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throne?
    What wantwits we are, what wanhopes all …”
    Wantwit and wanhope, indeed. I did not know what were a crown, a throne, nor had I ever seen a bear.
    I felt bereft.
    With dawn I saw barnacle geese feeding along the shoreline, and teetertails running, and seals swimming in the waves beyond the surf. The fanged mare snorted and struck at me, whirling about her pen, but mostly for show, I think—the blow lacked zest. I watched her and blinked with pity. Whirling …
    Even before the men had come out to launch the coracles, the day had blurred into dreaming for me.
    I was a warrior in the midst of battle, disgraced because I had let my horse be killed under me, but I fought on, afoot. Myself in an earlier body, perhaps, in the time when my grandfather’s grandfather was a lad. Though I was a yellow-braided Red Hart, much as ever. Who we fought, I cannot remember. It seemed as if we fought the whole world. There was a heavy-bearded Fanged Horse raider trying to run me down, and also I recall those bellowing giants of Cragsmen, and the narrow-eyed Otter with their female leader were in it somehow. But none of that seemed important, afterward: for he came.
    Riding on a massive stag he came, the antlers shielding him to either side, and he bore no weapon, but let his leaping mount take him into the thick of the combat. Great wolves ran snarling all about him, a black wolf by his left side and a white wolf by his right, and gray wolves and wolves of all colors, two tens of wolves, surging at his fore or crowding after him. And spotted wild dogs ran with him as well. Tall on his stag in the midst of the battle he raised his hands, and those who fought were flung into confusion by his coming, for their bolts and spears stalled in their flight and fell to earth as softly as feathers. And in every warrior’s hand the stone knives sagged to earth as if they were heavy as mountains. Even the Cragsmen could not lift their cudgels any longer. And Sakeema spoke, and there was a splendor about him so that even the striving kings fell to silence and listened.
    â€œThis land, this vast dryland demesne, is rich in food and wandering room for all,” Sakeema averred. “Kings of the peoples, why do you battle with each other?”
    No one answered him, for no one seemed able to remember.
    â€œGo hence,” Sakeema told us all. “Roam in families and clans as the wolves do, find your food. Strive no longer after mastery.”
    And we common warriors felt bemused and glad enough to go. Most of us left at once, taking pause only to tend our dead or wounded. The kings withdrew to a distance and muttered with their counselors as the wolves watched them warily. But I strode up to speak with the one who sat on the great maned stag.
    â€œGive me a name,” I begged him.
    Sunset light banded his head in fire. I could not see his face as he looked down on me, only that skybright glory.
    â€œBut has not your mother named you?” he asked me.
    â€œI have no mother.”
    â€œYour father?”
    â€œI have no father.”
    He slipped down from his mount, the stag lowering its head in a sort of bow as he did so, swinging its antlers out of his way. He crouched by the stag’s shoulder, sank his fingers into the earth, stood and offered me cupped hands full of loam.
    â€œFather and mother of us all,” he said.
    Seeing him wholly, I gazed at him, full of wonder and love, forgetting the matter of the name. “I will follow you forever,” I told him.
    â€œBut, son of earth, I can lead you only into sorrow.”
    â€œNo matter.”
    â€œYou do not know. What if I ride away from you? What if I leave you here?”
    â€œI will search for you until the world’s end.”
    The gaze of his eyes never left mine, but his fingers worked the loam in his hands, stroking it, fondling it as if it were a living thing—it was. A tiny bird as blue as any mountain harebell fluttered