Tor had an urge to strike her.
She sighed loudly. “And our young ones. You must know how Kai El and Tsagaia feel about each other.”
He had an urge to kill her.
“Sahalie made those two for each other,” she said. “What could be closer than a mate who is also your brother?”
Without thinking, Tor came up swinging. His fist smashed her jaw.
Flying from the bed, upsetting the lamp, flinging oil everywhere, Tsilka crashed into the work shelf. She yelped, swatting at spots of burning oil as though they were attacking bees, but they spread faster than she could slap them out. Her clothes ignited. Her hair, oiled for beauty, flared into a hideous orange flower. She ran blindly, shrieking, hands tearing at her face; hit a wall, flung herself around, ran the other way.
Tor dived for her and rolled her head in a sleeping skin, muffling the ear-rending shrieks. He beat the flames with his hands, gagging on the smell of burning flesh.
Fire spread along Ashan’s shelf, igniting bunches of dried herbs, leapt to her feather collection woven with dusty spider-webs, roared up and across the wood and hides of the roof. Red-orange flames raced toward the doorway, consuming the air that was so hot Tor could barely breathe.
He threw the thrashing woman over his shoulder and plunged through the fire, past the people coming to fight it. He ran to the edge of the Great River, dropped her, and poured handfuls of water on her. Howls came from the blackened sleeping skin wrapped around her head. He peeled it away. A strip of flesh clung to it. His stomach tried to come up his throat.
Tenka came running.
“She fell into the lamp and got all burned!” he babbled.
“Silence, brother!”
By the light of Tor’s blazing hut, the Moonkeeper forced the struggling woman to swallow a handful of crumbled plants, made her drink the water of the Great River, bathed her seared flesh with it.
The sleeping vine did its work. Tsilka, sure to die, would sleep until she did.
The Spirit of Ashan was deeply troubled when she returned to Teahra Village.
No one would ever again make the mistake of calling Tor’s home the Moonkeeper’s hut, for nothing remained of it but stinking rubble and ash. Most of what Tor and Kai El lost could be replaced; but the tribe could never replace the sacred relics still kept there because Tenka’s new hut wasn’t finished.
As if he had worn a robe of magic, Tor suffered only blistered hands. And crushing guilt.
Tsilka was charred on the side of the heart. Face, shoulder, arm, and hand looked like meat forgotten over a cooking fire. Her other side was the glazy red of flame-dried salmon. Swelled-up flesh oozing, burning with fever, she moaned and cried, even though Tenka kept her groggy with the sleeping vine. Everyone thought she would die.
Ashan’s spirit took Tenka to some pale blue mold growing in a damp place. After several days of drinking mold tea made without heating, Tsilka’s fever cooled, the swelling went down, and she stayed quiet with less sleeping vine.
When a baby was born, Ashan guided Tenka to take some of the birth sac before giving it to the mother for the ritual called This Place Will Always Know Me. Tenka put strips of the birth sac on Tsilka’s burns, keeping the extra pieces soft in water for later use. She thought it was disgusting, and was glad no one asked her about it.
Because of their success, two new medicines were added to the tribe’s knowledge. Blue mold would save many lives from fever. Birth sac encouraged the growth of new skin underneath it that in places looked as good as the old.
But one side of Tsilka’s face would always terrify children. The fire had consumed a swath of skin from her chin to the top of her head. Eyebrow and lashes were gone, and some of her hair. The flesh of her cheek rotted away, leaving a hollow of lumpy scars. Trying to span what it couldn’t, new skin stretched and pulled into ropy lines and hard, shiny patches.
The ability to smile or frown or show any kind of feeling was gone from that side of her face, while the other side showed all the feelings that it ever had, and some ugly new ones… because what was done to the inside of the woman would never heal.
Though she did not love Tsilka, the Spirit of Ashan couldn’t help feeling pity. Tsilka’s beauty was more important to her than anything. Without it, she would have nothing to offer a man. What would she do when she understood how ugly she really was?
