help, but I can't afford to hire anybody because I can't pay them. If you're willing to do good honest work, and if you're willing to abide by my rules - the way I've set things up for my thesis - then I'll make sure you have a roof over your head and three square meals a day. I can't pay anything, really, but we could keep you in clothes and textbooks. It's not much, but its more than you have now, and I can promise that those dogs won't bother you."
Mark shrugged, appearing not too interested - perhaps even trying a bit too hard not to be interested. "I like my freedom," he said, followed by a long silence. When I didn't reply, he added, "But I'm willing to hear some more. What are the rules?
I smiled, feeling like a fisherman at the moment when the fish takes the bait and the reel goes crazy. "No illegal substances of any form allowed on the property. No alcohol. If you want to drink, that's fine, but you sleep somewhere else. No smoking. Cigarettes will be a separate project in and of themselves, and during this first project, no cigarettes allowed. No visitors that I don't know about beforehand. No firearms. I own a rifle that should be sufficient for any drastic problems we are likely to encounter. The idea of the thesis is to live in harmony with the land, without sacrificing most of our comforts. Most of the guidelines are common sense: don't litter, don't chop down the trees, and so on."
Mark paused all of about three seconds before replying, "O.K. I'm in for now."
"I thought you might be," I said with a smile.
Saturday, July 22nd, 1995 8:03 p.m.
The pizza's fate sealed, we rose from our seats and headed outside. Still munching his last morsel, Mark swung his backpack on his shoulder. As we stepped out of the restaurant, he gulped the pizza's last remnant down. "I wonder," he said, "since you are building your house, where are you sleeping?" He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, "a trailer?"
Poor Mark. I was already worrying about his reaction when he found out how I was set up. I personally had no regrets, and he seemed to be flexible enough but....Ah, well. Never mind the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
"Not exactly," I had to admit. "I think you'll be surprised when you see how I'm set up." I hated to use the term surprise for what was in store for that poor man; I felt rather as if I was preparing him for a firecracker rather than a stick of dynamite. "There were... just too many things to deal with regarding a trailer," I said finally. "Price was a factor but also there were things I didn't want to have to have as variables, like chemicals and waste output and it was just a big mess." I searched for words to describe where I was living. "My... let's call it housing arrangement," I winced at the term, "... is fairly cool when the weather is warm, and fairly warm when the weather is cool. It's comfortable and furnished and at night you can look at the stars. It has a lot of advantages but it's... I don't know, eclectic? Crazy? Eccentric? What do you say in California, anyway, if someone falls outside of the generally established norms of society like hiring a building company to construct your house? And choosing to live in radically different circumstances during construction?"
"Anyway, it's very different, and I don't want to tell you any more than that before we get there because I don't want you to have any preconceived notions about what I am doing. One of the things I would like to do, once you see the project, is to get your initial reactions. That would be useful for me. "
I searched for words. "I don't know how to put this... if you can keep an open mind you might find yourself surprised at how quickly it grows on you. Are you an open-minded guy, Mark?"
Mark grinned. "You know, the last time I was asked this question, it was at the end of a party, by a friend of mine who had taken one, or two or three too many. I'll spare you the details, but the proposition afterward included vegetables, left foot shoes and diverse body fluids." He shook his head, a mild nostalgia hanging on his smile. "Yes, yes, I think I am. Open-minded, that is." The grin returned, "but it doesn't keep me from being alarmed when the question is asked."
I giggled like mad at this description, imagining what that proposition must have been. "Oh, Mark," I giggled, "And to think all this time I had discounted all the rumors about people from California and left-handed shoes!" I laughed until I was breathless.
Mark, in turn, laughed at my own remarks. "Rumors? What do you mean, rumors? I thought all the witnesses had been taken care of and the negatives burned!" He shook his head in mock-resignation. "Oh, well. As long as it doesn't pass at Unsolved Mysteries."
His face grew thoughtful. He tapped lightly his middle finger at his right temple. "It's fairly cool when the weather is warm, and fairly warm when the weather is cool,' he quoted thoughtfully. This sounds like a riddle... Say, could this have any relation with your research at the library?" His eyes sparkled, and his face lit, and I was enchanted by the look on his face. "Let me guess... You found a cave on your propriety and installed yourself in it. Is that it? Did I win?"
He was so clever! I wasn't accustomed to people guessing what I was about, at least those who were not Magii or Garou or some such thing. "You're very close," I told him. I felt as if I had gotten an unexpected present for my birthday. "Very probably there is a cave on the property, but no, I am not set up in it, and when you see it you'll see why." As an afterthought I added, "And don't even get me started on the subject of riddles. I just adore them and would pursue them to the exclusion of all else if I thought I could get away with it. If you're not careful you'll end up knowing every riddle ever known to mankind and I never give the answers. You have to guess them! That's what riddles are for!"
"Of course!" he cried, "there's no point in it otherwise." He half-closed his eyes, and began to recite. His face was lit and his voice spoke the words as tenderly and gently as a dearly loved child.
"When there is fire in me, then I am still cold;
When I own your true love's face, then you will not see me;
To all things I give no more than I am given;
In time I may have all things, and yet I can keep nothing."
He smiled mischievously. "What am I?"
I felt as if I had been struck by lighting. He knew a riddle! I had never known another human being that loved riddles as much as I. For a while I just stared at him in wonder.
"Very good," I managed to say at last when I had found my voice. "That's one I don't know the answer to right away. Wonderful!" I could hardly catch my breath. "In one week I will answer the riddle or admit that it has bested me. When you have a new riddle, it won't do to answer right away, even if you know the answer, for the spirit of the riddle will feel insulted. It is important to honor the spirit of the riddle, and by waiting it will not only give me time to contemplate it, but it will make the spirit proud because it puzzled me for so long. Well done!"
Mark raised an eyebrow at the spirit's mention, but it was nothing compared to the quiet smugness that had invaded his features. For an instant, he almost looked like a cat ready to purr. Bowing slightly, he raised his right hand to his heart. "I'm happy that you like it, fair Lady." He sighed melodramatically, "but I fear, alas, that my riddle lore begins and ends with this one."
He paused, his eyes twinkling. "Or does it? I just remembered... No, I'll speak no more until the week has ended!"
I looked at the college student thoughtfully. At that moment I liked him immensely and I felt bad for the patched jeans and the worn-out sneakers. He deserved better.
"Come on." I unlocked the doors and we hopped in my bug.
He didn't comment for a few minutes, apparently lost in thought, but then he noticed where we were headed. Hey, where are you going? You live on the other side of town!
Here, I told him as we pulled into the local Wal-Mart. Come on.
Poor Mark. He must have been so overwhelmed.
We hit the shoe department first, then clothing, then the outer isles to pick up necessaries.
"I'd say those sneakers have about had it, wouldn't you? What size do you wear? You like those? Great, we'll take them. Here are jeans and there are shirts - do you like T-shirts or the button-down kind? Oh, definitely get the blue. Let's see, toothbrush, hairbrush, razors, socks, and what else do you need? Oh, we forgot school supplies! For heavens sake get the calculator if you are in advanced chemistry and quit doing all the calculations by hand. No, there's more room in the basket, we can put it in this little space right here. Fantastic, ring it up. No, this is cash..."
It took probably half an hour. Afterwards Mark, who hadn't had the time to react, at least not to say anything, to the white tornado that I had become, found himself out of the store, holding half a dozen bags, before he could protest.
"What... What do you think you are doing? he said when he found his voice, flabbergasted and blushing wildly.
I laughed, took the bags out of his arms, and popped open the trunk. "I'm doing three things," I told him as I turned the key in the lock. "First, I'm fulfilling my part of the bargain. Didn't we just decide an hour ago that you were going to help me build my house, and in return I would supply you with a place to live and food on the table because I couldn't pay you a salary?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't think that this is free stuff because you're going to work your tail off. But don't think I'm just going to let you wither away naked, homeless, and hungry, either. "
"But...", he began.
I tossed some bags inside. "The second thing I'm doing," I said, "is making an investment, the only kind of investment that matters: I'm investing in your life and your future. " I turned to him and looked at him seriously. "And I'll tell you something about the homeless that you probably already know. If you go up to those guys who hold up the signs that say 'Will work for food' and you offer them a job, they won't take it. They just want money. But every once in a while, maybe one time out of ten or one time out of twenty, you get somebody who will jump at the chance to work, and when you find that person, snap him up as fast as you can. That's the guy who's down on his luck, who's between jobs, who wants the hand up instead of the hand out. And in my opinion that's one of the best investments that anybody can make. " I finished tossing bags into the trunk. I wasn't out of bags but the trunk was out of room. "Besides, I saw the holes in the bottoms of your tennis shoes and if you can't possibly expect to do a proper day's work with shoes like that. And if we need to come here and get the shoes, we might as well get everything else, mightn't we? I mean, we're here anyway, right?"
I looked at the last packages, the ones that would not fit into the trunk because it was full. "The third thing I am doing is repaying a debt," I said slowly. "You see, there was someone else who invested in my life and my future a while ago. And when I tried to pay him back he explained that it wasn't the sort of debt which could be repaid in that way, that such a debt could only cleared was by passing it on to someone else, by investing in their lives and then explaining to them that they would have to invest in the lives of others when the time was right."
I put the packages in the back seat and look seriously at the poor overwhelmed geology student. "That is the condition which is over and above the agreement which you and I have. One day you will be established, and when that day comes and you see someone else, who is in need, you're going to give them a hand up but not a hand out. Agreed?" I held out my hand for him to shake.
At first, Mark remained silent. His gaze was glued to my hands. Finally, he looked up. The expression on his face was like a child's, the look that any kid would have when finding an unthinkable but not unhoped-for gift under the Christmas tree; or when discovering that all his friends had deserted him on the day of his birthday only to prepare him a surprise party. He took a deep breath and finally looked into my eyes. The childish wonder receded, replaced by a shy smile, but his eyes were still gleaming like twin stars. "Deal", he said simply, took my hands in both of his, and smiled at me.
I wondered at the feeling of happiness that went through me. I didn't try to take back my hand. I just stood there and smiled at him. I would have purred furiously if I had been in any form except Homid. I must have looked like an idiot.
At long last, he released my hand. "We... Um... Are we going? I can't wait to see your revolutionary habitation..."
I shook myself out of looking at the way his eyes were shining, and turned instead to rummage in the back seat with the last package in my hand. "Yep, we're going. If we can just get this last package in maybe if I move this over here... no, that's not going to work. That's the only bad thing about this bug is that it doesn't have much room. Oh, I know, I could turn this the other direction... no, still doesn't work. Um.... Here." After some fishing around I dug out my mailbox. This is an empty, medium-sized cardboard box that I use to pick up my mail. On the side in magic marker it says, 'Mail Box.' (I had to mark it because I kept forgetting and putting other things in it.) "Do you mind holding this in your lap?"
"Um... sure," Mark said, took the box, and got into the car.
"Great," I tossed the last package into the newly empty space, jumped in the car, and turned the key. "Wear your seat belt," I told my passenger as we headed down the street. "I hope you don't mind but I need to stop by the post office on the way in," I said as we went. "We're too far out to get mail delivery and so I have a post office box that I check about once a week. We can get you set up with your own PO box if we need to."
I hesitated, wondering just how far I could push him: but there wasn't a way around it. "The other thing I have to ask you," I told him hesitantly, "Is whether you wish to be introduced to the guardian of the site."
"The guardian of the site." Mark was looking mystified.
I couldn't bring myself to try to explain the Guardian when he wasn't staring it in the face. "Yep. I'd like to introduce you, but you don't have to if you don't want to."
"Well... uh.... Sure, why not? I'll meet anybody."
I worried for a moment, but the memory of the loving way he had recited the riddle gave me courage. "You realize that I'm going to hold you to that," I teased him. "We'll need to make one extra stop, then..."
A couple of turns and a short red light brought us to the farmers market. "Won't be a sec," I told him, and ran to one of the booths.
The owner of the booth is a fellow named Steve Tusco, another individual I had met in by brief time in California. I like his booth because he won't stock produce that has been chemically altered.
I wanted a fish for Mark to give to the Guardian, and the very best fish that he had. After all, it was going to be a gift to a dear friend, and one wouldn't want to give a dear friend just any old thing. When I introduced myself to the Guardian originally, I used fish that I had caught myself, but with a guest I could hardly turn into a cat and bat at the nearby stream until I nailed a fish! At last we settled on a nice halibut, and after a few moments of haggling the fish was mine.
I told Mark merely, "That's Steve Tusco and he has the freshest produce in town. He carries good fish, too." I put it in the cardboard mailbox as there was no room anywhere else, and off we went to the post office.
Cats in many ways are friendly and sociable creatures, and I particularly like my mail. I write to just about everybody, and just about everybody writes back. Mail day is always the bright point of the week.
