The Named: The Complete Series

Chapter Twenty-One

Thistle went back to Quiet Hunter, wishing she could do something more for him. He was in a dazed, half-awake state since he had not been able to sleep.

When he lifted his head to touch noses with her, his nose leather was cold, even though he lay in a patch of sun.

For him, everything is icy water, she thought.

She curled around him, trying to drive away the frozen despair.

“Any better?” she asked. “Or everything still cold?”

“Thistle is warm,” he said, and his whiskers lifted a little. “But Quiet Hunter is too weary to come out to where Thistle is.”

She gave an unhappy sigh. There had to be a way to help him. There had to.

But the only thing that could help him was True-of-voice’s song. She wished she could become like True-of-voice so that she could help Quiet Hunter.

She grimaced scornfully at herself. She could not begin to do what True-of-voice had done. Wishing was useless. But she still desperately wanted to help Quiet Hunter.

If she tried hard, she could remember how True-of-voice’s song sounded and felt, but she couldn’t give it to Quiet Hunter. She couldn’t reach his “inside ears.” Not the way True-of-voice had.

But you have outside ears too, and I have a voice, even if it is a small one, she thought.

“Listen, Quiet Hunter,” she said, and let her memory lift her voice as she began to sing softly to him.

* * *

Ratha did not stay by herself for long. Hard thinking had dug up a possible solution. It was crazy, but it might work. It might accomplish both objectives without harm to anyone except True-of-voice, and nothing would save him anyway.

To try her idea, she would have to convince Thistle. She felt as though her heart would hammer right through her ribs as she went looking for her daughter.

She didn’t find Thistle until she went to the place where she had last seen Quiet Hunter. Her daughter was there. And she was doing something that raised Ratha’s hopes even further. Thistle was singing to Quiet Hunter. As she said that True-of-voice had done. Except that Thistle was using her real voice. And the song was no longer without words.

Ratha saw the tortured look in Quiet Hunter’s eyes fade. They closed, his head sank down onto his paws, and his sides rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep.

She listened, entranced. Thistle sang more eloquently than she could speak, of the pain and struggle and grief and then of the greening of hope, a slender thread that could bind back together the most broken of spirits. Or lives.

She sang as none of the Named had sung before, blending gifts from both peoples whose trails she had run. Ratha heard it with a shiver that ran down her back and an ache in her belly that could have been grief or joy.

The song was not the strong, certain river that Thistle had described as flowing from True-of-voice. It keened with questions. It wavered with fear. It was the trickle of the spring, not the flow of the river. It was at the same time uplifting and heartbreaking.

And as Ratha watched and listened, she felt that something sacred was happening that she dare not disturb.

Who is she, this one who came from my blood, from my belly? My daughter, chaser of thistles, wayfarer on strange trails.

Who is she?

I know, and yet I do not.

As if sensing the presence of her mother, Thistle, without looking up, brought her song to an end. She crouched down, licked the sleeping Quiet Hunter, and walked forward to greet her mother.

Ratha felt the distance, almost the remoteness of the nose-touch, the whisker-brush. She found it hard to begin speaking, feeling that her words were crude and clumsy after the soaring beauty of Thistle’s song.

Yet she had to.

She let Thistle lead her away so that their voices would not wake Quiet Hunter.

“Thistle, I—I think there may be a way out of this. A way to not hurt anyone. A way to help everyone. Will you listen?”

“Will hear.”

“It needs you.”

Thistle only cocked her head and widened her eyes in the same way as Ratha knew that she herself did. It was unsettling to see herself reflected in her daughter.

Never had Ratha struggled so to speak, and she felt for an instant a deeper sympathy for Thistle’s struggle with language than she had ever felt before.

Finally she said, “It needs you to sing to the hunters. The same way you did to your friend. To keep them from going wild and attacking us.”

Thistle’s eyes only grew a little wider.

“Thistle, I’m asking you to go back to the hunters. Make it easier for them to accept True-of-voice’s death. I know that it is dangerous, but if you give them what they need, they won’t hurt you.”

Her daughter’s words came slowly. “Asking me … to replace True-of-voice?”

Ratha was about to protest that the two things were not the same, but the look in her daughter’s eyes kept her silent. “Yes,” she admitted. “I guess that is what I am asking.”

“You want … me … to lead the hunters. To keep them happy so that you Named … can take face-tails … without fighting.”

“Yes.” Ratha watched for the first sign of outrage or anger, but Thistle remained calm. “It is the only way to keep either side from suffering. Can’t you see?”

