Spiritwalkers: Initiate, Part One

[aithne]

Dichali had been right, as she found out the next day. Otaktay knocked her around for a few hours in the morning and a few in the afternoon, and if she could dodge for a little while he would tire and call a rest break for a few minutes. Nascha was taking a lot of bruises, but by the afternoon she was learning to dodge and block a little. It was going to take a lot of time and work before she could say she was good at this, but she rather thought that she wasn't entirely hopeless. The thought was unexpectedly gratifying, and she realized she'd been afraid that her lack of warrior training was going to make her a drag on the whole band. She was going to have to work to catch up, she thought, but she could do it.

She heard both Dichali and Cheveyo all day. She quickly learned to tune Dichali out, as he did a running commentary on everything he saw, and he spent some of the day watching her and Otaktay spar. The commentary on how she was doing was distracting. She heard Cheveyo answering questions that she could not hear, getting only a small part of the ongoing conversation.

At the end of the day, she was feeling tired and sore and looking forward to a night of sleep, especially since Otaktay had said with a grin that tomorrow would hold more lessons. But before she could sleep, she needed to hear Adoeete's story.

As she took Adoeete's hands, the images began. He was the oldest in seasons, chosen to be spiritwalker much later than most, the son of the main tribal elder and expected to take his place as an elder when his father died. He had married a woman his father had chosen for him, but he had loved another woman fiercely and did to his day. He had a son, who he was very proud of. He loved nothing in the world better than a bison hunt.

He feared and wanted to be a tribal elder, all at once. His fears centered around making decisions that would send people to their deaths, or mistakes that would kill the people he was charged with leading. He disliked Cheveyo for the ease with which he made those decisions, and that dislike was a mouse nibbling at his bones.

He also thought that women as spiritwalkers was a bad idea, but he would accept it if he had to. Nascha wasn't altogether sure he was wrong, and found it impossible to hold his doubts against him. "Any questions, Nascha?" Adoeete asked.

She considered. "How do you make yourself get along with someone you wouldn't like very well in any other setting?"

Adoeete twitched one corner of his mouth. "It's not easy. But you just have to trust that both of you will not cross a line that angers the other too much. You have to pick your battles, know when to back down and when to fight." His eyes were dark, and he shook his head. "In the end, I have to accept his decision. There is really no other choice. In the end, Cheveyo has my respect and my gratitude that he is still alive. For if he wasn't, we would be led by Dichali."

Nascha gave him a wry smile. "And you wouldn't be able to tell which was orders and which was chatter?"

"Very true. I think the tribes would starve to death before he made a decision on the right bison to cull."

"Well, I hope long life for Cheveyo, then. If you take that place with the elders, would you have to leave this group?" she asked, curious.

Adoeete nodded. "I will. Someone will replace me, but I will always be spiritwalker. Then Cheveyo will have to listen to me." He smiled briefly.

"I hope both of you live long enough to see that day," she told him.

"So do we all. Anything else for you, Nascha?"

She shifted, feeling sore muscles and the ache of bruises. "I don't think so, Adoeete. Thank you for your story, very much."

Adoeete climbed to his feet. "Good night, Nascha. You should get more rest than last night, at least."

Nascha made a face. "If nothing else, with how Otaktay was working me today, I should sleep like a stone! Good night, Adoeete."

He nodded and walked off, and Nascha too went to find a place to sleep. She did sleep hard and woke the next morning with Adoeete's voice added to Cheveyo's and Dichali's already in her head. Adoeete and Cheveyo were just as biting to each other silently as they were aloud, perhaps more so. It was still strange to be hearing them in her head, mostly because she could hear them clearly even when she couldn't see them.

There was an anthill near where they had camped, and on her way back from going to pet Una and check her over, she stopped to watch one of the entrances. The ants shone black in the sunlight, and she had always liked to watch the frenetic but somehow organized activity of them, as ants carried things in and out of the nest.

She heard a step and realized Cheveyo was behind her, and she straightened and turned towards him. He was closer to her than she'd thought, and she almost started as he reached out to lay a hand lightly on her cheek. "Pezi passed this image to us," he said silently, and an image popped into Nascha's mind, one of men wearing strange clothing and rifles, some sort of contraption on their heads and their faces pale underneath of them, their hair cut short. Spanish, she thought, only they wore those things on their heads. There were five of them, or so.

Then there was another image, of men with circle tattoos on their shoulders, probably Arapaho. The two groups were far apart to begin with, but over the last few days they had been getting closer. They met, which would usually mean a battle, but this time it was different. The Arapaho were giving directions to the Spanish, it seemed.