In life—no matter how angry Tsilka made her—Ashan had never wished her a fate like this.
Why hadn’t the spirit come sooner? Why not soon enough to stop the fire from happening? She asked herself until she knew.
Tsilka was still the troublemaking, man-stealing witch she’d always been. Ashan had no more use for her now than she’d ever had. But her failure to come sooner had more to do with ignorance than hate.
It was because of time: The passing of time in the two different worlds could not be compared. Ashan had run with the red wolf for a morning. But in the time of humans, two moons had passed. Gone from Teahra Village too long, Ashan had returned to disaster: the hut she loved, and the treasures of her Spirit Mothers, destroyed. Tsilka, whose agony had just begun. And Tor, in terrible guilt, living in Tsilka’s hut, obsessed with her care, ignoring everything else.
He didn’t deserve this. But for one betrayal, Tor had lived a decent life. Ashan would give anything to take his suffering away.
… My beloved… You should have taken what Tsilka offered… found the peace I cannot give you…
But Tor could not hear the Spirit of Ashan.
CHAPTER 43
TOR PROWLED SLEEP, HUNTING FOR A DREAM.
Full of pleasure and meaning, weighted with tabu, dreams were hard to find when you wanted one, or to escape when you were trapped in one. Of all Tor’s sins, none had caused more trouble. But now, dreaming brought the only pleasure to the man waiting to join his soulmate in the only way he could: by dying.
At last Tor dreamed…
… his favorite part of the day: Almost-morning, when half-sleep makes the mind wander like smoke. Ashan snuggled close, breathing soft and slow, her long hair a blanket draped over his chest, an arm and a leg across him. He loved the feel of her skin along his body, and her gentle weight.
Dreaming, Tor knew where they were by the singing of robins outside: the Home Cave, high in the mountains of the tabu land, the first place he and Ashan had lived together. Tor had never been happier. The Home Cave had all that a man could want: perfect mate and son; kind weather; easy hunting.
In the distance a horse whinnied. Today he would hunt; tonight his family would enjoy horsemeat…
No.
He heard a woman’s groan, not the call of a horse—ugly reality come to destroy his beautiful dream. Awakening to sounds of pain and smells of despair, Tor felt suffocated. Like the beetle in its trap of pitch must have felt, just before it gave up.
Tsilka moaned. Even sleep did not stop her pain. Tor reached for her in the dark.
I’ll always be her slave.
She was lying on her stomach. She never liked to sleep on her back, but now she had to. If she slept too long on the stretched, pulled skin of her face, cries would wake him instead of groans. He nudged her. She rolled over without waking, and stopped moaning.
Tor thanked the darkness for hiding her scars, though he knew the shape, size, and color of each too well to forget. Tsilka’s scars were burned into his mind as surely as they were burned into her flesh.
The dark of the little hut was crowded with heat, smells and sounds of bodies at rest. The others were Tor’s own daughters, but he didn’t like to think of them that way. Not anymore.
To escape reality, he thought about his dream.
The Home Cave was the only home that had ever truly belonged to him. Life there was the best it had ever been, but it didn’t last long enough. Compelled by Destiny, Tor himself had brought it to an end. Older now, he wondered if’ “Destiny” had been an excuse for his own dark desires.
Longing knifed his heart.
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The Home Cave. Where memories are.
The knife twisted.
If I had never left, would she still be alive?
Questions. Guilt. Regret. None of it mattered. He knew he would never be happy again.
But he did not have to be disgusting. Not anymore.
As an ignorant young man, Tor couldn’t wait to leave the Home Cave. Now he knew he must return. It would be a better place to wait for death, and Ashan.
Under clouds edged with moonlight, Tor left Teahra Village forever, taking nothing but his last shred of dignity.
On the first day of his journey home, an orak met his spear, giving him meat, hide, bladder for a water pouch, horn for a drinking cup, sinew, and other things he needed. That night Tor enjoyed eating as he hadn’t since he lost his mate. He slept peacefully, knowing that no one would cry out for him in the dark.
