Mists of Dawn

by Chad Oliver

There was an awkward moment of hesitation, and Mark figured that the shaman was waiting for a counterdemonstration of power. The ceremony was over, so to speak, and now it was just a case of two magic men being together. Did Mark perhaps have a trick or two of his own up his sleeve?

  Mark did. Furthermore, he would do his trick right out in the open, in the light, without mumbo-jumbo. He fished out his box of precious matches and took two matches out of the box. He thought fast. It wouldn’t do to just strike the matches; the essence, the vital part, of any magic trick lay in the build-up you gave to it. If a magician just walked calmly out onto a brightly lighted stage and proceeded to saw a woman in half, chances are that the audience would be bored stiff, even if he really did saw a woman in half. But let the house lights dim, let the magician chant a strange song from a nameless land, let the weird music cry and moan in the orchestra pit—that was different!

  Mark decided that he had to have a chant, at least. Any chant in English would do, since Qualxen would not know what he was saying. He thought of a football yell, but that didn’t sound right. Finally, he selected a rime that had just the rhythm he desired. Mark frowned terribly and made passes at the air with his hands. He moaned and clapped his hands six times—use of the Danequa magic number wouldn’t hurt any, he supposed. Then, suddenly, he stopped dead and thrust his face at Qualxen.

  “‘Twas the night before Christmas,” Mark whispered in an eerie tone of voice, “and all through the house—”

  The shaman jerked backward fearfully. Truly, this was strong medicine! “Not a creature was stirring,” moaned Mark terribly, “not even a MOUSE!”

  With the last horrible word, Mark quickly lifted his hands to the level of Qualxen’s face and snapped the two matches together. There was a sharp crack and a puff of flame. Qualxen stood his ground, but it was easy to see that he was terrified. The red flower, fire, out of nothing! Contemptuously, Mark blew out the matches and tossed them into the fire.

  Qualxen recovered his composure and grinned delightedly. “Orn,” he said, again touching Mark on the shoulder. “Orn!” Qualxen knew a powerful shaman when he saw one, and he wanted to be on his side. Mark knew that he had made a powerful ally in the camp of the Cro-Magnons—and, besides, he found himself rather liking the intriguing Qualxen.

  Qualxen led the way back through the cave, and as they drew nearer the entrance Mark felt his high spirits begin to desert him. Whether Qualxen was friendly or not, that grim ceremony in the dark cavern had been in dead earnest. It would take more than a trick with a match to bring down the monster mammoth.

  It was night now, a cold night frosted with stars. The icy wind sighed across the valley floor and touched Mark with chill fingers. In the distance, the great waterfall thundered forever down its silver cascades. And beyond that—was it only Mark’s imagination? The deep trumpetings of gigantic mammoths!

  Chapter 12 A New World

  Mark now found himself in a somewhat peculiar position. He had made friends among the Cro-Magnons, and he was at least tolerated by the tribe. But he was not a member of the tribe, and he was not related by kinship to anyone who was, except in the figurative sense that he was their “brother.” That might be enough to do the trick eventually, but not yet. Where was he to stay? There were no hotels in 50,000 b.C., and no tourist courts.

  His friend Tlaxcan was nowhere to be seen, but he had evidently arranged things ahead of time. Qualxen led Mark to a small cave in the hill and told him that he would see him when the great red flower bloomed again—that is, when the sun came up in the morning. He smiled in friendly fashion and left Mark alone for the night.

  Although there was no moon as yet, it was clearly quite late, and Mark had difficulty estimating the exact time. He looked out of the mouth of the cave, but the valley of the Danequa was utterly deserted under the stars. Everyone was asleep, and only the great waterfall lived and talked in the night. It was cold, but Mark found a fur covering that had been left in the cave for him. He wrapped himself up in this and was quite comfortable.

  He could not be sure, but he thought that this cave —which was very small, little more than a deep recess in the rock—was the one from which he had heard the whinings and growlings of the wolf-dogs earlier. He sniffed the air, and there was no doubt that something had recently occupied the cave. He hoped with all his heart that it had been nothing more dangerous than a dog, and that it wouldn’t take a notion to come home sometime in the dark hours of the night.

