Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

  The Spirit of Ashan had been nearby… silent, invisible, scattering her energy so Tor and Kai El wouldn’t feel her. She was proud of them. They were fine men who knew the importance of love and were willing to sacrifice for it.

  After their son left the Home Cave, Ashan came to Tor. He was lying on a heap of furs on the raised earth bed they had long ago shared, his head resting on an old summer skirt of Ashan’s that he’d found in a corner of the cave. On his side, he curled around a thick bear fur, holding it as if it were a woman. A blue-purple aura glowed around him, the mixed colors of family and peace.

  Tor floated in a dreamy place between waking and sleeping. Ashan mingled with him, and spoke in his mind.

  … Thank you. I know what courage it took to tell our son the truth…

  Tor answered out loud. One voice talking to itself didn’t sound strange to him.

  “You were right, my love. I’m glad I did it. At last, I know the peace that’s been missing all my life. It feels good. It’s like resting.”

  Tor slipped into sleep, then out again.

  “Ashan, do you remember when we were young, and we lived in the mountains in the cave you found? Before Kai El was born?”

  … I remember. There was only you and me, and love…

  “Everything was new,” he said. “Sharp and clear, and sweet. I loved it all, Ashan. Do you know what I loved most? Holding you at night, going to sleep with you in my arms… ”

  Wrapped in their eternal love, Tor went to sleep.

  CHAPTER 58

  IN TEAHRA VILLAGE, THE LATE SPRING DAY DAWNED bright and warm, with a breeze that would keep it from getting hot. The Moonkeeper Tahna had a full day ahead, even without the unexpected things that would demand her attention. As she did every day, she wished that her mother hadn’t killed Tenka, and wondered who to train as her helper.

  Still, she was in a good mood. There were good feelings in being needed.

  Enjoying a few moments alone behind the closed doorskin of the Moonkeeper’s hut, putting new laces on old moccasins, Tahna heard shouting.

  “Kai El!”

  She jumped to her feet and dashed outside.

  It was Kai El, running toward the village with Wyecat, who’d been standing guard on the plateau.

  People rushed him, surrounded him, pummeled him with questions.

  “Give me time to rest,” he said, laughing. “Then I’ll tell you everything.”

  The crowd opened to let Tahna through. Her smile must have taken up her whole face.

  “This is wonderful!” she said. “I’m so glad to see you!”

  Instead of taking her outstretched hands, Kai El hugged her.

  Tahna shouted, “People! Thank the spirits. Make a feast for our brother who has come back.”

  Kai El grinned. “I’ve missed the tasty miracles cooked by you women.”

  Women went off chattering like birds.

  “Leave us,” Tahna said to the people milling around. “You may have him when I’m finished. Come, Kai El.”

  She took him to the Moonkeeper’s hut.

  He looked healthy and glad to be home.

  “Look at you!” Tahna said, so happy that she laughed. “I thought I’d never see you again! I can’t believe it! This is wonderful!”

  “I’m glad you think so. I wasn’t sure how people would feel.”

  “Well… they were angry when you left. But it’s been a long time now. We’ve missed you. These people love you.”

  Kai El looked down as if embarrassed, but Tahna saw that he was pleased.

  She told him to sit.

  “So you are the Moonkeeper,” he said.

  “Yes. Since Tenka died.”

  She would have to tell him about that, and all the other things that had happened while he was gone.

  “Did your mother kill her?”

  “No one knows, but I think she did. They died together, up in the cliffs.” Tahna looked at him curiously. “How do you know?”

  “My mother showed me in a dream.”

  “A dream… I wish it had been that easy for me.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t imagine how it was for you.”

  “It was scary… a hard time for everyone. That’s when we missed you the most. People didn’t know what to do. They were like ants in a kicked-over anthill. It was up to me to do something, so I did. I took control. They let me because Tenka had been training me. And because there was no one else.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but I couldn’t be.”

  She sighed. “I lived through it, and so did everyone else.”

