THE FIRST AMERICANS #2: CORRIDOR OF STORMS
by
WILLIAM SARABANDE


BANTAM BOOKS
BY WILLIAM SARABANDE

The First Americans Series

Beyond the Sea of Ice

Corridor of Storms

Forbidden Land

Walkers of the Wind

The Sacred Stones

Thunder in the Sky

Edge of the World

Shadow of the Watching Star

Face of the Rising Sun

Time Beyond Beginning

THE FIRST AMERICANS: CORRIDOR OF STORMS

WILLIAM SARABANDE

Created by the producers of
The Holts: An American Dynasty
1 and The Children of the Lion.

Book Creations Inc.  Canaan NY Lyle Kenyan Engel, Founder

BANTAM BOOKS

NEW YORK -TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

the first americans: book 2

corridor of storms
A Bantam Domain Book published by arrangement with
Book Creations, Inc.

Bantam edition June 1988

Produced by Book Creations, Inc.

Lyle Kenyan Engel: Founder

All rights reserved.

Copyright 1988 by Book Creations, Inc.  Cover art copyright &1988 by
Jerry Lo Faro

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ISBN 0-553-27159-8

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for

Dagmaar godmother, friend, and, if past lives be, Eleanor of Aquitaine
without a doubt!

Also, but by no means as an afterthought,

for

Paul and Lois dear friends

I thank you for a lifetime of encouragement

PART I.

SPIRIT WALKERS

"In the beginning, when the land was one land, when the People were one
people, before Father Above made the darkness that ate the sun, before
Mother Below gave birth to the ice spirits that grew to cover the
mountains, the wanawut was born to hunt the children of First Man and
First Woman to follow them as we now follow the great herds, to feed
upon the People even as the People feed upon the meat and blood of
mammoth and caribou and bison.  For this alone was the wanawut born: to
teach the People the meaning of fear."

The words of the magic man flowed into the night, into the wind that
licked the perimeters of the communal fire, teasing the flames with its
cold breath, circling the encampment like a stalking, invisible
predator, and chilling the fur-clad people who were gathered into a
circle.  His words reminded them that although they were bundled close
together, spears at hand and daggers ready, and swathed in their
many-layered garments of skins and fur their faces painted with ash to
make them appear bold they were nevertheless small and frightened and
vulnerable beneath the vast and savage Arctic sky.

The magic man stood with his arms raised and his remarkably handsome
face upturned to the night.  He was a man in his prime.  In fringed
garments sewn entirely of the white belly skins of winter-killed
caribou, he shone like glacial ice on a moonlit night.

"Fear ..."  He exhaled the word lovingly, as an offering to the night,
while the low, hissing tide of cold, dry, Ice Age wind blew across
endless miles of glacier-laden ranges and rolling steppe land  He alone
seemed at peace with the night,

a conspirator with the wind that swept into the gathering and streamed
with dark portent through the minds of every man, woman, and child who
listened as he spoke and gestured before the great communal fire.

As though at his command, the flames leaped high, feeding noisily upon
bones and lichens and thick, dried sods cut from the shallow surface of
the permafrost.  It was a hot, hungry fire, which warmed the magic man
as it sent sparks so high that they seemed to join the uncountable stars
that sprawled across the taut, black skin of the sky.  He smiled, master
of the night and the stars, of the wind and the fire, and in absolute
control of the people who sat in cross-legged, hunch shouldered awe of
him.

All except the newcomer.

Torka.

Something dark and malevolent moved within the magic man as his eyes
drifted to the tall, powerful, physically magnificent young hunter who
sat straight and unmoving in a black-maned, tawny outer coat of lion
skin.

Torka.

Navahk, magic man, nearly hissed the hated name aloud.  If only
Supnah--his brother, and headman of the band--had not managed to
persuade Torka to stay, he would be long gone and far away by now. Yes,
Torka had been set to go.  He had vowed to lead his infant-suckling
woman and his cursed dogs and the boy whom he dared to call son into the
unknown and forbidden country that lay to the east. He had told the
people of Supnah's band that from a high promontory he had looked out
across the forbidden land and had seen much game there. He had all but
begged Supnah and his band to follow him; but the other man was not
willing to commit his people to the unknown.