When I got back to the car with the box half-full of letters Mark goggled at them all, and I suppose it must have looked like a lot to someone who hadn't even had a mailbox before. I had received letters of every shape, form, and description. There were letters in scented envelopes written in narrow, slanted calligraphy, others written in childish scrawls in what looks suspiciously like crayon. There were typed envelopes, computer-generated envelopes with personal notes written in the corners, and envelopes that sported carefully drawn art. There was also the normal smattering of bills (ugh,) but they usually got kind of buried, and today was no exception.
Mark whistled at the box. "Boy, that's what I call mail. Should I conclude that you have many, many pen-pals?" Then, eyeing the fish, "and could the same spirit of deduction be right by guessing that fish will be on the menu tonight?"
I wondered what to say about that. "The fish is for dinner," I said at last, "But not for us. As far as the letters go, if you tell me who they are from, I will tell you about them," I added hastily, hoping to divert his attention from the fish.
"Okay," he said agreeably, and fished a letter at random. "Mary Gitaly?"
I was delighted, as I hadn't noticed her letter in the stack. "Oh, Mary Gitaly! She's married and going back to college. I think she's much happier now that she's majoring in languages instead of law."
Another letter, "F. Burnsten?"
"Fred Burnsten wrote to me? Wonderful! He's a photographer, and he worked so hard to land that job. Now he's doing a wildlife shoot for National Geographic and sometimes he sends me copies of the pictures."
"Bea Thomas?"
"Poor Bea Thomas has been trying to break into writing forever now. I hope she got that novel accepted, because she sent me the script and it deserves to be published."
I was careful to tell Mark how well they were all doing. I wanted him to know that he wasn't alone and wasn't the only person who had ever had these troubles. I like to encourage people, which is where all of the letters came from, and I hoped to encourage him too.
The whole bundle took a little more than fifteen minutes to clear. Mark placed the last letter, a postcard from Kelly Smith, a former agoraphobe, with the picture of a hotel on one side and the simple comment "SUPERB CONFERENCE, THE OPENING BUFFET WAS A MUST-SEE!" written on the back, on the neat heap he had made.
I sensed more than saw the thoughtful glance that Mark gave me, and wondered about it. "That's it," he said, "there's no more. No, wait! There's a last one." I heard him fiddling with the envelopes, and when he spoke his voice was a whisper. "Strange..."
I diverted my eyes from the road for an instant and looked at what Mark was holding. It was a white envelope, perfectly square. Nothing was written on it. No address, either the senders or mine, and no stamp. "You know what it is?" asked Mark.
I frowned at him, glancing back and forth between the road and the square of paper in his hand. I didn't like mysterious envelopes appearing in my PO box the same afternoon I had an encounter with a pack of Garou. "Let me see that," I said, and when he handed it to me I held it up to the light. I had hoped to read the writing through the paper, but the silhouette of the paper inside was too dark. Presumably it was folded in half.
I was alarmed at its padaa. It had the thick musk smell of a Garou, but underneath its taste was bitterly alien. I struggled for a moment with the temptation to toss it out the window. I might have done it, too, but the image of poor Gaia trying to absorb yet another piece of litter as it stayed year after year and turned yellow and then brown, dissuaded me.
"Humph. That's a little disconcerting," I said without thinking, and then regretted my hasty words at Marks frown.
"What?"
"Hmmm? Oh, it's a blank envelope with a letter inside. Meaning someone walked into the post office, opened my box, and put the letter in there. And for all I know they may have read all my mail and signed me up for a lifetime subscription to the National Enquirer." Or it could mean something much worse, but I didn't dare voice my fears aloud in respect for my guest. For his sake, I forced myself into a wan smile.
"Listen to me! Oh, I swear I have such a long way to go with my attitude. I get a mysterious envelope and instantly decide it's something bad. What else could it be but a riddle? And why shouldn't it be something good? Why, it could just as easily be that I have a long-lost relative who has bequeathed me a million dollars!" I put it back in the box. "But either way I'm not reading it in the car. I have things to do, and it will have to wait."
The ride up was very quiet, mostly because Mark was looking around at the surroundings, and I couldn't blame him. The road leading to the site is gorgeous. Its paved for a long way, but eventually we turned off the pavement to go down a dirt road that turned into a sort of a dirt trail. There is a low point in the trail that I suspect will flood when it rains really hard and that point sort of divides the dirt trail and the dirt tracks. The scenery there is the most spectacular of all. The trees are tall and beautiful and wildflowers grow in between the tire tracks (I have to drive very carefully so as not to run over them.) There are a few miles of switch-backs, one particularly treacherous rock, and at the very end of the tracks is a large dirt circle where you can turn around. I parked the VW at last, in the circle next to the hiking trail that leads to my new home.
"The actual site is about half a mile up that trail," I told Mark as we pulled up.
The site was a mess at this time as I was in the process of moving in. There were six-inch posts with strings at the corners so that the entire site was enclosed, and there were strips of orange cloth tied on the strings so that you could see them. I had a lot of tools and equipment that lay on a canopy on the ground, and were covered by another canopy which was raised on sticks to make a sort of tent-like affair. I had a blackboard tied to one of the trees with my daily goals, and beneath the canopy was my bulletin board with the rest of my goals.
One cannot over-emphasize the importance of goal setting or the fantastic things that it has done in my life. After all, if you don't know where you're going, youll probably end up somewhere else. I had weekly, monthly, and annual goals. I also had goals for five-year increments for the next twenty-five years, and they were all posted on cards on the bulletin board, so that I could see them whenever I wanted (The annual and five-year increment goals were laminated.) Under the canopy also resided a number of boxes, my jewelry-making supplies and equipment, and so on.
Dominating all of this was my home. One day I would have an underground house. At the moment I had a tipi.
Tipis are marvelous examples of engineering. Mine had a diameter of twenty feet, giving me as much space as if I lived in an apartment. It was at least fifteen feet tall and that didn't include the poles. I worked hard on the outside of the tipi, and it was heavily decorated, mostly with cats. I had the traditional earth-ring design at the very bottom of the tipi, and the ring for the sky at the top, and in between I had painted the events that had happened to me, which were important in my life.
The site contained other wonders as well. I loved windmill art, and had created a number of windmills, from which I got power, and which were also equipped with strikers that hit bells, or metal poles, or whatever musical thing I felt like setting up. They were set up to play quietly, and the strikers could be pinned back if necessary, but they were playing as we drove up to the site, filling it with a sort of quiet random music. Around the edge of the perimeter I had hung a number of hummingbird-feeders, so that it was not uncommon for hummingbirds to zip past your head as you walked to the site.
I could tell when Mark heard the bells in the car, because he started looking around, although he didn't say anything. You should have seen his face when he caught sight of the tipi! He opened the car door as soon as I had killed the motor, tripping in the process, and ran up the half-mile of path until he could see the site. His glance fell on the windmill for an instant or two, but the tipi soon stole his total attention. Half-walking, half-running, he approached it. He made a first circle around it, then a second, more slowly this time. Hesitantly, he extended his hand and touched the tipi's fabric. (Luckily the new figure that I had painted that morning was dry.)
He blinked a couple of times and turned back to me with his mouth open. "It's... It's..." he turned his head toward Kate. "Is thatyour 'housing arrangement'? It's so... I can't..."
A flash of color diving from the sky interrupted his sentence. "Hey!" Mark cried while dodging the tiny assailant, "What's that?"
I topped the hill a little belatedly after Mark, because I dropped one of the bags and had to pick it up. "Oh - Mark," I called to him when I saw where he was, "Don't get too near the..." Then I saw the flash of color. "Too late."
I took his arm and pulled him back a few steps. "That's Banzai. He doesn't like strange people he doesn't know near his feeder. Here, stand still for a minute." From my pocket I took a tiny whistle with a sort of propeller attached. (I invented it myself, and I'm very proud of it.) When you spin the propeller it produces a sound very like the sound that a hummingbird makes when it flies; and the whistle produces a high-pitched series of trills. I have found it to be very effective.
Sure enough, after a moment the flash of color quieted a little and settled down enough to be identified as a hummingbird. The hummingbird quit dive-bombing at the sound of the whistle and flitted furiously back and forth in front of our faces. "I'm very sorry," I apologized to the bird, seeing how angry he was. "This is Mark. Mark will be staying here for a while. He will help with the digging."
Banzai flew around Mark's head several times and then hovered, seeming to ask a question. I laughed at the intent expression on his face. "I think he thinks you stole some of his sugar-water." I said to Mark, and then told the bird, "Well go and look if you think any is missing!"
He flew immediately to his feeder, flitting from feeder-flower to feeder-flower fitfully, sipping each one to make sure it still had something in it. At last he consented to perch on one of the tiny little perches that the feeder is equipped with. "He wants his breast stroked," I explained to Mark, and extended a finger which was nearly as large as the bird.
I have always been awed by Banzai. My finger is larger than his entire body, and I could crush him if I sneezed, but sometimes he will sit still and allow me to touch his bright feathers. After about three strokes, perhaps shy of the newcomer, he decided he was done, and after one more cautious circle around the poor college student, he flitted off into the wilderness.
"Sorry about that," I apologized to Mark, who was staring flabbergasted at the feeder. "I meant to tell you to watch the feeders and I forgot. That was Banzai. He's the chief hummingbird around these parts. None of the other hummingbirds dare to drink until he has had his fill. I had to get him his own feeder! And I've seen him chase away birds that are ten times his size. Did you know hummingbirds are warriors?"
Mark shook his head. "No, I didn't know." He eyed the general direction where Banzai had vanished. "But after this little demonstration, I have absolutely no problem believing it. In fact, I'm ready to believe the little rascal wrestle grizzly bears out of his territory before breakfast!" He watched the forest for a moment more, and then looked again at the tipi.
"Come on and I'll show you the inside," I said, and held open the flap for him. He ducked in the door and then his jaw dropped as he stared at my home. It wasn't much to look at with boxes of books and the computer that handles my web site covering half the canvas-covered floor space. The other half contained some pillows and bean-bag chairs, my version of furniture, and my bed, which is a hammock strung between two of the poles.
"Tipis are underrated," I told him as he stared openmouthed at my little living room. "I have ample living and storage space, am well protected from the elements, and in addition the entire thing is movable if I happened to feel like it." I looked at Mark, afraid that he didn't like it. "So what do you think? Would you be OK if you were set up in something like this?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, I would be." His reply was almost wistful as his eyes ran over everything my bulletin board, the pictures of the things I wanted in my house, the bulletin board with my goals on it, all of it. "It would be fantastic to have such a thing, but surely it takes forever to build, he said at long last as we walked outside.
"Nonsense! Well have it up in an hour. Where do you want yours?"
He turned in a complete circle and at last pointed at a slight rise thirty feet away. "There," he said decisively. "Its under the trees so it will be shaded but there's a rise so that it won't flood if it rains."
I nodded in approval. My own tipi was located on a similar rise.
I should pause and add that I had things prepared for Marks arrival. It had been my plan that if he showed up on Saturday for the hike I would offer him a job, and if he took it I would take him back with me. Before I left I put enough dinner on for two, prepared the extra canvas, and so on. What would he have thought if he had come and I hadn't been ready for him? Under the canopy I had more poles ready, more pegs, and everything necessary for a second tipi.
With Mark's help we spread the huge canvas out on the grass. "I was very fortunate to get the fabric," I told him as we folded it in half and smoothed out the wrinkles. "I mentioned to one of my pen-pals that I was doing this project. I made him a set of a squash-blossom necklace, earrings, bracelet, and belt at no charge and he gave it to his wife for Christmas, and of course his wife thinks he's a hero. In return he sent me the canvas."
"I learned how to set up Tipis from a Cree family who live up in Canada. We used to travel to a lot of different tribal families before Father got so sick. Anyway, we spent a summer up there when I was thirteen, and this is one of the things they taught me. Tipis really are wonderful structures. Come on and help me with the poles." We walked to the canopy and took three set of poles and laid them out on the grass where we could get at them easily.
"Traditionally - or at least in Cree tradition - the woman set up the tipi and owned it. If the man wanted to put an emblem or shield on the tipi he had to ask his wife." I grinned good-naturedly at my victim. "And making a tipi was a big event. They would have feasts and everyone would sew on the tipi, just like a quilting bee. And they wouldn't trim the threads because trimming the threads would make the owners of the tipi cruel and stingy. Here, we'll start with this pole."
We laid the pole down parallel to the folded edge of the fabric. "We'll be using a three-pole tripod base and add poles to it once the tripod is steady," I explained to Mark as we laid a second pole on the other edge of the canvas. "We'll have a total of seventeen poles, but there are only sixteen names as two of them have the same function. You see, each pole has its own name and is related to a teaching. OK, let's put this third pole over here on top of the first one. Great. Now we need to be sure they're lined up and then we'll mark them..."
After some rearrangement, I was satisfied with the way that the poles crossed and marked the spot with my pocketknife. "All right, let's set them upright. Now: the poles need to be set up a particular way. First we'll set up the tripod using those markings where they crossed on the canvas. When we add extra poles we start at the left side of the door and go counterclockwise to the other side. And not too far apart! Don't forget we will set the cover up over these." We set up a few poles, being careful not to space them too far apart. "This will be the center back. We need to leave a space here for the honor pole, so skip one and let's put the next one over there."