Strengthened by food and rest, guided by sun and stars, he crossed the open plateau, and began the climb into the tabu mountains—leaving Teahra Village and its crushing responsibilities farther and farther behind.
On a windy day, a feather came from nowhere, brushed by Tor’s cheek, and went on its way. He thought it was Ashan… a strange thought… Kai El was the one who sensed her spirit. Tor had never tried. It seemed a bitter substitute.
But now he was so alone. Leaning on his staff, he gazed into the sky.
“My love,” he sighed to the wind. “We were together all our lives. How can I wait till I die to be with you?”
… You do not have to…
Tor’s cheeks tingled. Shivers ran up his arms.
… I have been with you, but you would not know it…
He heard—not as sound in his ears, but as understanding in his mind.
“Ashan!”
… Tor, at last…
He felt her relief, as if the air had sighed. He felt her love seep into him. He clutched his chest, so full of her. He wobbled on weakening legs.
… It hurt to love you, and be refused… even for a spirit, that is hard…
He felt her pain enter the poisonous lake of his own, knock away the logjam of fear, and loose a never-cried flood of tears.
Tor sagged to the ground, drowning.
“Ashan, I miss you so much! I miss your body, lying with you in the dark, waking up with you in the morning!”
… I don’t need a body to love you, Tor… I just need you to accept me as I am…
Tor wept until the sun left the sky, and was still weeping when it returned. Raw and ragged, he slept for a day and a night. From then on, he would cry when he needed to, but never like that again.
Ashan’s spirit was with him the rest of the journey. Not like the first time—putting words in his mind and snaking the air—and that was fine with him—it was almost more than a man could stand. She was just there—he knew it without any signs—an invisible, silent, comfortable companion, helping to change Tor’s grief into a misery he could live with. The old grief was made of sharpness, the new one of weight. The other was the color of night, this one the color of shade.
Ready for bear, cougar, or even people, Tor found the Home Cave empty. He settled in. Living there was easier than he remembered. Ehr’s ways made sense now that he was older. He took his food with traps and snares instead of hunting, took more than he needed and stored it for winter.
When the Spirit of Ashan came, he talked, listened, knew a kind of peace. But when she went wherever spirits go, he was alone with his regrets.
My son…
Tor’s love for Kai El was strong, but nothing could have stopped his blind flight from unbearable pain.
Couldn’t you have said good-bye? he asked himself.
Even in his foggy haze, Tor had known that Kai El was emerging healthy on the other side of his mother’s death. Now the boy would never know what happened to his father, and grief’s journey would be harder. “When do you stop searching and start grieving?” the boy would wonder. “What if the crazy old man comes back?”
I should have told him I was leaving. But I didn’t even think of him.
Worse, Tor never told his son what the boy had to know to stop the unthinkable sin.
He should have said, wanted to say, had practiced saying:
“The girl you love—she’s your sister—she’s my daughter—she’s the biggest mistake of my life.”
But he couldn’t say those words, no matter how he tried. The son he loved so much would have hated him. Tor wished he’d been stronger, but all he could do now was hope that somehow Kai El would be all right. After all, he and Ashan had raised a strong, smart young man.
Maybe the Spirit of Ashan would be able to keep the forbidden lovers apart.
Sometimes in a long, lonely night, when Ashan would not come to him, Tor regretted his sins with Tsilka. So long ago, but time cannot forgive. Such a small thing, it had seemed, that no one would ever know about. But ignorance does not excuse. Who could know making love with another woman was so wrong? Tor had known, even then, but he had done it. Even now, he didn’t know why it was wrong, but laws were to be accepted, with or without understanding.
A father’s sin: Tor would regret it, and Kai El suffer for it, for the rest of their lives.
