Children of the Dawn (45 page)

What if Ashan hadn’t wanted to take a walk on the night they arrived at the Great River? Or Tor had stopped her, instead of
showing her the way? If she hadn’t fallen from the cliff, she would have had control of the Tlikit tribe from the beginning.
Maybe she would have killed Tsilka with magic. Kai El agreed with Tor that it would have been a good thing.

They talked about how a single act, insignificant and innocent, of a single person can change everything and everyone around
them, even people not yet met or born. And how Tor had done it over and over in his life.

What did it mean? Nothing that they could see. Tor never
meant to hurt anyone. He had stumbled through life like most men, with good—if sometimes selfish—intentions. His only flaw
was recklessness; his only fear, of losing the love of his mate and son.

Did that make Tor a bad man? No. His father wasn’t a bad man, but Kai El promised to be a better one.

The Spirit of Ashan had been nearby… silent, invisible, scattering her energy so Tor and Kai El wouldn’t feel her. She was
proud of them. They were fine men who knew the importance of love and were willing to sacrifice for it.

After their son left the Home Cave, Ashan came to Tor. He was lying on a heap of furs on the raised earth bed they had long
ago shared, his head resting on an old summer skirt of Ashan’s that he’d found in a corner of the cave. On his side, he curled
around a thick bear fur, holding it as if it were a woman. A blue-purple aura glowed around him, the mixed colors of family
and peace.

Tor floated in a dreamy place between waking and sleeping. Ashan mingled with him, and spoke in his mind.

…
Thank you. I know what courage it took to tell our son the truth
…

Tor answered out loud. One voice talking to itself didn’t sound strange to him.

“You were right, my love. I’m glad I did it. At last, I know the peace that’s been missing all my life. It feels good. It’s
like resting.”

Tor slipped into sleep, then out again.

“Ashan, do you remember when we were young, and we lived in the mountains in the cave you found? Before Kai El was born?”

…
I remember. There was only you and me, and love…

“Everything was new,” he said. “Sharp and clear, and sweet. I loved it all, Ashan. Do you know what I loved most? Holding
you at night, going to sleep with you in my arms… ”

Wrapped in their eternal love, Tor went to sleep.

I
N
T
EAHRA
V
ILLAGE, THE LATE SPRING DAY DAWNED
bright and warm, with a breeze that would keep it from getting hot. The Moonkeeper Tahna had a full day ahead, even without
the unexpected things that would demand her attention. As she did every day, she wished that her mother hadn’t killed Tenka,
and wondered who to train as her helper.

Still, she was in a good mood. There were good feelings in being needed.

Enjoying a few moments alone behind the closed doorskin of the Moonkeeper’s hut, putting new laces on old moccasins, Tahna
heard shouting.

“Kai El!”

She jumped to her feet and dashed outside.

It
was
Kai El, running toward the village with Wyecat, who’d been standing guard on the plateau.

People rushed him, surrounded him, pummeled him with questions.

“Give me time to rest,” he said, laughing. “Then I’ll tell you everything.”

The crowd opened to let Tahna through. Her smile must have taken up her whole face.

“This is wonderful!” she said. “I’m so glad to see you!”

Instead of taking her outstretched hands, Kai El hugged her.

Tahna shouted, “People! Thank the spirits. Make a feast for our brother who has come back.”

Kai El grinned. “I’ve missed the tasty miracles cooked by you women.”

Women went off chattering like birds.

“Leave us,” Tahna said to the people milling around. “You may have him when I’m finished. Come, Kai El.”

She took him to the Moonkeeper’s hut.

He looked healthy and glad to be home.

“Look at you!” Tahna said, so happy that she laughed. “I thought I’d never see you again! I can’t believe it! This is wonderful!”

“I’m glad you think so. I wasn’t sure how people would feel.”

“Well… they were angry when you left. But it’s been a long time now. We’ve missed you. These people love you.”

Kai El looked down as if embarrassed, but Tahna saw that he was pleased.

She told him to sit.

“So you are the Moonkeeper,” he said.

“Yes. Since Tenka died.”