"They're working with the Spanish? Why?" Nascha asked.

"Probably to find us, the Apache, the Navajo, the Sioux, who knows for sure," he said.

She narrowed her eyes, thinking. "So what do we do? Find out more? Try to stop one or the other?"

Cheveyo smiled briefly. "Starting to think like us, I see. Yes. The Arapaho are a tough fight for one still learning but the Spanish, that is a different story."

Nascha nodded. "So we go after them, then. And do what? Scare them? Kill them?"

"We do what we must. They can't live to tell their army where we are. Five alone is a much easier number to deal with than five hundred, and that information dies with them. Leaving the army blind."

"Good for us, no matter what the army's up to," she said.

"Right, so a change of plans. Sit. I need to get my paints," Cheveyo said.

"Paints?"

He nodded. "War paint. You need a pattern."

Nascha blinked, then recovered. I cannot get used to thinking of myself as a warrior. "I suppose I do," she said.

"You can try to trust that your breasts would give you away, so that we don't shoot you from a distance, but a pattern is better seen from far away," he said.

"I'd rather not get shot by those who I'm with. I'll leave that to the Spanish," she said, and smiled at Cheveyo.

"Good. Sit. It may take a bit to see the pattern on your face." He stepped behind her, and pulled her hair back for her, tying it so it was out of the way. It was oddly pleasant to have his hands in her hair. It reminded her of how her mother would comb through her hair every morning, and she blinked back tears, remembering.

She sat down and Cheveyo went to get the paints. A wave of homesickness washed over Nascha. She had been trying to keep busy enough that she did not think about what she'd lost, but it had taken only a touch on her hair to bring everything flooding back. She missed her mother keenly right now, wished she could talk to her about everything and put her head in her lap like she had as a little girl at the fire at night.

Cheveyo returned with a flat box that held a multitude of small jars. He opened them one by one, lifting them to sniff their contents, and then said, "Close your eyes and just rest. I will be running my hands over your face and throat for awhile, sketching patterns."

Nascha nodded, and closed her eyes. It was a strange intimacy to be allowing someone she had just met, and she had to keep herself from flinching away at first as he brushed his fingers against her face. She relaxed quickly, though, under the stroking of his hands.

It seemed to take very little time for Cheveyo to pronounce her finished, and she realized as she opened her eyes that she had paint on her face. The sun had moved, and there was a bowl of food next to her. She blinked. "Did I fall asleep?"

"You didn't snore, if that's what you mean," Cheveyo said with a smile.

She reached up, and barely stopped herself from touching the paint on her face. "What does it look like?"

"I have left the right half of your face alone. Your left side has four owl feather designs in white and brown. The longest one runs from throat to scalp and then they reduce in size from there to your ear."

"Ah, like my name. Thank you."

"Seemed to fit," he told her. "Memorize ours as well."

"I will, when I see them. When are we leaving?"

Cheveyo glanced over his shoulder at the others, who were moving purposefully, having conversations she could only half-hear. "Just as soon as you eat and we paint ourselves and the horses."

"Do I need to paint Una myself?" she asked.

He nodded, and said, "It would be advisable to hide her colors. Yellow roans are rare."

"I will, then, once I've eaten." Nascha picked up the bowl, and Cheveyo picked up his paint-box and carried it off. She ate and watched the others paint each others' faces. Cheveyo's face was painted in white, with one red line going from the middle of his left eye down to his chest. Dichali's mouth had been exaggerated in black so it covered half of his face. Adoeete had a single feather painted on the middle of his face, using his nose as the spine. Nascha wondered, if he broke his nose and it healed crooked, if he would have to change his pattern.

Zotum's pattern was simple, they had simply extended his canines both up and down from his mouth. Otaktay's face had a pattern in red on it, as of sprayed blood. Pezi had yellow and green stripes all up and down his face. Sahale had falcon eyes painted above his own eyes, and under both eyes was a full-sized bird foot.

Nascha memorized each of them as she saw them. When she was done, she went to ask for some paint and some advice on painting Una. Dichali told her that the designs on the horses were up to the whim of the rider; most of the time, they put on the horses things about themselves. Number of kills, names of children or loved ones, anything the rider saw fit. Nascha went to Una with her paint, and scratched the horse behind her ears. She had an idea.

