Children of the Dawn (13 page)

“Are they sick, the sun and the moon?”

“More like tired.”

“We don’t know songs for things in the sky.”

“Listen to your Shahala sisters and brothers,” she said.

“Will there be a feast?” The Tlikit had heard about feasts, but had not yet enjoyed one.

Ashan shook her head. “In summer when we celebrate the longest day, then we will feast. But winter is not a time of plenty.”

“It is in Teahra.”

“That doesn’t matter. These things are always done the same.”

“So people are Keepers of the Balance?” asked a woman named Chianli.

“Yes,” Ashan said, thinking,
I love it when understanding breaks into a person’s head.

“Then we have the power to make it light all the time?”

Oh! Just when I thought they understood!

“Think, Chianli. What if night never came? The sun would burn holes in our eyelids. How would we sleep? What about the night
creatures? It is the Balance that matters. Everyone say it with me.”

“It is the Balance that matters.”

Ashan thought some understood. Most were just being agreeable, and that was enough for now.

A man named Tlok, who never smiled, said, “The Tlikit are an old tribe. We have never done this. Why haven’t we lost the Balance
before?”

Ashan answered with pride. “Though you did not know it, since the Misty Time there have been Moonkeepers in the world taking
care of these things.”

Someone asked when the Darkest Day would come. Ashan knew the answer by her shadow stick, and held up seven fingers.

She ended the teaching with a request: “Will you join us in the ceremony? Will you tell others it is a good thing?”

“We will.”

That went well,
the Moonkeeper thought.

Ashan and Mani sat by a small fire in the Moonkeeper’s hut—alone, except for the sleeping baby. In the comfortable silence
of long friendship, they made sage bundles for the Darkest Day ceremony, one for each person past the age of seven summers.
She pulled twigs of sage with fragrant gray leaves from branches that had been drying. When she had a bundle the size of Tor’s
excited staff, she wrapped it with green grass string, tied it off at the top, put it on the stack growing between them, and
started another.

Ashan had invited Mani for more than help with the sage. Mani was allowed in places where Ashan was not. People liked the
Shahala woman who thought it was fun to learn Tlikit speech. Though Mani’s name meant Earth Sister, some now called her Talks
to All. She knew much of what went on in Teahra that Ashan would never hear about, and she knew the importance of sharing
it.

Ashan asked, “What are they saying about me?”

“I heard a woman say that you are more like Yaculta—the mountain on the other side of the river, too remote to be reached—than
you are like a
real
person.”

“I’ll have to work on that.”

It was important to her to be
liked,
even though—as Raga had told her over and over—it was not necessary for people to
like
their chief.

Mani said, “Some of them are afraid of your magic.”

“I haven’t used any magic, except a bit of medicine for Euda.”

“Tor has warned them about your powers.”

“That’s good. I may need that fear someday.”

“You may. I’ve also heard it said that you are like Lu It, the mountain who rumbles and threatens, but never does any harm.”

The sharp aroma of sage cut Ashan’s senses like tiny blades. She knotted the grass string, bit off the end, and put a finished
bundle on the stack.

“What do people say about the Darkest Day ceremony?”

“Our people are glad Nah Ah Kahidi is near. They look forward to the coming of spring.”

“What about the Tlikit people?”

Mani sighed. “That woman named Tsilka—I don’t like her, she tries to hide her meanness, but she doesn’t fool me—Tsilka says
you are only doing it because you like how power feels.”

“Really?”

“Yes. My own ears heard it. Some say they’d feel like fools if they sang at the sun. But everyone knows you want this. Most
of them want your ways to be true. So I think they will join in the ceremony. For you.”

“Good. It doesn’t matter why, as long as they do it.”

The spirit sisters worked in silence for a while.

Mani said, “Do you know the one called Akli? Her name means Remember the Lake.”

Ashan pictured the pleasant, curious face of a woman in the middle of life, the mother of Klee, no one’s mate.

“I think I know who you mean, though we haven’t talked.”

“You’d like this one. I’ve been sharing Shahala ways with her. She wanted to show me something I didn’t know about, so she
brought some roots to my hut.”

Ashan smiled. “Sharing is what we need to bring our tribes together.”

Mani put down the sage bundle and described the roots with her hands.

