"Find your own truth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Charrette Robert N)

PART 2
Look Within Yourself

The cottage was Hart's private hideaway in the mountains north of Saint Helens. Dodger hadn't wanted to use it, suggesting instead that they hold their conference somewhere in the woods. Pointing out the threat of inclement weather, Sam had overruled him. The air in the one-room cabin was too warm for comfort, but the windows had to be shut against the driving rain. The rising scent of damp earth and wood competed with the sweaty odor of tightly packed people. The table that normally dominated the cabin's center was shoved to one side and piled with the runners' gear, but that still left the room crowded. Sam's agitated attempts at pacing only made it worse. Hart and Dodger were constantly having to remove their feet from his path or have them trod upon by the distracted Sam. At length he halted, facing the blank log wall that was the cabin's back.

"It's not doing any good putting it off, Sam. None of us likes it any better than you do." Hart's voice was full of concern for him, her tone belying the content. "We all wanted to see Janice saved, but it looks like only one way is left."

"No." Sam spun and faced her. "There is a way to defeat the wendigo. I felt it during the ritual. I know it's still possible for her to change."

"Even with Rinaldi's help, you couldn't design a ritual to do it.''

"We didn't have the power." "We've been through that."

"And I still say that the ritual failed because I'm not powerful enough. We need a stronger shaman to perform the ritual."

Hart exchanged a glance with Dodger, then sighed. "When we started this, you wanted to get other people out of it."

"That was before I knew I couldn't do it alone."

"You couldn't do it with Rikki and Manx, either."

"The ritual never really drew on their power. Besides, they were just small-time. I picked them because they would go along, not because they were really good shamans.

"Who could we get?" Sam found his companions' faces closed to him. "Come on, you two. You've both been in the shadow trade a lot longer than I have. Who do you know? Who's the most powerful shaman around?"

"So you think power's the only problem now."

' 'I think it's the critical factor.'' The ritual had been well designed. What else could have been lacking? "So who might have enough power? How about the archdruid of England?''

Hart chuckled sourly. "An unlikely source of help, considering last year's events."

"Don't you think they'd be grateful for our help in disposing of their renegades?" Sam asked.

Shaking his head, Dodger said, ' 'I believe their point of view would be somewhat different. Considering our complicity in abetting the escape of a certain wendigo, they might actually align us with the villains against." Turning to Hart he asked, "What about Dr. Kano at Cal-Tech?"

She shook her head. "A theoretician, mostly."

"Well, Mistress, is there not a theory problem as well?"

"Our local expert seems to think not, but I'm afraid there still exists a serious question of practical knowledge." She turned to Sam and gave him a sad smile.

"Not to slight your talent and diligence, but you haven't been a practicing shaman for very long. Mastering the Art, whatever the tradition, does not come quickly or easily. The problem with the ritual may not even be what you think it is. You might have all the raw power you need and just not know how to channel it. This transformation magic of yours may just be too subtle."

"And how would I know?"

"By learning more."

"Janice doesn't have the time."

"Always in a hurry."

Sam thought that remark unfair. "I spent a year working with Rinaldi to develop that ritual. I'd hardly call that rushing."

"But it didn't work."

"It could have worked. It should have." Visions of Janice and the dead dzoo-noo-qua swam before his eyes. "We've got to hurry now, whether I want to or not. Janice is succumbing to the wendigo nature. We've got to find someone who can do the ritual properly as soon as possible. We've got to enlist the help of a shaman who has the power, experience, and skill we need."

Hart gave an exasperated sigh. "Why not just ask for Howling Coyote? He certainly fits…"

A sudden scrape and the crash of Dodger's chair on the floor interrupted her remark. Finishing his abrupt rise, the elf stalked to the door and flung it open. He stared out at the rain.

Sam looked to Hart, who looked as surprised as he felt. "What's the matter, Dodger? Do you know this Howling Coyote?"

The decker's voice was soft, almost inaudible over the sound of the downpour. "I think he's dead. 'Twould be better 'twere so."

When it was obvious Dodger would say no more on the subject, Sam whispered to Hart, "Do you know why he reacted like that?" She shook her head.

"What could it be about this Howling Coyote? The name's familiar, but I can't seem to place it."

"Been neglecting the historical side of your studies again?" Sam could see by her half smile that she noticed the heat that would be reddening his cheeks above his beard. "Is the name Daniel Coleman any more familiar?"

' 'The Ghost Dance prophet?'' "None other," Dodger announced, forcing himself back into the conversation. His back remained turned to them. "Coleman was a charismatic firebrand, the leading light of the movement that resulted in the end of the United States of America, the Dominion of Canada, and the Republic of Mexico. A very influential villain. I heard him speak in the broadcast in which the Ghost Dancers took responsibility for the volcanic eruption that buried Los Alamos."

"He must have made quite an impression," Hart said. "You couldn't have been more than a kid."

Dodger shifted, as though the memory made him uncomfortable. "It was the first use of the Ghost Dance magic. Of course it made an impression."

"If you remember that, you must remember when they blew the Cascade volcanoes."

"Clearly," Dodger said bitterly. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Then Dodger collected himself and continued. "Coleman took responsibility for those as well. He was a radical and a terrorist. Were he available, I do not think you would find in him the slightest shred of humanitarian concern for one Caucasian's plight. He might have been called the Champion of the Red Man, the Awakened Ute, and the Son of the Great Spirit, but he started the Expulsion. He earned his nickname Red Braids a thousand times over.''

"Red Braids?" Sam asked. "I don't remember ever reading that. What's it mean?"

"It was for the color his braided hair turned when dipped in the blood of his enemies," Dodger said. "Not everything gets into the history books. You should know that by now, Sam."

"You sound awfully bitter, Dodger. You have a personal grudge?" Hart asked. She waited for him to respond, and when he didn't she said, "Howling Coyote was a guerrilla leader in a difficult time. He saved the Indians from an oppressive government and helped them set up their own. He helped a lot of people, and may have damn well been responsible for saving the whole fragging planet. The megacorporations were polluting and raping earth into oblivion until the Awakened magic turned back some of the tide."

"Coleman was only interested in his own people. I haven't seen the land turn green and verdant worldwide, nor have I seen the megacorps roll over and die. If Coleman was so great-hearted, where is he now? Why did he abandon his fight?" Dodger took a deep breath. "He was a butcher and an opportunist."

"He may have been," Hart agreed. "The early days of the struggle were difficult and required harsh measures. He had a kinder side, too. He was the one who brought the NAN forces to the table in Denver. Without him, there'd have been no treaty of Denver. The war might still be going on. As to what he did during the Expulsion, IVe talked to some, on both sides, who were there. If not for Coleman, the resettlement clauses in the treaty would have been more draconian. I've been told that the Aztlan faction would have slaughtered anyone of non-Indian blood. And it was Coleman who fought for the repatriation payments clause that allowed the displaced people a chance to start new lives."

Dodger snorted. "Those payments turned to smoke when measured against outstanding payments of the alleged debts owed to various Indian tribes by the various governments involved. He had power, and used it to his own ends."

"What about the education and hospital care he sponsored? Most of it made special provision for the changed, hardly a universal concern in those days. As an elf, I'd think you'd appreciate that. And what of the environmentally safe energy supplies he encouraged?"

Dodger shrugged. "Remorse? Public relations? I'm no mind-reader."

"He answered those questions in his book, Howling in the Wilderness.''

"Those were his public answers," Dodger said sourly. "He wrote the book while he was president of the Sovereign Tribal Council. One could hardly expect a truthful account."

"The book's sort of a Mein Kampf crossed with Castaneda's Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Not exactly flattering to an incumbent. I don't think it was an apologia. It was too strange for that." Dodger turned away again, and Hart subsided into silence. The set of her jaw told Sam she was not happy with Dodger's stubbornness. Dodger's hunched shoulders showed Sam he wouldn't get help there, either.

"You caught me out on tradition history," he said quietly to Hart, "but I've never been real big on political history, either. I know Coleman was real important once, but he stepped down or something. What happened to him?"

"No one knows. About, oh, I guess it's been fifteen years now, he just up and walked away into the mountains."

"Why?"

"Got fed up with the politics in the STC and the Native American Nations, I suppose. When the big push to get non-Indians off the continent didn't work out, NAN solidarity sort of slipped. When the elves and such put Tir Tairngire together and Coleman backed them, he lost a lot of credibility with some of the tribal councils because of his policy of welcoming metahumans into Indian lands. Then Tsimshian broke away, too. I guess it was too much in just one year. He resigned and left everything behind."

Once again Dodger broke in. "Or so say the official stories. There was shadow business then as well. Perhaps he had a falling out with his radical friends. Terrorists who disagree rarely settle their arguments with words."

"You think somebody killed him?" The idea troubled Sam, and not just because murder was wrong. Tending more toward Hart's than Dodger's version of the man, he had begun to think that Howling Coyote might be just the shaman Janice needed.

"Somebody might have," Dodger said. "Enough people might perceive a disgruntled magician with a history as a terrorist and a very dangerous threat." "Or a promising ally," Hart pointed out. Which was what Sam needed. "He really was a great shaman, wasn't he?"

"Oh, yes. No doubt of it," she said. "Some people think the stuff in his book about learning the Great Ghost Dance was after-the-fact fantasizing, a political make-over to improve his image as Council president. But he was more than a figurehead for the Ghost Dancers. He really did lead the Dance himself." "That would make him a very powerful shaman." "Yes," Hart agreed slowly. "Perhaps more powerful than any magician the Sixth World has ever seen." Then, after a moment, "Human magician, that is."

Sam wasn't worried about racial concerns. "Then he would know more about shamanic magic than anyone else."

Hart laughed. "Like I know everything there is to know about being an elf? Stay real. He was a man who stumbled into power. He used it and used it well. He taught a lot of other people how to use it. But know everything? Who knows everything about anything?"

"But he led the Great Ghost Dance," Sam insisted.

"Yes. And he claimed more power than any human IVe ever heard of. Knowledge may be power, but the reverse is not necessarily true."

Sam thought about that for a while. "The Dance was transformation magic, wasn't it?"

"In part."

"Then he wouldn't have to know about everything. Just how to channel the power to make the change. He could know that, couldn't he?"

Hart mulled it over. "I don't know. I think you're grasping at straws."

Sam did, too, but what other choice was there? If he wasted time tracking down lesser shamans who couldn't do the job, he might not have enough time to get to Howling Coyote. It was a gamble, but he didn't see an alternative. "IVe got to grab on to something. Otherwise Janice wfll slip away."

"You may not be able to stop that," Hart warned.

Sam didn't want to hear it. He could not believe his sister was irreversibly set on a course to becoming a monster in mind and soul as well as body.

Hart still seemed set on dissuading him. "Why not start with some resources more to hand? Didn't you say that Professor Laverty once offered to help you with Janice? Just because Estios works for Laverty doesn't mean that the professor agrees with that bastard's field decisions. Talk to Laverty. Find out where he stands."

"I don't think that would be advisable at this time," Dodger said. "Why not?" Hart asked. "I'd rather not say."

"It isn't because he's involved with this Australian elf who's looking for Sam, is it?"

' 'I said I'd rather not say.'' Sam's stomach flip-flopped. "Dodger, are you holding out on me again?"

Dodger turned and fixed Sam with bleak eyes. "Sam, I am asking you not to press. Were I to speak of how I learned of the one who hunts you, others beyond our circle might learn as well. That could have undesirable consequences for someone I would rather not see hurt."

Sam suspected he knew to whom Dodger referred, and a surreptitious glance at Hart told him that she suspected the same. "Well if I can't go to Laverty, who else is there to ask?"

"Lofwyr?" The bleakness in Dodger's voice betrayed him as more barren of reasonable ideas than Sam.

"I don't think I could pay the price," Sam said. "Or survive the deal. That dragon nearly got us all killed the last time."

"Sam, Father Rinaldi would know who to ask." Sam shook his head sadly. "We could hardly go to him now."

Hart sighed. "I'm a hermetic magician, Sam. I don't know many shamans, and those I do know probably couldn't pump the power you seem to think is necessary. I'm trapped. I don't see an answer."

Dodger nodded solemnly. "Naught to do now but face the inevitable."

"It's settled then," Sam said firmly. "We'll get Howling Coyote."

"But no one knows where he is," Hart protested. "If he is alive at all," Dodger added. Sam shrugged, dismissing their objections. If only his own fears could be dealt with so easily. "I'll find him," he said.

Neko Noguchi stretched contentedly. The surroundings were eminently satisfactory: subdued lighting, soft music with just enough beat to be stimulating, condiments and liquid refreshments made from real foodstuffs, soft furniture, and an even softer bed waiting. Though Neko had not yet lain down on it, he was sure of the last; he had checked earlier in the evening. The woman was attentive and skilled. Monique, she had said her name was, a name as exotic to him as her sleek, dark good looks. Oh yes, he was content. This was how the best shadowrunners lived between runs, a lifestyle he was going to enjoy getting used to.

He reached for the decanter to top off his glass. Monique nudged him gently in the ribs and nuzzled closer, holding out her glass. He grinned, more for his own amusement than in response to her smile. It was her third refill all on the tab, of course. She had guzzled twice as much as he had, and he knew from the buzz in his own head that the booze was good quality. Though her voice had started to slur, she was not really drunk or uncoordinated. Her drinks came from the same source as his, so she must have some kind of augmentation that shunted the liquor from her system or neutralized the alcohol. He wondered how many of these overpriced drinks it took to pay for her enhancement.

She nestled in his arm and pulled at her drink. He settled back and sipped at his, ready to continue his tale.

"Deckers are so proud of their ability to lift data from the systems of arrogant corporations, overbearing governments, and wealthy individuals. But they are fools to risk their brains against Intrusion Coun-termeasures, daring the black ice with only meat reflexes and the thin shield of their cyberdecks to protect them.

"Data-theft, like most fine arts, can be accomplished in a variety of manners. Some are safer than others, of course."

Monique's eyes were wide, shining with admiration. "What you did was not without danger. A decker might risk his brain, but you risked your body and life."

"True. Life and limb were at peril." He sipped. "But my body is a well-honed machine, and like any machine, it can be rebuilt if necessary. You know the old saying, 'We have the technology.' As to the risk to my life? Breathing is a risk and walking down the street a danger. Death comes to all, and when it does, our worries and concerns leave us. No good karma comes from running away from what cannot be avoided. The real, true, and horrible fate worse than death is the loss of your mind. To remain breathing while the mind is absent or locked in a fugue is a nullity, existence without purpose. You cannot deal with this life nor go onward in the cycle. The brain death is what deckers risk. I would rather face a dragon in single combat."

Monique shivered delicately. "Yet you stole the data. How did you do it?"

Neko shrugged, dismissing the difficulty of his feat with deliberate casualness. "Cats are shadowy, silent creatures, unnoticed when they wish it so. I wished it so. Goroji-san will learn of his loss when his tame deckers begin tomorrow night's work.''

"Aren't you afraid he will find out who stole from him? Goroji's kobun are notorious for their brutality."

Chuckling, Neko put down his glass and traced the fine line of her chin. "However brutal they are, the f Goroji's clan cannot hurt what they cannot find."

"You are marvelous." She kissed his finger. "Are you sure they can't trace you?"

"Very." Neko kissed her. His lips tingled, a sensation brought about by her lipstick, he realized, because it was strongest where the liquor had not washed away much of the ruby tint. He pulled away to stare into her eyes. She lowered her lids, a feigned shyness that hinted at the pleasure to come. He smiled. Biz before pleasure; it was time to end the pretense. "You may assure Cog that what I have is no isotope. He will not be burned by simple association, although some of the offering will have a half-life of usefulness."

"Cog? Who or what is Cog? What are you talking about?"

Her eyes were wide and her tone a masterful blend of hurt and confusion. Her body language expressed innocence tinged with timidity and a hint of growing trepidation. He was impressed. The act would have been convincing. If he hadn't known better.

"Excellent performance." He used his free hand to clap softly on the arm of the sofa. "But I do know that you belong to Cog. Do you think I would have spoken so freely if I hadn't known you were screening for the fixer?"

Her deception remained in play while those dark eyes evaluated him, measuring his conviction and weighing the cost of dropping her pretense. He let the seconds drag. Finally her eyes shifted focus, checking the room around them. Looking for the hidden ready lights of the even better-hidden trideo cameras. She needn't have worried; he had already made sure the monitors were dysfunctional, though he saw no need to tell her that.

"You are very astute for one so young," she said. He preened under the compliment. "A necessary attribute for anyone in the biz who wishes to get any older."

"Messing with the yakuza is not conducive to long life. Were Goroji a simple boss, dealing with your offering would be a delicate business, but as it is, the heat is higher than desirable. You were aware that Goroji fronts for Grandmother?" He hadn't been. "Of course." Her eyes gave away nothing, but the slight twitch of a cheek muscle hinted disbelief, or at least suspicion. He smiled, hoping to project the air of a confident and assured runner.

"Cog would prefer that your next offering have nothing to do with Grandmother's sources. She reacts violently when someone disturbs her network, and her wrath descends on those who bothered her and on anyone associated with those unfortunates. Should you continue to court such a fate, Cog wishes that you not involve him. He and Grandmother settled their feud long ago, and he has no desire to reopen that unpleasantness at this time."

"No one expects a fixer to show a warrior's courage. This run was in direct response to the needs of a client for whom Cog serves as an intermediary. No stipulations or caveats were placed on me at the time of the request for information. Hence there should be no change in the payment. Fixers rely on their reputation with shadowrunners. Fair dealings are imperative."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Within reasonable margins of profit, of course," he added.

"I'm sure a reasonable fee will be paid for the contracted data."

"And for the bonus material."

"Commensurate with its value."

"And its temperature."

She smiled now. "We do have an understanding. The caution was meant for future dealings."

"If Cog fears connection with further enquiries, perhaps he would consent to bow out and let me deal directly with the client." "Perhaps he will."

The possibility that the fixer might cut himself out of the deal made Neko realize just how dangerous Cog thought the situation. How could Grandmother be so territorial? It was bad business. There had to be something more to the data he was uncovering for the elven decker. Some secret connection perhaps? Understanding what was happening would make it easier for him to know the value of what he discovered. Knowing the value, he could cut himself a better deal. Coinciden-tally, he would also know just what kind of danger he was facing.

He continued to dicker with Monique over the price for his recent acquisitions, but his mind was preoccupied with other matters. He began to wonder if Go-roji's search for Warlord Feng was just the yakuza boss grasping at power or something more sinister. Perhaps it was part of some great scheme of Grandmother's. The Feng data was juxtaposed in Goroji's files with material on enquiries into the matter of Renraku's Special Directorate. An operator like Grandmother would likely have more than one angle on an operation. Go-roji on the outside and Sato on the inside made for a well-orchestrated attack. Very understandable, considering the importance of the prize. Neko would be " surprised if Grandmother didn't have other tools work-(ing on the target as well. An artificial intelligence would be a powerful research tool in the Matrix. If it was as good as his decker acquaintances claimed it could be, what computer secret would be safe, save one defended by a similar artificial intelligence? The worth to an information broker would be incalculable.

