The Short Road Home

Hannah makes her way back to her room, distracted by everything that has happened in the last day. It feels like a year. Her thoughts are on Cambina. She's disappointed they weren't able to figure out what happened in Tir. She is disturbed by Cambina's visions, and the idea that they'll never hear them again. She feels guilty over not giving Vialle the attention she needed - the dreams. Hannah is certain Vialle went to Tir with Cambina looking for an answer to her nightmares.

"Choices, choices, choices," she mutters. She'd been focused on Gerard and that answer isn't here. It may not be with Grandfather Bear, either. The answer may be that there is no answer.

She packs a simple bag, and pulls the purple feather off her mirror to tie it into her hair. She catches her own eyes and shakes her head. "Who would know me well enough to ground me? Gerard... and he cannot go." She reaches out to poke herself in the forehead. "You will have to do."

A quick note for Folly and the pot of salve handed off to a page, and she's off to recover Misae. Hannah ties the second feather onto her mustang's bridle. She mounts up and heads up into the woods, and makes a beeline for shadow.

Once she's up past where she and Paige started there spirit walk, she starts slow and easy, shifting as Gerard taught her to do. She resists slipping over into the spirit lands, but isn't entirely certain anymore that they are a different kind of shadow so much as that they may just be shadows.

She stays to the woods for some time, and stops to sleep before trying to shift over into the plains of her people.

Hannah is able to shift as she gets further and further off the mountain. Gerard's practical teaching is solid, and she's able to navigate the shadow transitions easily. Her night's rest is easy and uneventful, and Misae is rested and ready to ride again in the morning.

Hannah sees them fed from the simple pack she made so shortly before Gerard's latest regency, and they clean and drink at a wild stream.

Before she walks back into Makado, a world dangerous for women as well as her people, Hannah must make herself a new medicine bag. A bag for protection, and a place to draw energy from. So here as the woods become plains, in this quiet place with so few people and so little technology, she rides to the cliffs to look for an Eagle's nest.

Using the hide she already prepared from her clothes ruined by Griffon blood, Hannah sits on the shore and works beading, looking up at the nest she will have to climb to. On the front of her fetiche, she sews the sign of the star to match the one she earned walking the pattern, in the blue of Makado, to draw her home. She puts this around her neck, and meditates, until she is ready to step across into the spirit world. She takes Misae's lead to bring her along with, trying to very gently shift shadow as she goes across - a step closer to home, into the spirit realm she hopes is North of her people's lands, still along the river.

Leaving Misae there on the shore, she scales the cliff's face to gather a few smaller Eagle feathers. She keeps her hold one-handed while she slips these under her hair for the trip down. She uses what Gerard taught her to discourage the wind. Once down by the river again, Hannah calls up, "Master of the Sky, thank you for your feathers. Give me through them your wisdom, the eye of the Creator, your power and strength. Spirits of the North, watch over me through this gift from your shores. When I go to the East, I will smoke for you." She ties the feathers together and hangs them from the center of the blue star.

To the East she goes to gather strong tobacco leaves, which are stuffed into the pouch, and the dryer of whom are burned and waved into each direction. She calls out to the spirits of all the places to watch over her, and to Sky Mother, to guide her home. To the West she gathers red beans for luck, and to the South, sand from the bank of the river, dried - to ground her.

Finally, she digs her knife out of her pack and ties it onto her belt.

Hannah heads out for the plains of her people, crisscrossed with cliffs and rock chimneys and rivers. She rides along the river and south, hoping to come in from the North, along the Missouri, on the reservation side of the river - the side her people... she smiles... her father, really, kept for them in all the treacherous negotiations with the government. Most of their lands, and all the sacred spaces saved between their reservation and that of the Winnebago to the North. Where the Gateway lies by the river under the cliffs of Black Bird's Hill, where the Sacred Tree burned with Blue Fire, where the Horses spoke to the War Chief, and the caves...

Black Bird's Hill would be a good place to ride to, to slip back across at, a touchstone. Where her grandfather, Big Elk was buried, following the tradition of his father, and his father's cousin, Chief Black Bird. He'd ruled the Omaha and bullied the Ponca and made the Winnebago and Sioux and Whites come begging. Black Bird whose spirit is restless because a painter stole his skull away to a museum, and because he planned it that way. "A ghost come to talk to a ghost, seems fitting," Hannah mutters.

It is different from spirit walking, where one finds paths that are there but unseen, where one pulls back meaning to find other real things.

It makes things, or else it finds them on such a much grander scale that it isn't possible to distinguish it from making.

The required mindsets war with each other.

Still, the Hill is the Hill, and she knows when she is there. It feels right. Hannah sees an old woman at the base of the hill, looking towards the river. She turns and Hannah can see that she was an Omaha: one Hannah doesn't know. She is dressed in Eastern clothes.

The woman greets Hannah in the manner of their tribe. "Who are you and why have you come here?"

Hannah nods to the woman. "I am Ohanzee of the Hanga gente of the Hangashenu gens and I have come here to respect my grandfather and to determine if I've found the Blue Earth of my upbringing. Who greets me here at the Gateway?"

"I am Migina of the Inewakhubeadhin gente of the Inshtasanda gens. Be welcome, Ohanze," the old woman says to Hannah.

In Thari, her name would be Returning Moon.

Hannah's eyes slip to the key-shaped alter at the base of the cliff, taking in the graffiti there. People have always been drawn to leave a mark on this sacred space, even the people who were here before her people.

She looks back at Migina. "I am not certain I've found the right place. Will you tell me the year, and who is Chief of the Omaha?"

Migina names a year. In the calendar of the Omaha, some time has passed, more than Hannah feels she has been away, but not so many years that Ohanzee should be completely unknown. And to the other question, she spits. "The warriors have followed the white man who came to join the Hethuska Society. They heard his words of conquest under new stars, and now they follow him and not the ways of our people."

Hannah takes a breath and nods slowly. "I had seen a vision of such a thing, but in a place that sometimes gives false visions. I was the medicine man amoung my people and the Chief's eldest daughter. Do you know of me, or someone like me?" she asks calmly.

Migina nods at Hannah. "I know of one such, but she is long-gone, or dead. Are you a spirit out of time, Ohanzee?"

"Hm. Or a spirit out of place. Or both." Hannah sighs and looks around. "Why are you here today, Migina?"

"I wanted to ask the spirits for a sign, if the warriors were coming home. If my warrior would come home." Migina frowns. "I hoped when I saw you that you would know where they had gone, and what had happened to them."

What is ever worse than the truth, Hannah thinks, but nods to the lady. "I went to a spirit realm called Tir Na Nog, that is said to show visions. The King of Xanadu, where I was, said as often as not it shows us our greatest fears or desires. So often, the visions are false, but every once in awhile, they're true. I will tell you what I saw, but you must bear in mind it is likely a false vision.

"I did see a warrior of the Ponca tribe there - a man called Horses West. I spoke to him. He said that yes, they and the Omaha had followed Conquers Worlds to a battle in an underwater realm called Rebma, and then on to another in Amber, where Conquers Worlds had taken the throne. These places are all monarchies, ruled by immortals," Hannah explains in an attempt to keep it simple. "But he also told me, when I asked about the women and children, that they'd brought them with them - which seems to be untrue.

"If any of this vision is true, it must be a vision of the future, because when I left Huon - this is one of the names of Conquers Worlds - had not been in Amber and I had not heard he'd been in Rebma. Now that is a lot, but there is more you need to understand."

Hannah takes a breath and pats Misae for comfort. "Our tribe had a vision of a great tree - the blue fire tree, the axis, yes? And with that we who were honored women, we aligned the tribe to the axis, and the axis aligned to the universe, so us too. I think, having traveled to many worlds now, that we were aligning to the poles of the universe. That the universe is not these stars in this space, but other places entirely, side by side with ours," she gestures. "And if that is true, then there are many tribes of Omaha, side by side. And I think your tribe and my tribe are sisters, because I do not think this is my Blue Earth."

Hannah shifts aside her shirt and pouch to show Migina her mark of the star. "I did a ritual in Xanadu that aligned me with the power of that place, and when I was done I had the Mark of Honor. I have wondered ever since if this meant the Blue Fire Tree was now aligned with Xanadu, and if... if my people would find a way to come there. But no one has come, and I have been on a quest I think best served here, or near here. But I do not really know how to find home. The King of Xanadu warned me it might be so."

With another sigh she reaches out to Migina. "So we are at least sister-cousins. What is your man's name?"

Migina has listened to Hannah's explanation, nodding, but with an expression that's less than certain about its agreement with Hannah's statements. She lets Hannah touch her without flinching. "He is called Horsehide, and his brother is called Crow." The way the names are formed tell Hannah that they're of the Ponca cousins.

"If your Blue Earth is not mine, I cannot help you, but perhaps I can help you if you will come to mine in the flesh."

Hannah shrugs. "Why not." She tries to step she and Misae from the spirit realm into the earth realm here. She takes a deep breath to taste the air.

Hannah finds that she and Misae are standing in a clearing with a fire made of woods and herbs. It smells similar to home, but not exactly right. Migina's mortal form is slumped in a trance before the fire. It takes her a moment to return to her body.

She rises, slowly, and stiffly, and comes to offer her hand to Hannah. "You are powerful, sister-cousin, or you could not have done that. I welcome you, on behalf of the Omaha here."

Hannah takes the offered hand. "My thanks, Migina."

Misae gets another reassuring pat. "What is your medicine? Do you think it might help point me in the direction of my people?"

"My medicine is small enough that walking in the spirit world is taxing. So much has been lost since the warriors left. Now those who remain take up the ways of the white people. The whites know many things, but I worry at what we lose." Migina shakes her head. "But when I have rested, I will help you search.

"Will you come to my home for a day and rest, so we can search for your people?"

It would be rude not to, so Hannah says, "Certainly. Why don't you ride Misae? She may become difficult if she goes much longer without a rider."

"Thank you, Ohanzee. Let me finish here, and we can go." Migina does those things that are necessary after spirit walking and making a sacred fire. Then, with Hannah's assistance, Migina mounts up. To Hannah it's clear that Migina is at the end of, or even past, her child-rearing years; if she's looking for her man it's for children he already gave her or for companionship.

With Hannah walking the horse and Migina telling her where to go, they make their way to Migina's home. It is like a white man's home, with the framing and the wood and several rooms. Inside, though, there are simple furnishings, showing the influence of the white people's styles but with the Omaha and Ponca traditions respected as well.

Migina lives alone, but she has food to offer, and prepares a meal in her small kitchen for Hannah.

She insists on helping with food preparation - something she's missed. Hannah starts to offer to sing Migina to sleep, but realizes that she is essentially a spirit creature to this woman and it is too much trust to ask of her.

Hannah sees to Misae and sleeps herself, knowing she'll need rest if she is to convince jaded tribesmen of anything.

In the morning, they rise and Hannah and Migina prepare breakfast. The foods in the kitchen are familiar, but some of the implements are unfamiliar. So much is different that the changes from what Hannah knows seem both subtle and jarring at the same time. When they are done with the eating and washing up, Migina is ready to attempt to help Hannah find her way home, or if Hannah needs some other help, whatever she needs first.

Hannah tries to smile through her struggles. She describes for Migina the refrigerator in Xanadu that is not so different than the one here, except for its size.