Thistle gave a strange snort and then started shaking all over, her mouth open, as if yawning. “You Named ones. You are so arrogant … that it’s … funny. You really think … me being a True-of-voice … makes all problems go away?”

“Why shouldn’t it work?” Ratha felt herself bristling.

Thistle only opened her mouth in another strange, soundless gape.

“If you only understood….”

“Then make me understand,” Ratha challenged. “Why can’t you sing to the hunters, keep them from despairing, going wild, dying … ? You care about Quiet Hunter’s people. Isn’t it up to you to save them?”

Thistle stopped shaking and gaping. Ratha felt a sudden chill at the despairing look that came into Thistle’s sea-colored eyes. “Cannot do what True-of-voice does. Not even enough to save Quiet Hunter.”

“I thought …”

“He is dying. Sing to make it less frightening. Is all I can do.”

“Then …” Ratha stumbled.

“Only way to save them is to save True-of-voice. Brook dries up without a spring to feed it. Same for them.” Thistle paused. “Not up to me to save Quiet Hunter and his people, Mother. Is up to you.”

* * *

Questions. All she can give me is questions. I have to find my own answers.

Ratha walked alone. No one could help her with the challenge she faced now. Not Thakur. Not Bira. Not even Thistle herself.

The Dreambiter. Why is she still talking about the Dreambiter? I thought she had come to terms with it.

And then Ratha knew why Thistle had spoken earlier about the Dreambiter.

It is still here. It is still prowling. Wearing my skin, my whiskers, my fur.

No, all I want is for my people to survive. That is all I have ever wanted.

Is that the truth, Ratha?

What is it that raised the torch against the Un-Named, killed the old clan leader Meoran, brought down Shongshar, caused Bonechewer’s death? I cared for him more deeply than anyone I had ever known. I nearly killed Thistle. I certainly changed her.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

The part that hates. That fears. That wants to kill.

No. All I wanted was to see my people survive.

And then, as if from a distance, she seemed to hear Thakur’s voice saying, “Why can’t there be room in the world for the Named and others too? Why must things that help the Named harm others?”

The hunters aren’t like us. They are alien. They are wrong. It is too hard to understand them. Easier to push them out of the way. Save True-of-voice? A tyrant worse than Meoran or Shongshar? Who not only commands their bodies, but their every thought?

Rescue True-of-voice. Make his people what they were. The Named would think I was no longer fit to be leader. They’d throw me out. Can’t you understand that, Thistle?

She should understand. She’s been hurt enough.

Is she crazy? Is she right?

I am shaking. I am afraid. Of what?

The shadows that run through my mind. The shadows that bite and tear, that kill and maim what I love. I put words on them. “Un-Named ones.” “Enemies.” “Not like us.” “Wrong.” “Alien.” “Deserve to die.”

Many shadows, and they are all Dreambiters, Dreamkillers. They all blend into one. It prowls, hurting.

No one deserves to die except the Dreambiter. No one deserves to be cast out except the Dreambiter. No one deserves to lie bleeding, in pain. Even if they are different. Even if you do not understand how they think. Even if you think they might hurt you.

The question comes again.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

I know now, Thistle. I know.

* * *

Quiet Hunter was asleep. Thistle did not need to sing to him any longer. Yet she stayed by him, knowing that if he did wake, he would need her.

She thought about Ratha. What her mother had suggested was ridiculous. It showed that Ratha had only a very shallow idea of what was going on. No one could replace True-of-voice among the hunters. The idea that she, Thistle, who was in some ways marginal even among the Named, could take the place of the wellspring of the song, had gone beyond the ridiculous to the tragic.

No one could replace True-of-voice except another of his blood and breed. For various reasons, that other had not yet been birthed.

Yes, that was a fault in the society of the hunters. But it would not have been so fatal had not the Named intervened.

Was part of that as well. Did not mean to be, Thistle thought, looking down at Quiet Hunter.

Asleep, the young male looked like any of the Named. He looked a bit like Thakur, in some ways, though his eyes and coat were a different color. A certain gentleness, a certain curiosity about life, a certain willingness to explore, had perhaps not only shaped his character, but sculpted the lines of his face.

No. See traces of Thakur in Quiet Hunter because I want them to be there.

She wondered if perhaps her thoughts had been drawn to Thakur because she was getting the herding teacher’s scent on the breeze. As it grew stronger, her hopes leaped up. Perhaps Thakur was coming.

She lifted her muzzle as a familiar pattern of footfalls added itself to the herding teacher’s scent. And then Thakur padded forward and lay down with Thistle and Quiet Hunter.

