"Qiingi ... " The being sounded reproachful. "Good artists borrow, great artists steal. And truly great artists forget that they've stolen. You sound like an adolescent Is it because you have been polluted by the ideas of the Westerhaven girl?"

"Unlikely," he said, reluctant to talk about the strangers who had visited the day of the potlatch.

"Tell me, what is teotl?"

He scowled at the being for a few moments — but he had come here to find peace. If he was truly to do that, he must shift his worries away from what was transpiring on land. Qiingi sighed. 'Teotl is the region of the fleeting moment" he recited. "Ometeotl is the one near to everyone, to whom everyone is near. But teotl can only be a thing, it cannot be itself."

"What? Qiingi, what are you talking about? Are you speaking nonsense?" The being dove under the boat, emerging on the other side.

They did this all the time — teach you something then pretend you were speaking gibberish when you recited it back to them. The being was trying to get him to think about what he was saying, not just recite.

As he focused on explaining what he meant Qiingi found his thoughts settling. This was what he'd come here for. 'Teotl is ... teotl is that which is always something other than itself. It is everything and everything is it"

"Qiingi, again you talk nonsense. Do you mean that those trees aren't really trees, but something else?"

"No. That would be a lie." He concentrated. "Since ... since teotl is always other than itself, those trees must really be trees, because if they were teotl they would not be teotl, but something else, and that something else is trees. Teotl can only be by being those trees. That is how teotl comes to be. And yet, the trees are only teotl, and nothing more."

"Very good!" The being spun around and ducked its head, flicking water on Qiingi again. "But, silly human, if teotl is always something other than itself, how is it that it hasa/iowie?"

With that it dove, and didn't resurface. Qiingi stared down into the depths, pondering, until he became aware of a voice coming from shore.

"Halloooo ... "

A gull flew by, wings trembling just above the wave tops. "Answer, answer," it cried. "The ancestors summon you."

Qiingi watched it go, suppressing a sharp retort. Seagulls were never smart. The ones around here had fallen for the "ancestors" unreservedly; Qiingi was not about to let one order him about.

But the voice called again. Reluctantly he turned his canoe and began paddling back. He could hear singing in the distance, and the smells of wood smoke and seaweed drifted out to him. As he pulled his canoe up onto the round rocks of the shore, the ancestor sauntered over, looking lazy as always. These beings never worked, but simply plucked what they needed from the mist. That alone made them worthy of suspicion. At least the beautifully masked Wordweaver Kodaly worked.

"I couldn't quite make out what you were talking about out mere. Were you discussing the Aspect of Eros or the Pulsation Process of the Absolute?" asked the ancestor. He loomed over Qiingi, radiating health and pent-up energy.

"Neither. And both."

The ancestor laughed. This one was named Kale; he was blond and had a perfectly chiseled face, which he never changed. It was yet another thing that marked these people as strange: they worshiped beauty, and yet they would not change their faces to suit the tastes of those around them.

They had contempt for ghahlanda and for the Song of Ometeotl, Qiingi had learned.

"How can I help you this morning?" asked Qiingi.

"We are holding a meeting in the grand hall," said the ancestor affably. "I was thinking you might like to be one of those in the council circle."

Qiingi's uneasiness grew. Things had been strange for the past few days. It felt like the buildup of tension before a thunderstorm. His cousin Gwanhlin, who always had time to talk, now hurried to and fro, never meeting Qiingi's eyes. Even the forest people, bear, badger, and fox, had begun singing strange songs and congregating in shadowed spaces, always slinking away when interrupted. And everywhere, the ancestors walked and brayed their confident heresies.

"I am not sure what it is that we have to discuss," he said. Despite himself he was intimidated by this big man. He looked like he could snap Qiingi in two if he wanted.

"Things are changing," said Kale. "Very rapidly. Some of your people are adapting with admirable speed. Some are having difficulty. You're not having difficulty, are you, Qiingi?"

"I am a wordweaver, one who speaks to those from over the horizons," said Qiingi, crossing his arms. "I have traveled between the worlds. I do not think I am having difficulty coping with the changes."

"Ah. Good. So — "

"But," interrupted Qiingi, "I am having great difficulty in knowing why you are doing this to us. And how." What he really wanted to say was, I don't think you should be taking down the walls between the worlds. But the elders had discussed it; they had decided that the fall of the walls was a metaphor, merely a piece of mysticism.

"What do you mean?" asked Kale. "We explained it all to you." The ancestor began to walk up the beach, crunching dried seaweed. Iodine scent wafted from the weed. "Come, we can talk as we walk."

Qiingi fought with himself as they walked. How much could he say? He sensed the danger of admitting his suspicions, and yet ... people were disappearing. Not that they didn't do that all the time, vanishing into subworlds or under the waters of the bay. Young people in particular saw other worlds all the time, before they learned to trade their ghahlanda, and sometimes they were seduced away from Raven to a place behind the mists, such as Wester-haven. But they often returned, and very rarely were they impossible to find. But these people — good friends of Qi-ingi's, stable and full members of the community — they were simply gone. Had Qiingi not known that the totems and spirits of the forest protected his people, he might have thought they had died.

"Kale, some of my people are missing. Do you know where they have gone?"

Kale looked him the eye. "No idea," said the ancestor.

There was a brief silence. "Ancestor Kale, I know that you have told us ... " At that moment Qiingi saw something and forgot what he was about to say.

"Yes?" Kale looked at Qiingi, then followed his gaze upward.

Swooping low along the treetops that lined the bay was a craft of the air. Qiingi had never seen such a thing, but he knew instantly what it was. The fact that he could see it at all meant that Kale was right: the walls between the worlds really were falling. The elders had said that this would result in the world perceiving the true face of Ometeotl. But that was impossible, Qiingi knew. The old men had mistaken the ancestors' proposal for just another living myth that would, like everything else, use the technology of the Song of Ometeotl. Qiingi doubted that Raven himself believed there could be a single face to Ometeotl. Now, in their zeal to dismantle the worlds, the elders were learning what they had deliberately forgotten: that if you took down the walls of the world you would not see the face behind the masks, but just one more mask.

"Westerhaven has come," Qiingi said. He thought about the subtle men and women of Westerhaven, with their bright devices and ease at manipulating realities. A grimmer of hope came to him then, even as the flying thing made its own wind beneath it and settled in swirling sand and flying seaweed onto the beach.

Kale crossed his arms and smirked at the apprehensive look Qiingi sent him. "Go on," he said. "Talk to her."

Qiingi left him standing in the dappled light of the treeline. He tried not to run down to the flying machine, as its curving mirrored door opened and Wordweaver Ko-daly stepped out.