Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (20 page)

Thakur sat up a bit straighter and gathered himself together. “I have asked us not to harm these people. But Thistle has gone far beyond me. She has asked us to help them!”

Khushi grimaced. “You think it’s wonderful? I think it’s crazy! I like her, too, but sometimes I get the feeling that not everything is working between her ears.”

“I wouldn’t say it quite that strongly,” Bira interjected, “but I have to point out that Thistle is asking us to take this risk, not her. She is not a clan member; she chose not to be. By that choice, she gave away any right to influence what we do.”

“Everything Bira says is true,” Thakur said after the Firekeeper had finished speaking. “Remember, though, Thistle came because I asked for her help.”

“We can be grateful without doing something that would not be good for us,” Bira argued.

Ratha held up a paw for silence. “So it is clear how you all feel. Khushi, you are in favor of using the Red Tongue and not helping the hunters. Bira agrees?”

“Yes, clan leader,” said the young Firekeeper. “My loyalty is to you and the rest of us.”

“I know how Thakur feels,” Ratha said. “All right. I appreciate what you all had to say.”

“What about you, Ratha?” Thakur asked.

“I can only tell you how I feel, which won’t help. I can’t tell you what I will decide.”

And the Named left their leader alone, knowing that she needed time to think.

Chapter Twenty-One

Thistle went back to Quiet Hunter, wishing she could do something more for him. He was in a dazed, half-awake state since he had not been able to sleep.

When he lifted his head to touch noses with her, his nose leather was cold, even though he lay in a patch of sun.

For him, everything is icy water,
she thought.

She curled around him, trying to drive away the frozen despair.

“Any better?” she asked. “Or everything still cold?”

“Thistle is warm,” he said, and his whiskers lifted a little. “But Quiet Hunter is too weary to come out to where Thistle is.”

She gave an unhappy sigh. There had to be a way to help him. There
had
to.

But the only thing that could help him was True-of-voice’s song. She wished she could become like True-of-voice so that she could help Quiet Hunter.

She grimaced scornfully at herself. She could not begin to do what True-of-voice had done. Wishing was useless. But she still desperately wanted to help Quiet Hunter.

If she tried hard, she could remember how True-of-voice’s song sounded and felt, but she couldn’t give it to Quiet Hunter. She couldn’t reach his “inside ears.” Not the way True-of-voice had.

But you have outside ears too, and I have a voice, even if it is a small one, she thought.

“Listen, Quiet Hunter,” she said, and let her memory lift her voice as she began to sing softly to him.

* * *

Ratha did not stay by herself for long. Hard thinking had dug up a possible solution. It was crazy, but it might work. It might accomplish both objectives without harm to anyone except True-of-voice, and nothing would save him anyway.

To try her idea, she would have to convince Thistle. She felt as though her heart would hammer right through her ribs as she went looking for her daughter.

She didn’t find Thistle until she went to the place where she had last seen Quiet Hunter. Her daughter was there. And she was doing something that raised Ratha’s hopes even further. Thistle was singing to Quiet Hunter. As she said that True-of-voice had done. Except that Thistle was using her real voice. And the song was no longer without words.

Ratha saw the tortured look in Quiet Hunter’s eyes fade. They closed, his head sank down onto his paws, and his sides rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep.

She listened, entranced. Thistle sang more eloquently than she could speak, of the pain and struggle and grief and then of the greening of hope, a slender thread that could bind back together the most broken of spirits. Or lives.

She sang as none of the Named had sung before, blending gifts from both peoples whose trails she had run. Ratha heard it with a shiver that ran down her back and an ache in her belly that could have been grief or joy.

The song was not the strong, certain river that Thistle had described as flowing from True-of-voice. It keened with questions. It wavered with fear. It was the trickle of the spring, not the flow of the river. It was at the same time uplifting and heartbreaking.

And as Ratha watched and listened, she felt that something sacred was happening that she dare not disturb.

Who is she, this one who came from my blood, from my belly? My daughter, chaser of thistles, wayfarer on strange trails.

Who is she?

I know, and yet I do not.

As if sensing the presence of her mother, Thistle, without looking up, brought her song to an end. She crouched down, licked the sleeping Quiet Hunter, and walked forward to greet her mother.

Ratha felt the distance, almost the remoteness of the nose-touch, the whisker-brush. She found it hard to begin speaking, feeling that her words were crude and clumsy after the soaring beauty of Thistle’s song.

Yet she had to.

She let Thistle lead her away so that their voices would not wake Quiet Hunter.

“Thistle, I—I think there may be a way out of this. A way to not hurt anyone. A way to help everyone. Will you listen?”

“Will hear.”

“It needs you.”

Thistle only cocked her head and widened her eyes in the same way as Ratha knew that she herself did. It was unsettling to see herself reflected in her daughter.

Never had Ratha struggled so to speak, and she felt for an instant a deeper sympathy for Thistle’s struggle with language than she had ever felt before.

Finally she said, “It needs you to sing to the hunters. The same way you did to your friend. To keep them from going wild and attacking us.”

Thistle’s eyes only grew a little wider.

“Thistle, I’m asking you to go back to the hunters. Make it easier for them to accept True-of-voice’s death. I know that it is dangerous, but if you give them what they need, they won’t hurt you.”

Her daughter’s words came slowly. “Asking me ... to replace True-of-voice?”

Ratha was about to protest that the two things were not the same, but the look in her daughter’s eyes kept her silent. “Yes,” she admitted. “I guess that is what I am asking.”

