He heard those awful, desperate gasps again, the sound of dying for breath.
Oh Amotkan…
To save her from the snake, Kai El had almost thrown Gaia down the canyonside. She was on her knees below him, clinging to the steep ground, shoulders heaving.
He scrabbled to her, knelt, tried to hold her.
She pushed him. “Go away. I’ll come later.”
At least he thought that’s what she said, between those terrifying noises of pulling, reaching, grasping—sounds of a fish snatched out of water, drowning in a river of air. He admired the courage that kept her struggling. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like. Never in his life had anything kept him from breathing.
What would happen if Gaia gave up? Why didn’t Tahna come back?
He had to get her to Tenka, the Other Moonkeeper, who was now the only Moonkeeper.
“I’m taking you home. You’ll have to hold on to my back going down this scree.”
To his surprise, she agreed.
When they reached lower ground, Kai El carried Gaia in his arms. New desires filled him. He wanted much more than to make love to her. He wanted to protect her, to spend every moment with her, to hear her laughter and wipe away her tears. He thought the name for these feelings was “love.”
The attack on Gaia ended with a coughing fit. But it—whatever it was—had done something to her this time. Her heaviness in his arms was a sign of her weakness.
“Put me down,” she said as they approached Teahra Village. “Please don’t tell anyone what happened.”
“But—”
“I promise I will talk to your Moonkeeper.”
Kai El didn’t believe her, but he didn’t know what to do.
Gaia might think this was the end of it, but she was wrong. He had to know more about the thing that attacked her. If she was just any girl… but she was not. That had changed when he held her in his arms carrying her home.
CHAPTER 38
ASHAN’S DISAPPEARANCE UNSETTLED TEAHRA Milage. Even after a turning of the seasons, people still thought of Tenka as the “Other Moonkeeper,” of her hut as “Tenka’s hut,” and Kai El and Tor’s as the “Moonkeeper’s hut.”
Compared to Kai El’s mother, Tenka was an oil lamp next to the sun. She would not have been his choice for chief, but no one cared what an almost-man thought.
On the way to see Tenka, Kai El told himself that she was doing her best, and she was the only one who knew medicine.
Tenka welcomed him to her hut. The warm air was heavy with sweet grass smoke. She bent over a small fire, spreading it with a stick.
Kai El caught his breath. In the Moonkeeper’s cape of black condor feathers, it was like—
“How are you?” she asked, smiling up at him—Tenka, after all—his aunt, not his mother.
“I did not come about myself.”
“It’s Tsagaia, then?”
“How did you know? Did she talk to you?”
“I’m the Moonkeeper. I’m supposed to know. How may I help you, Kai El?”
Of course she wouldn’t say whether she and Gaia had talked—visits with the Moonkeeper were secret.
Kai El settled cross-legged on a woven mat. The firecoals glowed between them. Tenka looked like an ordinary woman, except for the shining condor feathers. Whatever power she had wasn’t obvious in her long-boned, pleasant face, an open face that invited trust.
“Tsagaia is my friend,” Kai El said. “I took her to see some rock pictures. But I walked too fast, and a rattlesnake scared her, and… ” He didn’t know how to describe the rest.
“She couldn’t breathe?”
Surprised, Kai El nodded.
“I thought she was dying,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do. I was carrying her home, but her breath came back, and she made me put her down. She made me promise not to tell.”
Telling took a weight from Kai El. Of course he hadn’t told Tor—his father was the last person who should know about a flaw in Gaia.
“I’m glad you told me,” Tenka said. “I didn’t think she could keep her secret forever. Though I did hope so, for that would mean she was over it.”
“You mean it’s happened before?”
“Many times.
Kai El was astonished.
“How could I miss it?”
“She didn’t want people to see. She thought it made her look weak, and you know, Kai El, among animals, sometimes the weak do not survive.”
Tenka looked at Kai El to make sure he understood. He swallowed.
