Darkness. Absolute darkness. But not peace. My body was bathed in pain. The skin of my face, my arms and legs, my back and belly, all stung as if badly burned. That was it. As thoughts re-formed in my head, I realized what had happened. I’d been sunburned. Dewara had left my body exposed to the sun and I was burned all over. I remembered it now. Soon I would open my eyes, and find myself back in my bed, at home. My mother would be weeping by my bedside while my father kept watch.
I was going back to the beginning of it all. Back to where I could choose differently, live my life over. I would not make the mistakes I’d made before. I’d be strong and more aggressive. My father would be proud of me. I’d be an officer in the King’s Cavalla. My mother and siblings would not die of a plague that I’d let loose upon Gernia. The old god had taken me back to where it had all begun, to when Dewara had sent me to do battle against Tree Woman and I had failed. Had that been a death? Was that the death the old god had taken?
“You are not even remotely correct,” Orandula observed. There was amusement in his voice. Overhead, I heard the shifting of a heavy body in a tree’s branches. Then it lifted off with a flapping of wings that faded almost immediately. I listened intently. He was gone. Where was I?
I could see nothing, but I could hear. The ringing silence resolved itself into night insects singing their endless songs. Cautiously, I explored my other senses. I smelled and tasted blood. Pain hummed all around me, but I had specific pains, too. I’d bitten my tongue badly. My head pounded. My innards felt wrong, as if my guts had settled into a new and strange arrangement. I sorted out my agonies and knew that I was sitting upright. I tried to move, to shift even my leg, and cried out at the fresh pain it woke. I went back to stillness.
The darkness was an overcast night. It passed very slowly, and it was some time before I realized that the blackness was nothing more terrifying and dreadful than night. The coming of the dim dawn as sunlight flickered down through the canopy of the forest brought its own terror, however. I could see, and what I saw sickened me.
I sat where the Specks had left me. The beaks of the carrion birds that had torn the flesh from my body had shredded my bindings as well. I was naked. Shreds of rotting flesh surrounded and enthroned me. My decomposed body was a slimy scum on the earth around me. Pale roots networked through it. But that was not what horrified me.
What remained of my body was a monstrous thing. The layer of skin that covered me was so thin that I could see through it. As the light grew stronger, what I could see became ever more horrifying. Red muscle, white tendons, dark veins. Knobs of bone and gristle showing through in my hands. My breath came and went in short, trembling bursts. I wondered for an instant what my face looked like and then was glad I could not know.
As the sun grew stronger, it brought light and color into the world. My body became even more hideous. I turned my eyes away from it and looked around me. There was Lisana’s tree, lush and healthy. And when I turned my eyes up, my own tree towered over me, twice the size it had been when last I saw it. I was grateful for its thick leafy shade, for I feared what the sun could do to my nearly skinless body. The surface of my body stung all over like a skinned knee.
I moved cautiously, lifting my hands, not wanting to look at them but looking all the same. After a time, I stood. My bare feet protested. They barely had skin, let alone calluses to protect them. I was very careful as I picked my way through the fallen branches and other forest debris to reach Lisana’s tree. I stood looking up at it. “Lisana?” I asked softly.
There was no response. But it was more profound than that. I sensed nothing that could have responded. I set both my hands to the trunk of her tree. I didn’t like the sensation. The skin on my palms and fingers was new and thin. I pressed my tender hands against the roughness of her bark and feared I would tear what little skin I had. Nevertheless, I put my brow to her bark as well. “Lisana?” I called aloud. “Lisana, please, reach for me. I cannot feel you.”
But there was nothing. I stood a long time, hoping there would be something. I would have welcomed it even if her tree had tried to root into my flesh. But there was not even that.
When I glanced back at my tree, I could see that its roots were rapidly diminishing the leftovers of what I had been. But from that tree I sensed nothing, no awareness, no kinship, nothing at all.
No magic.
I don’t know how long I would have stayed there if thirst had not begun to assail me. I knew my way to the nearest stream, and I went there, carefully descending from Lisana’s ridge, taking each step as if I were made of cobwebs and glass. My breath shivered in and out of me. When I reached the water, I had to kneel down and cup it into my hands. It was cold and wet, a painful shock to my barely cloaked nerves. I felt the coldness of it running down inside me, even into my belly. I drank a lot of water, and then sat shivering. I’d looked at my hands when I drank from them. The memory made me shudder.
