Dasie lowered her chin to her chest, thinking. Her eyes were closed to slits as she stared into the fire. At last she said in a soft, sad voice, “This is worse than Kinrove’s dance. In the dance, they gave up their own lives to protect us. But now you tell them they must kill, and yet must still give up their own lives. I thought to save my people from such things. You are telling me I have only plunged us even deeper into it.”

“And I have more to say.” Soldier’s Boy shifted slightly in his seat. “You will not like to hear it. But I know it is true. We need to support Kinrove in his dance. He has complained to me weekly that he does not have enough dancers for the magic to work well. He is bitter, saying that you broke his magic for the sake of your personal feelings, and now that you require it to work, you demand more of him than he can do. He says he needs more dancers, if he is to send fear and sadness not just to the edges of the forest, but deep into Gettys. And that is where we need it to be.” He paused and then looked at the fire as he said quietly, “We must allow him to summon more dancers.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Can you say this to me? When only three months ago, I took iron into his encampment to free the dancers? Don’t you understand at all why I did that? His dance was destroying us; the price he demanded to hold the intruders at bay was too high. It had torn the fabric of our families, and our kin-clans. I stopped the dance so that the People could go back to living as they used to live. What is the point of what I did if now I say to my people, ‘You must not only submit to being summoned to the dance, to dance until you die, but you must be willing to take death to the intruders and perhaps die there as well.’ Where is the peace and tranquility and return to the old ways that I promised them?”

I scarcely heard his response. Three months ago? My eternity of isolation had only been three months? Listening to them, I had feared I eavesdropped on an ongoing war council. I now knew, with a surge of hope, that Gettys had not yet been attacked. There was still time to stop this. How to stop it, I was not yet certain. But I had time, if only a small amount.

Soldier’s Boy was talking to her, low and earnest. “Before our people can go back to being what they were, to living as they have always lived, we must free ourselves of the threat from the intruders. So, yes, we must change, for this small time, yes, we must subject the People to these things. In order to save them.”

“In order to save them, I must permit Kinrove to work a summoning on our own people? I must let him turn the magic on the People again?”

“Yes.” Soldier’s Boy spoke heavily and with regret.

“You are certain that this is your counsel to me?”

I thought I heard a trap in her words. Either Soldier’s Boy did not or he was past caring. “Yes.”

“Then so be it.” She heaved herself out of her chair and stood. The scarlet and blue robes that she wore fell into heavy folds around her. Her feeders came immediately to stand at her side, ready to assist her should she require it. “Bring my wraps,” she told them. “And have my bearers ready my litter. We quick-walk back to my lodge tonight.” She turned back to Soldier’s Boy and grumbled, “It makes no sense that you insist on living here. It is a hardship on everyone that you are so far from every winter village.”

“Yet here I must be. And many of my kin-clan have seen fit to come and join me here.”

“Yes. I have seen that. A second little village of your kin-clan grows outside your door. And it is good that they are here. That way, when the summoning falls on them, you will see it.”

I shared Soldier’s Boy confusion and foreboding. “Falls on them?”

“Of course. I shall tell Kinrove he may resume his summoning. And your kin-clan was next in line to be summoned. Do not you recall? That was why he had invited your kin-clan’s other Great One to his encampment near the Trading Place. He made that small concession. Before he sent each summoning, he told the Great One of the kin-clan that he would be doing so. That was why Jodoli was there. He agreed to it, as he had been forced to agree to it before. And now, it seems, you have agreed to the same thing.”

Soldier’s Boy was silent. I sensed his reluctance. He did not want the summoning to fall on his kin-clan. He dreaded that Kinrove would take the men he had so painstakingly trained for battle and use them instead for his dance. But having said that Kinrove must have the dancers for the attack to succeed, he had no way to refuse it. How could he say the sacrifice of his kin-clan was too sharp, but that others must pay it? He chewed at his lower lip and then gave a fierce shake of his head. “Very well, then. Let Kinrove send a summoning. It must be done. Those who dance are warriors of another kind. And the sooner the threat is removed, the sooner all warriors can put down their arms or cease their dancing.”

“As you wish,” she said, as if she were conceding something to him. Her feeders were all around her now, swathing her in woolen wraps and a heavy fur cloak. I heard men’s voices outside the lodge, and suddenly the door opened, admitting a blast of wind and driven rain.

Soldier’s Boy gave an exclamation of dismay. Dasie laughed. “It’s only rain, Great One. If you do as you propose, we will face snow and the great cold of the winter in the west lands.”

“I will face it when I must,” he retorted. “I do not need it blowing into my lodge right now. Soon enough I must endure it, and then I will.”

“That you will,” she replied. She pulled a heavy hood up over her hair. One of her feeders was immediately there, tugging it forward and securing it around her face. Dasie had grown in girth and importance. I had not recalled her having so many attendants at Kinrove’s pavilion. She strode toward the open door. The moment she was through it, Soldier’s Boy made an exasperated gesture and a young man rushed to close it behind her. A woman piled more wood on the fire to replace the warmth that had been lost from the lodge.

“Do you think that was wise?” a shaky voice asked beside him. Soldier’s Boy turned to look at Olikea. She was offering him a mug of a steaming liquid. Her eyes were very large. Her lower lip trembled; then she firmed it into a pinched line. He took the mug from her.

“What choice did I have?” he muttered unhappily. “We must endure what we must endure. It is not forever.” Then, “Have you seen a summoning before? Tell me of it.”

Olikea looked grave. She spoke carefully, more carefully than she had ever spoken to me. Plainly her relationship with Soldier’s Boy was far different from how she had near-dominated Nevare. “I wish you had asked me what a summoning was like before you told Dasie they must be resumed. I would have urged you to try anything else before letting Kinrove call dancers from our kin-clan again.”

“Just tell me how a summoning comes,” he responded irritably. His anger covered a lurking fear that she was right. Small and silent, I rejoiced in my ability to once more read what he felt and know what he knew. Tiny as a sucking tick, and as secret, I clung to his mind.

Olikea spoke slowly and with reluctance. “The summoning has been a part of my life for as long as I can recall. Kinrove rotated them among the kin-clans. There are twelve kin-clans, so with good fortune, the summoning only fell on us once every eight years or so. He tried not to summon more than once a year, or so he said, but it is more often than that. He had to keep enough dancers, and—” She hesitated and then said bitterly, “And when people danced themselves to death, they had to be replaced.”

“What happens in a summoning?” he asked her uneasily.

She looked away from him. “No one knows just when it will come. The magic comes over everyone. It is like feeling sleepy or hungry. It comes and it plucks at you, asking you if you want to join the dance. It asks everyone. Some can say no. Last time, I said no. Part of me wanted to go, but a greater part did not. I do not know why I was able to say no to the dance, but I could.” She fell silent, staring into the flames of the fire. Her eyes narrowed and her voice went flat. “My mother could not. She left us and went to Kinrove’s dance.”