Supnah had spoken of a headman's responsibilities to his band with such
persuasive eloquence that Torka had been sobered.  Although he had
already secured his pack frame onto his back, in the end Supnah had
convinced him that for the sake of his woman and child, he must stay
within the protection of the larger band, among those who would name him
brother.  In time, if the spirits of the game and the forces of Creation
decreed that it might be so, perhaps they might yet venture into the
forbidden land together.  But for now the people of Supnah's band would
remain in the land of their fathers.  And so, although the woman had
boldly urged him to
go on, Torka had deferred to the wisdom of the older man and had chosen
to remain with the people of Supnah's band.  He had turned his back upon
the far and forbidden country and had traveled west with Supnah's people
to this night of fire and feasting.

The magic man's smile twisted into a leer of contempt and loathing.
Before Torka had joined them, they had been starving.  Now, suddenly,
the land around them was rich in game.  Many said that Torka brought the
meat to die upon the spears of the hunters, and Navahk, who as magic man
had always taken credit for bringing the game, did not know whom he
despised more: Torka or Supnah.  Torka was staring back at him now, his
face impassive and nearly as handsome in the firelight as the magic
man's.  Unused to rivals, Navahk hated him for that and because, while
the thoughts of others were as easy for him to follow as mammoth tracks
on a muddy outwash plain, the magic man found it impossible to know the
thoughts of Torka.  Unless Torka allowed him to know them.

Torka had made it no secret that he was a man who had endured much pain
and suffering.  He had lived with fear and had triumphed over it.  It
held little mystery for him; if anything, he was contemptuous of it. His
body carried scars inflicted by wolves, bear, and mammoth, and by the
lion in whose skin he walked.  Why should he tremble at a magic man's
tales of a legendary beast that he had never seen, when he had faced so
many real threats and overcome them?  Fear weakened a man and made him
vulnerable to predators.  And it was apparent from the way he observed
the magic man that Torka knew that he was predacious.

Frustrated, Navahk looked away from Torka, determined not to be
intimidated by him.  He would drive him from the band or see him dead,
along with the one Torka called son.  The idea caught fire within him.
He smiled.  Then he actually laughed, and suddenly he leaped high and
began to whirl in the firelight.  He danced as gracefully as a hawk
soaring upon the wind.  He sang the high, wild, wordless songs of wolves
and wild dogs and of stallions driving mares before them upon the vast,
open grasslands of the summer tundra.  He became prey and predator, bear
and lion, mammoth and caribou, and then, hunching into a bestial crouch,
he rocked himself on his heels and wailed and hissed, leaped and
prowled,

no longer flesh but spirit, the thing of which he warned his people--the
wanawut.

He heard the women gasp with fear as the men murmured appreciation for
the intricate savagery of his dance.  He did not care about them.
Instead he paused before Torka, smiling to mask his jealousy of the
man's masculine beauty and unperturbable calm.  The magic man raised his
skin-beribboned ceremonial staff of office, a fire-hardened thighbone of
a camel atop which the horned, oiled skull of an antelope gleamed and
stared sightlessly at the newcomer.  He shook the staff viciously at
Torka, and all the claws, talons, and beaks sewn onto the streaming
ribbons of skin rattled and clicked.

"Does Torka not fear the wanawut now that he has seen its spirit come to
dance within the skin of Navahk?"

Torka did not move.  He was startled by the rapaciousness he glimpsed
within the magic man's eyes, and chose not to react to it visibly.
"Torka is wary of all things he does not understand."

The magic man glared at him, hating him.  Torka, having seen the threat
in Navahk's eyes, was as watchful as a grazing animal venturing to drink
alone from a tundral pool where predators were known to lurk. But worse
than that, his cool reserve toward the magic man was affecting Supnah,
the headman of the band.  Supnah.  Navahk's lips flexed downward.  His
brother was such a wise and wary man in all things, except when it came
to his younger brother.  With Navahk, Supnah's credulity and gullibility
had always been without bounds. Until Torka had walked into their lives.
Now the magic man's words, gestures, and well-practiced performance had
left the older man unimpressed ... as he had been unimpressed with his
brother ever since encountering Torka alone upon the tundra, pursuing
slavers who had stolen his woman and boy.