By midday, I was thinking more clearly, but only because I had pushed aside every part of my experience that refused to make sense. I’d evaluated where I was and what I had. My situation was desperate. I was naked, hungry, and vulnerable to everything from a thorn to an insect bite. I needed help. I could think of only one place and one person who would offer it. I stood up and left the stream.
I stumbled through the forest, moving with exaggerated caution lest I tear my new skin. Everything seemed too difficult. My legs were wobbly and sometimes I staggered unpredictably. Once, when I nearly fell and had to catch myself against a tree trunk, I ripped the thin skin on my palm. The sudden pain tore a shriek from me, and fresh blood ran from the cut, trickling down my wrist. In the distance, almost in response to my shriek, I heard birds caw raucously, as if laughing at me. I was so weakened and befuddled by all that I had been through that the sound brought tears to my eyes, and soon they were running down my cheeks as I tottered on through the forest. The salt tears stung my new skin.
It was luck and chance that took me where I wished to go. It was evening when I finally stumbled into the summer encampment of Olikea’s kin-clan. I was hungry, but worse, I was cold. My body had no defense at all and even the mild spring night seemed heartlessly chill to me. The burning campfires and the smell of cooking food drew me like a candle draws a moth. Limping and weeping afresh, I hurried as quickly as I was able toward their light and warmth.
Life in all its wonderful chaos filled that glen. People were cooking food together, and eating, or sitting around the fires, leaning on one another as they talked and laughed. As I approached, one group took up a song, and on the other side of the camp, a second group responded, with much laughter, with their own ribald version of it. The music and the sparks from the cook fires rose together into the night sky. On the side of the dell, above the others, a larger cook fire burned, and Jodoli reclined on the elevated couch he had summoned from the forest floor. Firada was standing at his side, offering him roasted meat from a skewer. I skirted the other groups and made directly for them. I needed help, and I did not think they would turn me away. Firada would know where her sister was, and surely they would send a runner for her. Olikea and Likari would come to tend me and all would be well again.
As I wound my way through the encampment, no one spoke to me. Occasionally a head turned abruptly in my direction and then slowly away. They ignored me, pretending not to see me. My mind worked slowly through it. They would have heard the news from Olikea that I had died, and my present form scarcely matched how they would recall me. Still, it seemed odd to me that no one issued challenge or gave greeting to a stranger walking into the encampment. I had no strength to wonder about it, let alone rebuke anyone for rudeness.
As I drew nearer to Firada’s fire, I realized that the woman sitting with her back to me was Olikea. She looked very different. She had lost some of the plumpness she had gained as my feeder, and her proud head was bowed now, a guest at her sister’s fireside rather than a woman presiding over her own hearth. Likari was there as well. He reclined on his side, his head cushioned on his arms. I was pleased to see that the boy had regained some flesh. As I watched, he sat up and tossed a bone into the fire and then lay down again.
“Olikea!” I called to her, and was astonished at the weakness of my voice. I tried to clear my throat and could not; my mouth was dry, and even the walk up the slight hill was taxing my lungs. “Olikea!” I called again. She did not even turn her head.
“Likari!” I cried, hoping his younger ears would be keener. I saw him shift his position on the ground. No one else in the whole encampment so much as turned toward me. I gathered all my strength for a final effort. “Likari!” I called, and the boy sat up slowly and looked all around. His gaze passed right over me.
“Did you hear that?” I heard him ask his mother.
“What?”
“Someone called my name.”
“I heard nothing but the singing. How can they be so merry, so soon after his death?”
“To them, it is not soon,” Firada replied without rancor. “A moon has waxed and waned since he walked among us. And they were not close to him. He kept himself a stranger to us, even when he lived among us and took feeders from our kin-clan. He came suddenly and left as suddenly. I know you are grieving still, sister, but you cannot expect everyone to share your sorrow. He is gone. And if Kinrove is right, he achieved his goal, and the magic is now unfettered. All will be well for the People.”
“They celebrate his triumph, not his death,” Jodoli added gravely. “I think it is as good a way to respect a man as weeping for him.”
His words warmed my heart. I had drawn closer to their fireside. I stood directly behind Olikea as I said jovially, “Except that the man is not dead. Not just yet. Though if I don’t eat soon, I may be!”
