III
The plains are long as thought, my fathers, as memory, where the traveler sees at the edge of the sky the dead children walking, and closer, as the sky recedes, the children accept his name, in the terrible dust becoming, as the sky recedes, the skins of himself he abandoned in wandering. Or this is the way it always happens, the story they tell us of blindness in the country of leopards when our eyes say no more, say we are done with looking, with the children, with skins and with dust and with memory.
But the time of the Staff was no time, as Old Man told him it would be, knowing, reading the hawk's heart, reading the switch of the wind, knowing the Staff was calling, changing the country, changing the heart and the way the memory wanders the heart. And the moons crossed at impossible angle, Solinari to rest in the source of the sun, Lunitari to rest in the dragons. So Riverwind knew when the leopard approached him, skin full of light, of dark, of darkness boiling in light, bone and muscle giving way in imagined tunnels of plains and movement. Something behind him sang with the leopard, his left eye shining straight through the leopard to the edge of the world, and behind him something saying lie down, give this away at once, give this away before it begins, our son, our young one, for you can learn nothing of this mystery, nothing from this mystery but dry grass but dark but yearning but the graves of your childhood open to moonlight, and the dead the unspeaking dead you see where the sky meets the plains will be always your own, approaching.
And he knows that he dreams this story out of wandering out of night and the long singing he kept away from the People from Goldmoon from the Chieftain from Old Man himself, the weaver of blood, a dream that he cannot remember where the hawk scuttles over the ground, dragging its wing like a trophy, a kill, surrendered wind in its eyes. And as he approaches, the leopard, the hawk vanish like water, reflections of moon over moon at the heart of the place of the Staff. He follows each vanishing, awaiting the snares of the moon, and Old Man, he whispers, old man, I am learning this mapless country. But the wanderer travels through hunger's ambush, through the thirst of the country that drives away knowing and knowledge, and the words of the Old Man translate the country behind him but the country before him is rumors of water, is crystal arising distorted by moonlight, by thought and the absence of thought, and water arises like blue crystal before him. This time the dreaming is over, he thinks, and this time and this time but the water escapes him bearing the moons in its depths like memories, like the speculations of gods, until the water is standing before him and down in the water he sees himself looking upwards, the knotted moons at his shoulders, and kneeling to drink he drinks too long, for out of the water his arms are rising, terrible, cold as the wind, and drawing him downward to moons and to darkness to peace past remembering, peace that whispers join me my brother my double over his vanishing face, and the words of the Wanderer returning, drawing him upwards, the air in the words sustaining him after belief falls to the floors of the waters that never were, for somewhere the Old Man is saying, is saying belief is a facet of crystal that turning, catches the light and bends it to shapes and mirages, bends it to foxfire that lies at the heart of the crystal, where nothing lies but the light that is damaged and broken beyond those things you remember, my son, you remember, and Riverwind, doused and redeemed by the words, by the saving air, is saying, old man, I have passed this, too, I am learning this mapless country. Learning until the red of the moon, the silver, combine in the air and the light was gold as the perfumed candles of Istar, forgotten perhaps terrible, and Goldmoon walks like a leopard there at the edge of hearing and faith saying
Lie down, give this away at once, give this away before it begins, our darling, our young one, for you can learn all of this mystery, all from this mystery dry grass and dark and yearning, the source of the children blossoms for you in the winter. lie down, my love, lie down.
Still he walks toward the daughter of the chieftains, and still she recedes, the story of days and of years circles like diving water and Old Man, he whispers. Old Man, I am learning this mapless country, but still she recedes into the arms and the keeping of son after chieftain's son rising like skins of the dead spangled in stars forever before him, forever embracing her as she turns, her eyes green steeples of light, her eyes his eyes in the twisting moon, as she smiles, as she gives him to warriors, and Old Man, he whispers.
Old Man, I am giving this knowledge away, this terrible dream of the staff is a terrible dream when the staff surrenders, and under the moons he follows his losses until his skin turns against him, dappling, gold upon black upon gold, his strong hands remember a nest of knives and the front of the head bows down to the hot wind to the choir of leopards and in her golden throat in the throat of her numberless chieftains the blood is dancing is rising like a mirage like a thermal, and there are no words for this as he dreams this dream and the throats unravel. Forward he moves, remembering nothing, no movement and cry of the People no hunt at the head of the movement no horizons no crossing moons of the naming nights.
He has left them behind him utterly, surrendering all to the skin full of light, of dark, of darkness boiling in light, bone and muscle giving way in imagined tunnels of plains and movement. Something behind him sings in his ear, his left eye shining straight through mirages to the edge of the world, and the smell of the blood is fading to the smell of rock of water and of things below rock and water wise and lethal and good beyond thought. Upright, out of the leopard's salvation he stalks into light, his first and his last skin recalled and surrendered, robed once more in the long dream shining. There in a temple of rock, cold, insubstantial as rain cold as the silence of stone, lies the Staff it is singing, singing arise, you have earned this peace at the edge of the world, behind you a vanishing country. take me up like a trophy, like a third moon in the sky familiar, and instead of the arm of the chieftain, become the chieftain himself, the lord of a land of leopards, and Riverwind cold as the silence of stones, remembering the edge of the sky, the dead children walking, and the staff shines sudden in the reach of his hand refusing.
There in his grasp the world rolls, at the back of his head the voice of the leopard descends into words, is singing lie down, give this away at once, give this away before it begins, our son, our young one, for you can leam nothing of this mystery, nothing from this mystery but dry grass but dark but yearning but the graves of your childhood open to moonlight, and the dead the unspeaking dead you see where the sky meets the plains will be always your own, approaching.
In the light of the Staff he surrenders the Staff. More brightly it bums as it shines on the country of trials, on the three moons balancing now, on the night turning in on the heart of the night creating blue light, the light of the crystal brought forth by the hand of the warrior out of the lineage of leopards, the long heart of the people remembered past memory, but Riverwind, cold as the silence of stones, laughs the first time since the west has vanished, for this is the country he knows he has failed in winning, for under the plains lies nothing, and victory walks in the skins of the children through damaging years of light.