“You want ... me ... to lead the hunters. To keep them happy so that you Named ... can take face-tails ... without fighting.”

“Yes.” Ratha watched for the first sign of outrage or anger, but Thistle remained calm. “It is the only way to keep either side from suffering. Can’t you see?”

Thistle gave a strange snort and then started shaking all over, her mouth open, as if yawning. “You Named ones. You are so arrogant ... that it’s ... funny. You really think ... me being a True-of-voice ... makes all problems go away?”

“Why shouldn’t it work?” Ratha felt herself bristling.

Thistle only opened her mouth in another strange, soundless gape.

“If you only understood....”

“Then make me understand,” Ratha challenged. “Why can’t you sing to the hunters, keep them from despairing, going wild, dying ... ? You care about Quiet Hunter’s people. Isn’t it up to you to save them?”

Thistle stopped shaking and gaping. Ratha felt a sudden chill at the despairing look that came into Thistle’s sea-colored eyes. “Cannot do what True-of-voice does. Not even enough to save Quiet Hunter.”

“I thought ...”

“He is dying. Sing to make it less frightening. Is all I can do.”

“Then ...” Ratha stumbled.

“Only way to save them is to save True-of-voice. Brook dries up without a spring to feed it. Same for them.” Thistle paused. “Not up to me to save Quiet Hunter and his people, Mother. Is up to you.”

* * *

Questions. All she can give me is questions. I have to find my own answers.

Ratha walked alone. No one could help her with the challenge she faced now. Not Thakur. Not Bira. Not even Thistle herself.

The Dreambiter. Why is she still talking about the Dreambiter? I thought she had come to terms with it.

And then Ratha knew why Thistle had spoken earlier about the Dreambiter.

It is still here. It is still prowling. Wearing my skin, my whiskers, my fur.

No, all I want is for my people to survive. That is all I have ever wanted.

Is that the truth, Ratha?

What is it that raised the torch against the Un-Named, killed the old clan leader Meoran, brought down Shongshar, caused Bonechewer’s death?
I cared for him more deeply than anyone I had ever known. I nearly killed Thistle. I certainly changed her.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

The part that hates. That fears. That wants to kill.

No. All I wanted was to see my people survive.

And then, as if from a distance, she seemed to hear Thakur’s voice saying, “Why can’t there be room in the world for the Named and others too? Why must things that help the Named harm others?”

The hunters aren’t like us. They are alien. They are wrong. It is too hard to understand them. Easier to push them out of the way. Save True-of-voice? A tyrant worse than Meoran or Shongshar? Who not only commands their bodies, but their every thought?

Rescue True-of-voice. Make his people what they were. The Named would think I was no longer fit to be leader. They’d throw me out. Can’t you understand that, Thistle?

She should understand. She’s been hurt enough.

Is she crazy? Is she right?

I am shaking. I am afraid. Of what?

The shadows that run through my mind. The shadows that bite and tear, that kill and maim what I love. I put words on them. “Un-Named ones.” “Enemies.” “Not like us.” “Wrong.” “Alien.” “Deserve to die.”

Many shadows, and they are all Dreambiters, Dreamkillers. They all blend into one. It prowls, hurting.

No one deserves to die except the Dreambiter. No one deserves to be cast out except the Dreambiter. No one deserves to lie bleeding, in pain. Even if they are different. Even if you do not understand how they think. Even if you think they might hurt you.

The question comes again.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

I know now, Thistle. I know.

* * *

Quiet Hunter was asleep. Thistle did not need to sing to him any longer. Yet she stayed by him, knowing that if he did wake, he would need her.

She thought about Ratha. What her mother had suggested was ridiculous. It showed that Ratha had only a very shallow idea of what was going on. No one could replace True-of-voice among the hunters. The idea that she, Thistle, who was in some ways marginal even among the Named, could take the place of the wellspring of the song, had gone beyond the ridiculous to the tragic.

No one could replace True-of-voice except another of his blood and breed. For various reasons, that other had not yet been birthed.

Yes, that was a fault in the society of the hunters. But it would not have been so fatal had not the Named intervened.

Was part of that as well. Did not mean to be,
Thistle thought, looking down at Quiet Hunter.

Asleep, the young male looked like any of the Named. He looked a bit like Thakur, in some ways, though his eyes and coat were a different color. A certain gentleness, a certain curiosity about life, a certain willingness to explore, had perhaps not only shaped his character, but sculpted the lines of his face.

No. See traces of Thakur in Quiet Hunter because I want them to be there.

She wondered if perhaps her thoughts had been drawn to Thakur because she was getting the herding teacher’s scent on the breeze. As it grew stronger, her hopes leaped up. Perhaps Thakur was coming.

She lifted her muzzle as a familiar pattern of footfalls added itself to the herding teacher’s scent. And then Thakur padded forward and lay down with Thistle and Quiet Hunter.

He said little, but his presence, his solid warmth, and, above all, the sense of his wisdom helped ease Thistle’s tension.

“Can talk, Thakur. Quiet Hunter is so asleep ... won’t hear.” She paused. “Don’t think he is really sleeping anymore. Has gone down deeper than that. To escape the world both inside and outside.”

“I am sorry, Thistle,” Thakur said. “I tried to help him, but my skills are not enough.”

“Tried to help, too. Tried to bring him into my world. But he said things were too clear, too sharp. Knowing there was only one behind the eyes ... too lonely.” She paused. “Know what he feels. Hurt me, too, when song went away. But being one behind the eyes . . . have always known it. And all of you Named ones know it, too.”