Or maybe it was just a fear of clinging to the back of some giant pluiking fish while soaring through the sky.

There were probably worse things that could happen to a bogan, but Rabedy couldn’t think of one at the moment. It was all he could do to hang onto the salmon’s dorsal fin, knees clamped as tight as they could be against the slippery scales of its body. He knew he should just keep his eyes closed, but he couldn’t stop himself from staring at the ground speeding by below.

He really was going to throw up.

The terrain changed under them as they passed through various worlds, from forest to desert, large frightening expanses of deep, dark water to endless sweeps of tundra that went as far as the horizon until the passage into yet another world put those desolate lands behind.

Rabedy had no idea where they were going. He didn’t care.

“Let me down, let me down!” he kept shouting.

But all Odawa would reply was Patience, his voice ringing in Rabedy’s head, resonant and most unpleasant.

“Bugger your patience,” Rabedy finally cried. “Let me down now!”

Fine.

Their descent was fast and sudden. Rabedy held on so tightly that by the time they were finally near the ground, it was all he could do to pry his hands from the salmon’s fin and drop the last few feet. He lost his balance and fell to his knees. For a long moment, he kept his head close to the ground, waiting for the contents of his stomach to come roaring up his throat. For the pounding in his head to stop.

The vertigo passed, if not the thunder in his head. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying because his legs felt all rubbery. He put one hand out for balance, the other against his temple in a vain hope to stop the pounding. His gaze searched for and found Odawa, standing in his own form at the edge of a cliff, looking down at something below.

Supposed to be pluiking blind, he thought as he stumbled over to join the green-bree, so what was he staring at?

“What do you see?” Odawa asked when Rabedy was beside him. “My senses tell me one thing, but this once, I don’t trust them.”

“I see . . . ”

Rabedy’s voice trailed off. He stared down at the thousands of buffalo warriors gathered on the plains far below and let his hand drop from his temple. The pounding wasn’t in his head. It came from them, from hundreds of thousands of hooves stamping and war drums beating. The buffalo filled the land below, from one horizon to the other.

“Cerva,” he said after a moment. “Impossible numbers of them.”

Odawa nodded. “The living, with the spirits of the dead swelling their ranks.”