Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

  Had the enemy really known what they were up to? Had Ashan poisoned Euda? Tsilka didn’t know. She felt a small, cold knife of fear in her heart. She blunted it by turning her mind to what she could do next.

  “There’s something strange about what happened, Tor. I wish you had been here,” Ashan told her mate.

  “What’s so strange about you curing a sick person?”

  “Euda almost died before I cured her. But I did nothing to help Yak, who seemed just as sick at first. She said she didn’t want Shahala medicine. Tsilka gave her something, and she got well long before Euda did.”

  “Maybe Tsilka gave her the same thing.”

  “No. I don’t know what it was, but it was not wood ashes. I just don’t see how it’s possible, Tor… unless Yak was never sick in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think they were pretending.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know, but I think Tsilka had something to do with it,” Ashan told him.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE MOONKEEPER SMILED: ANOTHER COLD, SUNNY day. It was good in the middle of winter for people to see blue sky instead of gray.

  She spoke in Tlikit, her second language.

  “This should be the worst season. Instead, spirits give us one fine day after another, strung like beads on a time ball, so many it’s becoming hard to think of them as rare. It’s a sign that spirits approve the joining of our tribes.”

  Most of the faces around her were Tlikit. Ashan doubted they knew what a time ball was. But they nodded agreeably. The winter sun had them smiling, too. Warm in their furs, with the cliffs at their backs to keep the wind up high, they sucked in sharp air, puffed out mist, and waited for her to say more.

  Ashan’s ability to use both languages fascinated the people of Teahra, especially the Tlikit. She had no trouble getting listeners, and gathered them often. There was so much they needed to learn.

  She said, “But fine as it is right now, the Darkest Day is coming soon. It’s a dangerous time. We almost lose the Balance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Knowing Tlikit words did not make communicating easy. Besides not knowing Shahala words, these people knew little of Shahala ideas, especially those about what spirits wanted from people. So she could say “the Balance,” and they might think of one rock sitting on another, not “the Balance,” as That Upon Which All Life Depends.

  “I have told you about the war between the Spirit of Light and the Spirit of Dark, and how people are keepers of the Balance. Soon a day will come that is the shortest. Then that night will be the longest.”

  “We know of winter’s long darks.”

  Ashan nodded. “It’s the hardest time, for animals, plants, even for the sun and the moon. They become weak. The Spirit of Dark is about to win the ancient war, and that would be terrible: Night forever. Do you understand? Night forever. People must help the Spirit of Light. We sing, dance, and offer sacred smoke. It’s medicine for the sun, and we do it all day. Then I stay up with the moon while the rest of you sleep. After that, the days will grow at both ends. Green grass will come. What are your questions?”

  “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 nee
ded 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?

  CHAPTER 16

  TENKA 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.

  Arth’s real daughter could never stop thinking that what he had done was wrong—though he was not the only one. By ancient tradition, Shahala people took only one mate, but the massacre left more than half the women without mates and their little ones without fathers. Raga had allowed the old law to be broken—one time only—for the good of the tribe, and now there were several of these strange families.

  The Moonkeeper’s hut was better than Arth’s hut, but what Tenka really wanted was a place of her own. She kept the wish secret. People would think it odd for someone her age, and no one would want to help. She couldn’t make a hut by herself. She might be the Other Moonkeeper, but she was only thirteen summers.