Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

“Things change. People change.”

  “That’s no answer, and I deserve one. I saved your life more than once.”

  “And I’ve saved yours. But you’re right, Jud. You do deserve an answer. I just wish I knew it.”

  Jud pointed to the cliffs. “Why don’t you take me up there where you spend all your time? Maybe that’s where the answer hides.”

  Kai El took a deep breath. Someday, someone would have to see the halfway place. Gaia should have been first, but…

  “Come on,” he said.

  With a grim look, Talak shook his head.

  “I’m not going to that ghost place. When Jud doesn’t come back, I’ll tell his weeping mother that Spilyea turned him into a rock, too.”

  Kai El remembered that people of slave blood feared spirits of all kinds.

  “It’s just a quiet place with a good view,” he said. “And no ghosts.”

  Jud snickered. “It can’t be worse than drowning while you pick eels under a waterfall. Should we tell the girls you have weak legs?”

  Talak had no choice. Once girls believed that about a boy, it was hard to convince them they were wrong.

  “I may be younger, but my legs are stronger than yours,” he said. But Talak couldn’t help looking over his shoulder as they climbed the trail.

  Kai El tried to reassure him.

  “Ghosts are invisible. You couldn’t see one if it came.”

  “That makes me feel better. I won’t see them coming to carry me off.”

  “Even if a ghost comes, don’t worry. They are only as mean as the people they used to be,” Kai El said, thinking of his mother. She had a Moonkeeper’s power, but she had never been meaner than a person deserved—though the victim might think otherwise.

  “Stop talking about ghosts, and I’ll feel better,” Talak said. Then he jumped at a little noise somewhere behind them. The boy couldn’t hide his fear.

  Jud tried, but Kai El knew him too well: His bravery at the river faltered as they climbed. He tried to cover it by tricking Talak, hiding pebbles in his hand to toss when the boy wasn’t looking, making him think they were being followed.

  They both kept going. Male pride gave them no choice.

  Kai El stopped at the halfway place.

  “What do you think?”

  “Good place to rest,” Jud said.

  “This is where I’m going to live.”

  “That’s crazy,” Talak said.

  Jud said, “This is a joke, right?”

  “No. I’ll move these boulders—I could use your muscle, Spirit Brother—then I’ll make my hut back against that overhanging slab—”

  Talak cut him off. “You’re crazier than your father ever was. No one’s ever wanted to live away from the village. Why don’t you want to live with us? Aren’t we good enough?”

  “You always think people think they’re better, Talak, but they don’t. It has nothing to do with that. It’s a nice place, and I like it here, that’s all.”

  Jud said, “You’ll be lonely. You’ll never get a mate.”

  “You’re wrong,” Kai El said. “The girl I love is different. We are soulmates. I like it, so she’ll like it.”

  Jud and Talak looked at each other. Kai El hadn’t told his feelings to anyone.

  “What girl?” Jud asked.

  “Gaia.”

  Their mouths dropped.

  “Talak is right,” Jud said. “You are crazy. The twins will never mate. They’ll be taking care of Rattlesnake Woman until they’re old and ugly themselves.”

  Kai El said, “Rattlesnake Woman will either get well or die. Besides, Gaia doesn’t owe her life to her mother. No one does.”

  “Well,” Talak said, “they’re both good to look at, but Gaia’s the one I’d take. Once I accidentally walked by the women’s washing place. Tahna caught me and almost poked my eyes out.”

  The laughter of friends was a little too loud, but it sounded good. Kai El wouldn’t admit it, but he did get lonely sometimes. He gave them antelope leathermeat and old-berry juice, and they stayed for a while. Kai El told his ideas for the place, and they seemed interested. He laughed at their jokes.

  Shadows lengthened. Talak spoke in a serious voice.

  “We need to get home. Ghosts are more powerful at night. If we wait any longer, we’ll break our legs in the dark.”

  “You’re right,” Jud said. He nudged Kai El. “You can stay with us. You know my sister’s cooking.”