"I think, my friend, if we go to Blackbird's Cliff here, in this reality, that may be the best place to start. It is... what is the word - it is liminal space, there. Is that where the warriors departed from?"

Migina nods. "That's where they marched away, them and the wagons and even an automobile with supplies. The one you called Conquers Worlds, Hew-on, promised that they would find fuel for it where they went. I have my things--" and she indicates a bag that has her medicine and other things inside "--and we can go now."

Hannah nods and leads the way. "Huon," she pronounces, in full-out Thari, "is how they say it in Xanadu." Hannah falls into a thoughtful silence.

When they reach Blackbird's Cliff, Hannah walks over to the alter carved into the bottom, shaped like a key. "Grandfathers, please help me find my path. My uncle does not have time for me to wander through every place our people's people may be." She rests her forehead against the cold stone for a moment.

She turns back to Migina. "Do you have tobacco?"

Migina nods, and pulls a pouch containing leaves from her bag. "Real tobacco," she says, sounding satisfied. "Not the white man's machine-made cigarettes." She says this as if it is a difficult thing to obtain, and perhaps it is, in this earth.

She offers the leaves to Hannah.

Hannah smiles in appreciation at the difference. She takes it and sets only a small amount on the temple's lip, then hands Migina back the pouch with thanks. She lights it and calls out her invocation. "Spirits of the East, I ask you to lead the way through troubles. Spirits of the West, I ask you to clear the way. Spirits of the North, I ask you to strengthen the light. Spirits of the South, I ask for your protection."

Hannah eyes the smoke, looking for signs.

(Card draw: Trickery Reversed.)

Hannah can see the way to her own Blue Earth from here through the paths of Spirit Walking. What she can also see is that someone has brought many people through the paths in the other direction. They walked lightly, but Hannah recognizes that they did walk, nevertheless.

Hannah nods unhappily. "I can see, Migina; it looks like they came to here from where I must go. This pleases me not at all. My thanks to you, again. Horsehide who has a brother called Crow. I will remember."

Hannah reaches back to check her hold on Misae's lead and give Migina an encouraging smile before she heads forward into the spirit realm.

"Farewell, sister-cousin," Migina says. "I will ask the spirits to aid you in your quest. May you find your home better than you fear."

As Hannah heads off, she can see the trail leading back toward her own Blue Earth. Clearly whoever was working with Huon had great medicine to lead an army this way.

Hannah checks her purple feather as she walks along, and hums a little tune to keep Misae focused. She runs her free hand over the tall grasses and listens to them sigh.

Hannah moves along her route, her senses somehow knowing the path, knowing where she is going. Her newfound ability with shadow is difficult not to use, but she manages to stay in the place she is.

After an oddly timeless trek, Hannah finds herself where she intended to be: on the south ridge overlooking the medical facilities she worked so hard to bring to the people.

They're there, and they're much bigger, and the flag of the white-man's nation flies over them, and their soldiers' barracks and workrooms beside them.

Hannah swears. "That is not good." She looks south, as if she could see past the miles between the ridge and Council Bluffs. "Well, Misae, if they're still here and not down in the territories, we can safely assume the reservation has shrunk. And they'd take the southern portion first, because it is richer in land and buildings, and because it is in-between the rails in Omaha City and the river on down."

She bites her lip. "What say we sneak back up around the hills here, head up toward Macy and see if anyone is left up there? Once we get past the road it'll be fields... we'll walk til we can find a good trail."

Hannah watches her little hospital turned fort for activity a moment and changes her mind.

"No, sweetie, we'll go up to Horsehead Creek to see if father's village is still there."

The ride to Horsehead Creek is uneventful, although the landscape is altered--by roads, by buildings, by fewer trees. The village is where Hannah expects it to be. She sees a few old women and men, and some young children, but no men or women of childbearing age, except one. He wears the uniform of the army of the Eastern Lands' People.

Hannah dismounts and whispers to Misae, "If you get requisitioned you just be good until I can come back for you, darlin'."

She puts on a smile for the military man. "Good afternoon, sir. I was out for a ride and thought I'd trot up this way. This is Horsehead Creek, right?"

He looks like a Ponca or an Omaha, except for the uniform. Of course, Hannah looked like a Ponca except for the clothes when she was back east. "Yes, Ma'am." He waits a moment or two. "Do I know you? Because I can't imagine why I don't." He's got the easy manner of a warrior talking to women.

His uniform has sergeant's stripes on it.

"I headed Eastward awhile back and lost touch. I was looking for the Le Corbeau family. They used to live up here. Do you know what happened to them?" Hannah asks, as casually as she can, but has a hard time keeping her interest out of it as she glances up the road.

The stranger nods. "Oh, yes. He went East, to the capitol. Important man, with the Bureau of Ethnographic Research. I met him when our unit left for the Old Country."

Hannah blinks, and takes a deep breath to try to keep her racing heart and frantic emotions under control. She steps closer, right up to the porch, bringing Misae behind her. "I... well, damn."

She smiles. "I can't ask you much else without venturing off into lying. I need your help, because I don't want to lie to you. Will you help me? No money or land involved, I swear."

"Only if you tell me your name," he says smiling and stepping closer to her.

Hannah nods, and quietly laughs. "And so it begins. I am Hannah Ohanzee Le Corbeau and I disappeared, along with a painted Mustang, from a spot just between the hospital and Council Hall in 1902. I was the medicine man of the Omaha at that time, as well as the official Indian Bureau physician for the tri-tribal area. I was the only doctor in a day's ride of here... hardly ever slept a night.

"And I'm not lyin', but I have no way to prove that to you. I need you to tell me what year it is now, and who you are, please," she finishes with a smile.

He stares at her. "You don't look nearly old enough for that to be true, Miss. My name is Sergeant Arthur Elm, and I was born in 1901. I can believe a lot of things, but not that you're older than my mother."

Hannah delivered him, in the Autumn of 1901. And his twin sister. He looks to be twenty years, or near it.

Hannah puts her face in her hands a minute. "Strength, strength, find your strength, doctor," she whispers to herself.

The Sergeant gets a hard look when she straightens back up. "I'm not older than your mother, sir. I am who I say I am and you were born in one of the old lodges in Rosalie three minutes after your sister, just before dawn. Your mother didn't need my help, which is good, because I didn't get there until the her last hour of labor - and she was feeling well enough to let me know what she thought of my tardiness. I was late because Jim Murphy had drunkenly upset a wagon full of lumber the night before. His journeyman was pinned under it and then we had to do surgery right on the river road because he had an artery ruptured by the fracture in his thigh."

She takes a deep breath, realizing this probably isn't helping. "If your mother's still around, I think she'd know me."

He frowns, almost involuntarily. "She died in the Peninsular Influenza epidemic two winters ago, but I'd heard that story a score of times." He looks confused. "Why did you come here, after all these years? This is an Army hospital."

Hannah stands quiet a moment, absorbing the most evil word of all, 'epidemic'.

Then, "I... I was in the spirit realms. It hasn't been that long for me."

She looks around again, takes a painful breath. "He was right. You can't go home. So, Sergeant, is there an Omaha Tribe here yet, or is this what full assimilation looks like?"

He frowns. "This is what war looks like, Miss, I mean Doctor. The whole world. First we fought things, and when we beat them, we started to fight each other. Between that was the pandemic, during the False Dawn. So many of the Omaha were gone, we mostly got assigned to medical corps."

He pauses. "War ... makes things go faster, children grow up faster. We lost so many men in the old world in the first war. Lots of children being raised without parents."

Hannah nods unhappily. "That's a lot of information. What things? Do you know where they came from? What do you mean when you say old world and first dawn?"

"You really have no idea, do you? Thing-things. I wasn't old enough, by white-man rules, to fight against them, but I've seen the pictures out of Franconia. Nobody knew what they were, but they weren't of this earth. The medicine men said they weren't from the spirit world, either, but they weren't very popular by then.

"'The Old World' is what they call the homelands of the Easterners, across the Eastern Ocean, which they call the Western Ocean over there. I don't know if there is an Omaha word for it. We didn't used to have much to do with it." He frowns. "The False Dawn was about six months between the end of the monster war in 1918 the start of the Great World War.

"Half the countries you've heard of have dissolved into smaller things, and there's agitators here who want to break up the country. That's why they've built hospitals this far from the coasts."

He smiles, that same easy soldier's smile. "You know, nobody goes to the spirit realms and stays for decades. Certainly not beautiful young girls who come back saying they're ancient medicine women. You look like you're Omaha, but you're not like anyone I've ever met. Who are you, really?"

Hannah smiles and shakes her head. "I really am Ohanzee, and my father lived in that house over there with his wives," she points, and looks. "I grew up here."

She looks back with a sigh and holds her hands out. "I was lured past the spirit realm by a unicorn who lead me to my mother's family, who are not of this place. And that sounds even more mad. When I came in here, there was a trail out of here through the spirit realm. Can you tell me about that? Where did all the Omaha go? Was Huon here?"

"The tribe's been dwindling for years, Ohanzee. I think if it wasn't for Mister LeCorbeau at the Institute, the government would have begun detribalization proceedings against us. That and the war. A lot of Omaha went with the Ponca, when the Ponca left."

"Where did the Ponca go?" she asks unhappily.

He pauses, not sure what to tell her. "I was a boy, too young to really know, but my mother told me. They left. They didn't agree with the chiefs who wanted the tribe to assimilate, so they took a boat down the big water, and were going to sail to a foreign land, where they could set up their own lands far from the eastern peoples.

"Nobody has heard from them since. Some think they died in the Isthmus-lands, or in the ruins of Old Darien, but nobody can find a trace.

"You didn't see them in the spirit world, did you?"

"No, but someone definitely came through there, from Blackbird's Cliffs, from the temple there, I'm guessing. Someone who knew what they were doing." Hannah takes a deep breath. A relieved breath. "I hope they found that. I was always for assimilation, but now it seems like so much was lost so fast...

"It isn't the first time our people moved, for a better place. Can you tell me, my father, Joseph Le Corbeau, has he..." she braces herself. "Has he passed on?"

His lips tighten. "Like I said, I was too young to be involved, so I don't really know anything. But he left, or was kicked out when the Ponca were leaving. Fought with them. He didn't name a successor."

That makes her smile a little. "Well, that sounds like him. Sir, I thank you for... indulging me." She holds her hand up. "Many blessings on you," she adds, formally.

She tugs on Misae's lead and begins the silent meditation she needs to calm her mind enough to cross over into the spirit realm without shifting shadow.

"Wait! I don't-- Can I h-- Do you need someone to go with you?" He seems anxious about it, and it occurs to Hannah that he may never have entered the spirit realm before.

Hannah opens her eyes and smiles. "I probably could use help. It would be better when I seek out Grandfather Bear if I do not have my horse with me, and yet she must come, as she is my sacred trust."

Hannah assesses him. "It may be harder than usual, since you haven't fasted or been prepared properly. But perhaps we can do it. I should be able to find the right herbs, even if my mother's old garden up the hill here is long gone. Come on, then," Hannah grins, and leads Misae up toward her father's old backyard.

She is after strong tobacco, fennel seeds, bearberry leaves, and hemp. Two out of three will do.

"Oh, grab some blankets, 3 or 4. How long will it be before someone comes looking for you?"

"I'm on furlough, so a few days, I think."

