A voice answered from the group of old men: "A tree is a green dream."
"What has become of the living land?"
"The living land is dust!"
The drum beat grew louder. Ryan's throat tightened. He felt the refreshing warmth of anger touch his face. The opening phase of the Dance always affected him, even when he was expecting it.
One of the old men was moving out into the firelight, shuffling his feet to the beat of the drum. The light reddened the wrinkles on his thirty-year-old face, made a crimson washboard of his forehead. His thin voice drifted on the cold night air:
"The living land is dust, and those
who turned it into dust
are dust themselves—"
A woman's voice took up the chant:
"Our ancestors are dust: