"Mercedes Lackey - Sacred Ground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

but once there, impossible to get rid of. He had certainly been teaching her things no tradition she knew
of called for; he had adopted the Lakotah sacred pipe; and he was passing to her the medicines of
virtually every Osage clan from Bear to Otter to Eagle, things she thought were kept as clan secrets.

Thatwould be like him; the man who cheerfully used an electric sauna for a sweatlodge, who prepared
sacred tobacco in a fruit-dryer bought at an ex-hippie's yard sale, who purchased his cornmeal for
ceremonies at the big chain grocery—

Who taught a woman Warrior's Medicine.

Kestrel realized where her thoughts were leading her, and resolutely brought her concentration back
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where it belonged. This Seeking was not about Mooncrow, but about herself. About her progress, or
rather, lack of progress.

There was something holding her back, and she did not know what it was. Mooncrow would not tell
her, saying only that if there really was something holding up her progress, she already knew what it was;
typical contrary reasoning. She wondered where he'd gotten that particular mind-set; it wasn't typical for
Osage Medicine. And it certainly made life difficult for his student. She could have used a teacher less
like Coyote and Crow, and more like Buffalo and Eagle. Simpler instruction, fewer tricks; more
straightforward direction, fewer riddles.

He's doing it to me again.Making her annoyed, taking her thoughts off the path. To be honest, making
herangry. He had chosen to teach her, andhow he taught her was his choice, not hers. It was her duty,
her privilege, to learn. If she were failing somewhere, it was up to her to find out where and why, and
correct it. Only then would she earn her medicine-pipe.

She let her temper cool, poured another dipperful of water on the rocks, saw that the cedar still burned,
and started over, determined that Mooncrow and his contrary ways would not distract her again. He was
"just doing that," like the buffalo, who did what they pleased, when and , where they pleased, and if it
seemed out-of-season, who would dare to stop them? Steam wreathed her, heat and semidarkness held
her, and this time she slipped away from herself to fly among the other worlds, among the other Peoples
of Water, Earth, and Sky.

It was in the Sky she found herself, a sky blue and cloudless to the east, dark and cloudy to the west,
with Grandfather Sun on her back and wings, and the heat of thermals off the prairie below bearing her
up. She flew above the meeting of forest and prairie, with the oaks and redbud, cottonwood and willow
stretching into the east, and an endless sea of tallgrass to the west.

If she had worn human shape, there would have been the hot, dry scent of grasses carried by the thermal
she rode, but raptors have no sense of smell, and all that came to her through her nares was the heavy,
drowsy heat.

She flew in the shape of her Spirit-Animal, the kestrel of her name. A good shape, one suited to swift
travel, although if she had hopped like Toad or crawled like Turtle, the results would have been the
same—those she needed to have counsel of would have found her, if she had not been able to travel