"No," he said sharply. "Without the vision to see forward, we don't just live like near-animals, we become them. Is that what you'd prefer? Would you condemn your own bloodline to poverty and ignorance? Give up your

dreams, your hopes, your ethics? The raiders, the venges-they're just what we face this moment. There will be better years ahead."

"But I can't live with this existence."

"You don't believe in existence, Dion. You believe in life." She made an inarticulate sound. Gamon covered her fist, and she stared at his hand. The gnarled skin was weathered from decades of trail work and fighting, but the aged fingers were lean and strong, and the pressure of his hand on hers was firm. "Aranur believed in life, Dion. He knew he might not be able to reach his goal in his own lifetime, but that didn't mean that he denied that the goal was worthwhile. You know that, too, deep inside. He might be gone, but his dreams live on. You'll have to face those, Dion-his memories and his dreams, not just his death. You must see that."

Gray, grayer, darker, black; the flood of death swept her mind like a badgerbear rushing through night. She heard the river and knew it was before her, but she could no longer see it. Frigid water flashed beneath the summer sun. Clear depths fractured against the black rock 1on the other bank. She blinked, and realized with vague surprise that it was her mind which was black as night. "I'm blind," she said quietly. "I cannot see."

Gamon looked at her. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was not until Tehena finally moved beside Dion and took her hand that Dion got to her feet. The wolfwalker stood uncertainly, as if she had no balance, and Tehena touched her arm. Then, as if the wolfwalker were a child, Tehena led her away to her dnu.

Kiyun watched them as the lean woman mounted and took up the reins for Dion's beast. Tehena looked back and gestured toward the trail; Kiyun nodded silently. Tehena and Dion rode out, leaving the others behind.

For some time no one spoke. Then Kiyun took a collapsed grappling hook and the rope from his saddle bundle and moved down to the riverbank.

Asuli frowned as she watched him, then went after him to the bank.

Slowly, Gamon got to his feet. He ran his hand through his hair and stared at the gray-slick water. "We're losing her," he said.

Kiyun stood beside him. "Aye," the man said simply.

"We have to do something." Gamon's voice was hard.

"Something," Kiyun agreed. "But what do you think to do? She's gone too

far," he said, more to himself. "She's on the blood side of the moons."

Gamon had no answer for that.

Steadily, Kiyun uncoiled the rope and knotted one end to the hook. Then he

spun the hook across the water. It was not a wide river; the hook landed well back in the trees. A few minutes, and the hook was set, and the tall man knotted the other end to a thick trunk on the bank.

Asuli watched his preparations. When he started stripping down to his shorts, she asked sharply, "What are you doing?"

He peeled off his shirt and dropped it onto his boots. "Diving."

"For what?"

"For what Dion thinks to throw away."

"Kiyun, this river comes straight off an ice pack. That water's freezing."

"Aye," he agreed.

"The current could have carried those things half a kay already."

"Maybe. The circlet fell near the other bank in that eddy, out of the main current. And the sword is heavy. It sank where the water's deep."

"And you can dive that deep?"

He shrugged.

"You're a fool," Asuli told him sharply. She turned on her heel and went

back to her dnu. She looked down the trail, but Tehena and Dion were out of sight; so she sat on a log and stared instead at the ground.

In the river, Kiyun knotted a safety line around his waist, looped it over the

grappling line, and waded into the current. Briefly, he cursed under his breath at the frigid chill. Then he began to dive.

XVII.

"I wanted to save the world,"

said the wolfwalker. The eighth moon smiled faintly.

"It's enough to save yourself," she said.