“Her mother brought her to your mother when she was about knee-tall. I was young and still learning medicine. I thought she looked perfect, but Tsilka told us it was sometimes hard for the child to breathe. Your mother gave her sage to carry. When the Breath Ogre wanted to steal Tsagaia’s air, she could drive him away by smelling rubbed sage. It helped, but it didn’t stop the attacks.”
Something called a Breath Ogre did not like sage… the mysteries of plants amazed Kai El. None of his mother’s healing skills had been passed on to him.
Tenka continued. “Tsagaia learned things no other child had to learn. Hard things. How not to be terrified when you feel like you are dying. How to hide such a thing from others. Her shyness comes from it. So does her courage.”
“Courage? No one thinks of Tsagaia as having courage. They think she’s afraid of everything.”
“What about the wildfire, when she stayed calm while the rest of you panicked? Wasn’t that courage?”
“Of course. It was so long ago, I guess I’d forgotten.” Kai El shook his head. “How stupid I am. I thought she had the heart of a mouse, but she has the heart of the cougar she is named for.”
“Yes, she does. But it’s not your fault you didn’t understand that. She works hard to keep people from knowing her.”
She won’t keep me from knowing her, Kai El thought.
The Moonkeeper said, “When she was ten summers, the Breath Ogre left her. Season after season, he didn’t come back. I think Tsagaia had begun to believe she was safe. I’m sorry to hear that her old enemy has returned.”
It was hard to ask this question, but Kai El had to.
“Could the Breath Ogre kill her?”
Tenka hesitated. “I don’t know.”
He frowned. His mother would have known.
“What should I do?” he asked.
“Don’t tire her. Don’t frighten her. Get her to carry sage.”
“Would birthing tire her too much?” he blurted.
“I don’t think so. Nor would lovemaking.”
Tenka’s look said she understood what was in Kai El’s heart.
Heat rose in his face. He didn’t want anyone to know how he felt about Gaia. He himself did not really understand how he felt.
CHAPTER 39
PEOPLE SAID THAT IT WAS HOTTER ON THE GREAT River that summer than it had ever been in Shahala land. Those who thought Ashan was the last real Moonkeeper didn’t trust Tenka to change the seasons, though she had done so several times.
“It might not work this time,” they said, and talked about what would happen if summer went on and on, agreeing it would be better to get stuck in summer than in winter.
Ridiculous. Kai El respected his mother, but seasons changed themselves. It was one of the things Ehr had taught him.
Yesterday Kai El had taken refuge from the heat at his mother’s takoma in the cliffs, where there was always a breeze. He had slept here last night and might again. The night would be warm and full of bugsongs, whose rhythm heightened as autumn approached, until they were silenced by the first frost
He wished he knew what to do. Gaia was hiding. He hadn’t been able to talk to her, not once, since he’d carried her home the day the Breath Ogre had attacked her. The only time he’d seen her alone, she hurried away as he approached.
What had he done to make her act this way?
Why do you care? asked the part of his mind annoyed by the summer heat. Why would you want so
meone like that?
But I do. And she needs me. All I have to do is convince her.
Kai El opened his waist pouch and took out a bundle of strands—long black hairs pulled from all over his head, gathered and tied like a horse’s tail, and ready for braiding—the beginning of a pledge band.
Pledge bands were an old Shahala tradition that few men bothered to make anymore. He thought few even remembered what they meant. Kai El remembered. His mother had worn his father’s pledge band until she died. And afterward, for all he knew, since only her time ball was found.
When horses still roamed the earth, pledge bands were made from their tails. The work told of a man’s love for a special woman. More colors meant more horses killed, and that meant the man would be a good mate. Horses were only a memory now… sad, they must have been beautiful, the way people talked of them.
Kai El decided to use his own hair to make his pledge band. It was shiny and coarse, and his head had more than it needed. He would line it with soft leather, so it wouldn’t make Gaia’s arm itch.