The name of that boy was Karana.  Abandoned with most of the children of
Supnah's band during a time of famine, the boy alone had survived, to be
later found and adopted by Torka, who had come to love him as a son.
Torka had spoken Karana's name, imploring the hunters of Supnah to help
him rescue his woman and the boy from the slavers who had stolen them
and murdered his grandfather.  The people of Supnah had cried out in
surprise while the headman had stood in mute disbelief, a woman's tears
welling beneath his lids.

Karana was Supnah's son--his only son--and Navahk was the magic man
responsible for the children's abandonment; he had also sworn that he
had seen a vision of the deaths of Karana and all the other children who
had been abandoned with him.

"Do not look back," he had told their grieving parents.  "This man has
seen the children in his dreams, and they are food for beasts and for
Spirit Sucker, the wanawut that howls in the time of long dark as it
feeds upon the flesh of our abandoned little ones.  Their life spirits
are released to the wind, so those small, useless ones who have died in
order that the strong among us would not starve may be born again to
their people in better times."

But now Karana, the child whom Navahk had declared dead, sat alive and
healthy beside his father, reunited with his people because of Torka.
The boy stared at the magic man out of black, hostile eyes, which seemed
to pierce straight to Navahk's heart.

The muscles of the magic man's jawline tensed visibly.  Karana's eyes
had always been able to pierce him.  How he loathed the child and Torka
and Supnah!  How small and culpable they made him feel, even though he
stood boldly against the night, working his magic for their pleasure
while wishing that he could make the words strike all three of them
dead.

His mouth grew taut over his small, white, oddly serrated teeth.  If
only he had been born first, brawny instead of beautiful, and with the
potential to be even half as good a hunter as his brother!  He would
take his brother's place, and no man would ever question the validity of
his dreams or magic again.

Not that they ever had .. until Karana had walked back into their lives
out of the world of spirits to which Navahk had consigned him.

Now, as a result, Supnah looked at his brother with speculation rather
than adulation.  He sat at the front of the men's side of the circle of
his assembled people, in the full regalia of his rank.  Because he was
an unpretentious man, it was minimal: the headman's circlet of eagle,
hawk, and tera torn feathers about his head; and around his neck, over
his outer tunic, a collar of the downy breast skins of those birds, to
which their taloned claws had been sewn.  They hung like a fringe made
of desiccated fingers, clicking dully in the wind as

Supnah sat stoically upon his lichen-and-down-stuffed sitting pad of
bearskin, in the place where errant smoke was least likely to offend his
nostrils or burn his eyes.  He had seated Torka in a position of honor
to his left and had placed Karana at his right.  Now and then he looked
down at the boy and slung a broad, powerful arm around his slim
shoulders, drawing him close, hugging him with open and profoundly
paternal affection, as though he could not believe that the child was
really there; then he would lean forward slightly and look at Torka,
nodding to indicate a depth of appreciation that no words could express.

Seeing that look, Navahk trembled with suppressed rage.  The
storytelling and magic were in celebration of Karana's miraculous return
and in gratitude to Torka for having saved the life of the child.  Since
Torka had stepped into their lives, nothing had been the same.  Wild
dogs walked at his feet as though they were his brothers, and he had
willingly shared knowledge of the miraculous spear hurler, which he had
devised, with Supnah's band.

It was only an elongated shaft of bone approximately the length of a
man's forearm, with a handgrip at one end and a barbed tip at the other.
But with the sinew-wrapped grip held in the right hand, the butt end of
the spear braced against the barb, and the narrowing, pointed end of the
shaft facing back over his shoulder, a man could more than double the
speed, distance, and power of his thrust.  With this awe inspiring
weapon, Torka had led Supnah's hunters to a victory against the
murderous slavers of the Ghost Band.

And now, thanks to Torka alone, a sense of power and self-determination
had been reawakened within Supnah's band.  The band had gaped at the
newcomer as though he were a bright, warm sun rising on their world. As
Navahk had stood by with murderous resentment, the people of Supnah's
band had listened spellbound while Torka told them how a rampaging bull
mammoth had destroyed his band--how he had dared to face its raging
fury, been charged and lifted by its great tusks, fixed a spear in its
shoulder, then was thrown and left to die, only to rise from death. Out
of all his people, only he, his woman, and his ancient grandfather
survived the appalling devastation that the beast had wrought.  The
three had fled eastward into unknown country, across the savage, twisted
hills of a distant land, vulnerable to predators and the marrow-freezing
cold of the endless nights.  Nevertheless,
they had survived the incomparable hardships until, at last, they sought
refuge within a cave high upon a distant mountain.  They had found
shelter from the storms, and the filthy, stinking nest of a small,
frightened child--Karana--who had also climbed the heights for safety.