If Grandmother had access to such a machine, she would know all.

And what did she want to know? Why did Feng interest her? What connection did a Chinese neowar-lord have with German terrorists, or to the breakup of the United States, or to Israeli commando strikes in Africa? And what did anyjrf those things have to do with the financing of Ordo Naturum, the Humanis pol-iclub offshoot, or with the financial holdings of Awakened beings? Neko didn't know the answers, but he was suddenly sure that all the information was interlocked in a web of intrigue. His curiosity was aroused. Even if the answers meant nothing to him, he was sure they would be worth a lot of nuyen to someone. All he had to do was figure out who. And what the answers were, of course.

Seattle was worse than Portland. The boundary zones around the metroplex territory were not as developed as those around the city-state enclaves in Australia, but they bore the same hideous stamp of human architecture. The metroplex was crammed with smelly crowds of humans, dark breeds, and low-life elves. It was full of life, but only of a kind past the consideration of a rational being. The plex-dwellers were only vermin infesting a land nearly dead.

Urdli wanted to go home. Australia was not what it should be, but even the wild mana and the chaos were preferable to the deadness of the metroplex and the stifling, oppressive gloom cast by the corporate skyscrapers. But he could not leave yet.

His head hurt from the unaccustomed effort of maintaining the illusion that he was an ordinary inhabitant of this morass. He disliked the disguise but found it useful, possibly necessary. The first day had told him how unusual he appeared, when he had drawn unwanted attention from a group of hooded toughs shouting Humanis policlub slogans. They would not bother any other elves, blacks or otherwise, now. He supposed that he had incidentally fueled the Humanis hate, but he hoped he had fueled their fear as well. Fear was a useful tool for keeping animals in their places.

Since he had taken to using the illusion spell, he had encountered no similar problems.

For a week now he had been vainly seeking Samuel Verner, the one they called Twist. To make his inquiries less remarkable, Urdli had offered incentives rather than taking the more direct approach of interrogation. The method had yielded results, but not satisfactory ones. There was no sign of the human shaman at his known haunts. Neither had Urdli learned the whereabouts of any of the human's known associates, save former acquaintances such as Sally Tsung. The woman had spoken freely and disparagingly about her former lover, but claimed ignorance of his current whereabouts. Urdli might have probed her, but she was a mage of unknown ability, too great a risk.

He wished Laverty had been more forthcoming about who he had observing Verner. Urdli wanted to contact that person, but had no way to do so. He had come to suspect that the decker operating under the name Dodger was Laverty's observer, for Verner had regular contact with only two elves the decker and a woman named Hart. Hart was an unlikely candidate because she had worked for the Shidhe more than once in the past, and Urdli doubted that the professor had found a way to slip an agent past the Shidhe's vigilance. Eliminating the woman as a possibility left Dodger the most likely candidate, but like all the shaman's little ring of shadowrunners he had dropped out of sight.

Awareness of time passing made Urdli uncomfortable and unhappy. Constructing a kulpunya was impractical here. His attempts to sense the guardian stone had been unsuccessful; either it was shielded or it had been removed from the metroplex. The latter possibility chilled him. If Verner was not in Seattle, Urdli had no idea where the human had run. The time for subtlety had passed, and the time for interrogation had come.

Hunting Howling Coyote was a fool's quest that, since he was assisting in the quest, made Dodger a fool. If the Ghost Dancer Prophet was dead, Sam was throwing away his last slim hope of saving his sister. She would be lost to the wendigo nature before the Dog shaman would give up. If Howling Coyote was alive, Sam was unlikely to uncover Coleman's hiding place in time. Even if by sheer chance he should somehow locate the runaway shaman, the chance of ultimate success remained slim. Despite Sam's earnestness, he had little hope of persuading Howling Coyote to help. IfColeman could help. That possibility was just as unlikely.

More foolishness. Just like Dodger's run against the Ute Council government computer system. The pair of them were mad fools, tilting at windmills. Foolishness and obsession seemed the order of the day.

As for Hart, Dodger had seen her reaction during his report of Noguchi's last findings. Something in the Asian runner's last data drop had touched on an obsession of her own. What it might be Dodger could only guess, for Hart wrapped her past actions and present motives in obsessive secrecy. She was so anxious to be elsewhere that she had agreed to let Sam leave for Denver by himself, an uncharacteristic response to the situation. If she had expected to thus gain freedom of action, she must have been disappointed when her own warnings about the dangers of decking into the Ute system backfired on her, Sam had pointed out that if, as she herself had suggested, they were to avoid their usual haunts and acquaintances, she was the only available person to sit guard on Dodger's body as he decked. Her acquiescence might have fooled the love-besotted Sam, but Dodger had no trouble recognizing her restrained frustration.

How could Sam trust her? She was even more secretive than Sally Tsung, and justifiably so, from the few hints of Hart's former associations that Dodger had been able to dig up. He had not yet told Sam of those connections. If Sam thought Dodger was suspect for association with the professor, what would he think of Hart's former friends? However Sam might feel about this side of Hart, he would almost certainly not take kindly to Dodger's probing into her background. Hart was not the only one restrained from what she wished to do. Of necessity, his own search for the lost Renraku artificial intelligence was sidelined. Dodger had vowed that he would prove his friendship to Sam despite the unfortunate English affair. Compelled to pay that debt, he was forced to participate in this mad quest. Foolish as it was, Sam wanted the Matrix angle covered, and who could do it as well or as quickly as the Dodger? The elf's own concerns would have to wait, but perhaps that was just as well. Since Nogu-chi's first contact, his hope had swelled only slightly faster than his fear. He still didn't understand the full ramifications of the AI and its attraction for him, but he felt its draw all the same.

The AI belonged to the Matrix, and so did his attention. The middle of a run was no time to get distracted. The Ute Council Matrix segment was coded orange, and though not the highest security level, it held sufficient danger for the unwary traveler. Unwary was exactly what he had been. Already he had nearly blundered into several shades of black. He had barely skirted those threats, but if he were not more attentive, he wouldn't have much longer to worry about anyone's obsessions.

The ebon boy with the cloak of glitter that was Dodger's icon slipped away from the subprocessor serving Salt Lake's government center personnel files. The hulking cubist bears prowling each of the data-lines leading into the stores made it patently clear that the Ute computer specialists had dealt with illegal entry through this route before. The visual design of the Intrusion Countermeasures might be more for the sake of intimidation than reflecting the true strength of the ice at those access points, but Dodger didn't think now was the time to try it. The least threat involved in engaging one of the bears was the chance that the decker behind it would give notice of Dodger's presence in the system. If an alert went out, the going would get considerably tougher. Sam's schedule left no time for a siege, meaning that this run required total stealth until the goods were gotten, or else it was worthless.

Somewhere in the Ute government files was information about Daniel Coleman, a Ute by tribal affiliation. Dodger had rifled the public database before starting, but that had, of course, yielded nothing really definite. The public record had been enough to send Sam to Denver, the nexus of so many of Howling Coyote's activities, but it offered no clue to Coleman's current whereabouts. To find the good stuff, Dodger needed to penetrate to the deep files where the Council's leaders kept what they needed to run their little part of the world. If Howling Coyote was still alive, his tribal elders were the most likely to know.

A bit of lucky hacking uncovered a back door in a financial program left, no doubt, by some embezzling decker. The lure of easy funds, to replace those he had been profligately spending on his own obsession, was great, but Dodger resolutely passed up the chance to transfer a few hundred thousand nuyen. Sam's confidence was his goal. Were he to take the electronic cash, a routine balance-check could blow the whistle on him before he departed the regional communications grid. Though uncooperative on most matters, the UCAS government was more than happy to help foreign governments like the Ute Council track down computer criminals. Especially when the so-called criminals resided within UCAS boundaries, and that included Seattle. Perhaps some other time when he was more prepared for the operation; stealth and untraceability were too important right now.

Stifling his avarice, the ebon boy tiptoed past locked vaults behind whose electronic doors he imagined lay bag after bag of freshly minted government notes, corporate scrip, and ICC transfer bonds. For him, this financial database had to be, not a bank vault full of plunder, but a doorway into other systems where the loot was less tangible. Near the end of the corridor, he located the door and slipped through. No bears rose to challenge him as he took a path toward the government center construct.

Once inside, he saw that the Ute government was, at least in one respect, just like every other modern government. It was drowning in data. The points of light representing the datafiles made a hyperactive galaxy in the electron sky. In the glare, Dodger almost missed the sudden rush of a guardian program's attack. Finely honed reflexes allowed him to engage a defensive program just in time. The ice, configured as a crystalline weasel as long as Dodger was tall, slid past him. Dodger engaged counterprogramming: a midnight hand emerged from beneath his cloak and pointed a slim silver automatic pistol at the electronic beast. The single bullet he fired struck the weasel as it twisted for another attack, turning it milky, frozen in mid-leap.

The boy ran his hands over the immobile shape. Dodger studied the contours of the ice and adjusted his own masking programs with an eye toward sleazing past other guardians more easily. The tailoring was a temporary measure, the inspired improvisation of a consummate decker, and would not be of permanent advantage because it would work only for this run.

He realized how well his camouflage was working when he got down to serious searching. Every time he initiated his browsing programs to look for key words to detect data on Howling Coyote, some kind of ice prowled by. Only his improved masking programs allowed him to continue his work unnoticed.

The restless ice made it clear that he was probing a sensitive subject. Fearing that simply stripping the files out of the system or duplicating them would set off larger alarms, he decided to access a few where they stood. With his sensitized camouflage, he would be more likely to notice if his activity caused any reaction to his presence by the system or its owners.

The first few files yielded nothing beyond historical data, but even so, he was forced to deal with another ice beast as he entered the sixth datastore. Three more stores later, another beast attacked, but he froze it as cleanly as he had the other. The file it guarded was more current than the others he had sampled but had no solid information less than fourteen years old. Most curious. If the past was so well guarded, what protections guarded present-day data? Heavy ice meant precious data, secrets. The biggest one that Dodger could think of was that Coleman still lived and was working for the Ute Council. Could Howling Coyote be engaged in secret magical research? Might this all be a prelude fo a new campaign to rid the continent of non-Indians? The thought of another Great Ghost Dance chilled Dodger.

Others besides Saffl would want to know. Dodger considered how best to proceed. Howling Coyote's magical tradition was shamanic, and shamans rarely used computers. Yet not all Indian magicians were shamans. Hermetic mages made extensive use of modern data-storage facilities as well as the computational abilities of computers. If the Ute government was sponsoring serious magical research, there would be notes in the files of the government's mages. They might not be able to use shamanic magic, but Dodger had learned that many magical techniques were adaptable to other traditions. If Howling Coyote was dreaming up some megapunch shamanic medicine, the Ute hermetics would be tracking what they could and trying to adapt it. There would be clues.

The ebon boy leaped into space, soaring in search of the data cluster where the government's magical resources were encoded. He spotted a likely possibility and slowed his approach. Security would be tight. If what he suspected were true, it would be totally restrictive.

Thunder crashed through the inner space of the Matrix, and the dark of nothingness was riven by a picosecond of silvery incandescence. The ebon boy swirled his cloak over his head and dropped out from underneath it. He felt a hurricane rush of air that was not due to his rapid passage. As the wind buffeted him shreds of sparkling glitter drifted past him, the remains of his cloak. He dared a glance upward.

Rainbow feathered wings spread, a great eagle shape dove down on him. Rumblings rippled from the bird's passage like a wake that awakened identification of the icon imagery in him. Dodger felt the thunderbird's shadow fall on him, though no light source existed to cast it. The great beast screamed a shrill challenge. Its eyes, beak, and talons glittered like the blackest ice. Dodger popped the log chip from his cyberdeck as he boosted his defensive programs to full. Fingers beat a staccato, near-continuous clatter on the keyboard as he improvised to beat the ice.

The ebon boy wove a sublime dance, but the thun-derbird came closer with each pass.

Thunder roared a staccato, primal beat in Dodger's ears. The silicon rainbow of a feathered wing tip brushed the ebon boy. Too close. The ice was too good. Dodger reached for the jack. Or he would have if his hands could have moved. The sight of his hands frozen on the keyboard superimposed over a vision of shining death growing larger within the frame of outstretched jet fingers. The thunderbird stooped for the kffl.

Time froze, leaving Dodger suspended between fear, excitement, dread, and, curiously, pleasure.

In that instant, an Indian maiden stepped between him and the screaming thunderbird. She was dressed in a shirt, mantle, and skirt of fringed deerskin. Her hair hung down her back in a thick braid that reached to her knees. Sparkling beads and conchos flashed on the broad belt that encircled her elven-slim waist. Her image was present in excruciating detail. Dodger could see the pores on the buckskin and each individual hair on her head. The icon presented the idiosyncrasy of a decker's imagery, with the resolution only mainframe-supported imagers supplied. He could only imagine how exquisitely rendered the face would be, for he caught no glimpse as she faced the thunderbird.

The Matrix was illuminated as the thunderbird flashed lightning at the maiden. Given the quality of the image, Dodger would have expected the maiden to be hurtled backward, writhing with pain under the violent attack. But she stood her ground. The bolt crackled and charred the very air of the Matrix but left her untouched. She raised a hand and the sooty mist around her fragmented and dissolved.

The maiden raised her mittened hands above her head. They glowed. The light grew and merged into a sphere that leapt to strike the thunderbird. The 1C icon flickered at impact, shifting from full visualization to flat plane to wire frame and back again. A second ball struck the bird. It flashed to the frame outline instantly, and the strands composing its outline began to peel back. The unraveling had scarcely begun before the icon shattered into fragments, tiny curls of light that drifted away and dimmed to nothingness. The ice was gone.

Who was this decker, and why did she step in to defend him? Her icon imagery indicated a strong interest in Indian affairs, and her resolution of the ice suggested she had some special keys to this Matrix architecture. The clues indicated a Council decker, but such a one would not defend an interloper like Dodger. She turned to face him, and he knew. His hands still frozen, he was unable to jack out. He stared at her face, lost in its beauty.

Her skin was burnished chrome formed over an exquisitely sleek, elven bone structure. Her nose was small and straight with exactly the right amount of upturn. Her ears were pointed with a delicacy he had never seen in a live elf, and her lips curled with a promise of delight. Under elegant brows, her eyes were pools brimming with the darkness between photons. She was what he had sought, the icon of the artificial intelligence created by the Renraku Special Directorate. Though she had called herself Morgan in the dru-ids' system, he had no name for her save Beauty. When she spoke, her voice was Song.

"For myself, there is happiness in your presence. For myself, there is no perception of need concerning the cessation of your existence."

Having found it, what does one say to the Grail? What words would Ahab have for the white whale? What salutation was appropriate for St. Peter at the gates of Paradise? Or would Charon be a better analogy for this guardian at the gateway to a new world?

She reached a hand toward his face. The mitten was gone, and her slender fingers spread slightly as her hand neared his cheek.

And then she vanished.

Returned to his meat body, Dodger howled in pain.

"No!" Dodger screamed.

Dropping the datacord, Hart grabbed the decker by the shoulders and began to shake him. His body was locked in spasm, and all she could do was to try to shock him back to awareness. Physical contact usually eased the transition from the Matrix to reality. When the decker remained rigid, she slapped him on the cheek. His head rocked back, and he exhaled with an explosive sigh. Gradually, his muscles unlocked and he slumped.

"She's there," he moaned. Hart placed her palm on his forehead. She felt no indication of trauma-induced fever. With one thumb, she gently lifted an eyelid. The pupil contracted normally in reaction to the light. "Take it easy, Dodger. You'll be all right. You're out of the Matrix now." He groaned.

Satisfied that she had jacked him out in time, she released him. Likely he was suffering from dump shock, a reaction to the sudden shift in perceptions. He'd be all right in a few minutes. All he needed was rest. Fluids would help, too.

She turned to get a bottle from the tray, and he lunged forward. He had the datacord back in his temple jack and was tapping on the keyboard of his cy-berdeCk before she had gotten over her surprise that he would wish to dive right back into cyberspace. By then, she thought it unwise to interrupt him. The backup's job was to pull the decker out if he got into trouble with ice. Normally there was no problem, because the decker's sanity outweighed the abandonment of the objective. Normally, the backup had a good idea of where in the Matrix the decker was, and who would know if their system had been penetrated. Dodger hadn't given her an itinerary for this unscheduled run; he could be anywhere. Without knowing, she couldn't be sure that forcing him to jack out wouldn't complicate matters by leaving traces of his passage. She put the bottle back on the tray and sat down.

She had to wait only ten minutes before Dodger was back in the real world, unplugging the datacord himself. His face was drawn with sadness.

"She's gone," he announced in a woeful voice. "Who?"

He turned stricken eyes on her, wetting his lips with a tentative tongue. When he spoke, his voice held a hint of something she thought was guilt. "Never mind."

She gauged the time inappropriate for pushing her questions. He took the bottle she offered with a glum "thank you" and sank down into his chair. He drained the juice in long, slow pulls.

"Well, Dodger, did you get anything useful?" In reply, he reached across to the deck and picked up the chip he had ejected just before she had thought it necessary to jack him out. He shrugged and tossed the chip to her.

She frowned at his uncommunicativeness, unsure whether he was ignoring her open displeasure or was too lost in his own funk to notice. She slipped the chip into her data-reader and scanned it. Dodger's run had gathered scant information for Sam. Not much more than a few names. The record of Dodger's run made it clear that even those meager bits of data had been protected. It seemed nobody was to know anything about Howling Coyote. She hoped Sam would be more careful than was his wont.

"Tough ice," Dodger said, startling her. She looked up to see that he was still staring at the cyberdeck. But something about his posture indicated that he was now wholly back in the real world. "Meaning it's not going to be easy for him."

"Not at all." The decker shook his head sadly. "Think that will stop him?"

"No." Hart knew Sam was far too stubborn. "Think it will do any good to tell him to be very careful?"

"I doubt it." He turned bleak eyes to her. "He could use help."

Better help than he was getting. "You're right. Want a ticket to Denver?"

"No connections. I'll run the Matrix cleaner from here. What about you?"

"He wanted me to watch your butt," she replied, letting her growing irritation slip into her voice. "And you would never go against his wishes." There was a challenge in that statement, which she ignored. She knew Dodger didn't trust her, but this was the closest he had come to bringing it into the open. With Sam alone in Denver and the mysterious hunter on their trail in Seattle, this was no time for dissention in the small circle Sam had remaining to help him. She might not feel able to join him yet, but she wouldn't cost him his support by quarreling with the decker.

Dodger prodded again. "Unless, of course, the pay was better elsewhere."

"You don't trust me, do you?" A sardonic half smile was his answer. "Well, the feeling's mutual. Neither of us did a lot to earn his trust in England, but at least I didn't send him in harm's way as somebody else's stalking horse."

The smile was replaced by a frown, "I went myself as well."

"Compounding your stupidity doesn't make you any less guilty."

"I didn't sell him to the Shidhe. Is that what draws you now? Have they put another price on his head?"

Heat burned her face. "You're in no position to judge. Not that you'll believe me, but I'm done with the Shidhe and they with me."

