Call of the Wild
Chapter 25
Oowah led the way, and the young shaman followed, fleet and sure, as though he often coursed here among the broad plains and pastures of the Dreaming.
But of course he did.
They traveled far without tiring, for here - in the unseen - distance was not weariness, and running was not motion. Around them, the Stones widened their guardian circle to embrace the entire world, until they were the pillars of being, upholding the Way, and Oowah and her companion mere sparks of light scenting the Wind, the current that moved around and within, binding all things together. At last they came to the center of the world, where its Time bubbled up out of hidden springs, a place of sweet clear water and trees that stood rooted impossibly deep, their bending boughs swaying in the Wind. Below, mottled Shadow and Light played across the soft grasses.
This is the vergence, the young shaman said, in Oowah's mind. In the Dreaming, speech was thought and thought was movement.
She did not understand this word of his. This is a Gathering, she corrected him, stopping in the sacred space, the still moment here where the Ancestors would soon come to partake of the bubbling spring. This was the watering place of the Dreaming, a fountain at which only shamans could drink. Wait here with me.
They waited, and she saw that the stranger was also well-versed in patience, for he settled upon his haunches just as he did in the waking world, and quietly rested. Here, she saw, he was garbed again in his strange coverings, the white ones beneath and the dark ones over these, fluttering a little in the Wind that cavorted about him. The waters of the spring changed their path and ran uphill toward him, pooling a little at his feet. Amused, the young shaman dipped his fingers in the clear currents, smiling.
Oowah laid her ears back, Feeling the Ancestors approach. There was movement between the edges of Shadow and Light; and then, without warning, they were present. She rose and bowed before them, the circle of elders, twelve all told, each older and more luminous than the last, all crowned with magnificent ruffs, shimmering slightly where they stood.
The young shaman rose, astonished, and made a deep bow, bending in half at his middle.
You are come in time of danger, the first Elder spoke. And you are come from far distant. Why do you seek us out when your duty looms so close at hand?
Oowah answered, for this meeting had been of her design. This one defies the Law; he brings sorceries to the Grasslands, fire and undead things and strange Laws of his own. Is he a shaman or a black mage?
Lodestone turned to her, and the Wind rose around him, like the fire-in-one-place which he had kindled upon the plains. He stood fast within its power, a stillness ringed with invisible flame, and Oowah cringed a little.
The Way is one but Laws are many, another of the Ancestors spoke. What do you call yourself, young one?
Jedi, came the sure answer.
The eldest of the assembly spoke, his ruff a cascade of trailing pure white, his eyes clear as full moons in a summer sky. You call yourself Way-farer. But what Law do you follow?
Lodestone hesitated. I follow the Code, he offered. The Jedi Code.
The elders stirred in the Wind, consulting among themselves. Does this Code bid you to defy the Laws of others? Are you a usurper come to rule?
Now the young shaman bowed again. Oowah recognized the signal of respect, the strangers' equivalent of a formal salute. We come to serve, replied the Jeh-dai – an unfamiliar name, one she did not know but which perhaps meant this young one's pack, the people that ran among the stars.
And how do your sorceries and misconduct serve us? The youngest of the Ancestors asked, softly. Oowah remembered this one, a shaman of the Stones before herself, already an old crone when she had been born a pup. Now this seer ran only in the Dreaming, her bones long ago reduced to dust upon the plains.
I will drive away the intruders who threaten to destroy the pack… and then I will leave myself, never to return. If the Way so wills it.
It was a good answer. The Elders growled and thrummed together again, voices consonant, rumbling like young hunters though they were ageless and their forms woven of the bodiless Wind. Then drink here, and take the strength of this place with you, the Eldest commanded.
Now Lodestone balked. His sky-colored eyes were troubled, and he looked to Oowah for clarification. But she had no counsel to offer; the Ancestors were wiser than she, for they dwelt in the Dreaming always.
Why do you hesitate? You may not be of this place, but though Laws are many, the Way is one. What have you to fear? Has your alpha forbidden this?
The young shaman nodded thoughtfully. No…. he had taught me to value the Way, even above the Law. I think he would give his blessing.
The Eldest stirred. Choose now. The time to act approaches; you must decide.
Oowah watched in awe as the Wind gathered close, the Ancestors fading into twelve pillars of dark stone as Lodestone bent forward and drank deeply of the bubbling waters in that Place, taking the wellsprings of the Dreaming into himself, until the bending boughs above solidified to jagged rock and the Stones darkened into the Circle, and the elders became once again a memory preserved in Song.
And Oowah stood over the strange pup, as he opened his eyes slowly, blinking in confusion at the shadows of the Circle looking above and the flickering light kindled in the pack's eyes as they gathered round, hackles bristling in terror at the strength of the Dreaming in this place. He sat up, shakily, and gazed back at them, as though seeing them for the first time, like a pup dropped to hard earth from its mother's womb. Oowah saluted him formally upon the face, and he stroked fingers along her snout in answer.
And when he stood, the Wind still clinging to him in skirls and eddies of power, the pack bared their throats to him, hailing the newborn seer of the pack, their star-sent protector.
Outside, a terrible noise rent the evening air; and a fire shattered one side of the Door into scattered fragments, smoking ruin. The pack howled and bayed in alarm; Oowah sprang after Lodestone as he leapt for the broken entrance.
Their enemies had come.