Charles De Lint - The Ivory and the Horn

She makes a question of it.

"I heard this flute," I say. "That's what I followed to get here."

"Ah."

I wait, but she doesn't expand beyond that one enigmatic utterance.

"Could you maybe give me a little more to go on than that?" I ask.

"You are an artist?" she asks.

The question surprises me, but I nod.

"Kokopelli," she says, "the flute-player you heard. He is known for his—" she hesitates for a moment. "— inspirational qualities."

"I'm not looking for ideas," I tell her. "I have more ideas than I know what to do with. The only thing I'm ever looking for is the time to put them into practice."

"Kokopelli or Coyote," she says. "One of them is responsible for your being here."

"Can they help me get back?"

"Where either of them is concerned, anything is possible."

There's something about the way she tells me this that seems to add an unspoken "when hell freezes over," and that makes me feel even more uneasy.

"Can you tell me where I might find them?"

The woman shrugs. "Kokopelli is only found when he wishes to be, but Coyote— Coyote is always near. Look for him to be cadging a cigarette, or warming his toes by a fire."

She starts to turn away, but pauses when I call after her.

"Wait!" I say. "You can't just leave me here."

"I'm sorry," she tells me, and she really does seem sorry. "But I have duties that require my attention. I came upon you only by chance and already I have stayed too long."

"Can't I just come along with you?"

"I'm afraid that would be impossible?"

There's nothing mean about the way she says it, but I can tell right away that the question is definitely not open to further discussion.

"Will you come back when you're done?" I ask.

I'm desperate. I don't want to be here on my own anymore, especially not with night falling.

"I can't make you a promise of that," she says, "but I will try. In the meantime, you would do better to look within yourself, to see if hidden somewhere within you is some secret need that might have brought you to this place."

As she starts to turn away again, I think to ask her what her name is.

"Since I am Grandmother to so many here," she says, "that would be as good a name as any. You may call me Grandmother Toad."

"My name's Sophie."

"I know, little sister."

She's walking away as she speaks. I jump to my feet and follow after her, into the dusk that's settling in between the cacti and mesquite trees, but like everyone else I've met here, she's got the trick of disappering down pat. She steps into a shadow and she's gone.

A vast emptiness settles inside me after she's left me. The night is full of strange sounds, snuffling and rustles and weird cries in the distance that appear to be coming closer.

"Grandmother," I call softly.

I wonder, how did she know my name?

"Grandmother?"

There's no reply.

"Grandmother!"

I run to the top of another ridge, one from which I can see the last flood of light spraying up from the sunset. There's no sign, no trace at all of the Indian woman, but as I turn away, I see the flickering light of a campfire, burning there, below me in a dry wash. A figure sits in front of it. The sound of the flute is still distant so I make the educated guess that it isn't Kokopelli hanging out down there. Grandmother's words return to my mind:

Look for him to be cadging a cigarette, or warming his toes by a fire.

I take one last look around me, then start down the hill toward Coyote's fire.

7

Sophie awoke in a tangle of sheets. She stared up at a familiar ceiling then slowly turned her head to look at her bedside clock. The hour hand was creeping up on four. Relief flooded her.

I'm back, she thought.

She wasn't sure how it had happened, but somewhere in between leaving Grandmother Toad and starring down towards Coyote's fire, she'd managed to escape the desert dream. She lay there listening to the siren that had woken her, heard it pass her block and continue on. Sitting up, she fluffed her pillow, then lay down once more.

No more following the sound of a flute, she told herself no matter how intriguing it might be.

Her eyelids grew heavy. Closing her eyes, she let herself drift off. Wait until she told Jeck, she thought. The desert she'd found herself in had been even stranger than the fens where she and Jeck had first met— if such a thing was possible. But when she fell asleep, she by passed Mr. Truepenny's shop and found herself scrambling down a desert incline to where a mesquite fire sent its flickering shadows along a dry wash.

8

"Little cousin," Coyote says after we've been sitting together in silence for some time. "What are you doing here?"

I can't believe I'm back here again. I would never have let myself go back to sleep if I'd thought this would happen. Still, I can't stay awake forever. That being the case, if every time I dream I'm going to find myself back here instead of in Mabon; I might as well deal with it now. But I'm not happy about it.

"I don t know," I tell him.

Coyote nods his head. He sits on his haunches, on the far side of the campfire. The pale light from the coals makes his eyes glitter and seem to be of two different colors: one brown, one blue. Except for his ears, his silhouette against the deep starry backdrop behind him belongs to a young man, long black hair braided and falling down either side of his head, body wrapped in a blanket. But the ears are those of the desert wolf whose name he bears: tall and pointed, lips quivering as they sort through the sounds drifting in from the night around them.

Wind in the mesquite. Tiny scurrying paws on the sand of the dry wash. Owl wings beating like a quickened breath. A sudden squeal. Silence. The sound of wings again, rising now. From further away, the soft grunting of javalinas feeding on prickly pear cacti.

When Coyote turns his head, a muzzle is added to his silhouette and there can be no pretending that he is other than what he is a piece of myth set loose from old stories and come to add to the puzzle of my being here.

"So tell me," he says, a touch of amusement in his voice. "With your wise eyes so dark with secrets insights lying thick about you like a cloak... what do you know?"

I can't tell if he's making fun of me or not.

"My name's Sophie," I tell him. "That's supposed to mean wisdom, but I don't feel very wise at the moment."

"Only fools think they're wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can."

"I'm barely managing that."

"And yet you're here. You're alive. You breathe. You speak. Presumably, you think. You feel. The dead would give a great deal to be allowed so much."

"Look," I say. "All I know is that I stepped through a door in another dream and ended up here. I followed this Kokopelli's flute-playing and Grandmother Toad told me I have to stay here unless I either discover some secret need inside me that can be answered by the desert, or one of you help me find my way back."

"Kokopelli," Coyote says. "And Grandmother Toad. Such notable company to find oneself in."

Now I know he's mocking me, but I don't think it's meant to be malicious. It's just his way. Besides, I find that I don't really care.

"Can you help me?" I ask.

"Can I help? I'm not sure. Will I help? I'll do my best. Never let it be said that I turned my back on a friend of both the flute-player and Nokomis."

"Who?"

"The Grandmother has many names— as does anyone who lives long enough. They catch on our clothes and get all snarled up in a tangle until sometimes even we can't remember who we are anymore."

"You're confusing me."

"But not deliberately so," Coyote says. "Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference."