by C. S. Bills
“Why haven’t you asked him?”
“I’ve tried, but Father’s not thinking clearly yet. He seems wrong in his spirit, like you said so many of the older Clan members are. He’s struggling to learn the new ways of this place and it’s hard for him. Mother says it’s because the spirits of our Clan are too far away now. It makes the older ones feel lost.”
“That’s possible,” Rika said. “Ashukat says it rarely snows here, and when it does it doesn’t stay. How can Yural be happy in a world where she’ll never see her name spirit, Yuralria, dancing in the swirling snow above the ice on a star-filled night, and none of your Clans will ever see the Ice Mountains again?”
“I don’t know. Attuanin is in the deep waters everywhere.” Attu considered. “I think that’s why I feel best on the water, near my name spirit. I want to stay near the great water that was once the Great Expanse of Ice. I can understand why Father and Mother mourn the spirits they left behind.”
“I don’t see us on the endless sea of grass, hunting the curved tusks and following them, even though my father wants to, and it’s what the Seers want as well. Ashukat says it will work for us, as it has for the other Clans that came off the ice before us. But how do we know it really has? And even if the others are doing well, it still doesn’t seem right for us to simply follow the other Expanse Clans and do what they did, does it?” Rika searched Attu’s face, looking for answers.
“No. We need to think things through for ourselves.”
Ashukat was the white-haired, blue-eyed Elder of the Seer Clan who’d spoken to both Rika and Attu in their dreams, and in visions, and through Elder Nuanu while they were still living on the Expanse, the always frozen ocean and rocky outcroppings they had called home for generations until the Warming time came. Following those visions and dreams, Attu and Rika had gotten their Clans to safety off the rotting ice. Ashukat had been helped by the others of his Clan, the Ancients, or the Seeing Clan, as they called themselves.
Don’t we owe them the respect of their wisdom in this decision as well? But it doesn’t seem right.
“I can’t see us there, Rika. In my dreams, I see us living near the water. I see ice-covered mountains behind us, rocky islands, and trees. You know I’ve dreamed this since we arrived.”
“I know. And you know how much I love the great moving water – I mean, the ocean,” she corrected herself. “It calls to my spirit.”
“We’ve only been here a short time. I don’t know what our people will decide to do. But I must do what I think is best for us and what I believe is best for our Clans. Perhaps we are to split, some going with Ashukat and the Seers, some going north along the coast until we reach a land more like the icy Expanse of our home. I want to lead us north, but I also feel we owe the Seer Clan our thanks. It makes it hard for me to consider our Clan not joining them as they seem to think we’ll do. We would have all gone Between if it hadn’t been for the Seers calling us to this place in our dreams.”
“But you feel wrong here, something deep inside you can’t describe or understand?”
Attu nodded.
“I feel it, too. The Seers are so different from us, with their light hair, and eyes like new grass or sky. Did you see the child with hair the color of fire? Is that what unsettles you? How different they look?”
“The people do look strange. And Ashukat makes me uneasy. We know his Gifts are strong and that makes me leery of him. He and others of his Clan had the power to call people from across the ice! What other powers might they possess?”
“I don’t understand how they can believe in the spirits of animals and places, like the eagle spirit Tingiyok said blesses them, or the water spirit that brings the fish, and yet he says they believe in a Great Spirit over all. When I asked him what this spirit looks like, he said, ‘all things.’ That makes no sense. They wear grass clothing instead of furs, and it makes them rustle when they walk. That’s odd, but now we have to wear grass, too, because in this place our furs are starting to rot. The Seers know so many things we don’t, and that makes me feel like a child, like Tingiyok made me feel in the skin boat. But it’s even more than that. It’s this place in the Here and Now that is most wrong, not the strangeness of the people. It’s reasonable to feel unsettled here because this place is so different from anything we’ve ever seen before, but it’s more than that. Something seems wrong with the land itself, and each day we spend here, my spirit grows more uneasy.”
“So what should we do?” Rika moved from the furs to ladle out fish stew into two bowls. She handed him one.