  Kai El said, “Stay here, my friends. It’s best at night. The stars are brighter, the river’s quieter. I have food, and we’ll make a fire. Tomorrow I’ll show you trails you never knew about.”

  Jud shook his head. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Some other time,” Talak agreed.

  They left. Loneliness came. Kai El was not going to sit there feeling sorry for himself. He had spent enough time in the cliffs to know them. He could move silently without using the trail, knew places to hide and listen to what they really thought.

  Following them, he caught bits of conversation.

  “I don’t understand him,” Jud said.

  “He’s crazy,” Talak said. “But what do you expect? Look at his parents.”

  “His mother wasn’t crazy.”

  “She wasn’t like anyone else. And his father—they don’t get any crazier than that.”

  Jud didn’t try to argue that Tor wasn’t crazy, and Kai El didn’t blame him.

  Farther down the trail, he heard them again.

  “Soulmates! Phht! He could have any girl. Why does he want one who’s not interested?”

  “I told you, Jud, he’s crazy. We’ve heard the last of women saying what a fine mate he would make for their daughters.”

  “Spit on you both!” Kai El said, not caring if they heard.

  He went back to the halfway place, and watched night suck light from the world.

  “Jud and Talak,” he yelled. “A fatherless Tlikit, and the son of a slave. Who do you think you are to judge the son of legends?”

  His words bounced from the rocks and came back sounding like someone else’s. Kai El was not an arrogant man, just a very angry one.

  As stars took their places in the darkening sky, anger changed to discouragement. Talak didn’t surprise him. But Kai El and Jud were spirit brothers. He’d been so sure Jud would understand. And so wrong.

  “My best friend,” Kai El said. “And he understood none of it. Not one thing.”

  Now you know, his inner voice answered. No one will understand.

  “Except maybe Gaia,” he said. Even now, he didn’t give up hope. What would he have left?

  “She’s different, you know. We are soulmates.”

  But he felt so lonely.

  CHAPTER 47

  KAI EL’S DEEP LONELINESS REACHED THROUGH SPACE and time, calling the spirit of his mother. She found him lying in the cliffs above Teahra Village, rolling back and forth in unsettled sleep.

  … If Icould just talk to him…

  Ashan’s love for people—especially her son—was as great as it had ever been. Now she knew so much more, knowledge that could make life better for people—if only there was some way to tell them. But people couldn’t hear spirits with their ears, any more than they could see them with their eyes.

  The Spirit of Ashan could enter Kai El’s dreaming mind, and create pictures for him to take back to the daytime world, but this was flawed. When he awoke, Kai El kept only what he wanted, and forgot the rest. It wasn’t perfect, but it pleasured her to be with her son. It allowed her to comfort him, and sometimes help him make decisions.

  If Ashan kept the dream-path between them open, Kai El might someday be ready to learn that Gaia was his sister and could never be his mate.

  On this night, her son felt crushed because he’d been scorned by his friends. Kai El wanted to be liked and respected. But Destiny would lead him down a different path from others, so Destiny had made him different. Sometimes being different hurt, as when you
were young and could see no farther than tomorrow.

  As Kai El slept, the Spirit of Ashan painted him a dream.

  He dreamed that he was here at his place in the cliffs, but it was as he had imagined… with a large hut under the overhanging rock slab, and a wide, flat place where people could sit outside… a home to be proud of.

  In Kai El’s dream, he sat on a stone. People sat on the ground, all looking up to him. He was the chief, and they had come to ask him questions. He was glad he didn’t live down in the village with them; he’d never have time for himself.

  A beautiful woman stepped from the hut.

  Not Gaia.

  He stood with his mouth open. Iwant her, he thought.

  “Kai El,” said the most soothing voice he had ever heard.

  Kai El woke himself up. He remembered dreaming…

  This place… all finished, with a large flat spot for sitting, instead of these boulders. And a hut of wood and skins, with a rock slab roof. In the dream, people had accepted this as his home. They had come up to visit him.

  Gaia had been in the dream—it didn’t look like her, but he knew it was her.