  Mark was very tired; he had not realized how tired he was until he stretched out on the cave floor with the warm fur over him. He took his .45 from its holster, placed it within easy reach and closed his eyes. The ways of men are indeed odd, he thought sleepily . . . A few short days ago, he would have thought anyone crazy who tried to tell him that it would be possible for him to go back through space-time to the beginnings of man and calmly go to sleep, without fear and with an untroubled mind. And yet he found himself relaxed and trusting toward his new-found friends. The Danequa, he was sure, were not a treacherous people. He was safe in their hands—safe, at least, from cowardly sneak-attacks. When these people felt like arguing, they would do it in the open. And here, finally, he need not worry about the ghastly half-men, who prowled like fantastic accidents through the night lands of the Ice Age . . .

  Mark slept and dreamed. He was grateful for the sleep, but it would be long before he was able to forget his dream.

  Through the gray twilight world of sleep, in a world without color of any sort, a man ran desperately. He had been running for a long time, and he was very tired. His lungs ached, and even in the cold air sweat covered his body like a film of moisture. His feet were cut and bleeding. The man was dressed in furs, but Mark knew him. The man was himself.

  Behind Mark, almost touching his weary feet as they pounded across the gray earth, the half-men screamed and growled hideously. Mark did not dare to turn and look at them, but he knew that they were there. The Neanderthals neither gained on him nor did they lose ground. They came on untiringly, always exactly the same distance behind him.

  Where was he going? Mark looked around him, sensing that he knew this country somehow. He had been here before. Behind him, the low pine-covered foothills merged into the mountains, with their snow white against the gray sky. Between the mountains was a valley—and not the valley of the Danequa, with its green grass and beautiful waterfall. A ghastly valley, a nightmare valley . . .

  To his right, a gray field undulated to the horizon, gray grass shimmering in ghost-waves under a supernatural wind. He could see the wind—it looked like gray smoke. Far away, a glimmer of lighter gray. The ice sheet. And ahead of him, a great sphere, waiting on the plain.

  The space-time machine.

  Gasping for breath, the half-men right behind him, Mark threw the gray switch in the side of the machine. The circular door hissed open, and Mark plunged inside. He closed the entry port behind him, catching one

  Neanderthal’s hand in the closing section. The hand was cut off and dropped to the floor, gray brute fingers still wiggling.

  Mark lay on the floor of the space-time machine, fighting to get his breath. A tremendous wave of relief flooded through him. He was safe! He had only to set the controls and step out to greet Doctor Nye, and Fang, and be home again in New Mexico. He laughed, hysterical with relief over his narrow escape.

  Something laughed back at him. He wasn’t alone.

  Mark jerked to his feet and then recoiled in horror. There was a Neanderthal inside the machine with him, the biggest Neanderthal he had ever seen. He was fully nine feet tall, and his great hairy body almost filled the sphere. The smell of the half-man washed against his nostrils. Mark screamed frantically. The Neanderthal’s monstrous hand reached out for him, the hairy fingers with their dirty, clawed finger nails touched him—

  Mark woke up with a start. There was a hand touching him, but it belonged to no Neanderthal. It belonged to Tlaxcan.

  “You have been in the Land of Shad
ows,” he said, smiling. “You are back now.”

  Mark got to his feet, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Pale rays of the early morning sun lighted up the world, and the fears of the night dissolved in their warmth. Consciously, Mark did not place any faith in dreams. They were what they were—dreams, with no special meaning or significance. But subconsciously, deep within his mind, he found his nightmare hard to forget. He was shaken, and it was no easy matter to thrust his strange dream from his thoughts.

  It was good to be with Tlaxcan again, and Mark went out with him into the life of the Danequa valley. The booming waterfall was more beautiful than ever, gleaming in the morning sunlight, and the scent of pines was bracing in the fresh air. Mark followed Tlax-can to his own cave, a large, roomy cavern high on another ledge. There he was surprised to find that Tlaxcan had a family. It was curious that he had always thought of his friend as single, but now that he paused to think about it, he remembered that most primitive peoples married while quite young, out of economic necessity. A man had to have someone to make his clothes, cook his food, keep his home. There were no servants in this dawn world, and most of a man’s time was taken up with hunting and fighting.

