Free Godbond by Nancy Springer Page A

braided heads in flickering firelight—perhaps he sat on the other side of the fire from me. My gaze soon turned back to the shaman. This man, whoever he was, had taken upon himself the whole burden of his people’s petition. The tribe sat in utter silence, so great a silence that even at the distance I could hear the low-voiced singing of the fire.
    Then I noticed the horse, nearly out of my sight in the shadows beyond the great fire, and a chill crawled into the back of my neck and found its way down my spine. Not since I was a child and the tribe beset by smallpox had a horse been sacrificed. But there it stood, firelight turning its dun flanks sunstuff-bright, a great-eyed, high-headed yearling that must have been the tribe’s pride. The white feathers of the victim glimmered in its mane and tail.
    As I watched, a child led the horse forward. Another brought the shaman the blackstone knife with handle of carved human bone, a knife used only for this. Then both children backed away.
    The shaman struck the victim with mercy, straight and hard to the throat, and bled the colt into the fire, and himself heaved in the body—he was great in power, his must have been the strength of four men! And the signs were good, for the flames took the flesh eagerly.
    Again the shaman took up the dance, circling the flames, the long fringes of his cloak and leggings fluttering and tossing like a deer lure. This was the dance that needed no music but the rhythms of life itself, quickened breathing, heart’s beating, ever-faster drumming of feet. More strongly, more wildly every heartbeat he danced, breath-span by breathspan more vehement, until he was whirling like a tempest as he circled the fire, his fringed cloak flying higher than his head, higher than the flames. And then, spinning, he toppled and fell so that he lay nearly in the fire, writhing as the trance took him. And then he lay as still as if he were dead.
    Very silent, very sober, some of the elders of the tribe came and pulled him away from the fire, then placed around him many objects, of what sort I could not see at the distance and against the light of flames. Some of them they placed in his limp Hands. Then every member of the tribe came forward and placed around him things of like sort, even the smallest children bringing them, even the babes, until the offerings, whatever they were, some no bigger than pebbles, others as large as a man’s fist, made a mass and a circle around the body of the shaman like the circle of the tribe around the fire.
    Which circle the tribe once again took, sitting in their places, utterly silent, waiting. And still I had not seen Tyee.
    I stood in the aspens, watching, waiting, knowing by then where my brother was, wishing him well in his quest—though I did not yet know what quest it was. The fire burned low and ceased its soft singing, but no creature noises eased the silent passing of the night, not even the uncouth voices of frogs.
    The great fire had burned down nearly to embers when at last the shaman stirred and slowly rose. He stood, a black figure against flames no longer, but a lean and shadowed man. Slowly, even more slowly than he had come to his feet, he put up his hands and lifted from his head the carved wooden black-stained raven mask with its lappet of black feathers that covered his hair. For a long moment, as he lifted it, he seemed very tall, very looming. A gasp and a whispering went up. Then he took it off, and he was just a man again.
    He was my brother Tyee.
    Once more the king, he looked around at his waiting people, the circle of their offerings and their selves all around him, and his look was bleak.
    â€œI have failed,” he said.
    Stark silence answered him.
    â€œI flew high,” he said, “above the paths of sun and moon, above the stars, above sky into beyond. But I could not find the god. Then my strength failed me.”
    Silence was broken by a sullen murmur, but no one