She used her fingers to make bold lines on the horse's neck and body, in designs she had seen all her life and even helped create. She was painting a blanket pattern, working in things she thought of as representing her family--a stone spire for Tse, a spider weaving for her mother, a sleek mink for Sakhyo. When she was done, Una's color was dulled by the lines, and the mare turned her head, apparently inspecting Nascha's work. It was a bit clumsy, she had to admit.

"I'll get better at it," she told the horse. Una snorted in a way that Nascha thought probably meant, You'd better.

It seemed so sudden that they were ready to go, everyone around her mounting up in response to a word from Cheveyo. They turned south, Sahale in the lead and Pezi right behind him. Cheveyo maneuvered his horse next to Nascha, and said, "We should be there soon, within a few hours. Are you ready?"

"Well, as ready as I'm going to be today," she answered with a faint smile. "Tomorrow, I might be more ready. But since it's today...well."

"It is now," he agreed. They fell silent, and then Cheveyo ordered them to scatter outwards. Pezi took the front by a long way, and the rest of them spent some of the time spread out and the rest bunched together. It seemed to be a pattern to attempt to hide their numbers.

Otaktay took the opportunity, when they were bunched together, to swing his hatchet at Nascha. She was taken by surprise the first time, earning what was probably going to be a deep bruise on her upper arm, and then kept a close and wary eye out whenever the big man was around. She learned how to dodge and block on horseback quickly.

The sun was directly overheard when they caught up with Pezi, who was waiting for them calmly. Cheveyo consulted briefly with him and then said to the rest of them, "We have them over the next rise. One thing about the Spanish, they are predictable people. It's nap time."

"So we go in and kill them before they wake?" Nascha asked.

"One survivor if you can. Otaktay, this goes double for you. Pezi will take you in, Nascha." Everyone was dismounting.

A nervous shiver shook Nascha's shoulders as she dismounted, landing hard on the ground. "All right," she told Cheveyo, and knew that her nerves showed in her voice.

"If you get in trouble, get behind Otaktay," Cheveyo told her. "He will be next to you. Ready?"

"Ready," she said, and Pezi came to take her hand as the rest readied their weapons. Silently, Pezi tightened his hand on hers, and both of them took a step forward into spiritworld, misty shapes swirling around them. A few steps later, they were standing in front of three very startled Spanish, Pezi on one side of her, Otaktay on the other.

Pezi and Otaktay went after the ones on the end, leaving her the one in the middle, taking down theirs with hatchet blows. For a heartbeat or two, Nascha stood frozen, the hatchet in her hand strange and useless.

Then the Spanish in front of her reached for the gun next to him, and she flung herself forward, coming in low, taking the man off balance like she used to with the boys she wrestled with as a child. Cheveyo had said they would need a survivor, and she thought this one would do.

But first, she had to manage to get him immobilized. She rolled with him, landing on top of him, trying to twist one of his arms up behind his back. The Spanish was shouting incomprehensibly, and she could see Pezi standing nearby, looking for an opening. She rolled again, letting the man think he was going to be able to get the best of her, and almost casually Pezi reached out and gave the man a tap on the back of the head with the blunt end of the hatchet. The Spanish gave a long exhale and collapsed. Nascha shoved him away from her and got up, "Thanks," she told Pezi, who smiled and inclined his head in response.

Cheveyo was standing next to her, and she blinked, wondering when exactly he had arrived. "The Spanish, when deprived of their weapons, don't make good foes," he commented, looking at the unconscious man at their feet.

"Noticed that. Strange people, these."

"Very," he said. "Take anything off of him that you want now. Once dead, a spiritwalker can never take anything from them. Do you know why?" Nascha shook her head. "When the body dies, it remembers all the things it had on it, when it crosses to spiritworld. If you have something of a dead person's on you, that spirit can harm you, or deny you access out of spiritworld. If you are denied access out, you will die in there, tormented."

"Good thing to know." Nascha frowned, thinking. "Does it still count if you're not the one who took something from the dead? If so, I may have some things to get rid of."

"Depends on if you think they will hold a grudge," he said. "We don't take from those we kill, ever. If it was something from someone that died that you didn't have anything to do with their death, then you should have nothing to fear."

Nascha's shoulders sank, relieved. "Oh, good. I took some things of Chogan's when I escaped that I'm pretty sure were trophies from people he killed."

"You should have no problems. Chogan has to obey that rule as well. He would not have taken them from bodies of the dead. Like now, this one is not dead, we can strip him naked and then kill him and he has nothing on us. Only after death is it dangerous."

"So I'll remember the rule, then," she said.