He smoothed the hair bundle, combing the strands with his fingers. Gaia liked Shahala ways. Gaia made beautiful things. She might appreciate a pledge band.
She might use it to choke him.
That gave him an idea. He took sage from his medicine pouch and rubbed it between his fingers. The sharp fragrance reminded him of rain on the prairie. One at a time he pulled the strands of hair through his scented fingers—like women used beeswax for sinew—making the strands stronger, wrapping them with the sacred plant’s protection.
Kai El separated the magic strands into hanks, brought one over, another under, beginning a band for Gaia’s arm that he hoped would bind their hearts.
Through a gap in the hut’s cover of woven tule reeds that needed patching before the autumn rains, a girl of fourteen summers watched stars fade from the dawn sky. Her name was Tsagaia, Big Tan Cat; but since a warrior had called her the name that meant Kitten, she thought of herself as Gaia. She’d been elated by his attention. All a girl could want in a mate, Kai El was wellborn, son of the lost Moonkeeper and Tor. He was kind, funny, and smart. She pictured his muscled body—the strength and grace of his movements; a face for dreaming about; eyes that spoke a secret language she understood; voice that stroked her ears.
Sun River—she loved the meaning of his name—could have anyone. How could he be interested in her?
This and other worries had kept Gaia awake most of the night.
She’d been afraid her sister would take Kai El from her, when the real worry was herself… and the Breath Ogre. After what he had seen, Kai El must think her unfit for mating.
Tears blurred the patch of morning sky. More than anything, Gaia wanted to be a mother. But what if the Breath Ogre attacked while a baby was being born? She had watched birthing; she knew how hard it was for the mother. What if she became too tired to fight? What if she died? Who would care for her baby? Once she would have trusted her twin, but no longer.
What if the Breath Ogre attacked the helpless baby?
I’ll burst if I don’t talk to someone, Gaia thought.
She’d always felt comfortable with the Moonkeeper Ashan, but Ashan was gone. Anyway, how could she have talked to a mother about her son… about these kinds of feelings…
Why not talk to Tenka, the Other Moonkeeper, who had taken Ashan’s place? Tenka was said to be wise and kind. Gaia would trust her about medicine, but what could a mate-less woman know about love? She had promised Kai El she would talk to Tenka, but she just couldn’t. You have to know someone to trust them, she thought.
Gaia was nearly miserable enough to talk to her twin. They used to be closer than bark and tree. Tahna knew how to help fight the Breath Ogre. Gaia never needed another friend. But womanhood changed Tahna’s mind along with her body: She became selfish, sneaky, and mean. Gaia didn’t hate her, though she sometimes felt like choking her almost to death. When Tahna stole her neckband, Gaia knew she’d never trust her sister again.
If she knew how much I want Kai El… Gaia pictured the tongue of a lizard shooting out for a sleepy fly. How easily she could get him… with her boldness and her health.
In desperation, Gaia decided to talk to her mother. Should she forget about Kai El? Or try to make him love her?
When dawn lit the hut, Gaia found that her mother hadn’t come home. She didn’t bother to wonder what man Tsilka had shared the night with.
No one to trust. Her sister would steal Kai El. Her mother had her own complicated life. Kai El’s father Tor was too unhappy to help anyone. His mother Ashan was dead. The Other Moonkeeper a stranger…
Spirit quest.
The words just came to her mind. It was a custom of the Shahala part of the tribe. She’d been afraid to go on one when she was small. Maybe a spirit quest could help her now.
No one saw Gaia leave Teahra Village. She carried a water pouch and wore two light skins. She might stay away for a day and a night… that’s how much thinking she needed to do.
You wouldn’t! said a voice that came from inside, and reminded her of her sister’s voice. Our mother would have the whole village searching before the nightfire is lit.
With the village barely out of sight, Gaia’s courage was already failing. She told herself it wasn’t how long she stayed gone that was important, but what she learned.
