The lodge was filled with smoke. The men of the tribe were gone. Doors, barred and guarded earlier, stood open. It was dusk. Riverwind felt a breeze blow through the dark house. It chilled his sweaty skin.

Suddenly, Arrowthorn and the elders were with him. Riverwind wiped his forehead and mouth with the back of one hand and stepped off the dais. He was exhausted.

“What has happened?” he asked his chieftain.

“You have passed your Anointing,” Arrowthorn said.

“How long have I been here?”

“All day. The elders and I have been discussing your problem.”

Riverwind wanted only a cool drink of water. His throat was puckered with the stale remnants of the berry juice. But he asked, “What problem?”

“You mastered your fear of death, but while you were conversing with the gods, our ancestors, you spoke many blasphemies.”

Riverwind sat up and squared his shoulders. “What blasphemy?”

“You denied our gods, the forefathers who made us. I have long known that you share your father's heresy; sons cannot help but bear their fathers' notions, no matter how false. But I never thought to hear Wanderer's heresy spouted during a solemn rite,” Arrowthorn said.

“The punishment for blasphemy is death,” Loreman added. His hands were clenched into fists. He had heard Riverwind talk to his dead son. “The law says the guilty must be stoned at the Grieving Wall.”

“You go too far,” Far-runner said. “Riverwind was not of his own mind when he said what he did. His father's spirit influenced him, Loreman.” Stonebreaker and the others echoed Far-runner's sentiments.

“What is to be done?” Riverwind asked.

All through the elders' wrangle, Arrowthorn had been silent, deep in thought. He had little liking for Riverwind as husband to his beloved daughter, but he had to admire the young man's performance this day. He couldn't dismiss Riverwind's right to quest for Goldmoon's hand, but perhaps he might teach him a salutary lesson.