Cutter, Blood of Ten Chiefs, gasped in fear, his azure eyes gazing down at the endless abyss behind the thin rock bridge on which he lay. It went on forever, the void that threatened to engulf him. He heard the cheers of his fellow Wolfriders, heard the mocking laughter of his rival. Struggling, Cutter managed to rise to his knees, managed to prop himself up on his hands. The void beneath the bridge swirred and spun, and Cutter felt near to losing his balance. The laughter again, harsh scornful laugther that cut to his very soul. He forced himself to raise his head, to be meet his rival’s golden eyes.
    Rayek stood above him, his slender form immune to the howling gales that ripped across the top of the Bridge of Destiny. His long lock of night-black hair blew as if in the gentlest of breezes. An arrogant smile met Cutter’s pained expression. The Wolfrider struggled towards his rival, struggled to stay up as he began to inch along the rock’s surface.
    The dark-skinned elf began to rise, to float above the gray stone bridge, soaring into the air. Cheers came from the Wolfriders at the elf’s violation of the challenge. Laughter and jeers accompanied Cutter as his head dropped again.
    “I cannot fall, wolf chief,” Rayek laughed. “But you must! Leetah is beyond you now.”
    Leetah. Cutter struggled to lift his head again, saw the curvaceous figure of his lifemate standing on the opposite side of the bridge, her leathers fluttering in the wind, waiting, waiting for the victor to come and claim her.
    “N-no, no, no,” Cutter shook his head, his eyes drawn abck to the immense void that loomed beneath him. “This can’t be...”
    “Come on, Cutter!” Treestump shouted. It was not encouragement, but scorn, that drove his call.
    “I’ve...I’ve done this before,” Cutter stammered. “I crossed the Bridge of Destiny...I won the Trial of Head, Hand and Heart. I know I did.”
     “Come on, Cutter, don’t shame us!” Skywise called. “Don’t shame Leetah! Get up!”
    “Too high, too high,” Cutter gasped, sinking back against the stone, one leg slidding from the surface of the bridge.
    “Aaah!” Rayek smirked as he hovered above the bridge. “This is who you are, Blood of Ten Chiefs – Mortal!” he sneered the word like a curse. “Full of mortal fear.”
    Cutter looked up at Leetah again. All patience had left the healer’s face, now she stared back with unmistakeable boredom, shaking her head softly at her suitor’s failure.
    No, no this wasn’t right. He had won the Trials before. He had won Leetah. They were Recognised, she was his. And yet now she stood, turning to Rayek with a warm smile as he flew to her side.
    “Leetah,” he murmured. “No, no.”
    “The trial is over,” Rayek drew the auburn-haired healer into his arms as he flew off the edge of the bridge. “We true elves win!”
    “No,” Cutter gasped. No.
    Leetah smiled coyly, burying her face in Rayek’s neck.
    “Our children shall be High Ones,” Rayek laughed. “Nothing awaits you and your mongrel tribe but death!”
    No, no this wasn’t right. Leetah was his lifemate. Her children were his cubs. And yet she wrapped her arms about Rayek as the elf carried her higher into the air.
    “Leeeeetaaaah!” Cutter howled in pain. His other leg lost its purchase on the rock.
    He looked back at his tribe as they sighed, shaking their heads. They began to turn: Strongbow, Moonshade, Redlance, Pike.
    “Treestrump,” Cutter called weakly. “Nightfall, please.”
    Once by one they turned and left him, wlaking down the cliffs to the Sun Village. Only Skywise remained, his expression one of profound disappointment. Then he turned as well. “Skywise!” Cutter called. “P-please, stay. Stay! I-I-I’m...”
    His arms slipped and he could feel his body sliding from the smooth rock. The last sight he saw as he plummeted into the chasm was Skywise turning his back.