Under Torka's leadership Supnah's hunters had killed many of the Ghost
Band, which had preyed upon the people of the tundra for as long as any
of them could remember, and had taken to their fires a dozen tattooed
young women captives.  The women's faces shone with pleasure in their
new circumstances, and their eyes glowed with wonder at the overpowering
physical perfection and astounding beauty of the magic man.

Navahk smiled.  Their obvious adoration momentarily overshadowed his
feelings of frustration.  They, at least, were beguiled by his tales of
enchantment, which had first been told at the dawn of his people's
memory to drive back their fears and reassure them of their place within
their world.

But sensing that his position within the band was in jeopardy, he had
chosen another enchantment.  Tonight Navahk had conjured fear and had
danced with it through the flame light as though it were his lover.  He
had made it his ally, reaffirming his own status by loosing the beast of
terror among his people--a beast that only he, as magic man, could
control.  It was a method he had long used to manipulate his brother to
serve his own ambitions.

"Navahk says this to his people: In his dream times, this man had seen
the wanawut walking in the mountains to the east.  It hungers in the
night, It longs to feast upon the flesh of those who would follow Torka
into the new and unknown land into which he would lead us."  The magic
man fell silent.  Supnah was looking at him out of eyes that seemed to
strip him to the bone.  His arms folded across his chest, his
weatherworn but still handsome features set into a watchful scowl, the
headman seemed a stranger, his eyes fixed upon his brother with a
mixture of contempt and pity.  Seeing it, Navahk winced and felt his own
smile disappear.

Navahk was no longer in control of his brother, and if he was not in
control of his brother, then he was no longer in control of the band.

"Who has seen this wanawut?"  Supnah's tone reeked of skepticism.  "Who
has found its hide or bones or any portion
of its carcass upon the tundra?  Who has seen its tracks or spoor or
looked upon the living flesh of this wanawut .. . this spirit of the
wind and mists that brings fear to the hearts of my people through the
mouth of Navahk?"  The headman's challenge was as powerful as the man.

Beside him, the boy Karana was startled and amazed.  He was not certain
if he had heard correctly.  Had the headman actually spoken out to the
magic man?  Had Supnah, for the first time in his life, openly impugned
his brother before the entire band?

Yes."  It was so!  The boy smiled for the first time since Supnah had
insisted that he leave Torka to dwell with him and Naiapi, his third
woman, as the headman's son again.  He had not wanted to go, but Torka
had allowed no argument from him.  And although he had balked, he had
actually been delighted when Navahk had glowered at him and proclaimed
that the dead could not return to dwell among the living without dire
consequences to all.  Supnah had coldly replied that his son was alive,
not dead, no thanks to his brother's mistaken portending.  Then Karana
had enjoyed smirking at the magic man but had not enjoyed his forced
residence within Supnah's pit hut.  He disliked Naiapi as much as she
disliked him, although her little daughter, Pet, half smothered him with
sisterly affection.  She was looking at him now from across the fire,
but he pretended not to notice.  He wanted no part of her; she was one
of only a handful of toddlers who had not been abandoned to the winter
dark, because her mother, having just lost a sickly newborn, had breast
milk to suckle her after the infant died.  He had told her that she was
not his sister, but Supnah had insisted that, although they had been
born out of different mothers, they were nevertheless of his blood, and
as he cherished them, so must they cherish each other.

Sullenly, Karana had kept his thoughts to himself.  If you cherished me,
how could you have sent me off to die?  How could you have sent any of
us?  No matter what Navahk said, you were headman and did not have to
listen.  In starving times Torka found enough food to feed his people
and took in a strange band's child.  We were hungry, but we survived.
And now Karana is Torka's son forever.  Karana will never be Supnah's
son again.

The boy sighed.  He had loved Supnah once and been proud of the bold
hunter.  Yet there was now a bittersweet
emptiness within his heart where filial love should have been.  There
was no way to tell the headman that he was, in fact, Navahk's spawn.
When Karana had returned to his people, Navahk, for reasons the boy
still could not fully understand, had sought him out and smiled
maliciously as he had burned him with that unwelcome truth.  It both
revolted and shamed him.

