DOG dreams.

Not the animal dreams that make the legs twitch in some

phantom race, but the dreams made of human stuff, of mem-

ory and regret and rage, the dreams that make the heart race

and sometimes break.

Dog sits before the Fire, the Single Fire that never bums

out. He sits on his haunches, his long red tongue licking like

flame from his sharp-toothed muzzle. He sits on his haunches,

his long black hair forking like snake tongues over his naked

brown shoulders. He sits, garbed in the pelt of his kind, of his

mind. ~,

He sees the five as reflections in a bod~ of still water. Dog

they are, like him, and not quite Dog, and not quite like

himself. Brute intelligence looks back at him from under

widow s peaks of fur, wiser than it is ever given credit for.

Yellow eyes, so sage and wary, the flames dancing in the urine-

colored irises. Leery canine smiles that show teeth as well as

tongue. Coronas of fire-lit fur cloak their shoulders like royal

capes.

Gray, black, and fawn, their temperaments name them in

the way of wolves: Weatherwise, Quickfang and Cowlick, the

males old and young; Featherstep and Moondrift, the young

females, one dominant, the other dominated. The ways of the

pack can be as cruel as the laws of humankind. No wonder

wolf and human are enemies and, on occasion, allies.

Dog grunts. It is an almost human sound, but he is not all

animal now. The fire is of his making. The circling wolves