"Do so, it will be very bad if you don't," Cheveyo said. "How are you?"

She thought for a moment. "Unhurt. Surprised." She glanced at the bodies of the dead men, their blood soaking into the thirsty ground. "I need to get used to that sight."

Cheveyo shrugged. "You have seen death before. You will see it a great many more times. It is our way, the path chosen for us."

Nascha had seen death, yes, everyone did; people died of illness or injury or on raids. But she was not old enough to have ever tended the dead, and she had never been on a raid before. "I know. I'm just not used to looking right at it, yet," she told Cheveyo.

"Time to go for now," he said. "Sahale, if you would?"

Zotum had tied up the unconscious man and roused him with slaps to the face; he was sitting up now, hands tied behind his back. Sahale stepped up to him, looked him up and down, and then started speaking to him in his own language. "Where did Sahale learn their language?" Nascha asked Cheveyo quietly.

The tall man shook his head. "His story to tell. But suffice it to say, he learned it in one of their prisons."

"Understood. I'll wait for him to tell his story," she said.

"Seventh night, but tonight it's Zotum." He looked over at her, seeming almost to be evaluating her somehow. "Are you understanding better?"

"I think I am. At least, I'm trying." What a strange road the gods have chosen for me. Strange indeed.

Cheveyo said, "Yes, you are." Nascha felt an odd gratitude for his words, that were almost like encouragement. She was trying. "Ah, Sahale offered him quick death or slow death, that opened the tongue," he said as the Spanish started chattering.

Nascha took a moment to watch Sahale work. Sahale had never struck Nascha as anything like intimidating, but now, shoulders squared and a low threat implicit in his voice whenever he spoke, she could see why the Spanish was staring with wide eyes at him and talking rapidly. Sahale glanced at Cheveyo, who nodded. "Chunta mean anything to you?" Cheveyo asked silently.

"One of the men in Chogan's group," she said. Chunta had been a tall man with a twitchy way about him, as if he was never quite settled in his skin.

"That was his contact," Cheveyo told her. "They paid him in food for information on other tribes, where they were located currently. He gave up the location of the Navajo camp that we know moved on. He gave up your old camp and Sioux camp. He didn't give up one of ours, he didn't know where they were. Was that tribe of the Arapaho large?"

She nodded. "Too large, about a hundred people or so. I think they attacked our camp for food. Sakhyo and I were incidental, I think. They should have split, I don't know why they haven't."

"They are trading for a lot of food, and that one says Chunta was heading to a trading post for more," Sahale said, and then went back to speaking aloud with the Spanish.

"That sounds like they are making a large camp to attack someone in force," Cheveyo said.

"It does, but who?" Nascha felt profoundly uneasy. "If they're allying themselves with the Spanish, maybe they're planning on taking on all the tribes nearby."

"Hopi, Ute, Apache, Navajo, Sioux in the southern range. If he knew where there was a Sioux camp, they would have to be scouting for them. I would bet on them, today."

"Most likely." Nascha paused, remembering something she hadn't thought much of at the time. "The night I left, the reason I was able to escape was that there was a celebration of some sort going on. Chogan had been using peyote, and forgot to tie me up. I wonder if they were getting ready to go to war?"

"Likely, which means they would have a lot to trade. So Chunta is bargaining it out. Probably your people's things, and more."

The thought hurt, much as she tried to not let it. There were realities that she still had trouble dealing with. "Probably. So what now? Find the Sioux ourselves?"

"The Sioux are either dead and if not, they can take care of themselves," Cheveyo said. "We find Chunta, and send a message to Chogan. What do you think?"

Nascha smiled slowly. "I like that idea."

"It's a good week from here to Little Water trading post."

As far as their new camp had been from the rest of the tribe. "And hope that he doesn't run out of things to trade and leave between now and then?" she asked.

"He probably won't, if they are raiding that hard," he said, nodding. "which means they have broken up as well. Chunta will travel with three others, maybe more. Not the full ten that we know them to be."

"So a little easier to get, then."

"Should be. Zotum." Cheveyo nodded to Zotum, who almost faster than Nascha could follow raised his bow, nocked an arrow, and shot the Spanish in the heart. He choked and died mid-word.

Nascha looked down at the man who was now bleeding onto the dry ground. It needed to be done, they could not risk survivors talking. She knew that. "Do we do anything for these dead?" she asked.

"They bury their dead," Cheveyo told her. "It's an odd custom, one we don't have time for. Let the desert do its work. They will be mostly gone by morning."

