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more, she started to run. The singer's dream enfolded her senses, drew her
irresistibly like a moth toward flame.
Skyfire no longer saw trees, or the night-dark vista of forest. She ran
through a waking dream of wide, open plains under cloudless
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forest would change. Frost and cold winds would strip the green from the
leaves. The season of white cold would follow and the struggle for survival
would force an end to her search. Recalling the marvels in the singer's dream,
Skyfire clenched her teeth in frustration. Somehow she knew that if she
failed, the lost feeling inside her would never be answered.
Accordingly, she tucked her bow more comfortably across her shoulders and
began to jog. Tonight she paid no attention to landmarks, but traveled without
purpose or direction. She might encounter humans, or even one of the clearings
where they set snares for game, but this once caution deserted her. The
singer's long silence drove her, aching, to recklessness.
Skyfire ran. The familiar paths, the known trees, the territory hunted by the
wolf-pack, all fell behind.
Breathless, weary, the chieftess would not rest. Deer started out of her path,
and night creatures looked up from their hunting. Still she ran, while stars
blinked endlessly between the leaves overhead. The earth jarred over and over
against the soles of her feet, and her bowstring rasped blisters on her
shoulder. Still the chieftess ran.
Her breath came in wrenching gasps. She did not stop. Not until her legs
failed her and she tumbled headlong into old leaves. The musty smell filled
her nostrils, and skeletons of veined stems caught in her hair. Skyfire rolled
miserably onto her back. Her frustration skirted the edges of despair, but she
was too spent even to curse.
She could do nothing at all but lie still and listen to silence until her ears
stung under the weight of it.
In time her heart stopped hammering and her breathing slowed. Something
stirred in her mind and she heard a faint drift of melody. Skyfire shut her
eyes, uncertain whether her imagination might be tricking her as had happened
so many times before.
But the singing grew stronger. The melody turned and interwove like a
waterfall, intricate beyond understanding. Skyfire rose up on her elbows.
Longing woke within her. Feeling tears burn behind her eyelids, she pushed at
last to her feet. She did not feel the protest of her tired body as, once
more, she started to run. The singer's dream enfolded her senses, drew her
irresistibly like a moth toward flame.
Skyfire no longer saw trees, or the night-dark vista of forest. She ran
through a waking dream of wide, open plains under cloudless
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sky. The stars seemed close enough to touch, and the wind held a bite of cold
that burned her throat as she breathed. Scents of many descriptions filled her
nostrils, intoxicating in their detail. Skyfire sniffed deeply. She realized
that she ran with the senses of a wolf, even as Timmain had done generations
in the past. Yet though her limbs might seem clothed in fur and her body that
of a beast, still her mind was not entirely animal. The compassion, the
gentleness, and the sorrow of her ancestors reverberated through her being. As
she raced on four pads over the plain, she shared echoes of Timmain's
thoughts.
Then the singer's melody changed. The dream of sharing wolfshape faded and
turned deep and sad and lost. The cold deepened. Snow fell, a whirling
maelstrom of flakes that smothered the memory of summer or stars. Frost cut
cruelly into flesh no longer clothed in the protective pelt of the wolf.
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Skyfire cried out, painfully rubbing fingers that were thinner, longer, and
more delicate than those she had been born with. She experienced the past
suffering of the first ones, and the crippling confusion of minds accustomed
only to contemplation. Terror ripped into nerves she never knew she possessed.
She cried out, stumbled, and fell waking into the icy reality of a snowdrift.
Cold shocked her back into memory of self; around her, the singer's melody
sang of despair that approached madness.
Skyfire rolled until the end of her bow no longer hampered her legs. She shook
icy flakes from her lashes and hair, and stood upright with a shiver. The
music seemed very near, and it pulled at her heart without surcease. Around
her the trees drooped under a hardened burden of ice. Summer stars shone
faintly through the cold. Skyfire blinked. Unquestioning as a wolf, she shook
off the muddle left by the chill and pressed forward. The snow deepened.
Before long she labored through drifts that rose to her chest. But her efforts
brought progress. The melody grew stronger as she went; the spell of the
singer wove inescapably through her being. Whether she risked death, she would
not stop now.
The way grew more difficult. The snow acquired a hardened, glassy crust of ice
that cut at her fingers and toes. Skyfire was not dressed for such weather.
Her flesh gradually went numb. She shivered uncontrollably, and longed for the
stoic presence of Woodbiter at her side. Still, harsh as her own straits
seemed,
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