  Kai El looked up. A pair of hawks called to each other as they circled the cliffs.

  Skaina, the Hawk Spirit, must have given him the dream. He remembered Skaina’s words on his long-ago power quest.

  Amotkan wants people to listen to themselves. You are the first.

  It meant more than just picking his own name. That was only the beginning. It meant that he was to follow his own thoughts, about everything, no matter what others said.

  The dream had shown Kai El that he was right about making his home up here; and that in time, others would come up to see him.

  More important, the dream had shown Gaia living in his home.

  Kai El sang his song to the circling birds.

  “With the eyes of the hawk, I see what others can’t. With the heart of the hawk, I have the courage of ten men. With the wings of the hawk, my spirit soars high above my home.”

  His friends may have laughed at him yesterday, but one good thing would come from their visit. Now Gaia would know what he was doing up here, and who he was doing it for. Jud and Talak would make sure everyone knew that.

  When the right time came, when Gaia was ready for him, Kai El would be ready for her. Until then, he would work on their home, and think of nothing but her.

  When she saw how Kai El interpreted the dream, the Spirit of Ashan wondered if she should keep out of his sleeping mind in the future.

  CHAPTER 48

  “ALIKE AS SEEDS OF GRASS,” PEOPLE SAID OF TSILKA’S daughters when they were young. Subtle contrasts emerged as they grew. At fifteen summers, the twins looked alike only at first glance.

  Their dark brown eyes were shaped the same; but Tahna’s flashed, Gaia’s were soft. Gaia’s long, midnight-colored hair rested neatly on her back, while Tahna’s always looked windblown. Gaia dressed as if she were unaware of her beauty, but naturally knew how to enhance it. Tahna dressed for attention. Gaia walked with the grace of one who shouldn’t tire herself; Tahna darted.

  Firstborn Tahna, who had never faced death, had no fear of it. Secondborn Gaia, who faced death every time the Breath Ogre attacked, had beaten fear of it.

  If either had reason to be jealous of the other, it was Gaia. Tahna had been blessed with a strong, healthy body. If Gaia could have anything, it would be that.

  But Gaia wasn’t the jealous twin.

  Tahna had a secret place that no one knew about—not her mother, not even her twin. She’d been coming here since she was a girl. Not far past Teahra Village, the river trail left the water’s edge. A small path led to the women’s washing place. Men and boys knew better than to come down that path. Tahna could hear the girls and women talk from her hiding place nearby; sometimes it was more fun to listen than to be one of them.

  Her secret place meant more than fun now: It meant survival. Tor had been gone, dead, or whatever he was for two moons, leaving the twins to care for the demanding witch their mother had become. If Tahna couldn’t be alone sometimes, she thought she’d die.

  On a cold, windy day, feeling stretched like a skin pegged and forgotten, Tahna fled the village. Reached by an animal track, her secret place was just a hole in the thick brush, where boulders forced the current around a little pool. She sat on a low rock, staring at the water, thinking about her twin.

  Always the lucky one, from the beginning, when she was named for a cougar and I was named for a bug.

  Wind chopped the gray water into waves that hit the boulders behind Tahna and splashed her. Dark clouds, heavy with rain, would break open soon, but she stayed. Cold wet seemed better, cleaner, than the dry warmth of the hut.

  Tahna pushed damp strings of hair from her face.

  Everyone thinks Gaia is so good… if they knew what I know… Iknew her before the beginning.

  Being named for a bug was the second unfair thing that happened to the firstborn twin. Far worse was done to Tahna inside her mother’s womb. Deer and goats might be born in pairs, but humans were born alone.

  Only one baby should have been born. Only me.

  Tahna looked like a whole person, but she wasn’t, not on the inside where the mind and soul were. Half of her was stolen before she was even born. Sometimes she believed that her twin had willfully robbed her. Sometimes she blamed it on their mother for mating with a god—perhaps a god’s staff was sharp, and could split an unborn baby in two.

