Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

  I have failed to turn my people against her. Maybe I will never get her position or power, but I can try harder to get Tor. Without him she’d be nothing.

  Oh, Tor…

  Pain stabbed Tsilka like a twisting knife. Hot tears ran down her face. She fell to the ground, pounded her fists, and howled.

  “Oh, Tor! It’s so unfair! You are mine, not hers! Mine!”

  When her weeping was done, Tsilka saw that she was in a meadow sheltered from the wind by a rocky ridge. The grass was nipped short. All around were piles of bison dung, unnoticed in her blind approach. She wondered that she hadn’t plopped down in one.

  Little mushrooms grew from the edge of a nearby dung heap. She picked one. Holding the thin stem, she stroked the light brown pointed top. The flared underside was dusted with black. Rubbing black powder between her finger and thumb, she inhaled an odor like fresh-dug dirt.

  Shimnawa mushrooms?

  Shivering with excitement, she scratched the top with her fingernail. The wounded place turned blue.

  Yes! These were powerful mushrooms that caused strange, overwhelming feelings—mostly wonderful, occasionally horrible—visions of the impossible for eyes and ears and mind. Though very rare, they had grown in the Tlikit homeland. When someone found shimnawa mushrooms, the whole tribe would eat them, and for a day and a night abandon itself to whatever might happen.

  Tsilka loved these journeys of the mushroom trail. Real colors were never so bright, or smells so sharp, or touches so intense. She loved, too, the thrill of risk, for mushrooms could turn against you, creating ugliness and fear not to be matched by real life, and not to be escaped until the mushrooms were finished with you.

  She sighed as she remembered making love… pleasure almost too fierce to be survived… explosions that stopped her heart and made her wonder if it would start beating again.

  Shimnawa mushrooms had not been found in the new land.

  Tsilka doubted the Shahala even knew about them.

  It came to her suddenly: The gods had brought her here.

  She yelled, “These mushrooms will help me get Tor!”

  Tsilka put a handful in her waist pouch and headed back for the village, bubbling with triumph instead of hate. As she walked, the mushrooms tempted her. Not wanting to wait, she found a friendly place and marked it with a circle of rocks. The afternoon shadows were long; she would not be herself again until morning. She thought of the twins; they were alone, but used to spending occasional nights by themselves.

  Tsilka chewed and swallowed nine little mushrooms one at a time. They tasted the same as they smelled, like dirt—not dry, dusty prairie dirt, but moist, mossy dirt found by a spring. Leaning back against a rock slab, she waited for the mushrooms to possess her.

  Puffy clouds wandered across the pale blue sky. She stared at them as they drifted along, wondering if she should eat a few more, wondering if maybe they weren’t shimnawas after all-She smiled as the sky became bright sunflower yellow. The clouds transformed from white fluff to roiling amber liquid. The sky went murky orange, the clouds blood red. Darkening red splotched with dirty orange, pulsing greenish yellow spots—swirls and globs—merging, separating, dripping, running—the colors made her sick. They were the colors of her hatred for Ashan. She forced her eyes away from the sky, but the sickening colors followed wherever she looked. Her head spun. Her stomach twisted. Gagging, she fought to keep from throwing up.

  Tsilka saw someone coming—Ashan! Struck by terror, she pushed herself back against the rock.

  No, it wasn’t Ashan, wasn’t anyone at all—just churning mist in the shape of a person. Tsilka shivered, and willed herself to stop, but it intensified to violent shaking. The vapor person solidified, growing and shrinking, growing and shrink- ing as it came toward her. Tsilka tried to push herself inside the rock. It is not real, is not real, is—

  Another shape approached the first—a man who looked like Tor. The ghosts embraced, fell to the ground, and made wild love. She heard them gasping and moaning and crying each other’s names.

  Tor and Ashan… they followed Tsilka everywhere, flaunting her failure in her face.

  Ihate you, Ashan! she tried to scream, but made no sound. She seethed with rage. Her stomach cramped. She vomited violently.

  Lying back, everything was black behind her closed eyes. The sick feeling passed.