As we set the poles up I explained the name and teaching which related to each one, exactly as the Cree family had taught me so many summers ago.
"This is the first pole, which is Nanahitamowi (Obedience.)
The second pole is Kisteyihtowin (Respect.)
The third pole is Tapahteyimowin (Humility.)
The fourth pole is Wiyatikweyimowin (Happiness.)
The fifth pole is Kisewatitatowin (Love.)
The sixth pole is Tapowakeyiht Amowin (Faith.)
The seventh pole is Wahkohtowin (Kinship.)
The eighth pole is Kanateyimowin (Cleanliness.)
The ninth pole is Nanaskomowin (Thankfulness.)
The tenth pole is Wicihitowin (Sharing.)
The eleventh pole is Sohkeyihtamowin (Strength.)
The twelfth pole is Miyo Opikinawasowin (Good Child Rearing.)
The thirteenth pole is Iyitateyihtamowin (Hope.)
The fourteenth pole is Kanaweyimik Osowin (Ultimate Protection.)
The fifteenth pole is Maminawayitatowin (Control Flaps from Wind.)
The sixteenth pole is Kistejihtowin (Honor-Tipi cover pole.)
If a child wanted a teaching," I explained as we set up the poles, "They would stand by the pole and he would receive a teaching on the appropriate subject. Now for the rope. OK, catch!" I tossed him the rope, and he caught it easily. "Traditionally the rope is wrapped around the top four times clockwise. Be sure only four! It's bad luck to do more." Obediently the poor fellow walked around four times and stopped the fourth time on the dot. "Fantastic! You weigh more than I do: stand on the rope and that will tighten it up. A little more... yeah, that looks great. Now we'll just tie the excess to the back pole."
At last we went to get another pole out of the pile, now numbering only three after our efforts. "This pole," I explained as I began to work with it, "is Kistejihtowin (Honor-Tipi cover pole.)" We set it down against the edge of the canvas, which was still folded neatly on the ground. "We're going to line it up with the end of the cover here. Be sure and tie it on tight or it'll fall off when we raise it. Got it? Oh, wait, we missed a tie! Yeah, that one there. OK, let's pick it up. We want it to go in the space that we left earlier..."
After some awkward maneuvering, for that much canvas is heavy, the pole was in place. "OK, that looks fine. Everything still tied?" I checked the ties but all appeared to be well. "Great. Now comes the fun part." I looked at Mark, and he was looking at the canvas thoughtfully. I couldn't read his expression but the sun shone through his black hair and I liked the way that it lit his face. "Great job," I told him, and was rewarded with a warm smile. "Look how nicely that cover fits! Have you ever done this before? You're a natural!"
He frowned at the cover and looked confused. "But it's all saggy..."
I laughed. "We can't tighten it until we pin it, silly! These are Sitkakowin, the Foundation of Value - otherwise known as the pins. This was the job of the children, but we have no children here, so it falls to us. Traditionally a ladder is constructed from sinew on the inside of the tipi, but I've got a stepping-ladder here which should be fine. We're going to work from the top down. See how there are two holes on the left and only one on the right? The pins go from the inside left, then through the right side, then back through the other hole on the left - yes, that's it, just like that."
As Mark was taller than I was, he got the honor of standing on the stepping-stool and working with the uppermost pins, which were hardest to reach. After some initial fumbling he realized how the holes worked, and had them all pinned in the twinkling of an eye.
"OK, that looks like the last pin. Now - let's get the stepping-ladder outside - we tighten the canvas by moving the poles outward. There we go. See how mine looks? It should be just as tight as a drum when we are finished."
I watched him while we moved the poles outward. I was good at reading body language, and I was pleased because he was enjoying himself immensely to judge by the look in his eyes and the smile on his face. "OK, move that back pole out a little - great! That looks perfect. See how good its looking already? C'mon outside." I looked at the tipi critically, then decided that its firmness was acceptable. "Historically Tipis were tied down by using pebbles known as Sihtweyimowin, or Strength. However, in deference to the modern era, I've got some pegs here. Don't peg it too tight - remember this is just canvas!"
One of the most beautiful things about the site is the quality of the ground. It is thick and loamy, so that when one pushes pegs into it, it can support the pegs, but yet it is not so tough that it is impossible to get the pegs into it. We had some trouble with the last one, but after a couple of false starts we had them all in place.
"The last two poles," I said when we had secured the final peg, "are Maminawayitatowin (Control Flaps from Wind.) These are going to fit right in these flaps here - yeah, just like that. Great!"
Now that the outside was finished, we took a moment to stand back and look at our creation. I was really very pleased with its construction, particularly with a first-time tipi-raiser like Mark. It was tight enough to resist the wind but not so tight that the canvas would tear, and the rise he had selected was really an ideal area. With some careful manipulation I had arranged Mark's habitation so that his door would not face my tipi, meaning that I could sneak into it as a cat if I needed to. "That really looks good. Now let me show you how to hang the liner and work the flaps."
We took the liner from the canopy and pulled it into the tipi, no small feat as the liner is nine feet tall once it's hung properly. Once again we pressed the little stepping-stool into service, and I grabbed a box for myself. "The liner," I told him as we hung it all up, "is really a marvelous feat of engineering." I showed the poor college student how air is pulled from the outside of the tipi between the liner and the outer canvas, forming a draft equivalent to a chimney, and leading smoke out and away. I also explained, as we stuffed the spaces with grass, how the trapped air acts to cool the tipi in summer and warm it in winter. Once the liner had been hung we spread the remaining canvas over the grass for a floor. Afterwards I took him outside and showed him the flaps, explaining how they could be moved to chute rain away from the inside of the tipi. I also showed him how the tipi is tilted for resistance against the strongest winds.
As promised, the entire thing set up in forty-five minutes, start to finish. "Congratulations," I told him when it was ready for occupation. "You have moved out of the ranks of the homeless."
He nodded slowly, looking at the structure with a smile. "And with a bang, for sure. Thanks, Kate. I know that sounds lame and insufficient, but... thanks."
I beamed at him warmly. "All I did was offer you a hand up," I told him. "You were the one that decided to take it." I put my hand on his arm. "You're going to be just fine."
"I have paint when you want to put symbols on it," I added seeing the stark whiteness of his tipi compared to the bright colors that I used on mine. "But be very careful what you put. Only place those things that are important to you in some way, or things you've seen in dreams. If you put frivolous drawings on the canvas they won't attract the things that you want."
He nodded thoughtfully, and when I looked at the light shining off his hair I realized suddenly how golden it was, almost the color of copper, and how low the sun was in the sky. The clouds were just beginning to tinge with yellow. "It'll be dark soon," I commented, "And there's one more thing I want to do. You said you would be introduced to the guardian of the site. You've got that fish, right? Great, let me see here..." I rummaged in the tools until I found a trowel, the sort used to dig around flower gardens. "Here's your trowel. Come on. Just do what I tell you and you'll be fine...."
Mark accepted the trowel, got the fish and then looked at me. I couldn't blame him for missing the connection. "Guardian? You mean another than Banzai? And what will we do with the trowel?"
I hated to put him through this, but there wasn't any way around it. It was unthinkable to fail to introduce him to the Tree when he would not only be staying here but digging around very her roots! Even ignoring the fact that it would be tantamount to a slap in the face for the tree. Trees are implacable and relentless foes. Enmity with a tree is not a thing to be taken lightly.
Several of the roots were partially exposed, and the soil was loose and easy. "This looks like a good spot," I said when I found a likely looking place. "Let's dig here." Looking mystified, Mark obediently dug the hole and we buried the fish right next to the root. While he buried it I closed my eyes, quietly tuning myself to the tree.
This is considerably harder when in Homid form. It took me some time to hear my own blood, and it was hard to do because Mark kept breathing in the background and it was distracting. But finally I was able to tune into the song, faint and far away like it always is when I try to hear it as a human.
I love the musical quality of the Navajo language and how well it harmonizes with the melody. English is a clumsy guttural thing for such times. I would never have dreamed of speaking during the song except in Navajo.
I started by thanking the Guardian for her gift and her generosity. I assured her that I would take care of the gift and keep it pure. I praised her for her beautiful leaves, graceful branches, and sturdy trunk and roots (if you ever speak to a tree be sure to compliment it on its leaves. This is considered a mark of politeness among trees and is almost demanded for those older and greater trees that have attained a higher rank through virtue of their age.) I reminded her that we would be digging in a few days and promised that we would respect her roots and water, and that we would share the same space in harmony. Then I introduced Mark and explained that he had come to help with the digging. I explained that the new fish was his gesture of friendship and politely requested that she extend her blessing to him as well. I closed by thanking her again for her generosity and gave a final expression of goodwill before turning to my guest.
I was almost afraid to face him, but when I looked he was watching me with a careful neutral expression on his face. I summoned up a smile for him and put my hand on the trunk. "This is the guardian of the site. Isn't it magnificent! See how its branches spread? In a few days it should extend its goodwill to you if you respect it." I looked back up at it thoughtfully. "Trees perceive time differently than people do. People come and go, but trees stay for the most part." There was a ladybug on the bark and I smiled at it. "I think it's at least a century old, maybe more." I looked back at poor Mark a little nervously. I couldn't imagine what was going through his mind. "What do you think? And be as blunt as you like - we're pretty honest around here."
Mark's face was thoughtful. Before he replied he took a good look at the guardian, not only at the trunk, but also at the roots, branches and leaves. At last he took a deep breath. "As a normal guy raised in a normal family," he began, "I was taught to see the world through rational eyes. In my reality, there's no guardians, no spirits. Trees are neither sentients nor benevolent. When I look at your tree now, I see an old and beautiful tree, but nothing more. Wood, even when it's magnificent, is still wood for me."
Not quite daring to look straight at my face, Mark continued more slowly. "On the other hand. In the reality that I know, one can only sleep in houses of concrete and steel. In it, to help a stranger is as unthinkable as to believe in magic."
"But maybe parts of was taught are wrong. Maybe there's magic after all." He tempted a shy glance at me, "Kate, I can't say I believe that this tree is this site's Guardian. But I can respect your belief, and respect the tree in my own unbelieving fashion. I just hope I didn't wound you. I would like to please you, say that I believe and understand all that you've said and done, but it would be lying, and I don't want to lie to you. I'm sorry."
I was so relieved. I had almost expected him to run screaming for the hills. "Oh, Mark, I'm not offended in the slightest! One of the most wonderful things about living in America is that we have the freedom to believe whatever we wish. I want you to know that as you respect my beliefs, so I respect yours. I also want you to know that I value your opinion, and appreciate your honesty. If you will respect the tree, even if the only reason you do it is because I ask you to, then I am perfectly satisfied."
I stood close and looked up at him; he was about four inches taller than I am, and looking up into his eyes was a delightfully comfortable thing. "The world is so much bigger than you've been taught," I told him. "Magic is a thing that is created in the heart or not at all. I would like to teach you about magic, if you would be willing to learn."
"I would like that," he answered. A playful smile crept on his lips as he bent a little towards me. "You know, you really are like the riddles you like so much. And I think your passion for them is contagious." He closed the distance between us a little bit more. "Riddle I said you were? No. Riddles. Riddles inside riddles inside riddles. I never met a person so open and yet so mysterious before. Who are you, Kate?"
"Oh, a philosophical question!" I replied, almost before I even thought about it. "One could write a tome on that."
I would have liked to kiss him. He was handsome in a kind of lopsided boyish way. His eyes were dark and his face was innocent and I had been far too busy to do much dating.
But there were things to consider - what would he say if we were involved and then he found out that I was Bastet? Would he not feel betrayed in addition to the awful situation of having to redefine everything he knew as reality, if he were ever to find out? No, he would have to know everything before I could risk it. For that he would have to prove himself, and even afterwards it still might not work.
"What makes me special," I told him, "is the same thing that will make you special when you find it. I am a girl who has a dream - no more and no less. Dreams are a thousand times more precious than riddles, because to find them you have to look into the depths of your own heart, and that takes a kind of courage that few people possess." I took his hands and clasped them together inside mine, trying to find a good way to express what I had to say. "It is too early," I told him, "Not for me, but for you. It is my hope to aid you in finding out what your dream is. And once you have discovered that..." I paused thoughtfully, "Then we will see if I am in it."
I did give him a kiss, because he looked so handsome I couldn't quite bear not to, but it was a little kiss, on the cheek, a kiss that could go either way in the future - more or less intimate, depending on what would be appropriate at that time.
Mark looked disappointed, but retained a hint of a smile anyway. "At least watch the sunset?" he offered.
All right, I agreed, and so we sat on the grass and watched the clouds run from silver to gold to blazing copper. I had to admit that the sunset was magnificent. "I need to read my mail," I said at last, as the stars were beginning to peep from behind the clouds. I cast him one look over my shoulder and ducked into my tipi before I could succumb to temptation.