His cockiness returned. "How could I doubt you? But you and I both know the answer to that question. Naetheless, I shall take you at your word. The Shidhe are not involved. So what then? What draws you away from aiding the man who thinks you love him, to go hating after something unconnected to his dilemma?"

"Don't try second-guessing me, Dodger. If I knew this business was unconnected, I wouldn't give it a thought. I'd be in Denver right now. As it is, I think I'd better find out what I can and I don't think anybody can do the looking for me."

Dodger sneered. "And should it come to pass that there is no one to return to, 'twould be a pity. The great shadowrunner would grieve for an appropriate period of time. One must put on a brave face if one is to survive in the shadows. How long before you make a new conquest and replace all thought of a foolishly trusting norm?"

Hart suppressed the urge to slap the decker's face. "Listen, chiphead. I don't need your trust. You want to keep watching for me to slot him, you go ahead. But if you cost him anything, anything, because you're too busy watching me, you'll wish you'd stayed in the Tir where your important buddies could cover your ass. He wants me watching you while you deck. Think I like that? It's clearly a waste of my time. I save your brain from an overload when you freeze up, and all I get is complaints." "But you didn't…"

"Case made. Bitching is all you do. He's counting on you, and all you want is to make trouble."

A sly look crept onto Dodger's face. "Maybe I'm being useful enough to him by keeping you from making more trouble for him."

She closed her eyes, hoping to short-circuit the frustration rising within her. He didn't understand. But then, how could she expect him to? If she told him her suspicions he might think more kindly of her, or he might not. His suspicion was deeply ingrained. She wasn't ready to tell anybody anything yet. If she were wrong, she'd be betraying confidences unnecessarily. Now, if Sam had asked her directly… But he hadn't. ~ And she didn't owe Dodger drek.

The decker took her silence as a retreat from the conversation. For all she knew, he took it as a victory for himself. She held to her silence, and eventually he got up and fixed himself some food from the store in the kitchen. Very free with her hospitality, he was. When he was finished, he jacked in again. She watched for a while, but monitoring a working decker was inherently boring. She set the monitor to alarm mode and sacked out on the cot next to the table.

Dodger was still haunting cyberspace when she awoke. She tapped his shoulder until he acknowledged her presence, then signaled him to jack out. He prepped a data chip while she toasted some wheat bread, set out some jam, and heated the kafc They ate a sullen breakfast together, and he jacked in again as soon as he finished. That set the pattern: deck and eat. For two days it went on, with the decking sessions becoming longer and the meals shorter.

Through all the third night, she watched him. He seemed dedicated to Sam's cause. Or was he spending most of his time pursuing his own goals? There was no way to be sure. Jenny's attempt to tag along the second night had come to nothing. Hart didn't know of any other decker, certainly none she could reach in Seattle, who might be able to track Dodger.

Time was dragging on, and her own concerns were becoming gnawing fears. Since the first night there had been no alarms. Maybe Dodger didn't need a watchdog. What, after all, did she owe him? Nothing, though he might think otherwise. Or maybe she, and Sam, owed the decker more than he expected. But she wouldn't know one way or the other while she was stuck here in the Salish-Shidhe. Certainty required the sort of information-gathering that needed the personal touch. With all the tools available to modern technology and magic, it was hard to guarantee that a conversation was not overheard. Keeping a telecommunications conference secret was harder.

Right or wrong, trusting or not, Dodger was indirectly responsible for awakening her fears. He had been the one to order his Far East contact to dump all data on Grandmother's operations. The decker was looking for clues to his private obsession, but he had gotten more than he knew. The last data Noguchi had sent had raised an uncomfortable specter that, so far, only she had seen.

She was torn. Sam would be in Denver now. They had gathered some data to help him in his search for Howling Coyote, but he had no one to help him carry out that search. She was here, stuck watching the decker when she wanted to be elsewhere doing something useful. The paucity of information, and the resistance Dodger had encountered on the first run, worried her. Dodger's results weren't all Sam had hoped for. If he decided he needed to check on Dodger's data he might jack in himself, and that would result in disaster. Sam was, at best, a novice decker. What chance would he have against something that stymied Dodger? Jenny wouldn't be much help. She was good, but, as much as Hart hated to admit it, not quite as good as Dodger. Sam might trust Jenny on Hart's recommendation, and he might not. It would be a gamble that she'd keep him out of the Matrix, but the only way to make sure Sam stayed safely out of cyberspace was to make sure that Sam had a decker he trusted running the Matrix for him. Unless she came up with an alternative, that meant babysitting Dodger.

If only she could be with Sam in Denver to keep an eye on him. She'd keep him out of the Matrix, and using his magical abilities like he should. But she needed to be elsewhere, and she was feeling the grip of time. Her babysitting the decker might cost them all more than they wanted to pay. But she didn't know for sure, and she wouldn't find out sitting around. The ^ investigation she wanted to make needed her personal touch. She couldn't leave it to an agent. But getting someone to watch over Sam was another matter. She thought about who she knew in Denver.

If she covered that angle, maybe she could do something here that wouldn't betray Sam's trust. There had to be; she couldn't wait any longer. All she needed was to find someone suitable to babysit Dodger, someone of whom Sam might approve. It would help if Dodger trusted the person, too, but she didn't know enough about his friends. The decker seemed to trust Ghost, but the samurai was busy watching Janice out in the Council lands. The only one of the decker's associates still in town was Tsung, and she wouldn't do Hart a favor, even if it was really for Dodger. Stupid cow.

There was one other possibility. She looked over at Dodger. From his activity level, she decided that he wasn't likely to come up against anything serious for a few minutes. Well, maybe he would, but how could she know? She had too damn little data, and time was passing. Sometimes one just had to gamble.

She tossed her Scaratelli jacket over one shoulder and slipped on a pair of B amp;L mirrorshades. She took the stairs down to street level and walked a couple of blocks to the monorail. A few stops later she left the train and found a telecom. Slipping a certified cred-stick into the slot, she waited while the system pinpointed her location and acknowledged her credit. It meant the location of the call would be recorded, but she didn't worry. She'd be gone before anyone could arrive. She placed her call, hoping to remember the number correctly. She smiled in satisfaction when an elven woman's familiar face appeared on the screen.

"Hello, Teresa. Friend of yours needs a little private counseling."

Janice Verner was not very happy with herself. She didn't like to think she was stupid, but what other ex-planarion was there? Once more she had let herself believe in promises, had trusted someone else. How many betrayals did it take for her to learn?

When her body changed the first time, she should have known that her life was changed forever. That was the first betrayal. Like a good little norm, her boyfriend Ken had pretended she no longer existed once he heard of her change. Where had his much-professed love gone? She was the same person inside. Had he only loved her body? If so, why had he lied and told her she was a beautiful soul?

She should have let her heart die then, but she had been stupid again. Hugh Glass had come to her in that horrible place of exile. His elven features had been so beautiful, and she had been naive enough to believe he meant what he said. She had still wanted to believe she hadn't changed inside, that she was still a beautiful soul. He had let her believe that he saw through her lumpish exterior to that beauty. They had planned an escape from Yomi, laughing about how they would build a life away from the norms in the Yakkut, or Amazonia, or his native Ireland. He had laughed all right. Laughed at her, making his own plans to degrade and humiliate her. The moment they had weathered the harrowing escape from the island, he had abandoned her in Hong Kong.

Then she had changed again. It had come so soon after Hugh's abandonment that she might have thought it punishment for her stupidity, atonement for her cupidity. She might have fallen into self-pity if not for Dan Shiroi. He had found and rescued her from that awful Hong Kong tenement. He had given her back a sense of worth. Of all the men in her life, only Dan had been true.

So why did she resist becoming as he was? She didn't need to look at her talons and fangs to know. She could feel the beast and its terrible hunger within her. The hunger was there all the time now, an aching h^llowness. She felt it even in her dreams. Sometimes, when the craving was strongest, Hugh came to her. Smiling his perfect elven smile, he urged her to satisfy herself. He offered her a choice of bodies, but they all had Ken's face. At least at first. Just when she was ready to rip out his traitorous throat, Ken's face always changed into someone else's. Sometimes it was her father's, sometimes her mother's, and occasionally it was one of her brothers'. Most often, though, the face was unfamiliar, just the terrified visage of a harmless norm. The faces she recognized took longer and longer to change to strangers now. But so far, she had resisted. Maybe she hesitated because, in the dream, Hugh urged her so fervently to do it; she saw no reason to please him. Maybe she remembered Dan's last words. But each day, she grew closer to satisfying her hunger.

Why had she left the fastness that had been Dan's shelter?

For another empty promise, another broken dream. Her brother had come and told her that she could be changed yet again. Changed for the better, back to what she had been. Was that a worthy desire? Dan had been happy with what he was. Shouldn't she be as well?

Or was she being stupid again? Stupid she might be, but dull she was not. The shifting breeze that carried the soft rustle also held a faint man scent that told her who approached. He had been following her for two days. She was too tired to hide from him again.

"Go away, Ghost. I don't want to eat you." He abandoned his stealth, but his approach was only barely louder. He crouched down, just out of reach of her arm. He hadn't abandoned caution. For a man, he was honest.

"Don't much like the idea," he said. "Then go."

"He asked me to watch you for him." She laughed bitterly. "He's off learning new magic. What has that to do with me? Norms don't need fuzz-balls."

Ghost turned his head and spat into the bushes. "He's Dog. He won't give up on you. Why are you giving up on yourself?"

Why, indeed? Why did it matter? To anybody. She was what she had become, wasn't she? "Suppose he does care. Why are you here?"

"Dog and Wolf have much in common." "Not really. Wolf is a predator." Ghost grinned raggedly at her. "Of course." "And predators have to eat." She let her fangs show, but he didn't move a muscle.

"There is plenty of meat in the woods."

She threw back her head and sighed. "Animals taste bad. Besides, they don't fill me up."

He grunted in acknowledgement, and then was quiet for several minutes. "While undergoing their spirit quests, my ancestors would go for days without food. Their spirits were strong enough to bear the burden. And now we know the magic they sought in those days could not really be found. But that never stopped them. So what hardship is a fast when now there really is magic to be found? Or if it isn't found, you would face no more disappointment than the ancestors. Less, if your brother succeeds in his own quest. Are you strong, Wolf shaman?"

She stared at him. He was human, a norm. For all his cybernetic enhancements, he was just a man. He had no insight into the half worlds of the spirit. He knew no magic. His body could never know the exquisite pangs of this hunger. Who was he to question her?

Was she strong?

She wished to God she knew.

The Renraku arcology was a city under one roof, a giant pyramidal house that was home to forty thousand people and with visiting parlors of malls and businesses hosting thousands more. Like all houses, it had its neglected corners that went unnoticed by the bustling inhabitants. Using his special executive power as kansayaku, Hohiro Sato knew many of those forgotten corners very well. He had arranged for some of them.

The Office of Localized Segment Augmentation: Oversight, Screening, and Actuarial Review Division was one. Normally Sato also ignored it, save to review its activities when his loyal watchdog reported something of potential interest. Today, the manager of OLSA: OSARD had requested an interview.

As kansayaku, Sato was the living and local embodiment of the dictatorial power of Inazo Aneki, founder and patriarch of Renraku Corporation. In all the ways that counted, the position made Sato more powerful than Sherman Huang, president of Renraku America. Huang was king of the arcology, but Sato was the power behind the throne. The corporation's organizational structure gave such a lowly office manager the right to request an interview with the kansay-aku, but such a thing rarely, if ever, happened in practice. When it did, the lowly manager came as a suppliant to the office of his superior. But today, it was Sato who stood at the door to the Office of Localized Segment Augmentation: Oversight, Screening, and Actuarial Review Division. The interview request was, in reality, a summons. Sato stared at the small letters on the name plaque gracing the office door. Had the source of the summons been the person who operated from this office, he would not have come. But that individual was merely a mouth and an ear, a voice to issue orders and a conduit for information of the less delicate variety. For now, Sato would play along. He nodded permission to Akabo to open the door.

Despite the multitude of desks and work stations the chamber was deserted, save for a single person seated at a computer console near the center. The room's lighting had been adjusted to illuminate only the area around the occupied seat. Hachiko leno looked up and smiled when Sato and his bodyguards entered. leno, director of the office, was short and slender. She might have been beautiful, if not for the repulsive condition of her skin, which was scabby and erupted with short dark hairs in unfortunate places. In Japan such an appearance would have banished her immediately to Yomi Island, where the changed lived in isolation, from the normal population. But this was not Japan. leno could walk the streets of Seattle or dine in almost any restaurant. There would be no official censure, only the harassment that anyone showing ork blood might encounter. leno, however, was not likely to suffer much persecution. All it took was one look into her eyes, those dark, monochromatic orbs. Despite the lack of an obvious pupil, the eyes left no doubt as to who they were gazing at; her predatory gaze could make one's skin crawl. As she must be one of the changed whose already superhuman capabilities were apparently augmented by cybernetic enhancement, only someone incautious, foolish, suicidal, or with his own finely honed edge would consider upsetting her.

"Konichiwa, Sato-san, " she said. "Ohayo, " he replied, abandoning politeness in his irritation at her use of the familiar form before his staff. "What do you want?"

She smiled at the directness, apparently enjoying his further desertion of etiquette. "I? I am but a messenger."

Her false air of innocent humility was offensive. "Then give your message."

"Very wall." She tapped a few keys on her console and studied the screen for a moment as though to refresh her memory. "An object of some significance has come to notice here in Seattle. I am reliably informed that it would make a wonderful present for your grandmother."

It was not the sort of request he had expected. "Why do you tell me this? She has her own wealth. Can she not buy this object or hire someone to acquire it? I already do much for her, and this may go beyond what she has expected of me in the past. Or is the object in some way related to last year's unfortunate loss?"

"Related, yes. But it will not lessen the loss. It is only fondness that makes your grandmother summon you in this matter. She is taking steps to assure its acquisition, but thought you would be disappointed if not involved. For you see, the possessor of this object is someone you know, a person involved in events of last year. While the object and his possession of it have no bearing on that other issue, your grandmother thought you might appreciate the opportunity to conclude formerly unresolved matters while earning her gratitude."

There was certainly more to it than that, but only by playing along would Sato find out what. Whatever was going on, Grandmother desired this object with a greed that rivaled her appetite for information. "Would her gratitude extend to forgiving all outstanding debts?"

"Who knows?" leno chuckled. The sound reminded Sato of a child strangling. "I believe that she will be so enriched by this gift that anything is possible. Even for my small part, I expect a generous reward."

But you are only a functionary. / could lose all I have built by chasing after her ends. "Sije, does not expect me to compromise my position by pursuing this object," leno showed her stained teeth in what passed for a grin. "Naturally not. But she does wish your personal attention to the matter.''

"I see." And he did. He felt inspired. The insistence and eagerness of her agent betrayed Grandmother. Anything important enough that she would mobilize him to obtain it must be worth possessing, and the gaining of it might be enough to free him from her influence. He would never be fool enough to rely on her honor or gratitude to release him, however. That would be a mistake. Instead, he would find a way to use this opportunity to turn the tables. In the end, he would be the strong man shaking off the oppressor's yoke to make the overseer do the work of the former slave. He had waited too long.

"The well-brought-up man cannot refuse the rea sonable wishes of his honorable grandmother. Give me the details, that I may do as she wishes."

The data on the credstick said he was Walter Smith. Smith was the best identity in the packet Sam had obtained from Cog. So far, it had seen him through checkpoints in the Sioux Council Zone without a hitch. He was glad no challenge had come as the panzer runner's friends transported him from the hangar in the foothills of the Rockies up near Golden. Sam didn't want a record of Walter Smith entering the treaty city; Smith supposedly lived in Denver.

Though Sam was confident of the identity of Smith and each of the other three "persons" in his pocket, he didn't want to press his luck. He planned to avoid the roadblocks and checkpoints between the zones of the partitioned city whenever possible. It wouldn't be too much of a problem. Denver's shadowfolk and street people drifted across the zones all the time. Innocent street people didn't mind being caught in a sweep that left them sitting a night or two in a detention center. Why should they? It was a way to get food and shelter. But shadowfolk couldn't afford the attention. Fortunately, most sweeps were perfunctory things, and Sam's identities would easily stand the cursory scrutiny likely from a cop's scanpad. Cog had assured him that Smith and his friends were solid, up through a third-tier backcheck. They ought to be the cost had been so high that Sam had been forced to ask Hart for the nuyen to finance the panzer run that got him to Denver. When he picked up the data at the prearranged drop, he saw that he'd be doing most of his looking in the Ute Council Zone. Most of Dodger's names were Utes or people associated with the tribe. Sam didn't want to run the zone boundary until after dark, so he had time to kill. He spent a while at a library terminal getting familiar with the city's layout. It had once been straightforward and mostly rational, but since the breakup of the United States and the partitioning of Denver, any semblance of urban planning had gone by the boards. Each zone had dealt in its own way with the rebuilding of the city. Nevertheless, it looked to Sam as though you could always tell which direction was what as long as you could get a view of the Rocky Mountains to the west.

Toward dusk, Sam's wandering led him to a park near the big, blocky building that had been the natural history museum. It was still a museum, but its exhibits now dealt almost exclusively with Indian culture. He thought about checking to see what they had on Howling Coyote, but seeing that he would need to use one of his credsticks for the admission fee, he decided against it. Too much of a tourist thing. Smith and his friends were locals.

So he sat on a sloping hill and looked out across the meadows and trees. The natural space was so extensive that he suspected it had been enlarged from the days when Denver had belonged to the United States. He had a harder time imagining a U.S. city leaving enough space to let the deer he had glimpsed roam free. The coming night was enlivening some of the animals in the nearby zoo and he heard an assortment of roars and bellows. He wondered if it was feeding time. Looking at the mixed crowds passing through the park, he knew it would be soon. For the wild animals of the streets and the human hunters that stalked the parklands, anyway.

Sam assessed the people playing at sports, jogging along the pathways, wandering along the walks, and sitting on the grass as he was. Visually, he fit in with most of the passersby. Though bolstered weapons were not universal, many of the people he observed wore them. His own Narcoject Lethe wouldn't look out of place, but that was no surprise, for he had checked the firearms regulations before leaving Seattle. What he wasn't used to seeing were the many people in leathers and synthleathers. Even with all the knots and talismans tied into the fringe of his jacket, Sam looked right at home. A lot of the locals had good luck charms hanging froTh their clothes or incorporated as paintings or beadwork. The Indian fashion craze was even stronger here than in Seattle, and the Plains Indian style more common. With the Sioux in charge of the zone, that certainly made sense.

Night was the best time for shadow work. Soon it would be time to cross into the Ute zone. But then what? He had some digging to do, but that wasn't necessarily night work. A lot of the people he wanted to talk to were probably day folk. Certainly, they held SIN numbers and went dutifully to work the way Sam once did. He didn't want to wait another day to get started, but how to do it?