  Tlaxcan’s wife greeted Mark shyly, touching her hand to his shoulder in greeting. She was attractive in a clean, healthy way, and obviously devoted to Tlaxcan. Her name, Mark learned, was Tlaxcal, which was the Danequa feminine form of Tlaxcan. This seemed curiously wrong to Mark, and for a moment he was at a loss to understand why. Then he had it. In English, “Al” was a man’s name, while “Ann” was a woman’s. It seemed funny to hear them reversed, but no funnier, he knew, than the English version would have seemed to the Danequa.

  Tlaxcan had a son too. He was a hearty, handsome child of three, and his name, with wonderful economy of logic, was Tlax. He toddled fearlessly up to Mark and tried to reach up to place his small hand on Mark’s shoulder. Mark bent over to accommodate him, and grinned. As a rule, he was not overly fond of young children, but Tlax was one in a million. He was thoroughly cute, and Mark fell for him at once.

  They breakfasted on roasted meat and berries. The meat was pungent with strong flavor, and Mark guessed that it was bison. The berries, he noted ironically, were the same red variety that he had passed up when he was so hungry before, because he had feared that they might be poisonous. They were delicious.

  When they had eaten, Mark sat back and talked as best he could. He felt very much at home, and joined heartily in the good-natured laughter at young Tlax, who was industriously trying to pull back the string on his father’s bow, which was almost as big as he was. It was hard to reconcile Tlaxcan, the happy family man, with the grim-eyed savage, ready to kill, that Mark had first met on the grassy plains. It showed, if nothing else, that first impressions were apt to be very misleading. Mark felt that he had known Tlaxcan all his life; and he knew with sudden certainty that he would never have a better friend, nor a finer one, anywhere.

  Tlaxcal, while avoiding looking at Mark directly, had been examining his clothes with some interest. Mark was uncomfortably aware that they were very dirty, as well as being ripped and torn from the rough wear he had given them. Tlaxcal whispered briefly to Tlaxcan, and Tlaxcan smiled his approval. Mark did not have to be a mind reader to figure out that he was going to get a new suit of clothes, and once more he determined to learn how to say “thank you” in Cro-Magnon. He did the best he could with his eyes, and felt that he had succeeded in getting the idea across.

  They left the cave finally, Mark smiling his farewell to Tlaxcal and little Tlax. Tlax tried to follow them down the rocky trail, and his mother came out and pulled him back, scolding him for all the world like a modern mother. Mark thought of his own mother, the mother he had hardly had time to know. And his uncle —where was he now? What did “now” mean—when was “now”? Was his uncle as yet thousands of years unborn, or was he still talking on the telephone to White Sands?

  Mark walked among the Danequa, and he kept his eyes open. It was entirely possible, he knew, that he was destined to spend the rest of his life with these people. The thought did not dismay him, for it was plain enough that the Danequa, with their skin clothing sewn together by ivory needles, their artistic weapons, and their robust good humor, were a remarkable and gifted people. Mark had lived in this hard dawn-world long enough now to begin to appreciate the accomplishments of the Danequa. True, their camp in the valley with the foaming waterfall was simple and crude enough by the standards of the twentieth century. There were no towering skyscrapers, no great electric generators, no theater but the clean show place of nature. But things are seldom what they seem, and this was no exception. Which was the greater accomplishment, to invent for the first time a bow and arrow, or to develop, with all the resources of thousands of years of technology behind you, atomic energy? It was not an easy question, and Mark was far from sure how he would go about answering it.

  That day, Mark met Roqan, and his wife, Roqal. Roqan was an old man as Danequa men went, perhaps fifty years of age. His hair was still dark and thick, but his face was lined and wrinkled far more than a modern man of fifty would have been. He seemed to be very stern, and he had an old hunting scar across his forehead that made him seem fiercer than he was. Roqan frowned constantly, and was treated with great respect by everyone. When he met Mark, he examined him as he might have looked at an insect.