She would have to tell him about that, and all the other things that had happened while he was gone.

“Did your mother kill her?”

“No one knows, but I think she did. They died together, up in the cliffs.” Tahna looked at him curiously. “How do you know?”

“My mother showed me in a dream.”

“A dream… I wish it had been that easy for me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t imagine how it was for you.”

“It was scary… a hard time for everyone. That’s when we missed you the most. People didn’t know what to do. They were like
ants in a kicked-over anthill. It was up to me to do something, so I did. I took control. They let me because Tenka had been
training me. And because there was no one else.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but I couldn’t be.”

She sighed. “I lived through it, and so did everyone else.”

Tahna was glad Kai El was home. She didn’t want him to
feel bad about being gone. What was the use of that? It was in the past now.

“So tell me everything. Where have you been since Gaia died?”

“Running from pain. Trying to forget. When that failed, trying to find out who I am without her.”

“Did you?”

Nodding, he gave her a strange look.

“I saw Tor.”

“Tor? You mean in a dream?”

“No. The real man. He lives in the tabu mountains. I stayed with him.”

Tahna was amazed.

“Tor is alive? I can’t believe it.”

“Neither could I,” Kai El said. “I’m the one who
thought
I saw him carried off on the back of a horse. Now I realize that was a dream. Tor left on his own legs.”

“Why didn’t you bring him back?”

“I tried. He won’t come.”

“Well, you can take some warriors and go get him.”

“He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s alive.” Kai El paused. “Except you.”

The hairs on Tahna’s neck stood up.

“Me? Why me?”

“There’s something I must tell you, Tahna. Something he wants you to know.” Kai El took a deep breath, and it whooshed out.
“Tor is… he’s… ”

He swallowed hard, licked his lips, looked around.

“What are you trying to say? Tell me.”

“He’s your father.”

What could he possibly mean by that? She didn’t understand.

“What?” she said, shaking her head.

Kai El looked straight in her eyes.

“
Tor is your father.”

Tahna jumped up, was going to run out, but her knees buckled. Kai El caught her and held her.

“I’m sorry, sister.”

She couldn’t think or breathe.

“Not sorry that you are my sister,” he said, “just sorry you never knew.”

Waves of shock pushed Tahna this way and that on legs made of water. She felt like throwing up.

Kai El held her tight.

“It will be all right, Tahna. I’m here.”

“But why didn’t he tell me?” She gasped. “How could he! I’m going to find him! I’m going to—”

Tahna! Gaia’s voice within her shouted. You are the Moon-keeper now. You have no time for anger and confusion, no time for
tears. It’s true. It happened. Let it go.

Tahna took deep breaths. Her insides unclenched. Strength returned to her legs. She pushed away from Kai El—from her
brother.

A wave of sickening horror washed over Tahna when she realized that her brother was also
Gaia’s brother.
Had they broken the ancient tabu? Tahna pictured the god Wahawkin sucking the water from the Great River, as he had once
done to the lake in the Tlikit homeland because some long-ago chief had mated with his sister.

“Oh, Kai El,” she said. “That means that my sister was your sister, and the two of you were—you were going to be—did you—”

“No. We did not. We never knew each other in that way. I wanted to, but we didn’t. Gaia wanted to do things the Shahala way.
She wanted to wait for the Autumn Feast.”

Sitting back down, Tahna motioned for him to join her.

Tahna had had a dream four times. Now she knew what it had been trying to tell her. She shared it with Kai El.

“It was a good dream. You were in it. We were friends, good friends—though I had no idea you were my
brother.
Together we led these people, like one chief made out of two. They loved and respected us. Teahra Village was a safe, happy,
bountiful home for everyone of any kind of blood.”

“I had a dream like that,” Kai El said, with a surprised look on his face.

Tahna said, “I thought that it made no more sense than most dreams. How could you help me? I was sure you were dead. But I
took comfort from it. It gave me hope. And I needed that.”

She took his hands, squeezed them, looked into his eyes.

“I needed hope, Kai El. Because I need
help
so badly. I can’t control everything, especially the men. I get so frustrated I think I will scream, so tired I think I will
die.”