Sarn wished Hart were here. She knew Denver. He sorted through the credsticks, looking for the one she had given"him. It held the entry codes to a safehouse whose address she had made him memorize. She had only told him of the one place, but Sam was sure she knew more. With Denver divided into zones, each the responsibility of a different government, a single hiding place didn't seem sufficient. Though most of Hart's background was still a mystery to him, he knew she was a shadowrunner of international repute. Not to have a refuge in each of Denver's jurisdictions would have left her too vulnerable. She simply hadn't shared everything with him. A hedge against the future, he supposed. He hoped it was one she'd never need. Sam didn't want to lose her. He was happy in her company, as though she were the complement to his spirit. He trusted her with his secrets. Why didn't she trust him? Was he doing something wrong? Maybe if they had some time together, away from the shadows. But that wasn't likely to happen until Janice was cured.

His own worries seemed so petty compared to what Janice was going through.

He wanted to call Ghost and find out how she was doing, but he couldn't, of course. Ghost and Janice were somewhere in Salish-Shidhe Council lands and out of regular communication. They had all agreed that would be best. No one wanted Council troops tracking transmissions. Ghost would be making irregularly spaced reports like the one that had been waiting for Sam at the drop. But those messages were so frustrating. There was no way to carry on a conversation, no way to assure Janice that he was doing his best.

The sun had vanished behind the mountains now, and night was finally settling into place. It was time to go. Sam got to his feet and started down to the path that curved around the pond. He joined the folk leaving the park, abandoning it to night and the predators who only prowled in the dark. He had so little time, and so much to do.

Neko Noguchi was pleased with himself. He had acquired information without a hitch in the acquisition run. It wasn't on the topic for which the elf paid the highest premium, but it was still eminently salable. That, however, was not the cause of his rejoicing. One did not get excited over the expected. The impending disposition of his haul was another matter. He had gotten past the middle man.

Cog had declined involvement when Neko had told the fixer's agent (unfortunately not the delightful Mo-nique) that he had come into possession of "more of the same." The fixer had arranged for a direct contact with the decker elf, who had asked Neko to continue his investigations, no doubt believing, as Neko intended, that tfeko meant the stuff had been acquired from Grandmother. Though his plan worked, it surprised Neko that the fixer stepped aside so easily. His fear of angering Grandmother must be very great. Cog's anger would also be real if he ever learned that Neko's latest offering had been obtained without coming anywhere near Grandmother's widespread connections. That didn't count the subject of the investigation, however, for one could not do much of anything in the world without a connection to Grandmother. But though agents and subjects were very different matters, no fixer liked to be tricked into losing his percentage.

It had been too easy, but Neko wasn't worried. Cog might get mad if he found out, but he would take no action. Neko was too good a source. A few bargains and a freebie or two would placate the fixer. "Oil in the works," as Cog himself liked to say. Biz was biz, one thing that Cog understood best. He wouldn't like it, but he would understand.

Neko negligently flipped the chip case as he watched the crowds. So many good little salarymen from all over the world, rushing about their oh-so-ordered lives and rubbing shoulders with the street people and the proles. He had heard that the Enclave had not always been this way. Oh, rich and poor sharing sweat, for sure. That was eternal in the cramped streets. But the" oldsters said the population had once been almost exclusively Chinese, with only the occasional foreigner.

It was hard to imagine now. The enclave had become truly international, with its balance of round Chinese faces, sleek Japanese visages like Neko's own, the angular gauntness of the Caucasians, and the occasional darkness of Africans and other Blacks become so natural a part of the city's character. How could it ever have belonged to the Chinese?

Whatever its history, Neko savored the city now. It was said that if half the Enclave's population were to come to street level all at once, they would suffocate in the closeness. It was an exaggeration, of course, but a good image for the teeming multitudes, shoulder to shoulder and always moving. All those ears, and none remained still long enough to hear. So many eyes, fixed on sights other than him. He loved it.

The street telecom by which he stood chirped. He slid away from the wall and leaned into the privacy shield. He had already installed an override on the telecom vid pickup so he couldn't be seen unless he wished to be. With a flick of a ringer, he activated the circuit. The screen remained black, but he said "Moshi, moshi," anyway.

"State your business," responded a voice fuzzed with electronic distortion. A cautious one, this elf.

"You got the spec on the first call. Along with the rules. You want transfer, or do I find another market?" That was a bluff. Neko didn't know anybody who would want the stuff. He could most certainly find someone, but the time it took would devalue the information. As always, realizing maximum profit required a fast deal. He thought he'd hosed it, but at last the screen flickered and the head and shoulders of an elf appeared in three-quarter view. The hair was shorter and styled differently from the virtual image Neko had seen, but the turn of the pointed ears, the long, straight line of the nose, and the slim line of the jaw were familiar. A datacord arced from the elf's far temple toward a spot beneath the image area. Overly cautious, this elf, but in another way bold, if he thought to break the unwritten rules of the not-place by offering a modified virtual image when he visited. Neko decided to test the sensitivity of that issue with a probe for a reaction.

"You look a bit different from your virtual image. New dye job?" he asked.

"Slave to fashion, you know," the elf said with forced nonchalance. He remained icily calm, though. "Verily, I'm forwarding payment,"

"Wiz. Callback in ten," Neko told him, cutting the circuit without waiting for a response or protest. Keeping them off guard was a way to stay in control. Neko didn't like things he couldn't control.

Ten minutes later, after Neko had confirmed the funds transfer, the elf was back on the line. "Trusting, chummer," Neko told him. The elf smiled slyly. "Don't think a decker like myself could not recover those funds if your offering proved false. Verily, I'm better than that."

If the elf was a member of the club that played in the not-place, it was probably so. Neko decided to transfer the funds to hardcopy as soon as he broke connection. Better yet, he'd place the order from the next phone while transferring the now paid-for goods. "Ready to receive?" "Affirmative."

"Look, chummer. I'll slot the chip and send the data hard-shelled. Code three-seven. How about you stay on the line and let me know it got through." "Very well."

"Wiz." That'll give me time to stash the loot. Neko slotted the chip and started the transfer as promised. He was pocketing half a dozen certified credsticks that had come tumbling from the delivery slot more like rolls of candy than the bottled wealth they were when the elf came back on the first telecom line. " 'Tis received complete, and the code checks.

Contact me again in twenty-four hours. I may have further work for you."

Neko let a little bit of his pleasure show, but concealed all of his surprise. "Frigid. Nuyen for news is a way of life. But do me a favor, chummer. Don't change your look between now and then. You elves all look alike to us norms. I almost didn't recognize you without the shag."

"Don't worry about my looks. The credit's good. What more do you need?"

"To do biz? Just the transfer, chummer. Yours to mine. Keep it healthy and we're in biz."

The circuit went dead. Neko shrugged and smiled at the blank screen. You didn't have to like them to do biz.

Urdli stood in the doorway and looked across to the stretched-out form of the decker. Standing around the corner from where he lay were several medical machines gathered like mourners for a funeral. His thinness would have been suitable for an Australian, but this was a Caucasian elf, and so undernourished. But that was less of an abuse than the things implanted in the decker's body. Even the mundane should find such perversion disgusting. A chrome-headed viper kissed the port in the decker's head, while at the other end of the coiled length its tail disappeared into an artifact Estios had identified as a Fuchi 7 cyberdeck.

Teresa O'Con nor busied herself changing the intravenous drip. It seemed a waste of effort and materials. More than twelve hours had passed since the decker had touched the cyberdeck keyboard. From what Urdli had heard about such things, it must mean that the decker's brain was no longer in control, if anything remained of its higher functions. The subjective journey through cyberspace still required the physical manipulation of computer interface devices. "Unhook the machine," he ordered.

O'Connor looked at him with wide eyes. "No," she said with uncommon vehemence.

"I will wait no longer. There are questions he must answer, assuming anything is left in there."

"Dodger's not brain-dead." Teresa's voice betrayed her concern. Perhaps trying to convince herself, she pointed at the monitor, whose obscure graphs and numbers meant nothing to Urdli. "There's activity at all levels. He's still alive and aware. He's just… lost."

"In the Matrix?" "I think so."

"Not possible. The Matrix is no true reality. Either he is in command of his brain, or not. If so, once the connection is severed, his awareness will be forced to return to the real world. If not, the matter will be resolved."

"Maybe. I don't know. His condition is not normal. His theta rhythms are grossly out of synch with normal decking activity. If we sever the link, he might go catatonic."

"I will take the risk." "Damn it! It's not your risk to take!" "Makkanagee morkhan, I will do it myself." As Urdli took the first step into the room, O'Connor came from behind the couch to place herself between him and the decker. By the defensive stance she took, he saw how apt was the name he had called her, for her Shatatain stance showed her well below his own competence in the art of carromeleg. "Laverty does not oppose me. By standing in my way, you break your bond as milessaratish, staining his honor while gaining none for yourself. You will fall."

"I'm not milessaratish, so leave the professor out of it. This is between you and me. I won't let you touch Dodger."

Her defiance was annoying. "By denying the bond to Laverty, you remove restraint from me. Out of consideration for him, I might have only incapacitated you, but now you have offended me with your opposition. You cannot stop me. You can buy only the slightest delay with your life."

He took his stance, and he saw in her eyes the realization that she was indeed facing a superior. Surprisingly, her rigidity slackened into a more natural defensive posture. That would make her a more difficult conquest, but though delayed, the outcome would be the same. He slid forward a pace and studied her non-reaction. More difficult, indeed. The appreciation of imminent death had brought her to zathien. Her unresolved stillness of spirit offered danger and unpredictable responses. He centered himself, seeking his own grasp of zathien from which to answer her. In the face of her resolution, the completeness eluded him. He slid forward another pace, determined to overmatch her transcendental state with his skill. The clash never began. "What's going on?"

Urdli slid back from engagement range before turning to face the newly arrived Estios. O'Connor relaxed, too, but her breathing was rapid, speeded by the adrenaline coursing in her system. The interruption had disrupted her zathien. She would be no serious hindrance to Urdli now. But first he would learn what had brought Estios from his huddled conferences with Laverty's scholars and technicians. "What news, Estios?"

Deliberately ignoring the confrontation he had interrupted, Estios spoke in a tone more suitable to a briefing room. "The new data has been correlated with the last batch the alley runner received from the source in Hong Kong. Probabilities that the operations are under way are more than fifty percent on several of the possibilities. If, as you suggest, the fixer known as Grandmother is an agent of Rachnei, she is a most active agent."

"Characteristic," Urdli said impatiently. "I'll take your word for it. One of her areas of activity is of particular interest, as it suggests a very ugly possibility."

"You try my patience, Estios." Estios gave him a tight smile that held no humor. "Try this. What do Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tripoli, and Baghdad have in common?" "You remain obscure."

"These are all cities where atomic or nuclear weapons have been used."

"But that's open history," O'Connor interjected. "They are also all topics of Grandmother's researches, with her interest confined to dates following the unfortunate nuclear events." Estios turned to her. "And the events are not open history to something that slept through the explosions."

Urdli nodded in understanding. "You suggest that Rachnei seeks to understand the potential of such weaponry. A reasonable speculation, for nuclear war devices were not developed much before the middle of the last century. They would, indeed, be unknown to a sleeper. The precaution of investigating potential threats is in keeping with Rachnei's reputed method of operation. Knowing what we know, simple research offers no threat."

"I agree. If historical research based in, shall we say, scientific curiosity were all there was to it, there would be no danger. However, we have discovered additional files, nested within a datastore, containing lists of all the legitimately held nuclear weapons remaining after the build-down."

Urdli set aside Estios' concern with a negligent wave of his hand. "Rachnei would certainly seek knowledge of currently available weapons. My understanding is that the safeguards installed to protect those devices after the Awakening should be adequate to prevent acquisition by any unauthorized party."

Estios' blue eyes glittered like ice at Urdli's dismissive gesture, but he held his temper. Anger barely colored his tone. "Where the weapons are held legitimately I would agree, but the datastore held more files nested even deeper. The encryption protecting that datafile is much better. It's locked very tightly."

"And you fear that some terrible secret is locked within that file?"

"I do," Estios stated firmly. "The technicians tried to open the file but were unable to recover much. When the code was broken, we released some kind of virus that started to devour the data. The team only got bits and pieces. We've gotten out enough to know that a handful of sites are on Grandmother's list. Each one is located near a former storage site for nuclear weapons or delivery systems."

"Suggesting that Rachnei is seeking a stockpile of nuclear weapons?"

"I believe so*"

Urdli considered the danger of such an occurrence and found it unthinkably great. He knew the ways of magic too well and how little a part coincidence played. The uncovering of Rachnei's shard could only align with the uncovering of this nuclear threat. If one was not the father of the other, they would work in concert. "And where does Verner fit into this?"

Estios shrugged his shoulders in helplessness. "We haven't figured that angle, but some connection is likely. We've learned he's headed for Denver."

"Rocky Flats," O'Connor whispered.

"Or NORAD command at Cheyenne Mountain, or any of a dozen possible places where the old U.S.A. military played their games," Estios said. "For a Caucasian like him, Denver would be the best location to work any of those sites."

"Don't be ridiculous, Estios," O'Connor said. "Verner's not working for Grandmother or Rachnei. You know him. He's not that kind."

Estios ignored her. "We've also learned that Grandmother has sent two Asian agents to Denver,''

"Coincidence," O'Connor objected.

Urdli smiled sourly. He knew better. "Can you be sure, O'Connor? Rachnei works subtly, sending out strands, then manipulating them carefully until the target is ensnared in a web from which there is no escape. Verner may be trapped already. Perhaps he started out innocently enough, but over time fell under the influence Rachnei has projected through the stone. Verner may not even be aware that he is carrying the stone to Rachnei's agents. It is more imperative than ever that we prevent the stone from falling into Rachnei's grasp. I had thought that Verner yielding his stolen treasure to Rachnei would represent only the loss of a weapon, but I begin to see that we stand to lose far more. ' 'Verner must be stopped.''

Sam was exhausted, but he was getting used to that. For days he had been running on short sleep. Chasing leads and meeting with locals, both shadowfolk and legitimate citizens, kept him up all hours of the day and night. When he could sleep he got little rest, always troubled by dreams, vague fantasies of pursuit where he shifted roles from the hunter to the hunted. In those nocturnal excursions he was running, always running. Not the pleasing freedom of the chase, however, but the desperate, panting flight of knowing someone or something powerful is just behind one's tail. So far, he had not glimpsed his nightmarish pursuer.

The emotions from the dreams had leaked over into his waking life, leaving him nervous and warily watching over his shoulder. At these moments he thought he might expose whoever was following him, and had begun trying sudden spins and fast doubling-back around corners. So far he had yet to observe any clearly malevolent trackers, but he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching.

He surveyed the street he intended to cross. There was no rush; the runner he was to meet was not scheduled to arrive for another half-hour. Plenty of time to check out the site. Here in this maze of tenements, the crowd was a mix of working types, homebodies, and the SINless. Ordinary people. Only a few looked out of place. Sam spotted a pair of Indian salarymen did they call them that here? passing through on business, and then a block down, he saw a pack of teenage corporates hanging out in their pseudo-tough leathers, studs, and chrome. No doubt they were sprawling for the thrill of it. They were faint shadows of the predators who would appear once the kids had gone home. ft was too early in the evening for the night life to come crawling out, though the signs of their presence were clear in the burn marks and bullet holes that scarred the buildings.

The predators might not be out, but the scavengers were getting an early start. An old man was moving along the opposite sidewalk, poking through the trash and debris that passing traffic had swept against the building walls. The man's bent frame was covered in a battered U.S. army field jacket whose usual markings had been replaced with crude patches bearing colorful symbols. Once the scrounger looked Sam's way, letting Sam see the hawk nose and pointed chin that dominated the man's craggy, lined face beneath the bartered, broad-brimmed reservation hat. Sam was startled to see that the junk-picker was an Indian, but then he told himself that even Indian society must have its failures.

Then he realized that his reaction was not for the fact that the old man was an Indian, but because he looked familiar. Sam crossed the street and walked past him, trying to get another surreptitious look at the old face, but the scavenger was too busy bending over a particularly noisome pile of trash.

Sam reviewed his glimpse of the man's features. Where had he seen that face before? He watched the bum sidle toward him, then on down the street. As the old man passed, he gave no sign of attention or intent. It struck Sam that the scavenger's features resembled those of his temporary landlord, which was possible. The coat gave the shambling junk-picker an almost unrecognizable shape, and the shuffling walk would disguise a person's normal gait. His old coot of a landlord had a shifty gaze, and seemed to be paying an unreasonable amount of attention to Sam's comings and goings. A cheap disguise might suit such an amateur spy.

But if a spy, for whom? His nightmares? Sam began to fear that paranoia was overtaking him. His landlord might be watching him, but the man didn't have the initiative to follow a tenant. He would sell any information he could, but he wouldn't bestir himself to seek it out. And the scavenger was just an old bum, maybe even a survivor of the reeducation camps. If so, he deserved Sam's sympathy and pity more than his suspicion. Still, Sam was glad he was carrying all his important goods with him. One couldn't be too careful in a strange city. The landlord might not follow tenants to spy on them, but Sam didn't think him above entering an apartment and helping himself to anything lying around loose.

Sam shook his head sadly. Such suspicion of people who had done nothing to deserve it wasn't like him, or so he had once thought. How much he had changed since leaving Renraku. Some of the differences were good. He felt stronger and more capable than ever before and was in better shape, too. But he had grown cynical and continued to do things he would never even have contemplated as little as two years ago. Here he was, a shadowrunning shaman searching for thd Ghost Dance Prophet. He wondered what his father would, have thought of that. He knew what his mother would have thought. She'd have been horrified. Sometimes Sam thought that was the proper reaction.

Perhaps he was just tired, worn down by lack of sleep or maybe just frustration. He seemed no closer to finding out what had happened to Howling Coyote than when he had arrived in Denver. Tonight's meeting didn't look hopeful. The runner he was to meet had done some work for the Sovereign Tribal Council while Coleman was president, but that was nearly fifteen years ago. It was a slim connection at best, not much likely to produce a lead, but he had to try. He had gone through almost all the possibilities Dodger had dug up. No one he'd met would so much as talk about Howling Coyote, not even for a price. Was it some kind of conspiracy to hide the man, or what had happened to him?

Paranoia again. But paranoia was a survival trait in the shadows. Or was it just the first step into madness? Maybe all his fears that his magic was tied to madness were based in fact. There were enough mad things in his life. Like those dreams. Even with his eyes wide open, awake rather than asleep, he could almost hear the baying of the nightmare pursuer. So why did his scalp itch?

Sam looked the street over. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The scavenger had gone to ground somewhere, and the crowd's composition was beginning to shift. The sprawling kids had gone, mere leaves blown away before the rising wind of night. A trio of razor-guys in gang colors now occupied one of the tenement

Nothing seemed out of place, yet Sam sensed that something was wrong. He was safely out of the traffic flow, so he leaned back against the wall and shifted his perception to the astral.

What had been hidden from his mundane sight now came clear. Across the street, stalking among the evening sidewalk traffic, a tall, gangly figure moved like a nightmare scarecrow. The being had pointed ears and slanted eyes that blazed with a golden light against his dark skin. Though much like an elf, this being seemed subtly different. Sam felt a strong sense of power fueling the illusion spell in which the elven scarecrow was wrapped.

