Dreams That Burn In The Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

its
sharp foreclaws.
    The faceless one scuttled back across the ruined
ground with its prize. The flames still roared from the hole in the ground. As quick as green
lightning, the lizard shot back into the flames with its treasure.
    With a mighty shaking of the ground, the hole
closed over the lizard as he disappeared deep into the flames.
    "Come to me, child," said the old one. "I will
not hurt you."
    Natina stood up slowly, the hawk now resting
silently on her shoulder. She moved away from Uhlat with caution. His pain was such that he did
not even seem aware of her presence.
    Natina's face was white with terror. Her mind
was stunned by all that she had seen. Her heart raced, and there was a great rushing in her ears
as if she was coming upon the waves of the great sea.
    She came to the old one slowly as if lost in a
great storm, blinded by the flash of lightning.
    Uhlat thrashed in pain upon the
ground.
    Wordlessly Natina moved to the old one, letting
him take her in his outstretched arms. As the old one touched her, he felt the pain and terror in
her mind and being, and it was not a good thing, not a good feeling in one so young. His spirit
went inside her and touched her life force. It touched the center of her being and became a dream
that danced into life behind her eyes. It was a dream of peace, of a quiet river that flowed into
the great for­ever.
    He reached out and touched her face, and as he
did this, the bramble scratches on her legs and back healed. The white-head hawk fell asleep
peacefully on her shoulder, dreaming hawk dreams.
    The old one went deep inside her life, touching
all things and seeing great and deep and lasting things in her young Hie. Her spirit was fragile
like a fawn, and his heart wept for the evil that had touched this life. And the old one could
not allow it to grow in this young mind.
    With his great power, he reached into her life
even deeper, until he touched not only the moment in which she now lived, but all moments of her
life. He reached into yesterday and saw the things that would take this evil away, that would
banish it from the heart and mind of Natina.
    Yesterday was a part of the circle, and the old
one saw the empty water gourds hanging in Natina's lodge. A small boy, who had once been the old
one, snuck quietly into the lodge. Without making a sound, his feet as silent as the flying owl,
this boy the old one once had been came into the lodge and stole away with the empty gourds. With
great joy at the strength in his legs, the young boy ran to the creek, where the moon lighted the
way for him, huge and full in a beautiful summer sky.
    As quietly and carefully as he had come, the boy
came back from the river, gourds filled to the brim with sweet river water. With the same silence
as that in which he had come, he hung the gourds back in their places while the people in the
lodge slept on, undisturbed. What had not been done was now done.
    Because the old one traveled in yesterday, he
took Natina with him, and she slept silently in the dark of her lodge as the young boy who was
the old one himself long, long ago crept in and out with the water gourds.
    And Natina turned restlessly in her sleep; a
strange dream trou­bled her. There was an old one and demons that tumbled out of the sky. There
was an evil eater of flesh with no bones in his hand and a long green lizard with no face. It was
a strange dream and, like all dreams, it belonged to sleep alone.
    The next day it would be gone, as the terror and
evil she had seen would vanish as surely as the snows of winter.
    Uhlat used his one good hand. He clutched his
medicine stick tightly, digging one end into the ground, using it to pull himself up to his feet.
His eyes were red with pain and hate.
    "I will wear your bones around my neck," cried
Uhlat. His eyes searched the clearing for the girl, but she had vanished as if she had never been
there. "You deny me my prize. For that alone you