    Cutter gasped raggedly as his eyes flew open. He was not falling to his death. He was safe in his sleeping furs, Leetah by his side.
    Overcome by the nightmare, he flew back against the furs, groaning in pain and grief. “Again, my Tam?” he heard Leetah whisper softly, her slender fingers weaving through his buff-coloured hair.
    “From your wolf blood springs the same dream, over and over,” she lamented softly, her voice a soothing melody lulling him back to sleep. It was all right, all was well. He was only dreaming. Leetah was back, at his side once more. Leetah lived, the cubs lived. Skywise had not deserted him. Still the dream ate at him, so real had it been.
    “If I had the power to blot out this self-torture...” Leetah murmured. “Is it not enough that we are together again? What will appease the wounded beast inside you? What?”
    “Oh, Leetah,” Cutter rose, sitting up. He hung his head, afraid to look at her, ashamed to meet her eye. Her words were true. He had to learn to recover from these wounds. He had to learn to live in the “now” once again. But some wounds, some wounds ran so deeply. He told her so, murmuring his words softly, afraid to speak of the great pain that dwelt inside him like a beast, gnawing a little more each day.
    “Some wounds can’t be healed,” he added softly.
    “All wounds can be healed,” Leetah said, taking his hands in hers. “Tell me, my Tam, tell me how.”
    “I don’t know,” Cutter sobbed weakly.
    “Then what else can one do, for a wounded beast?” Leetah asked sorrowfully.
    “I don’t know.”
    “I do,” she gently stroked the ragged bangs from his eyes. His lifted his head to see her smile, so sweetly. “I do,” she said, and her smile changed. Became more reptilian, more demonic, a vicious smirk his own sweet Leetah would never know.
    “What–” Cutter asked,  but before he could say more Leetah moved, swift as a cat. Cutter saw the events play out slowly, though he was slower to act. Leetah dove for the table on which New Moon rested, and pulled the sword from its sheath. With a laugh, she shoved Cutter back on the furs, and as he cried out in fear and agony, resheathed it in his gut.

    Cutter awoke screaming.

    “Wonder what old Rayek’s up to under the waves?” Skywise asked, gesturing at the jagged rocks, then at the great Vastdeep Water. “Been pretty quiet since his last flight to the Sun Village.”
    Cutter growled low in his throat. His vivid dreams still tormented him. What could they mean, first falling to his death while Rayek laughed, then dying at Leetah’s hands? So many images swirled in his head, so many emotions raged in his soul.
    “Who knows?” Cutter growled. “They say it’s smart to keep your enemies close, but deep down in the muck is as close as I’ll ever be able to tolerate him.”
    Skywise was silent a moment. “You know...” he ventured. “You’ll have to get along with him somehow...if you’re ever to travel in the Palace again.”
    How could he say that? Cutter wondered. How could he say forgive? He had felt only one day. He had not known countless seasons of pain and loneliness. He did not know tormenting nightmares. Who was he to say “get along”?
    “How?” Cutter turned to him. “How? For...for countless eights my family...you...were all...all dead to me – because of him!”
He turned back to the cliffs, to the churning waters below. Somewhere down there Rayek lived, smug in his isolation. “I try!” Cutter insisted. “I try to live in the ‘now.’”
    He narrowed his eyes at the waters. “But it chews my guts, to know he’s down there, still content with himself. Still fooling with powers that can change everyone’s world, everyone’s life – but his.”
    “You’re been too hard on him,” Skywise said, his voice colder now. “You could learn something from Rayek, you know, if you weren’t so rockheaded.”
    “How can you say that?” Cutter demanded. “How can you defend him? After what he did? To you, to me, to everyone? He destroyed our world, he killed you, killed you all to me, for what? For his vain and foolish dreams and his mad ambitions–”
    “Cutter...”
    “You weren’t there,” Cutter turned to his friend. “For eight eights time eight–”
    “I know, I know,” Skywise rolled his eyes. “I’ve been hearing it ever since I got back. For six turns I’ve been listenign to it. The same old song. It’s getting old, Cutter.”
    “Old?” Cutter stammered, unable to believe such cold words could come from his soul-brother. “Old? What do you know of old – Skywise! For all those turns, all those notches in that old tree, then countless more slept away, you were lost to me. All that time I was aware, the ‘now’ beyond my grasp.”
    “And now you’re the elder with the face-fur while I’m the little cub I have to listen to you whine for the rest of time.”
    “Yes!” Cutter snapped, fury battled sheer bewilderment. How could this be Skywise before him, sneering at pain he couldn’t comprehend. Where was his Fahr, from all those years ago, who understood him as no one else did. Had Rayek stolen that too? “Yes! Now you’re the cub. You know only one night that lasted an eternity for us. You have no idea what we struggled through during what was only a blink of time to you. You have no idea–” Cutter’s voice broke and he looked down at the crashing surf once more.”
    “You may have seen more years than I, Cutter,” Skywise’s voice growled with a scorn Cutter had only thought possibly from snakes like Winnowill and Rayek, “but I’ll always be your elder, and you’ll always be a foolish cub, wailing for your parents when you cut yourself on a stray thorn.”
    “Skywise,” Cutter gulped, his voice barely able to express his pain. What was happening, where was the Skywise he knew. Surely he had not lost everything?
    “Cutter,” Skywise took him by the shoulder, staring into his eyes, gray meeting blue, and Cutter sighed in relief, seeing the concerned expression of the Skywise he knew and loved. “Tam,” the stargazer continued. “I say this as your brother in all but blood and your truest friend.”
    “Yes?” Cutter asked, drawing in a hopeful breath, seeing a possible bridge over the gulf that separated the two lost friends.
    “Shut up!” Skywise shouted, shoving Cutter back.
    Cutter screamed as he fell, as the rocks rose up to meet him and tore through his flesh, as the world grew dark and cold.
    “Idiot wolfrider,” Skywise muttered.