  Tahna was glad Kai El was home. She didn’t want him to feel bad about being gone. What was the use of that? It was in the past now.

  “So tell me everything. Where have you been since Gaia died?”

  “Running from pain. Trying to forget. When that failed, trying to find out who I am without her.”

  “Did you?”

  Nodding, he gave her a strange look.

  “I saw Tor.”

  “Tor? You mean in a dream?”

  “No. The real man. He lives in the tabu mountains. I stayed with him.”

  Tahna was amazed.

  “Tor is alive? I can’t believe it.”

  “Neither could I,” Kai El said. “I’m the one who thought I saw him carried off on the back of a horse. Now I realize that was a dream. Tor left on his own legs.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him back?”

  “I tried. He won’t come.”

  “Well, you can take some warriors and go get him.”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s alive.” Kai El paused. “Except you.”

  The hairs on Tahna’s neck stood up.

  “Me? Why me?”

  “There’s something I must tell you, Tahna. Something he wants you to know.” Kai El took a deep breath, and it whooshed out. “Tor is… he’s… ”

  He swallowed hard, licked his lips, looked around.

  “What are you trying to say? Tell me.”

  “He’s your father.”

  What could he possibly mean by that? She didn’t understand.

  “What?” she said, shaking her head.

  Kai El looked straight in her eyes.

  “Tor is your father.”

  Tahna jumped up, was going to run out, but her knees buckled. Kai El caught her and held her.

  “I’m sorry, sister.”

  She couldn’t think or breathe.

  “Not sorry that you are my sister,” he said, “just sorry you never knew.”

  Waves of shock pushed Tahna this way and that on legs made of water. She felt like throwing up.

  Kai El held her tight.

  “It will be all right, Tahna. I’m here.”

  “But why didn’t he tell me?” She gasped. “How could he! I’m going to find him! I’m going to—”

  Tahna! Gaia’s voice within her shouted. You are the Moon-keeper now. You have no time for anger and confusion, no time for tears. It’s true. It happened. Let it go.

  Tahna took deep breaths. Her insides unclenched. Strength returned to her legs. She pushed away from Kai El—from her brother.

  A wave of sickening horror washed over Tahna when she realized that her brother was also Gaia’s brother. Had they broken the ancient tabu? Tahna pictured the god Wahawkin sucking the water from the Great River, as he had once done to the lake in the Tlikit homeland because some long-ago chief had mated with his sister.

  “Oh, Kai El,” she said. “That means that my sister was your sister, and the two of you were—you were going to be—did you—”

  “No. We did not. We never knew each other in that way. I wanted to, but we didn’t. Gaia wanted to do things the Shahala way. She wanted to wait for the Autumn Feast.”

  Sitting back down, Tahna motioned for him to join her.

  Tahna had had a dream four times. Now she knew what it had been trying to tell her. She shared it with Kai El.

  “It was a good dream
. You were in it. We were friends, good friends—though I had no idea you were my brother. Together we led these people, like one chief made out of two. They loved and respected us. Teahra Village was a safe, happy, bountiful home for everyone of any kind of blood.”

  “I had a dream like that,” Kai El said, with a surprised look on his face.

  Tahna said, “I thought that it made no more sense than most dreams. How could you help me? I was sure you were dead. But I took comfort from it. It gave me hope. And I needed that.”

  She took his hands, squeezed them, looked into his eyes.

  “I needed hope, Kai El. Because I need help so badly. I can’t control everything, especially the men. I get so frustrated I think I will scream, so tired I think I will die.”

  It felt wonderful to say these things. Since the Moonkeeper Tenka died, Tahna had no one to talk to. Now she had Kai El.

  “My brother, welcome home.”

  With Kai El’s strong arms around her, Tahna gave in to tears of happiness and relief. She would sort out her other feelings later.