CHAPTER 44
HEARING EAGLES SCREAMING, KAI EL LOOKED UP. The gold-green sky pulsed with its own light, as if alive. But it was empty of eagles, though he still heard their cries. Am I dreaming? he wondered, as he walked up a yellow-grass hill toward an oak tree that spread its branches across the living sky. His father waited there. Feeling flowed down as a colored breeze, wrapping Kai El in the blue of family love, the green of love between friends, and the purple of spirit love. He reached the top of the hill. Tor opened his arms. They held each other as they hadn’t for so long. In the peaceful silence, Kai El spoke.
“I love you.”
“I know. You have been a good son.”
It was the closest his father could come to words of love, and it was enough.
A cloud scudded across the autumn-colored sky. Horse-shaped creatures—a white, a gray, and a black—fell out of the cloud like magic rain. Larger than real horses, manes and tails flying, trailing strands of mist, hooves just above the ground, the creatures galloped up the hill.
“They’re coming right for us!”
“I know,” Tor said. “Climb.”
Father and son scrambled into the lower branches. Kai El held on. Invisible eagles screamed above them. The air quaked with thunder as the horses ran beneath them.
Tor dropped out of the tree and onto the back of the white horse, driving its hooves to the earth. As if it didn’t feel him, the creature kicked into the air and skimmed above the ground, flanked by the gray and the black. The man matched the rhythm of the galloping stallion as if he were part of it. Arms out, head back, he embraced the wind. Accompanied by eagle voices, Tor chanted about the deeds of warriors. His song faded as the horse carried him into the cloud.
Kai El sat straight up—confused, heart pounding, impossible images filling his mind. He couldn’t catch his breath. He was up in the cliffs. It was early morning. He’d slept here—just woke up—dreamed, that was all. Still, it was hard to bring his ragged breathing under control.
Just a dream. Think of something else.
When his father had moved in with Rattlesnake Woman, Kai El couldn’t bear to watch him turn from pathetic to disgusting; nor could he do anything about it. Distant before the fire, afterward Tor behaved as if he didn’t have a son. So Kai El had been staying in the cliffs, by himself, in sight of the rock picture said to be his mother. Sleeping near the Moonkeeper’s takoma brought her son many dreams. But never one like this.
It seemed so real. Are you sure it was a dream?
Of course it was a dream—magnificent, but completely unbelievable. Except for the hill with the oak tree—that was real. Once he and Tor had waited in its branches for a family of spotted deer to come to the shade, but the little animals had gone another way.
Dreams that stayed in the mind sometimes had a message. The language of the darktime world was different and hard to understand, but Kai El tried, thinking about the ancient relationship between horses and people. In the Misty Time, Amotkan made them spirit brothers. When horses died out, the Shahala lost their winter food, and had to leave their homeland. Could the dream mean that somewhere the beautiful creatures had survived? If horses wanted men to know, his father was the one they would tell—one of Tor’s names meant Brings Messages. Kai El knew of the unusual love between them. Stories told of a horse who showed Tor to dig for water under a bush when he was dying of thirst; a horse helped him find the new home at the Great River.
Or the dream might mean that Tor was in danger.
Wishing he had his mother’s skill for understanding dreams, Kai El considered other meanings, but none weighed more than another. He should have gone to the village to see that his father was safe, but he couldn’t resist the call of the dream place.
Except for the sky—now blue instead of golden green, and silent of eagles—everything looked the same. Crossing in and out of cloud shadows, Kai El retraced his steps up the yellow-grass hill, to the oak tree, where no one waited this time. He stood in the lonely breeze for a while, then climbed into the lower branches, and scanned the ground—
His breath caught.
There—sharp dents in the earth—four wide apart, then a leap away, four more. Then none. He jumped from the tree, and traced one with his finger: the size of a man’s heel print; rounded, with a slight point in front; deep as his thumbnail; crisp-edged; fresh.
The hoofprints of a horse? Tor—who grew up with horses—would know. Kai El—who saw his last horse at three or four summers—did not. But what else could they be?
It had not been a dream. The impossible had actually happened. For Kai El, the prints were proof that Kusi, the Horse Spirit, had carried Tor into the sky.
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