“I don’t know. We’ll go with the others on the hunt. The Seers say that women must go as well. They wait at a distance while the men kill the game, then come afterward to prepare the animals for eating. One of the Seer women told me it’s because the curved tusk animals are too big to carry in one piece all the way back to our camp here by the great water. And the Seers follow the tradition of the women owning the game and portioning it out as they see fit.”
“At least they know that much.” Rika shook her head as she ate. “Women on the hunt. It just seems wrong.”
Chapter 2
“No! Get it away from me!” Meavu, Attu’s younger sister, shrieked.
Rovek, Rika’s younger brother, was chasing Meavu across the darkening clearing, a large snake animal in his hand. “It’s going to bite you,” he cried and darted toward her.
“Stop it,” Meavu said and ran around the fire where Attu’s family was sitting, out of reach of Rovek.
Rovek laughed and moved toward her again.
Meavu screamed and ran into the trees, Rovek in hot pursuit.
“Rovek!” Ubantu moved to stand.
Yural, Attu’s mother, placed her hand firmly on her man’s leg. “It’s all right,” she said. “Meavu isn’t afraid of the snake animal. She was holding it a while ago.”
“Then why is she screaming?” Attu asked.
Rika giggled. His mother covered her own mouth, stifling her amusement.
“Oh,” Ubantu said, drawing out the word. Smiling, he settled back into his place near the fire.
“What?” Attu looked at Ubantu.
“Meavu likes Rovek,” Rika said, gently nudging Attu.
Attu nudged her back. “I know. They’re friends. So why is he teasing her with a-”
“Rovek... likes... Meavu,” his mother interrupted, leaning toward Attu and speaking slowly, as if he were dim in his wits.
Oh... Attu had chased girls at Clan gatherings himself when he was about Rovek’s age, almost a hunter, but not quite... But my sister? My little sister? Rovek better watch his step with Meavu. Attu tensed.
“Easy there, mighty hunter,” Rika said, pulling him toward her. “Let them have their fun.”
Attu relaxed back onto the furs, but he kept an eye on Rovek.
“She will have her woman’s ceremony at the next full moon,” Yural announced.
Both Attu and Ubantu popped their lips in disbelief.
“Yes, man of my heart,” Yural said, running her hand down Ubantu’s arm. “Your poolik grew up as we traveled across the ice for so many moons. Before you know it, a young hunter may wish to claim her for his own. She-”
Yural’s words were cut off as a sharp rustling at the edge of the camp’s clearing caused the men of the Clan to jump up and grab their weapons. Firelight caught the gleam of shiny ornaments, and Ashukat stepped out of the brush, his staff held erect at his side, his white hair flowing.
“Ashukat,” Ubantu called, and lowered his spear. “You are most welcome here.” The other hunters lowered their weapons, also. A few bowed, in imitation of the Seer Clan’s greetings.
Ashukat stepped across the clearing.
“I bring no evil,” the Elder called in his deep voice. It was a voice of power, the voice that had carried across the ice, such a great distance, to reach Attu. Attu had heard it in his dreams and his Clan had come, making it to safety just as the shore ice broke, sending huge pieces upending like whale fish into
the now unfrozen ocean.
“My lead hunters will leave at first light tomorrow,” Ashukat announced. “My trackers will show you the best way across the river, and you’ll hunt a herd about three day’s journey to the east. Attu, are you going on the hunt for the curved tusks?” Ashukat asked.
“Yes.”
“Walk with me. I need to speak to you.”
What does Ashukat want with me? Attu felt small fingers of dread creep into his mind, even though he’d spoken with Ashukat many times since their arrival. Tonight, something was different. Attu felt his spirit stirring in him. He glanced toward Ashukat before looking to his father, who nodded the nearly imperceptible nod of the hunter waiting over a nuknuk breathing hole. Attu nodded back and left the warmth of his blanket and Rika behind.
Ashukat headed back into the cool of the forest. As the trees cloaked Attu in darkness, he heard voices rising again, mingling with the smoke of the fires.