Nascha nodded; there seemed to be nothing left to say about it. They took food and water from the dead men's stores, and set off towards Little Water. Una had a comfortable, ground-eating gait, and she seemed to be not at all bothered by a day spent mostly in motion.

The rhythmic motion of the horse and the sound of the hooves of Una and the others lulled Nascha into a sort of trance. Still wide awake, she responded when Cheveyo ordered them into the patterns that would hide their numbers, but otherwise she was paying attention to what was going on inside of her, temporarily a dispassionate observer of her own grief.

They rode until sunset and then camped, making food that Nascha ate without tasting much of it. Afterwards, Zotum came to her, and sat down in front of her. "Ready?" he asked, holding out his hands.

Nascha nodded, and Zotum grinned briefly at her, his smile a little macabre with his long canine teeth but appealing despite it. She took his hands and closed her eyes.

The images Zotum gave her now didn't seem so overwhelming as the three who had come before him, thankfully. She saw him growing up, his mother and father, his little brother Otaktay. Otaktay had always been the strong one, and their father had favored him. Zotum had been chosen to be a spiritwalker first, though, and after that his father had seen him in a new light.

The memories turned dark then, as she saw his mother and father dying, eaten from inside out by a fever brought by the Spanish, something their shaman couldn't cure. Zotum had grieved both of them hard, especially his mother, who he'd loved deeply.

He had not recovered well from her death, and it still hurt him to the point that he did not form lasting relationships. He had his spiritwalker brothers and now a sister, but no one else.

She started seeing his battles, the men he had killed. He was by far the best bowman in the group, as well as a savage fighter. He used all of the resources he had when in a fight, including his teeth when necessary. Zotum had killed with those teeth, she saw in memories that would have horrified her if she hadn't been in Zotum's calm grip. But underneath those memories, she saw that he did not regret the killing. He merely regretted living through the disease.

"Can you hear me now?" he asked silently, after he let go of her hands.

"I can, clearly," she said aloud.

"Anything you want to know more about?"

Nascha nodded, trying to think how to phrase the question. "What kept you going, after your parents died? How did you keep putting one foot before the other?"

Zotum lifted his hands, let them fall. "I am not sure. Otaktay, probably. I needed to survive for him, for some reason. So I got up every day, and then the days turned to seasons, and now it hurts some but not as much."

"Do you think that someday, it won't hurt quite so much?" she asked, and was surprised by the fearful hope in her voice.

He inclined his head, the flicker of firelight playing across his face and turning his eyes bottomless. "For us both. Yes." He gestured around them, to those sitting and lying by the fire. "I find that the gods balance things. They took from both of us but they gave us them."

"Some day, I might even think that a fair trade. It's not anything against any of you, I'm grateful you came along." She gave Zotum a small smile, trying to fight the darkness that was still stirring in her. "But right now, the only thing keeping my heart beating is that I have to be alive to rescue my cousin and kill Chogan."

Zotum spread his hands, putting them on his knees. "You would have given your life up out in that desert. Now, you have a chance to do just that."

Nascha swallowed, thinking about how she had been found. Yes, she would have died. If not that day, then the day after, probably driven mad by thirst and fever. "Once I've done those two things, then I'll see if I consider it a good balance, what I've lost and what I've gained." Her throat hurt as she tried to contemplate the thought that those two things would ever balance.

The look Zotum gave her was full of compassion. "Only you can make that judgment. It took me many years, but I would say for me, it's balanced now."

"I'll see," she said, nodding. "Would you help me work on my bow skills?"

"It's in your training, set out as soon as Otaktay says you are ready to move on," he told her.

"Good. Even more of an incentive to get good enough at the hatchet that Otaktay doesn't feel the need to beat the knowledge into me anymore." She smiled, and Zotum chuckled in response.

"Won't matter much. He will still enjoy beating you." He smiled back at her.

Nascha stretched, putting her hands behind her and leaning on them, raising her eyes so she could see the scattered, glittering stars hanging low in the sky, a tapestry of light. "Well, at least maybe I can get good enough that I can mostly avoid him hitting me," she said.

"That is the point, I think, for you," Zotum said. Nascha straightened; she hadn't yet heard from anyone why she was training as she was. "You will be more scout or distance fighter than close in, but it's best not to train for those first until you can defend on the close. As spiritwarriors, when you fight other spiritwarriors. close in and distance are very quick sometimes to change."

It made sense, and more than sense. "It would be. So I need to learn how to dodge."

"Yes and tomorrow from what Pezi said he found. You will start the lessons in walking the world."