  She saw Tor in her mind, opened her eyes, and he was still there before her. Naked. Bathing in the grass that turned into a river. Head thrown back, wet strands of long hair sticking to skin that glistened with sun-gold droplets, he stroked his muscled thighs with his large hands.

  Tsilka’s body—the woman part of it—came alive. On hands and knees she crept toward him, a cougar stalking a fawn, aware that she had left the protection of her stone circle, wanting him too much to let fear stop her, telling herself that there was enough power in her lust to overcome anything.

  Sensing a heaviness lurking behind her, she turned and saw Ashan. With the strength of her passion for Tor, she forced Ashan inside the stone circle, and thought a misty, yellow-green cloud around it. Believing she had trapped her enemy made it so. Ashan could watch, but was powerless to interfere.

  Tsilka leapt and brought Tor down. They made love, doing things to drive each other wild—rising, exploding, collapsing—again and again. The mushrooms coursing through her body made it seem perfectly real. Their savage passion went on and on into the night. The stars swirled and exploded. Night birds cried with Tor and Tsilka, who could not get enough of each other.

  If it ever really happened like that, Tor would never again be satisfied with his pale mate.

  Exhausted, drained, gray as the early dawn, Tsilka returned to her hut and slept the day away. She dried and crumbled the rest of the mushrooms, and mixed them with powdered elderberries and water. Storing the magic brew in a goat bladder, she waited for her chance. Several nights later it came.

  The twins were asleep. Tsilka was ready to snuff the oil lamp when Tor flung the doorskin open and stamped in, fists clenched, face slashed by angry lines.

  “We have to talk, woman!”

  This was not exactly the chance she had hoped for, but it would have to do. Be careful, she told herself. Stay calm.

  “Shh… you’ll wake the girls. Sit down while I make tea.”

  “I won’t be here that long.”

  “My mouth is dry. I can’t talk till I have something to drink. Now sit, or you can just leave.”

  With a snarl, Tor squatted. Tsilka poured the magic brew from the goat bladder into a basket and dropped in several rocks that were still hot from her cooking fire.

  “This has got to stop,” he growled.

  Did he mean his coming to see her? She shivered at the thought.

  “What?” she asked, keeping fear from her voice.

  “Your vicious tricks. If Ashan doesn’t kill you, I will.”

  Tsilka hadn’t done anything to Ashan lately—except for taking her man in the mushroom dream.

  She huffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The tea was hot enough. She filled two ram-horn cups and handed one to Tor.

  “I’m talking about her dress.”

  Oh that, she thought.

  A moon ago, she had stolen a buckskin dress from the Moonkeeper’s hut—not to wear, but to have fun with. Working all night in mean delight, she took it apart and cut strips from the pieces, then sewed them together again. The dress didn’t look any different, but it was smaller. Secretly returning it, imagining Ashan’s frustration when she tried to put it on, Tsilka waited. But nothing ever came of it.

  With an innocent shrug, she drank from her cup.

  Tor glared, shaking his head. He took a drink.

  “What is this?” he said with a look of disgust. “It tastes like dirt.”

  “Elderberries. I dropped my basket and they rolled on the ground.”

  “You might have thought of washing them. I don’t want it.” He handed
her the cup. “Now what about Ashan’s dress?”

  Dipping her fingers in a pouch of honey and stirring them in the warm liquid, Tsilka sweetened the tea.

  “Mmm… better. Try this.” Giving Tor the cup, she sat next to him.

  “What would I know about Ashan’s dress?” she asked, her voice sweet and innocent.

  He took a long drink, looking at her as if she were a stupid child.

  “She knows it was you who took her dress and made it smaller.”

  Tsilka laughed. “Ashan is just getting fat in her old age.”

  “It isn’t funny, woman. If you don’t leave my mate alone, I will stop bringing gifts for the twins.”

  “That would be cruel, Tor. It’s not their fault you refuse to be their father.”

  He drank as they talked. All she needed now was time.

  “I promised to take care of the twins,” he said. “You promised to leave Ashan alone.”

  “No, Tor. I promised to keep our secret. And I have… so far.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Tsilka. I could snap your neck like a twig.”

  His slurred words lost their menace. The centers of his eyes grew larger and blacker as the mushrooms began the work of making him hers. Tsilka smiled.