  The Firekeepers made a bonfire against the cliff wall. People drummed, danced, and sang to welcome the lost one returned to them. The women had reason to be proud of the feast they prepared. Kai El let them know with every bite how happy he was to be home.

  The tribe sat listening. Kai El told about the mountains, and how he almost froze to death chasing revenge; of the snow cave he dug, and the bear cave where he passed the winter. How he grieved for Gaia. How he traveled in the spring to the land of his ancestors looking for reasons to live.

  Kai El said, “My mother—the Moonkeeper Ashan, who is a spirit now—came to me in dreams. She showed me many things about the past and the future. I learned that Tor had three children, not one.”

  A gasp went up.

  Tahna walked past stunned people to Kai El’s side. They clasped hands and raised them over their heads.

  “People of Teahra, Tahna is my sister.”

  “Kai El is my brother.”

  He said, “Destiny has reunited us. We will lead our people together.”

  She said, “One chief who is made out of two.”

  People liked the idea of two chiefs, once the shock went away. It made sense. A man and a woman—brother and sister, not mates—combining their individual strengths. He would lead the men on hunts, settle their arguments, and, with the new threat of slave raids, see that the village was guarded. She would heal, tell stories, teach little ones, and speak with spirits—though Tahna did less of that than any Moonkeeper before.

  He was Shahala, she was Tlikit. From their mothers came the blood of chiefs. From their father, the blood of kinship. What could be better? This was the way it should be. Everyone felt it.

  CHAPTER 59

  SUMMER, AUTUMN, AND WINTER PASSED. TEAHRA VILLAGE prospered under the leadership of the Brother and Sister Chief, as Kai El and Tahna were called. Men respected Kai El. With Tahna’s powerful medicine, there was little sickness. The tribe was happy, well fed, and peaceful.

  Tahna lived in the Moonkeeper’s hut. A girl often summers lived with her, learning a Moonkeeper’s ways.

  Only a few old people lived in the Tlikit cave. Kai El moved in with them, taking a place near the front where it was light and airy. But his favorite place was the home in the cliffs he had made for Gaia, with She Who Watches looking down at him. He stayed up there as much as he could, but not as much as he would have liked… the tribe kept him busy.

  Kai El was neither happy nor unhappy. He wasn’t dead to feeling as he’d been in the bear cave; he was more like a blade with a blunted edge. He felt good about the life his people were living, and about his part in it. But he didn’t feel joy. He would at times brood about the past, about lost Gaia, about the wrongs done to him by Tor. But he felt that life was acceptable.

  One spring morning, Kai El was glad to be in the village instead of in the cliffs.

  A guard came running. He had seen eleven men. Kai El left half the warriors to protect the women and little ones, and took the rest down the Great River. When the men of Teahra swooped down from the rocks, the intruders, caught eating their morning food, did not have a chance. Several died before Kai El shouted.

  “Stop! If we kill them all, we will know nothing!”

  The warriors growled, but obeyed their chief. They threw six dead bodies in the river. Jerking the ropes that bound the five survivors, being as rough as possible, they kicked and shoved them back to the village.

  Women spat and threw rocks.

  “Masat!” they screeched.

  ’Tut them in the cave where I won’t have to smell them,” Kai El said. “Guard them.”

  The men needed guarding from the people of Teahra, not because they might escape.

  People threw their anger at Kai El.

  “Why did you bring them back?”

  “Their brothers stole our women! They killed Gaia!”

  “They should die for what their brothers did!”

  Kai El said, “I hate them as much as you do. I kept them alive because we need to know about their tribe. Killing them won’t stop others from coming.”

  He turned and went in the cave, with people yelling behind him.

  “So let them come! We will kill them all!”

  Kai El had the ropes loosened so the captives wouldn’t be in pain. He had food and water brought, but they wouldn’t touch it.

  That night the Tlikit cave sheltered more than a few old men: On one side were the five Masat, and twice as many Teahra guards; on the other, Kai El, the chief who held the lives of everyone in his hands. No one slept.