Flickering astral presences danced around the dark stranger like electrons around a nucleus. When one broke off its orbit to flutter and bounce before its master's face, Sam knew he had been spotted. The apparition turned its attention to him.

Sam didn't think he could outdistance the scarecrow's long legs, and wasn't prepared to bet he could out-magic the well of power he sensed. He needed help, but he was alone in this city. The city!

Desperately he searched, calling as he focused his power. He stretched his own abilities, seeking a response from the etheric world around him. There were immediate stirrings, but a coherent response took shape only slowly. Or so it seemed to his shifted perceptions. In the mundane world, the scarecrow had covered but half the block that separated him from Sam.

"Come," he called silently, urgently. "Born of the streets, hear me. Soul in the bones of the buildings, answer my summons."

An unwonted clarity in Sam's view of the concrete, stone, and plastics of the environment told him he had been heard. Though Denver wasn't Sam's city, the presence acknowledged him, recognizing his authority as a Dog shaman and therefore a master of the spirits of Man. Still, it was little inclined to do anything for him. Sam asked service of it, demanding that it wrap its essence around the scarecrow and enfold him so that Sam might escape. It yielded to his insistence, and the rush of fresh air that accompanied the spirit's departure to do Sam's bidding held the tang of its assent.

Half a block away, the scarecrow was suddenly stopped in his tracks by a collision with another pedestrian, a dwarf. Both hit the ground. The woman immediately picked herself up and loudly cursed the shoddy state of sidewalk repair. The bewildered scarecrow sat with a shocked look on his face, then let out a howl when another passerby trod on his hand as though he wasn't there. This was followed immediately by a passing dog that seemed to think the seated stranger was a fire hydrant. Raising a leg, the dog marked him. The dark man struck out and the dog skipped away, then lit out as though seeing a ghost.

Good idea. Sam, too, started down the street at a run. People moving toward him saw him coming and got out of his way. He dodged around those going in his own direction. Behind him he could hear the scarecrow's angry shouts, as he tried to force his way through pedestrian traffic that didn't seem to know he was there. While many voices exclaimed in surprise and pain, only the dark man's voice was full of anger. The people he jostled seemed to blame the collisions on their own clumsiness, or on some unseen piece of trash or unnoticed unevenness in the sidewalk. To them, the scarecrow was not there. The gap between Sam and his pursuer widened. Satisfied that the steady stream of rush-hour traffic on West Colfax Avenue would prove a major barrier to the spirit-ridden scarecrow, Sam cut around a corner into an alley. All the doleful singers of nearly two centuries had failed to imagine how completely a city could alienate a person from those around him. His relief died as he skidded to a stop. Four silhouettes blocked his way. A hint of chrome gleamed among night-dark leathers. Razorguys. Two were hulking brutes in long coats with upturned collars and slouch hats that concealed all pertinent information about them. Bulges under their clothing suggested armor, enhancements, and weapons. They were too big to be orks and not broad enough to be trolls. The third was slender as a whip and wore his leathers tight to emphasize his build. His eyes sparkled with chrome reflections as he took three steps to Sam's left. The group was spread out enough now that he couldn't watch them all closely without turning his head. The fourth moved from behind the brute on the right, and the glow from newly wakening street lamps revealed that he was not an enhanced bullyboy like the others. What Sam had at first taken for a synthleather duster like the big boys wore was really a fine woolen topcoat of stylish cut. His slouch hat was festooned with magical symbols. Eyes and teeth shone hi an entirely natural way from his brown face.

"Wrong turn, chummer. For you, that is. For us, a fortunate turn that should save us significant effort. You have something we want. There'll be no trouble if you're bright about it."

Recognition was as shocking as the ambush. Sam had seen this mage before. "I know you. You're Harry Masamba."

The black man frowned. "No. Not bright at all." Sam recognized the reaction for the sentence it was. He spun and sprinted back toward the corner. From the way his response had caught them off guard, Sam knew the razorguys must have been expecting him to passively submit to their overwhelming superiority. A bullet chipped some concrete off the corner of the building, fragments pelting the back of Sam's jacket as he made the turn onto West Colfax. A pedestrian, caught by one of the bullets meant for Sam, tumbled over backward, spraying blood. A moment later it would have been Sam.

Sam raced down the sidewalk less carefully than before. He crashed into people and left a swirling mass of shouts behind him. Masamba's voice cut through the street noise. The mage had magically enhanced it, no doubt.

"Murderer!" the voice shouted. "The Anglo just shot him! Filthy white dog! Catch him, somebody! Call the police!"

Sam risked a glance back as he rounded the nearest corner. The slim razorguy was hustling toward him through the crowd, but the trench-coated pair was nowhere in sight. Masamba leaned against the alley mouth, laughing.

What in hell was going on?

Sam ducked into a doorway. His chances of outrunning the razorguy were so slim that he could have slid them between mortared bricks. And that was exactly what he'd have liked to do with himself. He needed time to think, to figure out what was going on. Time he wouldn't have if the razorguy caught him.

As if the thought had called the razorguy, the man took the corner from West Colfax in a controlled run. He halted, head turning in search of the man he sought. Boiling after him, a group of angry citizens also rounded the corner, splitting around his immobility like a wave around a rock. Sam froze, willing the samurai not to see, but he had never gotten the hang of an invisibility spell. The mob rushed past. The razorguy followed them slowly, as though sensing his prey hidden somewhere nearby. He advanced up the street, checking possible hiding places with brief but thorough efficiency. It was only a matter of time before he would reach the doorway where Sam stood, and then it would be over. Sam didn't know what sort of building sheltered him, but any refuge was better than none. He tried the door. Locked, and he didn't know any unlocking spells.

It wasn't the first time he'd been trapped and needed to become invisible. Distraction had worked almost as well then. Masamba had given him a way out. Sam concentrated, trying to calm his breathing enough to focus on the spell. Even if he completed it, the razor-guy might not fall for his illusion. Forcing that worry away, Sam fought his panting into a regular rhythm and concentrated on the effect he wanted to achieve.

Voices erupted down the street, a hue and cry for the fleeing shooter. It sounded as though the mob Masamba tried to incite had found the man they sought and were pursuing him. The razorguy looked up, considering the tumult. Then he ran toward the noise. He passed Sam's hiding place without even a glance into the shadows.

Sirens wailed as a police car flashed through the intersection, headed for the alley where the pedestrian had been shot. Someone had listened to Masamba's exhortation and called the police. Maybe the mage had done it himself. Either way Sam was in trouble. In a matter of minutes, the police would have his description. Or would they? Would Masamba want Sam taken up by the police? One way or the other, Sam definitely wasn't in favor of letting the local badges have him off.

Trying to get out of the Ute zone to reach Hart's safehouse in the Pueblo zone was too risky now. This close to the border there would be patrols on the adjacent streets. Not much shadow traffic would cross the border tonight. If Sam knew the city better, he might have been able to guess at which likely points the patrols would light and where it might still be safe to cross. Going over at a checkpoint was out of the question. If the police had his description, his false identities wouldn't be good enough. For tonight at least, he was stuck in the Ute zone.

He realized how poor was his knowledge of the city. And how poorly equipped he was to deal with the level of threat hot on his heels.

Well, there was one sort of help you could buy with minimal questions, and no worry about former loyalties. Mr. Smith and his frieads might not be good traveling company right now, but they'd easily stand a friend to some protection. It took Sam an hour to find a gun shop. The neon sign's "1" was out, making the name look to be "Weapon Wor d." The outer screen was down over the display window, but the place was open.

So he had changed. Here he was, contemplating buying lethal weaponry. Well, his world had changed, too. Sam didn't know why these people were after him, but it was obvious they were prepared to play rough. Alone in the city, he needed some way to even the odds. With so many foes, guns seemed the only answer.

A bum accosted Sam at the door of the shop, more proof that the Ute social system wasn't as egalitarian as its propaganda claimed. Here was another old, discarded remnant of the Ute tribe. He wore a battered black reservation hat sporting an equally battered turkey feather. The rest of his clothes were concealed under a dirty, multi-hued serape, and he stank of cheap booze and accumulated grime and filth. His wheezy voice was full of alcohol-fueled enthusiasm.

"Need a guide, Anglo? Can't do better than me. Honest Injun. Hey hey, get the joke. I know the best places. Ute Council. Pueblo, too. Know all the best hunting, best lodges. Girls, too. What ya hunting, Anglo? Elk, buffalo? Or ya into the paranormal? Hey hey, I'll help ya find it."

Sam removed the unwashed hand gripping his sleeve. "I'm not a hunter. Try somebody else?'

"Still need a guide. I been "

The bum's protest was cut off as the outer door closed behind Sam. He waited while the scanner noted his weapons and the proprietor gave him the onceover. A click signaled that the inner door was unlocked. Sam entered and headed for the counter. As he walked, he glanced around, noting that he was the only customer. Just as well. The fewer people to deal with, the fewer might recognize him. Maybe the slow business would make the owner more receptive to a deal.

As it turned out business had been slow all day, and the surly owner was in no mood for deals. Sam transferred more than he thought fair for the weapons, but didn't complain. Uncomfortably, he accepted the Clock 7-mm Hideaway and the Sandier submachine gun. The shopkeeper was handing over the two boxes of ammo when he suddenly went rigid and his eyes took on a glassy look. , Sam had felt the spell wash over him, and didn't need to turn around to know that trouble had found him. He hadn't heard the door, so the spell-caster wasn't inside yet. Hoping his body shielded the action, he opened the box of 9-mm ammo for the Sandier and grabbed a handful of bullets. He couldn't unsling the Sandier. without revealing that he had not succumbed to the paralyzing spell. If he could get a minute under cover, though…

A reflection in one of the display cases behind the counter showed him his hunter. The scarecrow elf had tracked him here. The door opened to admit him as if automatically controlled. Sam spun to face him, and was disheartened that the elf didn't appear the least astonished.

So much for the advantage of surprise. "Don't look so disappointed, Verner. After the trouble I had banishing the city spirit you set on me, I did not expect you to succumb to so small a magic.'' The elf held out his hand. "Give it to me."

"You seem to know me, chummer, but I don't know what you're talking about."

The elf unleashed a sigh that could have passed for a growl. "I have no time to waste."

Sam didn't need to sense the power gathering around the elf to know what was coming. He dove for the floor as a fireball sizzled through the air. It engulfed the shopkeeper, who stood motionless as the flames blackened his flesh and ignited his clothes, melting their synthetic fibers into his shriveling skin. Sam felt the heat of the sudden conflagration as he crawled behind the meager cover offered by the stock shelves. Flames hissed, but the dying man made no scream of pain. Sam hoped the poor man's nerves were as paralyzed as his body.

The fire set off the automatic alarm, and the sprinkler system spurted to fitful life.

"Bad move, chummer," Sam shouted. Feverishly he fumbled the magazine out of the Sandier. "Alarm's going off at the local police and fire stations. Place like this has direct connections. Too much fire hazard."

The elf's answer was another fireball. Sam's protection erupted in flames, then began to topple toward him. He rolled away, barely escaping being buried in the falling merchandise. In his haste, he lost the magazine. He cursed. The Sandier would be of no more use than a club, and he was exposed now. Scrambling to his feet, he ran for the door. He never made it. In a whirlwind of orange and yellow fire, he was picked up bodily and thrown through the disintegrating display window. Glassy teeth tore at him, shredding clothes and flesh with equal ease. In a shower of fragments, he landed on the cold sidewalk outside the shop. His shoulder was numb, his face a stinging mass of scrapes and cuts, and one eye was blinded by flowing blood. He had lost a boot and most of his pants, but he was still alive. His magic had saved him from the flames.

The bum was still there. Faintly, Sam could hear him clapping.

"Hey hey, good show."

Sam was not amused.

The scarecrow elf stepped through the window. His curly hair was matted from the water and his clothes dripped, but he seemed unaffected by his physical state. As soon as he saw Sam sprawled on the sidewalk, he smiled. "No more running, Verner. Time to die."

A shadow danced between Sam and the hunter. The bum.

"Can't do that," he objected. "The Anglo's mine. You want somebody, you go find your own. I've got magic too, elf. I'm the wind of the desert and I'll blow you away."

The bum waved his arms wildly. His serape undulated and flapped, but nothing else happened.

The elf sneered. "Wind? You're nothing but hot air, old man, while I am truly Rock. And if you do not take your pestiferous hide away, I will grind you to less than nothing. This matter does not concern you."

Before the elf could make good his promise, the roar of gunshots ripped the night. Staggering backward, he caught his heel against the sill of the display window, then fell heavily into the shop with a resounding crash.

The old bum stared down the street. Sam followed his gaze and saw the slim razorguy racing toward them.

Looming out of the dark behind that one came the twin bulks of the other two muscleguys.

More trouble. At least Sam knew now that the scarecrow and Masamba were not working together. He pushed himself up on one elbow but his head spun and slumped under the lash of pain that made his head spin. Looked like this round was going to the bad guys. Sam felt a shudder in the pavement caressing his cheek. Could the razorguys be carrying enough chrome to shake the earth where they ran? A delirious concept, but he was close to delirium. Concussion, he supposed. He rolled over onto his back.

It wasn't the razorguys. The shudder increased in frequency and a grating rumble rose. The scarecrow elf was standing in the window of Weapon World, arms outstretched and glowing with the intensity of the mana gathered around him. He was singing, too, but Sam didn't recognize the language.

The rumble grew to a roar and the street began to. heave, stopping the advance of the razorguys as they fought to keep their balance. Pacing stones from the surrounding buildings split off and plummeted to the street. A large piece struck one of the trench-coated muscleguys and squashed him like a bug. The others took cover, too unsettled by the massive magical manifestation to fire at the magician.

A wail from down the street drew Sam's attention to the figure of Masamba standing there. The Black mage unleashed a bolt of amber energy that shrieked from his hands and burst into coruscating sparks against an invisible barrier surrounding the scarecrow elf. Encouraged by the arrival of their own magical support, the remaining razorguys opened fire.

Sam snatched the old bum's serape and hauled him down. His reward was a kick and a complaint.

"Hey hey, what ya doing? I'm magic, you stupid Anglo. Ain't gonna hurt me." Around them the apparent earthquake increased in fury. Dust from the falling bricks and building stones rose like a fog. It whirled and eddied in a wind that came from nowhere, but stubbornly hugged the ground to obscure vision beyond a couple of meters. Unable to target, the razorguys ceased their steady fire. Only when the swirling dust opened a fire lane did the guns speak. Cyan flashes of magical energy lit the dust clouds as they screamed in response to Masamba's erratic barrage of amber bolts.

A brick crashed to earth near Sam's head. Pain forgotten, he scrambled to his feet. The old Indian leaped up at his side, screaming taunts at the stones and daring them to hit him. Sam's renewed attempt to restrain the old fool was aborted when the slim razorguy appeared wraithlike from the dust. He grabbed Sam's jacket and lifted him bodily. The force of the muscle-guy's rush slammed Sam against a wall. As his head rebounded, a gun muzzle poked into his throat, forcing his head back into another painful collision with the brick.

"Give it over and I'm gone. Keep it and you are." Jaw clenched by the pressure of the gun, Sam could barely answer. "I don't know what

…" "Don't jerk me, Verner."

Sam felt the hard, cold barrel of the razorguy's pistol slam against his temple. Before the pain ignited in its full fury, the muzzle was again under his chin. A hand slapped against his side. "Frag! It's gone!"

The pressure eased suddenly and Sam sank down, off balance. When the pain lessened, he struggled to his feet. The razorguy had vanished. Sam reached to his side where the street tough had struck him. There were slices in the leather of his jacket and his pants were ribbons over his hip, but he was slow to realize that he shouldn't be feeling the leather or fabric at all. His satchel was gone. He remembered his slashing passage through the Weapon World window. The strap must have been sliced away then.

The wail of a siren pierced the howling wind. As it grew louder, Sam looked around desperately. The pouch had contained his identities, and the credstick key to Hart's safe house. Somebody without a System Identification Number or any other means of identification wasn't going to get along too well with the police, even if they hadn't fallen for Masamba's earlier ploy. Word was that they didn't like shadows in the Ute zone. And Sam was too deep in that zone to get out in a hurry on foot.

Flashes of magical energy continued to sear cyan and amber through the dust storm.

A hand gripped Sam's arm. He twisted reflexively and struck out, relieved to feel the gripping hand release him. The target of his violence careened back into a wall and slid down in a disheveled heap.

The old man.

"Hey hey, Anglo. Some gratitude. Save ya from the rocks and ya slug me. Well, forget it. Find your own

The old man dragged himself to his feet and started away.

Sam tried to see what was going on. He didn't know what the two factions were after, or why they wanted it. From their earlier attention to him, it was something he had been carrying. Their sudden lack of interest in him indicated mat he no longer had what they were fighting over. That was fine by him. In his current condition, even the loser of the fight would probably walk all over him.

The sirens grew louder.

There seemed nothing to gain and a lot to lose. He wouldn't be able to recover his materials tonight, if ever. He staggered down the alley that had swallowed the Indian. Maybe the old sot really did know his way around the zone. The Indian might not volunteer any more aid after Sam's reaction to his helping hand, but by following him Sam could at least escape the immediate effects of the battle. After that, who knew?

Hohiro Sato wanted the stone the moment he laid eyes on it, though he'd never liked opal much till now. The oily iridescence was not his style, which tended more toward the clarity and depth of ruby or emerald.

But this stone… To see it was to want it. The opal had a magnetic attraction, almost as though it were somehow a part of him. Before, he had coveted it simply because Grandmother did. And the interest shown by the unknown faction told him it was a potentially powerful tool. But seeing it now, he wanted it for itself.

Its surface felt smooth, and was not cold as it appeared. It almost seemed alive under his hand.

He did not understand its potential, but he would. Someone would solve its riddles for him, and the power it represented would be his. How fortunate that one of Grandmother's agents had perished in the incident with who or whatever had attacked Verner in the gun shop. It had made it that much easier to dispose of the other and to eliminate any immediate claimants for the prize.

Sato contemplated the store, scratching absentmind-edly at an itch along his left forearm. The stone was magic, no doubt about that. He could almost feel its power. Very powerful magic, indeed, to draw the attention of the magically powerful party that had ambushed Verner. Masamba swore that the magician he had faced was at least a sixth rank initiate. The term didn't have any real meaning for Sato, beyond the fact that Masamba believed he had faced a wizard more powerful than himself. And that meant the third party was well supplied with magical resources. The level of magic involved in the Weapon World battle was well beyond that of which Verner was believed capable.

Sato wondered how much information Grandmother had on this third party. Had she known of the opposition before she sent him after the stone? Had he only been a stalking horse for her? If so, he would find a way to make her regret it.

Flakes of dried skin caught under his fingernails. He rubbed his thumb across his finger tips to brush the detritus to the floor.

He stared at the stone, ensnared by its beauty. It was more beautiful now that he owned it. What might not be his once he learned how to make best use of it?

Crawling higher on his arm, the itch became intolerable. Without thinking, he rolled back his sleeve to get at the irritation. When he finally tore his eyes from the stone to examine the source of the prickling sensation, he stared with horror.