Olikea didn’t jump or shriek as I had expected she might. She continued to stare gloomily into the fire. There was no reaction from Firada, either. Jodoli gave me a brief, disapproving glance and then looked again at the fire. Only Likari stiffened at my words. He sat up and looked around again. “I thought I heard—” he began, but Jodoli cut in with, “It was nothing, boy. Just the crackling of the fire.”
At that moment, Likari’s questing glance met mine. I grinned at him. He let out a yell of absolute terror and leapt to his feet. Jodoli’s hand shot out and caught him by the shoulder. “Look at me!” he commanded the boy.
“But, but—”
“Look at me!” he repeated more sternly. And when the boy obeyed, Jodoli held his gaze and spoke sternly. “It is bad luck to look at a ghost. And worse luck for the ghost if you speak to him. He is just a strong memory, Likari. Great Ones have very intense memories. Do not look at it or try to speak to it. We must let it go so that he can become what he is meant to be.”
“A ghost? Where?” Firada demanded, looking right at me. Olikea, too, turned around and swung her gaze right past me.
“There is nothing there. A Great One goes into his tree, Likari. Nevare will not walk as a ghost. He left nothing unfinished.” He patted the boy reassuringly on the shoulder as he released him.
“I thought I saw…something.”
“It didn’t even look like Nevare, Likari. Don’t dwell on it, or try to see it again.”
“A Great One should not have a ghost,” Olikea said with great concern. “Unless…could the tree have refused him?”
“You said you saw the roots enter him. You said that he moved with them as you sang him his memories.”
“I did. They did!”
“Then all should be well. If you wish, tomorrow I will visit his tree and speak to him, to be sure he has been well received. He should be at home there by now.”
“If you would, please,” Olikea said gratefully.
“And I will go with you,” Likari announced as he sat down again.
“As his feeder, that is your right,” the Great Man confirmed.
I saw Likari start to roll his eyes toward me. Jodoli raised an eyebrow at him. Likari lowered his head.
“I’m not a ghost!” I said incredulously. “Is this a joke? Have I offended all of you in some way? I don’t understand! I’m hungry. I need help!”
I stepped closer into their circle. None of them reacted. Likari might have hunched his shoulders a little tighter. I reached toward the skewer of meat that Jodoli held. It had been a bird; I seized the wing and tore it free. If he felt or saw me take it, his face did not show it. I devoured the salty, greasy meat, chewed the gristle off the end of the bone and threw that tiny piece into the fire. The flames spat as they tasted it.
By the fire, Firada spoke to Olikea as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “So. What will you do now?”
“What I have always done. I’ll live.”
Firada shook her head. “It was wrong of Kinrove to keep all that treasure. He should have given at least some of it back to you. You tended Nevare well. Now, except for the lodge and what it holds, you are right back to where you were.”
Her sister sounded sympathetic but Olikea still bristled. “Perhaps the lodge holds more than you know. Perhaps it was not all of Lisana’s treasure that he threw at Kinrove’s feet.”
Firada lifted one eyebrow. “Truly?”
Olikea smiled small. “I said perhaps.”
Firada made a small sound in her throat. “You have always known how to take care of yourself.”
“I’ve had to,” Olikea said.
There was a skin of water on the ground beside Jodoli’s couch. I picked it up and drank, but spat it out as hastily. The taste was familiar; the water was flavored with a bark that Olikea had often mixed with my water. It was an herb that amplified the magic. But now it made my gorge rise. I had no sooner dropped the skin than Jodoli picked it up. He drank thirstily, and then returned to tearing meat from the skewered bird.
“Olikea,” I begged suddenly. “Please. Please help me.”
She stretched out on the moss beside Likari and closed her eyes. A tear trickled down her cheek. I groaned and turned away from her.
I left their fireside and walked down the hill. A woman had set aside a stack of hearth cakes to cool. I took three from the top of the stack and ate them. No one noticed me.
I grew bolder in my efforts to make someone acknowledge me, and also to satisfy my needs. I took a man’s cup that he had just filled with hot soup and set aside to cool, drank it, and set it down in a different place. He merely scowled over his forgetfulness.