Hannah looks for and finds the herbs she's seeking. It's unclear how strong the tobacco is, but it's there.

The Sergeant returns with the blankets and his easy grin. "I left a note saying I was going fishing. It's not completely untrue."

Hannah looks him over with a sigh. "When I was young, we always had a spotter, someone to warn us if the authorities were coming, or to force water down throats were people too long on the other side. Then later, when I was a teen, we started sending the spotters away, because it meant jailtime to be caught assisting. But someone always knew to come looking. Now you're young, you're healthy, you can probably make it five days without water in these conditions... but if there is anything wrong with you we don't know about..."

She runs a hand through her hair. "Just be aware you're risking your life. Is this still illegal?"

She leads him and Misae up over the hill and starts cutting apart a tree. She makes a very crude shape and covers it with blankets. "I'm going to do this a bit differently than usual, as I'll be going in corperal and you'll be going in spirit. Just so you know. Used to be we'd all just go in spirit, our bodies staying here - but I believe," she smiles, "that I need to be there in body. So I'm going to walk you through the normal steps, hand you across, then come back and grab Misae and meet you there."

She checks to make sure he still wants to do this.

"We don't, so nobody here tries to arrest anyone for it." He shrugs. "Maybe it's still a law. Why not take me through your way? It doesn't sound any more or less safe, but it sounds like I'd be less likely to be prosecuted." He grins. "The stockades are in Kansas, but they'd just send me to the front if I was causing trouble."

The idea of a tribal member going into a stockade puts a fierce frown on her face. "I don't want to take you through my way because I'm not sure I can get you back. And I've never done it with anyone else before. You're already risking your life - but that'd really be dangerous. You're a grown man, vision quests or no, so you can make your choice - but if I do manage to pull you all the way over there you could be stuck over there, rarely if ever seeing another human again. Again, if it didn't kill you. So, you decide."

She holds out her hands. One is empty. The other has a small pile of seeds and leaves. "You want to go all the way over, we'll just sing awhile, relax, and go. If you want your body to stay here, a connection back to this place - a gateway - then you'll want to chew on this pile of nature, but don't swallow."

"When I was a child, things were tough, and the people were in decline, but we were ourselves and we had our ways. Now, it's diminished. There's not much for me here, and what there is is the chance to make the least bad choice. I'll chance it, because a man must risk to gain. Lead on, Medicine Woman."

Hannah shakes her head at him and ties up Misae at the flap, but leads him inside the quickly constructed hut. She makes certain there are a few openings for airflow, and then she digs a small pit and lights the weeds and seeds all in the center.

She reaches across and takes his hand and smiles with a memory. "I remember your mother calling you her little foxes. Just breathe, and you can sing, if you know this song."

She sings the first song the medicine man taught her as a little child, the spiderweb song, to calm herself and all her fears and open her mind, and his, to the connections all around them. She hopes someone sang this song to him when he was a child.

He sings along in a pleasant baritone. Someone has taught him to sing like an Easterner.

She breathes deeply when she's finished and says, "Remember the power of the spirits, and don't let Coyote trick you. Respect them, but do not cower, for it is bravery they admire. and tobacco they crave."

"It's like alcohol to them, isn't it?" he asks, but it isn't something he'd know.

"It is more that it gives them power than takes it from them," she tries to explain, "but you aren't exactly wrong."

She checks her tobacco stash one last time, and leans out the flap to take Misae's lead. "When you feel ready, we'll go. Just stay with me, don't let go." She looks back to meet his eyes, and when he looks ready, she'll take them across and blow the smoke into little eagles to fly around the hut.

It takes longer than it would for a member of the tribe in her day, but not so long as she expects for a first time initiate, then Hannah decides he is ready to go.

Before very long, the little eagles fly around the hut, streaming smoke behind them in small puffs. They call out to each other and search for a way out.

Hannah smiles the first delighted smile she's had for awhile. "Well, little fox, let's see if we did it." She moves back the hand she has Misae's lead in to pull open the flap more. She whistles the eagles out first. Keeping her grip on her young charge, she sticks her head out and emerges slowly, checking her surroundings.

Hannah sees a sky the deep blue of Amber and a round and golden sun. High above and far away, she can see some sort of giant eagle spirit soaring. It looks smaller than her smoke birds.

The forest is vast, and a well-worn path leads to a clearing.

Sergeant Elm follows her out and looks around, gape-jawed. "This is amazing!"

She checks Misae first to make sure the mare moved all the way over with her, and then she takes a good look at Elm for the same purpose, even popping her head back in the smoke-hut to make sure his real body is outside with her.

His body stands next to her, as she expected. So does the mare's.

She grins. "It is, isn't it? You ready to see where this leads?" she asks, heading for the path.

"Yeah! How do you do the thing with the smoke?" he asks, walking in step with her. The path leads towards a clearing in the forest in one direction and downhill, probably to water, in the other.

She heads up into the forest, keeping an eye out. "Years of practice. I studied under the old medicine man from the time I was four until he died, every spare moment. And then I've been making these trips ever since. In other words, I have no easy answer for your question. Everything is connected and to come across you have to... embody those connections, and then you can sometimes influence them. But very few people can do it. That's why not everyone is a medicine man."

She gives him an apologetic look before she says, "That's why I use the spider song with children. It is very simple but sometimes triggers that cascade of knowledge in them. The spider and the fly and the field and the horse and the hay and the field and the cow and the milk and the baby... Sometimes you can find someone with a gift that way. But sometimes it takes people longer to find it in themselves."

He nods. "I spent some time in France with an Irishman. He used to sing a song that always reminded me of that. 'The egg in the nest and the nest on the twig and the twig on the limb and the limb on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the bog and the bog down in the valley-O'. It's about twice as long and he sang it twice as fast as that, usually while dr-- while we were on leave." Arthur Elm smiles.

Hannah gives him a sideways look to let him know she doesn't approve of the drinking.

It's not clear if he has a gift, but it's not clear that he doesn't.

In the clearing is a small patch of cultivated ground. Across the clearing is a low hut. There's a smoky fire inside and it looks like the work of a Ponca.

Hannah stops. "Now, that's odd. That is downright odd. Who'd be living over here? You can't just up and live in the spirit world." She gets into the saddlebags and gets out her knife. She tucks the sheath into the band of her pants. "I mean... you'd have to have a spirit helping you."

She sighs and starts to approach slowly, keeping an eye out for other horses. "Careful, Arthur. Someone should be home. No good Ponca would leave a fire like that. If we're lucky, it'll be a woman."

Hannah and Arthur approach the hut. As they round the corner of it, towards the door, they see a stallion wearing a saddle. Misae whinnies at him and his tail twitches.

"That's not US calvary standard issue," says Arthur.

She nods at Arthur to acknowledge she heard him and then whispers at Misae, "Thank you for the give-away, princess."

Hannah reaches up and touches the purple feather in her hair for luck. She calls the Omaha greeting from a woman to a stranger, then the same in Ponca, then rounds it off with a final greeting in Winnebago, just in case.

The blanket over the entrance is pulled back and reveals two men, or spirits in the shapes of men. The one man she recognizes, if he is who he looks like. Her brother Francis. The other is a stranger, but one who looks familiar to her, somehow. They blink in the bright light and have not yet spoken.

The stranger is tall, with cinnamon-brown skin and dark hair with a strong hint of red, especially at the ends. He's wearing a robe of grey and black, tied with a wide sash that also holds a straight and a curved sword. He looks thin, almost to the point of emaciation, and must have gone through six kinds of hell to get here if the burn marks and the score of scratches and half-healed cuts tell any kind of story. He looks like his body has long since called it a day, and is only going now on pure willpower. He might also have been credited with a thousand-yard stare, but the eyes are too disconcerting; they're the color of bright, molten gold. Seeing that the other man is smiling, he offers a tentative smile as well.

The woman's face breaks into a bright smile that lights up her eyes, but it is almost immediately replaced with a polite one and a cautious look. She slowly reaches for the smaller pouch she carries, and lifts it up tenderly. "I bring a gift in greeting," she says in French, and pulls open the pouch a little so the tobacco can be smelled as she steps closer, "and if you are not Coyote, perhaps you will share it with me."

She watches the man who looks like her brother very closely for his reactions, considering him the greater threat, but doesn't completely ignore the poor fellow who looks like he's had a rough quest. He does, after all, have a sword.

The man who looks so like Francis seems to be holding back a laugh. He replies in Thari. "Ohanzee, may I present your cousin Dances in Fire, the son of your birth mother's brother Uriel. Firedancer, this is my daughter, who pleases my vanity by not recognizing how I look in this place.

"Come in daughter, we were about to share tobacco and will happily share yours as well. This is where you were born."

"Papa?" She seems rather stunned a moment. Then she is moving to embrace him, smiling. She hugs him perhaps a little too hard. Out of politeness she stays with her father's Thari. "Could not have told me that sooner, could you? No warnings, no wisdom, just had to leave me to find my own path!"

She lets him go, and turns her now wry smile on Firedancer. "My name is Enana now. And this is Sergeant Arthur Elm, who I found living in the village of Horsehead Creek." She motions to said gentleman. "Of course we will come share your hospitality, Papa, but where..."

Her eyes focus behind them to the opening the hut. "My mothers?" she asks quietly.

Edan looks more wary as introductions are exchanged, but still smiles as he bows. "As-salaamu alaykumu," he says. "I am pleased to meet you, Enana bint Estimaza, and you, Sargeant Elm. I continue to be suprised to learn that there are people who live, and indeed were born, in this place."

Sergeant Elm bows, or tries to. He's not very good at it. "Hallo. You don't look like a Turk."

Hannah's eyes swing to Elm and she looks somewhat mortified. "Ah, the joys of military familiarity."

She turns back to Edan with a nod. "It is our pleasure to meet you as well, and we join you in your surprise," she grins, as she looks back to her father. Her grin falters.

Edan smiles, just a little. "I know of this Turkey, Sargeant," he says. "I come from a place much farther away, but very similar. There are many deserts."

Hannah's father looks her over. "I live alone, Enana. Two of your mothers are dead, for they could not live here. Yet you can find me. It seems you did well enough without my advice. I told your birth mother, before she died, that I would not seek out her family, nor tell you of them. But you found them yourself, and it is as it should be.

"The people now follow another, a stranger to us, and wanders in lands far from here. I came here after they so chose, because I hoped to learn how to fight the man who stole them from themselves."

He reaches out and traces a mark on Hannah's forehead, and frowns, slightly, and looks at her, questioningly.

She stands silently under his regard a full minute before she looks down. She unbuttons the top two buttons of her shirt so the four-pointed black star centered just below her collarbones is visible. "I thought you didn't want us to take the Mark so as to move freely in society. I never thought there might be another reason. So I have stood at the center of the universe, Papa, and felt it align around me, and I have seen the bonds that connect every thing and seen through the eyes of my ancestors," she explains, tearing up, "but if what I also did in pride was open a gateway to the people, then I shall grieve the mistake the rest of my life."

Still facing Hannah, Edan glances at her father, then back to her. He stays silent, perhaps recognizing the drama of this fragile moment.

He stares at the mark a moment longer. "You are who you are, and that you are marked thus is now a part of you. You need not grieve for no recent action opened any path for the thief. Your birth-mother, who was my wife when I was here, once speculated that I was descended from one of her brothers and that others may have preceded even him. Our lands must be a cross-roads for that family, like your cousin the Fire Dancer, who was surprised not just to find me, but to find someone who knew of his kind.