    Cutter’s eyes snapped open to see two familiar faces peering down at him. “Come on, Father,” Ember laughed. “Come on, stop wasting time dreaming. Suntop’s only going to be here a few days, and you promised to take us on a hunt, for old time’s sake.”
    Cutter smiled. He was alive. Suntop was visiting his family in the forest. The family was whole again, and Rayek was far away under the sea. All was well.
    He hurriedly dressed and met the cubs on the ground. Mounting his wolf while Suntop climbed on behind Ember astride Choplicker, they headed out on the lookout for something to hunt.
    “The village must be busy since last I saw it,” Ember giggled. “What’s been happening, come on, cloudhead, what’s the latest news.”
    “I...I don’t know,” Suntop shrugged. “I haven’t...I haven’t be paying much attention.”
    “Too busy training with Savah?” Cutter laughed, smiling at the crisp air and the scents of the forest. He was a fool to worry so. Everthing was all right at last.
    “And Rayek,” Suntop piped up. “I’ve been ‘out’ training with Rayek too. Ever since he found his magic again we’ve been...” his voice fell away as he saw Cutter’s face darken, the old hates rising to the surface once again.
    “Don’t talk about Rayek,” Ember gave him a nudge in the ribs. “You know how threatened Father is by him.”
    “Threatened?” Cutter growled. “I am not threatened. If I hate the arrogant brownskin it’s with reason. I’m not threatened by him.”
    “Of course not,” Ember smiled, tossing her brillant red-gold hair. “You simply envy his magic and his skill and smarts and wish you could be as great an elf as he. And when you know you’re not.”
    “I do no envy him!” Cutter roared, turning his wolf to face his daughter. “And if you speak such nonsense again I’ll thrash you senseless, daughter or no.”
    “You’ve never been able to admit he is your better,” Ember laughed, her smile taking on the same serpentine quality as the dream Leetah’s. “You’ve never been able to face your superior.”
    “I’ll teach you a lesson about your betters,” Cutter leapt from his wolf, his face a cloud of rage.
    “No, Father, it’s you who needs the lesson,” she smiled.
    In a flash she and Suntop were upon him, shoving him to the ground. Their fists hard as rock pummeled his back, and their boots struck his side repeatedly. Cutter howled in rage, struggling for his sword. New Moon was gone.
    “Learning anything, Cutter?” Ember sneered.
    Cutter sent a frantic message to his wolf, but the animal had left him. He tried to reach the tirbe with his sendings, but no one answered.
     “Cursed Wolfrider,” Ember hissed, “condemning me to death with your tainted wolf-blood.”
    “We are meant to be immortal,” Suntop growled, delivering kicks and punches, drawing blood and cracking bones. “You and your corrupted kin don’t deserve life.”
    “We are meant to be creatures of magic, like Rayek,” Ember taunted. “Not animals of dirt and sweat like you!”
    “Worthless, worthless, worthless,” Suntop punctuated each cry with another vicious kick.
    “Meat to be wasted,” Ember agreed, tearing at his hair and flesh with her sharp nails.
    “Ember...Suntop,” Cutter struggled to say. He was broken and battered, being torn apart by his cubs.
    “Learning anything yet?” Ember laughed. Now New Moon had reappeared – in her’s hands.
    “No,” Cutter gasped. “Ember, no!”
    “Time to put you out of your misery, Father,” Suntop laughed.
    “No!”
    “This is for all true elves!” Ember said, raising the sword high her hands before driving it into Cutter’s heart.

