Children of the Dawn (16 page)

In lightning flashes behind her eyes, she saw the face of Tor.

Tsilka slumped and rolled away from the gasping man.

Chopunik was Tlikit. He had a mate. What he did with Tsilka had to be kept secret, which made it more exciting. If only it
was so easy to get Tor away from his mate…

Tor… fury swept her again. Tor had made fools of her and the proud Tlikit people.

“I hate him!”

“Who?”

Chopunik’s question made her realize she’d spoken out loud.

“The one who made fools of us. Tor.”

Chopunik was angry. “You make a fool of me, Tsilka, to talk of another when I am with you. I know you and Tor were lovers.”

“Well I hate him now,” she said, “for making us scratch in the dirt begging for our lives.”

“You’re crazy. What are you talking about?”

“And you are stupid. Don’t you know who that feathered creature was?”

He looked at her, stupidly.

“It was Tor, you fool. Tor.”

“You are the fool, woman. You see Tor in everything.”

His face was an ugly scowl. Tsilka had hurt his pride, and
as any woman knew, there was nothing a man hated more. For now it was good to have Chopunik whenever she wanted him. Her body
needed a man.

“No, Chopunik,” she said in a soft voice, stroking his sweaty cheek. “It is
you
I see in everything, the shape of your face in a cloud, your power staff in an upthrust rock… ”

Her fingertips trailed down his chest, lingering at his nipples, down his belly, to the roots of his limp staff. She took
him in her hand, moving the way she’d seen her brother move his hand one time when he’d thought he was alone.

“Roll over,” he said in a broken voice. “This time I will be on top.”

Tsilka lay on her back and opened her legs. Maybe this time she wouldn’t see Tor when her explosion came.

As Chopunik ground away at her, she thought,
I hate you, Tor. I don’t need you, Tor. If you saw me now, you would be so jealous that this man gets what you should have.

I hate you, Tor… I don’t need you, Tor
…

Was it any wonder that Tor’s image kept dancing in her mind, exploding in a shower of sparks?

T
HE
M
OONKEEPER
’
S SHADOW STICK SHOWED THAT
it was mid-spring. Warm air, fresh food, smells and colors of growth and life kept the people of Teahra Village smiling.

Ashan walked along the river one morning, seeking quiet before her day filled with people. Chiawana had grown, as rivers did
in springtime, covering up a beach where she liked to sit. She found a rock on higher ground, settled in the sunshine, and
took in the magic she’d come for. Adorned with green grass, willow leaves, and flowers in many colors, the world seemed happy.
Birdsong filled the air. Herds of salmon swam against the rushing current. The river sounded like it was laughing because
the fish tickled it.

The Tlikit man named Chopunik came onto the trail below, gripping a woman’s arm, propelling her toward the village.

Ugly man,
Ashan thought. No man—especially a Tlikit—could come close to Tor’s good looks, but some were worse than others. Chopunik
was tall, fat, and naked. He greased his skin and hair, and stank as if he never washed it off, just kept adding more as it
wore off.

He swaggered with the unmistakable look of a man who had just flung his juices.

The woman was a slave. Ashan didn’t know her name. She had tried talking to them, but they wouldn’t speak. The defeated creature
stumbled along, head down, keeping pace
the best she could. But he jerked her arm anyway. Near the village, he pushed her.

“Get back to your place.”

Swelled up like a rutting elk, he watched the woman slink away.

Of all the things I’ve handled, why have I let this go on so long?
Ashan asked herself.

Worry about that later. Are you going to do something now?

Ashan strode up to him.

He greeted her with a grin. “It’s a fine day.”

She did not smile back. “Do you know who I am?”

“Everyone knows who you are.”

“Then you know I have magic.”

“I have never seen it.”

“I think you know. It would
please
me if you never do that again.”

“What? Her?” He gave a deep, curt laugh. “She belongs to us, not you.”

“She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”

Anger replaced amusement on his face. “You do not understand Tlikit ways,” he growled.

“I don’t care about Tlikit ways. It will
displease
me if you ever force yourself on a slave again. Believe me, you will wish that you had not.”

