Children of the Dawn (36 page)

His breath caught.

There—sharp dents in the earth—four wide apart, then a leap away, four more. Then none. He jumped from the tree, and traced
one with his finger: the size of a man’s heel print; rounded, with a slight point in front; deep as his thumbnail; crisp-edged;
fresh.

The hoofprints of a horse? Tor—who grew up with horses—would know. Kai El—who saw his last horse at three or four summers—did
not. But what else could they be?

It had not been a dream. The impossible had actually happened. For Kai El, the prints were proof that Kusi, the Horse Spirit,
had carried Tor into the sky.

Why, or where Kusi took his father, when or if he would return, Kai El didn’t know. Tor might even be dead, but everyone had
to die. It thrilled Kai El to have been there. The way it happened was so
right.
How many times had a white horse come at his father’s command?

His mother had become a legend when she died. Why not a legend for his father? It might help people remember the courageous
warrior Tor had once been, instead of the lump of dung he’d become.

Under thickening clouds, Kai El ran to Teahra Village, knowing his father would not be there. He couldn’t wait to tell what
he’d seen, to bring people and show them. He was
so excited that he hardly noticed the rain beginning as he barged into Tenka’s hut.

Juniper smoke smudged the air. Raindrops on the new roofskins sounded like a drum. Sitting before a small fire, Tenka did
not look up.

“People ask permission to enter the Moonkeeper’s hut.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and stood until she told him to sit.

She stirred the coals, shaking her head.

“My boy, my boy. What has your father done?”

“You know?”

She nodded.

How could she? Kai El and Tor were the only ones there. If she could go places in her mind, maybe his father’s weak sister
would turn out to be a good Moonkeeper after all.

She said, “The twins were awakened by their mother’s cries. Only Tor and I know how much sleeping vine to give her, but Tor
was not there. The girls waited as long as they could, sure he’d only gone out to make water. When Tsilka threatened to kill
them, Tahna came for me.”

The Moonkeeper’s long face lengthened with concern. “Your father has not returned. The way he’s been, I’ve waited for the
night he would wander off like an old man whose mind left his body without telling it to die.”

So she had
not
been there.

Kai El said, “My father did not wander off.”

The Moonkeeper placed dry juniper on the smudge fire and waved the smoke toward Kai El, then toward herself.

“Tell me what you know.”

“I was with him last night… ”

Kai El had thought it was a dream, but dreams didn’t leave hoofprints. Yet how could it have been real? Men didn’t ride horses—horses
didn’t fly—there
were
no horses.

Dream or reality? It did not matter. There was only one certain thing: Tor
had
disappeared. His son saw good reasons for people to believe that he’d gone to the otherworld in a glorious way. The story
was grand enough to become the legend his father deserved.

Kai El took a deep breath.

“My father is dead. He left our world on Kusi’s back.”

He told Tenka what he had seen, adding things to make it
better. She gathered the people, who were eager to see the place where Tor died, to touch the hoofprints of the spirit horse.
Kai El took them to the hilltop, but they saw nothing there: The rain had washed the hoofprints away.

Most decided to believe Kai El’s story without any proof. They wanted to think their old friend Tor met a good death. They
liked him, except for the time after Ashan died, and they forgave him.

Tor had brought the tribes together at the Great River. People remembered him for that.

Old ones who were drawn to things of the spirit enjoyed telling of their brother’s journey to the otherworld. Told and retold,
Tor’s story, and Ashan’s, became tribal memory and took their places among other legends. They called Ashan “She Who Watches,”
and Tor “Father of Teahra.”

The Keepers of the Misty Time became part of the Misty Time.

P
EOPLE FELT SORRY FOR
K
AI
E
L AFTER
K
USI, THE
horse spirit, took his father. He did not like the feeling.

He had overheard women talking about him, clucking like birds sitting on eggs.

“Poor Kai El. So full of promise as a boy. Now all that promise has turned to curse.”

“His mother carried off by coyotes; his father by a horse.”

“All his belongings gone. And that hut… made for a Moonkeeper’s family… now it’s just a burned-out, rubble-filled hole.”