My hunger sated, I returned to Jodoli’s fire, in time to see Likari and Olikea settling for the night. The night was mild. Olikea spread out a blanket for both of them to share between the roots of a tree. They settled quickly and soon fell asleep. Olikea’s pack was nearby. Shamelessly, I ransacked it. When I saw that she had my winter cloak among her possessions, I boldly took it from her pack, shook it out, and put it on. It was too big for me. I lapped it around my body twice. My shoes were there, too. I put them on. They fell off. I dug into her pack again and found her knife and sewing tools. I crudely tightened the soft leather shoes to fit my feet and put them on. I cannot express the comfort of them; it was as if my body had forgotten how to keep itself warm.
After I was warm and had a full belly, sleep suddenly demanded to be indulged. Habit made me look for a place beside Olikea. But she had wedged herself and Likari into the space between two tree roots, the better to trap their own warmth. There was no room for me there. I found a place near them, lay down, then sat up and moved several small branches. My body seemed very mindful of being poked and prodded. I looked at the ground and recalled how the magic would answer me and prompt the forest into providing a soft bed for me. I could recall that I had done it, but could not remember how I had even begun to do such a thing. There was not even the smallest trace of magic left in my body.
I looked up at the sky through the forest canopy and thought about that. My magic was gone. The fat that had housed the magic was gone. I was no longer a fat man. Was I dead? Was I a ghost now? Orandula had said he would take my death from me, and apparently he had, but what sort of a life had he exiled me to?
I wished I were more comfortable, but the sleepiness that was welling up through my body insisted that I was absolutely fine. As it sank its hooks into me and dragged me under, I had a fleeting moment to wonder who and what I was now. Would a ghost have been hungry and cold? Could a ghost possibly be this sleepy? I toyed with the idea that I was asleep already and that all of this was a dream. I think I fell asleep wondering exactly at what point my real life had ended and this dream begun.
I woke with the dawn to the sound of people stirring in the camp. I rolled over, pulled my cover more tightly around me, and went back to sleep.
I awoke the second time to stronger light and the sensation of being too warm, very hungry, and badly needing to empty my bladder. I flung back the cloak from my face and stretched. Then, as my life came rushing back to fill my mind, I sat up, thinking that today I was better, stronger, and that life would resume making sense to me.
All around me, people were living their lives. Two women were crouched down as a toddler negotiated her first steps from one to the other. An older woman was grinding some dried roots into flour. A boy was working a rabbit skin between his fingers to soften it. As I walked through the camp, it was as it had been in the twilight. No one acknowledged me.
I found the waste pit beyond the edge of the camp, relieved myself, and walked back, feeling even more self-assured. Surely ghosts did not piss. And my body had begun to look more normal. My skin, so close to being transparent the day before, had begun to appear more opaque. My hands and feet were still unnaturally sensitive, and the entire surface of my body was still generally painful, as if I’d been sunburned. But it didn’t hurt as much as it had the day before, and from that I took heart. I noted with interest that the skin on my arms was a uniform color; my specks were gone. That seemed as great a change to me as my greatly reduced girth. For a moment, I pictured myself as torn from my old body, leaving behind a casing of fat and skin, emerging naked from behind a wall of fat. I shuddered at the image and pushed it away.
I had been fat and now I wasn’t. I thought of how I had once longed for that change and how important it had seemed. Now it seemed a foolish thing for me to care about. What did it matter, what did it change? I was still myself. So what did I care about, if not the shape of my body? Where was my life? I prodded at my emotions. Amzil came to mind immediately. I cared about her. I wanted her to be safe and well. And Epiny and Spink. And their baby.
It was so strange. As I thought of them, they suddenly gained importance in my mind, as if I’d forgotten about them completely and only now their significance was coming back to me. What else, I wondered, had I lost? What had been left behind in that old body? What of it would I recover?
I wandered through the camp, watching people who would not acknowledge me. I helped myself to breakfast from various cooking pots in the camp. One woman looked straight at me as I ate from her pot. I was pleased when I found Kilikurra. Olikea and Firada’s father sat by his fire, braiding sinew into a fine line, probably for a snare. He had been the first Speck I’d ever spoken to; we had not had many dealings together, but he had treated me well. I touched him gently on the shoulder. He turned his head, but his mismatched eyes looked right through me. “Please, Kilikurra. You were the first to befriend me. I desperately need a friend now.” Even when I spoke to him, he gave no indication of hearing me.