He said little, but his presence, his solid warmth, and, above all, the sense of his wisdom helped ease Thistle’s tension.

“Can talk, Thakur. Quiet Hunter is so asleep … won’t hear.” She paused. “Don’t think he is really sleeping anymore. Has gone down deeper than that. To escape the world both inside and outside.”

“I am sorry, Thistle,” Thakur said. “I tried to help him, but my skills are not enough.”

“Tried to help, too. Tried to bring him into my world. But he said things were too clear, too sharp. Knowing there was only one behind the eyes … too lonely.” She paused. “Know what he feels. Hurt me, too, when song went away. But being one behind the eyes . . . have always known it. And all of you Named ones know it, too.”

She felt Thakur’s tongue on the ragged ruff that was starting to grow around her neck.

“Sometimes being one behind the eyes hurts us, Thistle,” he said softly. “Maybe we are closer to Quiet Hunter’s people than we think.”

Thistle laid her chin on her paws briefly before she spoke again. “My mother. Seen her yet?”

“Not for a while. She went off by herself to think.”

Thistle stared ahead at nothing. “Don’t know if she can make the jump I am asking her to make. Remember all the times she couldn’t. Wish I could hope, Thakur, but don’t dare.”

“Thistle, it is hard for her. Do you know that she is not a great deal older than you?”

“Than me? But mothers . . . fathers, always seem so much older. Seems hard to believe.”

“I know.”

“Not a lot older than me,” Thistle mused. “Still learning.” She turned her gaze to him. “Thakur, can . . . I . . . dare hope? Not expect. Hope.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think you can.”

* * *

I see them both together as I come near. The two who demand the most of me. Thistle and Thakur. Do I see disappointment in their eyes even before I tell them what I will do?

Thakur knows this is not easy. Thistle . . . She thinks anything is possible for the Named. Anything except looking beyond the needs of your own people.

But seeing first to the needs of your own people is what a good leader docs, isn’t it?

Not always.

What helps the Named does not have to harm others. Not when you can see them without the shadow of the Dreambiter darkening their shapes.

I am taking the leap, daughter of mine. Help me land safely on the far edge.

As Ratha finished speaking to Thakur and Thistle, she watched the shock in her daughter’s eyes turn first to amazement . . . then to joy. Then she was nearly knocked off her feet by Thistle’s boisterous rubbing, purring, and licking.

“Wait!” she protested as her daughter sprang around in happiness. “I’ve only said that I will help rescue True-of-voice if we can find a way. I haven’t found that way yet.”

But Thistle, in her triumph and joy, seemed to think that the hardest part of the task was over.

Perhaps it was.

* * *

The camp of the Named was in an uproar. Ratha had a hard time calming everyone down after her announcement. She had expected that it would be Fessran’s son, Khushi, who would be hardest to convince, but instead it was Bira.

“I am not asking you to agree with me,” Ratha said finally, when the gentle but stubborn little Firekeeper refused to give up ground. “As clan leader, I don’t need agreement, even if I would like it. What I need is help.”

“Help in doing something that might hurt us?” Bira asked. “Ratha, I want to trust you, but this trail looks so treacherous.”

“I know how treacherous it feels. I’ve been on it. Bira, there is a chance that rescuing True-of-voice may hurt us. I’m ready to accept the blame if it does. But I feel now that there is a greater chance that it will help us as well as the hunters.” Ratha paused. “If you really can’t live with this, you can return to the seacoast with your treeling, if you want.”

“No. You need a Firekeeper,” Bira said staunchly as her treeling, Biaree, groomed her ruff. “I will stand behind you, clan leader.”

Standing in the center of the circle, looking at those gathered about her, Ratha at once felt immense pride and humility.

The pride was for her people as well as herself. There they were, around her. She was their center, and they her support. They had put aside personal reservations to do what their leader thought right.

Impulsive, sometimes foolish, but always well-intentioned Khushi. Bira—dainty, calm, her gentleness covering a deep-seated stubbornness that was only exceeded by her loyalty. Thakur, teacher of healing, herding, and living life in the most honest way. He was the essence and spirit of the Named.

And now Thistle, with her strange mixture of gifts and deficits. Of all, she was the unexpected visionary. She who had been most deeply wounded was perhaps the strongest among them. If she does not lead the Named, she will guide them, Ratha thought, and had a strong sense that she was looking at the future of her people embodied in her daughter.

No. She will serve more than the Named. Quiet Hunter and his people may be only the start. And I hope that I may be able to reach far enough beyond my limitations to help her.