  Or maybe the birth of twins was simply a mistake, like the Tlikit story about a baby born with no thumbs. He learned to do everything but use a spear. Before he reached mating age, a moose killed him. The story explained how some people were doomed from the beginning.

  Knowing why she was different wouldn’t have changed how Tahna felt about herself: less than complete, less than others. She wondered what whole people felt like, and wished she could feel it too.

  At times, she resented her twin—then she couldn’t help being mean. But she didn’t hate her. What Gaia had done was long ago, and Tahna forgave her.

  However it might seem, Tahna loved the other half of herself, love made stronger by Gaia’s weakness. When they were young, Tahna found ways to make the Breath Ogre leave Gaia’s body. This brought praise from her mother, thanks from her sister, and pride in herself at being smart enough to outwit a demon. Tahna never told Gaia, but in a way she was sorry the Breath Ogre stopped coming. At least the attacks had given her something of value to do.

  Already wet from blowing waves, Tahna barely noticed when it began raining as she sat in her secret place.

  She was fifteen summers, and what was her life supposed to be about?

  Once she had dreamed of becoming a Moonkeeper, but when Ashan died, so did the dream. With a sigh, Tahna remembered how much she missed Ashan. So far Tenka had not chosen a helper, but Tahna didn’t think she would be the one—even though she already knew about medicine. She felt that unlucky.

  Other girls her age talked about boys, about huts of their own, and the little ones they would have. The idea of mating and babies excited Gaia. It didn’t interest Tahna, but there was nothing else she could hope to do. She might not even get a mate—there weren’t enough boys the right age. Not having a mate was a bad thing, as Tahna had learned so well growing up with a mother who didn’t have one. No one in the tribe ever starved, but women with mates received the special things.

  A few water skimmers took refuge in Tahna’s secret pool. She threw a stone, scattered them, and the wild river took them.

  She didn’t want a mate, but it would be worse not to have one. What did half a person want? To be whole. But what would make Tahna whole? Maybe nothing. Maybe some people were doomed from the beginning.

  Why do I bother wondering what I want? My mother and my twin have decided for me, with help from Tor.

  For the rest of her miserable life, Tsilka would demand more care than a mate and a hut full of little ones. For now, Ta
hna had her sister’s help. But eventually, Gaia and Kai El would realize that they were in love.

  Then I will be the only one to take care of the witch. Curse you, Tor, for knocking my mother into the oil lamp. Not that I haven’t felt like it…

  Tahna had been glad when Tor went away. He had disappointed her, or betrayed her—she could look at it either way.

  Once, he had seemed to like the twins more than any little ones except his son. He gave them special treats, and talked about important things that adults usually saved for each other. Tahna thought he liked her because she was a clever girl who always remembered what he said. Only later did she realize that he probably came to see their mother.

  Sometimes the fatherless twins played secret games in which Tor was their father.

  Bad moods didn’t have a chance when he came around. Tahna couldn’t help laughing at his funny stories.

  When coyotes took Ashan, Tor lost more than a mate. He lost what made him the person Tahna loved—especially his humor. He wanted nothing more to do with them. Gaia said she understood: Family was the most important thing. But Tahna didn’t understand. True, they were not his family, but she thought he loved them as friends. Tor had once told her that love between friends was forever.

  The line between grief and madness was thin; the fire had pushed Tor over it. His own home destroyed, he had moved into Tsilka’s hut. A scary intensity drove him to keep the burned woman alive, no matter how she begged to die. Tahna never saw him sleep. His dead eyes passed by her as if she were something hanging on the wall. His ears ignored her. He took food without a word, a glance, or any sign that she existed.

  The kind man Tahna thought she knew was just a disguise, like a skin worn by a warrior to penetrate a herd. The cruel man inside had been waiting for a chance to get out and make his kill. Yes, she was glad Tor was gone.

  At first, Tahna enjoyed taking care of her mother.

  Tor had not allowed anyone but Tenka to touch her—even though Tahna knew what to do, having learned about medicine from Ashan. After Tor disappeared, overworked Tenka was glad to turn Tsilka’s care over to her daughters.