"As for us, we are sprung from a curious folk. Look at Arthur Elm, who followed you here, more interested in adventure and mystery than safety or duty. Nothing you did caused any harm to the people, and even had there been something, it was the choices of the people that took them where they went."

Hannah absorbs this with a nod. "We are the people who travel against the stream, Papa," she smiles. Then she pulls him into another hug. "Thank you. I am so relieved you live."

She lets him go and turns that smile on the other men. "Come on Arthur, come cousin, let us smoke." She reaches out to take hands.

It is only a second's hesitation before Edan places his hand in hers. "Smoking, yes," he says. "And then, perhaps, a little magic."

Estimaza laughs. "The smoking is part of the magic. It is different here. More essential, if you will. It will make you more receptive to seeing things as they are or will be or could be, if you let it."

He stops Arthur by the door with his hand. "I am not a chief here, just a Ponca living alone. You are welcome, regardless." Arthur Elm nods, and enters.

The Ponca explains the ritual, as he or Francis might to a white man. It is clear that Estimaza considers it to be less indirect here. He teaches simple words to chant to Edan and more complex ones to Arthur Elm.

Edan doesn't say anything, but there's a smile that starts about a quarter of the way into the explanation and doesn't go away. He nods when it is finished.

He turns to Hannah. "Enana, Firedancer wishes to look into his future, either in the smoke or by the ways of your birth-mother. We shall be looking at him, if we have choices in our visions."

She nods at her father, and turns her eyes on the man in question. "Are you trying to avoid something, or find a certain path?" she asks quietly.

"Both, really," Edan says. "I know the way I wish to take, and I wanted to know what will rise to oppose me if I do. If I cannot find a peaceful path, it would be nice to have at least some idea what is coming. I am weary of being blind-sided." He pauses. "Since there is smoke, and fire, the vision should be strong. Stronger that what I would otherwise expect..."

He trails off, frowns, and adds, "You may already know all this, but I must be complete. Many of our blood carry cards, magic cards, that they use to speak with one another. They also use these cards to foretell the future. I do not have these cards, but I don't necessarily need them; I remember their shapes, and I expect to see them in the smoke. The... vision... would not normally be as accurate as if I had the cards themselves. But, I am a sorceror. I speak the language of fire. Rituals are as common to me as breathing, and where there is fire, I am strong... very strong."

"And this is a place of visions, but that is why you sought it, isn't it? That's why I came back," she grins.

"I know of the cards." She nods. "I even have a few, but not enough to help you in this. I would encourage you not to limit yourself with them. What if you can find something more, someone you've never seen in the cards, here in the smoke, hm? Let it find its own form." She gestures broadly, smiling. "Yet we will be a circle around the center in a circle. Sometimes there are hidden truths behind the truths revealed."

Estimaza gently puts his hand on Edan's arm, not dissimilarly to how he touched Aramsham. "Listen to her. She is a medicine woman."

She grins to hear her father say this.

Edan nods to Hannah, and says, "So be it. I respect your advice, since you obviously have done this many times. I... do not. Free imagery for me, it is like boating down a river and using a spyglass to see the ocean far ahead. Instead of a definite direction and purpose, I see thousands of waves that peak and disappear, none of them necessarily joined. And under the circumstances, I may be seeing the waves on the far side of an ocean six planets over." He smiles. "It's funny, I just had a conversation not too long ago about the problems of seeing ahead in Time. Please, stop me if you see my visions leaving the stratosphere."

Hannah gestures. "Come, let us sit around the fire." She settles herself to the south side of the small fire pit at the center of the round hut, a motions Elm to sit on her right. "Okay, Little Fox, this leaves you in the east, where the sun rises, where we think in the quiet of dawn. I'm here in the south, since I'm planning. Father, if you will sit in the west, since you are the most in action right now... that leaves our guest in the north, evaluating, looking for the right path and action." She winks at Arthur as she finishes this lesson. "I'm glad we have four people."

"Sit, sit," she orders, just like she's the woman of this house.

[Estimaza] pulls some tobacco from his own pouch and mingles it with hers. A simple pipe, with a thin, fragile stem, is packed with the stuff. The pipe resembles a bird, and in this place may well be one. Estimaza takes the first draw from the pipe and holds it out.

Edan takes his assigned place. He looks like he is visibly trying to relax. He takes the pipe next, takes a long draw from it, and his eyes widen as the taste and smell of the tobacco hits him. He passes the pipe clockwise to Elm, then finally seems to relax.

Hannah enjoys the smell of smoke rising up around them. "When I think about it, I am not sure grounding you here is wise. I can't imagine all your answers lay here, in this place. Or do you just mean, I should try not to let you leave here, literally, while you are searching?"

Edan blows a lungful of smoke into the air. "I meant allegorically," he says. "Not my best attempt at humor, I'm afraid. But come to think of it, you probably shouldn't let me float out of here, either."

Hannah takes the pipe from Arthur when he's done, right hand under and left hand over. She looks at it fondly before she smokes. She makes a very pleased sound in the back of her throat as she slowly breathes out, eyes closed. Then turning the pipe so the cup faces west, she offers it to her father.

He takes the pipe, in the appropriate fashion, and breathes deeply of the smoke, passing it along afterwards.

She tilts her head, watching Fire Dancer a moment, before she speaks again. "I don't want to let you carry the impression I do this all the time. I am content to shape the future without doing magic to find where all the paths go. They should go everywhere. I fear I would limit myself if I knew there were difficulties down one way, but then I fear the best outcome for the far future, many generations out, is through that difficulty. This is really a religious problem for me, because I need to consider how my actions will impact my great-grandchildren's great-granchildren's offspring. They should be first in my mind."

She smiles and holds her palms up. "So for me, I would have to look such a long way, so far ahead... and I don't think I could do that and remain healthy. I have to make the best decisions I can in the present, and find the paths to correct the mistakes all my life. I have never intentionally looked into the future before. And I'm not even sure I can hold you here," she laughs, "but I'll try. I will do my best."

Edan nods several times as she speaks. "I was taught thus: that to take the easy path, that of least resistance, always leads to stasis and stagnation and death." His smile fades a little. "The other thing was that even the wise cannot tell all the consequences of their actions."

Estimaza laughs. He looks young enough to be Hannah's son, not her father. Especially when he smiles. "This is why we are not prophetic, our line. We are a practical family. Firedancer, your horse-lord would be at peace here, but not, I fear, your spirit creature." The smell of the tobacco is strong, both appealing and slightly overwhelming. It has a calming effect.

"What do you think it means, Firedancer, that my daughter arrives here just as you have a question about your path?"

"The same reason that a griffon would lead me here to you, just before that question is asked. It is more than the natural affinity of our blood to one another. I think it is part of an omen, that Enana will help me see a path, or even help me along that path."

"Or I am just supposed to make a salve for your hands," she gestures with a wry grin. "There was a griffon? Is he purple?" She reaches behind her, tugs on her hair and brings forward a purple feather. "Did he speak?"

"Yes, purple. Like that," Edan says. "He didn't speak... he just led me here."

She shakes her head. "Perhaps paths are converging. I don't know."

She waves the feather back and forth through the smoke a minute, and whispers "Wa-kon'-da dhe-dhu wah-pa'-dhi a-ton'-he." [Great Father, here needy he stands; and I am he.] She pulls the feather up and blows on it, then tucks it back into the leather bands in her hair. She gives her father a long look before she looks back at Edan. "The worlds are full of mystery. I am a holy man and a scientist and always trying to balance on a knife."

She shrugs and half-smiles.

Estimaza looks at them both, drinking in the smoke and fingering a pouch at his neck. "But is it not harder to argue against the need for balance? We are lucky, in that I am half french, and thus have roots in the land of science and half of the people, who have long roots in the lands of spirit and magic that my father's people deny.

"You know as well as I do, Enana, that when I speak of assimilation for the people to survive, I mean for all the people to assimilate. Just as the map of the continents shows a great jagged rip where they may at one time have been united, the east and the west have taken different paths, but both are necessary.

"Firedancer, if you came here to gain an example from our home, it may be that it is to learn how and when not to choose, but to insist on being both things, and to swallow your dual natures.

"While trying to balance invites the possibility that one may fall, balance is required to stand, and standing is required to reach, to walk, and to run. If your life is out of balance, you may stumble, but you will miss the joy of running where you can."

He hands the pipe along again.

Edan draws deeply from the pipe, and blows out a lot of smoke before he passes it along. He looks much more relaxed. "Those are wise words... it has been very hard to follow them. It is sometimes like the rift between Chaos and Order, Sorcery and Pattern. They are inimical to one another. Such is the nature of myself. And yet, how can one side be even defined without the presence of the other?"

He leans back a little and regards the cloud of smoke forming above them. "I can relax, and unfocus, and let the visions come to me... or I can use sorcery. Will visions come to me if I let them? If I don't interfere?"

Hannah nods, serious. "I think they will, if you seek them - but without invoking power. It is... tricky, but I think you can do it." She grins. "And if is doesn't work, you can push it over the edge with sorcery. Do you really think sorcery is inimical to Pattern?"

Arthur Elm looks a bit confused, but keeps quiet. Estimaza's eyes dart between his daughter and his nephew-in-law.

Edan's hand raises in a lazy gesture, turning and twisting with the smoke. What would otherwise be a purple griffon forms before he drops his hand and it disappears. He relaxes his posture further and glances back to Hannah.

"I have experienced it," he says. "One is a drag upon the other, like friction. Sorcery can be used in places of high Order, but it is very difficult. It takes a deft hand to juggle them both. I'm sure the effect can be expressed mathematically on the Order side, but I haven't had the time to derive the formulae."

"Hm, and yet I could spiritwalk very close to the Center without a real problem. I always thought spiritwalking was like sorcery, but it appears that was an erroneous conclusion." The smile that accompanies this admission is brilliant. "So it must be something completely different. Hm."

She shakes her head as she takes the pipe from Arthur. She gives him an apologetic look. "The Universe turns out to be quite complicated, Little Fox." She contemplates this as she smokes, used to the smoke now and inhaling deeply.

"So, Fire Dancer, I will refrain from asking you a thousand questions to test your knowledge and expand my own. Right now. About formulae. As I am relaxed. Instead," she grins, "I am curious about this spirit creature you 'have' my father mentioned."

"Kyauta? It is my affine," Edan says. "A creature of Chaos. It is my servant until it wishes to leave, or grows and matures to the point that it will no longer need my support and protection. It is out hunting, but should eventually return to me." He pauses. "Right now it looks like a small white dragonet, but I don't know what it will look like after it hunts and feeds. From what I have seen, personal relationships in Chaos can be in turns, annoyingly simple and incredibly complex. If you asked Kyauta about our relationship, it would likely answer that I have agreed not to Eat it, or let other Lords Eat it. Technically, we could have said the same thing about Oberon while he was alive."

It takes Hannah a moment before she manages to ask, "You knew Oberon?"

Estimaza looks interested at this question.

Edan smiles a little and shakes his head. "Forgive me if I gave that impression. Oberon is-- was-- my father's father, and I have never met him. I have recently been on the other side of the Tree, and have an affine, so my thoughts have oft come back to the nature of relationships in Chaos."