  “What do you want of us?” he demanded sternly. “I have known your type before. You have come to steal our food and kill our warriors.”

  Mark returned his harsh gaze, determined not to look away. He wished desperately that he could speak the language well enough to make an effective reply to the old man, but all he could do was to stammer a reply to Tlaxcan, who answered for him with a few ideas of his own.

  “My friend says that he comes in peace,” Tlaxcan said to Roqan. “His only desire is to learn to be wise and good as is his brother, Roqan. He has heard of Roqan from afar.”

  “You He,” stated Roqan flatly, but he was obviously pleased. His old eyes twinkled with delight, and Mark got the distinct impression that he was disgusted with himself for permitting his good nature to shine through. He at once wiped the pleased expression from his face and replaced it with his customary frown. But Mark wasn’t fooled this time. He knew that he and Roqan would get along.

  Roqal, his wife, seemed to be his direct opposite, at least on the surface. She was very plump and motherly and bubbling over with friendliness. Mark suspected that she was bubbling over with something besides friendliness, for she seemed slightly tipsy. He suspected that she was addicted to taking frequent snifters of the Danequan equivalent to liquor, a fermented berry drink aptly named kiwow. Roqal greeted him with an almost girlish giggle, and let him know in no uncertain terms that he was most welcome.

  Mark saw Qualxen, the shaman, again, and he greeted him like an old friend, together with winking between-us-shamans secretiveness. Mark played along with him, and was genuinely grateful to have friends again. It made the world, any world, a much brighter place to live in.

  Mark only met two people that day with whom he could not get along. One was a thin, pale man named Tloron, who, as nearly as he could understand what Tlaxcan tried to explain to him, was a holy man of some sort who had great magical powers. Evidently his power was of a different sort than Qualxen’s, because there was no jealousy between the two men. Mark rather liked Tloron, but he was silent and kept strictly to himself; Mark found it impossible to talk to him. The other person who gave him trouble was an entirely different proposition. His name was Nranquar, and he was a tall, powerful warrior who appeared to be capable of tackling a mammoth alone, without batting an eye. Nranquar was suspicious of Mark, and didn’t try to hide the fact. He let it be known that he would be watching Mark in action against quaro, the mammoth, and Mark knew that he had better come through with flying colors—or else.

  It was a good day, all in all, and Mark was sorry to see it end. The valley was humming with activ
ity, and Mark understood that this was the time for tribal ceremonies. Indian fashion, these people were in isolated groups following the herds most of the year, and when they got together they made the most of it. Tlaxcan apologetically explained to Mark that he could not participate in or witness the ceremonies, because he was still technically an outsider. After the evening meal, Tlaxcan escorted him back to his tiny cave, where someone—Mark strongly suspected that it had been Tlaxcan’s wife, Tlaxcal—had kindled a small fire and left enough dried bones to keep it going.

  Alone, Mark sat in the mouth of the cave, wrapped in his fur blanket, and watched the black shadows of night creep through the valley, soaking up the fading light, and clearing the way for the cold night wind sweeping down out of the north. The stars dusted the dark sky with frozen pearls, and the waterfall muttered and boomed in the distance.

  It was infinitely lonely, all the more lonely now that he had once again tasted friendship and the warm glow of human companionship. The Danequa—men, women, and children—were gone from the vicinity as though they had never existed, leaving only the dark pines and the moaning wind behind them.

  Fires flickered into life far across the valley, near the shores of the deep pool at the foot of the waterfall. Alone in the silence of the night, Mark heard the ceremonial drums of the Danequa take up their rhythmic chant. The throbbing drums were felt, rather than heard, against the roaring backdrop of the mighty cascades. And then came the singing, a weird chorus of plaintive cries, with deep voices mixed with high ones in a never-ending flood of sound. There was no harmony, and the rhythm of the voices was different from the rhythmic beat of the drums.

  Sad, lonely, wistful, exciting—the sounds of the ceremony were carried by the sighing winds across the valley of the Danequa to where Mark sat alone. Savage it may have been, and primitive it certainly was, but Mark would have given his heart and soul to be there with them now, dancing under the stars.