He came toward her, fists clenched at his sides, hulking, menacing. She didn’t back up, though he was like a wall of hot rock
right in her face. He could crush her. His size made her shake inside, but she stood her ground, making herself as large as
possible—shoulders straight, chin up, eyes on his.

He hissed, “What if I take my pleasure with you next time, instead of the slave?”

When he said the word “pleasure,” a drop of spit hit Ashan’s face. Her blood boiled.

“You will die for
thinking
it! But not until you have watched your children die!”

Ashan sizzled with a Moonkeeper’s heat—the kind that explodes with deadly force. Chopunik felt it. His eyes darted. He backed
away, still puffed up, but much less sure of himself.

“This time I will forgive your ignorance,” Ashan said.
“But never again. You have a mate for your pleasures. Leave others alone, or you will regret it.”

“Warriors do not need women to tell them what to do,” Chopunik said as he swaggered off.

What savages,
Ashan thought, stamping her foot.
How could a man find pleasure in forcing himself on an unwilling woman? Maybe my threats will stop him from doing it again,
and if not
—
I think I’d enjoy boiling his insides to mush.

As she cooled off, the Moonkeeper realized that Chopunik was just the pus oozing from a sore. A person who was owned by another…
a person who had no rights… that was the festering sore that oozed many evils. Slavery could poison her people. It could destroy
all she was working for.

She forgave herself for not stopping it sooner. The idea was so strange to a Shahala mind… it took time to see all that slave-keeping
meant, to understand that it was worse than it looked.

Ashan shook her head. She thought people were born knowing how to treat other people.

That’s always been one of your problems, Windpuff,
said Raga’s voice in her mind.
You want to believe in the goodness of everyone.

Confronting Chopunik had made Ashan realize that it wasn’t a matter of
if
something must be done about the slaves, but
what and when.

Ashan spoke to three of the Tlikit who seemed to have influence with the others.

“We must talk. Come to the Moonkeeper’s hut,” she said, knowing they were uncomfortable in the closeness of huts. She told
them to sit, then remained standing herself.

Tlok was a grumpy old man; Chalan a rash young warrior. Tsilka was… Ashan was still trying to figure out just
what
the woman was, but she had to admit that people listened to her. There was much in Tsilka’s eyes, Ashan thought, if only
she knew the language they spoke.

The Moonkeeper began, “We are all children of the Creator, Sahalie-Amotkan.”

Looking at her hands, cleaning her fingernails with a twig, Tsilka said in a bored voice, “So Tor tells us every day.”

Chalan said, “If I complain that a Shahala sneezed on my
food, Tor says, ’Love your brother. You are children of the same Father.’”

“Tor is right,” Ashan said. “That’s why slavery is wrong. It’s wrong to use people that way.”

Tsilka shook her head. “You are the wrong one. The slaves are the Lost People. Our gods gave them to us in the long ago. They
need us, and we need them.”

Tlok said, “People are nicer when they can yell at a slave and not each other.”

“These people make life better for everyone by doing the worst work,” Tsilka said, her eyes challenging slits. “We wonder
why you do not know these things.”

Ashan bristled. “How would you like to be a slave? Have you ever thought how it feels to be treated like that?”

Tsilka snorted. “What does it matter? I am not. But if I were, I’d be proud. Slaves keep peace in the tribe.”

That was one of the most ridiculous things Ashan had ever heard.
Savages,
she thought.
They are hopeless savages.

Chalan said, “Those women would die if we ran them off. Would you want us to kill them?”

“No,” Ashan said. “I want you to take them back to the forest. They had a life there.”

They laughed with derision.

Tlok said, “Do you know how far it is, woman?”

Chalan said, “Do you think they’d stay without their little ones? They’d be back before we were.”

Ashan said, “You must let them have their little ones. You cannot take little ones from their mothers.”

“Phhht!” the men responded.

Tsilka stood, her body tense, her voice dangerous.

“The little ones are ours now—new blood for the tribe. Before you people came, that’s what we needed more than anything. The
gods answered by giving us those little ones.”

