"Owldark did not help. He recounted dream after dream, led us hither and yon along the southern shore, aimlessly. We were not welcome in the villages of south-men, so many mouths to feed and nothing to trade, and their harvests have been poor.

"Blown by the winds, whipped from place to place, we finally stopped here, where Owldark commanded. His next dream would lead us on, but food ran low. Our reindeer could not walk many miles over stone and sand, so were eaten. With nothing to feed the dogs, we had to eat them, and carry our belongings on our backs. After a while, the strongest men and women went to Scourge, seeking work. They found a few jobs, the vilest chores southmen refused: shoveling fish too rotted to salt, breaking up old ships for firewood, wrestling and knife-fighting for sport. The townsfolk hate us, hate everyone, and mocked our barbarous accents and superstitions.

"Yet we've survived so far: no children have died of hunger. Yet none are born either, for our women's wombs shrivel, like our spirits. And so have we languished for too long." She laid her hand on the rim of a redware bowl as she said, "Even the water is brackish, half salt, not fit for cattle."

Sunbright listened, stone-faced, through this sorry history, then he asked, "What of the council? Why do they allow this?"

Monkberry sighed and turned to the door, as if expecting someone, but there was only salt wind. "The council argued with Owldark, and each other," she told him. "Some thought we must remain. The gods drove us from the tundra, they said: our own faults and sins brought it on. So we must linger in hell on earth as punishment. Others urge we go elsewhere, but cannot agree. Even our ancestral summer lands lie empty and fallow. Others would have us return to the tundra to die, like lemmings in the sea, or whales on the beach. Others brood over wine fetched in the village. Some wandered and didn't return, we know not whence. Destroyed in spirit, some women married town men and no longer visit. Some youngsters have joined the emperor's ranks as soldiers and been sent far away. Perhaps that is right, for nothing lies here for anyone."

Frustrated and raging, Sunbright raised his hands, his fingertips brushing thatch. "What of Owldark?" he asked. "If the gods haunt his dreams, surely even he can find our true destiny!"

"Owldark tried. Despite the pains in his head, he trekked the wastes, fasting, scourging himself with thorns, beseeching the gods for an answer. Any answer. Then he didn't return, and the hunters searched. They found his bones in a ravine. Wolves had eaten him, probably after he fell. So we lost our homelands and traditions and work, and now we have no shaman to guide us."

"Not true," stated Sunbright. His mother's eyes peered. "See."

Gently, he laid his hand atop the clouded, rank water in the redware bowl by his mother's knee. Quietly, crooning an ancient winding air with a steady beat, he dipped his fingers one by one, sending ripples through the bowl. At each tap the cloudiness receded, until the water was clear.

"Mother of Magic!" wheezed Monkberry. She dipped a crooked finger in the water, tasted it. "It's sweet! You are a shaman!"

"After my father and my forebears," Sunbright smiled. "Actually, the salt is not gone, merely sunk with other minerals to the bottom of the bowl. You'll have to scoop the sweet water before the salt dissolves again."

"How?…"

Sunbright softened the truth by saying, "I came near death, and left my body, and descended into the earth and learned her secrets. Some. How to sort things into proper order, like separating salt from water. It's a blessing and a curse, for my dreams are haunted like your husband's.

"But I have the strength of spirit to face them. If necessary, I will brave the gods themselves and learn our fate."

"Mind your own fate!" boomed a voice at the door. Sunbright saw a familiar face. The broad, craggy features of Blinddrum, his old sword instructor.

"Sunbright Steelshanks," he said, "leave our village!"

Sunbright exploded to his feet and almost bashed his head through the thatch roof. Clambering to free Harvester's pommel, he shoved past Knucklebones and outside. Blinddrum was a huge man, taller even than Sunbright, but fell back before the warrior. Unbeknownst, other folk had gathered, returned from meager jobs in the town now that the late-summer day was ending, so the tribe looked almost populous, a couple hundred at least. Most were dressed in tall, battered boots and long shirts of either deer hide or faded cloth, and fighters still sported the distinctive roach and horsetail of the Rengarth Barbarians.

But many men looked like strangers, townsmen, with full heads of hair grown out and scruffy beards soiling their faces. Yet all were familiar. Sunbright recognized Thornwing, the other sword instructor, and his cousin Rattlewater; and Leafrebel, Forestvictory, Archloft, Rightdove, Goodbell, Mightylaugh, Magichunger, and Starrabbit.

Emotions churned within Sunbright. A wave of homesickness and relief made him want to embrace the lot, laughing and crying. Yet their stony faces chilled his heart. Some wouldn't even look at him, as if he brought shame to the village.

Blinddrum stated, "You were pronounced dead when banished, Sunbright. Leave this place of the living. None here commune with the dead."

"You are the dead!" Of all Sunbright's thundering emotions, anger won out, and he practically screamed, "You shuffle around this hellhole like zombies! You forsake the old ways, let them trickle through your fingers! You abandon pride to cower here like mongrels! Half of you don't even look like Rengarth! What say you to that?"

But not even insults stirred them. Blinddrum and Thornwing marched off. Magichunger and Starrabbit spat. Others looked at the rocky ground or turned away. Curious children were cuffed around and dragged off. Monkberry and Knucklebones crept forth, agonizing at how Sunbright was ignored. For a moment the barbarian wished he were dead, rather than see his people like this, and be unable to help them. But why talk if they wouldn't listen?

"Mother!" cried the shaman in desperation. "What do I do?"

Tears fell from Monkberry's chin as she said, "Nothing I know. We've no wisdom left."

"There must be something!" Knucklebones spoke up. "Some way to make them listen, and pay attention. I don't know your ways, Sunbright. What is sacred to them? What honor must they obey?"

"Nothing. I don't know…" he said. The warrior-shaman scanned the scabby village with slumped shoulders. Returned to his tribe, sought for so long, he saw only their backs. "What can you take from people that have lost all?"

Then his eyes fell on the round common house, and the trickle of smoke rising from it.

"Unless…"

"Unless what?" asked the thief.

But Sunbright ran like a child for the common house. Wondering, Knucklebones caught Monkberry's hand and they tripped after him.

Sunbright shoved through the retreating crowd, jogged to the common house, and ducked inside to the smoke and haze. Despite themselves, the Raven Clan crowded the entrance to see what transpired.

Madness, it seemed. Sunbright took old Iceborn and Tulipgrace by the shoulders, begging their pardon, and towed them away from the sacred council fire. Then, shouting, the young shaman drew back a boot and kicked the smoldering embers. Ashes and smoke flew in a cloud. He stamped and stomped the fire pit until his moosehide boots were scorched and sparks dappled his skin. In a minute, the fire was out.

Stepping from the fire pit, coughing in smoke, Sunbright pushed past stunned barbarians into sunlight. Sneezing, he crowed in mad glee, "There! If the sacred fire is the heart of my tribe, then my tribe is now truly dead! And since only a shaman can kindle a council fire, it will stay dead! So am I, a dead man, returned to a tribe of dead people!"