“I want to tell you a few things,” Ashukat said as soon as they drew into the trees. He walked to where a large log had fallen and sat on one mossy end. He motioned for Attu to join him.
Attu sat on the other end of the log and wiped his sweating palms on his thighs. Ashukat shivered and drew his cloak around himself.
“Since your arrival, we’ve spoken many times of this Gift my people have to communicate, how we could call you across the ice, and the Gift you and Rika have to hear us.”
“Yes.” Attu tensed.
Why didn’t Ashukat ask to speak with both of us? Rika’s gifts are as strong as mine, if not stronger...
Attu had struggled with his own Gift since the first time he’d heard the voice and seen the face of the Seer in his dreams. It had seemed impossible, even though it had happened to him. He had heard and followed. So had Rika. They had both talked over their experiences with Ashukat, and it had helped.
Am I finally going to learn about the powers this Seer has?
“I have not told you everything. I felt you needed time to adjust to this world, so different from where you once lived. But you’ve been here long enough to settle in, and it’s time you learned more.”
“What?”
“The first thing you need to know is this: even most of my own Clan cannot hear me in dreams.”
“They can’t?”
“No. So when we speak of dreaming, of visions, many in both our Clans scoff at us. Even though my own people see these same Gifts at work among them, such abilities are hard for them to understand because they’ve never experienced the Gifts for themselves. But there’s more,” Ashukat continued. “If no one in a Clan has the Gifts, we can’t see them or know anything about them. Nothing. We could call your people off the ice because at least one person could hear us in each Clan, so we could See the others, as it were, through that person.”
“So if no one in a Clan had the Gifts, you couldn’t tell anything about them?”
“No, we wouldn’t even know they existed. There’s a reason only some Clans have the Gifts. I need to explain it to you.”
“I want you to tell all of us, not just me,” Attu interrupted.
“Are you sure?” Ashukat’s stick jangled as he turned to face Attu.
“My people need to understand about Gifts as much as Rika and I do. And they will listen to you, as an Elder of the Seer Clan.” Attu jumped off the log and headed back to camp. “Let’s gather everyone together.”
Ashukat sat before the fire, the people of the Great Frozen and Ice Mountain Clans around him, as well as many of the Seer Clan.
The wind whispered through the cedars. Attu wondered if Elder Nuanu’s spirit was nearby, listening. He pulled Rika closer to him, feeling confident with her at his side. He looked around at the faces of his family and his Clan, as well as Paven’s Clan. Kinak, his cousin, sat with his woman Suanu, and Suka, Kinak’s brother, sat beside them with Shunut, his youngest brother and their mother, Tulnu. All had been solemn since the death of their father and hunter, Moolnik.
Ashukat cleared his throat and looked around at the gathering as he began to speak. “Long long ago, my people lived in a place far to the east of here, across a land so vast one could walk for as many moons as one has fingers and still not reach the other side.” Ashukat held up his gnarled fingers. “At the edge of this land is another great water, another ocean. My people came across the northern part of this ocean from another land, at a time in the far distant past, when it too, was a great frozen Expanse.”
Some of Ashukat’s Clan nodded. Children snuggled up on their mother’s laps and even the wind seemed to still.
“We followed a rim of ice, hunting large birds we called swimmers because instead of flying, they used their wings to paddle under the water.”
Some of Paven’s hunters scoffed at this, and one raised his voice in protest, but his woman shushed him.
We have seen so many strange things in this last moon; a bird that flies under water is no stranger, Attu thought.
Ashukat smiled and continued. “These birds were of such large numbers, they darkened the edges of the ice as far as a man could see. They were as large as a small child and just as tasty to eat.” He grinned more broadly and leaned forward toward the nearest Seer child, who squealed and covered her face with her hands, only to uncover them again and grin back at Ashukat in delight. She apparently enjoyed hearing this tale, even with its scary parts.