I made myself comfortable on the piles of pillows which I use in lieu of furniture. When the house is finished, of course, I will have couches and chairs just like normal people, but before construction such things are impossible. I took the mail box and flipped through the letters, one by one, until I got to the mysterious blank white envelope.
I disliked that envelope strongly. I didn't like the fact that it had been placed into my private PO box without as much as a by-your-leave, and I didn't like the fact that it had no address, and I particularly didn't like its padaa. It was the same padaa that I had noticed in the car, but, as before, it remained impossible to identify.
The outside of the envelope remained as maddeningly clueless as before. It was a plan white envelope, the square kind used for invitations, and its crisp whiteness suggested that it was very new. I held it up to the light to gets it reflection, thinking perhaps that someone had written on a paper placed on top of the envelope and thereby left an impression, but nothing of the sort revealed itself. No padaa except for the one from the werewolf, either.
At last I stoked up the fire which I keep in the center of the tipi, and put on the teapot. I used the steam to open the envelope, not wanting to risk tearing the contents. Once open it revealed a folded white piece of paper. The note was short and to the point:
Beware, gentle-scented one, for your life is in danger!
The pack spared your life this afternoon, but only because we had other things to do. They have not forgotten you, though. Words of spoiled blood and violence have been uttered. Beware, for the warriors of Gaia have lost their way. Mine isn't the way of the traitor, but too much innocent blood has already been spilled. I can't trust the pack any longer. Dark things are in movement, something is happening.
We need to talk. I'll meet you tonight near your lair. Near the three trees. Be there. Please.
Karen Greensong"
I was furious when I read the note. For a moment I entertained the idea of meeting this Karen Greensong individual and ripping her throat out for daring to do this to me.
"For shame, child, why are you so angry?"
The voice was so clear in my own head that I turned around, expecting to see Father giving me the mild look which had been his only method of scolding. The tipi was empty, of course, and I realized freshly that I was alone, and I had to swallow hard to get rid of the lump in my throat.
But the question stuck in my mind. Why was I angry? I poured myself a cup of steaming tea, added some honey (I am dearly fond of honey) and sat back down. I read the note again, this time paying attention to both its words and to my own reactions. The subject of the letter was a matter of some concern, but the words of the writer were both polite and well-phrased. At last, reluctant to get up because I had just gotten comfortable, I walked over to the stack of boxes that take up perhaps half of my living space.
Most of these boxes are books, because I couldn't bear to leave behind my books. Sorting the books and labeling the boxes had been a draining process because of the temptation to read them all as I packed them. I looked at the labels that I could see - "LIFE HISTORIES A-M," "LIFE HISTORIES N-Z," "FAVORITE LIFE HISTORIES," "SOUND BUSINESS PRACTICES," "INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS," "THESIS MATERIALS," and so on - but none of them were the box I was looking for. I re-stacked boxes here and there until at last I found the one I wanted, "POLICE PROCEDURES AND MANUALS." I had a number of police books which I had found to be useful, along with various web publications such as the Anarchist's Cookbook (how to make explosives out of common household items: something I had never found a use for but enjoyed reading.)
In the bottom of the box I found what I wanted, a series of books published by the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI, which were at least technically unclassified. Forensic psychologists at the FBI are able, based on data left at a crime scene, to make astounding predictions about the criminal, including such things as predicting that an unknown killer would be a stutterer, or that a bomber would wear a double-breasted jacket, buttoned on the left side.
The particular chapter I was interested in dealt with handwriting analysis. Another chapter deals with deciphering other clues in letters - the tone of the letter, the importance in the choice of words, and so on. I used my little fax machine to make a copy and then settled back down on the pillows to analyze the note.
An hour later I was little wiser than before. The character in the handwriting, if my analysis was correct, indicated honesty, determination, and some fear. It seemed to have been composed all at once and the handwriting didn't seem to be disguised. I was sorry I couldn't dust it for fingerprints; but I didn't have the resources to check my results, and that was that.
It was the padaa, then, that was so infuriating. But why? The letter offered few clues in spite of my efforts. There wasn't enough padaa to be able to identify it definitely, which was maddening in and of itself.
I gave up on it at last and got a couple of Tupperware containers, and my notebook. I took the time to write, by hand, the events of the day, including my meeting with the Garou that afternoon at the pizza shop, and the mysterious meeting that I was going to - for beyond question I was going. How I could resist a note like that?
As a further enticement I wrote the notes in Navajo. It was my plan to speak with Butterfly, for he would know if the worst were to befall me. I would get him to promise that if I were killed by the Garou, he would find another Bastet and lead him to the spot where I would bury the notes.
It wasn't exactly that I was afraid of dying. I had accepted that possibility long ago. I had a will prepared and so on. But it bothered me that if I were to go to this meeting, and the Garou were to kill me, that no one would know what had become of me. If I were to perish I would want my fate to become known.
Butterfly was agreeable, and promised that if I were killed he would bring a worthy Bastet to the place where I buried my notes. I pictured this mysterious Bastet digging up the box, reading the note from Karen, and then finding my notebook filled with mysterious-looking Navajo text. If I were in such a situation, with a teaser note in English and a notebook full of text in a mysterious language that I didn't know, I would move heaven and earth to find out what it said. That, of course, was the entire idea.
I buried it in the center of my tipi, and once it was covered up again I re-built my fire. Then I got dressed in jeans, moccasins, and simple silver jewelry that would wear well for fighting or running. When I was ready, I stepped out of the tipi, frowning, my thoughts a million miles away. Then I looked up and saw Mark, who was poking hopefully at the aluminum packets set into the coals of the main campfire, which were giving off delightful smells by now.
He had combed his hair and put on the new clothes. I was surprised at how much better he looked, not scraggly and desperate but actually rather crisp and clean-cut, except for the slight ponytail which he still wore.
"Mark!" I called to him, and he must have seen my face for he stood up with a big smile. "Wow look at you! Turn around for me. You look great! Oh, I am so sorry I don't have a mirror so that you can see yourself." He turned around and I couldn't help but to beam at him. "When you go to class on Monday you're going to have to take a stick with you to beat off all the girls," I teased.
He beamed back at me, but shook his head. "Nope. I'm a convinced pacifist. Arm myself with a stick is absolutely out of question." He sighed melodramatically. "If a horde of girls rushes at me, well, so be it. I'll meet my doom with dignity, without even trying to defend myself."
I cracked up picturing Mark drowning under a mass of screaming girls in bikinis. "I love your sense of humor," I told him fondly, and then allowed my voice to grow solemn. "Look, Mark, I'm... I'm going to go for a walk. I told you about Jose Martinez, right? The one who was fighting cancer? That letter was from his sister. He... he died on Thursday. I had wanted to be there for him... and I just didn't know." I didn't need to fake the quiet, solemn tones. "I'll probably be gone for several hours. If you need to go anywhere the VW keys are on the hook screwed into the door-pole, and if anything awful happens the rifle is right beside them. And yes, it is loaded." I gave him a wan smile. "I'll see you after a while."
He looked at me compassionately. "Oh, I'm sorry to learn that. Of course, of course, don't mind me. But if you need to, you know, talk to someone or anything, I'll be in my tent... I mean tipi."
"Thanks," I told him, and I meant it. I looked at him for a moment more, then turned and headed into the woods.
I waited until I was well out of view of the site to change forms, just in case Mark happened to be looking in my direction. I had worn my dedicated clothes and so had no fears about changing back again.
I had also brought with me a bead on a string. It was my intention that, if the meeting went well, I would present it to the Garou in friendship. It had the Rite of Dedication placed upon it, but in a very special way; the rite wouldn't be finalized until the recipient wore the bead in the form she wanted to bind it to, and then spoke the final word of the sing.
I switched to feline form and spent some time just meditating, listening to the song, calming myself in preparation for the meeting, and purifying myself. Garou are intolerant of the cahlesh and the unmaker, to say the least, and I knew I could not go to the meeting with the slightest taint of their scent upon my fur.
When I was ready to go, I found a good strong tree and climbed it to the top. From here I could not only hear and smell everything but I could see for miles. Because I am so light as a feline - only twenty-five pounds - it is not a difficult matter to jump from branch to branch and go the entire distance almost without touching the ground. I took my own sweet time, watching for Garou, but saw nothing threatening and so arrived at the meeting place without incident.
The three trees mentioned in the note are a beautiful place. I believe that they are the daughters of the great Guardian tree, which towers over all others in the area, but there is no way to be sure. They stand straight and tall right next to each other, and have needles instead of leaves.
There didn't seem to be anything here either, and so after some initial indecision I selected a branch that was placed directly over a lower and larger branch. I climbed to the upper branch and then climbed wa-a-a-a-y out on the end of it. As expected the branch bent under my weight until it touched the lower one. It took a minute to get comfortable but once in place I was quite content. I was low enough to speak normally without shouting if the meeting went well, but if it went badly I would shift my weight to the upper branch, and ride it to its previous height, well out of the reach of an angry Garou.
I must have waited there two hours. I was beginning to think that no one was coming, but at last I began hearing small noises, and a moment later a single wolf nosed its way through the bushes. It wasn't a particularly large wolf as wolves go, perhaps 60 pounds, but it was more than twice my weight. I reminded myself yet again to be extremely careful as it was quite big enough to get my entire throat in its mouth.
It was going slowly and cautiously but hadn't spotted me yet, and so I had a good chance to padaa it. The padaa was a good deal stronger in person than on the letter, of course, but I was still some thirty feet away and couldn't get as good a taste as I would have liked. Again the overlying scent was exactly the sort of scent I have come to expect from Garou, sort of musky; but underneath it was still the trace of the angry, hostile, alien odor, whatever it was.
The effect was all the stranger because the wolf herself showed no signs of apparant hostility. She was going with a good deal of caution, and I could understand how she would wish to do so when meeting a strange Bastet. (A smile touched my lips as I remembered with amusement her idea of my home as a lair, picturing for a moment some dark dismal cave eminating threatening growls.) From the set of her head I could tell she was sniffing the wind very carefully. I was upwind of her but had no doubt that she would catch on quickly.
I wondered what to do, for I wanted her to see me but didn't care for the possible consequences of startling her. At length I gave her a brief pirrup, which is sort of the equivelant of clearing ones throat. How I wish I could tip my whiskers at you so that you would understand what I mean! But never mind, we must do the best we can with what we have.
The wolf dropped in a defensive position when she heard the noise, and it didn't take her long to spot me as my snow-white fur stands out very well from dark green pine needles, especially at night. (I had thought about rolling in mud before going to the meeting, but then dismissed the idea as unnecessary.) Her padaa changed too, which was odd; the alien scent was stronger when she was crouched and watching me, trying to decide whether or not I was attacking. A moment later, when she saw I remained sitting on all four feet and resumed a more neutral position, the alien scent faded to its previous level. I had never known a scent that would do that, and I paused, casting desperately in my mind, trying to think whether I had ever encountered that particular scent before.
But the more I tried to pinpoint it, the more elusive it became. Finally I decided that it smelled like the Wyrm of Garou legend (sort of) and also like an animal that was close to death from rabies (sort of.) I wasn't pleased with the two explanations, because they werent quite what I wanted, but I could think of nothing better at that moment.
"Greetings," I told the wolf below me, "And welcome to my home." Her head cocked curiously at hearing my words.
The fact that she could understand me at all was entirely due to Father's foresight. You see, Bastet and Garou do not speak the same language - not even close. How could one speak the proper tongue of the Bastet to the Garou, who haven't a whisker to their name, and who throw their tails everywhere with the thoughtless abandon of a drunken driver weaving crazily all over the road? Its hopeless.
However, there is a dialect of Bastet which has been adapted for use with the Garou. It is a miserable reflection of the true tongue, completely bereft of those subtleties which give a language nuance and texture. It is not a proper use of the language at all, much like the British insist that the Americans do not actually speak English. Nevertheless, it suffices for the purpose. Father, who was insistant on the proper use of language, was equally insistant that I learn the dialect in spite of all its oddities, and I have found it to be one of the most useful languages that I know.
"I was saddened to receive your message... though I was not altogether surprised," I told her in the clumsy Garou/Bastet fashion. It had been my hope to meet the local Garou in peace. Come you in peace, Karen Greensong?"
With surprising quickness the wolf stood on its hind legs. Its form melted flawlessly into the figure of a young woman, clad in a dark robe, with pale skin and what seemed to be dark hair, though it was difficult to tell under the hood of the robe.
"Greetings to you too, Gentle-Scented One.", she said, while showing me her palms, "I come in peace, without malice or deceit in my heart. I bring warning for you and your mate, for you are in grave perils. The Garou nation has not seen your presence here with friendly eyes. Hot-blooded pups are longing for your blood as we speak, and I fear the interdiction of the ancients will not last for long."
I wasn't eager to move from my branch, even in spite of her polite words, while the unidentified scent still lingered in my nostrils. "The Garou nation," I repeated slowly. "And here I had hoped that it was only the Glasswalkers that held a grudge."