Yet now, as he stared at the magic man in the flickering shadows of red
and black and gold, he realized that he had always sensed the
truth--even in those long-ago days of his childhood, when others would
remark upon his resemblance to his father's brother.  The similarity did
not end there.  He would amaze himself, as well as the people of his
band, by knowing when the weather would turn, when the game would come,
and where it would be found.  He had often felt the magic man watching
him, measuring him out of sharp, resentful eyes.  His mother had warned
him to keep his portending to himself and to be wary of Navahk.  He was
a dangerous, ugly man, she had warned.  But Karana had been baffled
because Navahk was even more beautiful than his mother, and she was the
headman's woman, envied by all the females of the band.

A lump formed at the back of the boy's throat.  His mother had perished
the winter he had been abandoned.  Her reasons for distrusting the magic
man had died with her, and Karana was certain that if he were to tell
Supnah the truth about his parentage, the headman would never believe
him.  Since the death of their parents, Supnah had been like a father to
his much younger brother.  To speak against Navahk to the headman had
always been like shouting into the north wind at the height of a gale.

So it was that now Karana stared at Supnah, then at Navahk, incredulous.
The headman's words struck the magic man like a well-placed spear,
actually making him stagger.  Supnah had never challenged Navahk, not
even when the magic man had told the headman to abandon his own son.

A dark, intense warning sparked within Karana each time his eyes met his
father's.  He chafed each time the headman drew him close and called him
son.  Torka is my father now.  Torka will always be my father!  he
wanted to shout.  Loyalty and love made them father and son, not blood;
blood was a thin, red thing that dried and blew away on the wind.

Karana knew that all too well, for he had watched the other
children slowly starve and freeze to death, one by one, crying for
mothers and fathers who never came.  He had been unable to help them,
for he, too, was starving and dying--and all because Supnah had not been
bold enough to challenge the spirits of the storms that spoke to him
through his brother's mouth.

Karana wished he could spring to his feet and flee into the night. This
was a bad camp, filled with bad people, and nothing good could come to
any who stayed within it.

"Again I ask, who has seen the wanawut except Navahk in his clouded
dreams?"  Supnah's voice cut the night with an angry edge.  The question
settled heavily.

Navahk had regained his composure.  He picked up Supnah's question and
hurled it back at his brother.  "Has Supnah walked the world of spirits
that he may challenge what Navahk, magic man, has seen in his dreams? Or
would the headman of this band listen to Torka, a stranger, before
heeding the warnings of his own brother?"

"Torka has said that he has seen good hunting grounds to the east.  Why
should we doubt him?  He has led us well against the Ghost Band, has
brought women into our camp, and has twice faced Thunder Speaker, the
great mammoth.  Torka has given to us the knowledge of making and using
the spear hurler.  Torka has returned my son, when Navahk had sworn
before all that Karana was dead.  Torka has proved himself to be a man
of unclouded dreams.  So Supnah says yes to Navahk's question.  Supnah
will listen when Torka speaks."

Navahk stood dead still for a moment.

Supnah took the moment and shook his brother's world with it.  "Perhaps
it is time for the people of Supnah to name a new magic man.  Perhaps it
is time for Navahk--like the children of the people whose life spirits
were eaten by his dreams--to walk away upon the wind, out of his band
forever!"

"No!"  Torka's declaration reverberated like the crack of thunder.  He
was on his feet, looking grimly at Supnah, then Navahk.  They were like
a pair of bull elk in deadly rut, antlers locked in competition for
control of the band.  Whatever the cause of their enmity, Torka wanted
no part of it, nor would he take sides.  He had his woman and infant to
think of, and although he had instinctively recoiled from the magic man
the first time he had seen him, he had no desire to undercut the man's
status.  His own grandfather had been
what his people had called a spirit master--a magic man by this band's
terms--and he knew the weight of the responsibility that went along with
the title.  The last thing he wanted was to assume the burden of such
authority.  If Supnah wished to deprive his brother of his rank, let him
name another man to fill it.  "This man is no magic man," he said.