She bites her lip and holds some comment back. "Hm. What is this tree?"

Estimaza says one word, softly. "a-kon-da-bpa."

Edan looks suprised, and then slightly confused. "I do not know that name," he says. "I know it as Ygg, a great tree that is the border between Order and Chaos. It is a nexus, a place where one set of rules ends and another begins. Shadow is infinite, but if one is to cross between Order and Chaos, all roads lead through Ygg."

"Ygg. Is Ygg just a boundry marker then? Or is... it... more than a tree? Do you know?" Hannah asks, looking troubled.

"More than a tree?" Edan raises an eyebrow. "I must admit, I was in the middle of a race at the time and feeling a little bruised from the trolls, so I wasn't looking very closely. What does that name mean?"

Hannah sighs, unsure at first how to explain this. "A-kon-da-bpa is a person who protects and... guides our tribe from the form of a tree. He..."

She grins suddenly. "Here, firedancer, we have fire in our tribal history, again. A-kon-da-bpa was found many generations ago by a young man of our tribe, and spoke to him. A-don-da-bpa burned with blue fire, but never felt it, and gave us instructions. Thunderbirds sat in his branches."

She gestures at the fire pit. "Even our traditional huts are built around fire. Our creation beliefs tell us when we first came to earth it was from water, onto land created by fires rising up. So we build this way, with the fire, the round earth," she gestures around, "the sky. I think the symbolism here will help you."

Edan suddenly looks excited as Hannah talks, but visibly squelches it as he notices how it is interfering with his emotional state and the ritual. "That is most interesting, Enana." He looks very much, at least to Hannah, like he wants to say something but is holding off. "I... did not see anything like that at Ygg. I should have tried to talk to it. Him."

"Or her," she smiles, but it fades. "So do you not think forming a relationship with a creature from Chaos is somewhat incautious? What makes it worth the risk?"

"There may be a number of people in Amber that have lately been asking the same question," Edan says, dryly. "As it so happens, caution was the reason I took Kyauta as an affine."

She doesn't even bother trying to hide her disbelief. "Well, then, I'm sure it will all work out perfectly. And if it is hunting here, I'm certain nothing bigger will eat him. Grandfather Bear will probably consider it a bird, and beneath munching on." She takes her turn on the pipe.

"Is that your spirit-animal? It is a strong one," Edan says. "Let us hope they do not encounter one another, then. If Kyauta turns the tables and Eats your Grandfather Bear, he will almost certainly grow beyond my protection and all my efforts will be lost."

Hannah looks unhappy.

He smiles, but there's little humor there. "You misunderstand me... I was not referring to the well-deserved caution involved with taking the fealty of a Chaos creature. I meant finding out, and watching, those who might spy upon me through an affine that came to me under an almost ridiculous series of circumstances." His voice trails off. "Knowing the giver, I don't think that was the case, and I have seen no evidence of it, but there was another reason. I calculated a twelve to fifteen percent chance that the affine was a remnant of a creature called Aisling, and had its memories. By the time that was disproved, Kyauta had proved its loyalty to me several times over, and I was loathe to give it up."

Hannah nods, but looks grim as she says, "It will indeed be beyond your protection if it manages to 'eat' my spirit guide. I would be deeply offended by that. But that's academic. Let us assume the best.

"I would love to meet your creature. So, why don't you take a deep breath, and try to shape him for me? Like this," she says, and blows into the lingering smoke, trying for little eagles once again.

The eagles come easily. They are well-formed and have clear markings. They may even be making tiny screeches, but it's hard to tell over the fire.

"Enana," says Estizima, "fear not for Grandfather Bear. Spirits cannot be eaten and more than Rabbit can catch The Sun in a Snare. Which is to say he can, but it will leave a mark and not harm Grandfather Bear."

He turns to Firedancer. "Shape the smoke and give it life, wife's nephew.'"

"Without power," she whispers. "Just breathe, and desire."

Edan gives them a long, low bow of his head, and lets his eyes unfocus as he looks up into the smoke. His chest rises, silently, and then he blows into the smoke, willing it into Kyauta's dragonet form.

"Kyauta can be whatever form he wants," Edan says dreamily. "He was a tiny horse when I first saw him. He has taken several shapes. I think I will ask him to be my spirit animal, next."

The smoke swirls and after a moment and several near-shapes, settles into the form of a dragonet. It's still recognizably smoke, especially at the wingtips, but it is also recognizably a dragonet.

It's not a distinct nor as detailed at Enana's creations.

"Will you?," asks Estimaza. "What do you think it would mean were your Kyauta to be your spirit animal?"

Edan frowns at the smoke. "I'm a sculptor. I can do better than that," he says. Turning his head towards Estimaza, he says, "I said that wrong, didn't I? I meant, 'take the form of my spirit animal', ghanii the sand tiger. When I return home, I think it would cause less of a stir than a flying dragon."

"The medium is delicate. My wife here compared it to travelling as your kind do, but in reverse. Let it fly and turn and let each pass through the center return a being changed. Think on it as an allegory for life," Estimaza says. "While you are meditating, you can tell me about your sand tiger. What is it to you? I saw a tiger once, penned by the white men and being taken from town to town to be displayed for money. They are not creatures native to our home. Then again, neither are you."

Arthur looks are Edan, but addresses Hannah. "Wait. If he's not a human person, and Miss Le Corbeau is his cousin, are you..." He lets his sentence tail off.

Hannah grins. "Well, I'm not sure he's not human. What do you mean when you say that word? The medicine man used to call my mother a white buffalo woman - and what did that mean? What do you mean by Miss? And yet, if this is my father," she notes, with a look of longing that such be true, "he does seem quite too young for that. But there is a society of people it is right for."

She shrugs. "There is some physical difference, at least, sir, but I promise we bleed and break too. Just... it is harder to damage or kill us. And we age very slowly, if that's even right, and we can walk the worlds. But I am also Omaha in my upbringing and Ponca in my blood - so I say I'm human, and the Blue Earth has a part of me." Hannah touches the tiny dot on her forehead.

She glances at Edan. "But everyone has opinions, don't they? In Mahkato, 'human' is a word the Easterners have to define who they will treat right and who they will treat wrong. There was a trial over whether or not a Ponca Chief was 'human'. So it is a hard won title I wouldn't set aside easily. The tribes have always interacted with beings Easterners wouldn't call human. For a time, the tribes were not considered human. So, Arthur Elm," she looks back, "I am gratified that you can sincerely ask that question. Your mother's generation had to fight to have their humanity recognized. I am Omaha, so I am human. I am also something else, and also, French." She laughs. "Just French enough."

"I am human and afrit and of the blood of Amber," Edan says. "I was born in the coastal cities of the Land of Peace, raised as a merchant prince, you could say, but turned away from that to join the seven tribes of the deep desert."

He puffs on the pipe when it comes back to him, more carefully this time, and works to bring meaning to the smoke as he speaks. "Ghanii, the sand tiger, is strong and clever, the strongest of the great cats. He triumphs through the strength of his body, knows its abilities and limitations. He is wise, and hunts and moves at night when it is cool and other animals are more vulnerable. Many see him as a symbol of war, of victory. I respect him, for like him, it is reliance on my body and mind that leads to survival. I dance, and know each muscle and nerve, for they are integral to my sorcery. Ghanii is proud, even as he follows the subtle social rules of his kind. I would weep to see one such as him caged and put on display for the entertainment of those who would not even understand what a terrible thing they have done."

Hannah agrees. "There is a great deal to be sad about in the world, and many ignorant people."

She shrugs. "I have seen bears in cages and it is the same. My experience with my spirit guide... has shown me more differences between us than similarities. He helps me see inside myself, and find my strength. Perhaps it is that he already has the knowledge, manners and traits I want to have, but feel so far from. And sometimes he is just there, showing me that there is a peace and quiet when one is alone. He is a great comfort.

"But I did not choose him - he chose me. Is it this way with your people?"

"Not at all," Edan says slowly. "I chose, knowing the similarities between myself and the sand tiger. And later, when I was helping the tribes to fight their oppressors, it was a label that was given to me by others. I was never chosen by a spirit animal." He frowns and is silent a moment. "I regret that."

"So you chose an animal you feel represents your spirit? Have you ever... spoken to a spirit sand tiger?" she asks a little more gently.

Edan shakes his head. "Only giant fire-lions. Obviously, there are talking sand-tigers out in Shadow somewhere, but I have yet to meet one. How... did you meet your Grandfather Bear?"

"I was nine. I was here with our holy man, learning how to seek knowledge. Training," she smiles at the memory. "And I was feeling anxious because my mother was about to have Frank, and it is never sure that even a healthy young woman will survive childbirth. He," she laughs, "he snuck up on us. A bear - a huge bear - and he was following along so when we stopped he poked his nose into me. Which tickled."

She shakes her head, blushing. "I was very young and had an immortal mindset then, so I poked him back. But just a little, because I had been taught about the spirit of the bear. I thought he was bringing me flowers because he had them and I was nine. But it was black cohosh, to help with my mother's contractions. Then he gave me a ride on his back. I didn't understand then that he was my spirit guide. I just liked him a great deal. It wasn't until I was older that I realized he was... guiding and teaching and protecting me."

Sadness floats over her smile. "I have been missing him."

Edan frowns a little more. "Missing him as in, 'He's here and I don't get here often'? Or missing him as in, 'I get here a lot and he's somewhere else?' Were you planning on looking for him?"

"Yes, the first, and yes, I need his help. I came here to find him. I haven't seen him...since I left Mahkato nearly twenty of their years ago to... um'" she clears her throat and grins, "follow a unicorn to a hurt gryffon."

Edan's jaw doesn't quite drop, but it's close. "I tell all these great tales, and everyone has a better one," he mumbles. "Er... the unicorn? As in, our great-grandmother? I have, ah, never seen her."

Hannah shakes her head. "Someone told me she was our great-grandmother, yes, but... I haven't seen her since then. And she didn't speak with me."

For some reason she seems to find all that faintly embarrassing. She changes the subject. "Do you think you're ready to try your... reading?"

Edan's frown disappears; he smiles a little. "I have already been trying," he says. "Yes, I'm ready."

Estimaza laughs, easily. "Perhaps you should try less hard, Firedancer. The future is a delicate thing, and you want to read what will be, not what you will to be."

Edan raises his eyebrows, then settles back and tries to relax more. "Time is but a Principle," he says, "and it is hard for me not to lash the Principles of reality with the whip of my ego. Harder to relax, and see events as they will be rather than as I wish them."

He sits back farther, leans forward a bit to stretch the muscles in his lower back. "I was always taught that Time is connected, simultaneous. Some would argue that events are predestined, despite our power over probability. We know better... but always, there is the urge to pick the safe path that leads ever downward into stagnation." He sighs. "Is it any wonder that I do not enjoy looking into my future? All I wanted was to find peace. But the looking ahead can be as frustrating as feeling my way blindly along Time's thread. I understand that I have a cousin, Cambina, who does this regularly. I don't know how she stands it."

Hannah seems to have frozen with her last breath, and only when she releases it does she move again. "I don't think our cousin remembered her visions. And she has died, perhaps persuing... the future. I saw her injuries shortly before I left to come here."

Edan stares at Hannah with bright golden eyes, and she is sure she has his full attention until she stops speaking.