In actual fact I had no idea whether Karen was a Glasswalker or not. I was guessing the Glasswalker tribe although it could be anyone, and I put out the tidbit in hopes of finding out who it was that held a grudge.
In the shadows, I could see Karen jerk at the mention of Glasswalkers. "Glasswalker? You're in error, Bastet. Glasswalkers aren't the ones who you met and who are threatening you. As you seem to know the thirteen tribes, know that my pack is mostly Stargazers and Utkena."
Bingo! I thought, pleased.
Not that it did me much good. I reviewed in my own mind the events of the afternoon, and still couldn't quite see the act of looking at a war leader as so heinous that it merited being hunted down by a pack of Garou. I hesitated to probe for more, but oh, well... in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. "What quarrel do they hold with me, Karen Greensong? I have been in this place for one month and four days. During that length of time I have spoken no cruel word to any living thing. I have brought harm to no one. I have taken care to nurture that bit of earth which has come into my care, and if you have caught its scent then you know that it harbors no trace of the Wyrm. Had I unwittingly brought offense to any member of the nation of Garou I would have been delighted to speak with that individual, and if necessary apologize formally, that we might work out our differences in peace. I am... deeply sorry that in order to speak peaceably with the Garou, one must arrange secret meetings in the middle of the night with an individual who... shall we say, goes to the meeting without the blessings of the tribe upon her."
Karen's shoulders sagged at that reminder, but her words were quiet and sure. "Our quarrel doesn't have anything to do with deeds, Bastet. Or rather, it doesn't anymore. We have forsaken our warrior's duties to adopt those of judges, juries and executioners."
I looked over my shoulder at the site, which I could see quite well from the three trees. Mark must have found the matches, for his tipi was lit with a fire within. In its flickering, if I squinted, I could see his silhouette within. He appeared to be reading a textbook, presumably one of the ones from his backpack, and taking notes on the new notebook. At that moment it seemed to be the most peaceful place on earth. "It's him that I'm worried about, of course," I said at last. "I will try to get him away from ground zero if I can."
"You are very courageous to come and warn me," I told Karen when I turned back to her, "and I consider myself to be in your debt. Thank you for taking the time, and considerable risk, to come here. Tell me what quarrel the Garou hold with me, and of the interdiction of the ancients which has kept them at bay until now. And how does it come to be that the warriors of Gaia have lost their way? What path do they follow if not that of Gaia? Tell me this also - I'm so sorry to quiz you like this - how much time you think I may have, and whether there is any way under the ancients interdiction to settle this matter in a peaceful fashion."
There was a long silence. "Not so long ago," she began finally, "Magii began to attack us. Not that it was a novelty. They have always been a nuisance, spying on our cairns like vultures. But their attacks increased, to the point of that the fragile equilibrium between them and us broke. A hidden war was declared, a war that we weren't sure of winning. That was until we allied with a special faction of Magii. With their help, we conjured a... being to help us. " Karen continued, "We call it the Sunchild. He gave us the ability to reverse the balance of power. It was the Magiis turn to fear us. And now that we could set things back the way they should be, it's not enough for the Garou. We don't want to subdue the Magii, or teach them a lesson of humility. We, they, want to eradicate them. And with them everything that can threaten Gaia or ourselves".
It was if a light had suddenly broken through the darkness. That's what's wrong with your scent!" I cried triumphantly, and regretted my outburst when I saw her reaction "Forgive me," I said in a calmer tone, "That was... more abrupt than I had intended."
Karen took a step back. "You can scent it on Me?" she cried with barely concealed horror.
Her tone crystallized my thoughts, and I decided that I could risk closer contact. I dropped from the tree-branch, changing form in mid-fall so that when I hit the ground it was on clothed human feet. "We haven't even been properly introduced," I said to her. "Walk in Beauty. My name is Kate." I gave her the bead on the string. "I bid you welcome and offer my friendship. The turquoise bead is a tradition - directionally, if nothing else. Do you know the rite of dedication? If you will put it on in the form you wish to wear it in, and then speak the final word of the rite, it will bind itself to you in that form."
I sat on a nearby stump and made myself comfortable, still watching it closely. "Let me tell you that Bastet perceive scent somewhat differently than Garou do. Your scent has an undertone to it which is not of Gaia and to which I find I have a violently negative reaction. I first caught a trace of it on your letter and very nearly canceled this evening's rendezvous because of it. Upon perceiving this undertone my first instinctive reactions are suspicion, fear, and anger. I am not an individual who is easily angered and in fact this is what originally drew my attention to it. "
"You see, when I finished reading your letter, I was furious. I was so mad where I spit the grass won't grow for a month." I smiled ruefully. "It was my training that saved me. My training made me think, 'Why am I angry? Her words are polite and while the message is a matter of concern it is not entirely unexpected. What is the quality about the note that infuriates me so?' At last I attached upon its scent as the cause."
"Had that perception not filtered into conscious awareness I don't know what my reaction would have been. I have not known your scent long enough to tell you whether or not it has changed, but it is there. I also believe that it is subconsciously affecting those that you come in contact with. You may be aware of this already, but let me bring it to your attention if you do not already know it."
I paused and thought for a moment, trying to decide how much to say. "I can't place what it actually is, probably from trying too hard, and so I will have to leave it for later. However, I will say this; the two things I have been able to think of that it mostly closely resembles are alarming. One is the Unmaker - excuse me, the Wyrm - and the other is a rabid animal. A very rabid animal."
I hated to go after the subject so hard, as I felt terrible for Karen; but somewhere in my heart I had the horrible, nagging feeling that the topic was urgent.
Karen hadn't moved a muscle since I first began. She was white as a sheet, and for a moment I thought she would faint. "You can scent it on me." she repeated, but this time her voice was sure, with no hysteric undertone. "It makes sense. You say it smells like a rabid animal and..." an uneasy pause, "the Wyrm?". She turned away from me. "It is what we are becoming, Minions of the Enemy? Do we feel what they are feeling? If so, I truly pity them..."
I put my hand on her arm. "Don't blame yourself," I told her. Karen jerked in surprise as I touched her. The alien scent was suddenly stronger. I quickly removed my hand, but not before sensing the incredible tension of the Garou's muscles beneath her skin.
"I believe that..." I paused and my tone was hesitant. "I have to be careful what I say here, because at this instant I am taking a total, shot-in-the-dark guess. I meant it when I said that Bastet can perceive scent differently than Garou - so differently that it is considered to be an additional sense. There is the normal way that one smells, using one's nose, and then there is padaa, and the two are as different as chalk from cheese. Garou do not posses this sense and trying to explain it is something like trying to explain color to a blind man."
"If I had to take a guess - which is what I am doing - I would say that this scent is... is designed not to be able to be smelled by Garou. It may be a side effect or something deliberate... I don't know. My thought is that the individual who summoned the Sunchild, or whatever, knew Garou and had planned for their capabilities, but that individual had never met a Bastet. It's possible that I'm being too paranoid, that you just can't smell it because your senses are overwhelmed - like if you had been sprayed by a skunk - but I don't think so."
Karen looked gravely at me. "I have another theory. I don't think that we are possessed by a spirit, or drugged or anything. Our lore is too rich on these fields to be fooled for long. I think that whatever we drink... changes us. The scent you smell on me isn't from an external source, it's mine. Nobody in my tribe has truly changed. We've only...", she shivered, "been twisted out of proportion."
That was a frightening possibility, and I tried not to dwell upon it too long. "In addition I am deeply alarmed by your story of the summoning of the Sunchild. It seems from your tone that things are not going the way that you had originally hoped, and it is possible that I am mistaken, but I get the impression of uncertainty on your part."
I changed positions on the stump, sitting cross-legged. "It is not for me, a Bastet, to dictate the beliefs and actions of the Garou or of any creature for that matter. However, as with any ally, there are things you ought to know about the Sunchild. Let me ask some questions that may help clarify your thinking. You do not have to tell me the answers, for they may well be regarded as tribal secrets, but you, yourself, should know what the answers are, or at least have an idea of it."
"You say you have allied with a special faction of the Magii. What special faction? The Verbena? The Virtual Adepts? The Celestial Chorus? Why is this faction willing to ally with you against all other Magii?"
"The Magii have summoned a creature called the Sunchild. Summoned from where? The near-Umbra? Some alternate dimension? Paradise? Pentex? The nether regions of hell? It makes a difference, believe me it does."
"The creature has been summoned. What does it want? Never mind what you want for the moment. What does it want? The Sunchild has agreed to shift the balance of power in your favor. What services does it perform for you? What payment does it expect to receive for these services? You can't get something for nothing, after all. Do you know what it's goals are? Do those goals coincide with your goals, or do your goals happen to fit neatly into a larger set of goals that are not necessarily your own?"
"Imagine for a moment that you win the war. What will happen to the Sunchild after that? Will he return to his original realm? What will he expect from the Garou for having successfully won their war for them? What will the remaining Magii, if any, expect? What will your allies want?"
"Also imagine the Sunchild as the time-tested metaphor of ripples created in water when a stone is thrown into it. What effects has he had so far? Do the changes in your tribe coincide with his arrival? Are there a lot of things that bother you that are not directly traceable to any one thing, but which started around about the time the Sunchild first came onto the scene?"
"Most importantly, does his presence benefit the tribe? Never mind the war for the moment. Is the tribe more or less unified? Is there more or less friction between its members? If these effects, good or bad, were to continue unabated for five years, what would the likely result be? How about in ten years? Twenty? Are you winning the battle against the Magii at the cost of losing the war with the Wyrm?"
I sat back and looked at her. "You get the idea. Has the idea with the Sunchild really been thought through thoroughly, or was it just convenient? Just from the moment or two of conversation that we have had, I'm not sure you know, and I get the idea that the answers you DO know you don't like."
I leaned back on the stump, thoughtfully. "As I said, it is not for me to decide these things or even to know of them, though naturally I would appreciate whatever you information you care to share about the matter." After another moments thought I got up and walked to Karen. But more importantly: how may I assist you in aiding the warriors of Gaia to find the way that they have lost? I don't know whether or not you realize it but I believe your tribe is in much more serious trouble with the Sunchild than they were with the Magii. How can I help?"
It had occurred to me, all at once, that this was what she was asking for in her own oblique fashion - help. If nothing else, Father taught me that one never turns down a request for help if one is able to assist. Anyway, I saw the possibility for good; if we moved quickly, found out what was going on and managed somehow to reverse it, we would have (hopefully) older and wiser Garou, and a Garou with wisdom is not a resource to be squandered.
Karen's attention returned to me. "I don't know much. Our allies are Verbena. I always thought they were helping us because we shared the same respect for Gaia and everything that's hers. I'm not sure anymore. I never cared to know much about our allies and war strategies, and the matter has become less and less openly discussed lately. I don't know where the Sunchild has been summoned from, only some old, half-forgotten legends that the storytellers told us when we were young cubs."
"Ah-ha! What legends? If you remember them, tell them to me now and let us see what they say about the Sunchild," I prompted her.
Karen frowned. "It's foggy in my memory. If I remember, it was a long, long time ago. It was a time of need. A pack, out of despair, summoned a mighty spirit, the Sunchild. The spirit gave them power and might, in exchange for which the Garou worshipped it and offered it sacrifices. Soon the pack reigned over the region, but it was not enough for them. They asked the Sunchild for greater feats, for which it asked for more sacrifices. The pack's lust for power grew until they could no longer give to the Sunchild what it was requesting. The Sunchild wasn't to be cheated, though, and it decided to take itself what would not be given to it. The pack that had summoned it could do nothing, for their greed had already doomed them. But the other packs, that had remained silent until then, rose against the Sunchild. An epic battle ensued. The Garou successfully sent the Sunchild back where it came from, but not without heavy losses. The legend also says that no member of the pack that had summoned the spirit was ever seen again, but that sometimes you can hear the laments of their souls in these very woods, by night." Her eyes grew wide with sudden horror. "For as they turned their backs to Gaia in their foolish ways, Gaia also turned her back to them and removed them from the Great Cycle."
Hugging herself, as if she was cold, Karen continued. "I never saw the Sunchild itself. We have only been given narrations of the victories it's giving us, and its... blood. Or at least we drink what we call its blood, for spirits don't bleed... do they?"
"Most Germans under Hitler's reign never met him," I commented absent-mindedly. "All they did was listen to the long glowing reports of victories on the radio." I paused. "Do the legends mention the blood of the Sunchild and do we have any idea at all what that stuff actually is?"
After some thought I added, "Karen, can you get me a small sample of it? If we had some to work with we might be able to identify it, first of all, and second we might be able to trace it back to its source..."
Karen nodded. "The 'blood' tastes and smells like nothing I ever knew. I could try to smuggle some of it, yes." I filed that offer away for future reference, and listened carefully to her words.
