was listening carefully, his head cocked slightly
to one side. What did he expect? Was he listening for danger? There could be no alligators in these cold waters.
I began to ask him, but he silenced me with a gesture. The wind was rising, and he was straining to hear above it. He leaned
to his right a little, expectantly. Then, not hearing what he thought, he leaned forward to where I was now positioned and
murmured, “I have powerful enemies who are now your enemies. But we have the medicine to defeat them all if we are courageous.”
I shuddered with a sudden chill. It occurred to me to remind him that I was not here to help him in his spirit journey but
to find my kidnapped husband. Before my mother vanished, presumably absorbed at last into a dream she had planned to steal,
she would have been a more useful ally to him than I. Now, of course, it was unlikely she even knew her own name.
All too well, I understood the Game of Time. Mother had taught me most of what I knew, and the mukhamirim masters of Marrakech
had taught me the rest. But it was sometimes difficult to remind myself. Time is a field with its own dimensions and varying
properties. To think in terms of linear time is to be time’s slave. Half of what one learns as a moonbeam walker involves
understanding time for what it is, as far as we understand it at all. Our knowledge gives us freedom. It allows us some control
of time. I do not know why, however, there are more women on the moonbeam roads than men, and most of the legendary figures
of theroads are women. Women are said to be more able to accommodate Chaos and work with it. There are honorable exceptions, of
course. Even the most intelligent man is inclined on occasion to hack a path through an obstacle. But he is also, in the main,
somewhat better with a stone lance when it comes to dealing with large serpents.
This last thought came as I watched, virtually mesmerized, while a long, gleaming neck rose and rose and rose from the river
until it blotted out the light. Vast sheets of water ran off its body and threatened to capsize the canoe as, with a shout
to me to steady us, Ayanawatta took one of the spears from beneath his feet and threw it expertly into flesh I had assumed
to be hugely dense. But the spear went deep into the creature, as if into a kind of heaving, wet sawdust, and the water bubbled
with the thing’s hissing breath. It groaned. I had not expected such a noise from it. The voice was almost human, baffled.
It thrashed violently until the spear was flung free, and then it disappeared upstream, still groaning from time to time as
its head broke the water, trailing a kind of thin, yellow ichor like smoke.
“I haven’t seen anything close to that since I was in the Lower Devonian,” I said. I was still shaking. The word
devour
had gained a fresh resonance for me. “Did it mean to attack us?”
“It probably hoped to eat us, but those are known along this river as the Cowardly Serpents. It takes little to drive them
off as you saw, although if they capsize your canoe, you are in some danger, of course.”
Much as I was trained not to think in linearities I wasaware that in this realm gigantic water-serpents had long since become extinct. I put this to Ayanawatta as he paddled to
where his spear floated, shaft up, in the reedy, eddying water. A strong smell of firs and the noise of feeding birds came
from the bank, and I drank in the simplicity of it to steady myself. I knew the supernatural better than that which my husband
insisted on calling “natural,” but I felt resentful that I was being forced to take extra risks as I sought to save him. I
said as much to Ayanawatta.
The Mohawk prince reassured me. He was simply obeying the demands of his dream-quest. This meant that my own dream-quest was
in accordance with his, which meant that as long as we continued in the current pattern and made no serious mistakes our quests
to one side. What did he expect? Was he listening for danger? There could be no alligators in these cold waters.
I began to ask him, but he silenced me with a gesture. The wind was rising, and he was straining to hear above it. He leaned
to his right a little, expectantly. Then, not hearing what he thought, he leaned forward to where I was now positioned and
murmured, “I have powerful enemies who are now your enemies. But we have the medicine to defeat them all if we are courageous.”
I shuddered with a sudden chill. It occurred to me to remind him that I was not here to help him in his spirit journey but
to find my kidnapped husband. Before my mother vanished, presumably absorbed at last into a dream she had planned to steal,
she would have been a more useful ally to him than I. Now, of course, it was unlikely she even knew her own name.
All too well, I understood the Game of Time. Mother had taught me most of what I knew, and the mukhamirim masters of Marrakech
had taught me the rest. But it was sometimes difficult to remind myself. Time is a field with its own dimensions and varying
properties. To think in terms of linear time is to be time’s slave. Half of what one learns as a moonbeam walker involves
understanding time for what it is, as far as we understand it at all. Our knowledge gives us freedom. It allows us some control
of time. I do not know why, however, there are more women on the moonbeam roads than men, and most of the legendary figures
of theroads are women. Women are said to be more able to accommodate Chaos and work with it. There are honorable exceptions, of
course. Even the most intelligent man is inclined on occasion to hack a path through an obstacle. But he is also, in the main,
somewhat better with a stone lance when it comes to dealing with large serpents.
This last thought came as I watched, virtually mesmerized, while a long, gleaming neck rose and rose and rose from the river
until it blotted out the light. Vast sheets of water ran off its body and threatened to capsize the canoe as, with a shout
to me to steady us, Ayanawatta took one of the spears from beneath his feet and threw it expertly into flesh I had assumed
to be hugely dense. But the spear went deep into the creature, as if into a kind of heaving, wet sawdust, and the water bubbled
with the thing’s hissing breath. It groaned. I had not expected such a noise from it. The voice was almost human, baffled.
It thrashed violently until the spear was flung free, and then it disappeared upstream, still groaning from time to time as
its head broke the water, trailing a kind of thin, yellow ichor like smoke.
“I haven’t seen anything close to that since I was in the Lower Devonian,” I said. I was still shaking. The word
devour
had gained a fresh resonance for me. “Did it mean to attack us?”
“It probably hoped to eat us, but those are known along this river as the Cowardly Serpents. It takes little to drive them
off as you saw, although if they capsize your canoe, you are in some danger, of course.”
Much as I was trained not to think in linearities I wasaware that in this realm gigantic water-serpents had long since become extinct. I put this to Ayanawatta as he paddled to
where his spear floated, shaft up, in the reedy, eddying water. A strong smell of firs and the noise of feeding birds came
from the bank, and I drank in the simplicity of it to steady myself. I knew the supernatural better than that which my husband
insisted on calling “natural,” but I felt resentful that I was being forced to take extra risks as I sought to save him. I
said as much to Ayanawatta.
The Mohawk prince reassured me. He was simply obeying the demands of his dream-quest. This meant that my own dream-quest was
in accordance with his, which meant that as long as we continued in the current pattern and made no serious mistakes our quests
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