I sat down next to him by his fire. “I don’t understand,” I told him. “Was I so terrible as a Great Man? I know I led the warriors to defeat. But I thought I paid for that when I went to Kinrove and gave myself over to him. I danced his dance, and the magic now flows free. Everyone has told me that. So why am I an outcast here? What do you want from me?”
He gripped one end of the braided line in his teeth as he wove the sinew together into a tight cord. His black lips were pulled back from his white teeth in a grimace. He abruptly finished the length of cord, knotted it off, and set it down.
“Kilikurra. Please. Speak to me.”
He tossed another stick of wood on his fire, waking sparks and smoke. He ran his sinew cord through his fingers and nodded, well pleased with his own work.
I rubbed my eyes, winced at the touch of my hands on my thin skin, and then pressed my temples gently. My head had not stopped throbbing since I had left my tree. I pushed my hair back from my face, mildly surprised to find I still had hair, and then flinched as my fingers encountered the scabbed-over wound. My heart leapt in terror and then began thumping wildly. With both hands, I carefully explored the injury on the top of my head. It was almost perfectly circular. I recalled how Lisana had gripped me by the hair and held on so tightly while Orandula peeled my flesh away.
She had held me like that once before, when first I had met her as guardian of the spirit bridge. She had defeated me, seized me by the hair, and then ripped half my soul out of my body. I did not doubt for an instant that she had done so again. She had kept all of me that she could hold on to. How much was that? What part of me had she judged worthy of being her lover and companion? Tears stung my eyes. My beloved had chosen, not me, but only parts of me. That was far more bitter than if she had rejected me entirely and chosen another man in my stead. And I, the rejected bits of a man, the unloved parts, was now a ghost. What had she taken, and what was left to me? Was this why I felt so disconnected and vague? What had she done to me? Was I condemned to wander the rest of my years like this, unseen and unknown?
Fear and frustration overwhelmed me, but that is no excuse for what I did next. I leapt to my feet, bellowing my outrage and betrayal. I rampaged through the settlement. I knocked one man to the ground, overturned a cooking pot of stew, snatched up folded bedding and strewed it about. That got a reaction, but not the one I had hoped for. There were cries of dismay and fright, but no one tried to stop me. They looked at the havoc that I wrought but paid no attention to me. I stood in the center of the camp and shouted, “I’m here! I’m not a ghost. I’m not dead!”
“Be calm! Be calm! All of you, bring every bit of salt that you have to me. I shall need it all!”
The words came from Jodoli. He stood at the edge of the camp. He was panting, as if he’d just been running, but I suspected that he had just returned from quick-walking to my tree and back. Olikea and Likari were with him, as was Firada. Firada ran to their fire and snatched up her bag of cooking salt. Olikea seemed paralyzed; she stood and stared all around her. Only Likari looked at me. His heart was in his eyes.
“Likari!” My heart leapt with joy. Even if only one person would acknowledge me, that meant I was real. I started toward him. “If you are all right, then it has been worth it all.”
I opened my arms to him. I nearly reached him, but Firada was there first. Jodoli seized the bag of salt from her and took a big handful. As I stared at him in consternation, he sprinkled a circle of salt onto the ground around the boy. When he closed the circle, Likari looked up at Jodoli in surprise. “He’s gone!”
“He was never really here. That was a shadow, Likari, not Nevare. You saw his tree? That is where he is now. It prospers. It has taken him in, very swiftly, and grows well and strong. I spoke to him at his tree. He is well and very happy. So we should be happy for him. Let him go now, lad. Thinking of him and missing him will only call to his shadow. And that is bad luck for all. Let him go.”
A series of emotions flitted over Likari’s face. I watched him, hoping against hope, but resignation was what finally triumphed. He spoke softly. “When I touched his tree, I thought I could feel him there.”
Jodoli nodded indulgently. “Perhaps you could. The magic permeated you when you danced for Kinrove. Perhaps it has left an awareness in you. That would be a great gift. Let it comfort you. But do not encourage the shadow by seeing it or speaking to it.”
Olikea stepped up and put her arm around her boy. “We loved him, and now we let him go. He would not want you to spend your days mourning him, Likari. He called you his son. He would want you to live your life, not dwell in the past.”