She shook her head, a disgusted expression painted on her face. "Anyone who drinks this evil mixture immediately experiences its potency. Drinking it is like, well, drinking the sun. It burns, it hurts, it... reshapes. But, most of all, it gives power." Karen showed me her hand, the one holding the amulet. The hand that was human a second ago was now a furry nightmare of claws and sinews. A heartbeat later it was back to normal. "Before, I had to concentrate to shift back and forth my various forms, and shifting only parts of me was impossible. I do it now without thinking."
I hardly heard the last sentence, for the awful, alien padaa rose around me like a red mist. I clenched my fists hard because they wanted so badly to rip out her throat. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the calmly logical thought that Karen must have had to draw on a lot of the blood to manage such a change which was why the scent was so strong.
I gasped for air, and it cleared a little. My eyes were watering miserably and my throat wanted to close. I felt rather is if I were suffering from the worst allergy attack I had ever had. I was a few feet from Karen - I must have moved away from her - and she was staring at me with a horrified look on her face.
I realized abruptly that I had changed shape to my sokto form, the tall and graceful near-human that was unmistakably feline, complete with slitted eyes, pointed ears with tufts, and whiskers.
"Forgive me," I gasped to Karen, forcing myself back with some difficulty. "I - had no idea that was even possible." I took another deep breath and that seemed to clear out the aftereffects. "When you do that the padaa of the Sunchild is just - overwhelming. Perhaps I am just sensitive to the it but - but I don't think so. When you say it gives you power in crinos form, I believe it implicitly. Forgive me if I have frightened you - I was startled."
Karen shook her head, a sad look on her face. "You aren't the one who need forgiveness. You aren't the one who sinned. Stepping sideways has also been much easier," she added on the heels of that thought. No, more than easy. It's like the Umbra tugs at me. You're right, Kate Gentle-Scented, I don't hold many answers to the questions you ask. But the few I know are enough to disturb me deeply."
I thought this over, and remembered some additional questions I had intended to ask. "Who or what were you hunting this afternoon? What were you doing that you were biting tourists and still too busy to kill me?"
"The tourists were an accident, a pup whose blood was a little too hot. As for why we didn't attack you, well, you were judged harmless. The pack's first goal was to eradicate the Magii, and you would have diverted our force; nothing more, nothing less."
"Who was the lead wolf who stared at me? I take it he is one of the ones who wishes revenge? Was he offended that I stared back at him?"
"Euron," whispered Karen. "He's one of the revengeful ones. As for to know if he's offended, I don't know. Before, I thought I knew him. Now, I just don't know..."
"I shall have to remember him and offer my apologies if he is revengeful, and perhaps he will accept them. It sounds if he is deeply infected."
Karen shook her head sadly. "Your apologies would only amount to your death. I was not speaking lightly when I said we lost our way." she paused, then added in a quiet tone, "A tribe who kill its own brethren can't be trusted. You spoke truth when you compared us to rabid animals".
I raised an eyebrow. There was a story there, but Karen's tone dissuaded me from pursuing it. "Oh, Kate Gentle-Scented, is there hope for us? Could it be too late to return to Gaia's way?"
There was such despair in her tone that I forgot myself completely. "Karen!" I said, and gave her a hug.
I knew it was a mistake as soon as I had done it (why is it I never figure these mistakes out before I make them?) Her arms folded around me like steel bands. And the padaa was back, thick and cloying and worse than ever. My heart was pounding and my eyes were watering and I couldn't see a thing.
There is a court term called temporary insanity. The term is overused and mistreated by any criminal attempting to skirt the justice system, but the words do have a genuine meaning, or they did at one time. Temporary insanity was used in those cases, usually murder cases, where the perpetrator had committed the crime because he had been pushed beyond all limits, because he had been so blinded by anger that he blanked out and didn't even remember the deadly deed.
I realized that I was standing face to face with temporary insanity, and marveled, in some detached portion of my mind that could still think, at what a clever and powerful foe it was, to simply walk in and steal my senses. I tried to get a breath to calm myself, but I couldn't get any oxygen - all that was there was that awful alien padaa.
Karen, of course, had changed at my touch. Claws pricked at my back and I could feel blood trickle down. It seemed to be boiling it was so hot. There was acid breath on my throat and I closed my eyes. Karen would come out of it or she wouldn't; I tried to hold on so as not to tempt her into making the first move.
The embrace stopped as abruptly as it begun. Karen, human again, was a few step away. The hand still holding Kate's talisman was at her mouth and there were tears in her eyes. "I... I almost..."
I hardly heard her. I gasped for air and now there was actually some to be found. It felt ice-cold, and I was surprised that my breath didn't crystallize. I blinked hard until the red mist cleared away from my eyes and I could see again, and then I found I was on my hands and knees. I got to my feet somewhat shakily.
"You didn't," I told her when I had enough breath. "That's all that matters. You faced the beast and stared it down. YOU are in control and YOU have the greater willpower at the moment. Right now Karen Greensong decides what her actions will be, not the blood of the Sunchild that she has drunk. There is always hope," I told her. "You have become aware of a problem - and so you have hope for solving it. Where there is life, there is always, always hope." I looked into her eyes and saw they were filled with tears. "Come to my home," I told her. "You will find its atmosphere soothing, and we may sit and talk for a little while. Come on."
I lead her back to the site. Mark's fire had burned very low by this time and as there was no motion from his tent I gathered he had gone to sleep. Quietly as mice we crept to my tipi.
Once inside I closed the flap and got my shaken guest a cool glass of herbal tea. She drunk it gratefully and when the cup was half-empty she was visibly calmer. "This is a soothing place," she told me. "Thank you. I feel much better."
"I wish Father were here," I said as I fluffed my own pillows to sit on them. "Father was very wise. All I can do is try and pass down his teachings. Let us begin with his philosophy. Define the problem. Envision the solution. Then follow your heart."
I took a sip of my own tea. "The current problem which we face is that the Garou have lost the way of Gaia. All the other things that have come from that - the summoning of the Sunchild, the hot-bloodedness of the young pups, the burning desire to eradicate all which lies in their path - all of these things are symptoms, and all can be resolved... provided that the initial problem is resolved first." I closed my eyes thoughtfully. "This is a difficult problem because it is not the sort of problem that one may defeat with tooth or claw. The problem with the Sunchild - which is the most immediate that I perceive - is not a problem of doing, but a problem of being. It is not a question of defeating this or that faction, or even the Sunchild himself, by force of arms. Corruption starts not from without but from within. What you do is a reflection of who you are. If the Garou have lost their way, the first thing that must happen is that they need to become aware that this is the case. They must face and admit that this is what has happened, that they have become lost. And you know men," I said with a smile, hoping to provoke a smile from her, "They just will not stop and ask for directions."
Karen gave me a wan smile. She didn't look like she would able to laugh openly before a long time.
"That will be our true battleground. Once they are convinced half of our battle will be won. That, I think, must be our first step. Karen... I want you to know that if I am permitted I would like to help your tribe in whatever way I can. Gaia needs her warriors and your tribe needs to remember what it is to feel what it is to walk on her path again. I will go to the mat for them because it's what needs to be done and because it's the right thing to do."
I paused, wondering how to proceed. "However if I could I would ask two boons of you. Mind you that I will do whatever I can regardless of whether or not you are able to carry them out, but I would appreciate your assistance if I could get it."
"First I would ask you this - if the Garou kill me, I beg you to find someone to continue my work." I indicated the boxes stacked in next to the canvas. "I'm not afraid to die, even by the hand of the Garou, for the death they would bring me is probably kinder than the death that..." I stopped abruptly. "Tangent again, sorry. I am well prepared for my own death, Karen Greensong, save that I have not been able to find anyone to carry on my work after I am gone. It's all explained in those boxes and in my journal, and if I knew that someone was going to make sure that it was continued, it would be such a relief."
I paused. "The second request is... of a more personal nature. I would dearly love to learn how to step into the Umbra. While I suspect that it will take a lot of practice before I am able to do it myself, after all this is over I would like to meet with you again and be taught how you do it. Even if I cannot do it myself right away - or for years if necessary - I would still like to know how it is done." I grimaced a little at the boldness of the request. "I realize this is a little like asking the magician how he does his trick but... I really would be grateful." I smiled at her hopefully. "It might even be a lot of fun, for once the balance is restored things will be calmer. We could go on one of the hiking trails in the state park and make a day of it. We could bring our lunch or we could hunt it if you prefer. I like you, Karen, and when all this is over I would like to be friends."
"But I want you to know that I will help your tribe regardless of whether or not I get anything out of it. Gaia needs her warriors."
Karen looked solemnly at me. "We have come to you with hate in our hearts and violence in our mind, and you gave us peace in return. You talk of hope when there is but despair. You are honorable. I gladly accept your first request. Your work will not be forgotten, nor unachieved if I survive you. On that you have my word of honor."
I smiled and nodded and thanked her politely, and knew that she had no clue. Was she aware that she had just signed away (assuming my own demise) the next thirty-five years of her life? Of course not. But the gesture was well-meant and the offer was sincere, and I felt if nothing else she might learn from the writings I had collected
"As for the second boon. If we survive the war that is raging and if I find a way to... remove the taint on my soul, I will show you how to step sideways and will be your guide to the Umbra."
"But this time is yet to come. You talked of allies. I, we, have none. Even the stranger, Saul, has drunk of the Sunchild's blood. The fever runs in all my sept. We have no one but ourselves. And..." she paused, "There are other septs, like Green Hills, that refuse to enter the conflict. Maybe they would hear our warnings..."
"OK, hold it." I walked over to my boxes. One of the top ones contained a map of Santa Cruz. Another contained an extra box of thumbtacks. "Show me on this map where Green Hills is," I said as I put it on the bulletin board.
"Um... here."
"OK, is Green Hills allied with you, and have they drunk the blood of the Sunchild?"
"Green Hills was destroyed by the Magii. The cairn is ruined. Its virtually nonexistent."
"And that's what started the war?"
Karens face held a carefully guarded anger. "Yes."
"But there are still some members?"
"A few."
"And they haven't drunk the blood of the Sunchild?"
"Not to the best of my knowledge."
"Fine." I marked the spot with a white thumbtack. "Where is your sept located?"
Her finger traced over the paper. "Here."
"And your sept has obviously drunk the blood of the Sunchild so we may safely call them infected." I put a red thumbtack on the spot. Karen looked shocked at the term, then nodded gravely.
"And who is allied with you?
The Sept of the Angry Earth."
"And they are where?" She showed me and I decorated it with another red thumbtack.
One by one we went over the septs in the area. I was surprised to learn that I was very near a sept called Ancient Voices, and even more pleased to discover that they had refused to join in the war against the Magii. I marked each sept with a thumbtack, red or white, according to whether or not they had been drinking the Sunchild's blood.
Finally we stood back and looked at the map. "Of course this wouldn't stand up in any college," I said to Karen who was once again looking rather pale. "Normally it takes more than the word of a single individual to create such a thing with any degree of accuracy, but this should do for the moment."
"I didn't realize it was that bad," whispered Karen.
I wasn't very happy with the number of red thumbtacks myself. "Yeah, that's maybe fifty percent of the total Garou population in this area. The Black Plague in the middle ages had a death ratio of something like 66%, just to put it in perspective There's no way to vouch for statistical accuracy on this kind of a run but the preliminary picture is very ugly." I took a magic marker and drew a line between the red and white thumbtacks. This is where the battle line will be when it gets that far. All through here.
Karen looked blank. "Battle line?"
I was sorry to have to tell but she needed to know what she was in for. I looked her straight in the eye. "When the Garou that follow the Sunchild decide to eliminate the Garou that don't."
Both hands flew to her mouth. "We would never..." but her voice trailed off.
"Under normal circumstances I'm certain it would never come to such a thing." I turned back to the map. "But it won't be immediate. The Magii may be able to hold out for a little while. When they are destroyed something else may attract the attention of the Garou... Pentex or somebody, I don't know. Eventually they'll decide that Santa Cruz isn't big enough for both of them and the civil war will start. The smaller septs may have a lot of trouble and some of them may fall. The larger septs will probably do better and may wage war against the Sunchild. They may even succeed in sending it back where it came from along with its followers. Lets see, that would leave these cairns - I imagine there are cairns in these parks - unpopulated and unguarded. There would surely be some Garou left after the war but they would be strung out pretty thin in that large of an area. I wonder if vampires have any use for cairns...?"
"Please stop." Karens voice woke me abruptly and when I looked at her face I was sorry for thinking out loud. I led her back to the pillows and gave her another cup of tea, and we didn't speak until she had calmed.
"So we know what the stakes are," I said to Karen when she looked like she could handle it, and she nodded slowly. "But we shall start with you, for if we may cure one Garou of this - this poison - then logically we should be able to cure them all."
A bit of hope came into Karens eyes. "Cure...?"
"Oh, yes." That's what were working towards, after all."
"Oh, Kate Gentle-scented, I don't think well be able to cure all the septs..."