She took the trail that led to the rock picture called She Who Watches—the special place of the lost Moonkeeper. Ashan’s trail was an uphill slope for a long way—straight up through a series of clefts—then level, but narrow and dangerous, near the top. It wasn’t the hardest trail to climb, nor the easiest. Maybe Gaia just wanted to test her body. Maybe she was angry at her body.
There was another reason to take Ashan’s trail: Since no one she knew could help her, Gaia might as well be alone. No one would bother her up here. People were afraid of the Moonkeeper’s takoma.
She thought of Kai El… Most people…
Gaia had been afraid of it herself, until she’d gone there with Kai El. It was a wonderful place. There was a feeling of—she couldn’t think of a word—of everything as it should be.
Maybe he will be there, she thought.
Gaia kept a pace to tempt the Breath Ogre.
What Breath Ogre? her clear chest asked. Now that there’s no one here to see, I have the strength of a cougar.
“Gaia!”
She looked up to see a dark shape against blue sky—Kai El, waving and calling.
“It’s me!” he shouted, running toward her.
She’d been avoiding him so carefully. Now what? She looked back at the trail, but she couldn’t run. It was too steep. She waited for him.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“No, I’m glad you did. I was wanting someone to talk to. Give me your water pouch. And your hand.”
Gaia allowed him to help her. But she wanted to get away. What must he think of her? She couldn’t stand it.
When they got to the Moonkeeper’s takoma, she saw that Kai El had slept there. He smoothed the skins on the stone seat, inviting her to rest.
“I don’t need to rest,” she said. “I was going to see what’s over the top, so—so good-bye.”
“I’ll come with you. If a big animal or something attacks, a man should be there.”
She knew what he meant. If the Breath Ogre attacks. Gaia hated people feeling sorry for her, thinking they had to help her.
“I want to be by myself. Give me my water pouch.”
Holding it out, he gripped her wrist as she reached for it—not hurting her, just stopping her. Confused pain filled his eyes.
“Why are you angry, Gaia?”
“I’m not. I just want to be alone.”
“Please,” he begged. “Tell me what I did wrong.”
“Let go.”
Releasing her, he took some pungent gray sprigs from his waist pouch.
“Look, I’ve got sage. If I’d known it could help, I would
have had it before.”
For a moment, she softened. How sweet of him. Then she wondered.
“How do you know about sage?”
“Tenka told me.”
Devastated, Gaia said, “You told her? I asked you not to. Now everyone will know.”
“Tenka won’t tell anyone. Even if they knew, they’d want to help.”
Gaia shook her head, blinking back tears.
“Now I know how much I can trust you.”
She slung her water pouch over her shoulder, made her way past him, and got on with her spirit quest.
“Well,” Kai El said after Gaia left. “I finally get to talk to her, and I ruin it completely.”
He closed his eyes and pictured his mother’s face.
“I wish I knew if you could hear me,” he said to her spirit. He waited, but nothing happened, so he just kept talking.
“Something happened when I carried her, something much greater than lust. I want to take care of her. I think I love her. But she won’t even look at me. What did I do wrong? Go too fast? Too slow?”
He hit his palm with his fist. “The more things get in our way, the more I know she must be my mate.”
To make his frustration go away, Kai El made up the conversation he and Gaia should have had.
“The Autumn Feast is coming,” he should have said.
“It’s a custom of your people I truly enjoy.”
“It’s a time of great changes.”
Kai El realized the made-up Gaia knew this, but he went on. Even in a pretended conversation, it was hard to keep from saying, “Oh, Gaia, be my mate.”
“Changes in people’s lives. Little ones taking their spirit names. Men taking their mates.”
“And the feasting,” she would say, “and the dancing.”
He pictured her dancing. His heart sprang a leak. Control flowed away. The made-up Kai El could no longer hold himself back.
“Gaia, I love you. I want to be with you forever.”
Only the wind heard him.
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