This, too, was new. "What did Pezi find?" she asked.

There was just the briefest twitch of a smile on Zotum's face. "Peyote."

Nascha exhaled, sat back. "Another ceremony, then."

"This one to let you walk the world yourself without Pezi's help."

To be alone in that strange place... Nascha resolved not to think about it. "Is it hard, the first time?"

"I had no trouble slipping into the world," he said. "I did have trouble with my stomach for days after."

"The peyote, or an aftereffect of the walk?"

Zotum made a face. "The peyote. Nasty stuff, that."

She wrinkled her nose. "My grandfather mentioned that, once. Then he refused to tell me any more. He does that a lot, though." Her voice was fond; her grandfather was one of her favorite people, despite his habit of speaking only rarely, as if he only had so many words and he feared running out before he died.

"You will slip into the spiritworld. Try to remember what it felt like for you the first time. Because you will need to do it over and over again until you can do it without the peyote." He smiled. "Good night, I think, Nascha. Unless you need to know something else?"

"I don't think so," she said. "Good night, Zotum, and thank you."

"You are welcome," he told her, and went to lie down. Nascha lay back on her blanket and watched the slowly moving stars, thinking.

Morning came all too soon, and Cheveyo came to her with a cup of something steaming in his hand. The air was crisp as the sun began to rise, the blessed cool of the early hours providing brief respite from the heat. "Don't bother with eating, you will just see it again," he told her, handing her the cup.

Reflexively, she sniffed and then wrinkled her nose. The brew was bitter and musty-smelling. "Zotum mentioned that today would be my first lesson in walking the spiritworld alone." She gave the cup a dubious look. "I should probably try to drink this and not taste it so much, yes?"

"It doesn't taste very good," he said with a smile. "I will be with you when you cross over to watch out for you. You may see people that are dead and you may see people that are still alive. You will know the difference by which answer you. Those that are dead will answer your questions, those that are alive, won't."

Nascha nodded, relaxing. She wasn't going to be alone, after all. She'd have a guide to whatever dangers the other world held. "All right," she said, and lifted the cup to her lips.

It burned all the way down, and after she finished Cheveyo extended a hand to help her to her feet. Standing, she felt briefly dizzy, and then very strange, as if her body and her whole being were focused down to a single point. Then she trembled as she felt herself move without moving, pushing through a barrier that felt like a blanket soaked with water, hung out to dry.

She wobbled briefly and then recovered as she saw around herself the landscape and the misty shapes that swirled in it. The shapes took form, some briefly, some more lastingly, most people she did not know. One of them came closer and closer, and as it did it took on form and dimension. It was her mother, Shadi. "Mother! Can you hear me?"

She was almost close enough to touch. "I can, daughter."

Nascha could have wept, and the tears burned under her breastbone. "I'm alive. Sakhyo and Nastas are alive."

"I knew you would survive, Nascha. You were strong that way. Your will is very strong." Shadi smiled, that beautiful smile inherited from her own mother.

"The will of the gods, I think. I'm learning to become a spiritwalker," she told her mother, her voice holding both pride and trepidation. What would her mother think?

But Shadi lifted her hand to her mouth, gesturing upwards, pleased. "I have seen you pass through twice before. I knew something was happening to you. I am proud of you, daughter. You are the only woman I have heard of as spiritwalker."

Had her mother ever told her that she was proud of her before? If she did, I never listened. "It's very strange. And I miss Tse, and you, and Father, and everyone. But I'll earn justice for all of you."

Shadi nodded. "Your father and I are here, but I have yet to see Tse."

Confused, Nascha shook her head. "I saw him killed in front of me."

"He may be with his family on this side. His ties to our family were not strong yet."

"He's probably with them, then. Maybe I'll see him some other time," Nascha said, feeling oddly disappointed.

"You will see him again, if not in your living life, here in spiritworld," her mother replied.

Nascha nodded. "I will. And ask his forgiveness."

Shadi stilled, tilted her head. "For what, daughter?"

"Grandfather and Ahiga survived, as far as I know. I begged Tse to stay, because I couldn't bear to see him leave without me." It had been selfish, the request of a girl new-married and thinking only of herself and her desire, the pain of separation.

"You are no more at fault for that than the sun being hot," she said. "Chogan and his people are to blame, not you."

It hurt, this guilt, it felt like it was eating her insides. "I know, but if I'd let him go, he would still be alive."