The headman glowered at him.  "This man says that you are\ Have we not
seen you do all that Supnah has just said?  You faced the great mammoth
Thunder Speaker before our very eyes, and when we fled in fear and
Karana fell before the charging mammoth, was it not Torka who put
himself between Karana and the beast?  And did Death not turn away,
gentled by the magic power of your will?"

Torka could not argue with the truth or allow it to be unchallenged. "It
is so.  But this man wonders if it was magic.  The great mammoth once
fell upon Torka's people because we had eaten of the flesh of its
kindred.  We are not strangers, Thunder Speaker and I. That one carries
the head of one of my spears embedded within its shoulder.  And this man
carries the scars of its tusks across his belly.  Across many miles
Torka has carried the hope to kill the beast that killed his people. But
perhaps, in the end, we are merely two bulls who are much alike, both of
us willing to stand in defense of our own, and both of us so weary of
killing that we are willing to walk away when there is no need for it."

The headman considered.  "Perhaps.  But not many men would be brave
enough to stand unmoving before Thunder Speaker.  In such bravery there
is magic."  "Your son has become as a son to me, Supnah.  We have
endured many hardships together.  To save Karana I faced death.  But had
you been at my side, you would have faced it in my place.  A father's
love is a thing of magic.  But you must look to Navahk for guidance and
wisdom.  If sometimes his dreams are clouded, that is not because his
magic is weak.  It is because that is the way of the spirit world.  No
man may see into it clearly.  If Navahk says that he walks with the
spirits in his dreams, who may say that that is not the truth? Not
Torka.  This man is only a hunter.  I have walked the far hills that
open into an unknown land and have seen much game on broad grasslands
that stretch eastward between the Mountains That Walk.  But if Navahk
says that it is forbidden country and that in his dreams he has seen the
wanawut-whatever this creature may be--waiting to prey upon Supnah's

band, then I would not go there.  I would be content to follow Supnah,
grateful for the protection that his people have offered to me, my
woman, and my child."

Navahk growled.  His eyes swept the silent assembly.  The man was magic.
He spoke with an eloquence that Navahk knew he could not match. He felt
no gratitude to Torka.  He glared at him in hate-engorged silence. Then,
grasping at his sullied authority, he made the best of the moment.

"Torka has spoken wisely.  One who has not seen the wanawut cannot be a
magic man."

Torka seemed relieved, yet he felt obliged to reply lest he offend the
headman.  "As Navahk says, this man is no magic man.  But if the wanawut
is what my people call a wind spirit, then Torka has heard it cry in the
long nights of the winter dark.  It dwells in the land of the People, in
the mists and clouds of high places.  We are in as much danger from the
wanawut here as in the unknown land that lies to the east."

A murmuring went through the gathering.

Supnah was pleased; Navahk was not.  From his throat came a great cry
and then low, snarling sounds such as wolves make when they devour their
prey.  He whirled and circled the fire, paused before the women's side
of the gathering, stared at the watching women, caused the few children
to cower, and deliberately lingered before Torka's woman until her
unusually beautiful face blushed at the provocation in his eyes. Her
reaction gratified him as much as it obviously angered Torka.  When he
turned back to face the men's side of the circle, there was open
hostility on Torka's face.  Navahk was glad.  He would take Torka's
woman if he could, to demean the newcomer and to make him pay for this
night of humiliation.

Now Navahk stood splay-legged, with his shoulders back and his arms
thrown wide before the flames as the wind combed through his knee-length
hair and drove the long fringes of his sleeves outward like skeining
mists.  His voice seemed to come from outside himself.  It was wind.  It
was fire.  It was the voice of the cold, black, star-strewn infinity of
the night.  "The wanawut is a wind spirit.  Its flesh is the substance
of clouds.  Its cry is the wind's.  No man will ever find its spoor or
follow its tracks!  And no man who is not a magic man may see it until
it leaps from the world of spirits to feed upon him!"

Again a murmuring sigh rippled through the gathering.  Navahk had his
people under his spell again.

"Karana has seen the wanawut."