"And if you did not get to know her I am even more sorry for your loss, because she was kind in her blunt way - at least to me, and she would have cut through things to get us to our goals much faster than we have. That's a gift too. She was a historian as well. I don't think she only saw the future. I was taught time moves in a loop, so that makes sense to me." Hannah looks honestly grieved.

She looks at her father. "I apologize if our speaking of the dead makes you uncomfortable, papa."

Turning back to Firedancer, she explains, "Omaha don't usually speak of the dead once they have passed on, for fear they will be disturbed or distracted. Perhaps... if you really seek peace, you should seek it through your actions. Not by trying to force a path to it."

Edan very much looks like he wants to ask What Happened To Cambina, but he nods instead. "Your father and I spoke on this before you came," he says. "I agree. I know what path I wish to take- what I want to know is what will rise up and place itself in my way when I do. I'm tired of being blind-sided." He pauses. "Perhaps... we could speak when this is done, before you go on your search."

"Yes. I'd like that," she nods and motions to the pipe. "Just breathe in deeply, let it fill you, and then let it go into the air and show you the shape of things to come."

Edan nods, takes the pipe when it comes to him, raises it to the cloud of smoke, because it feels right to him, then fills his lungs with pipe smoke and blows it slowly into the air.

Edan blows and the smoke swirls about. He feels a certain detachedness from the effort, which is probably related to the strength of the tobacco.

The smoke swirls, and, at first, seems patternless, but shortly it becomes apparent that it is showing pieces of the pattern, transformed, warped, and three-dimensional. Those are only transitory. The smoke settles into a shape, a smoky rectangle. Inside it is what looks like a human figure, an upside-down silhouette hanging onto a stick in the top of the frame. Behind the upside-down man is a stray wisp of pure white smoke, probably from the central fire.

Edan makes an exasperated sound. "That looks like the Hanged Man."

"I don't know what all the," she clears her throat, "gypsy cards mean. So let me tell you what I see. Someone in shadow. Perhaps in Shadow. Someone with a strange skill or strength to hang and balance like that. Maybe there is a fire behind him - maybe he follows you. Perhaps he is you."

She shrugs with a little half smile. "What is the card supposed to symbolize? And what does it mean to you?"

It is a moment before Edan speaks. "When I was younger, my father took me on a tour through many shadows. It was as much an exercise in learning sorcery as it was learning the mathematics of Pattern and the art of survival. If this vision comes from my head, then I should at least mention these cards, for I am a veritable encyclopedia of such things, and this may be part of those experiences. It may be the tarot of the Hanged Man, or it may mean something else.

"The Hanged Man is all about paradox. He hangs upon a tau cross made from his own labors, yet he is calm and serene. He hangs in between the earthly world and the spirit world, and his perceptions are altered, so that he gains insight that he would not normally have. He hangs there in a moment that seems timeless, but in reality he knows he must climb back down and act upon what he sees. If there was a vision that says, 'this is the clear-cut path to your future', this would not be it. The Hanged Man is all paradox and mystery. If there is a message, it means to sacrifice one's earthly ties and plans to gain greater insight into the universe."

Edan draws a breath, holds it, looses it. "I will tell you what I see. I see a man. I think that it is me. Yes, he is in shadow, or in Shadow, or he is in darkness, or tainted by darkness." He moves his hand, pointing. "He has left purity and the singleness of purpose behind him- that is the white, straight line. He hangs upside-down- his perceptions are changed, seeing things he did not see before. He is trapped in this moment of clarity, or he is there because of his strength or his acrobatic ability. Either way, he cannot stay in this position, or he will perish. It will be a fleeting moment, and he will have to make new decisions based on what he sees here." A pause. "I also saw fragments of the Pattern, twisted, transformed, three-dimensional. That worries me."

Hannah shrugs again, smiling now. "I didn't see the cross. I thought it was a tree. I wish you could have had a better answer, but sometimes you can't see past a turn, yes?

"The Pattern... it was even harder for me to accomplish than I had been warned it would be. It may be there is something here that doesn't sit easy with it."

"A tree..." Edan smiles. "Yes, that makes sense, too. As far as the vision goes, I suppose it could have been worse." He focuses back on Hannah. "Your connection with this place, it somehow gave you trouble with the Pattern?"

"Trouble might be the wrong word. Or..." she sighs. "I don't know. Maybe it really is just that hard for everyone. For me it was a ritual of ancestors and connecting to them and their trials - but it may not have been the truth as it happened in fact. And myself, and my past, and my... trials." She grins. "Which were pretty much how I remembered them. There isn't a large enough sample for a scientific answer - not for anything for those of the blood. It is all guesswork. Form a hypothesis and poke at it. Mine is that perhaps there is something about my connection here that is a bit unordered. I don't have enough data about the universe to answer the question."

She turns and pokes her father in the arm playfully. "I spoke with you at the end of my ritual. I told you I would come back someday, wearing a purple feather, just in case it had connected you to a vision. You were being insistent about the tribe needing me sooner." She looks a little less happy. "Did you have a vision? What did you see in Firedancer's smoke, papa?"

"There are many things to see, and things that are not to be seen. Each of us bring something to the fire and the ritual and viewing, but I think my wife's side is dominating. These are visions as her people would have them.

He turns his head. "I see a man stabbing the ground, or perhaps a warrior grounding a spear, but upside down. Behind him is a treasure that he is protecting, but he does not look on it. Is that Firedancer, apart from his fire? I do not know."

The image shifts and turns, and a new segment of the pattern slides through momentarily-- or perhaps it is a mere tangle of threads, that happenstance makes look like the pattern would, were it three-dimensional.

Another rectangle of smoke, this one larger than the last, forms. The smoke seems better defined and less inclined to wander off. Inside the rectangle a figure of a man forms clearly. Much bulkier than the last time, this figure seems to be falling downwards while scrambling to go upwards.

Estimaza straightens his head. "Now I see a man who cannot swim."

Hannah just stares at it until her eyes fill with tears. She says nothing.

"Drown... Drowning in Armor?" Edan stares at the ground a moment, then back at the smoke. "Maybe... maybe this is following how the Trumps would read a fortune, after all. Maybe I was all wrong. If this is like the Trumps, this would show my present. A plan of protection, turning against me. And the other image, my past. A defender, maybe, or more likely a Soldier. Reversed." He looks away, and his voice is rough. "Blind obedience."

Edan notices Hannah, then, and his hand rises a little towards her. "Enana?"

She blinks and lets the tears fall, though she quickly wipes them away. "Too many people feel like this, or find themselves... falling. Do you feel like this?" she gestures at the image, troubled eyes hard on him.

Edan's face registers mild suprise, or maybe a confirmation of an unwelcome truth. His hand drops, his expression hardens, but his eyes stay with hers.

"Yes," he says. Yes, I do. And for all I've done lately, all that has happened to me, all the sound and fury and fire that's followed in my wake, I feel as though I have accomplished... nothing. Or worse, hurt the ones with me."

There is a hint of anger to her nod. "You are the one who has to stop it. There are always outside forces acting on us. You have not fallen out of the sky with no one to catch you. You are not damaged beyond repair. You can... you can drop the armor and learn how to swim." Her hand gestures impatiently toward the image again, agitated. "It is like you were saying before about the paradox of releasing control to gain it."

"Drop the armor," Edan echoes, his voice hollow. "Release control to gain it."

He finds it is his turn to gesture at the smoke. "Another way to read the first image is that of the Defender, reversed. It means 'Peril'. The Defender becomes a danger to the thing he is trying to defend. That image also applies, Enana. The Seven Tribes- my very own people I had adopted and saved!- grew to fear and loathe me for the power I had gathered to use in their cause, what I had to do, the creature I had become. My hands are covered in blood. In a flash of anger, I gutted Brand's temple with fire and rained death on the jungle for miles around. In a fit of pique, I tore apart a creature's soul. I have Eaten. I have abandoned my faith. I nearly killed Lil- the Sword Maiden- in an explosion meant to save her, an explosion that completely leveled a battlefield." He draws a short, shuddering breath. "I am like the fire itself- lawless, dangerous, prone to get out of control if my emotions are not held strictly in check. I have all the subtlety of a nuclear blast. I am here, as much as a respite from war and death and killing as I am to find a clue to the future. Because the harder I try, the more destruction I leave in my wake." He looks down. "Drop the armor? Release control? Invite all that in again?"

As he goes on her mouth forms a thin line. "You are making choices. You have the good nature of fire and the bad nature of fire to chose from. You are not powerless within your own nature. It you can't completely avoid the bad nature of fire, you can at least balance it."

She shakes her head. "You make it sound as if you are the puppet of your instinct. You are more than a fire animal. Take your time here to find the good nature of fire. You seem to have lost touch with it. Reach for that, be warmed by it, instead or burned hollow."

And then she gives him a wry smile. "And I will try to take some of my own advice too."

Edan looks up. "How do you mean?"

"I don't feel like this," she motions at the smoke, "I just work too hard. All the time. Yet it ends the same way if I don't find some balance - a burned hollow. So I should give what I need some attention while I am here, so a hundred years from now I will still be a good doctor - but it is easy to know and harder to do. That is how I mean."

Edan nods in understanding. "Taking my own time here, it might be... difficult," he says. "I asked my sister to Trump me if I didn't contact her first. I have a day here, maybe two, if I don't avoid her call. I had actually, ah, planned to come back."

She nods slowly. "I know what it is like. Time getting away from you. Responsibilities. I hope you will make time for this when you can."

The smoke changes again, and again the upside-down man appears, replacing the drowner. Again he has the stick or spear that he is hanging onto or, if it's reversed, that he is poking into the ground. This time he has a bag with him, bulging and heavy.

Arthur Elk looks at it, and turns his head until it's almost upside down. "I don't think it's a warrior," he says.

"The future," Edan says. "I think... poking holes in the ground... the bag... I think this is Sowing Stones. Reversed. That's a good sign, actually. It means 'ceasing fruitless labor'." He hesitates. "This has been clearer than I expected. The past, Peril. The present, Drowning in Armor. The future, Ceasing Fruitless Labor. All of it is accurate. At least, I hope the last is accurate. Then there is a Virtue, a Fault, and a Fate."

"Hm, how do you know? I mean, couldn't these three be a virtue, a fault, and a fate?" Hannah asks.

"We shall see," says Estimaza. "It changes again." The smoke turns again and another figure appears. It's quite clear the smoky image in this rectangle is inverted. Near the top is what vaguely looks to be a city or town, with a mountain rising behind it. On the mountain is a lone hut and next to it, a man.

"Why are they all upside down?" asks Arthur.

Hannah laughs. "Perhaps Firedancer is dizzy," she teases.

Edan snorts. "That would explain a lot," he says. "This one, I think, is the Hermit, Reversed. It means isolationism in the pursuit of wisdom." He frowns. "It also means a loss of compassion and caring. That's a virtue? That helps me?"

Hannah shrugs. "Sometimes compassion and caring hurts too much, and you have to step away from them to do what is best," she offers.

He turns back to Hannah. "It's a good question you just asked. All I can say is what I did before- if it's coming from my head, this is how I know it is done. The cards are arranged in a pyramid, then read bottom to top. Past to future, virtue, fault, fate. If these images are in a different order, how would I ever be able to tell which is which?"

"Well, you wouldn't," she grins. "Let us hope they are behaving."

