Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (30 page)

 
          
Whether
he liked it or not, Imoh was learning steadiness. The attempt to lock eyes with
the mother eagle was by no means his first attempt, nor his first eagle.

 
          
The
great birds were absolutely territorial, and their territory stretched wide.
Within a day's walk from his tribe's winter village, he could touch land
belonging to no more than three. The first bird he disturbed so much making his
rackety way up the tree where he'd spot-ed it sitting calmly that it had taken
off on huge 'ings and had not been seen since. Imoh's mid-le sister made a
single reference to cutting the ibe's luck, and was punished by both her
par-nts for trying to cause trouble. It wasn't true,
noh
told himself, remembering it all as he awled in the dust. His face burned with
remembered shame. The eagle would return. It must. If only he could complete
his trial quickly and return, the village would forget about his past mistake.
He had asked others for help, but no one had easy answers. No other clan member
would answer his questions, or indeed, could answer them. Each clan had its own
coming-of-age ritual, its own means of gaining acceptance by its guardian and
the bestowal of power. He was the only boy of the Eagle clan in their village,
and his elder sisters were too canny to talk about how they had managed their
ordeals. They would say only he must solve his problems by observation.

 
          
Such
a notion was indeed against his nature, but that was exactly what he had to do
if he wanted to be a man and a full member of the Tribe. He made himself learn
to observe.

 
          
For
his second attempt, he picked the younger of the two remaining eagles, a male
just out of adolescence. In his opinion it had claimed the nicest range for its
hunting ground. He sat watching it for many days, making friends with it in his
mind. We will speak to one another, he promised it, keeping watch as the great
bird opened its wings and floated down to pick another fish out of the river,
or dove like a falling rock on a small animal in a field.

 
          
Imoh
pursued that bird for almost the full turn of the moon, trying to figure out
where it would hunt, when it would stoop for prey. He was disappointed when it
refused to alight anywhere he could reach while remaining in safe cover. It was
only when he noticed that the male chose the same snaggy tree for its perch
almost all the time that he felt
hope
.

 
          
Laboriously,
he had climbed the tree nearest the dead one, waiting in the branches until the
Hands-and-face lit and closed its huge talons around the uppermost branch. The
limb creaked slightly under the bird's weight. Slowly, tremblingly, Imoh had
come out of his hiding place and shinned up the rest of the way until he was
level with the great bird's perch. Forcing himself to be brave, he stared at
the eagle, who watched him impassively. Suddenly, it turned its head, and the
two of them were eye-to-eye. Imoh gasped. The brown-red disk with the tiny
speck of black was fully on him.

 
          
Just
as abruptly, the great bird turned away, sweeping its keen gaze over the river
far below them. A splash of silver winked on the water's surface. The
Hands-and-face opened its wings and lifted off the branch, leaving Imoh
clinging to his branch, shaking with reaction and disappointment.

 
          
There
had been no communion. The young lale was not his guide. Its mind was closed to
him. Imoh had made his way down from the vaying tree, feeling heavy of heart.

 
          
The
third eagle, an older female, had alit beside him on the bank of the river when
he went to wash off the sweat of his effort. Almost offhand, she had offered
him a casual, fearless glance. Imoh got a very good look at her, admired her
soft gray breast feathers and the snowy brilliance of her cap of feathers, as
white as his own hair was black. There was nothing personal in her regard.
Although she seemed to offer him the courtesy of one kinsman to another, she
was not his companion either. Imoh had gone home to the village, staring at the
ground before his feet all the way, never looking up at the empty sky. He was
out of eagles. He had failed the ordeal. He would never be an adult.

 
          
His
grandfather had been sympathetic.

 
          
"Don't
be upset, young one," he said, bringing the boy to sit with him close to
the evening fire. "You will find your guardian. The High Ones promised at
the beginning of the world that there was a totem, a guide, a mentor for every
human being that walked the earth, and promised it will not take them a
lifetime to find it. By that the Tribe believes that it is within a close
distance to where one is born."

 
          
His
mother had leaned over to remind him as she handed them bowls of the supper
stew, "Imoh was not born here, Father." Then she stopped in surprise.

 
          
Imoh
had started, too. He knew the story. He'd asked for it time and again at
bedtime since he could talk. It was one of his favorite tales. His mother had
come on her time while the Tribe was on its semiannual migration, and had to
stop to give birth in the honeycomb caverns along the narrowest part of the
passage leading from the Tribe's cold-weather home to its warm-weather one.

 
          
She
and the infant Imoh had had to complete their journey alone as soon as she was
strong enough to travel. It had been his first adventure, full of danger and
portents, even though he'd been too young at the time to appreciate it.

 
          
Why
had he not remembered that fact before?

 
          
Imoh
had been excited and danced around the family campfire. The failure to find his
eagle near the village was not his doing. He knew his birthplace well. His
birth marker was alone in a small cave along the great river that marked the
Tribe's way two days' walk to the south. He would go there to find his
guardian.

 
          
Only
two eagles made their nests within the accepted range of the honeycomb caverns.
He hoped one of the two great birds would be his soul's guide. Both birds lived
on cliff ledges at opposite ends of a turn of the river cut. The
farther-ranging bird was an old male with a larger wingspan than any Imoh had
ever seen.

