Page 21 of Fire And Ice

Rissa smiled softly. “Oh my dear, I think you do. You just don’t know them yet.” Then she turned to Luther. “Now that you know the mountain's secret, what do you and your men plan to do about it?”

“What do you mean, what are we going to do about it?” he asked.

“You have a choice to make, young man. You know the Maiden’s secrets now. So you have to look in your heart and decide what you are going to do about it. It will be a question of whether you believe in what your heart believes. You can turn your back on the history of that gold and get some of it for yourselves or you can believe in the history of the People and make sure it stays right where it is.” She shook her head. “You can join those wolves outside and go after the gold, as they need someone who can actually see the mountain to find it. But know this, the mountain holds its own when it comes to protecting its secrets. There are tunnels and caverns deep inside its stone walls. You can get lost in them and never find your way out.” She nodded her head sagely. “It has happened before. The Maiden is unforgiving to those who would use it for ill gain.”

“You keep calling it the Maiden,” Swag spoke up. “I found only a small article on this.”

Rissa looked over at him. “And what did this article tell you?”

He shrugged and got a bit nervous as everyone in the room stared at him. “Long ago, a medicine woman of your tribe, waited for her brave to come home from war. She knew of the mountain's power, she went there every day to try to...” he paused. “Use its magic to make sure he came home to her.”

Rissa nodded. “The mountain itself is a living being, it is alive with its own ecosystem. Magic has seen it so. And it is so with everything under the sun. Yet, it was not to be used for any gain, or to change fate. She tried to do so. Her Brave never came home. She went insane and the story says that she went into the mountain in a fury then melded with the mountain in an eternal sleep. Then it grew to be a mountain range, and it shows her sleeping in grief forever. The Sleeping Maiden.”

The room went quiet.

“Wow.” Swag shook his head. “The article never told it like that.” He grinned.

Rissa nodded. “There is nothing like stories passed down, generation by generation. This all happened at least a hundred and fifty years before I was even born.”

Diesel cleared his throat.

Rissa looked over at him. “Speak, young man.”

“Well...What the hell?” he exclaimed. “Werewolves? I mean that’s twilight shit. You can’t tell me that they are something normal.”

Rissa nodded her head. “They come from the Skinwalkers.”

Luther sat forward and said, “My father spoke about that. But those aren’t werewolves.”

“No, but they come from the Skinwalkers of old. Only they are limited to only being a wolf.”

“Only?” Steel asked in total confusion. “Like what does that mean?”

Every person in the room stared at the Medicine Woman.

She shook her head. “They were... cursed.”

The three Weres, all glared at her.

Chapter Eleven

Rissa looked over at Trent, Kinsen, and Jacks and spoke in her native language, “'Ilk'idá?, ko?o? yá'édi?ná'a. 'Ákoo Tl'ízhe hooghéí dá'áíná biko?' 'ólíná'a. 'Ákoo Tl'ízheí gotál yiis'á?ná'a. 'Ákoo Mai'áee hílghoná'a. Gotál jiis'á?í 'áee, Mai tsíba?a?ee naaná'azhishná'a. 'Ákoo bitseeí tsínáilgoná'a.”

They all stared at her blankly.

Luther scrunched his brow as he tried to remember the language his people spoke. “Something about a fire and wolves?” He shook his head. “And flies?” He chuckled. “That cannot be right.”

Amira raised her head and translated it, “Long ago, there was no fire. Then only those who are called Flies had fire. Then the Flies held a ceremony. And a wolf came there. At that place where they held the ceremony. He danced around and around at the edge of the fire. And...” She paused as she tried to get it right. “He continually poked his tail into the fire.”

Everyone now stared at her.

Trent looked stunned. “You weren’t raised with your people. How did you know the language?”

Rissa beamed at her granddaughter. “It is in her. In her blood.”

Amira looked as shocked as the group did.

Rissa looked over at the three Weres. She raised her hand at them. “I am sorry, but... your people became trapped in the wolf. They could not resist trying to steal the power...Or fire, if you will. So the story goes.”

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