And Olikea came to wake Soldier’s Boy. “It is time to be up! We must feed you and get you dressed, and pack or store all the bedding before we go. Here is a cup of hot tea for you. Are you waking up?”
She spoke in an absolutely neutral voice. If I had not witnessed their quarrel the night before, I would have believed that all was amicable, even affectionate, between them. The unsleeping Soldier’s Boy opened his eyes and slowly sat up in bed. As he took the cup of steaming tea from Olikea, I saw several of the feeders exchange relieved glances. The storm was over. All would be well again. He drank from the cup and then held it, idly watching the steam rise.
“We must be on our way soon,” Olikea reminded him.
“So you must,” he agreed. He looked over at Sempayli. “You should leave now. I wish you to take my horse and not wait for us. See that he gets grazing along the way, and when you reach our place on the other side of the mountains, find him a sunny area with good grass for him to eat. The winter has been hard on him.”
“You wish me to leave right away?” The man looked puzzled.
“I do.”
“Very well.” Obviously, there was no quibbling with a Great Man. He rose and walked out of the lodge, pausing only to hoist his personal pack to his shoulder.
When he was out of sight, Olikea gave a small sigh. “Well. I had thought the horse could carry some of our things. But we shall manage. It is time for you to get out of your bed, so we can finish storing the bedding and be on our way. We are already late leaving.”
He pursed his lips, the Speck signal for denial. “No. I won’t be going with you.”
One of his feeders sighed aloud. Olikea looked at him for a moment in disbelief. Then, as if humoring a child, she said, “We will talk about it as we walk. But we must have your blankets to pack or store.”
“I mean it,” he said mildly. There was no anger in his voice, only a terrible tiredness and resignation. “I am not going with the People. It is as you said last night. I am useless to you, only a burden. I can think of no way to save Likari. All night long I have pondered it, and still there is no answer. Kinrove maintains his magical barrier around his encampment; I cannot pass it without his consent. He wields more magic than I do; I cannot turn magic against him. I cannot even get close enough to him to try to kill him. I cannot duplicate what Dasie did; Kinrove will never be caught in such a way again. My quest to end the need for the dance failed; no, worse than failed, it made even the dance ineffective. I have failed all of you. I have failed the magic. I have failed Lisana. You would be wisest to go quickly now, leaving me here, and make haste to catch up with our kin-clan. Tell Jodoli that I commend you to his care. Follow him across the mountains to the summer grounds.”
Olikea narrowed her eyes at him. “You sent Sempayli away first so he wouldn’t argue with you, didn’t you?” Soldier’s Boy gave her a small smile. Olikea responded with an exasperated sigh. She spoke bitterly. “Enough of this sulkiness. We cannot leave you and we should be on our way.”
But even as she spoke, one of the feeders glanced at the others, and then quietly slipped out of the door. After a moment, a second one followed her. Soldier’s Boy glanced after them and then back at Olikea. “I’m not going. You should leave.”
She had been holding her laden pack. Now she flung it down angrily. “And what are you going to do if I leave you here? You know I can’t do that!”
“You can and you should. Leave now.” He spoke to the sole remaining feeder. The man seemed relieved to receive such a direct command. He nodded gravely and departed. Soldier’s Boy swung his gaze to Olikea. “You, too. Go.”
She stood silent for a time. Her arms hung limply at her sides. Her eyes wandered over his still face, seeking entry to his thoughts. Finally she just asked him in a quiet, dull voice, “Why? Why are you doing this now? Why are you doing this to me? If I leave without you, they will say I have abandoned my Great One and shamed my kin-clan.”
He spoke simply. “Tell them I am not a Great One. Tell them that the intruder half of me always held me back from what I should have been. All I have tried to do has ended in half failure. I stopped the Spindle of the Plainspeople, but I could not cast it down. I slowed the intrusion into the forest, but the intruder half of me told the Gernians how to get around Kinrove’s magic. Yes. That is true!” he replied to Olikea’s shocked expression. “When I lived among the intruders, I was the one who said to them, ‘Drug your senses in order to dull them and resist the fear.’ It is my fault that they were able to begin cutting our ancestor trees again. Every other Great One I have spoken to assures me that I am supposed to be the one who can turn the intruders back. But even when I have done what the magic told me to do, it had no effect. I can only assume that something my Gernian half did canceled my magic. Even my raid on their settlement was only half a success, and my failure to drive them out has spurred them to greater hatred of us than ever. Do you see what I am telling you, Olikea? I am not a Great One who can help the People. I am flawed, like an intruder’s gun that explodes in your hands. When I seek to help the People, I do as much harm as good. It is because of my divided nature. Yet I love the People. So, to serve them, I must cast myself out from them. You must go to your summer lands. I do not know what will befall the People there, not this year or in the years to come. But I do know that my presence can only make it worse. And so I remove myself.”