She spoke so sincerely. I wanted to be the selfless person she described, but I also wanted, desperately, to know that I was still real to someone. “Likari!” I bellowed, but he did not even glance my way.
Jodoli had taken the bag of salt from Firada. Other Specks were hastening to him, bringing their own cooking salt. Many of them glanced fearfully about, while others kept their eyes desperately on the ground in front of them, for fear they might see me. Jodoli held up Firada’s sack of salt. “Make a little hole in each salt bag. Like this.” He took out his knife and demonstrated, then pinched the hole shut with his fingers. “Then follow me. I will walk a circle around the camp. Each of you will take turns to let the salt trickle in the path behind me. Come. The sooner we seal ourselves off from his shadow, the sooner it will disperse. Don’t be afraid. He cannot hurt you.” Jodoli glanced at me and said more loudly, “I do not believe he would want to hurt any of you. He is simply confused and lost. He should go back to his tree, and find peace there.”
I held my ground, glaring at him. He turned his back on me and walked ponderously to the edge of the camp, and then beyond it.
They made a strange parade. Jodoli walked slowly and every person in the kin-clan followed him. At the end of the line came Firada, patiently dribbling a fine line of salt from her sack. When it was emptied, another woman took her place.
Jodoli walked a generous circle. Within it, he included the waste pit and the pool where they drew their cooking and drinking water. I crossed the camp and walked beside him. I tried to speak reasonably. “Jodoli, whatever I did to break your rules, I’m sorry. But I’m not a ghost. I’m here. You can see me. Likari can see me. I think you’re using your magic to keep the others from seeing me. Or something. Can you just cast me out like this, after all I’ve given up for the magic? I did what it made me do, and I accomplished my task. And now you will turn me out?”
He did not look at me. I reached to seize his arm, but could not. I suspected that he had protected himself and was shielding himself with the magic. I turned away from him and stalked back to his campfire. I picked up the folded blankets and threw them onto the flames, quenching them. “Can a ghost do this?” I demanded of him. I emptied one of Firada’s supply bags, dumping out smoked meat and dried roots. I picked up a slab of smoked venison and bit into it. It was tough but the flavor was good. Between bites, I shouted at him, “A ghost is eating your food, Jodoli!”
He did not even glance my way. His slow parade continued. I sat down comfortably on his mossy couch and finished eating the meat I had taken. There was a skin of forest wine there. I took it up and drank from it, and then spat out what I had taken. Firada had doctored it with herbs to build his magic. It tasted vile to me. I dumped it out onto the stack of smoldering blankets.
I felt childish and vindictive, yet oddly justified in my destruction. I knew he could see me. Why wouldn’t he talk to me and explain what was going on? All I wanted was to understand what had happened to me.
I looked up to find Jodoli leading his people back into the camp. I sat by his hearth, waiting for him to return and see what I had done. Instead, he went to another fire. The people gathered fearfully around him. I felt a surprisingly strong pang of envy as he called on his magic and the earth rose beneath his feet, elevating him above his listeners.
“Do not fear,” he told them. “There is but one more step to drive the ghost from our midst.” He turned to Firada. She reached into her pouch and handed him a double handful of leaves. “These were taken from his own tree. He cannot resist them.”
With those words, he cast the leaves into the nearby fire. After a moment, white smoke began to rise. I’d had enough. I stood up and walked toward them. I would seize him by the throat if need be, but he would recognize me.
Instead, I walked out of the kin-clan’s campsite. I had no change of heart, no second thoughts about attacking Jodoli to make him recognize me. If anything, my anger and frustration only rose stronger. I roared and I would have sworn that I charged toward him.
But abruptly I was at the edge of the campsite. I spun about, incredulous, and saw Jodoli carefully laying down a line of salt that completely closed the circle around the campsite. After he finished, he stood up with a sigh. He looked directly at me, but refused to meet my eyes. Olikea stood beside him. I think she looked for me, but her gaze went past me into the forest.
“Shadows are not even ghosts. They are just the pieces of a man who cannot accept his life is over. It should go back where it belongs. And once it finds that no one here will pay attention to it, it will.”
“This is where I belong now,” I told him, and strode back toward the village.
But the strangest thing happened. When I reached the line of salt, I could not cross it. I would step forward, only to find I had stepped backward. It was simple salt, harvested from the sea, yet I could not step past it. Shouting and storming, I circled the encampment, refusing to believe that I could not cross a line of salt. But I simply couldn’t.
