She had not had visions of another child. A brother or sister to her first-born had never appeared in her dreams. Then again, what had happened eight months earlier-whatever it was had never appeared, either.
She heard a low rumble, like thunder but muted, even though it sounded nearby. A strange feeling passed over her skin. One she had experienced before during the night of the strange visitor who left no tracks.
She tried to right herself. To let gravity help. But she couldn’t get to her feet or even her knees. If she died, would they find her son? Would he fulfill the destiny she saw for him? Or would he die here on the shoals of the Greasy Grass, frozen?
With a painful hiss, she reached up with a blood-soaked hand, grabbing a root that extended out of the bank. She tried to pull herself up and was almost back in the crouching position when the root gave way, sending her tumbling onto the smooth pebbles of the shoal.
Through her pain, she was vaguely aware of the sound of someone or something coming closer through the underbrush on the far side of the river. She looked in the direction, and fear washed over her, blanketing the pain for a few moments. There she saw a figure with smooth white skin unlike any she had ever seen before, floating six inches above the water, moving without any apparent motion.
The eyes scared her more than the strange mode of movement-they glowed slightly, and were red and bulging. This was no human, of that she was certain. It had to have come from the world beyond where the Great Spirit dwelled. The figure floated to a halt just in front of Nahimana. She noted that it had a pack looped over one shoulder.
The young Sioux reached down to grab her first child as she noticed starlight glinting off of blades on the end of each of the creature’s fingers. It was a demon creature, coming to kill her and her son. She gasped in pain but gathered up the buffalo robe and held her firstborn tight against her chest.
Nahimana blinked as the front half of the figure split from the back half, swinging open, revealing a woman inside, as if tie hard white exterior were a garment of some kind. A pale-skinned woman, like those she had seen at the white-man’s fort to the east, with curly, short brown hair and dressed in a one-piece garment from neck to booted feet, stepped out. She took the pack from the shoulder of the white skin suit.
“I am here to help,” the woman said. her accent very strange and the Lakota words pronounced with difficulty.
Nahimana closed her eyes and sank to the pebbles. A hand on each shoulder helped her up, back to her crouching position against the bank. There was a strange odor in the air, one she had smelled only once before, in her lodge on the night of the pain during the Moon of the Shedding Ponies. She knew now that this woman had visited her that night. Why? And ‘why was she here now? What had the woman done to her?
Nahimana cried out in pain as another contraction futilely passed through her body. The hands left her shoulders and went between her legs. She felt the invasion as they penetrated into her, but she welcomed the relief as the small hands righted the breached baby. In a moment, the second child was free of her body. Nahimana tried to reach for the dropped flint, but the movement was too much and she slid down into a seated position.
Her benefactor picked up the ceremonial knife and cut the umbilical. Then she passed the newborn to Nahimana, who opened her robe and held both babies close to her bosom. Another boy. A great blessing, Nahimana thought.
“Thank you,” Nahimana whispered.
There was no immediate response. Nahimana peered in the darkness, able to see more as the first hints of dawn were appearing above the bluffs to the east. The person was indeed a woman, Nahimana realized, which didn’t surprise her, as no man would have known how to help her. The woman’s face was lined beyond her apparent age.
Two sons. Nahimana had not seen this. All her visions had been of one. This thought troubled her and muted her happiness over the dual birth and her rescue from certain death.
She looked closely at the second-born and was shocked to see icy blue eyes reflecting the first of the morning sun’s rays. And the skin was paler than the first-born’s. like the woman’s. This could not be. They bad both come from her womb and been born of her husband’s seed. Or had they? What had happened that night?
Nahimana realized she had seen the second son in her visions. He was the one who rode with the white skins guiding them into the great battle against her first-born. He was the one who carried the strange skulls.
The woman knelt in front of Nahimana. The woman pointed at the first-born, then at Nahimana, nodding. Then she pointed at the blue-eyed child. Then back at herself. Nahimana frowned, trying to understand. The message was clear as the Woman reached out and took hold of the second-born, trying to pull him from the cocoon of Nahimana’s robe. Nahimana tried to fight. And the woman paused and then stopped. She placed both hands on the side of Nahimana’s head, pressing in.
Nahimana gasped as a sharp pain passed through her skull. Then everything went black for a moment.
“A great destiny awaits your son,” the woman’s voice was surer with the language as if drawing it straight from Nahimana’s mind in some way, “as you have seen before in your visions.”
“And the other?” Nahimana asked.
“He, too, has a destiny, and he is yours by virtue of the past nine months,” the woman said. “But he is also mine.”
“How can this be?”
“They are connected,” the woman said. “By your womb and by your blood and by the time they have spent together. They will share that connection for the rest of their lives. And they will bring about that which is needed when they come together later. They will be together again at the end but against each other, to bring about that which I cannot show you, nor would you understand. The fate of the world and all those who walk upon it rest upon their final meeting.”
The woman removed her hands from Nahimana’s head and reached for the child once more.
Nahimana wouldn’t let go.
The woman paused and looked deep into Nahimana’s eyes. “You know the truth. There is nothing but doom for your children. For your tribe. For your people.”
“No.’’
“It is the truth. The people with skin like mine come from the east. They are like a mighty river that cannot be stopped.”
“So why are you here?”
“Out of doom comes great power.”
“What do you mean?”
The woman tapped the side of her head. “Our minds are very powerful, more so than we realize.” The woman reached into the pack and pulled out a crystal skull like the one Nahimana had seen in her visions. It was beautiful, enticing. Despite her fear and pain, Nahimana reached out with her free hand. The woman let her touch it. The surface was perfectly smooth. It gave off warmth, although there was no flame. Starlight glinted through the crystal and sparkled. There seemed to be a slight blue glow inside the skull, but Nahimana couldn’t see the source.
‘’There is something greater than your tribe, your children, your people. Greater than my people.”
“There is nothing greater than my people for me.”
‘’There is the Great Spirit’s domain, which goes beyond the borders of your people’s land, of my people’s land, even beyond what you know of the river of time and of this world.”
Nahimana frowned. “What are you talking about?”
The woman spread her arms wide. “The world. The future for all children. The battles, past and future, where so many b.ave already died to try to save the world.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand it completely, either” the woman said. “There is an evil force. The Shadow. It seeks to destroy our planet. Power is needed to fight it.” She held the crystal skull once more. “This will be his-” she indicated the blue-eyed boy. “With it he will turn defeat into power for victory.” The woman put the skull back in the pack and tapped the side of her own head once more. “There is great power in the mind. You know that, but you don’t know how powerful it can be under the right circumstances. These two-” she indicated the two babies — “will bring about the right circumstances.”