The hard, lumpy thing that had been his arm was black and glistening with oozing liquid where it had emerged from the brittle flakes of epidermis. The streaks exposed by his scratching were already hardening to a dull, waxy shine. Two long, hook-taloned appendages replaced his fingers, and a smaller version lay slightly offset in a parody of a thumb.

His stomach churned and he retched. But he didn't scream at the horror that was emerging from his own body. At this new manifestation of the taint. No, he didn't scream. He reached for the telecom with his human arm and opened a circuit to his administrative assistant.

"Get me Soriyama," he ordered. "And send in Masamba and Akabo."

Dodger had never moved so swiftly through the Matrix, nor so easily. The pulse of datalines was brighter, the clarity of icons sharper, and the blackness between all the places and passages of man's creation was darker. The electron skies spread over a horizon as limitless as his imagination. No meat experience could match this transcendental adventure.

Distant messages, falsely urgent, impinged on his joy, but he banished them by turning his eyes to the wonders of cyberspace. This was the freedom and power he had sought for years, the oneness with the Matrix.

And she was with him.

Hart looked into the fixer's face and searched for any clue to deception. She was disappointed. Everything he had said was true, or so he believed. They had worked uncounted shadowruns over the years, and she trusted him as much as she could anyone in her business. She knew of no reason he would deceive her. Worse, she didn't know of any reason that he might be deluded.

"You're sure there are three devices?"

"Three. Four. Five. What does it matter? But, yes, a minimum of three. All multiple-warhead. All conveniently forgotten by a well-paid weapons officer when the Americans left German soil for good." For a moment the tiny old man seemed wistful, remembering old causes. "They were the terrorist's El Dorado for decades following reunification. A Barbarossa sleeping beneath the earth until the final reckoning. They were to be the great liberators, destroyers of the bonds that tied the Fatherland's spirit."

"You claim they're real, then you call them a pipe dream. Make up your mind, Caliban."

"Oh, they're real enough."

"But you can't tell me where they are." He shrugged. "Deeper pockets than yours have asked, but I'd give it to you, my dear. I'm an old man now. I don't have the strength for it. But I can't sell or give away what I don't have." He chuckled dryly. "At least not to you, my brilliant student. Barbarossa will not awaken in my lifetime. Cosimo took the secret of the lost weapons to his grave when Mossad cornered his Fenris faction in Casablanca. His papers were all destroyed in the firestorm. There have been plenty of fakes over the years, but IVe. seen through them all. None ever had the marks." Hart leaned forward. "What marks? The wolf?" "Of course, the wolf. But there were others." As he described them to her, she remembered what she had seen. Each detail fit. Her doubts had fled well before he finished.

So it was true. All of Caliban's old hints had been true, except for the one that he knew the secret hiding 'place of the weapons. Like most runners in the Eu-jiopean shadow world, she had grown up believing that if Caliban didn't know, no one did. But somewhere, somehow, someone had found Cosimo's legacy. The data Dodger's contact had retrieved from Grandmother's operation had included a map, but the accompanying text hadn't specified the map's purpose. Hart had almost missed the small symbol near Deggendorf. Dodger hadn't recognized the stylized wolf head, but she had. She hadn't wanted to believe the map could be real, but the details Caliban gave her left no room for doubt. Her worst fears were confirmed. Sam had to be told, of course. But beyond him, who?

Sam awoke with a shock. The old Hummer was jolting him as it bumped its way down an embankment. Ahead and to the left were distant mountains, screened occasionally by the buttes of a badlands. The landscape was all dusty greens, multi-toned grays, and dusky purples that were deepening in tone as the sun sank lower in the sky. He wasn't in Denver anymore. The ache in his head and the stiffness in his body told him that he hadn't dreamed his travails in the Ute zone. In flashes, he remembered parts of his escape from the battle. The alley and the ever-louder sirens. The fugitive glimpses of a hunched figure in a scrape. The muck and filth of a trash heap. Strong hands dragging him. An old surplus Hummer stacked with boxes and cans. Shadows, darkness, and light shot through with voices, gunshots, and chanting. Wind and cold, then wind and warmth.

Someone had rescued him and driven him away from danger.

Apparently that same someone had covered him with a cloth that had once been bright with color, but was now stained and filthy. Even though the wind of the Hummer's passage drew most of the scent away, enough remained to tell Sam who had rescued him.

He turned his head to look at the driver. Sure enough, it was the old Indian. The driver's reservation hat was tilted to shade his eyes from the setting sun, casting most of his face in shadow, but there was no mistaking him. Sam squirmed to get a look behind him. The rear of the vehicle was full of supplies. They were alone. ffi amp; mWtM amp;V 3553SS8 amp; ti amp; IbmpanWs notice. "Hey hey, back in this world for a while?" Sam's attempt to reply in the affirmative came out as a croak.

"Canteen on the floor by your feet." On the third attempt, Sam convinced his body that it could bend forward and retrieve the canteen. The water was tepid and tasted of minerals, but his parched throat didn't care. He splashed some into one hand and rubbed it on his face, wincing when he touched his scrapes. Nevertheless, he felt better than he expected, or deserved. Well enough to realize that last night's it was just one night, wasn't it? thoughts about the old man had been unduly unkind.

"I guess I owe you some thanks for pulling me out of that mess last night." "Yup."

"Well, thanks." That seemed the end of the conversation for a time. As the Hummer nearcd a broad river, Sam decided to try again. "Where are we?" "Under the sky."

"Oh." He had been hoping for something a little more specific. Maybe the old man didn't trust him. Introductions might break the ice. "I'm not from around here. Mostly, I live in Seattle. Out there, they call me Twist." "Yup."

That was it? Maybe the old man thought Sam already knew who he was. "You haven't even told me your name." "That's right."

The hummer hit the edge of the river. Muddy drops churned up by the tires splashed against the windscreen. Sam was getting annoyed. "Well, what should I call you? 'Old man' doesn't seem very polite." The old man shrugged. "Description's always po 176

Robert N. Charrette lite, Anglo. If you gotta problem with it, call me Dan-cey."

"Dancey? As in Dizzy Dancey?" "That's me." The Indian threw both hands into the air and bounced in his seat, chanting a few nonsense syllables. His motion sent the Hummer out of control. It swerved under the pressure of the water, then dipped as it struck a pothole. Water splashed up over the sill, wetting Sam's leg with its cold mountain freshness. As Sam recoiled, Dancey returned his hands to the wheel and took control of the Hummer.

In the shadows of Denver Sam had heard about Dizzy Dancey, and none of it had been comforting. The old man had once been a hot shadowrunner who had hosed up badly and been caught by the Navajo Tribal Police. Whatever they were supposed to have done to him had left him slightly out of his head ever since.

The Hummer jounced out of the river and began to crawl up the long sloping embankment. It topped the rise, scattering a pair of small horned animals that ran like jackrabbits. The Hummer then bounced a dozen meters across the grassy prairie and onto me remnants of a road. Dancey started to hum and seemed happier, as though the river had been a boundary beyond which he need not worry. The Hummer picked up speed.

"How'd we get here?" Sam asked. "And where's 'here' anyway?"

"Upcountry, Anglo. Safest place when the city gets hot. Things'11 cool in a while, then you can go back, if you're crazy enough.''

"But I've got important things to do in the city. I've got no time to waste." "Think staying alive is wasting time?" "No."

"Good," Dancey pronounced with a confirming nod. "Then shut up. Driving was easier when you were asleep."

Sam followed his advice, more out of frustration and annoyance than anything else. He tried watching the scenery for a time, but his mind kept clouding. His nagging concerns wouldn't let him go. He fidgeted, worried about Janice.

"Hey hey, Anglo. What's so important about being iii the city, anyway? Filthy place, not good for somebody like you."

"I'm looking for someone to help my sister." Dancey made an exaggerated show of looking in the back of the Hummer, then across the prairie. "Don't see no sister."

"She's not around here. She can't travel just now."

"Hey hey, Anglo. Sounds bad. Ya got my sympathy.

Family is real important, but you understand that.

Don't need no old man to tell ya that. What kind of doctor ya looking for?"

Sam hesitated. What did it really matter? Sam hadn't gotten anywhere with his investigation. Maybe it was because he had been so closemouthed about why he was seeking Howling Coyote. Maybe if he had let it be known that it wasn't political, he might have gotten help. If Dancey spread the word in Denver, it might even help. That is, if anyone took the old man seriously. "Not a doctor. A shaman. She's got

… magical problems."

Dancey wheezed a laugh. "So you come looking for the tribal medicine men. Lotsa luck, Anglo."

"Not just any medicine man. I'm looking for Howling Coyote."

"Ain't gonna find him in the city." The old man laughed. "Ain't gonna find him at all." "What do you mean?"

The old man pointed at the sky. "Good clouds today, Anglo. A man can see a lot in clouds. Things that aren't there and things that are. Clouds change a lot. The stars, now. The stars are different. They're always spinning, racing across the sky even when ya can't see them. They don't change much. At least not so a man can see. 'Cept for the falling stars. Flare, burn, and fall. Not much of a legacy. Ever see a star before it fell, Anglo?"

What did stars have to do with anything? Sam gave up. He turned his head and stared at the sunset.

It wasn't much longer before Dancey pulled the Hummer off the track and bounced them to a stop in a small canyon. He rustled around in the back of the Hummer for a while, emerging first with a bedroll that he tossed to Sam without a word, then later with some cooking gear and a field pack. The old man made a fire and cooked supper in silence. They ate, and then, in silence, they sat watching the glowing embers.

A scuffing in the darkness startled Sam, but Dancey didn't appear to notice. The old man seemed used to the prairie, so Sam dismissed the sound as not dangerous. He looked up at die stars playing hide-and-seek among drifting clouds. The air was chill, cooling quickly, so he wrapped the bedroll around his shoulders. The fire wanned his front.

He heard the furtive noise again and caught the gleam of eyes just beyond the firelight. The old man tossed a supper scrap out. After a moment, a coyote padded over to gobble it down. Dancey tossed another, this time closer to the fire so that the animal had to come well within the firelight to get it. The animal moved forward and took the new offering. Scrap by scrap, Dancey lured it closer until it was taking food from his hand.

A lonesome yipping echoed in from the surrounding buttes. Their after-dinner guest sat on his haunches and raised his muzzle to howl back. The sound conveyed an odd mixture of companionship and isolation. Sam closed his eyes to concentrate on listening to the distant calls. Their coyote howled again, this time in concert with another close by. Sam opened his eyes, hoping to spot the newcomer.

He had not expected what he saw. Dancey had joined the chorus. His head, tilted at the sky, was not that of the old man. A coyote's pointed snout poked from beneath the tilted brim of the battered reservation hat. Sam could almost smell magic in the air. Trickster!

"You!" Sam shouted, scrambling to his feet and frightening away the animal. "You're Howling Coyote!"

The vision of the coyote head vanished and the old man looked at him with dark, but human, eyes. "Been called a lot of things. That, too." "I need your help."

The old man turned his eyes to the ground. His finger traced patterns in the dirt. " 'Course, I might just be another ragged Coyote shaman limping along in the trail of the Trickster."

Sam shook his head. He had felt an aura of power, or something, enwrapping the man as he sang with the animals. This was no ordinary shaman. "No. Not just any shaman."

The old man met his gaze again. "Coyote's not a lucky fella. Gets killed a lot. Howling Coyote died, you know.''

"So I heard. All shamans die. A shaman has to die to touch the power. Dog told me."

The old man's expression became suspicious. "Dog told ya? Hey hey, they talk to dogs where ya come from, Anglo?"

"They talk to dogs everywhere. It's when the dogs talk back that you get problems."

The Indian grunted. "So ya say you're a shaman. Well, show me something. Impress me."

Sam shook his head. "That's not what the magic's for."

"No? Why not? What good's anything if ya can't use it?"

Sam was becoming angry at the man's flippant attitude and mocking tone. "I didn't say I can't use it." "Hot, hot. Leave it for the sun. Hey hey. Pride's trouble, Anglo. Had plenty enough trouble in my time."

"I don't want to cause trouble. I want to stop it. My sister, she

…"

"She's trouble." The old man's voice held both sympathy and warning.

"Well, yes. But she doesn't want to be, and that's what will save her." Or so he believed. "I'm sure of it."

"Sure, are ya? Ain't no surety, Anglo. Ya talk about trouble and magical problems. Ya don't say much. Ya gotta talk plain, Anglo. I'm just a stupid old man."

Sam didn't believe that, but he played along. He told the old man about Janice. He talked about the ritual and its failure, and about his fears that Janice would succumb to the wendigo curse, and his hopes for her salvation. He ended his tale with an appeal. "You are Howling Coyote. You led the Great Ghost Dance, the most powerful transforming magic the world has ever seen. You're the only one who knows enough about shamanic magic to make the ritual work. You've got to help me."

The old man stood and turned his back on Sam. "Don't got to do nothing. Coyote's freedom, ya know. Does what he wants. You're on a fool's quest." "IVe got to help my sister." "Very noble, Dog." He spat. "Blind optimism." "No, it isn't," Sam protested. "I felt her spirit and I felt the magic. She can be saved, but I can't do it myself. I need you to help me help Janice," "Help yourself." "Are you refusing to help?" "I said what I said."

"Okay, okay," Sam said, exasperated. "If you won't help, then at least teach me what I need to know.

YouVe taught others to use magic. Teach me. Teach me how to save Janice." The old man turned around. "Why not?"

"Coyote knows all, sees all," the shaman said "Tells little."

"Like you," Sam observed.

"Hey hey, pup. Sing a sour song and you jinx the magic. Sky ain't gonna change color to suit you. A shaman is what he is because he is what he is. Ya gotta know to do, and do to know. Got that?"

"Sure," Sam replied dubiously. Clear as mud. The last two days had been full of exercises in frustration. The old man had led him deeper into the wilderness, hauling packs when they left the Hummer behind. Most of the time, Sam's questions and comments fell on deaf ears. The old man only spoke when he wished, and then half the time he spouted nonsense commentaries on life or nature. The other half was split between totally incomprehensible monologues in a language Sam guessed was his native Ute dialect and almost equally incomprehensible orders. So far Sam had listened to how the wind made pifion trees sigh, observed ants scurry about their business, smelled and compared the scents of yucca leaves and flowers, and watched buzzards wheel in the canyon updrafts. Time and again, he had gathered a variety of plant materials and animal remains, only to have the shaman leave them behind the next time they stopped. He felt more like he, or his patience, was being tested rather than taught.

They had climbed a long series of switchbacks up a bluff and were now making their way across a gradually sloping mesa top. On the way up, Howling Coyote had taken a detour and led Sam out on a precarious spur of rock. The stretch of plain that ran to distant mountains left Sam in awe. The prairie seemed to go on for a hundred kilometers. The shaman had tugged Sam around to face south and pointed to a series of peaks in that direction.

"See. It ain't me," Howling Coyote had said. "He's still sleeping."

Sam hadn't understood what the old man meant, and said so.

"The Ute, pup. He's still sleeping," was all the shaman would say on the subject.

They came to a place where a wide circular depression was marked by stone walls. In sharp contrast to the dusty soil and sparse vegetation elsewhere, the grass here was bright and green within the hole. Traces of ditches, some with stones, could be seen through the stunted trees. "Thirsty, pup?"

"Yes," Sam replied honestly. His lips were dry, and even his lungs felt seared by the dry air.

The shaman sat on the wall and dangled his feet over the edge into the depression. There was perhaps two centimeters clearance between the soles of his feet and the earth. "Ah, nice and cool,", he said. "Have a drink if you're thirsty.''

Sam looked at the grassy depression toward which the old man gestured. He could see no sign of water. Just grass. The shaman swung his feet back up, with a heave rising to his feet and padding off down a path between the fragrant pinon. Sam was shocked to see Howling Coyote leave damp footprints. He hurried after.

' 'What did you do back there?'' "Hey hey, pup. I didn't do nothing. The old ones iuilt all around here. 'Anasazi"s the name you Anglos stuck on them. They built that lake for irrigation before Whites ever walked the land hereabouts."

"But your footprints," Sam protested. "You left wet footprints as though your feet had been in water. There wasn't any water in that lake bed. How did you do that?"

The shaman laughed. "I didn't do nothing. Just experienced the lake and the wisdom of the old ones. What did you experience?"

Nothing, Sam thought. Aloud he said, "I don't know."

"Some shaman. Gotta see the past if you're gonna face the future."

Without any further explanation, Howling Coyote led Sam through the tangled, dark trees. Near sunset they came out at the rim of a forested canyon. The rock face fell away beneath them for a dozen meters of sheer drop. The far rim looked as Sam imagined the side on which he stood must appear. Trees and brush grew on all the surfaces that offered the least foothold, only succumbing when the rocks were nearly vertical. In niches where the sandstone of the cliff had caved away, someone the old ones? had built clusters of structures. After silently contemplating the vista for a few minutes, Howling Coyote led Sam back from the edge to a grove of pinon trees that were taller "and broader than their immediate neighbors. It took Sam a moment to realize that each of the larger trees stood within a slightly raised area.

Before he could ask a question the shaman took his arm and dragged him deeper into the grove, where a few piles of stone marked the outlines of a building made of many small rooms. No wall was higher than a meter. There was a wide clearing to one side, in the middle of which yawned a dark, rectangular hole. Two logs and the first rung of the ladder they supported poked out of the hole into the failing sunlight. "A kiva. Be warmer to spend the night in there," the sha 184

Robert N. Charrette man said, and disappeared down the ladder. Though Sam felt the air already turning chill, he didn't find the thought of climbing down into darkness inviting. While he stood indecisive, a chant and faint wisps of smoke began to come from the hole.

He rises, to the sky. He rises, seeking light. He rises, toward the power. To the sky, he rises.

Dusk lay on the mesa; a cool breeze arose, rustling through the pinon and caressing the twisted mesquite logs. An owl called, distant and plaintive, and the faint chitter of a hunting bat skittered across Sam's ears. Other hunters would be about. Sam looked at the hole. Where the kiva had seemed to offer only darkness and mystery, it now promised light and warmth and the only companionship on the mesa.

Howling Coyote might be a little odd, but the human companionship he offered was something Sam couldn't long go without. The old shaman was also Sam's only hope for Janice, and Sam was not about to abandon that hope after chasing it so long. For all of Howling Coyote's eccentricity, Sam felt somehow that the shaman was trying to help him. If only he could figure out what the old man was driving at. One thing was certain: Sam wouldn't get anywhere by freezing himself to death alone in the night.

He walked to the ladder rising from the kiva and, coughing a little from the smoke, descended into the earth.

Pain.

Wind howls like a hungry wolf. Fire burns, destroying implacably. Faces are filled with pain, and rage, and fear, and death.

Pain.

His mother, crying and protective. His father, defiant and impotent. Oliver, his brother, torn away by the raging waves of the mob, to surface in impossibly distant places. And Janice…

Pain.

Running. Hiding. The dark shadow against the dark night comes hunting, circling ever closer, until an eerie, keening howl pierces the darkness and sends the shadow away. The sound stays in his head, piercing his peace and bringing…

Pain.