  “I would not threaten you, Tor. I’m not so bad, you know.”

  “You’re worse than bad. You are… you… ” He dropped his head in his hands. “I feel… strange.”

  In the lampglow, each hair on his head stood alone, long thin strands of shimmering light, blue-green and purple. Tsilka blinked. The mushrooms were working fast. She had to get him out of here. The twins must not hear them making love.

  “I feel strange, too,” she said. “It’s hot in here. Come outside, and I’ll tell you all about Ashan’s little dress.”

  Tsilka led Tor away from the village. Nothing moved but swaying shadows that walked before them on ground washed white by the full moon. The mushrooms danced in her body and in her head. She floated along, the touch of her feet on the dry grass too light to be felt. She wanted to throw her clothes off and run, run naked under the moon.

  “It’s so bright I have to squint,” Tor said, shading his eyes.

  It was not that bright: Tsilka knew the mushrooms had him, too. He staggered.

  “Why… what… where are you taking me?”

  “The dress, remember? I’m going to show you what happened.”

  “Oh… ”

  He slumped to the ground.

  “What’s wrong with me? Everything’s so… ”

  She sat beside the one she loved, put her arm around his wavering shoulders. His skin was soft as new velvet on the horns of an autumn buck. Man-scent filled her nostrils; she could taste him in his leathery smell.

  “What did you give me, woman?”

  “It’s magic, Tor, my own special magic that Ashan, with all her power, knows nothing about.”

  “Magic,” he murmured, lying back on his elbows. Moonshine poured down like silver honey. Tsilka wanted to lick it from his long, lean body.

  But he said, “Tell me.”

  “I wanted her dress, so I took it.”

  “I knew it! Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you hunted the buck. Maybe because I pictured you slipping it from her body before you made love, and I wanted it to be me you undressed.”

  “Me,” she repeated, tasting her lips. “Like this… ”

  Tsilka rose, hips and shoulders undulating to a song in her head. Tor watched with helpless eyes as she slowly pushed her fur cape from one shoulder and then the other, exposing her breasts. With a shrug, the fur slid to the ground. She untied her skirt and it fell away from her rocking hips. Her body moved like wind-teased grass; she ran her hands up her stomach and cupped her breasts, full and tingling, ready for Tor’s mouth. Arching her back, she felt the moonshine bathe her naked skin.

  “Tor,” she breathed. “I am yours.”

  His helpless gaze turned hungry.

  “Tsilka,” he groaned. “Oh, Tsilka… ”

  CHAPTER 30

  ASHAN AWOKE AND FOUND TOR GONE. IT HAD happened before. Sometimes he stayed away for several days. She didn’t like it, couldn’t help thinking about when he’d left and she hadn’t seen him again for three autumns. But the fear was her problem, not his. She had to accept his need for time alone.

  She remembered watching Kai El and Ehr feed animals by the Hidden Cave.

  “I love these squirrels,” the little boy had said. “Let’s make a trap and catch one. I’ll tie a thong around its neck and take it everywhere. I’ll always be happy with a friend beside me.”

  Shaking his head, the wise old man had thought-spoken: You must not keep one who needs to be free. Its misery would poison your happiness.

  Ashan tried to go back to sleep.

  This is different, whispered a voice inside. Your mate is in danger.

  She trusted that voice. As she left the Moonkeeper’s hut, Kai El stirred, and for a moment she felt afraid to leave her son alone. But Tor was in danger.

  Under the last full moon of autumn, the night was almost as bright as day. Moonlight stripped the colors away, leaving only black and white. The wind whooed. Crickets—soon to be silenced by winter—chirped frantically.

  Ashan left the village, following the voice inside saying, this way. Hurrying along the river trail, she saw movement. Naked in the white moonglow, a woman writhed in a dance that reminded Ashan of rattlesnakes mating in one of their secret caves—twirling, dipping, swaying, oozing raw passion.

  It was Tsilka. What was she doing out here alone in the night? Dancing for one of her strange Tlikit gods?

  The woman’s hands stroked her flesh as if she were going to make love to herself. Ashan had never seen anything like this. Fascinated, she crept closer.