 
          
Imoh
found it hard to beheve that a bird of that he had not found his human
counterpart. But, he thought, holding on to hope, few people had ever been born
near here. Maybe it was yet unrisen. The closer of the two eagles was a mature
female, whom Imoh spotted standing on the edge of her huge nest, bending over
again and again. So, she had chicks to feed. That could mean she had to return
to that place frequently. No more chasing about. Imoh had learned his lesson on
that. He would approach her first.

 
          
The
edge of the nest showed on a shelf of rock a third of the way from the top of
the bank, making it inaccessible from above. To reach it would not be an easy
task, but Imoh's muscles had been growing harder over the course of time.

 
          
The
land itself was relatively easy. The river had cut a deep V-shaped channel in
the earth's heart, but in gradual stages. Natural terraces rose in layers on
either side of the rushing water. If the banks had been empty, it would have
taken a matter of an hour to walk up. Instead, thick overgrowth had sprouted
from the clay and rock, providing both shelter and obstacle. Imoh sighed at the
length of time it would take him to climb, but the bushes would also keep the
great female from seeing him. He must not make her think he was a threat to her
chicks. Flat on his belly, Imoh looked down over the lip of his path at the
rush of rapids over submerged rocks over six man-heights below him. It didn't
matter if the mother eagle tore out his heart herself or knocked him off the
bank into the river; either would kill him. High Ones, take me into your care,
he prayed.

 
          
A
twig,
reached out and tangled itself in his hair
again. Imoh was forced to
creep
a pace backward and
reach above himself blindly to untie himself from its grasp. There, he thought
irritably.

 
          
He
heard a booming sound as he crept around the last fold in the river bank, and
crawled around the corner to look triumphantly at his future guardian. The
nest's edge was empty! While he'd been distracted, the mother eagle had gone
away again. The booming had been the beating of her wings on the air. He heard
the contented peeping of the hatchlings in their nest. Imoh groaned. She might
not be
back
again for hours.

 
          
Imoh
tried to make
himself
comfortable, and settled down
with his head on his crossed forearms to wait. The sun drew its golden light
upward from the river valley, leaving it graystone dark. Imoh realized that the
eaglets were the only ones who had been fed. If he stayed here, he would pass a
hungry night.

 
          
When
the sun was only just below the lip of his hiding place, Imoh decided to go.
The mother could return in the next heartbeat, or not until dark, when he
wouldn't be able to see her eyes anyhow. If he hurried, there was still time to
catch a fish for his dinner. Carefully, as silently as he could, he eased to
his elbows and
k :es
, and began to move backward. As
soon as he was able, he turned around to head down the slope.

 
          
Imoh's
maternal grandmother was a great fisherwoman. She had taught him to make
a
s ing-pole, a devise that plucked a hooked fish r tly out
of the water using its own weight. He cut a couple of willow saplings, one half
as long as the other and with a fork at the end, and bent them into a bow at the
river's edge. With the string from his hair as a line, he tied on the flint
hook he had in his pouch with his tinderstone and a dropped feather for a lure.
Fish would do, although he would have preferred a nice rabbit. The cliffs were
riddled with warrens, but with the eagle on the wing somewhere above, the
rabbits were hiding out of sight.

 
          
He
sat on the bank with his knees pulled up underneath his chin, almost dozing as
he waited for a catch. The sun was scarcely touching more than the clifftops,
and the sky was still. Suddenly, the spring-pole quivered and exploded erect
with a loud twangl Imoh scrambled to his feet. Hanging over his head from the
upper sapling was a fine young salmon. Its silver skin twinkled in the dying
light as it wriggled on the line. Imoh was delighted. He'd have a feast
tonight.

 
          
Imoh
had no sooner taken out his knife and stared to bend the twig toward him when
he heard an unearthly scream. He looked up to see the mother eagle stooping out
of the sky toward him. Imoh flung himself down into the bushes against the
bank, his heart pounding. The eagle never landed, but swooped low, grabbed his
catch—his catch!—and was gone with it before he could draw breath.

 
          
How
dare she? Imoh gasped with frustration. And she'd taken his hook with it.

 
          
He
had no choice but to go to sleep on an empty belly. He could make a spear out
of his knife and another sapling, but it was now too dark to see the fish.

 
          
He
slept uneasily, seeing those outstretched talons reaching for him. In his
troubled dreams she was coming to tear out his heart and feed it to her chicks.
Imoh woke as tired as he'd gone to sleep. Stiff and irritable, he rose with the
sun to fish for breakfast.

 
          
The
High Ones must have favored him. As he stood astride a pair of rocks in the
river, he was sent a whole school of young salmon to choose from. Their bright
scales glinted under the brown water like bits of mica. Imoh stood very still,
careful not to let his shadow quiver on the water's surface as he waited for
just the right fish. He hoped the mother eagle wouldn't steal this one, too!
Could she not at least have shared with him? She was surely meant to be his
guardian. Maybe if she would teach him the Sight, he could teach her right from
wrong.

 
          
He
didn't want to have to keep chasing the great beast of the air up and down the
mountain time
and again, he thought. Imoh stiffened as a
very fat fish paused for a moment near the rock under his right foot. That one!
He plunged the spear down, impaling the fish with a stroke.

 
          
Would
the mother eagle not stay in one place for just one moment? He pulled in his
catch.