“We hunted the birds as we explored further and further west across the great frozen edge of the ocean. Two generations of my people hunted them, until my ancestors finally came to the end of the ocean, to a new land. Some of our people stayed near the great water, but others were curious, drawn to explore the place of trees and grass and rocky beaches that was the eastern shore of this new land. They began walking west, never imagining how far they would travel, for this land was much larger than the land from which they had come. They stopped sometimes for many moons in places where the hunting was good, and they moved quickly over barren places. They had many adventures along the way, and I hope to tell you the whole tale as we travel east with the tusked animals. It is a story that takes many evenings around the fire to relate. But for now, what you need to know is that eventually my people ended up here, on the coast of the great ocean of the west, where we now live.”
Ashukat spread his arms wide, smiled, and continued. “Most Seers among us once had light eyes, pale skin and yellow hair, although some had red. When we first came to this great ocean of the west, our numbers were few. Soon after we came, we met a gentle people living along the coastline. Your ancestors.” He waved his hands to include them all.
Men and women popped their lips in amazement.
A movement to his right caught Attu’s attention. Paven had shifted, as if to stand. He was frowning.
“We had come to this place and lingered because of how rich this land was in game and in edible plants. Your Clan was peaceful and welcomed us here as there was food enough for all. We stayed. Over many generations our Clans intermingled, and our language and ways blended as well. Some of the children born to us now looked like our Seers, and some looked like your people. Some of both had the Gifts.”
“This is not a story?” Paven interrupted the Elder. “You say this really happened?”
“Yes,” Ashukat nodded.
“How do you know this? You can’t know such things that happened so long ago.”
“But we can, leader of the Great Frozen Clan. Weren’t you taught that your people came up out of the water of Attuanin’s kingdom when the great shaking of Nuvikuan-na tossed you out of the ocean and on to dry ground? There you learned to live above the water and grew hair on your bodies to keep warm. The trysta spirit, Shuantuan, threw a lightning bolt to earth, setting a tree on fire, and your women learned to use fire to warm everyone and to cook the meat. You began your movement across the great Expanse, a circle of travel that takes the Clans a generation to complete. You were taught it was always this way: once your people had learned to con
trol fire, you walked out onto the Expanse to live and never returned to the great land again.
“But this is not true. Some of us are born with the knowledge of our ancestors. We see the past they have traveled as surely as you see the signs of the nuknuk at the breathing hole in the ice. Elder Nuanu of the Ice Mountain Clan had this Gift. When you sought her advice on your travels, didn’t she tell you?”
Paven frowned at the mention of Elder Nuanu. “She was a good healer. She saved a baby and mother from our Clan when the baby was coming the wrong way. But Gifts? Ask her advice about journeying to this land? Why would I do that?”
Now it was Ashukat’s turn to look confused.
Although he’d acknowledged Elder Nuanu’s healing skills, as far as Attu knew, Paven had never consulted her on other matters. Rika said her father had considered their own healer to be merely adequate at that task. Nothing more.
When did my people turn away from the Gifts and the direction of their Elders? And why hadn’t Elder Nuanu told us she could see the past? She told me we would make it to the new land; she explained what it would be like when we reached it, but now that I think about it, she didn’t seemed very surprised when I told her about Ashukat, the then unnamed face appearing in my dreams and calling us off the ice. She never explained how she’d known these things that she told me – she’d just known them.
“You did not consult an Elder, a healer with great Gifts, when you had the opportunity? You had already endangered your Clan by not heeding your own dreams, then you ignored the chance to gain wisdom from Elder Nuanu?” Ashukat shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it old man,” Paven said, his face hard. “And I will not be spoken to as if I’m a mere child, needing to be scolded.” A few of the hunters from both the Seer Clan and Paven’s Clan reached for their spears, but Paven brushed his hand across the space in front of him, indicating he would not fight over this. Instead, he started to get up, as if to leave.
“Please stay and hear the rest of your story,” Ashukat pleaded, his arms now outstretched to Paven. “I had forgotten how much your people changed while on the ice. Humor an old man, please.”