  A voice groaned at Tsilka’s feet.

  “Oh, Tsilka, please… ”

  Tor!

  Hot light exploded in Ashan’s head.

  “I’ll kill you!” she screeched, crazed with rage.

  Ashan hurtled at Tsilka, knocked her down, straddled her. Like a pack of coyotes ripping into carrion, she clawed naked flesh to bloody shreds, slapped the ugly face, jerked the evil head by the hair, smashed it again and again on the ground.

  ’Til kill you! I’ll kill you!”

  Tsilka’s puny struggles meant nothing to the enraged beast tearing her apart.

  “Help me!” Tsilka screamed.

  “Ashan! No!”

  Barely hearing Tor’s voice, Ashan ignored it. She pulled her stone knife from the sheath at her waist. Shoulders pinned under Ashan’s knees, Tsilka begged for her life. Ashan jerked her head back, thumped it hard on the ground. The throat shone white in the moonlight. The blade glinted. Holding it crosswise, she raised it—

  “Mother!”

  Ashan froze.

  “Mother, stop!”

  Kai El’s horrified voice brought her back. She couldn’t kill in front of her son.

  Tsilka gurgled. Giving her head a last hard thump on the ground, Ashan climbed off the quivering lump. Her heart pounded; her head pulsed; her breath tore through her. The feel of Tsilka’s blood on her skin, the flesh under her fingernails—it was sickening. Ashan had never known she could feel such rage, couldn’t believe she had nearly torn another human to pieces.

  “Go home, Kai El.”

  Looking uncertain, her little boy backed away.

  Tor lay there on the ground.

  “Get up, Tor! What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m sick. She gave me something bad to drink.”

  His words slurred. Ashan stared at his slack face and unfocused eyes—he did look sick.

  “You made the choice to drink it,” she hissed. “You’re the one I should kill.”

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned.

  “You’re disgusting!”

  Tsilka cowered on the ground, crying like a baby. Ashan kicked her.

  “Listen, you snake! You’d be dead if K
ai El hadn’t come!” She kicked again. Tsilka screamed in pain and rolled away. Ashan followed. “If you ever”—kick—”do anything like this again”—kick—” I will kill you. I know you don’t believe in magic, but there are other ways. This knife”—she slashed the air above the terrified face—” this knife would have killed you if my son hadn’t come. There is poison. There is fire—”

  People must have heard the screams. Several were approaching. Ashan, about to rip into Tsilka again, looked inside for dignity. I’m the Moonkeeper, she told herself. She smoothed her hair, straightened her clothes, wiped blood from her hands.

  “Moonkeeper, what happened?”

  “Tsilka tried to take my mate. I convinced her not to try again.”

  The Moonkeeper sent them away. Leaving Tsilka lying there, she jerked Tor up by his arm and shoved him stumbling in front of her all the way back to the village, filled with anger, suspicion, hurt, and disbelief.

  “You would have made love to her.”

  “No, Ashan. She gave me something to make me crazy, but I would not have made love to her. You are the only woman I could ever love.”

  “Then why were you with her?”

  “I went to talk about your dress, to tell her to leave you alone.”

  “I don’t need help from you. From now on leave Rattlesnake Woman to me.”

  “You’re right, my love. I’m sorry. I never should have gone there.”

  Ashan couldn’t help wondering if this was the first time Tor had gone to Tsilka in the night, but she pushed the question aside, buried it without asking him. How could she stand it if it were true?

  To the Shahala, attempting to take another’s mate was intolerable. The Moonkeeper had every right to banish Tsilka for what she had done to her personally. But looking at it as a chief… this was Tsilka’s home, her children were here. Ashan told herself she had done all that needed doing. Surely Tsilka did not think Tor was worth dying for.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE PEOPLE OF TEAHRA VILLAGE LOST ANY RESPECT they might have had for the woman who tried to steal the Moonkeeper’s mate. Tsilka was shunned, even by men who had once sought her favors. The whispering, the ugly stares—she’d even had rotten wapato thrown at her by little ones. Tsilka couldn’t stand it. She took to staying in her hut, feeling sorry for herself.