“There were four of them—long, fat at the top, coming down to a point. Brown skin, with little scratched trails, as
if groundbugs tried burrowing and gave up. Akli called the roots ’pahto.’”

Ashan said, “It’s odd that they use the name of the sacred mountain for a food.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mani said. “Akli used a rock to scrape the skin from one, broke it open, took a bite of the yellow
flesh, and handed it to me. I bit off a piece. It was dry and hard to chew. It tasted a little like sweetroot, but not sweet.
I said the pahto was very good, and she’d have to show me where it grows. She gave me what was left—for my family, I think
she said.

“After she left, I thought how much better it would be roasted in the ground like we cook sweetroot—well, like we did in the
homeland. I also thought how nice it is that such a thing grows here. I don’t think we’ll find real sweetroot in this place.”

Mani went on. “Some people would think Akli stupid for not knowing how to cook roots. Some might even tease her. But you know
I’m not like that. I roasted and mashed the rest, and took it to her on my nicest wood plate. Well, she
loved
it… and my plate! I didn’t know she’d keep my plate! But I let her have it as if I’d meant to all along. Now she’s been showing
her sisters about roasting. They say it’s too much work, but I think we’ll see more of it on the Tlikit side of the village.
Cooked food tastes so much better, their mates will demand it.”

“I’m proud of you, Mani. I wish there were more like you.”

The baby fussed for Mani’s breast. Soon Kai El and Tahm, the women’s sons, and Tor and Lar, their mates, would be showing
up for midday food.

“I’ll finish the sage, Mani. You go home and get ready for the attack of the hungry ones.”

When Ashan awoke on the Darkest Day, her mate was not beside her.

If I didn’t sleep so late, this wouldn’t happen!
she thought, chilled by the memory of another morning long ago when she’d awakened to find Tor gone, and had not seen him
again for three lonely summers—

But that was then.

Ashan heard faraway thunder—just the kind of day she expected Nah Ah Kahidi to be. She rubbed night dirt from her face, fingered
tangles from her hair, put on a white leather dress and high moccasins. She crossed the hut and sniffed her son: Healthy.
Light as a butterfly landing on a finger, she kissed his cheek.

From behind the sleeping place she shared with Tor, Ashan took the painted leather pouch that held garments from the Misty
Time. She breathed a blend of familiar aromas as she unfolded the Moonkeeper’s robe.

Ashan had brought the sacred robe from the homeland on her own travel poles. Made of sewn-together pieces of fur and hide,
tufted with feather clusters, strewn with teeth and claws, it represented every animal and bird known to the Shahala people.
Many times old Raga allowed young Ashan to hold the robe… how long ago it seemed. As she listened to stories of the Animal
People, the Chosen One would stroke the soft furs, breathing the fragrances her fingers loosened.

The good memory made Ashan smile. She draped the ancient robe over her shoulders, and stepped outside. Under thick, dark-bottomed
clouds, in a bitter, howling wind, the Moonkeeper offered the song of morning to the Four Directions, and a song of respect
to the Spirit of Thunder. She went to a tongue of land that stuck out into the river. Bushes and rocks had been removed, the
earth smoothed. Teahra’s new ceremonial ground was ready.

Tor had a good fire burning. He smiled and held out his arms for her. The heat of his embrace was better than the heat of
the fire. How bleak, Ashan remembered, were mornings without being held by Tor, even for a moment.

Two men brought an ancient drum from the Moonkeeper’s hut. It was made of thin wood forced into a circle three arm lengths
across and one tall. A skin stretched over the top, tightened by thongs that went down the sides and across the open bottom.
The One Drum. It had been with the Shahala for so long that they no longer knew what kind of skin it was, or who had painted
the faded picture of a flying owl. Its voices were many and rich.

Ashan had the men place the One Drum on the new ceremo
nial ground near the fire. Around it, they arranged pieces of flat wood padded with thick sheep fur, for the bony old rears
of the drummers.

Not so long ago, the Shahala had four drums, from old to ancient, each pounded by a grayhair during rituals. The joined voices
of the drums made sounds the spirits could not ignore. But when hunger drove them from their homeland, the People of the Wind
couldn’t take everything. One of many sad decisions had been made: Only the One Drum—the oldest, given to First Man by the
Spirit of Thunder—would be taken to the new home. The Two Drum, Three Drum, and Four Drum had been burned with other tribal
treasures that could not be moved.

