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good
ears between them, so the Listener nudged aside the image of Sila and
turned to the matter at hand: his dream.
    Sitting on a stool carved out of
whalebone, with his old brain-tanned bear's hide around his
shoulders, the Listener sat at the entrance to his ground and looked
out at the night. Heat from his two soapstone lamps warmed his back,
and cold from the still, freezing air chilled his front: that was the
way he liked it when he was listening to his dreams.
    Lootavek, the one who listened before
him, swore that a man could only hear his dreams
as
he was
having them, yet the Listener thought him mistaken. Much like Nolo's
boot lining, dreams needed to be chewed on.
    The Listener listened. In his lap he
held the hollow tip of a narwhal's tusk, a little silver knife that
had once been used to kill a starving child, and a chunk of sea
salt-hardened driftwood from a wrecked ship that had been beset then
stoved in by the cold blue ice of Endsea. Like all good talismans,
they felt right in the hand, and as the Listener's body heat warmed
them in varying degrees, they released his mind into the halfworld
that was part darkness and part light.
    Fear gripped at the Listener's belly as
he fell into his dreams.
    Hands reached. Loss wept. A man
with an impossible choice made the best decision he could…
    'Sadaluk! Sadaluk! You must awaken
before the cold burns your skin."
    The Listener opened his eyes. Nolo was
standing above him. The small, dark-skinned man had his prized
squirrel coat tucked under his arm and a bowl of something hot and
steaming in his hand.
    The Listener shifted his gaze from Nolo
to the night sky. The pale glow of dawn could clearly be seen across
the Bay of Auks. Stars faded even as the Listener looked away. He had
been listening to his dream for half the night.
    Nolo tucked the squirrel coat around
the Listener's shoulders and then held out the steaming bowl. "Bear
soup, Sadaluk. Sila made me swear to watch you drink it."
    The Listener nodded gruffly, though in
truth he was quite pleased—not about the bear soup, which he
could get from any fire around the rendering pit, but for the fact of
Sila's attention.
    The bear soup was hot, dark, and
strong, and bits of sinew, bear fat, and marrow bobbed upon the
surface. The Listener enjoyed the feel of steam on his face as he
drank. The warmth of the bone bowl soothed the joints in his black,
hard-as-wood hands. When he had finished he held out the empty bowl
for Nolo to take. "Go now. I will return the squirrel coat to
you when I am rested."
    Nolo took the bowl with all the usual
carefulness of a husband handling one of his wife's best dishes and
made his way back to his ground.
    The Listener envied him.
    After what his dreams had shown him
this night, the Listener knew that such a base and mortal emotion
should be beneath him. But it wasn't, and that was the way of the
world.
    The Listener had seen the One with
Reaching Arms reach out and beckon the darkness. And that meant only
one thing.
    Days darker than night lay ahead.
    Pulling hides across his doorway, the
Listener retreated into the warmth and golden light of his ground.
His bench was thick with animal skins heaped high with fresh white
heather, and he lay down upon it and closed his eyes. He had no wish
to dream and sleep, so he turned his thoughts to Sila and imagined
her and Nolo sledding across the frozen margins of Endsea. He
imagined the rime of ice beneath the sled runners wearing thin and
Nolo calling a halt so that his wife could make new ice by the
quickest way she could.
    This pleasant image held the Listener's
attention for only a short spell. There was work to be done. Messages
had to be sent. Days darker than night lay ahead, and those who lived
to know such things needed to be told. Let no one say that Sadaluk,
Listener of the Ice Trapper tribe, was not the first to know.

THREE

    A Circle of Dust
    Are you sure you checked the rear of
the horse corral?" The freezing wind made Drey