Many a mother had imagined a future for her daughter in that fine, large hut. The women shook their heads.

“The son of two legends living in the old Tlikit cave.”

“How sad.”

Most of the people of Teahra Village lived in huts of wood and skins like the Shahala had made since the Misty Time. But anyone
could stay in the old Tlikit cave—if they wanted to, or had to. Men slept there after arguing with their mates; children slept
there for fun. Some grayhairs liked it because, even though it smelled bad, it never leaked. When the autumn rains came early
to Teahra, Kai El slept in the old Tlikit cave.

Knowing how long it would take to gather everything needed for a new hut, men offered him a place in their homes. Some offered
because they still thought he’d be a good mate
for their daughters. He ate and slept in one home or another, but never stayed long in one place.

Kai El thought it was sad and unfair that some girls found him so desirable, when the only one he wanted did not.

He had made Gaia angry that day in the cliffs. She wouldn’t talk to him. After Tor died, she spent all her time hidden in
her hut, caring for her mother.

Kai El’s dreams about Gaia and their future together seemed destined to remain dreams, yet he could not give up hope, no matter
how he tried in conversations with himself.

Why Gaia,
he wondered.
Why not her twin? Or any of the others who used to excite me when I thought of seeing them naked?

A soulmate’s love cannot be explained: Look at what your father did to be with your mother.

But if we
are
soulmates, why doesn’t
she
know it?

Maybe in time she will. She can’t stay angry forever. And she won’t have to take care of Tsilka forever: The old witch will
either get well or die.

When the autumn rain stopped for a while, Kai El couldn’t wait to get away from the village.

“Like his father,” people said. “But what do you expect? An acorn doesn’t grow into a pine.”

Time alone refreshed Kai El, renewed his inner strength. The robe of pity people made him wear fell away. He was tired of
them caring more for him than he cared for them, tired of pretending to be like everyone else. To be with his friends, to
hunt, watch girls, make jokes out of everything—none of it was fun anymore. His friends seemed to have become younger, their
thoughts about unimportant things, when all he wanted to do was think of Gaia and the life they would share.

Kai El found a place to go where no one bothered him.

Teahra Village hid at the bottom of a deep gorge that followed the path of the sun. To the direction Warmer, the Great River
curved around a breast of land, protecting the cluster of huts from whatever lived on the other side of the water. High, rugged
cliffs rose behind the village. Trails climbed through the cliffs to vast plains where the people hunted and gathered.

One trail led to the sacred place where the Moonkeeper Ashan used to speak with spirits. After her last death, the people
of Teahra abandoned the Moonkeeper’s Path. In life, they said, she didn’t welcome others to her takoma. Why would she now?
And what about the stone face that appeared up there on the day she died? The gaze of She Who Watches comforted some, frightened
others. No one wanted to get close to it. Some thought the stone
was
Ashan, but her son knew better. Like all who lived in the otherworld, Ashan was free to be where she wished. Kai El knew
that his mother—whose name meant Whispering Wind—would not wish to be a rock.

Partway up, the Moonkeeper’s Path opened onto a piece of flat ground where Ashan would stop and rest. Behind and to the downriver
side, lichen-dappled crags rose straight up to block the wind. A massive slab canted outward to keep a bit of ground dry.
On the far side of the river, autumn-gold grass waved from the hills. When Kai El faced Colder looking up, the stone eyes
of She Who Watches gazed back, reminding him of his mother’s love.

Kai El liked the pleasant, sheltered spot. He called it the “halfway place,” and spent more and more time there.

Early this morning, he’d come down to Teahra Village to gather what he could from people who had more than they needed.

He hoped to see Gaia, but she stayed in her hut, with the doorskin closed.

He hoped
not
to see Jud. His longtime friend would be full of questions he wasn’t ready to answer. And—unlike most people, who didn’t
bring up certain things because of respect—Jud blurted whatever ran through his head.

So Kai El visited others, talked about what interested them, collected gifts to replace things lost in the fire. He didn’t
see Gaia or Jud. After a day among his people, with layers of pity building up, he was ready for the clean peace of the cliffs.