“Well,” said Khushi, after the discussion had finally died down. “Now that we’ve decided what to do, we’d better figure out how to do it. True-of-voice probably doesn’t have much life left.”

Nor does Quiet Hunter, Ratha thought as she saw Thistle glancing at a shape lying still beneath the trees.

* * *

When Thistle felt that she could spend a few moments away from Quiet Hunter, she went to her mother and the others of the Named, who had gathered to figure out a way to save True-of-voice.

“We all saw the cliff,” Ratha was saying as Thistle joined the group. “Does anyone remember seeing any way to reach the ledge he’s on?”

“Maybe we should go and look again,” Khushi suggested.

“I wish we could,” Ratha said, “but the hunters are pretty stirred up. If we try, they’ll attack.”

“Then how are we going to get close enough to rescue True-of-voice?” Khushi asked, his voice doubtful.

Thistle was startled when the Firekeeper Bira turned to her and said, “You were with the hunters for a long time at the top of the cliff. Did you see any way down to the ledge?”

She replayed the scene over in her mind as she had done countless times. She had peered over the edge until her eyes ached, searching for a path down to the trapped leader. There was a slanting, rocky shelf that descended partway, but it petered out before it reached the larger ledge where True-of-voice was.

“Could only get halfway there,” Thistle said, and was about to add that it wouldn’t do any good when her gaze fell on Biaree, Bira’s treeling. Those creatures were good at climbing. At least in trees.

Bira inclined her head and gazed down at her treeling, who was grooming the ruff around her neck. Thistle watched the expression in Bira’s eyes change, and could almost follow her thoughts. First came astonishment, then recognition of a new possibility, but after that was a touch of fear and defensiveness.

Ratha was not slow to pick up the meaning of Thistle’s look and Bira’s response. Thistle could see her mother was trying to decide if this idea was quarry worth chasing.

“You think that Biaree could climb down the cliff to True-of-voice,” Ratha said.

“Treeling is smaller. Lighter. More toes to use for holding on,” Thistle answered.

“Even if Biaree could reach the ledge, what could he do?” This was from Khushi, who looked more skeptical than ever.

The reply, to Thistle’s surprise, came from Bira. “He could do a lot, Khushi. He could take bits of meat and melon down to the trapped leader. True-of-voice is probably dying of hunger and thirst as well as his injuries.” Her voice faded slightly as she looked down again at Biaree, and Thistle felt a stab of remorse.

“Don’t want treeling to get hurt,” she stammered. “Know how much you care for him, Bira. Maybe . . . too much to ask?”

“I think it is a good idea, Thistle,” Bira answered slowly.

“I wish it wasn’t so risky for Biaree,” Ratha said. “If I had brought Ratharee or Thakur had his treeling …”

Thakur, who had just been listening up to this point, made a suggestion. “Bira, I’ve seen you and Biaree bundle up twigs with lengths of vine. Biaree knows how to tie things. If you could get a very long length and get him to tie it around his middle and someone held onto it, he couldn’t fall.”

Thistle felt her cars prick up. How clever Thakur was! To see something that the Named used every day and be able to turn it to another purpose . . . that was a gift indeed.

She found herself making pictures in her mind. Of how the vine would attach to the treeling by using the controlled tangle that the Named called a “knot.” Of how the vine would run from the treeling to someone else who held the end in their jaws.

“Even if we can reach True-of-voice, and feed him to keep him alive, we haven’t solved the problem,” Ratha pointed out. “How are we going to get him down?”

And then the pictures in Thistle’s mind changed. Instead of seeing the vine tied to the treeling, the vine was tied to True-of-voice. And all of the Named were pulling, to lift the injured hunter up the cliff.

But would the vine be strong enough? For a treeling, yes, but not for True-of-voice.

“Would break,” Thistle muttered.

“What would break?” Ratha asked, and her gaze became sharp.

“Vines.”

“Vines?”

“The ones tied to True-of-voice,” Thistle said, wishing she had kept her silly thoughts to herself.

“How do they get tied onto him?”

“Treeling. If he can.”

Everyone sat staring at her. Thistle felt as though she wanted to slink away, back to Quiet Hunter. It was a stupid idea. True-of-voice was too heavy to be pulled up by vines. They would break. There was no point in risking Bira’s treeling for something that would never work.

But Bira herself was looking back with widened eyes. “I think you’ve got something, Thistle.”

Thakur and Ratha agreed.

“But couldn’t pull him up,” Thistle said. “Vines would rub on edge of cliff and break. He too heavy, even for all of us together.”