The drummers came from the old people’s hut, settled around the One Drum, and rapped together with padded sticks. In one of
its many voices—slow, deep, and hollow—the One Drum called the people of Teahra Village—the Shahala from their huts, the Tlikit
from their cave.

“Tun TUN, Tun TUN, Tun TUN!”

As they came to the ceremonial ground, the Moonkeeper gave them sage. She showed the ones who didn’t know how to use the sacred
plant, holding a bundle by the cut, bare stems at one end. Leaning away from the wind-snapped flames while she stretched her
arm toward them, she touched sage to fire and pulled it back, sparking and smoking.

“Fan the smoke with your hand, like this. Offer it up to the sun. Then put it out.” She stubbed the bundle on the ground.
“Dance for a while or sing. Then light the sage again. And again later… so you still have some left when night comes.”

Ashan smiled, watching the first ceremony in the new home, the first shared with their new sisters and brothers, nearly everyone
taking partHer eyes went to the four women watching from their lonely place by the tree.

Except for Tsilka and a few others, the Tlikit had joined the Shahala in the rituals of the Darkest Day.

“We’re not savages,” they had said. “We have rituals of our own. But of course, the slaves will not join us. The gods would
be offended.”

Still looking for a peaceful way to solve the problem, Ashan
hadn’t mentioned it again. Besides, she knew the poor women wouldn’t do anything to bring trouble on themselves.

One thing at a time,
warned a voice in her mind.
At least their children are accepted, and that means there is hope.

Looking away from the slaves, Ashan went back to watching what was
good.

Nah Ah Kahidi, the Darkest Day, was not a lively celebration like Kamiulka, the Autumn Feast. Guided by the somber beat of
the One Drum, people offered song, dance, and smoke—medicine to help the sun, so the Spirit of Dark would not win the ancient
war, and the world would not suffer endless night.

Morning turned into day. Smoke rose. Feet danced. The songs of drum and people told the sun to be strong.

“Tun tun TUN tun tun tun… ”

“Aya ne ki yi yi, aya ne kay yay… ”

Thunder joined them, rumbling ever closer, as Nah Ah Kahidi went on under the lowering sky. Ashan saw Tlikit smirks, frowns
and sighs of boredom. It was more work than fun. In the cold gloom, people couldn’t see the sun they were doing all this for.

Ashan wasn’t worried about the sky-war. Keeping the Balance didn’t depend on whether everyone helped—the prayers of one Moonkeeper
would have been enough. But it was good for these people to work together and celebrate together. It gave them reasons to
like each other.

The Moonkeeper went among them. “What a good song,” she told one. “Save some of your sage for later,” she told another.

Her words were swallowed by thunder. The sky broke and dumped a torrent on the people. The fire sizzled out in a cloud of
steam.

The Tlikit ran for their cave.

The Shahala knew the sun still needed help. They danced and sang in the pouring rain, leaving out the smoke part of the ceremony.

“Tun tun TUN tun tun,” said the wet drum. “Aya ne ki yi,” sang the wet people, their dancing feet making splashes as the new
ceremonial ground turned to mud. When night
came, the Shahala went to their huts, glad to leave the keeping of the moon to the Moonkeeper.

The days began to grow at both ends, and green grass softened the hillsides… as the Moonkeeper had said. Some of the Tlikit
were amazed. Others said it would have happened anyway. Hadn’t spring always come before, all by itself?

T
ENKA HAD JUMPED AT THE CHANCE TO MOVE INTO THE
Moonkeeper’s hut with Ashan and Tor, her only brother since Beo died in the massacre six autumns ago. She loved Ashan. Living
with her gave them more time together, and Tenka knew this was good. It took one’s whole lifetime to learn the ways of a Moonkeeper,
and she had had a late start.

Tenka was coming to think of Kai El as her little brother. He was the sweetest thing, though sometimes his energy irritated
her.

She was glad to get out of her father’s hut, with his three mates, five little ones, and Elia. It was terribly crowded, but
it was more than that. Tenka had never forgiven her father. After her mother, Luka, died from grief over losing her sons—everyone
thought Tor had died too—Arth had taken another mate, and then two more. Tenka had only been seven summers, and she needed
a mother’s love, but she wouldn’t allow those women to give it to her. Their little ones were her friends, but
not
her brothers and sisters.