I spent the rest of that day futilely circling the camp, and that night, I slept rolled in my cloak, staring at the unwelcoming fires. When I awoke the next day, I was hungry and thirsty. The kin-clan was already stirring. I could smell food cooking and hear people talking. After a time, I saw a party of hunters preparing to leave camp. They slung their quivers over their shoulders and each one checked his bow. As they did so, I saw Jodoli come over to speak to them. I watched as he gave each of them a small bag to hang about his neck. And into each sack, Firada poured a measure of salt.
I was a fool. I waited until all three of them were outside the circle of salt and then charged down on them. I would prove that although Jodoli’s magic might keep me out of the camp, a little bag of salt could not stop me from making them notice me. I intended to knock at least one of them over. Instead, impossibly, I missed all three and went sprawling to the ground. They didn’t notice me. I shrieked curses at them as they strode unconcernedly away.
I sat on the ground, wrapped in my cloak, and stared after them. I looked up to see Jodoli watching me. “I’m not a ghost!” I shouted at him. “I’m not a shadow.”
I heard a sound I had come to dread. Heavy wings flapping. Orandula alit first in a treetop and then hopped down heavily, branch to branch, until he perched on one well out of my reach, but clearly visible to me. He settled his feathers, preened his wing pinions, and then asked me sociably, “How are you doing?”
“Oh, just wonderfully,” I snarled at him. “You took my death. But my people won’t believe I’m alive. Jodoli has used his magic to ban me from the camp and to keep me from contacting the People. The only clothing I have is a cloak and some shoes that are too big for me. I’ve no food, no tools, no weapons. Is this the life you gave back to me?”
He cocked his head at me and the wattles around his beak jiggled horribly. “I didn’t give you a life, man. I took your death. And even that didn’t go quite as I had planned.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m surprised that you need to ask. Obviously, you’re dead here. You show all the signs of it; no one can see you, can’t cross a line of salt—I thought you would have understood that by now.”
“But I have a body! I get hungry, I eat, I can move things! So how can I be dead?”
“Well, you’re not. Not completely. As I told you, things didn’t go exactly as I expected them to. It often happens when gods squabble over something. Neither one wins completely.”
I pulled my cloak more closely around myself. Despite the growing warmth of the spring day, I felt a chill. “Gods fought over me?”
He began diligently preening his other wing. “Part of you remained dead in this world. Part of you didn’t. I feel a bit sheepish about that. I like things to balance, you know. And right now you are still a bit out of balance. I feel responsible. I want to correct that.”
I didn’t want him to “correct” me any more than he had. Doggedly, I tried my question another way. “Is Lisana, is Tree Woman, a goddess? Did she fight for me?”
He tucked his bill into his breast and considered me. I wondered if he would answer. But finally he said, “Hardly a goddess. She fought for you, of course. And I suppose that in some ways she is connected to Forest, and Forest might as well be a god with all the power Forest has. But, no, Lisana is not a goddess.”
He shook his feathers again and opened his wings.
“Then who—?” I began, but he interrupted.
“I, however, am a god and therefore feel no obligation to answer a mortal’s questions. I will be considering how best to balance what remains unbalanced. I like to leave things tidy. Hence my affinity for carrion birds, don’t you know?”
He jumped off the branch and plummeted toward the ground. His wide wings beat frantically, and with a lurch, the falling glide turned into flight.
“Wait!” I shouted after him. “I still don’t understand! What is to become of me?”
Three raucous caws were my only response. He banked sharply to avoid a thicket, saw an opening in the canopy, and suddenly beat his wings harder, climbing toward it. An instant later, he had vanished.
I stood up slowly. For a short time I stood staring at the kin-clan’s encampment. There, people were going about their lives. I could see Olikea sewing something. She lifted it up, shook it out, and held it toward Likari. I recognized the fabric. It was from one of my robes. Evidently she was remaking it into something Likari could wear. The boy was already running naked in the spring sunshine, playing some sort of jumping game with the other children of the kin-clan. I hoped she would make it large, so he didn’t outgrow it before winter returned and he could use it.
I wanted to offer some sort of farewell. I thought about that for a time, and then turned away silently and walked into the forest.