The image that forms next from the strands of smoke is a four-legged one and is clearly an image straight from the Court of Arms-- A Lion. Given the smoke, technically "Or, a lion rampant sable within a bordure sable".

Arthur looks at the image. "So this is the fault, right?"

"The Lion." Edan nods. "The Body Prevails. Physical prowess. Victory in contests. If it were a spirit animal, this would be my tiger." A rueful smile begins to form. "Temet nosce, Firedancer. I think I see where this is going. I'm not going to like it."

Hannah studies the big cat. "Yet you began this exercise from a position of changing the future - so how seriously can you take fate? Abyssus abyssum invocat, right? You haven't changed your path yet. I would be surprised were it good based on what you've said."

"Omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt," Edan says, absently. His smile grows wider. "I've been, shall we say, aware of the element of choice in the equation. I knew that our choices change the paths, even when we see the paths laid before us. But this... ahh, this includes a choice. I want peace. How do I get there? What helps me? Not to care. What hinders me? My own nature, my own abilities, the desire for victory. Abyssum invocat, indeed. When I saw the men of the desert exploited and used, I cared. When I saw Feathered Serpent and his people about to be destroyed by his sister, I cared. Whatever mistakes I have made, the decision had already been made to act. How do I reach a time of peace? Ignore the urge to care, to make a difference."

"And if that is the only path to peace, is it worth it? What good lies beside destruction? If a man is ill and I take a knife to him to try to take away his sickness, have I done more harm than good? The answer lies in if he lives or dies, usually. I, perhaps, have learned too much how to turn the other cheek. You, perhaps, know nothing of how to do that. What is your obligation to the universe? I'm not convinced you need peace. You may just need rest," she shrugs. "Peace is an abstract thing.

"So I come all the way around to this question: what would cool your soul down for awhile, and let you rest in quiet?"

"You are a wise woman, Enana of the Omaha," Edan says. "Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to that question. Considering how I was raised, and how I have lived my life, I don't rest well. Even the dance is tied in with everything else that I do. My plan thus far was to 'go somewhere with no people and a place to see the future' - you see how well that's worked out." He smiles more fully and shakes his head. "If you have suggestions, I am all for them. You would seek rest here too, would you not? I see that you have your own great stressor, your own Drowning Man, one in whom you have placed great care."

"Guidance and balance. I'm not so good at rest either. As for suggestions, a wise woman asks many questions but offers few answers," she grins.

The smoke re-forms, making a new symbol bound by a rectangle, this one wider than it is long. In it is a figure, hooded and gaunt, bearing an ankh and a staff. It's not human, even if it's humanish in shape. It is neither upright nor reversed.

"Death," Edan says. "But sideways. Either great change, or stasis. Not... unexpected." He's nodding. "So. As to the question of finding peace: I had become a peril to those I had defended. My protective plans turn against me... but in the future, I shall cease my fruitless labor. A lack of caring or compassion helps me. Physical prowess, my nature works against me. Great change is possible, if I choose the right path."

Hannah nods. "Now all you have to do is do it," she smiles. "May finding your path be easy if that is what helps you most."

Edan bows to her. "And you, Enana, may you find what you seek, as well. Including your Grandfather Bear." He glances back to the smoke, then to her. "I think I need some air. If my gracious host, your father, would not be adverse, perhaps we could walk a bit and talk of home and Family?"

Hannah looks to her father. "I will come back so we can talk. I have hints of where your thief may be headed. Do you think it is safe for Elm to stay?"

Estimaza nods, almost casually. "As safe as it can be. He and I will talk of the people, and how they are doing. Do not forget to return, this time. Even if you see a unicorn."

"Even if I see the unicorn, Papa, I will tell her we have to come see you first," she agrees. She watches her father a moment to make sure he's got the pipe well in hand, and then she stands, slowly. Once sure of her feet, she grins across at Firedancer, and heads outside.

She immediately looks around for the horses, Wixer and other creatures.

Edan stands afterward, a slow, lithe unlimbering that makes the eyes ache to watch. He nods to both men, then follows Hannah outside; at the change in air, he gives one discreet, polite cough.

"Yes, it is a lot of smoke, isn't it?" she asks, and clears her throat.

Edan hazards a smile as he steps away from the lodge (and if there's a door or flap, closing it). "And quite... pungent."

She laughs and turns to look at him. "Well, it is relaxing, even all things told."

She tilts her head and starts walking East, toward the horses.

Edan chuckles as they move away and off by themselves. "I tell Aramsham to stay, he wanders off. If I had told him to wander off, we would have found him standing by the door."

"Oh, he's like that, is he? My mare never wanders too far. She's called Bright Star in Omaha, which is Misae. Call her Missy half the time. What does Aramsham mean?" she asks.

"It means 'exalted one'," Edan says. "And he knows it well. He is the most spoiled, contrary horse I have ever bred and raised. Then again, he is also the strongest, fastest, and steadiest. So I keep him, and forgive him his nature."

"Do your people consider horses sacred?" she wonders.

Edan shakes his head. "Not sacred, no. They are held in high esteem, considering that a man may die in the desert if he does not have a horse or a camel. Breeding thoroughbreds like Aramsham is considered a sport, almost an art, where I come from. And it shows... he has just won the Race to Madness, near the Tree Ygg, and has been steady in battle, around sorcery, even hellrides. He even knows a few tricks, when I can keep him from biting or stepping on my foot."

She laughs. "And we do consider them sacred. So Misae is very special among my people because she was born free and we had to save her from being part of the slaughter that was..." her smile fades and she shakes her head. "Nevermind that. Anyway, she is a little monster of endurance, but we don't breed them for it. They have to choose.

"Maybe then they're not so cranky as your Exalted One," she teases.

"The Sword Maiden found him and led him back to me in Uxmal," Edan says. "He didn't give her any trouble. Nor did he your father. It's not as if I can't handle a horse... perhaps he just does it to me, because he thinks I'll let him get away with it." He smiles, then is silent a moment as they walk.

"Your father told me about his wife, your mother. I was... suprised."

She seems about to say one thing, stops herself, and then asks, "What surprises you about it?"

"Father told me about the Family, when I was out in shadow," Edan says. "I had not yet been introduced to anyone, not even my sister. He told me that Rilga had a third child, a daughter, who spent much time away from Amber and, as I found out later, had probably perished." He glances at Hannah to make sure he isn't passing along unexpected and unwelcome news. "That was the last I had heard until your father alluded to her. I have not been long present at Amber or Xanadu, but I certainly had not heard of you."

Hannah nods. "It's nice to know people haven't been gossiping about me. I've been busy, working, and learning how to use newfound skills. But it isn't like I've been hiding.

"On the other hand, I didn't know who my mother was when I got there. It never mattered to me, because I had perfectly good mothers. Really, the best a girl in my position could want." Here the grief emerges in her voice and tightening expression. "I didn't know my birth mother, and what I know of her doesn't inspire great admiration. There had to be something interesting about her to get my father's attention, but that's between them. And I haven't announced who she is in any public sense. I'd rather be judged on my own faults and merits.

"If I've heard of you, I don't know it," she finishes with a grin, but lets him keep his secrets. She approaches Aramsham confidently, turning to come in from his side. "Do you think he will be offended if I give him a nickname?"

"Not at all," Edan says. He reaches into a pocket and produces two cubes of sugar, which he holds palm-up for Hannah to take. "My father is Seeker-Beyond-Seas, and my mother is the Firemaid. Who, and what, my mother is has always made me something of a pariah. I won't say anything about your birth mother if you won't say anything about mine." He grins.

Hannah takes the sugar. "Agreed," she smiles. She lays a hand on Aramsham's neck like an expert.

"So if I call you Shammy that's just taking it too far, isn't it? I will call you Midnight, since you are so dark next to Bright Star here." She offers him the sugar. "You're not going to bite at me now, are you?" She talks at him a bit, and once they seem to be friends, she gives him another pat but resists a full appraisal.

She turns her attention to her mare. "Is he being nice to you?" she whispers very quitely to the much smaller horse. "If he bites you, you kick him in the face."

Edan chuckles. "He won't bother her. She's a mare, and he's all boy. If you were riding a stallion, well, then there might be problems."

She smiles big and nods slowly. "As a... conscientious guardian I must be a little concerned about the behavior of stallions who may be... overbred. I hope you won't take offense at that. She's a vicious kicker, and has her own mind, so I'm not too worried about her." She colors just a little, but is still grinning.

She turns back to her horse. "And watch out for Wixer too, though he didn't seem to want to eat you last time."

Edan raises an eyebrow at the 'overbred' statement, but still looks amused. "Wixer? Was that the griffon? You know him by name?"

She waves her hand, strokes the horse's nose once more, and then gestures eastward. "I was told his name. He's never spoken to me."

Hannah runs her hands over the top of the grasses as they grow higher. "I feel like I should give you the tour, but it can be unpredictable. There should be a river ahead here." She looks at him a moment, then, "What was it you didn't want to talk about in front of my father?"

Edan looks suprised. "Cambina's death. Amber. Xanadu. Family things. Part of the Family protocol, really, that we often catch each other up on the Family when we meet. At least, that is how I was taught things should be. And most of our relatives, they are private people, and prefer to keep such information between ourselves. Estimaza, he may or may not be your father, yes? There is information you would want him not to hear, either way."

Hannah laughs. "Well, no, but that says a great deal more about who I think Estimaza is as a man than anything about you."

Edan looks like he very much wants to say something, but stops himself when Hannah continues.

She stops laughing. "But here, I will tell you what I can. When were you last in Amber and Xanadu?"

"Weeks ago, subjectively," Edan says. "When I left, Huon was still marching through Shadow on his way towards Rebma. I have been in Chaos for a time, but I have heard a little from my sister via Trump. The last I heard, Huon failed in his bid, was captured, and then escaped from Amber. I sent Lilly and Ambrose to Amber for help after she was injured in battle. Someone named Robin now has a trio of dragonet... affines, perhaps. Paige has been named warden of Xanadu's forests, and was leading Arcadians there. Lilly failed in her bid to negotiate a new cousin, Meg, from Count Madoc." He meets Hannah's eyes. "That's the latest I've heard, if it fixes the time for you. I can go into more detail, of course."

She shakes her head. "I... this is all mixed up in time for me. I had not heard that Huon had failed in his bid... for Bleys' head? Or that he'd been to Amber, and then escaped. That is news to me. In Xanadu, Gerard's wife has come to live with him, which I think is a very good thing. And then Cambina's body was found and it was discovered the Queen was missing. Corwin and I went up to Tir, since it seems she fell from there, but it was... unhelpful. By the time we were done the Queen had been recovered. Since I don't understand what happened to her, I can't really explain. That's when I left. I knew if I didn't leave pretty quick, I'd be drawn into something else.

"Can you tell me more about what happened with Huon?"

"Huon marched on Rebma, after gathering an army through Shadow," Edan says. "Basically, he threatened to destroy Rebma's Pattern if they didn't give him Rebma's Pattern sword, which our newly-discovered cousin Khela holds. I think. Huon objectified his plan through a combination of subterfuge and sorcery, apparently, and had a blood-bomb ready to explode in Rebma's pattern chamber. Brennan, Jerod, Conner, Llwella, and Khela all opposed him. They managed to disrupt the spell, and most of the principals were dragged through a Trump to Amber, where Huon made a grab for the blade and ran. He was eventually stopped and sent back to Amber, where he subsequently escaped, without the sword. The army back in Rebma, without their leader, was defeated. Huon's on the loose somewhere in Shadow, probably recovered by now.

