“If I could go with you…. Will you take me with you?”

He shook his head. “I pray you, Sister. Serve where you are needed most. Every storm leaves destruction in its wake. There is much to do.”

“Yes,” she said, bowing her head obediently. “I will do as you say.” The words were thin, spoken through tears.

“You are brave and good, Hathumod. Your hands will do God’s work if you let them.”

She choked down a sob as she nodded. She had gone beyond speech and now could only stare as he gave a sign of farewell and walked away down the road. Where the road curved, he paused to look back. Eager to get on, the hounds wagged their tails.

She still stood there, fading into the twilight. She hadn’t moved at all, as if caught in the guivre’s stare.

XV

THE IMPATIENT ONE

1

BECAUSE she was Feather Cloak, the blood knives insisted that she be carried in a litter when she traveled. The sacred energy coiled within her body must not be allowed to escape through the soles of her feet by touching the earth.

She did not like the blood knives. They were officious and grasping, set in their ways and bloated with self-importance, and it was obvious to her that they liked her less than she liked them. She did not follow the ancient laws in the manner to which they were accustomed.

Yet she was Feather Cloak. She had been elected, according to the custom of the land. Let them chew on that gristle!

For the time being, however, she thought it best to humor them in ceremonial ways. Thus she found herself on the road in a jolting litter carried by four men, with another eight walking in front or behind to take a turn when the current group needed a rest. They traveled in procession from the Heart-of-the-World’s-Beginning to the city on the lake, called We-Have-No-More-Tears by the exiles but Belly-Of-The-Land resting on the Lake of Gold by those who had lived in the shadows, because that was the name they had called it in the days before exile. The turning wheel spun at the front, announcing her presence. Her son had come with them as well. He was ripe for adventure but not yet old enough to “put on the mask.” He had the other baby slung to him, but he had dropped back to talk to one of the mask warriors, a young woman he fancied might see him as older than he was. In addition, she was accompanied by mask warriors, merchants, and judges come to witness the opening of the market, and a “bundle” of blood knives wearing scarlet tunics and the bright blue feathers of the death bird in their hair. Twenty of those blood knives in one place seemed like a lot.

“I am not accustomed to this,” said Feather Cloak to her companion, White Feather, who was walking alongside the litter carrying one of the infants in a drop-back sling.

“No, neither am I,” said White Feather.

“All the blood knives were gone by the time I was born.”

“Yes,” agreed White Feather with a flutter of her lips that resembled a grim smile. It was as much as she ever said on the matter. “So they were.”

For the past two days they had been walking through an area of dispersed settlements, most of them lying off the main road. Now, as the raised roadway curved around a field of sap cactus, they came into a community abandoned during the exile but repopulated over the winter by those who had returned from the shadows. A large residence was raised on an earth platform. Small houses were set in groups around central patios. A remarkable number of people came out to greet them, more bundles than she could estimate easily. She could not get used to the crowds. They had no doubt been alerted to her arrival by the runners sent ahead to announce the procession.

Those in the back of the crowd craned their necks to get a glimpse of her. These were all folk who had returned from the shadows. They stood differently, wore their hair differently, tilted their chins differently, and they hadn’t the stick-thin wiriness common to those who had survived exile, who had never ever in their lives gotten enough to eat except now in the days of the return when the exiles wallowed in the riches that those returned from the shadows called dearth.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” she said, suddenly wanting to talk to the ones gathered here, who stared at her but kept silent for fear of their voices polluting her.

The blood knives began to protest that they were less than a third of a day’s journey from the city on the lake, enough to make it by nightfall, but already the men who carried her heeded her command and bore her up to the residence while householders scattered to make room. The chief of the town was a man and a woman. Despite both being of middle years, they were newly married to judge by the blackened remains of wedding torches stuck in the ground on either side of the residence gateway.