It felt wonderful to say these things. Since the Moonkeeper Tenka died, Tahna had no one to talk to. Now she had Kai El.

“My brother, welcome home.”

With Kai El’s strong arms around her, Tahna gave in to tears of happiness and relief. She would sort out her other feelings
later.

The Firekeepers made a bonfire against the cliff wall. People drummed, danced, and sang to welcome the lost one returned to
them. The women had reason to be proud of the feast they prepared. Kai El let them know with every bite how happy he was to
be home.

The tribe sat listening. Kai El told about the mountains, and how he almost froze to death chasing revenge; of the snow cave
he dug, and the bear cave where he passed the winter. How he grieved for Gaia. How he traveled in the spring to the land of
his ancestors looking for reasons to live.

Kai El said, “My mother—the Moonkeeper Ashan, who is a spirit now—came to me in dreams. She showed me many things about the
past and the future. I learned that Tor had
three
children, not one.”

A gasp went up.

Tahna walked past stunned people to Kai El’s side. They clasped hands and raised them over their heads.

“People of Teahra, Tahna is my sister.”

“Kai El is my brother.”

He said, “Destiny has reunited us. We will lead our people together.”

She said, “One chief who is made out of two.”

People liked the idea of two chiefs, once the shock went away. It made sense. A man and a woman—brother and sister, not mates—combining
their individual strengths. He would lead the men on hunts, settle their arguments, and, with the new threat of slave raids,
see that the village was guarded. She would heal, tell stories, teach little ones, and speak with
spirits—though Tahna did less of that than any Moonkeeper before.

He was Shahala, she was Tlikit. From their mothers came the blood of chiefs. From their father, the blood of kinship. What
could be better? This was the way it should be. Everyone felt it.

S
UMMER, AUTUMN, AND WINTER PASSED
. T
EAHRA
V
ILLAGE
prospered under the leadership of the Brother and Sister Chief, as Kai El and Tahna were called. Men respected Kai El. With
Tahna’s powerful medicine, there was little sickness. The tribe was happy, well fed, and peaceful.

Tahna lived in the Moonkeeper’s hut. A girl often summers lived with her, learning a Moonkeeper’s ways.

Only a few old people lived in the Tlikit cave. Kai El moved in with them, taking a place near the front where it was light
and airy. But his favorite place was the home in the cliffs he had made for Gaia, with She Who Watches looking down at him.
He stayed up there as much as he could, but not as much as he would have liked… the tribe kept him busy.

Kai El was neither happy nor unhappy. He wasn’t dead to feeling as he’d been in the bear cave; he was more like a blade with
a blunted edge. He felt good about the life his people were living, and about his part in it. But he didn’t feel joy. He would
at times brood about the past, about lost Gaia, about the wrongs done to him by Tor. But he felt that life was acceptable.

One spring morning, Kai El was glad to be in the village instead of in the cliffs.

A guard came running. He had seen eleven men. Kai El left half the warriors to protect the women and little ones,
and took the rest down the Great River. When the men of Teahra swooped down from the rocks, the intruders, caught eating their
morning food, did not have a chance. Several died before Kai El shouted.

“Stop! If we kill them all, we will know nothing!”

The warriors growled, but obeyed their chief. They threw six dead bodies in the river. Jerking the ropes that bound the five
survivors, being as rough as possible, they kicked and shoved them back to the village.

Women spat and threw rocks.

“Masat!” they screeched.

’Tut them in the cave where I won’t have to smell them,” Kai El said. “Guard them.”

The men needed guarding from the people of Teahra, not because they might escape.

People threw their anger at Kai El.

“Why did you bring them back?”

“Their brothers stole our women! They killed Gaia!”

“They should die for what their brothers did!”

Kai El said, “I hate them as much as you do. I kept them alive because we need to know about their tribe. Killing them won’t
stop others from coming.”

He turned and went in the cave, with people yelling behind him.

“So let them come! We will kill them all!”

Kai El had the ropes loosened so the captives wouldn’t be in pain. He had food and water brought, but they wouldn’t touch
it.