"Maybe, who knows how it would have gone," Shadi said. Strangely, it made Nascha feel better, and made her realize that the strange feeling in her stomach wasn't just guilt but the peyote making its effects felt.

She smiled, or tried to. "True. I love you, Mother. I never told you that enough. Too busy fighting with you." She managed an entire smile, this time.

"I love you too, daughter. We all do." Shadi laughed. "We were too much alike. Stubborn. I see you have brought Cheveyo."

Startled, Nascha looked over her shoulder. Cheveyo was behind her a few feet. "He's keeping an eye on me. Do you know him?"

Shadi shook her head. "Only from here."

"He's the leader of the spiritwalkers who picked me up. Asked me if I could hear him, and then told me to come with him, more or less," she told her mother.

Her mother was giving Cheveyo an intent look. "That would be his way." She glanced at Nascha. "He found me, the night after."

Nascha's head came up. "He came to find you? Why?"

"To make sure I was here and not alive somewhere needing help. He found me here, and your father."

Had he found Tse? She was almost afraid to ask. "At this point, I think the only one of us who really needs help is Sakhyo, and Nastas. And we'll go after them."

Shadi nodded. "She is fine, for now. Her new husband is very protective of her currently. But she denies him yet."

She hated to think of Sakhyo trapped in that village with nobody to talk to, nobody to hold her hand and help with the baby. But that she still lived was good news. "I'm glad. I was afraid they would have punished her after I escaped."

"She was under that threat, but Chuslum stopped them."

Dryly, Nascha said, "Well, the bull is good for something, at least. And it was Chogan's own fault I escaped."

"He is good but sometimes underestimates." Her mother's eyes were sharp and hard. "And he is doing it again. He let Chunta go with three others. It is good to see you again, daughter. But holding this form is tasking and you are going to need to go soon. I can see the peyote effects taking hold of you."

Nascha realized she was clenching her jaw, trying to keep the nausea down. "I think so. I'm glad I got to see you."

Shadi smiled. "The spiritworld is open to you now, daughter. Use it when you can to talk."

"I will," Nascha said, and watched as her mother faded into a cloud and disappeared.

Cheveyo said silently, "Let's take one step and then come out. It's the same as when you came, just push some and let yourself back out."

"I'll try it," she said, and stepped forward.

A step forward, and many paces of desert shot by underneath her, the land going blurry around her as she moved. Alone, it might have been enough to induce nausea, but combined with the peyote it was devastating. She fought to keep her gorge from rising as she pressed through the blanket between her and the world of the living, landing on her knees hard enough to bruise them and immediately beginning to throw up.

This, she thought, was why Cheveyo had come along--not so much to guard her while she was in spiritworld but to keep watch after she came out. She was helpless as nausea wracked her, first throwing up what little she had in her stomach and then only bile and dry heaving. On occasion, she would lift her head, thinking it was passing, and then another wave of nausea would roll over her.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, it did pass, and she sat back, her mouth foul and her head hurting. Cheveyo handed her a waterskin, and she drank deeply. The water felt like fire going down her throat, and she tensed, waiting to see if it was going to stay down.

Thankfully, it did, and she looked up at Cheveyo. "I hate to do this to you, but it's best when still fresh," he said. "Can you push your way back in?"

Nascha got to her feet, unsteady as a newborn foal. "I think I might. Let me try." She felt before her for that wet blanket that was the barrier, and pushed. In she went as it parted around her. Without moving, she came back out.

Cheveyo was smiling. The sight of it was a little bit of light in what otherwise was turning out to be a miserable morning. "Good. Try to do that as much as you can today. Then you won't have to do drink that tea ever again."

Thank all that is good and wise. "Anything, if it means I don't have to do that again." Immediately, she pushed back into spiritworld, practicing taking a few wobbly steps, flinching as the landscape went by her like wind. It was tiring to go back and forth too much, she found after a few trips, and came back to camp to rest.

The band rested here today to let her practice, though Dichali warned her that the traveling, and the lessons from Otaktay, would resume tomorrow. She alternately rested and went into spiritworld for the rest of the day. By the time nightfall came, she felt well enough to eat a little, though not enough to participate in the good-natured teasing that was directed her way around the fire.

Her head still hurt, but at least the nausea seemed to have passed. Otaktay came to her, smiling. "I thought I'd wait and see if you could eat with throwing up," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Less wretched," she said. "Pretty sure I'm not going to have to run away in the middle of your story. I could sleep some, though."

"Have to do one story a night, or we have to start over," he said. He sat down, holding out his hands.