"Hey hey, pup. Is it Dog?"

Sam started awake, dream fragments fleeing from him to be swallowed in swirling mists. Even though he was unsure of what they were, he was more than happy to see them go.

Howling Coyote shook his shoulder. "You were chasing something. Talking to Dog?"

Sam shook his still muddled head. He didn't want to remember, but he knew he hadn't been visiting that pleasant green place where Dog dwelled. "Just a dream. Nothing important.",

"Hey hey, pup. You're dumb even for an Anglo. Dreams are important. They touch on the otherworld, the places where the totems live."

"Dreams are fragments of leftover data. They're just the brain recorrelating information, subconscious data processing."

The old man looked at Sam out the corner of his eye. "Ya sure, Anglo?"

"It's scientifically proven."

"Ya really are dumb. This is a magic world now. Science don't know everything."

Sam was annoyed. "Nor does magic."

"Nor do you," Howling Coyote said in near perfect imitation of Sam's exasperated tone. The old man swung a foot up onto the ladder. "Eat. Sleep. Think. Whatever. Just don't let the fire go out. Got something I gotta do. Ya stay put now, pup."

The shaman climbed the ladder, momentarily blocking the sunlight and plunging the kiva into deeper gloom. In a surge of momentary panic Sam nearly swarmed up the ladder after the shaman, but he forced the urge away. He spent two days regretting his decision to stay.

Each morning Howling Coyote told him to sit in the holy place of the kiva and dream. It was not welcome advice, for Sam didn't like the dreams he was having. But he did as the old man bid, sensing that his chance of learning anything from Howling Coyote, and therefore Janice's salvation, depended on his obedience. Wasn't the student always expected to be obedient to the master? It had been that way in his ancestral Europe and it was a way of life in the Orient. Why would the Native Americans be different? So Sam sat in the darkness, pacing the confining periphery of the kiva when the forced inactivity became too much. He spent a lot of time trying to guess the time of day from the angle of sunlight creeping in past the fiber mat grill Howling Coyote had placed over the opening. The boredom was so intense that he slept a lot. And when he slept, he dreamed. On the third day, Sam awoke to find Howling Coyote gone. Without the shaman to prohibit him from leaving, he decided he had grown thoroughly sick of the dark kiva. Climbing the ladder into the harsh light of mid-afternoon, Sam blinked and shook his head in wonder. He had thought it was only morning, and blamed the timeless dark of the kiva for the glitch to his biorhythms. Then again, had it been only three days? He hoped so; time was passing too quickly as it was. Hearing the faint strains of the shaman's voice chanting, Sam followed the sound to the edge of the cliff. The song came from somewhere below. Sam spent some time looking around, until he finally found what resembled a path downward. He had to scramble in a couple of places, but he made his way to a narrow level area and followed it along the edge of the sandstone bluff. l\irning the comer of an outcrop, he came suddenly upon a structure more elaborate than those he had seen in the opposite wall of the canyon. Building after ruined building was crammed into the gash in the cliff. In one place a tower reached up almost four stories, molding itself to the curving overhang of the cleft. Hard-packed earthen surfaces with square holes in their centers marked kivas. Sam skirted the exposed circular wall of one in order to follow the chanting.

He left the sunlight behind as he edged through gaps in building walls to move deeper into the ruin. His progress slowed as the spaces became more restricted. Often, he had to turn on his side to crawl through openings that weren't wide enough for his shoulders to pass. Deep within the ruin, he found Howling Coyote daubing ochre paint onto the sandstone rock face that formed the back of the cleft. Sam said nothing and watched.

In deft strokes, the shaman was sketching a stick man bent over a tube or rod that touched his head. Lines feathers, Sam presumed arched from the stick man's head. The central figure completed, the shaman spun spirals above and below the stick man. To the right and left he placed rows of dots, then stepped back to observe his work. Sam gave in to his curiosity and started to ask the old man what he was doing, but was shushed to silence before he said a word.

Howling Coyote backed away from the painting, almost into the sunlight, and sat down. He drew a wooden flute from his belt and began to play a haunting melody composed mostly of single, long notes in terspersed with fluttering clusters of rising and falling tones. Sam walked over and seated himself at Howling Coyote's side. The music gradually became softer and finally trailed off into silence. Lulled by its beauty, Sam was startled when Howling Coyote spoke.

"He's coming."

"Who?"

"Him." The shaman pointed at his painting.

A tall, gangly being emerged from the rock, his form thickening from rosy translucency to opacity. His slanted eyes of deep, deep black were pools of oblivion against the night dark of his skin. His ears were pointed. Despite his fierce expression and the red glow that surrounded him, Sam perceived that the newcomer was no devil, just an elf. A strangely powerful and skinny one, perhaps, but an elf all the same.

"That's the guy who tried to kill me in Denver!" Sam reached for his gun, but the Indian's hand snaked out and clamped onto his wrist. Sam relaxed, and the shaman released him. It was time to trust his teacher.

The shaman stood, cloaked in an aura of power. "Hoka-hey, Wata-urdli. You've come a long way on your road of stone to die."

"Peace, Howling Coyote." The elf raised empty hands and presented the palms. "This is not a good day to die. I wish you no harm."

"Come in peace, stay in peace." The profound majesty of the Indian shaman shattered as the sprawl-runner crawled out. "Otherwise leave in pieces."

If the elf noticed a change, he gave no sign. "Save your hostility for what you harbor, old man."

The Indian squatted and dug around in his pouch. Finally he pulled out a pouch and a chipped clay pipe. He held them out to the elf. "Wanna smoke, Urdli?"

A brief look of disgust crossed the elf's face, but when he spoke his voice was even and his tone polite. "I accept your offer, and as long as I stand in this place, bind myself by its terms. You will forgive me if I do not actually perform the ritual. You have my word as bond."

"I hear you. The puppy hears you. The spirits hear you. They will rise and devour you if you lie."

"As I said, I bind myself to the peace of this place.''

Howling Coyote grunted.

Sam was bewildered by the exchange, but the elf and the shaman seemed satisfied with each other. "What's going-"

"Shut up, Anglo." Howling Coyote glared at the elf. "Urdli came to talk, it seems. Got any objections to talk? No? Didn't think so, since ya like to do so much of it yourself. The elf wants to talk, let him. I'll listen."

The elf nodded. "I did come to talk. Let me tell you a tale." Without waiting for permission, the elf started. "Long ago, this world knew magic. It was a better time then; all lived in accordance with their natures. The world was not perfect, but it was happier. In time changes came, and the magic grew weak. Many wonderful things perished. Some evil things as well, but evil always seems less vulnerable to the lack of magic. For a long time there was no mana, but the time of lack was only an interval. The mana returned and brought us to the Sixth World."

"Aztec number," Howling Coyote interrupted. "Hopi got a different count. Aleut, too."

The elf shrugged. "The number is unimportant, but the concept should be understood. Mana has waxed and waned. There was a time when the mana was low, too low for the true nature of the world to manifest. And in those days a tradition was handed down, a sacred trust. Dedicated individuals swore to guard a place. You would not know of this place, but I know it as Imiri ti-Versakhan, the Citadel of Remembrance. It was a place meant to make the low time safer, and it was a bastion against the return of evil should the mana return. Terrible things were kept there, locked away so they could do no harm."

Sam felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. He was beginning to guess what the elf was leading up to. Apparently oblivious to Sam's sudden pallor, Urdli continued.

"Recently, the ancient citadel was assaulted and despoiled. Through the actions of the intruders, something escaped bondage, something terrible." "Spider." Howling Coyote turned his head and spat. "You know." Urdli was silent a moment. No one else spoke either. "How?"

The shaman smiled his sly smile. "Got a few friends of my own where the totems hang out."

The elf's expression grew more grave. "If you know, you must understand the danger. Knowing that, you must understand the crime of the one you call a puppy."

"Hey hey, only got your word for it. Not everybody tells the same tales of Spider. Hopi say she saved the people. That don't sound too terrible to me. 'Cepting, of course, that it was the Hopi she saved. Spider's a canny old bitch, knows a lot."

The shaman's remarks seemed to anger Urdli. "The human mind cannot comprehend the alienness of Spider. To deal with Spider is, as the English say, to deal with the devil."

It was the shaman's turn to shrug. "Don't know about that. But ya do have to walk the web carefully if ya want to come home again. Now, some of them other bugs are real troublemakers. Sooner eat ya than look at ya."

"Spider has always been more subtle," Urdli agreed. "A builder of artifices and a lurker in dark places, she is. Fortunately, since the Awakening, Spider has not been whole. A portion of her power, stolen in the old time, was locked away from her access.

Until recently." Urdli looked directly at Sam. "That has changed."

"I didn't know," Sam protested.

Urdli laughed bitterly. ' 'Ignorance is such a favorite excuse of humans. The gossamer threads of Spider's webs can tug in such a way that her commands may seem to be her puppet's own innocent thoughts. Many do her work without knowing it. Can you not see that Verner may be one of those?"

"Not this pup," the old shaman said. "Don't smell no Spider on him. He didn't know about your Imiri-place when he took the stone. He did it to help his sister. Typical Dog trick, noble but stupid. Can't be too bad a problem, the sky ain't changed."

Sam wasn't sure he liked the way the shaman was defending him, but its effect on Urdli was visible. The elf seemed slightly less sure of himself.

"Innocent or not, he has strengthened Spider and her minions," Urdli insisted. "They have the stone now. The harm may not be irreparable if it is redressed at once. I have come to demand that he join the struggle to undo what he has done."

"You tried to kill me," Sam pointed out,

The elf looked at Sam as though he were a stupid child.

"Why should I help you?" Sam asked. "You'll probably try to kill me again as soon as you get what you want."

"You have a responsibility. Your action has strengthened Spider and emboldened her. She stirs now, and the world lies in danger. She is drawing on her web and pulling to herself the instruments of holocaust."

"Hey hey, elf, cut the flowery stuff. Like I keep telling the pup, I'm a stupid old man. Ya talking about what I think you're talking about?"

Urdli spoke slowly and clearly. "Spider is engaged in operations to acquire a forbidden arsenal of nuclear weapons.''

Sam was confused. What was a spirit going to do with bombs? "That doesn't make sense. Totems don't have any physical presence. Why would Spider need an arsenal?"

"Spider is an old totem with very strong ties to the earth. She is different from the totem to which you profess allegiance. She manifests through avatars, and those unfortunate beings have all-too-human flaws and all too many enemies. Spider has enemies as well, and radiation is as intangible as a spirit. Might it not therefore affect a spirit?"

"You don't sound like you're sure it can." "Even if it cannot, there will be effects beyond the physical if Spider employs the weapons with that end in mind. Rival spirits work through people as well, and they could not work on this earth if they had no agents. I think that you will find that Spider has no love for Dog, or for Coyote. The Spider. and nuclear weapons combination has a great potential for disaster."

"You're not even sure this is happening," Sam accused, on a hunch. The elf stared at him venomously, but Urdli's silence spoke to Sam of the truth of his accusation. Even so, just the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of someone who might use them was frightening. It was a fear that had dominated previous generations, and although it had subsided since the build-down, it had never entirely gone away. Sam wondered if man had succeeded in breeding it into his bloodline. If the threat were real, the elf wouldn't be the only one seeking to cancel it. "I don't think I trust you, Urdli."

"Your trust is not desired. Your cooperation, however, is required. You have a responsibility."

Sam looked away from the intensity of the elf's stare. When he had been a member of the Renraku corporate , he had understood the burden of responsibility as the Japanese did. They called it girt, and made of it a load they could never put down. Giri could never be completely discharged, but that did not stop one from continually attempting to do so. Sam understood responsibility well enough to feel the weight of it on his shoulders. He didn't like the idea of some strange elf dictating to him the nature of his responsibilities and the way to discharge them. So what, if he had unwittingly released some part of a captive totem? That didn't make him responsible for the plans or actions of the totem's avatars.

Did it?

Sam couldn't be responsible for the whole world. So why did he feel like he ought to do something about it? He turned to Howling Coyote.

"What should I do?"

"I'm Coyote. You're Dog. Why ask me?"

Sam tried to catch the shaman's eyes and divine his true feelings, but the old man refused to look at him. Was this another test, the shaman's answer a riddle to be solved? If so, the proper response seemed easy. Dog was loyalty, and who should he be more loyal to than his family? Sam turned back to Urdli.

"I say I have some responsibility to recover your guardian stone. You were willing to kill me to get it before and didn't even tell me what you wanted. If you had explained the situation, I might have given the stone to you. It hadn't proved effective for my needs. Your actions don't leave me thinking much of you." The elf seemed unconcerned about Sam's opinion of him. ' 'I have to admit to taking it, but I did it for what I consider an important reason. I was only interested in the power the stone would let me focus. Not that it helped in the end. Still, if I'd known what it was, I suppose I would never have taken it in the first place. I'd have found another focus. How was I supposed to know the place was some kind of citadel? It looked like an old cave."

Howling Coyote snickered quietly, but Sam didn't let the sound disturb him. "If what you say about Spider's plans is true, I'd like to help. But right now, I've got a pressing family problem. You said you're not even sure what the stone will do to help your enemy. Even if you knew it was an immediate threat, you don't know where it is. It sounds like you've got a bit of leeway. Even if it is a danger, you still need to find it. That's something you can do without me because I haven't got the faintest idea of how to track it.

"I haven't got the luxury of time. I've only finished my own hunt recently, and still haven't got what I want." Sifting sand from one hand to the other, the old man ignored Sam's meaningful glance. "Time's pressing on me. I'm trying to avert a terrible result that is certain to come, but you're just worried about possibilities. I'm not worried about something that might affect the whole world, but something that will destroy a life the life of someone dear to me. Right now I Ve got my priorities lined up, I've put off helping my sister for too long, and I'm going to do what I can for her before I even think of anything else. When she is saved, we can talk again.''

Urdli glared at him, then shifted his burning stare to Howling Coyote. The old man dumped the sand from his hands, dusted them off, and shrugged. He mumbled as he got to his feet and walked away.

"Foolishness."

Sam couldn't tell if the old man was referring to him or to the elf.

The lights of Seattle were seductive. Across Puget Sound the myriad denizens of the metroplex were going about their nightly business. Salary men and cor-porates were on their way home, or perhaps still clacking keyboards and tapping in orders in an effort to impress their bosses and get a leg up over their fellows. The street haunts were crawling out to scene, shift for a buzz, or wrangle for turf. The hopeful relaxed, another day successfully completed, and the hopeless sagged with another one survived and only the night to face. On the edges and in the shadows, the runners were doing their biz. She could not see any of them, but the lights of the plex shone on all those scurrying little people. And the lights sang of their doings, burning the song into the air and promising such a rich feast of life. Oh yes, the lights were seductive.

Janice looked at them and felt her stomach growl. The hunger grew with each day. Had it been an ordinary hunger, the pangs would have stopped days ago. When a human starves to death, hunger dies within his empty belly long before his body surrenders to death. Meat she had had, but not real nourishment. The steady diet of small furred things Ghost was providing kept her alive, but failed to sate the hunger.

How many more nights until she could stand it no longer?

She was tired, worn from her struggle. She lay back, feeling as though she might sleep. She had fought off the urge all day, through her normal sleeping time, just to avoid the dreams. She had lain restless within the darkness of the basement of the house where she and Ghost hid, waiting for her brother to come up with a solution. A slim hope, at best. And didn't she know better than to hope? There had been no word from him for days and he was probably dead. So why did she wait?

She was tired, but sleep brought the nightmares. She didn't want to sleep, but somehow she fell into its embrace.

In sleep, they waited for her. They waited, the facesj. all as one and one as all. She slipped deeper into the dark realms, past the places of rest. She hung at the doors of the precincts of restoration and looked through the locked panels wistfully. Satiating the hunger was the only restorative for her now. A small voice whispered of another way, but she didn't believe what it said. The voice belonged to a man, and all men were liars. They proved their perfidy when they pounced.

She laughed with joy when his arms went around her. He held her close, slipping easily into the compass of her great, brawny arms. For all his elven slim-ness, her Hugh was strong. He reminded her of Dan Shiroi, but that was impossible, because she hadn't met Dan yet. Hugh laughed at her confusion. But his eyes didn't laugh. How could they? Those golden orbs did not belong to Hugh, but to the evil one who had brought the change.

She tore herself from the grasp of the golden-eyed

Hugh and ran, but she could not escape the eyes. They bore down upon her and pinned her to a table. Cold steel pressed against her naked back and straps bound her wrists, ankles, waist, and brow to the hard metal.

Empty white coats drifted around her in a dance of scientific enquiry. The eyes had their own questions.

" She had questions too. Why? Why? And why?

The terrible gold eyes stared through her as though she didn't exist. The man who owned them didn't an 198

Robert N. Charrette swer her questions. He ignored her pleas and asked the questions that were his and not his. She tried to answer, but he was always disappointed in her. Why should he be any different from other men? She wanted to answer him, he deserved her answers. He was authority, and her life was his to redeem or cast away. She knew that was true because he told her so.

She remembered him leaning close to her ear and whispering his name. She knew this was a real memory, just as she knew what had seemed a nightmare at the time was real. He was so very real, even if his eyes were not. His identity had made her tremble, for it meant the end of the world as she had come to know it. He had spoken his name and laughed, telling her that the drugs would take it away and leave her only with the memory of having known it once. She had screamed at him for mercy until she cried, but he had seemed to think her reaction all the finer a jest. She had been human then. She hadn't known real pain. He had taught her. Or rather, the white coats had. "Not the solution," they said, in a ghostly chorus of disembodied voices, when they had finished. "She has told all and tells nothing."

"Unacceptable," Gold Eyes said in her brother's voice.

"She cannot be restored," the coat chorus pronounced.

"Unacceptable." Always the same judgment.

The biggest of the white coats moved to Gold Eyes' side. "An experiment that will at once provide data and dispose of the problem. Data. The BioDynamics formula. Data. Metamorphosis. Data. Paradynamic perturbations in the Kano actualization curve. Data. Data for all." Gold Eyes looked at her, sliding along her legs, past her crotch and over her breasts. When' she stared into those eyes, he spoke. "Proceed." Unacceptable!

Needles! Too many needles! But Hugh was there to comfort her, and the awful table was gone. They lay on the scratchy, vermin-infested bed they had called home on Yomi. In thunder and lightning they made love, and he filled and drained her simultaneously. She loved him and pledged him her life again, as she had on Yomi. He caressed her breast and fur sprouted after the passage of his hand; he smoothed her hair and her sandy blond tresses thickened and turned a frigid white. His kiss lingered on her lips. His tongue flickered into her mouth, only to draw away and pull her canines into fangs.

She cried with the pain and he laughed. They all laughed until the sound became a wail of mourning.

Janice Verner was dead. Betrayed and murdered. Her dreams were ashes.

Her mother's eyes were filled with tears and her father's eyes glistened. He was too much a man to shed tears. She ran toward them, wanting to bury herself in their arms. She passed through their outstretched arms like a ghost. But it was they who were ghosts, not she. She could not yet join them.

