Robert Charrette - Find your own truth

Urdli was equally unruffled. "You refused to help then. You said that your sister was more important than the fate of the world."

"So I was wrong," Sam said quickly. "But now I'm ready to help. Are you ready to let me, or do you prefer to try to stop Spider all by yourself?"

"I am not by myself." The sweep of Urdli's arm took both the gathered magicians and the defended barrier wall.

Sam followed the gesture and sensed the power of the gathered entities. "I concede you've got the astral covered pretty well, even if most of your strength is defensive. But the bombs are mundane, and you haven't got an army." He paused for effect. "Or do you? You wouldn't be after the bombs to add them to Tir Tairngire's arsenal, would you?"

Urdli bristled. "I am not a citizen of the Tir," he said, as though that explained all.

"And I assure you, Twist," Laverty put in, "that the ruling council would far rather see the weapons destroyed than recover them." The professor glanced significantly at two of the other magicians, who met his gaze briefly, then nodded. He turned back to Sam. "This has to be kept quiet. Should certain corporations or governments learn of the weapons, there would be a struggle for their possession, a shadow war that no one wants."

Sam had already figured that angle. "It might turn into something more than a shadow war."

"It might, indeed," Laverty agreed. "Are you prepared to join our effort?"

"Maybe," Sam said slowly, "just maybe, I'll let you join my effort.''

That took them back, but he didn't give them more than a moment to sputter.

"You're stymied. You know what Spider wants, and you have some rough idea where she's planning to get it. But you can't act without more specific information."

"And you can?" Estios asked suspiciously.

"I have more specific information."

"From what source?"

Sam shrugged. "Several, actually. I agree wholeheartedly about the need to keep this situation quiet. But it's got to be taken care of quickly, and my Mends and I can't do it alone. So what I'm prepared to do is cooperate. There are several locations with which we don't have the resources to deal."

"Which you shall leave to us," Urdli said. "I do not think I like your approach, mongrel. How can we be sure you aren't just distracting us while you arrange matters to your own advantage?"

"You could trust me," Sam replied dryly.

Estios sneered. "I don't believe you know what you claim.''

"Suit yourself." Sam turned, as though to leave, but the professor spoke up. "Gentlemen," he said, "we must discuss this."

Sam looked at them over his shoulder. "Don't spend (too much time on idle chitchat. I already have a team on the the way to Deggendorf. And once the action starts, things will move quickly. Ever see a spider jump when its web is shaken?"

As though on cue, the dwarf said, "Deggendorf is near one of the possible sites, professor." Laverty nodded. "You are being precipitous, twist."

Sam shurgged. "Maybe. Maybe I'm just being ex-ipeditious. Having been faulted for shirking responsi-Ibility, maybe I just want to make up for lost time."

"Or maybe you're getting in over your head," Lav erty said.

Sam was only too aware of that possibility no,; make that probability.

While Laverty conferred quietly with his col – leagues, Sam tried to overhear, but they controlled their projections too well. At last Laverty turned back to him.

'Perhaps you should tell us what you have in t mind.''

"First, I think you should tell me a few things."

"Very well."

Urdli and Estios tried to disrupt the discussions every chance they could, but the other elves mostly ignored them. Piece for piece, Sam traded information with the elves. He sketched his plan and they objected, as he had expected. They had a few ideas, but no one could come up with a better idea that could be carried out as fast as the situation demanded. Most of the elves, especially Urdli and Estios, weren't particularly happy that Sam had initiated several runs, but time and distance made it necessary that Sam's arrangements be left alone. Other possibilities had to be covered; they could not afford to double run any one target. In the end no one was completely happy, but much to his surprise Sam got most of the concessions he'd wanted.

As he turned to leave, this time for real, Laverty asked, "And what are you planning to do?"

"Me? Well, planning can be very stressful. Once everything gets started, I'd thought I'd unwind and do a little dancing."

"It's time to bathe."

With that announcement, Howling Coyote rose smoothly to his feet. When Sam tried to duplicate the maneuver, he struck his head on the low roof of the sweat lodge. More used to such structures, the old shaman had remained somewhat crouched even as he stood, avoiding a collision. Sam decided that a rap on the noggin was a small price to pay to escape the hot, sweaty confines of the lodge.

By the time Sam emerged from the lodge, Howling Coyote was halfway to the lake. Shivering at the sudden chill, Sam longed suddenly for the sun-baked canyons of the mesa. Because of the higher elevation of this mountainside, the evening air cooled too quickly. Howling Coyote waded right in, but Sam was shivering even before he hit the icy waters of the lake. Seeing Sam hesitate, the old man, dripping wet and exuberant as any child, splashed him with near-freezing water. To escape the bombardment, Sam dove head-first into the water. He came up sputtering, unsure that the cure was better than the disease. Long before he had finished the ritual washing his teeth were chattering, and he was convinced he would never feel his toes again.

Finally Howling Coyote nodded in satisfaction and led Sam back to the shore, where their clothing for the dance was laid out. Sam wrapped a length of soft leather around his loins, then donned a pair of buckskin leggings painted with vertical red stripes. Then he pulled his head through the neckhole of a muslin shirt sewn with sinew and decorated with strips of cloth fringe along the sleeves and across the breast and back. Red suns dotted the shirt in a pleasing asymmetric pattern. He swirled a striped blanket around his shoulders to hide his shirt until the proper moment. "What face do you wear?" the shaman asked. "Huh?"

"Your dream must have shown you the face for the great magic. You must show the earth power the face of your purpose and expectation.''

Sam looked at the jars of pigments the old man held out to him. Purpose and expectation? Well, he had set out to cure his sister, and that was still his goal. True, they danced to save the world from Spider's threat, but that had not been his first desire. He thought it best to be honest. When the ritual dance laid him naked before the earth power, it would not do to try to disguise his hope. What better face than his sister's? He dipped his hand into the black pigment and smeared it over his face. White pigment made an outline along the edges of his face in imitation of her mane. On his forehead he painted one of the red suns, as a symbol of hope and the dawn of the new.

While Sam was painting himself, Howling Coyote was working up his own scheme. Like Sam's, his face was blackened. A single thin stripe of yellow ochre ran over one eye and across his cheek. When he'd finished the shaman drew on a coyote hide, the head pulled over his own like a hat and its forepaws draping down over his shoulders and onto his chest.

Sam wondered what Howling Coyote's colors and stripe meant. "What is your face?" "Death," he said flatly.

While Sam was assimilating that response, Howling Coyote handed him a dog skin. Sam almost recoiled when he saw its brindled surface, thinking for a moment that the old shaman had somehow found and skinned Sam's dog Inu. But the patterning of the splotches was different. Sam accepted the hide and draped it on himself as Howling Coyote wore his.