<So, young dream chaser,> she said. <As you say, you have come far to consult with me. What may this ancient singer of memories do for you?>
<I—> he began, then paused, overcome once more by a sense of his own temerity. He was only a youth who had been granted his voice before the elders of Red Leaves Dancing Clan less than half a turning before, and as Song Mistress had pointed out, that scarcely qualified him to challenge the united decision of those same elders.
For just an instant, all he wanted to do was turn and go home, before he exposed his youthful lack of maturity and humiliated the rest of his clan by disputing the will of its elders. But then he remembered the songs of Climbs Quickly and the deeds of Sings Truly when first she became Bright Water Clan's senior singer, and his resolve stiffened. If anyone in the world would understand how one could be called to argue against restrictions, surely that person was Sings Truly!
<I have come to seek your assistance, Memory Singer,> he said with a dignity he found vaguely surprising.
<My assistance,> Sings Truly repeated, and her age-blunted whiskers quivered with bittersweet memory. <There was another scout of the People who asked my assistance,> she told Seeker of Dreams. <I gave it . . . and he almost died of the giving. Indeed, he diddie of it in the end. Would you have me repeat that gift?>
<I would,> Seeker of Dreams replied, and this time there was no question or self-doubt in him. He looked into her eyes, letting her taste his sincerity, and she sighed.
<Your elders are right, Seeker of Dreams,> she told him at last. <You aretoo young. Go home. Wait. Live longer before you race to meet the dark.>
<I cannot,> he replied simply. <I have heeded the songs, Memory Singer, and I taste the two-leg mind glow in them, like fire in a night of snow and bitter wind. It haunts my dreams, and I yearn to taste it more clearly—to take it for my own and give myself to it. And I wish to know more of the two-legs' worlds, and their tools, and all their marvels. It is a hunger and a need within me, and I cannot reject it or turn from it.>
<And if you feed that hunger, you will die,> she said softly, and flicked her tail in interruption when he would have responded. <Oh, not immediately, little brother. But the humans—and that is what they call themselves; not "two-legs"—are shorter-lived than we, and those who bond to them . . .> Her mind voice trailed off, and he tasted a complex alloy of grief, guilt, and loss in her mind glow.
<I did not realize how short-lived they are when Climbs Quickly bonded to Death Fang's Bane,> she admitted after a moment, and her mind voice was so soft he wondered if she had ever admitted it to anyone before. <She was so young, no more than a kitten of her kind. I never dreamed she would live so short a time! Yet even though she lived a long life for the humans, Seeker of Dreams, it was for less than eighteen turnings, and when she died, Climbs Quickly chose to go into the dark with her.> The memory singer looked straight at her young visitor, and her eyes were very bright but soft. <A part of my heart died with him, little brother. He was my youngest brother, of our parents' final litter, and I loved him—perhaps too much, for I have never truly known if I supported him because reason told me it was correct, or because love left me no choice. But this I do know, youngling; he should not have gone so soon, not for another full eighteen turnings of his own. Yet if you achieve that which you wish, you will perish even younger than he, for he was three full turnings older than you when they bonded, and few among the humans have mind glows so strong and stable—and at so young an age—as Death Fang's Bane's. You will not find another so young, and if you bond to an adult, one whose life is half spent when first you meet, then what awaits you when your human dies?>
<I do not know, Memory Singer,> Seeker of Dreams said, and dipped his ears with grave formality. <Perhaps, I, too, will go into the dark with my two-l—with my "human." But perhaps I will not, too. It is customary for one of the People to follow his or her mate into the dark, yet it does not always happen. Sometimes there are things undone—things one knows one's mate would wish one to complete, or kittens to raise, or another whose mind glow fills the hole in your soul. Sometimes there are not, and no one can know which will happen in his life until it is upon him. Yet that does not keep us from seeking the ones among the People with whose mind glows we must bond. Why then should we allow it to stop us from seeking out the ones among the humans whose mind glows call out to us in our dreams?>
<You are so like Climbs Quickly.> Sings Truly sighed. <He had no reason even to worry about the possibility, for none of us guessed such a thing might be accomplished, yet he had that same certainty . . . and stubbornness. You do realize why your elders seek to prevent this, do you not?>
<Of course I do, Memory Singer. Am I a mere kitten, unable to taste what truly fans their anger with me? They love me. They do not wish to see me bond to a human and "throw my turnings away." As you, they fear I will bond to an adult, one with only three or four turnings left to it, and so they would have me wait until my own turnings and those of the one I might bond to would be better matched and I would "sacrifice" less of my life. But I have tasted the mind glows of others who have taken that advice and never gone among the humans at all. Rather they find mates in the passing of time, and that is good, for it is not right for one of the People to be unbonded and alone. Yet there is also that sadness in them, that knowledge of the path not followed and the dream not sought. Life is choice, Memory Singer, and any choice—even the taking of a mate, and the life bonding, and the kittens who grow strong in the warmth of their parents' mind glow—may breed sorrow. Indeed, the same choice may bring great happiness yet also great pain. I am young, but I have seen and tasted it in the lives of others. Yet the life in question is mine, and it is only fitting that I bear responsibility for the decisions which weave it. I respect my elders, and their love warms me, yet have they the right to forbid me to protect me from myself? Is that not alien to the ways of the People?>
<It is,> she affirmed sadly.
<Then the right to choose is mine, and however much I respect my elders, and however much I understand that they act out of love, it is I who must decide. Yet I would not simply defy them, and that was why I sought you. You are Sings Truly, she who first recognized the value of our bondings with the humans. And you are also the most senior memory singer of all the People of all the world. I do not ask you to attempt to overrule or command my elders. That would be wrong, even if they chose, because of who you are and all you have done, to obey you. But I ask that you support me in this. That you tell them what you have told me—that it is my right and my decision to make.>
The aged memory singer gazed at the young scout before her, tasting his sincerity. More than that, she tasted the call of which he spoke, the yearning. She saw it seldom among the People, yet each time it appeared, she felt the pain anew, for each time it reminded her of Climbs Quickly. She had come to realize, over the long Sphinxian years, that there had always been something different—special—about her brother. His mind voice had been stronger than that of almost any other male she had ever met, and he had always been independent-minded and strong-willed . . . and most skilled at tasting mind glows. He would have made some female a wonderful mate, and yet there would always have been that something different deep within him. He would not have known what it was, or what to do with it, but he would always have known it was there, like a thorn buried in the pad of a hand-foot. The unused capacity and ability would have been like that, somewhere deep down inside, and he would never have been fully happy or content, for his full talents would never have been tested or used.