Mists of Dawn (86 page)

For
the
next
several
days,
preparations
and
plans
were made
for
the
attack
on
the
Neanderthals.
From time
immemorial,
the
leaders
of
men
have
known that
in
order
to
win
a
battle
you
must
first
attend to
a
thousand
and
one
details
of
careful
planning.
In Mark’s
own
time,
the
ugly
game
of
war
had
grown into
a
sprawling
chaos
of
transportation,
supplies, morale,
leadership,
and
armaments.
In
the
days
of
the Danequa,
with
far
fewer
men
involved,
it
was
simpler, but
basically
the
same
problems
presented
themselves. Arrows
and
spears
had
to
be
laboriously
manufactured by
hand,
emergency
food
supplies
had
to
be
prepared, and
plans
had
to
be
checked
and
agreed
upon.
All this
took
time.

Mark
was
acutely
aware
that
he
was
leaving
his valley
home
for
the
last
time.
If
he
were
successful in
his
quest,
he
would
again
travel
through
space
and time
back
to
the
world
into
which
he
had
been
born. If
he
failed,
it
would
be
because
he
was
dead.
In either
event,
he
would
never
again
see
the
valley
of the
Danequa.

There
is
nothing
like
the
threat
of
loss
to
make
one 
appreciate
what
one
has.
A
person
never
fully
understands
the
gift
of
life
until
he
has
stared
death
in
the face
and
felt
nothingness
closing
in
all
around
him. Similarly,
Mark
looked
at
his
surroundings
with
new eyes,
noting
every
detail
of
the
cascading
waterfall, the
hills
honeycombed
with
dry
caves,
the
dark
pines with
their
sweet-smelling
needles,
and
the
long
green grasses
that
rippled
like
a
velvet
sea
under
the
blue sky
and
the
great
red
flower
that
was
the
sun.
These were
things
that
he
wanted
to
keep
a
part
of
him always.

Mark
spent
much
of
the
time
just
wandering
around the
valley
with
Fang,
talking
to
the
friends
he
had made
in
the
lost
shadows
of
man’s
history.
Roqan
was storming
around
telling
everybody
about
the
way
they would
have
done
it
when
he
was
a
young
man,
while his
wife,
Roqal,
only
slightly
happy
with
the
intoxicating
kiwow,
was
working
on
his
weapons.
Roqan could
not
quite
bring
himself
to
compliment
Mark directly
upon
his
exploit
in
killing
the
Dweller
under the
earth,
but
he
did
hint
that
if
Mark
kept
up
the good
work
he
might
one
day
be
as
good
a
man
as Roqan.
As
usual,
the
twinkle
in
old
Roqan’s
eyes clearly
contradicted
the
gruffness
of
his
words.
He even
forced
a
cherished
stone
knife
on
Mark
as
a
gift, although
he
was
careful
to
make
it
seem
that
he
was almost
insulting
Mark
to
offer
it
to
him.

With
Nranquar,
now
a
fast
friend,
he
spent
many long
hours
watching
the
clean
water
plunge
over
the waterfall
into
the
sparkling
pool
below.
He
talked across
a
flickering
fire
to
the
shy
Tlaxcal,
the
wife
of Tlaxcan,
and
finally
gave
her
his
steel
pocketknife
to help
her
in
her
work.
Little
Tlax,
who
by
now
was treating
Mark
as
one
of
the
family,
was
currently
engaged
in
trying
to
dig
a
cave
of
his
own
in
solid
rock with
a
blunt
stick
he
had
picked
up
somewhere.
He made
very
little
progress,
but
he
beamed
contentedly most
of
the
time,
and
Mark
would
have
been
proud to
have
him
for
his
own
son.

Mark
and
Qualxen,
the
shaman,
held
many
long and
involved
discussions
about
the
intricate
tricks
of the
magic
business.
Qualxen
now
regarded
Mark
as just
about
the
most
powerful
medicine
man
he
had ever
heard
anything
about,
and
he
was
quite
proud to
be
seen
in
his
company
since
it
increased
his
own stature
among
the
Danequa.
Mark
treated
the
man with
good-natured
tolerance,
priding
himself
upon
his superior
knowledge,
until
the
shaman
looked
at
him one
day
and
smiled.

“Since
you
are
leaving
soon
to
return
to
the
land of
your
fathers,”
Qualxen
said
quietly,
“you
should get
to
know
Tloron
before
you
go.
He
is
a
very
holy man.”

Mark
stared
at
the
shaman.
“Leaving?”
he
said.
“I have
told
you
nothing
about
leaving.”

“You
are
going,”
Qualxen
repeated.
“You
will
not return.”

Mark
looked
at
Qualxen.
The
shaman
smiled
cryptically
at
him,
but
said
nothing
further.
A
good
guess,
Mark
told
himself.
Pure
and
simple
coincidence.
Nonetheless,
his
respect
for
Qualxen
jumped
considerably. He
had
told
his
plans
to
no
one—how
could
the
shaman have
known?

Rationally,
of
course,
Mark
knew
that
it
was
all
a question
of
good
timing
and
luck.
But,
emotionally, he
sometimes
wondered.
With
every
succeeding
age, the
knowledge
of
the
preceding
one
had
been
shown to
be
worthless
superstition—or
so
some
people
would like
to
have
you
believe.
The
age
of
the
twentieth century,
too,
would
pass
on
and
become
obsolete under
the
merciless
tread
of
time.
What
would
the people
of
the
future
think
about
the
proud
knowledge of
1953?
How
much
did
man
really
know,
and
how much
did
he
just
think
he
knew?