"It doesnt matter," I told her with a smile, and she looked surprised. "No, I mean it, it really doesn't. You see, its very easy to fall into the trap of setting your goals based on what you think you are able to do. Father taught me to reach for the stars, and even if you miss them youll end up so much higher and farther than you thought you could go. The goal is always no less than the very best possible solution. What you actually get may look very different from what you were aiming for, but it will almost always be a much better result than the result that you would have gotten if you had only tried for what seemed practical."
"You really think there's hope...?"
"Oh, yes! Without question. Where there is life there is EM>alwayshope."
Karen smiled a little. She seemed less stricken. "You offer a true picture of what we are facing, and still offer hope in the very teeth of its jaws. I was wrong to call you Kate Gentle-Scented, although truly your scent is gentle and pleasant. I shall call you Kate Silvervision, silver both for your pelt, now that I have seen it, and for the priceless hope which you offer, and vision in honor of the cleverness and trueness of your foresight. I would not have come to the conclusion that Garou would attack Garou if I had lived to be a thousand, and yet now that I see it I cannot deny its truth."
"It will require more than that in order to heal you," I said, laughing, "But Kate Silvervision it is, if it pleases you so. As to cleansing you..." I sat back and concentrated. "There is a Sing.... there is a sing..." I shook my head slowly. "Father taught it to me. I have not performed it before, but all of the elements, if taken separately, are elements with which I am very familiar and have performed on numerous occasions. It is considered a more advanced sing, not because of the complexity of the elements but because it requires the singer to know how to get into the Umbra. Father knew how to get into the Umbra. I don't. But you do." I looked at Karen solidly. "I believe that this sing - actually it is a combination of sings- has the capability, if we are successful, of removing the Sunchild's influence. At the very least we may lessen it. Even if we fail you will be no worse off than you are now. But do not imagine that this will be easy. It will tax us to our limits and beyond. It is not something I will force you to do but I have no alternatives to offer you that have a chance of changing you back the way you were before, none. At least none that I can think of off of the top of my head."
"The Sing is actually a combination of several sings, all of which I have done before. Let me give you their closest translation in the Garou tongue as I doubt you understand Navajo."
"First there is the Rite of Contrition. 'For as they turned their backs to Gaia in their foolish ways, Gaia also turned her back to them and cut them from the Great Cycle.' That is a quote from your legend. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the blood of the Sunchild is a substance offensive to Gaia. Gaia is very forgiving and does not lightly cut things out of the Cycle, particularly not the Garou. Let us begin and end with a Rite of Contrition, with the target spirit being Gaia herself, that she may know that you realize your mistake, that you are aware that you have strayed away from her, and wish to come back."
"Then we shall summon the Jamaak, as well as any spirits of this unfortunate tribe of Garou that wish to tell their stories. The Jamaak will be able to better diagnose the problem. That will lead us to the third phase."
"You and I shall go on a spirit-quest," I told her. "The object of the quest will be to find out what exactly has been done to you, and how you may be purified. The Jamaak should be able to start us off on our journey. When we get back, if we are successful, we will perform the Rite of Cleansing, and then again the Rite of Contrition. I wish I could make some sort of assurances of our chances of success, but I just don't know. You will have to get us into the Umbra - and out for that matter - and if it comes to a fight I want to emphasize that I am not a warrior, at least not in any traditional sense of the word."
I knelt in front of her. I was positive it was the way to tackle the problem - I knew it, I felt it. But I wondered if I could convince her, and it would be worse than dishonest to mislead her about what it would be like.
"Spirit quests of this sort are torturous. They are grueling and miserable and they tear out your heart and leave you the pieces. I promise you nothing but blood, sweat, tears, and pain. But I offer you the hope that perhaps you may again be whole. What will you do, Karen Greensong? Do you want to search for the answer to this riddle, knowing that you may never come back?"
Karen put her hand on my shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was soft and warm, an echo of what it must have been before the Sunchild came. "Blood, sweat, tears and pain is already my lot, Kate Silvervision. I lived in despair and you bring me hope. I tainted myself and you offer me purification."
"On a spirit quest I'm ready to engage myself. You spoke of danger. I'm not afraid for myself, for I have nothing to lose, but for you, Kate. You have no obligation toward me, yet you offer to help me despite the involved peril. Are you sure you want to do that? You're young and visibly have great deeds to accomplish. There's still time to save yourself and your mate, to flee Santa Cruz and its madness. It wouldn't be dishonorable to do so, Kate Silvervision, and I would understand if you chose so."
"Don't say anything yet!" she added as I opened my mouth. "There's another thing. I fear that I could.. change once in the Umbra." she paused, "I couldn't bear to bring you harm, Kate."
"FLEE?" I burst into laughter. "You have GOT to be kidding!" I giggled madly and then made a visible attempt to calm myself. "I'm sorry, Karen, I'm not laughing at you. You should have seen me when you referred to this place as my 'lair.' Oh, I thought I would die." I went through a couple more unfinished giggles and then took a deep breath.
"Karen, if you want to become the way you were before, and I can show you how to do that, then that's what I'm going to do. Flight is not even a question."
Karen smiled. Was that a sigh a relief that exited her lips? "So be it. I'm in your debt, Kate Silvervision, for that and all that you give. I shan't forget it."
I paused again, considering her words. "The possibility of you frenzying in the Umbra presents more of a problem. Hmmm..." I mentally ran through possible options. "With your consent we shall do an additional sing before we go. It's a sing of calming - something like a tranquilizer - and I could weave it so that its effects wouldn't be activated unless a particular keyword is spoken. I would probably set the keyword as," I switched to Navajo quickly, "Walk in Beauty." Seeing she didn't comprehend my words, I nodded approvingly. "That's a phrase that not a lot of people would know. If you frenzied it would give you quite a wallop, not of any sort that would hurt you but rather to calm you down. At the very least it would give me some time to put some distance between us until the frenzy was over. I wouldn't leave you, you understand, because one does not simply leave a spirit quest that one has begun. There's also a soothing component that can be added when we summon the Jamaak, and we'll use that too so that you're in a calm mindset when we first make the jump."
"I need to prepare myself for the sing. Meet me back at the three trees in fifteen minutes."
Karen agreed, and we parted for the moment.
I imagine that this is as good a place as any to explain a few ins and outs about sings. First of all sings are Navajo Magic. Almost invariably they have to do with restoring balance. They are not things that one may simply do on the spur of the moment. Under ordinary circumstances I would want to prepare myself for a week or so, and there are various rituals associated with this preparation time. In emergencies, however, it is possible to perform the majority of them after the fact. It is not recommended - but it can be done.
The sings Father taught me were not strictly Navajo. I am Bastet and not Navajo at all, in spite of the comfort of their ways. In addition we visited too many people, too many places, heard too many tales to strictly follow their path. Nevertheless the sings are accurate and powerful things, and I consider them no less sacred for being conducted out of their native land.
I gathered the things I would need, spent a few moments in meditation and preparation, and went out to meet my patient. As I returned, I could hear Karen's voice rising from under the three trees, singing a wordless chant. While the chant didn't have any obvious rhythm, it had a mesmerizing and soothing quality that I couldn't ignore. Sometimes quick and shrill, sometimes slow and guttural, it jumped from one extreme to the other without apparent transition, catching the soul of any listener as it goes. After a time, however, the singing slowed down, rose into a last call then died, leaving a feeling of well-being in its wake, and I recognized the feeling, if not the song, as a song of contrition/calming. Karen, who was kneeling on the ground, stood up. "I'm ready, shall we go?"
Come on, I told her.
I chose a ridge for the sing that was within my property line but too far away for Mark to stumble on us accidentally. I cleared an area and made sure it was protected from the wind. When it was ready I began the sandpainting.
Sandpaintings are drawn with colored sand which is allowed to dribble from the open hand. I am considered a lightning sandpainter by most and it still took more than an hour and a half. First came the background, then the outer perimeter circle, left open at the north so that Karen could get in. The rainbow yei went around the edge, open at the north, to guard the other directions against the intrusion of any magic that we didn't want. Inside his long circular body went the large circle for Karen and the four smaller circles around her - blue, yellow, white, and red, each color in its appropriate direction. Inside each of the small circles went my very best bead in that color - turquoise, abalone, coral, and mother of pearl.
At last all was in readiness, and Karen, who had watched the painting with interest, stepped inside, careful not to disturb the sand. I closed the circle behind her and began the chant.
Summoning Jamaak, as Father taught me, is very much a business proposition, and one mustn't ever allow oneself to become indebted to a spirit of any kind. The beads were meant as payment for my question. If the Jamaak found them acceptable, they would appear and diagnose the patient - if not, then nothing would happen at all. I had brought my very best beads, for, in dealings with Jamaak, one truly gets what one pays for. If the beads were cheap, the information would be too, and vice-versa.
There is a lot of preliminary sing to get through, but at last I got to the part of the chant that meant business. "Come to me, oh gila monsters, that I may speak with you. Come to me, gila monster of the north, I summon you. Come to me, gila monster of the east, I summon you. Come to me, gila monster of the south, I summon you. Come to me, gila monster of the west, I summon you."
In the spaces arranged for them the gila monsters shimmered into being. Each gila monster was the appropriate color for its direction - the gila monster of the north was blue, for example.
"Oh gila monster of the north," I chanted, "This woman has drunk the blood of the Sunchild and it has made her sick. We wish to embark on a spirit-quest that she may be healed. I shall give you this turquoise bead if you tell me how to heal her."
The lizard advanced , eyeing the bead. Apparently finding it acceptable, it opened its mouth and snatched it from the ground. Only then did it turn its attention to me.
"This child," it said in Navajo, "has forsaken Moon's waters in favor of Sun's fires. Nobody can heal her, but herself and her mother." Before I could answer, it disappeared into thin air.
There was no stopping during the course of a sing, and so I continued on less one gila monster. "Oh gila monster of the east, This woman has drunk the blood of the Sunchild and it has broken her link to Gaia. We wish to embark on a spirit-quest that we may again become known to Gaia. I shall give you this mother of pearl bead if you tell me how to restore her."
The second spirit also accepted the offering. "This daughter is lost in the dark. To be restored she must ask forgiveness to her mother, naked and empty-handed as she was when she was born." To this the spirit disappeared in a flash of light.
"Oh gila monster of the south, I continued when it vanished, This woman has drunk the blood of the Sunchild and it has enslaved her. We wish to embark on a spirit-quest to regain her freedom. I shall give you this coral bead if you tell me how to liberate her."
The third lizard was slower to eat its bead, a promising sign. "This warrior has been enslaved. To be free again she must have the courage of spitting in the face of her master and tear the leash out of its hand." This being said, it melted and vanished in the ground.
"Oh gila monster of the West, I chanted to the last gila monster, This woman has drunk the blood of the Sunchild and it has contaminated her. We wish to embark on a spirit-quest to that she may become again as she was before. I shall give you this abalone bead if you can tell me how to purify her."
The fourth lizard didn't eat its bead first, as the three others, but spoke directly to me. "This woman's face has been hidden to herself. She must reform the true circle by breaking the tainted one. Hands that purify will be in turn purified." The gila monster gulped down the bead. "Follow the red thread, for at its end lies what was lost." On these words a strong gust of wind blew. When it calmed down, the fourth spirit was no longer there.
Poor Karen! The entire chant had been done in Navajo, and their answers had been in the same language, and though she was waiting patiently she clearly didn't follow a word. But there was no stopping in the midst of a sing except at the prescribed points. I broke out the sacred sand again, enlarging the circles, and drawing a protective ring on their outer edges. The circles would act as barriers against attack, for I was not at all sure the spirits I was summoning now would be anything but hostile.
"Come to me, spirits of the pack that was lost to the Sunchild, I summon you. Come to me that your name may be known among the living. Come to me that your story may be told. Come to me, you who were the healer of the pack lost to the Sunchild, I summon you. Come to me, you who were the leader of the pack that was lost to the Sunchild, I summon you. Come to me, you who saw the disaster coming and tried to warn the pack that was lost to the Sunchild, I summon you. Come to me, you who were the storyteller of the pack that was lost to the Sunchild, I summon you."
At first, nothing happened. Then flashes of light silently exploded in each circle. I could feel a wave of white-hot air pass over me, hot enough to give physical pain. The light was as pure and blinding as sun reflected on fresh snow, particularly painful with my light-sensitive eyes. Slowly it shifted to a dark shade of red, the color of clotted blood. When my eyes cleared, I could see four shapes in the circles. Karens reaction was awful when she saw them. She turned white as a sheet, her eyes bulged, and I was afraid she would frenzy.
They had probably been Garou at one time. Yes, almost certainly Garou, in Crinos form I suppose. They were mutilated past all description, the portions of their skin that werent out-and-out charcoal bubbling as if it had been boiling blood. Their eyes were blank sockets and through the sockets I could see flame, as if they were entirely hollow, like lanterns. From them rose the sickening smell of burned flesh.