He passed quietly behind Jud’s hut, but his friend’s mother, Wachiak, heard him and stepped out, wiping her hands on her dirty
dress.

Dung,
Kai El thought.

“My favorite young man, except for Jud,” Wachiak said. “Makust is making crayfish stew. Stay with us.”

For a long time, Jud’s mother had been trying to interest Kai El in her daughter, Makust. He could hardly stand to look at
the short, fleshy girl, but the stew smelled wonderful.

“Is Jud here?”

Wachiak shook her head. “He and Talak went to see if the snakes with sucking mouths have come.”

Good,
Kai El thought.

“They waited another day for you. Did you forget?”

“I did.”

It was a lie. How could he forget? Kai El and Jud had eeled together since they’d been old enough.

He was only nine summers the first time. He remembered his mother’s protest… just because one or two had lost a son, all mothers
worried about the danger.

“He’s too young! Please, Tor, next autumn!”

“Do you want them to say he has weak legs?” Tor said.

Ashan knew she’d lost the argument. Even a Moonkeeper couldn’t stop a boy from growing up.

Eels came with the autumn salmon. They looked like snakes and lived like fish, but seemed more simply made than either: just
a piece of tasty white flesh long as an arm, in a tough, gray bag; with two small eyes, and a mouth that knew about hanging
on to rock.

At a place a day’s walk from Teahra Village, the Great River roared over a run of short, wide waterfalls. In the calmer water
behind the cascades, eels crowded the rocks, holding on with their sucking mouths, waving in the current like animal-grass.

“Are they going upriver, or down?” people asked.

“No one knows.”

“Why do they stop here and wait for us to pick them?”

“Because they need rest,” older people said.

“No,” boys always said. “We have seen them mating under there.” That made girls giggle.

These discussions became part of a tradition growing up around the gathering of eels, which the tribes had not known in their
old lands.

Kai El remembered the thrill of crawling around in the
strange world behind the falls, plucking eels from the slippery rocks, stuffing them into his creel. Cold numbed the gatherers.
The raging river choked and beat them, and swept the occasional one to his death. But the honor made the punishing risk worthwhile.

Men left the work to boys eager to prove themselves, but they sat around to watch and advise. Women who cleaned the catch
were given the skins to make thin, tough leather that shone. Girls came to admire the bravery of the gatherers.

The whole village looked forward to eeling time—except maybe the mothers of the boys. Not everyone went to the falls, but
all loved to eat the bounty: charred like snakes on sticks before a fire; baked underground; cooked in water; or dried.

This time, Kai El’s friends had gone without him. He was glad. Since he wouldn’t have to see Jud, he stayed in Wachiak’s hut.
The crayfish stew was good, and Makust didn’t try to sneak under his furs in the night.

In the morning—after hot, crisp fish cakes, and failed words to stay him—Kai El started back for his place in the cliffs with
food, leather, rope, spearpoints, and a new pack to carry them in.

It had been a good visit, until now. Jud and Talak, approaching on the river trail, saw Kai El before he could hide.

“
K
AI
E
L
! W
AIT
!”

My spirit brother,
Kai El thought with a groan.
Just who I didn’t want to see.

Jud ran toward him. Eagle feathers flew from the staff he carried; he said they were from an already-dead eagle, but Kai El
knew better. Even on a day as cold as this, Jud wore only a loinskin; he claimed to have an inner heat, and Kai El did believe
that. Jud never wore moccasins; said he loved the way the ground felt under his feet. His chopped hair stood up. From a distance,
it looked like a porcupine sat on his head. Kai El had teased his friend to let his hair grow, or he’d never get a woman.
Jud would say he’d have ten women before Kai El had one. At seventeen summers, both were still waiting for the first.

Talak came behind Jud. He was a friend, but not a spirit brother. At fourteen summers, he was taller than Jud, but shorter
than Kai El, with a thin body like a young girl’s. He could act as silly as any other boy, but Kai El thought he held something
back. There might be more to Talak than anyone would ever know. Who
really
understood what it meant to be the son of a Firekeeper who was once a slave?