    **Cutter!** Strongbow’s tore Cutter from his dreams. **Cutter? Are you all right?**
    Cutter sat up in his furs, nodded uncertaintly, breathing ragged. “Yes,” he gapsed at length, shaking the dreams from his head. “Yes, I’m fine.”
    **Dung,** Strongbow swore. A sharp dagger appeared in his hand. **Ah, well. Easily fixed.**
    “Noooo!” Cutter screamed as the dagger plunged into him, tearing through flesh in a line of fire.

    He awoke again, now lying in the shade under the protection of a mighty tree. Mother and Child Moon had risen in the dark sky, and the soft sounds of nightcalling birds echoed through the forest silence. He had fallen asleep after losing the trail of that stag, he remember now. His dreams had faded now, nothing more than distant memories of indistinct pain. Still, they troubled him. How could he live in the true “now” if the past still ate at him, still conjured nightmares of loss and death?
    He heard the soft pads of a wolf’s steps. He raised his head to see a snow-white wolf silently glide out of the underbrush. Golden eyes watched him with a timeless wisdom and infinite patience.
    “High One,” Cutter smiled, sitting up. “Timmain, welcome. Perhaps you can help me. I have had these horrible dreams I can’t–”
    The wolf suddenly began to snarl, the hair on her back rising in anger, her head lowering as she bared her fangs.
    “Timmain, what–” Cutter began, but all other words could cut short as Timmain leapt for his throat.

    “Nooo!” Cutter was shocked awake.
    “It’s all right, Cutter,” a reassuring hand touched his shoulder. “Everything in all right now.”
    “Rain?” Cutter frowned, looking up from the ground to see the warm smile of the healer. But he was dead. He had died countless eights ago, long before the quest had began, when Madcoil had decimated the tribe’s numbers.
    “Come on,” he held out his hand, and Cutter reluctantly took it.
    Rain helped him to his feet and he found himself staring a large rocky slope covered with Wolfriders. Elves of past and present, sitting on the curving slope, smiling down at him. There was Skot, not dead and now with the Palace, but alive and well, sitting between Pike and Krim. Before them sat Sust, and...was that Cheipar, the son they had lost seasons ago? Redlance, Nightfall and Tyleet sat nearby, beaming joyfully, and next to them was Venka and Kahvi, as they had appeared during their long season with the Wolfriders. Skywise sat on a rock with two elves, a beautiful woman with golden blond hair and a silver-haired elf who bore more than a passing resemblance to the stargazer. Eyes High and Shale, Skywise’s long dead parents? Surely so, for next to Skywise sat Foxfur, and next to her One-Eye and Clearbrook, only now One-Eye was whole again, restored to what he had been before the humans had attacked him. Dewshine sat with father and mother, for now Rillfisher was alive again, one arm about her daughter, the other around her lifemate’s broad shoulders.
    Nearby sat Leetah and the cubs, smiling gently. And next to them, standing to welcome the new arrival, were Bearclaw and Joyleaf.
    “Father,” Cutter gasped. “Mother.”
    “Welcome, son,” Bearclaw smiled.
    “Welcome home, Cutter,” Joyleaf beamed.
    “Home,” Cutter sighed. Home, yes this was home, for he was home at last, surrounded by his friends and family, wrapped in a feeling of joy and peace so strong it was almost tangible, a comforting mist that swirled about his dreamscape, holding all united in love and peace.
    He raced to embrace his mother, then Bearclaw enveloped him in a bone-crushing bearhug. Then the old chieftain set his son back a few paces, nodding solemnly.
    “We’ve watched you for so long,” Joyleaf smiled. “Watched you with eyes filled with love, waiting for the great deeds that we knew you were capable of.”
    Cutter felt his chest fill with pride and joy. Indeed, he had come home.
    Bearclaw’s proud smile fell. “And what a useless disappointment you were.”
    What? Cutter felt his heart plummet.
    “Not like our cub,” Eyes High said, ruffling her son’s hair. Skywise smiled proudly, turning to his parents and long-lost lovemate, ignoring Cutter completely.
    “You’re such a waste,” Joyleaf shook her head mournfully.
    “So pitiful, a mourning moping little spoiled brat,” Bearclaw agreed. “You suffer so greatly, you’re so put upon, and we must all worship you for your pain and your pain alone.”
    “Arrogant dog,” Kahvi sneered.
    “You call yourself a Wolfrider,” Shale growled.
    “What a disappointment,” Bearclaw sighed. “Ah well,” he nodded to the elves behind him.
    Cutter’s jaw dropped as the weapons appeared. Eyes High and Shale stood, drawing their daggers. Skywise brandished his sword. Skot and Pike raised their spears, while little Sust and Cheipar giggled in glee. Ember and Suntop raised fiendish looking bows and moved to join Strongbow on his rock, taking arim. Leetah smiled so sweetly, and pulled out her own dagger.
Bearclaw had New Moon brandished, Joyleaf held her arrow trained on her son.
    “Wolfriders, take aim,” Bearclaw ordered.
    “Father,” Cutter pleaded.
    “Steady,” Joyleaf called.
    “Wait.”
    “Fire!”
    “Ooohh,” Cutter moaned, seeing the weapons surge towards him in a united wave.