I tried to continue in spite of it, knowing the consequences of a mischanted sing. "Oh healer of the pack of the Sunchild, this woman has been tricked into drinking the blood of the Sunchild and fears the consequences. If you will tell us your story she will bring your name once again before the living, that you will not be forgotten. She will take your message to those who may yet be spared."
"Oh leader of the pack of the Sunchild, this woman has been tricked into drinking the blood of the Sunchild and fears the consequences. If you will tell us your story she will bring your name once again before the living, that you will not be forgotten. She will take your message to those who may yet be spared."
"Oh storyteller of the pack of the Sunchild, this woman has been tricked into drinking the blood of the Sunchild and fears the consequences. If you will tell us your story she will bring your name once again before the living, that you will not be forgotten. She will take your message to those who may yet be spared."
"Oh you of the pack of the Sunchild, who saw the danger coming, this woman has been tricked into drinking the blood of the Sunchild and fears the consequences. If you will tell us your story she will bring your name once again before the living, that you will not be forgotten. She will take your message to those who may yet be spared."
The spirits didn't answer back when asked, as they should, but remained silent. It was only when I finished the sing, and reached the stopping-point at last, that they reacted. All at the same time, their jaws snapped open. I winced at their speech. How does one describe a voice made with vocal cords that are burnt to ashes?
"Who," they all said, each overlapping each others' words, "summons the souls of the Fallen? Who meddles with Fire..."
"...Life..."
"...Death..."
"...God Incarnate?" They pierced me with their baleful hollow-socketed glance, then moved to Karen. At the sight of the latter, the pack leader's burned face turned into an obscene smile. "Ah! Daughter..."
"...sister..."
"...betrayer..."
"...savior of mine. Why ask about the past when it runs..."
"...burns..."
"...screams inside your veins? Life..."
"...Death is but a cycle, and the time has come for Me..."
"...Us..."
"...Them to rise again. Don't resist the urge, daughter..."
"...sister..."
"...betrayer..."
"...savior, become one with me..."
"...It..."
"...Us..."
"...Them. You're only delaying the inevitable, why make the process so painful..."
"...hard..."
"...difficult? Surrender to it, kill the intrusive Bastet and I.."
"...we..."
"...they might pardon your lack of faith. Come, come and join your Father..."
"...Brother..."
"...Husband..."
"...Master in His Glory! Resist and you will be crushed..."
"...damned..."
"...destroyed..."
"...saved for eternity! As for you..."
"...you..."
"...you..."
"...you..."
I was back as the center of attention, a situation I definitely did not like. One by one, the spirits vanished until only the pack leader remained. Instead of disappearing, it became more and more luminous, until, with a growl, it took a pace forward, stepping over its circle.
At once the sandpainting reacted, and very violently, to the intrusion. The inner circle fluoresced in gold, for yellow is the color of the west and the original direction of evil magic, and the color of the circle he was standing in. The outstretched hand seemed to be covered, not in fire, but in molten metal. (For a crazy moment all I could think of was the villain in a movie named Terminator II - it looked just like that.) For the first (and only) time we had a chance to get a good look at his face, or what it might have looked like before the coming of the Sunchild. I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Then the golden bubble burst, looking rather like fireworks as it spattered outwards. The spatters that landed outside the outer circle vanished instantly; but several landed on the Rainbow Yei, and it reacted by sending forth a stream of color.
As soon as the magical barrier was breached, the spirit seemed to fully reach this place of existence, its form taking a more real appearance. The flame bathing it also burst into renewed activity, giving Karen and I a taste of Hell. Under this furious activity, the spirit features were melting if made of ghastly wax. But the ghost was still closing. As he reached through the colors of the Rainbow Yei he encountered the outer circle, this one blue, the color of good magic. He snarled in pain but pushed his hand through.
I reacted slowly. The yei, where was the rainbow yei, he was supposed to protect the singer against this sort of thing... I had the time to jump backwards, shifting instinctively, but the spirit was faster and grabbed me by the arm. My shirt immediately burst into flames, the skin underneath blistering painfully. The spirit put his melted face inches from mine, burning me with its breath. I found myself looking directly into its hollow, flaming eyes.
I saw fire and heard screams, flaming Garou as far as the eye could see, and over them all some vast infernal shape. A place filled with flame, with live liquid fire that reached out and pulled in anything that tried to get away from it. The shape turned and looked at me, but the fire in its eyes was only the fire in the eyes of the spirit that had me by the arm. I was awash with pain and hardly heard its words, but they reverberated in my spirit as if they themselves were made of the awful liquid fire. "Go away." it growled.
The spirit was snarling but it was almost transparent, presumably from the effort of breaking through the multiple circles. Now, at last, at long last, the Rainbow Yei reacted.
The Rainbow Yei is the child of the sun and the rain. Generally good tempered, easygoing, containing all colors, he can nevertheless be angered. The sandy figure rose up and threw a spectacular (and very beautiful) wall of color. His touch is of light - and of water.
The spirit howled. Masses of steam burst forth from the area where his arm crossed the drenched rainbow light. The spirit shrieked and spat fire before collapsing into itself and disappearing. It was impossible to tell whether it wanted to go, or whether the Rainbow Yei drove it off. The Yei, satisfied with its work, resumed its former place in the painting.
"Are you OK?" asked Karen seconds later, running to my side.
I was shaking in every limb. I'm all right, I gasped. The horror and pain of the brief glimpse was already fading away, leaving little memory of it. I took a couple of deep breaths, and was thankful for their coolness and the calming way they relaxed my muscles. In a better frame of mind, I looked to my arm. "Third-degree," I said reluctantly, looking at the band of burned flesh completely encircling my bicep, snow-white and blistering. "But there's not enough total volume of skin to make it a concern. I have some salve and we'll wrap it with cloth before we go." I smiled at Karen. "I'm actually much angrier about the loss of a dedicated shirt than I am about the arm. It'll heal fine." I looked back at the sandpainting. "We can't use that sandpainting for the journey, though. In fact I don't want to leave for the Umbra from here - we'll move the rest of the ritual to that ridge over there."
I gathered the sand from the painting into special bags and then threw the sand, handful by handful, to the wind, chanting while I did so. (The sand from a sandpainting must be disposed of properly or dire consequences will result.) On the next ridge over we created a new sandpainting, did the ritual of calming, and then destroyed that sandpainting too. While I did so I explained to Karen the words of the gila monsters and she nodded solemnly.
After the calming ceremony, Karen removed all her clothes, keeping in mind the words of the gila monster. Entirely naked, she gave me a nervous smile. "Still sure you want to do this?"
"Are you kidding? That spirit broke my circle and toasted a perfectly good dedicated shirt. How could I turn back after investing a spirit-circle and a dedicated shirt into this project?" I had stripped too. It was unfair to ask Karen to do something I myself was not willing to do, and so stood naked except for the circle of cloth around my arm. (We made the bandage from the remnants of the shirt so that it would stay on regardless of form. One does not waste dedicated cloth.) "I'm ready when you are."
"Okay. I never did it this way, but..."
Letting her sentence die, Karen stood upright, setting her arms in a cross. She closed her eyes and humed in a low voice. After a while, the air itself seemed to shimmer. Then a great ripping sound tore the night. Before Karen a black hole had opened, hovering a couple of inches above the ground. "Hurry," she whispered, "I don't know how long I will be able to hold it."
As Karen pierced the Umbra I shifted forms quickly into a cat. This permitted me to jump through when the hole was much smaller, enabling me to get a good distance before Karen could even step through. When she stepped through I was hiding in the crack in the rocks, which was nearby, until I could see whether or not she would frenzy. Seeing that she did not do so, I crawled out and came to her.
"Here we are," said Karen, behind me. "The Umbra has darkened. There's a storm brewing..." As far as I could see, Karen hadn't changed. However, when the wind turned in my direction, the strange alien scent was far worse than I had ever smelt it.
With a loud noise, the breach into the gauntlet closed itself. I wondered belatedly what I had gotten myself into.
I had never been in the Umbra before and was surprised at how different it looked. Our Tipis were nowhere to be seen, which I had expected, but I had not expected the angry, multicolored lightning flashes which streaked across the sky. There was forest here, as in the real world, but it smelled different and didn't look quite the same. Far in the distance there was a pulsating red fiery glow. It grew stronger and weaker in regular rhythm, and I was reminded irresistibly of two things - a forest fire and a heartbeat.
I sat down on the ground and looked at the red glow for a moment. "Bandelier burned in 1977," I told Karen, seemingly apropos of nothing. "Yosemite burned that same year." My voice was thoughtful. It was the first time I had shared any of my memories with her. "If Yosemite hadn't burned that fall it would have been the worst forest fire in the United States in 100 years. The Yosemite fire beat out the La Mesa Fire by a few acres, but it was close." I sniffed carefully, catching the smell of something burning. "We lost fifteen thousand acres in the La Mesa Fire, like a third of the national park, and when the fire started it looked exactly like that. You could see the red glow for miles and miles and the air always smelled like smoke. Afterwards we took a drive around the edges of the park and the devastation was unbelievable. The entire mountain was just... charcoal. Nothing but black as far as the eye could see. Sometimes there was the skeleton of a tree left but mostly it was just stumps. There were places that the asphalt of the road had melted and re-formed. You could drive through this solid black, charcoal scenery for hours and not reach the end."
I paused, licked my paw thoughtfully and used it to wash an ear. "There was a park ranger at that time - I forget his name - who suggested a firebreak be built along a particular road. This was at the very beginning, when the fire had just started and the glow in the sky looked just about the way it does right now. They didn't want to destroy that much of the park and so rejected the firebreak plan. When the fire was over they looked at the way that the fire had spread. The estimation is that they would have saved 90% of the acreage that burned if they had just put the firebreak where the park ranger had wanted them too. That's like 13,000 acres, just to put it in perspective."
Satisfied that the first ear was clean, I switched paws and ears. "After Father died last year I took a drive along that same road. The difference was breathtaking. You could tell that there had been a fire, but all around the mountain was green and good. There were plants and wildlife everywhere. Gaia healed."
I looked at the glow and was silent for a moment. "I don't know... if we are in time to construct my metaphorical firebreak. That should be our goal once you have been purified. But even if the worst occurs, there is still hope."
Karen said nothing. She was looking at my site, and following her gaze, I caught my breath.
The Guardian Tree was magnificent. It stood fully the size of a redwood, as green and strong and alive as I had ever seen anything in my life. It seemed almost luminescent. "Do we have a moment...?" I said hesitantly to Karen.
She smiled, the first genuine smile I had seen from her. "Of course."
I ran to the tree, and Karen followed me. I was so glad to see it in its true form and circled joyfully around and around the trunk, purring and rubbing. I'magine meeting an old friend here, of all places!
I was startled when a branch touched my forehead - I was quite sure that there had been no branch before - and jumped back. I hastily explained to it what we were doing, introduced Karen, and asked its blessings.
I switched back to garou/bastet to address Karen. "This is the Guardian Tree," I told her. "Its why I chose the site that I did. Feel how gentle and loving it is!"
Karen was all eyes for the tree. It is truly a Guardian Tree, she murmured. A gift of Gaia. And... and the cave?
I turned and looked. The tree was slightly luminescent, but the cave was lit from within, spilling out a faint bluish glow. "I don't know. Will you be all right if...?"
"I'll be fine," she assured me, and so I wiggled into the hole and went to look at the cave.
The cave in real life was merely magnificent, but here it was a glorious thing. The walls were completely covered in the roots of the tree. The luminescence came from everywhere and nowhere, the color of the finest opal. The feeling of resident power in the place made my hair stand on end. It was a deeply nurturing place, and I spent some precious time simply being there, loving the place and the tree that guarded it, and purring madly with their song.
But I couldn't afford to stay long. At length I wiggled out of the hole to find Karen waiting for me. "I wish you could see it in there," I told her, and described it carefully.
"Look at yourself," she said, and when I turned to look my fur was beautiful and silver and almost sparkled, as if the glow had stuck to it. Karen put her nose in front of the hole and peeped in as much as she could, then put her hand in front of it, and concentrated, shuddering a little.
"This is a good place, a powerful place." She looked at me thoughtfully. "This is a cairn. The cave you describe is a cairn and the tree is its guardian. Can't you feel it?" Her eyes were whining and wild. "Dear Gaia, Kate Silvervision, you have a cairn!"
"It feels like a place of power to me," I said slowly, "But I've never been to a cairn. I have no basis of comparison."
"I'm not an expert. Sometime when this all calms down I will take you to our cairn. Perhaps also we can have someone look at this one."
"I would like that."
Karen stood slowly. "But the time is not now."
I couldn't argue. "No, its not. Thank you for allowing me the side trip. We need to find the thread. It will be in the south for it is a red thread and red is the color of south. That takes us right into the red glow. But did you notice that it was the yellow gila monster that told us about it? Yellow is the direction of evil magic."
Karen nodded. "Of course it is," she sighed. Reluctantly we turned from the tree and walked towards the nearby woods, looking for the beginning of the thread that would unravel Karens destiny.