-From Night Mares and Wolfwalkers, Tales to Tell Children Previous Top Next There were days that passed, but Dion didn't know them: she had turned inward and was deafened by wolves. Twice she disappeared, turning off the trail and riding alone, only to appear again hours later with a wolf pack fading back into the brush behind her. She pushed herself during the day then collapsed, exhausted, at night. She accepted staying in villages only because Gamon insisted. When she did sleep, she cried for Aranur at night, and woke with the names of her sons on her lips. And between the towns, where the forests were thick with wolf packs, she flickered in and out of their campsites like candlelight in the wind. Halfway through the second ninan, she returned to camp without her dnu. It was Kiyun who saw her first, standing uncertainly in the dusk shadows at the edge of the small clearing. Quietly, he said her name. She looked at him blankly. He said it again, and this time she shivered. Then she moved into the firelight. She left again the next morning and ran with the wolves on foot.

They zigzagged through the hills, moving without direction- even backtracking-until they turned vaguely north. By the end of the third ninan they were well into Ramaj Randonnen. The thin line of the river they followed began to grow as more mountain streams enjoined it. The air grew colder with the altitude, and they began to face ice in the mornings, but the sun was still hot at midday, and the air was dry as dust. Only night itself was cold.

One day, Dion left them when a wolf pack loped past the riders. One moment, she was walking with Kiyun; the next minute, she was gone. Kiyun mounted the dnu he had been leading, and they rode on, following the thin road that occasionally appeared.

It was barely dusk when Gamon and the others found a clearing in a stand of randerwood trees. They made camp efficiently, dug out a fire pit, and lined it with rocks. One moment, they were snapping the fallen branches for a fire pit; the next, she was at the edge of the clearing, watching them from the trees. It was Kiyun who saw her first again, and he stiffened in spite of himself. Gamon and Tehena looked up sharply. Like a wolf, Dion eyed them warily, and behind her, two of the Gray Ones melted back into the brush.

"Dion," Gamon said softly. "Come."

She hesitated, but Tehena gestured calmly. Finally, the wolfwalker stepped

out of the dusty shadow. They could see her sleeve now, where it was gashed, and the stain of blood along it. Gamon motioned for her to come closer. She shrugged away, half shifting toward the forest. Only when Gamon stopped moving did she halt. Then, gingerly, he motioned instead toward her bedroll, which Kiyun had already spread. She hesitated, then moved to sit on the blankets. She curled up like a wolf beneath them, closed her eyes, and slept.

"Her arm is gashed," Asuli said, her voice low.

"We noticed," Kiyun said flatly, going back to snapping wood and stacking it in the fire pit.

"It should be treated. She'll get jellbugs if she runs around with an open

wound like that."

The tall man fed the fire. "Dion won't get jellbugs."

Asuli stared at him. "Are you that stupid? It's summertime- the jellbugs

are breeding like flies."

"Watch your tongue, Asuli."

"Just because she's a healer doesn't mean she's suddenly immune to the

dangers to her own body."

Kiyun gave her a grimly amused look. "You want to treat her? Go ahead and try."

"You'd let her die just because she doesn't want to be touched right now?

What kind of Kum-jan friend are you?"

Kiyun's voice was suddenly hard, his face shuttered. "There is no Kum-jan between us. We're friends, not lovers, Asuli."

"You look at her-"

He cut her off. "No," he said flatly.

"Fine," she retorted. She stalked to her saddle and pulled her own healing

kit from it. But when she squatted down beside Dion, the wolfwalker's eyes opened, and the snarl that came to Dion's lips was audible. Deliberately, Asuli reached for Dion's arm. Then she froze. The blade of a knife lay against her wrist,

Asuli didn't move, but her voice had the barest tremor. "It needs the sealing salve. There are jellbugs out here, and parasites that can clog your blood like hair in a water pipe. You, of all people, know that."

Dion's lips moved, but the words were mangled by the pack-song that

flooded her thoughts.

Asuli reached for Dion's arm again. "You've got to put the salve on-" The knife pressed into her skin. She gasped and jerked back. Eyes wide, she stared at the wolfwalker. "You would cut me?"

"Don't touch me." This time Dion's words were clear.

"You've got to fix that open wound. You'll die if you don't close it off."

"The wound is closed. There are no jellbugs in it."

"I don't believe you."

"That's your prerogative." Dion slipped the knife back in its sheath, but

Asuli had no doubt that the steel would flash out again should she try to