The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) Read Free Page B

Varovitch,’ which means Raven the son of Raven in your language. ‘This is the story of how I came by this name.’ “
    “Hah! Who is telling this story, you or I? Now be quiet and let me talk to you. I am Var Varovitch. In your language I am called Raven, the son of Raven. This is the story of how I came by this name.”
    “Almost right,” she allowed. “The next part goes, ‘My father hadclimbed throughout all the mountains, in places even the goats did not go, and such was his fame as a trapper and trails man, that. . .’”
    “Quiet, now. When the government people wanted a guide, they came to my father and offered him their paper rubles, which were worthless, for they had no gold to back them, and a government order from the Georgia S.S.R. apparat, which was also worthless, but which had the guns and soldiers from the Tbilisi garrison to back it. For himself, he had no fear. But for me, he had fear. For I had taken my mother’s life when I came into this world, and there were no doctors to save her, for she was Georgian, not Russian, and had no friends in the capital to have a doctor assigned by the government. And I was but a babe in the crib at this time, and had never seen the green grass, since I was born in the winter, and the spring had not yet come.”
    “I love that part.”
    “Quiet. Father feared they might burn the village if he refused to take the expedition up the slopes of Mount Kazbek. He knew the place where they wished to go, even though it was not the place shown on any of their maps. But he asked them why they could not wait till spring. Did they not recall how the Russian winter had destroyed the invasion of Hitler’s armies less than a handful of years ago? But no, they must go to the spot where it said on their maps. The scientist there in charge of the expedition said they must go, since the glory of the Soviet peoples commanded it, and only a traitor would cause delay.
    “Well, father said he could not leave his little baby with no mother, since he had only the milk to drink of wild she-wolves father caught in the snow. . .”
    “That’s you! I bet you were cute. But you forgot a part. ‘The winter was so bitter that the cows gave ice, and the bird song froze in the air, and it was not until spring thawed the notes free, that all the birdsong sprang up over the green earth . . . ‘ “
    “No, that is from different story. So, now. The expedition had been traveling for many days, blinded by snow, on short rations . . .”
    “Wait. The government scientist made your father take you with him. You were bundled up on his back in a wrapper of wolfskin.”
    “Yes, that too.”
    “And you forgot about the part where they all laughed at him for carrying a bow and arrows when they had guns, and then later their guns froze.”
    “That part is coming. Where was I? There was nothing in the sky but one black vulture, and all about them ice crags and chasms of the mountains. Father pointed at the black vulture . . .”
    “You forgot something.”
    “Yes, yes. The-stupid-scientist-thought-they-were-lost-and-the-soldier- threatened-to-kill-father. okay? okay! Listen: Father pointed at the black vulture and said they need but follow the bird to find what, in the midst of the empty mountains, that bird found to eat.
    “He led them to where there was a naked man chained to the mountain, a man so tall that he was taller than the steeple of a church. He was chained with chains of black iron, and frost clung to his chains, and red icicles spread like a fan from the great wound in his side, all down along the bloodstained cliff where he was chained. His face was calm and grave, like the face of the statue of a king; but all full of suffering, like the face of a saint in an icon.
    “ ‘What do you see?’ asked my father. For he knew the Russian men were not like those of us from Georgia, and cannot see what is right before their faces.
    “ ‘I see ice,’ said one soldier.
    “ ‘I see