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.She could handle the bleeding, and thescars wouldn t matter.The stiffness she could pass off as a fall.Butin the distance, a wolf howled, and she shuddered.She moved closerto the fire.Two days later, the sky was covered with light, high clouds.Itrained lightly at noon a drizzle that barely touched the summerdust and left the ground stale, not clean.But after the rain, whenthe sun had crawled barely halfway up the trees, Dion returned totheir camp.Exhausted, she dropped to the ground by the fire pit.Tehena rose and left, and Kiyun dug a leaf-wrapped meatroll fromthe ashes and handed it to the wolfwalker.But Dion stared at themeatroll as if she didn t know what it was.Silently, Kiyun took thebundle back and unwrapped the food.Dion passed her hand overher eyes, took the roll, and ate.The wolfwalker chewed slowly, as if the motion of her own jawwas exhausting.And when she was finally done, she said simply, Pack.When Tehena returned, they followed the old road north again,still vaguely trailing the course of the river.The centuries hadchanged the water s run, while the stones of the Ancients hadmerely settled in place.Now, with the road still somewhat straight,the river curved in toward the road and away again in loops.Diondisappeared with the wolves almost as soon as they hit the trail,and Asuli scowled after her.She couldn t decide if it was herimagination or not that there were more wolf packs here.When they reached the place where Asuli had watched thewolfwalker before, the intern halted abruptly, and the othersstopped with her.As one, they eyed the trampled forest.A massivetree, felled years earlier by lightning, had crushed the undergrowthand laid its length along the ground.But where brush and fernshad once grown up around its length, now there stood only broken,twiggy shrubs, raw pits of soil torn from the ground, and grassesbruised by boots and paws.The shadows didn t hide the whiteslashes cut along the length of the tree.The charred lines andsymbols patterned in the trunk were raw as a fresh grave; and thestains of sap and dye plants were side-by-side with the marks ofblood.Old branches were freshly snapped close to the trunk, as if topunctuate the message ring.The new, wiry growths that cutthrough the bark were like pointers to the sky.No simple messagehad been savaged into the log full forty meters were carved andcharred and stained in waves of pattern and poem. Moons, Asuli breathed.She dismounted.The others watchedher move forward, as if in a dream, toward the tree.She steppedover the scattered bones of a rabbit without noticing the remains.Heedless of the thorns, she pushed through what was left of thebrush to the message ring.Each day and night was carved there,she thought.Every absence of Dion from their camp wasrepresented in the slashings the wolfwalker had left in the trunk ofthis tree. What does it mean? she asked, without looking over hershoulder.Kiyun s face looked suddenly tired. It is Dion s grief, he saidfinally. Rain&  Asuli ran her hands over the trunk where Dion s swordhad cut the symbols harshly. And dirt no, soil.Dry& ground.Andbirth?Tehena cursed. You have no eyes, she snarled.The intern looked back. Read it. It s a story or, more, a poem.It s not a simple message, Asuli. Then don t give me a simple reading.The lanky woman eyed her for a moment.Then, surprising bothGamon and Kiyun, Tehena slid from her dnu and moved to thefallen tree.For a moment, she simply let her hands and eyes feelthe harsh cuts and slashes of symbols, the mix of colors and stainsthat drew and connected across the trunk.Some were crude, brutalwith emotion; others were tiny, detailed, and precise as a miniatureportrait.Tehena walked along the tree, climbing at one point overthe massive length to reach the slashes along the other side.Herhard-lined face flickered once, as though she were a shadow ofsomeone else.Then she vaulted to the top of the tree again andsquatted upon it, letting her hands feel the message while her flat,hard eyes traced the stains. It would be easier than grief. Hervoice halted.She closed her eyes for a moment, her hands restingon the tree.Asuli waited.Tehena took a breath and began.Rain would be easier than griefBecause it s cast away to soilsThat want to dry and be reborn.My tears are so much part of meThat my throat is a white-knuckled fistClenched around a marbled breathThat my lungs can no longer grip.The rock of my heart has no way to beatSo that my temples ache from my chest.And my eyes burn with the coals of a lifeThat used to flare like a sun.Snow would be easier than griefBecause its touch, which chills, then burns the skin,Is ice on a pond: Superficial.Cracked by a word, broken by touch.The cold in my heart extends to my handsSo that they are blind on the ground.It freezes my faceSo that my parted lips, which try to form words,Are caught as a gulf on a glacier.Storms would be easier than griefBecause they rage in exultation.They draw out the fierceness of the worldAnd fling it around like laundry.My grief can t rage, can t fight, can t fierceIts way out past the bones of my body.No sound drowns out the ache in my head.No dreams bring true sleep; no touch, relief.Only the ache, ache in my throat and eyes,Like a mountain slowly crushing downOn what s left of the heart beneath it.Death would be easier than grief.They speak of doorways, of hidden gifts,They speak of lights and gods and heaven.And in their stupidity, they speak of timeAs if it flows like a thickening quiltTo comfort a night of chill.There is no time in grief.There s no gap between then and now.Only the touch of the windOn my salt-tightened cheekReminding me again and again thatThe moisture isn t rain.The forest was silent.Tehena didn t move.A bird flashed betweenthe trees.The blue-speckled creature cried out as it caught sight ofthe riders.Like a spark of sky, it darted back into the canopy.Asulistirred.Something touched her cheek, and she brushed irritably at thebug only to draw her hand away with moisture.She shook herself,swallowed, and pointed over Tehena s shoulder. You didn t readthat, she managed.Tehena followed her gesture.The other woman had indicated thethin trunk of a dead tree still standing, which was also carved andstained, but only in a single ring, and with sharper, finer marks.Tehena s face shuttered. That is not from Dion, she said flatly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]