    Cutter awoke with a start.

    “You’re certain this is all real?” he asked for the fifth time that day.
    “Yes,” Leetah insisted, taking his hands in hers. She gestured to the wide field that grew out of the forest’s edge, to the night sky overhead. “See the field, the stars, the moons. It’s real, Cutter. You are real.”
    “And Skywise?” he asked as the pack slowly filtered out onto the plain, in search of the stag they had lost.
    “In the Palace, safe guiding it through the stars.”
    “And Suntop, Ember?”
    “Suntop is with the Sun Folk, training with Savah and Timmain in the heart of the Palace. Ember is leading her tribe, a gifted chieftess.”
    “And Bearclaw and Joyleaf?”
    “Dead, but their spirits thrive in the Palace.”
    “And Rayek?”
    “Lost, wandering the wide earth, Winnowill’s spirit inside him, forever locked away from the world.”
    Cutter exhaled a long breath of relief.
    “The dreams have ended,” Leetah assured him as the waded through the long grass. “Now comes the waking. You are Cutter, Blood of Ten Chiefs. You live, your family lives. The world is well.”
    Cutter sighed. “The world is well,” he smiled. He looked up at the night sky, then out at the tall grasses. “All is well at last.”
He waded out further, enjoying the feel of the grasses bending to his steps, the scent of the night air. These were tangible things, things to be feel and cherished. One could smell the night air and walk through the field and rejoice in being safe and alive. One could track the stag and roam the night and forget the past and the yet-to-come. This was the now. Truly and surely.
He noticed the tribe seemed to have disappeared in night, getting lost in the high grass. “Leetah?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. She was backing up,her eyes filled with horror.
    “What?” he looked up to see a dark shadow filling the sky, plummetting down to the ground, casting a dark circle over the field as the other elves raced for shelter.
    “Ooh, puckernuts,” Cutter swore as the shadow covered him, the Palace hitting home a moment later with a resounding SPLAT!

    Rayek awoke with a start.
    “Brownskin?” Ekuar asked as Rayek sat up in his makeshift bed, gasping for breath, his hands rising to his face, his golden eyes wide with shock.
    “E...E-ku-ar,” he exhaled, a ragged breath as he slowly adjusted to the waking world. He gave a long sigh, his arms folding over his drawn-up knees, his head sinking down on top of them.
    **Winnowill?** Ekuar asked. **Does her spirit stir again?**
    **Stirring within...I...I think...** Rayek’s answering send was weak, distracted. **A gift...I think...**
    “A gift? What do you mean, what is it?” Ekuar asked, noting in alarm that the elf’s slender form was shaking softly now, Rayek’s head still down, his long hair falling forward to hide his face. Was he crying? What shock had visited him in the night to produce such a reaction? How was the Black Snake tormenting him now?
    A sound reached him, soft at first, the growing steadily. Ekuar realised it was not sorrow that so shook his friend’s body, but...laughter. Laughter of all things.
    Rayek raised his head, nearly in tears as he convulsed with laughter. At Ekuar’s bemused expression he sobered slightly, only enough to speak.
    “Oh Ekuar,” he exclaimed. “I have been having the most wonderful dreams.”

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