Nascha put her hands in his, and his fingers closed over her hand, his large hands dwarfing hers. She closed her eyes, and the story began.

Many of the images were similar to Zotum's, she saw their parents and Zotum from Otaktay's perspective. She saw the illness and death of their parents, and it was here that Otaktay's and Zotum's stories diverged. Otaktay had not felt the overwhelming grief that Zotum did; in fact, he had been secretly a little relieved. His father had expected great things from Otaktay, and Otaktay had always felt like he was a disappointment somehow. No matter what Otaktay had done, there was never the pleased light in his father's eyes that he wanted desperately to see.

His father had been an elder, but Otaktay had never really wanted to be one. He was not chosen to succeed him, and strangely enough that weighed on him as well. Though he had not wanted the honor, not being offered it meant that the whole tribe didn't think his counsel was worth hearing.

Zotum being chosen as a spiritwalker first was another disappointment. The only real successes he counted in his life were his three children, two girls and a boy, and his love of the kill. He was probably the best warrior the tribe had seen in a long time, but he didn't recognize that, because his father would probably tell him he was merely acceptable.

That was the conclusion Nascha drew from his memories and story and the feelings that were attached to them, and she sat with the story for a bit, letting it settle into her. "So you didn't want to be an elder, but you were saddened when the tribe didn't choose you as one?" she asked.

Otaktay nodded, and his voice in her mind was clear and strong. "I took that a sign even before I was going to reject it that they didn't think my opinion was worth hearing."

"My grandmother told me once that at least in our tribe, someone might not be chosen as an elder for many different reasons. Maybe they knew you'd turn it down if it were offered. Maybe your skills as a warrior were far more valued. Who knows?"

He quirked his mouth. "I don't know what they were thinking, but I just felt they saw me as mountain and not a person. It shouldn't bother me, but it still does."

"I see. Well, my bruises attest to the fact that you're very good at what you do, and teaching it, as well."

"I do know how to fight, it is true," he said. "I have accepted what I have become, but still doubts can get to you sometimes. It is why we tell these stories, so that you can understand our decisions and what we may do in the future based on our pasts."

Nascha nodded. "And it's good to know that others doubt, as well. It's strange. Those of you I've heard their stories from, I feel like I know almost as well as I know my family. Better, in some cases."

"That is the way it's supposed to be," Otaktay said, and though he didn't smile the corners of his eyes crinkled a little. He had such an expressive face, Nascha thought. It wasn't something she'd noticed before.

"I suppose, because there can't be any secrets between us, we have to be as close as family," she said.

"We have to be closer, not many families can hear each other." He rolled his eyes. "Thank the gods for that."

Nascha smiled, thinking of her mother. "True enough. I fought with my mother so much, it was probably good we couldn't hear each other in our heads."

"There are days when I don't want to hear Zotum either," he said, and inclined his head.

"I'm sure. You two seem to get along well, though, considering."

Otaktay chuckled quietly. "Time has let things heal, and hearing each other daily has, as well."

"It sounds like it. It's not often that brothers get both chosen as spiritwalkers, is it?" she asked.

"Not common but not unheard of. But not any in a good hundred seasons or more. How are you doing, speaking of rare? There have been no women ever that I know of."

Nascha thought about it, about the difficulties of the past days, about the grief that made her heart pound against her ribs and weighed down her feet, about the work and the healing. "I'm doing better than I expected, to be honest. Though I hope to never have to drink peyote tea again. I was surprised beyond all reason to be chosen. You probably noticed."

"I know now that you were. I will understand more on eighth night. When you open to us, if you can," he said.

She drew in a long breath, thinking about telling these men, her new brothers, her life's story, including the parts she was not proud of. "I think I'll be able to. I have little left to lose by doing so, at this point. With any luck, what I saw while Chogan held me captive will help us take vengeance on him."

Otaktay let go of her hands. "I will like to see that, myself."

"A few nights from now, I think. At this point, I don't even know what's important. I hope that if I can show it to all of you, you'll know more."

"You will know what to show, you have seen what we have done." He paused, and looked at her inquiringly. "Any more questions, Nascha?"

Nascha shook her head. "No, I don't think so. And I should probably try to sleep off the last of the effects of the peyote." Her stomach gurgled uncomfortably; what little she'd eaten wasn't sitting well, it seemed.

"You should, it is unpleasant," he said, with sympathy. She nodded and went to find her blankets. Fortunately, she fell asleep right away and slept deeply. Morning found her feeling much better, and thankfully hungry.