  The next day Kai El strode across the cave. The Masat—if that was who they were—sat with hands and feet bound, ropes tying one to the next; crusted with blood and dirt, stinking of body waste. Hate and disgust swept him as he looked down.

  With the vision of a hawk, I see what others can’t… His spirit song forced him to see beyond his personal feelings, to the future and the safety of his people.

  He pointed to the huts outside the cave.

  “Teahra Village,” he said. Then he tapped his chest.

  “Kai El. Chief.”

  He pointed at them with a questioning look. They glared fiercely at the man standing over them, and said nothing.

  Tahna came into the cave. She knelt, and spoke slowly.

  “Tsilka was my mother.”

  The captives looked at each other.

  “Squill,” one said, poking his chest. “Tsilka… Squill… ” He locked the fingers of both hands together, grunted, and smiled. The meaning was obvious.

  Tahna looked down. Kai El saw that she was embarrassed. He knew then how proud he was of his sister. She must hate the men who killed Gaia more than anyone. But she had put it away somewhere… as he had.

  Squill made a motion with his bound hands toward the others.

  “Masat,” he said.

  “Masat,” Kai El repeated. Ice crept around his heart. ’Then we should kill you.”

  “No kill. Work.”

  Kai El and Tahna looked at each. How could this savage know their language?

  “Tsilka you bring. Tsilka talk.”

  Tahna said, “Tsilka is dead.”

  The man didn’t understand.

  “Dead,” Kai El said, slicing his hand across his throat.

  Squill nodded. The faces of the others were blank. They didn’t share his knowledge. It was limited, but Tsilka had taught him enough that they were able to communicate.

  With those few words and many signs, the chiefs told the captives why they were so hated: because their brothers had stolen four women, and killed one.

  Squill was sorry about the women, but it must have been some other tribe. The Masat were a peaceful tribe. They did not steal river people. Their god, Raven, forbid it.

  Grabbing several necklaces around the man’s throat, Kai El told him the people of Teahra were not stupid. They had seen Masat men three times, and they all wore neck
laces.

  Squill agreed that it must have been Masat men after all. He spoke to the others. They remembered now: Two bad men had been chased away. It must have been them. He was glad they died. He was sorry about the women.

  The Masat men took off their necklaces, to be given as gifts to the women who were stolen. Insulted, Kai El didn’t take them—as if some beads could make up for what had been done. The men tossed them at his feet.

  Squill said they would be good slaves, if they were allowed to live.

  Kai El told him it was wrong to have slaves. Teahra gods forbid it.

  He knew there were only two choices: Kill them, or let them go.

  Letting them go was dangerous. Would they want revenge for their dead? Would they want what they saw at Teahra Village? Would they bring a herd of warriors to get it?

  But to kill them, not in the heat of battle, but in the cold of revenge… how would that affect his people?

  Kai El and Tahna were learning to thought-speak with each other. She let him know that she was worried about the same things.

  Tsilka, who had lived with the Masat, had said they were not bad people, except for keeping slaves. Even slaves weren’t treated badly, except for the killing of one or two. To Kai El’s Shahala mind, the idea of slaves was horrible, and no amount of goodness could make up for it.

  Tahna’s Tlikit mind saw it differently. She also thought it was a bad thing, but she knew that good people could keep slaves. Her own people had since the Misty Time, until they were forced to accept Shahala ways.

  The Brother and Sister Chief came to an agreement in their minds.

  Their people were not killers, and never had been. The killing of these five men might be like the taste of meat to a cat. The lesser danger was to let them go.

  Kai El and Tahna talked to their people around the fire that night. When they were done, people thought they were the ones who had decided to let the Masat go.

  But first Kai El wanted to find out as much about the danger as he could. He kept them for several more days, not letting them know whether they would live or die. He asked about the number of warriors in their village, the kinds of weapons they used, how far it was, and how to get there. Squill answered, and everything he said agreed with what Tsilka had said.