“We might not be able to pull him up,” Thakur said. “Once we got him off the ledge, however, we could lower him.”

The hopeful expression on his face began to spread to the others. Thistle felt it bubble up inside her. She looked to her mother and saw that the same hope was lighting Ratha’s eyes.

And not only hope. Pride as well. “I think it will be tricky, but it will work,” she heard Ratha say.

“Three yowls for Thistle,” Khushi crowed, and followed it up with earsplitting praise.

The meeting dissolved in a hubbub as the Named made their plans and assigned tasks. Thakur and Khushi set out to scout the forest for the heaviest vines they could find. Bira found a length of jungle creeper and began the task of teaching Biaree to attach it around his middle. Using Ratha and Thistle as models, she also had the treeling tie short lengths of vine around their paws.

“There is only one problem,” Bira said to Thistle, as she nudged the treeling into looping a length of vine about one of Thistle’s forepaws.

“What?” asked Ratha, who was watching.

“I can send Biaree down with food or melon bits for True-of-voice. That’s not such a complicated thing. But tying vines onto someone’s paws, especially if Biaree doesn’t know that someone—that may be the hard part.”

“He won’t do it?” Ratha asked as Thistle felt her hopes sag.

“He will, but I’ll have to go down with him at least partway to coax him. I’m willing to try,” Bira added. “Thistle said there was a slanting shelf on the face.”

Thistle watched the way her mother looked at Bira. “That shelf is pretty narrow. I saw it. Even the treeling is going to have a hard time.”

Bira looked steadily back at Ratha. In the Firekeeper’s gaze, Thistle saw the words that Bira did not need to say. Even if I risk falling, I’ll try it.

The clan’s deep loyalty to Ratha, despite her mistakes, made Thistle feel envious for a moment. It also brought a new respect for her mother.

“Could Biaree work with someone other than you?” Ratha asked Bira.

Bira looked startled. “Why yes, clan leader. But why?”

“Because I can’t let you risk your life as well as your treeling,” Ratha said. “And I won’t.”

“Don’t worry about me, clan leader. The important thing is doing what needs to be done, which is saving True-of-voice.” Bira’s voice sounded calm, but Thistle picked up a slight tremor underneath.

“I am the one who made the decision to attempt the rescue,” Ratha said. “I won’t ask any of you to take the risk. Unless I fail.”

“But clan leader,” Bira faltered, and then fell silent.

Thistle felt a bolt of fear go through her. Fear for her mother. That Ratha might die in a fall from the cliff, leaving the Named leaderless. And herself without Ratha, just as she was really starting to know her mother.

“None of you can go,” Thistle heard herself say sharply. “All too . . . big!”

There was a silence. Ratha glowered, while Bira looked thoughtful. “She has a point,” the Firekeeper said.

Ratha’s answer was a low growl. “I know. I wish she didn’t.”

Thistle interrupted. “Better chance for me. Smaller. Lighter. Not part of clan. Not needed. Or not as much as you and Bira.”

“Face-tail dung!” Ratha exploded. “Of all the idiot things to say! Thakur needed you enough to bring you here. And if you think I’m going to let you hang your scrawny tail over the cliff—what if you get one of those fits?”

Thistle shivered inside at the thought of being attacked by her illness, but she refused to back down. “My problem,” she said, thrusting her nose forward until her muzzle nearly met Ratha’s. “Not yours. Not clan member . . . don’t have to obey you. Can do as I want . . . hang tail where you can’t get to … can do what you can’t!”

“Thistle …”

“No, listen, my mother and clan leader. You chose to help hunters. But who pushed you . . . nagged you … made you think? Not any Named!”

With a thrill, Thistle realized that she was actually pushing against Ratha’s nose. She, the little half-Named scruffball, was making the clan leader give ground.

“Am going to take my scrawny tail down the cliff to True-of-voice. Only way to stop me is to say I can’t use Bira’s treeling.”

Ratha was going back on her haunches, but Thistle didn’t stop her advance. Not while she had her newly beloved foe on the run. “You going to do that? Tell Bira to not let me use treeling? Throw away one real chance to save True-of-voice?”

Abruptly, Thistle jerked her head away from Ratha’s nose. “Am going. With or without treeling.” She started to pace away.

There was utter silence behind her.

All right, they were going to make things hard. She was used to dealing with things when they were hard. Including her mother.

And then came a roar that made her ears flatten.

“Thistle-chaser, come back here or I’ll—”

She turned around, lifted her tail and her chin.

“—have to bring you the treeling!”