"Huon wanted Rebma's Pattern sword to put him on a parity with Bleys, who holds Werewyndle, the Pattern sword of Amber. Huon doesn't have the math to understand that having Rebma's sword wouldn't have helped him."

"There are so many new questions in there. Do you know what Rebma does with her prisoners?" she asks.

"Rebma? I don't know, I've never been there." Edan makes a face. "I assume, being a reflection of Amber, that there is a court system that runs up to the Queen's justice. Or, on the political side, the possibility of prisoner exchange... Jerod or Conner or Llwella would know the best, I suppose."

He gives Hannah a sort of appraising half-smile. "If there's lots of questions, perhaps we should do another time-honored tradition, that of trading questions. I think my first one would be, who is Robin?"

"I don't actually know too much about Robin. She was raised by Julian, and is engaged to Gerard's son Vere, and may be my sister. But we've only spoken once, really. She seems... a tomboy." Hannah grins and shrugs. "You can have another question if you like."

"Well, alright," Edan says. "I met Gerard before I left. He was in a great wheeled chair, and I heard the story of his injuries. How does he fare, now that the king has returned?"

"Much the same, only now he is free to pursue his healing rather than run a Kingdom. More than that, I really couldn't say unless he gave me permission." She stops momentarily, river coming into view in the distance, to think of a question.

Then she shrugs. "Enough of these games. Let's swim." She tilts her head toward the river and raises an eyebrow.

"Eh?" Edan looks up at the river, then at Hannah, then back the way they came, then back to the river... but not so far that Hannah can't see an upturned mouth and a brilliant golden eye. "Race you."

The other eyebrow goes up in surprise, but she only smiles as she grabs her skirt and starts running toward the river.

She likely wins, as Edan not only slows down to divest himself of weapons and his outer robe, but also hops along at the end while removing his boots. He waits to throw his inner robe onto the riverbank once he's in the water. Hannah can see that he's thin, almost too thin, with a dancer's physique. He winces as a hundred battle-borne cuts and bruises make themselves known, but smiles anyway. "This is the first chance I've had to get clean in two days," he says. "Since the battle."

She's just grinning. "Please, don't let me stop you." She reaches up behind her head to loose up her leather headband with the purple feather. She keeps smiling as she lifts a foot to unlace her boots. "I don't have to worry about our cousins hearing stories about today, do I?"

Edan blinks, then spreads his hands and smiles. "Who are you, again?" he asks. Deciding that there's a perfect patch of clean, pristine sand for scrubbing underneath him, he does a surface dive to grab a double handful and return. He shakes his head, throwing water around when he breaks the surface. "This is going to hurt."

"You don't need to do that," she claims, finally getting her second boot loose and setting it aside. "Give me a minute, and I'll get you something softer." She turns to the buttons on her top, but gets them loose more quickly. She folds up her top, her overskirt, her stockings, and drops her belt and knife on top. This leaves her in a modest knee-length chemise, waving her drawers.

"I always wear drawers in case I need bandages," she calls, then laughs, "or washclothes for cousins I just met. That is, if I'm wearing a skirt. I envy you such simple clothing." She shakes her hair loose and heads down to the water. "Virginia, one of the ladies who sent me to medical school had a theory they made women's clothing so burdensome for us on purpose. I had my mother, Mary, send her traditional formal dress from the Omaha. Oh, she loved it."

"Ah, yes, um," Edan stammers, watching her. "I, ah, imagine that it would, um, be a burden, um, purpose." A few seconds later he realizes what he just said, and shakes his head while letting the sand dribble back out of his fingers. "I had to, ah, make the robes in a hurry. It isn't quite what I normally, um... wear."

Hannah grins and hesitates to put a toe in. "No? Is it cold?"

"The water?" Edan smiles. "The short answer to that is, the water feels cold to me. Very cold. But it is always warm where I am."

That gets him another eyebrow. "Well, then, I suppose I'll have to stay close to you." She heads in, pulling on her necklace-pouch to tuck it carefully into the material at her shoulder. She heads in quickly then, biting her lip against the cold, ducking, and coming up smiling.

"It's not that bad," she laughs. She dunks and wrings out the white cotton in her hands a few times. "Here, nice soft cotton from Xanadu. Well, probably from a ship into Xanadu."

Edan moves in close. It is, indeed, much warmer where he his. "Most everywhere feels cold to me," he explains. "I often decide that it is warm near me, when I can affect Shadow. Or make things warm with sorcery."

Her look softens. "That sounds horrible." Then she grins, "but it feels good. Are you affecting Shadow now?"

Edan nods his head, apparently making some effort to keep his attention on Hannah's face. "There are... advantages," he says. "I adjust very well when things get... hot."

"Hm." She smiles while holding his gaze. "Whereas I just submerge myself in cold rivers." She pushes the cloth up against his chest gently. "Do you need help?" she asks in her teasing tone.

He places his hand on hers. "You are the one who is the doctor, neh?" He moves closer, so that they're almost touching. "I am lucky, to have you here with me."

"Or maybe I am lucky your path led you here," she says quietly, not moving. Her smile breaks back out. "Touch is healing."

"Healing, yes. We are both... lucky." Edan moves to embrace her, then, their bodies pressed together, and his eyes are as bright as she's ever seen them. Before their lips meet, he says, softly, "Edan... my name is Edan."

She echoes his name.

Edan's eye opens, then narrows to a slit. Everything seemed the same; the rushing of the water, the sound of the wind and the trees. They had slept, but it felt like a short sleep. Still on the riverbank, huddled together, clothes pulled over themselves for extra warmth.

He turns his head slightly, feeling her long, dark hair against his face, and smiles. Almost everything was the same. One thing was different. Very different. He stretches, more as a gentle wake-up than anything else, a sinuous stretch that starts at his toes and travels all the way to his outstretched fingers.

Hannah wakes smoothly, rolling to open her eyes eastward. She rubs her eyes, and then turns with a soft smile to look at Edan.

"Ah, there is the cat," she whispers hoarsely, slipping a hand over to rub his tummy. She pulls back to rub her eyes again. She sighs. "I fear we'll need to get moving soon, or deal with guests. And I do need to go find my spirit guide."

Edan nods, reluctantly. "I understand. I don't like it, but I understand." He smiles. "I have to decide on my big project here, too."

She nods. "Be gentle with this place, alright? Dance lightly?"

He nods his head. "Rest wasn't the only thing I was looking for when I came here," he says. "Kyauta was hungry, yes, but there was something else. I have no Trumps, and I was hoping to create the next best thing. A sort of... substitute place Trump, using sorcery. It would involve waking the big tree, over that way. I will not do so, if you think it would disturb the balance here. I did not know people lived here, especially your father."

She nods back, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Waking a tree... should be fine. You should try to talk to this one though. You never know," she teases. "I... in Xanadu they know me as Hannah, but Enana is my name.

"I like hearing you say it," she smiles, and starts sorting clothing into piles. She tosses her chemise aside as a lost cause and starts buttoning up her shirt. "Are you going back to Xanadu?"

"Enana..." Edan appears to be far more interested in watching Hannah move around than anything else. "Er, yes," he says when her words sink in. "Paige will Trump me. Probably sometime tomorrow, if I have the time-streams right. She didn't mention, or perhaps didn't know, about Cambina." He tilts his head. "Will you be going back there?"

She nods again, and her expression clouds. "Whatever my father wants to do, it is his, and I will assist him how I can, but... I cannot be ruled by my guilt. If I were to do that, all the choices I have made up until now would be for naught. So, I have work in Xanadu. In the end, I am here to advance that work, and I must remember that, and not get too distracted by demanding fathers or tempting cousins." She smiles then, and looks around for drawers, which have completely gone missing. Her smile grows, and she reaches for her skirt.

"I've met Paige, and Brooke and Leif. Is Paige your sister?" she asks.

Edan nods. "Paige is my sister, and Bleys my father. That is is conversation in and of itself." He smiles. "Tempting?"

She lays her skirt down over her legs a moment and leans over to play with the red ends of his hair. "Distracting. Beguiling. Disconcerting. Engrossing. And tempting. It is taking all my many years of self discipline to go do what I must, instead of lingering here and dealing with the consequences." With which she shoves herself up and steps into her skirt. She arranges her clothing before she sits back down to tug on her stockings and boots.

"If I can find grandfather bear, and if I can come to some conclusion with my father, I might try to come back around here and hitch a ride on your trump call. If that would be acceptable to you?"

Edan is still smiling from her words. "Of course. I would like nothing better." He pauses a moment. "If you will give me three hairs from your head, I can try to reach you if you are not here and the time comes to leave."

She shrugs. "In for a dime, in for a dollar." She pulls him three. "How will it work?"

"The Principle of Similarity," Edan says, stretching the hairs between his fingers. "Casting a spell in the middle of a Trump contact might not be a healthy thing to do, so I will treat these sorcerously beforehand. When I am contacted, if you have not yet come to me, I will tug on the hairs and you will feel it. When you tug on your hair, I will feel it here. If you tug three times, I will ask my sister to bide while I use these hairs and Part the Veil to you. At the worst, she would have to wait a moment and Trump me again."

She smiles with delight. "That is most excellent. Thank you. Here's hoping." She finishes up the last of the laces on her boots, looks at Edan with one last regretful sigh, and makes herself stand up again. She offers him and hand up.

Edan takes the hand, fully aware that he is not yet clothed, and the arm he slides around her waist isn't just for balance. He tsks sadly at his folded robes, and releases Hannah to pick up the thin branch that he decides has been laying near them on the ground all along. The opposite end of the branch smoulders as soon as he picks it up, and he uses that end to draw a complex rune on his clothes. The branch goes in the river, and when Edan shakes out the pile, there are new clothes of white and crimson and gold. "I'm getting better," he says as he dons a pair of loose silk trousers, then shrugs into a shirt and kaftan and boots. "You saw my last attempt. I thought it was straining probablility a bit much to just find them." He ties his crimson sash and retrieves his swords. "I thought I would go back with you before heading to the tree, yes?"

Hannah watches his activities with a grin, but at his question, looks confused for a moment. "Oh, um... I was planning to go on from here and go back to talk to him later. If you thought you had the time in your schedule though," she smiles, "if you could talk to my father for me, and ask him to meet me at your tree if his intention is to come with me... that would be helpful. And with all that the disposition of Elm must be seen to, though I bet he'll want to come. There seemed near nothing attaching him to the Blue Earth."

She shrugs. "If you have time?"

"I will talk to them for you, if you wish it," Edan says. "Though they might not be happy about it. Elm, because he will think I've done something nefarious to you... instead of with you... and Estimaza because wild unicorns wouldn't stop you." He smiles. "But they might change their minds after I tell them of the meeting."

"Tell my father, the spider may speak french, and he will know I sent you. And tell him I need to find Grandfather Bear, and I would very much like to honor my cousin Cambina, but if he needs me to stay and talk to him he need only wait at his hut, and I will return there," she says. "Thank you. I do appreciate it."

She hesitates, and then shakes her head. "I will see you soon, I hope." And with that she turns and heads down-river.

"Luck, Enana," Edan says, warmth in his voice. "I'll be looking for you."