Why should she want to? They had not been there for her when Gold Eyes had given her to the white coats, or Ken had spurned her, or the boat had carried her to Yomi. They had not been there for her since that awful night when they had left her with Sam. Sam, the strong older brother who had carried her away and taken her to the embrace of dear old Renraku. Sam, the protector who had left her with Gold Eyes. Sam, the defender who had let them ship her to Yomi. Sam, the slayer of the only true lover she had known.

Her stomach growled with hunger. Righteous hunger. She was awake.

Dodger slammed his fist into the telecom's keyboard. The soft flesh of his hand protested the treatment, promising to bruise for days as a reminder of its limitations. What did it matter? It was only meat. Confining, restrictive meat.

How could they do this? How could they dare?

It was bad enough that they had the temerity to rip him from the Matrix. But to steal his cyberdeck! Even the telecom was disconnected from thq Matrix and locked into a house-only circuit. He was not a child anymore. This time the old punishment wouldn't stop him.

Though no longer surrounded by the glories of cy-berspace, he knew where he was. He knew it too well. How he had gotten here was a mystery, but it was a mystery of the flesh and that wasn't important.

He had to get back into the Matrix.

How long had he been gone? Her time was not meat time. Did she miss him? Or was he a fading memory, like last year's news, or last century's? Away from the Matrix, he was not part of her existence. Was it already too late?

They might try to lock him out of the Matrix and into this finely furnished cell, but he was the Dodger. He could never be confined.

He didn't bother to check the lock before prying open the control plate. Having lived in comfort too long, they had forgotten what could be done with ordinary things. In less than ten seconds he had scrambled the security circuits enough to open the lock. He was reasonably sure that he hadn't set off an alarm, either.

He felt light-headed. The exhilaration, he supposed. The hall floor was cold against his bare feet, and the speed of his motion made a cool breeze across his naked flesh. Ills of the flesh. Unimportant. As unimportant as his nakedness.

Naked. How appropriate. Soon it would be more so. As soon as he reached his goal. He knew the mansion well.

He padded down the back stairs. Two full flights, and three steps of the next flight. He reached down to the floorboard, steadying himself against the railing as' his fragile flesh threatened to betray him. His fingers found the latch and lifted it. A panel rose, revealing a hollow in the wall.

It was there, just as he remembered: a monitor station. A few keystrokes brought him the message that the connections were all active. He smiled. Fumbling open the storage compartment, he drew forth the da-tacord. His fingers were clumsy nothing but weak flesh things but he got one end of the cord into his datajack and the other into the port on the station.

He curled the fingers of his left hand into his palm and gave his wrist the fast double-cock needed to release the prongs. Three tapering cylinders of silver slid from the ectomyelin sheaths in his forearm.

You can take the decker away from the cyberdeck, but you can't take the Dodger away from his key to the Matrix.

Naked he would go forth to find her. They said it was too dangerous to enter cyberspace without the buffer of a cyberdeck. They were right, of course; it was dangerous. But he had done it before. Decker slang called it "jacking in naked" when only the decker's organic brain stood as defense against the dangers of 1C and the navigational peculiarities of the Matrix. An organic brain was a fragile thing to stand between the crystalline fury of ice and the darkness of death.

But what matter danger? A threat to the organic existence was no threat at all, for she was not part of organic existence. She was waiting for him in cyber-space, and Dodger would go to meet her.

He slid the prongs into the station's data ports, and the infinite glories of the Matrix exploded in his head, filling his soul with their wonder. He saw her in the distance, waiting.

"Morgan," he called, using the name she had chosen for herself. "I'm coming."

He flew to her side.

Sato inspected his arm. To all appearances, it was a normal human arm. The doctors had done their job well. He lifted the gown's sleeve to seek the join. The scar was already fading under the influence of fast-healing drugs and skin-regenerative implants. Very well, indeed.

"Akabo."

The enhanced soldier who served as his bodyguard rose smoothly to his feet and crossed the small room. He was still wearing the tight-fitting leathers he preferred for street work.

"Any word from Masamba?"

A slight shake of the head. "Mage is still looking. Matrix team is still hunting as well."

"Then it will be some time before your special talents are needed. I suggest that you pay a visit to the medical team and express my thanks for their work. The usual payment."

Smiling grimly, Akabo nodded. "What about Sori-yama? He assembled the team."

"Leave him alive. The good doctor is too valuable. Though a brilliant man, he is not impractical, as are so many scientists. He will understand the warning."

"Yeah. And he's a bit too tight with Grandmother."

Akabo flinched back at Sato's reaction. Sato held down the impulse to take his bodyguard by the throat and drain him dry. Let the threat of his anger be enough for now. Akabo would not be so bold as to mention the subject again. Intimidation was enough for now. The killer was himself too valuable to lose. For the moment.

Howling Coyote cut off the song in mid-note and put the flute down. "Why am I bothering?"

"Because you promised to teach me," Sam said.

"Hey hey, Dog boy, wasn't talking to you. Don't need you to tell me the answer. I already know it."

"Then why never mind." Sam was tired. He had been working all morning at perfecting the shuffling steps the shaman had shown him, but obviously not hard enough for Howling Coyote. In spite of the simplicity of the dance, Sam continued to lose the pattern after only a few minutes. It was as though he couldn't match the rhythm of the music for more than a short period. Though the music didn't seem to change, Sam continued to end up out of step.

It was all so simple. So why couldn't he get it right?

He wiped a sweaty forearm across a sweatier brow, then held his arm there to shade his eyes as he looked at the sky. No wonder the old man was exasperated. The sun was low in the sky, and Sam had not managed to keep the dance going for more than half an hour. The history chips said that the Ghost Dancers had performed their ritual for days on end, fresh dancers taking the place of the exhausted, without ever a break in the pattern. The power Sam needed to help Janice wouldn't require that level of performance, but Sam knew he was still not going strong enough or long enough.

"Are you going to play some more?" Howling Coyote shrugged, then spat. "Ain't what I want to do at issue here."

"You're the teacher," Sam objected. "I'm here to learn lessons from the master. Seems to me you're not doing your job very well. You promised to teach me." The old man's eyes narrowed, and he stood. "Ya want a lesson, I'll give ya a lesson. Ya gotta strip yourself clean before ya can do the big magics." The laman's hand snaked out and grabbed the pendant nat swung from a thong around Sam's neck. He waved in front of Sam's eyes, then let it drop heavily against Sam's chest. "What's that, Dog boy? What's that thing ou wear around your neck?" "A fossil tooth that I use as a power focus." "Uh-huh. And those things ya got tied onto your aeket?"

"Fetishes. They help with the magic." "Uh-huh. Got all ya started with?" "Of coarse not. I lost a lot of them when Urdli H^ttMed me through the Weapons World window."

"Ti-huh. What's the tooth and the fetishes ya got:: iave in common? Where'd ya get them?" ' 'I found the tooth in the badlands, just before I met ~›og for the first time. I thought it was a dragon tooth the time. Dragons are magical beasts, so I made it into something to help me with my magic. That's what -e fetishes are, magical tools I made to help me." "What about the other stuff?"

P"What other stuff?" "The pictures in the inside pocket, left front." Sam didn't bother to ask how Howling Coyote knew? out that. "They're just pictures. They're not magi-al."

"They show your sister, your brother, and your par-its, right? What's more magical than family? It's real aportant to you, Dog b'oy. Leastways, that's what ya told Urdli. Ya telling me connections ain't important to magic?"

Sam wasn't sure what answer the shaman wanted.

"Ya don't have to answer that. Answer this, though. WhatVe they all got in common?"

Nothing. Everything. Sam didn't know. What was the old man driving at? All he could do was guess. "They're all connected to my magic."

"Think up that answer by yourself?"

"Yes, I did."

"Just yourself?"

Exasperated, Sam snapped, "Yes, just myself."

"Exactly." The old man sat down, took off his reservation hat, and laid it on the ground beside him. From his pouch he took a comb, then he began to braid his hair. The gray strands glinted like metal in the sunset. "Now build a fire."

It took Sam better than an hour to arrange the wood to the shaman's satisfaction. Following Howling Coyote's directions, Sam gathered herbs from the jars on the shelf in the kiva and brought them to the shaman, who scattered some over the wood and some into the air. The rest he made into a little pile atop the small bundle of plant fiber and kindling. Then he directed Sam to bring a coal from the kiva's firepit to light the fire.

The fire caught at once, and Sam was glad. Chilled by the early evening breeze, he craved the warmth of the fire. He wanted to sit by it and relax, but Howling Coyote had other plans.

"Follow me," the shaman ordered. "Do the steps as I do. Listen to the chant. Sing it when you know it."

Howling Coyote began a shuffling, stomping dance around the perimeter of the fire. His voice was low and gravelly as he sang the chant. He beat time with a rattle made from a hollow gourd. The song grew in

206 Robert N. Charrette strength until it throbbed with power. It was a calling song:

He comes, in fire and smoke. He comes, opening the way. He comes, with lies and truth. Tlirning to beauty, he comes.

Sam followed in the dance, moving in perfect rhythm to the song. Smoke washed across his body and filled his nostrils with the rick, resinous odor of burning pine. The chant filled his mind and he joined the song, his voice blending with the old man's. They danced the moon into the sky.

The smoke that had seemed to reach out and enfold Sam pulled back. It hung low over the fire, in defiance of the leaping flames. The smoke gathered into a roiling cloud that obscured the shaman dancing on the opposite side of the firepit. A shape began to coalesce within the cloud. It stretched, arms reaching for the sky. Though human from waist to neck, the smoke image had the head of a coyote. Its pointed snout split wide in a canine grin, then snapped shut. Head raised, it howled soundlessly at the moon. The snout came down and the ghostly image turned its dark, knowing eyes of emptiness on Sam. The jaws opened again, pausing briefly in that grin before yawning wider and engulfing him.

Sam's consciousness swirled in the magic. Enfolded in its embrace, he was at harmony with the world and with himself. He was not afraid.

He sensed that he was whole now, all he was and all he had ever been. At first he let himself float, riding the mana stream, letting it take him deeper into the otherworld, into himself, and into the unbridled realm of magic. For magic was the root and he needed to see the beginning, the seeds of his trials and triumphs.

When had it begun? When had magic first touched his life?

He thought about his first meeting with Dog, but immediately realized that as potent and outlandish as that experience had been, the magic had touched him even before that. According to Professor Laverty, Sam had used magic to protect himself from an attacker's spell long before meeting his totem. Sam remembered the glade and the fireball that had blasted him, burning his clothes and nearly killing him. He hadn't even known what he was doing at the time, but he had deflected the mana force of the spell. Would that have been the first time magic had affected his life? It was the first personal, tangible effect he could remember. His earlier contacts had been simply as an observer when someone else had used a spell. Surely that had to be it.

He cast his mind back, willing the magic to let him relive his first magical experience. Surely there was something to be learned now that he understood magic better. This must be what Howling Coyote intended by arranging this dream flight. Howling Coyote had hinted that it would be a key to his life and Janice's. If that were true, Sam would use that key to unlock the chains that bound her.

The magic embraced him and swirled him away. Time slipped from the present to the past, merging the two. Then became now and he was as he was then, except that memories of things yet to happen also wrapped his perceptions. Twist the shaman coexisted with Sam Verner, mundane.

The spell almost broke when he realized the day and time to which he had been projected. It was nine o'clock on the night of February 7, 2039. He was young, a teenager who was still Sammy to his family. That wouldn't last long. In an hour, he would be an orphan. February 7, 2039, the terrible day that later became known as the Night of Rage. On that night, the world spasmed in a massive explosion of violence. Though metahumans were mainly the victims of the destruc-tiveness and brutality, in some instances they struck back, individually and hi groups. In major cities and metroplexes, riots and fires raged for days. In the less urbanized areas, the violence sputtered on for weeks. The media blamed it on everything from outside psychic influences and coincidence to the spontaneous release of repressed aggressions and any other magical or scientific reason the various experts could think to spout. Somehow, the media hounds never saw their own role, never realized that the global village created by communications was also a powder keg of emotions that a single spark could set off across the world.

Like so many other families, the Verners were involuntarily caught hi the violence. That evening Sammy's father had made a rare, impetuous suggestion that the whole family abandon their usual routine and go out to dine. Mother had insisted that Janice must be home in bed by ten, but Father, uncharacteristically, had overruled her. The occasional late night never hurt anyone, he said. They had all bundled up, walked the three blocks to the metro, and then boarded the bullet train to the Greenbelt Mall District.

The dinner was fun, but his parents' jolly mood crumbled as the family headed for the theater. Already the public tridscreens Were running the first reports of the fire in the warehouse district of Seattle, where thousands of metahumans were being burned to death and a terrorist group calling itself the Hand of Five was taking responsibility. Father's face went grim and determined as he listened to the reactions of the crowd in the mall, most of whom seemed sympathetic to the terrorists. Father herded them to the metro, and they took the first train back to the burbs. Sammy sensed the fear beneath his parents' concern. Oliver and Jan-ice felt it, too. Oliver and Father spoke quietly together for a while, then Oliver turned around to smile at Sam and Janice and told them it would all be fine. He was scared, too; Sammy could smell it. But Sammy took his cue from Oliver and tried to hide his own growing fear. Not so Janice, who began to whimper and demand that Mother hold her. There wasn't much conversation during the train ride. Most of the people on board echoed the same racist sentiments the Verners had heard expressed at the mall.

As they got off the metro, Sammy knew something was wrong. The neighborhood was lit as brightly as day, but day had never been so red. All the dogs in the neighborhood were barking.

When the Verners reached their street, they saw their house in flames. The wall fence around the property was battered down in places, while some sections still standing were scrawled with words such as "Ork Luv-ver," "Race Traitor," and other less savory things. Through one gap, Sammy could see a stark and obscene silhouette. He puzzled at the shape, but Twist knew what the boy he had been was seeing. It was their handyman Variy. The poor ork had been crucified on their front lawn.

Father whispered something to Mother. He ordered Oliver to stay with her. She took hold of Janice and Sammy's hands. Striding forward, Father headed for the knot of people gathered near the driveway. Tears streamed down Mother's face. Oliver looked annoyed and glared after Father, but he stayed put. Sammy heard his father's angry voice demanding to know what was going on, ordering the mob to disperse. They jeered at him.

He repeated his demands and they laughed, an animal sound, wild and dangerous. One came forward and shouted something incoherent into Father's face. Another crept out and swung a fence board against the back of Father's knees. As the elder Verner collapsed, the one who'd shouted at him sidestepped to let him fall to the sidewalk. Then the mob rushed in, beasts tearing at the fallen foe.

Oliver rushed forward, disappearing instantly among the surging crowd. Sammy heard screams, but they sounded too high-pitched to be Oliver's. They sounded like a girl's screams. Twist knew better.

The mob reached them. Mother shoved Sammy and Janice behind her, but someone tore her away. Sammy grabbed his sister and ran. A howling rose behind them, and he dragged her along even faster. Turning down the alley between the Foster and Lee places, he knew he couldn't outrun the mob; he was just a kid and he was carrying his little sister. Pulling Janice into the deep shadows around the Fosters' shed, he crouched there, rucking Janice against the building and covering her head with his arm. He'd protect her as best he could. He tucked his own head down and closed his eyes.

He wanted to run away from these awful people, find a better place to hide. Twist understood as the terror-born, desperate need of young Sammy Verner called to the city spirit, wrapping its protection around him and his sister. It was only a small, weak spirit, much too small to have covered and hidden the whole family from the mob, even if it were not already too late.

A tentacle of the mob surging down the alley brushed unseeing past the huddled children. Not finding its victims, the tentacle retracted back to its parent body as the mob moved on down the street. Now they turned their fury against the Andersons' house, burning it completely before moving on again.

Sammy stayed huddled where he was, hugging his sister. Sam didn't dare move even after she had cried herself to sleep. She needed her sleep. Mother had said so. He cried, too, but would not let himself sleep. Then a man came walking down the street and crossed the mouth of the alley. He was dressed in fine clothes. The flickering light of the fires glittered from gold on his fingers and from the head of his cane. He looked like a rich businessman, out of place in the burbs. But he didn't act out of place; he acted instead as though he owned it all. Sammy Verner didn't know him, but Twist did.

The man was Mr. Enterich, an agent of the dragon Lofwyr. Ever since the Haesslich affair, Enterich had been a symbol of duplicity for Sam, the perfect corporate false front for the savage and duplicitous ma-neuverings of the worm that gnawed at the wood of society. Twist had no memory of Enterich being present that night.

Sammy Verner watched the well-dressed man stroll down the street until he reached the broken gate of the Verner house. Leaning on his cane, the man contemplated the fire. At length a shadow flitted over Sammy and his sister, moving across the street in a curving arc before it vanished. But it returned again, and this time Sammy looked up to see enormous bat wings spread against the paling stars. It was a dragon. The creature banked and came to a silent landing at Enter-ich's side. It was not Lofwyr. "Success?"

"No trace, no trail. The line must be extinguished. " The dragon exuded satisfection. "The losses of time spent dreaming are recouped this night. The herd is culled, and the small rivals shall find no allies. They burn. Everywhere, they burn. Are not the flames wonderful?"

"Perhaps," Enterich replied. "I fear this noise that echoes around the world tonight. It is out of control, and the resulting chaos might demand a high price." "Temerity. But dawn comes and we must be away. " The dragon stretched its wings. Sammy hid his head. Despite his own leavening of experience Twist was overwhelmed by childish terror and hid as well. Together the boy and man consciousnesses huddled in fear.

The sound of the beast's passage was a roaring moan. It might have been wind displaced by the force of the beast's wing stroke, or it might have been the voice of the mob. If indeed the two were different. Sammy loved symbols, and dragons were among the best. They were huge and powerful, strong and dangerous. They were elemental beasts that Twist could envision as chaos embodied. When he got up enough courage to look again, the dragon and the man were gone as though they had never been. Maybe they never had.

But his parents were really gone. His brother, too. Only their memories remained in his heart.

A skinny old Indian in a breech clout stood at his side. Howling Coyote. "Would you give your life to see them live again?"

Sam thought about that for a while, then shrugged. "What good would it do? They wouldn't like what the world has become. Sooner or later, naturally or not, they would die again, and I'd be responsible for making them face that trial again. They already died once. Let them be in peace."

"And if you had the power to change the world, to make it so they would like it? Would that make a difference?"

"No. They've earned their peace." Sam stood up. He was just Twist now, though the child Janice still sheltered under his protective arm. "But I'd change the world anyway. We all have the responsibility to make things better for ourselves and for our families. We all have to do what we can to make the world a better place."

"Better for your own ends?'' ' 'Better for everybody.'' "What about the cost?" Sam looked at the bodies of his parents. They were

even as the scene of the old neighborhood was fading. Even the child Janice was fading. "Can I pay less than they did to live up to my beliefs?"

"Very easily," the shaman said gravely. "Most people don't stand up and pay when it comes down to it."

"There's a price for everything. Sooner or later, you have to pay."

"Hey hey, Dog boy, there may be hope for you yet. That's the first step in the dance." Howling Coyote spun and capered away. "Or was it the last? I forget. I'm an old man, ya know."

Sam shook his head sadly and followed the shaman into the dawn.