“I don’t care,” Ashan said. “Your gods speak to me now. They say—”

Tsilka cut her off. “We have listened to you about foolish things that no one cared about because we are a peaceful tribe.
But this is between us and our Tlikit gods. Stay out of it, Ashan. You will not win.”

“How dare you challenge me! This is not a game to speak
of winning. The gods have told me that keeping slaves is against the Balance. How long do you think they will allow it before
they destroy us all?”

“Tlikit gods are not afraid of Shahala gods.”

Ashan took a threatening step toward her.

“
You
should be afraid of a Moonkeeper’s magic.”

Tsilka didn’t move. Her voice was an icy sneer.

“But I’m not. To me, you are just another woman. We may sing your songs and dance your dances and quit stepping on beetles,
but I am telling you to leave us alone about the Lost People. They are
ours,
and we’re not going to give them up.”

“Oh, yes,” Ashan said. “You are.”

“And if we do not, will you make the sky fall upon our heads?”

“No, Tsilka, I’ll just start making people die one by one. And I will start with you.”

“Huh!” Tsilka said without a glimmer of fear in her eyes. “Come on,” she said to the men. “The air in this place stinks.”

They left Ashan standing there, impotently fuming.

“I warned you!” she yelled after them.

Reason hadn’t worked, nor threats of magic. That left real magic. People could be terrorized into almost anything. But terror
was more Raga’s way than Ashan’s. She was glad she had not yet needed the old way in the new land. Also, she suspected that
people had to believe in magic for it to work. Shahala people believed in a Moonkeeper’s magic, and feared it enough not to
provoke it. But at least some of the Tlikit did not. For the first time, Ashan doubted her power. What if she tried magic
and it failed?

The only thing left was to
remove
the problem. For that, the Moonkeeper needed her mate.

They relaxed in their hut that night, side by side on the floor, leaning back against the earth shelf bed, embers at their
feet. Tor smoked kinnikinnick leaves in a stone pipe. He and Wyecat had found a patch of the creeping shrub. He’d picked some
leaves, knowing Ashan brewed a tonic from them. Wye-cat had shown him how to make a pipe and smoke kinnikinnick, and now he
liked some every night. Ashan had tried it
once. It burned her throat and made her cough. But she liked the smell when he smoked it.

She heard a slight quickening of breath—the first sign of Tor’s desire. His hand, which had been resting on her knee, caressed
its way up her inner thigh. Ashan had no desire for lovemaking, not with the disgusting image of Chopunik still swaggering
through her mind.

“The slaves, Tor. We have to talk about them.”

He sighed. “Please, my love. Leave it alone.”

“What… pretend it isn’t there? Pretend it isn’t wrong? I can’t. I’m the Moonkeeper.”

Tor’s hand dropped from her thigh as she went on.

“It’s up to me to keep the Balance, and there can be no Balance where there are slaves.”

“For us that may be true, but it seems to work for the Tlikit.”

“Oh, it works all right. Those poor women work—the hard work, the filthy work, the lonely work.”

“Maybe it’s part of
their
Balance, Ashan, and without it—well, I don’t know what might happen. But I can tell you this: The Tlikit will not free the
Forest Women, no matter what you do.”

“I know. I tried talking to them.” She didn’t want him to know how badly that had gone.

“You see? Waiting is what you should do.”

“I have wasted the whole winter waiting.”

“I know, but in time they’ll see that ours is the right way. It worked with the eagle. They haven’t killed one since. It’s
always better when people see things on their own.”

“But Tor, before that happens, our people might start thinking that having slaves is
good.
I mean, having your dungwork done by someone else? How nice. I think I’ve seen the desire to use others in
you.
Sometimes I think you wouldn’t mind—”

’Sometimes I wouldn’t,” he admitted. “But I never will, because I am Shahala, and I know right from wrong. They are Tlikit,
and it will take a long time to make them into Shahala. You have to let them keep some of their ways for a while.”

“Not this one. I can’t Not after what I saw this morning.”

She told him about Chopunik and the slave.

Tor said, “Well, that is bad, but it’s not like he beat her. They almost never beat them anymore, because we give them ugly
looks when they do.”

Ashan was infuriated.