Navahk stiffened and fixed the boy with eyes so filled with virulent
hatred, anyone else might have withered away on the spot.  But Karana
did not flinch.  His face was set, and hard for one who had lived to see
the passing of only eleven summers.  He was small and looked younger
than his years in the multilayered, intricately stitched garments that
Torka's woman, Lonit, had made for him.  His face still bore the ravages
of a great ordeal, but a restless energy and bold, resilient spirit
shone from his eyes.  "Karana has seen the wanawut. He has seen it in
the storm mists and has heard it howling in the winter dark.  He has
looked upon it as it stood upright like a man, stalked like a bear,
hunted like a lion, and followed the abandoned children of this band to
feed upon us after Navahk's dreams sent us off to die."

From the women's side of the circle low moans of grief escaped a dozen
mouths as hands flew to faces, and heads went down, unable to look at
Karana.  From across the circle hunters grunted against memories that
they had long ago tried to bury deep within themselves.  Karana's words
had called unwelcome ghosts to the gathering, little ghosts in winter
boots, toddling ghosts in coats of fur, brave tiny figures with hands
lost in enormous mittens and chapped faces hidden within hoods ruffed
all around with fur.  The ghosts of abandoned children walked through
the assembly, as they had once walked from a starving encampment into
the endless night, into the ravenous storms of winter to become food for
beasts while their mothers and fathers turned their backs in anguish.

Because Navahk, magic man of their band, had assured them that they must
do so.  And because Supnah, regardless of his professed love for his
only son and his concern for the fate of the little ones, had not dared
to challenge him.

"Karana has seen the wanawut," he repeated with the stern, unforgiving
emphasis of one who, like Torka, had lived too long and seen too much of
danger to allow it to intimidate him.  "And he sees it now .. . standing
before us all ... in the skin of Navahk!"

"Karana!"  Torka's voice was low, his tone sharp with unmistakable
admonition.

The boy ignored it.  He snapped to his feet, staring at the
fire-burnished faces that stared back at him in shock.  It was forbidden
for children to speak openly at gatherings, and it was unheard of for
them to challenge their elders at any time.  He did not care.  Nor did
he cower as he saw that Navahk was advancing toward him slowly, wearing
a malicious smile that was somehow not a smile at all but a malignant
leer.  Karana glared and smiled back at him.

Suddenly he could not breathe.  Try as he might, he could not look away.
It was as though Navahk were somehow sucking his spirit out of his body
through his eyes and drawing it into himself.  In black, bottomless
sinks, the boy's mind waded through the dark suffocating depths of
Navahk's murderous, mind-numbing hatred.  He felt himself drowning in
it, choking, fighting for breath as, within the strangling darkness,
light exploded--the light of vision.

Karana willed himself into it.  Within himself a voice whispered,
promised, warned.  He will kill you if he can, as he has tried to kill
you in the past, because he is your father .. . because he knows that
the gift of true Seeing is yours .. . because he knows you will grow to
be a man who will make him small within your shadow .. . because he
knows that someday you will be a greater magic man than he has ever
been.

Karana shook his head.  The -light of vision faded.  The voice of
warning fell silent.  He drew in a deep breath, and the spell of the
magic man was broken.

Navahk stopped in his tracks.  His smile twisted, and his eyes narrowed.
He knew he had lost the battle of wills that he had initiated between
himself and the boy.

Karana raised an arm and pointed accusingly at the magic man.  "He is
the one to fear, not the wanawut.  He is the beast that will prey upon
this band, as he preyed upon its children in the past and as he preys
upon the spirit of its people now, making you weak and indecisive and
afraid.  In your fear lies the power, and his power is a bad thing
because it serves his people only as long as it serves himself!"

Karana did not wait for Navahk's reaction.  The night engulfed him as he
turned and walked into it imperiously, eager to put the gathering behind
him.

Voices called to him--Torka's, Supnah's, and a high, female voice that
he did not recognize.  Darkness surrounded him, and he wrapped himself
in it as though it were a cloak that could hide him from the watching
eyes that followed his bold steps from the encampment.

"Hrmmph!"  He sneered and thought: Let them stare!  Let them gape!  I
have my dagger at my side.  I am not afraid of the night.  Thanks to
them, I have lived in it alone and have learned to be wary of its
dangers!

He put the last of the conical, hide-covered pit huts behind him and
skirted the last of the drying frames, where thin, wide fillets of a
giant ground sloth were streaming stiffly in the wind like bloodred
banners.  He saw Grek, guardian of the meat, sitting cross-legged in the
darkness.  Karana, jogging past, startled the man, who was even more
startled when the lean, wolflike shadow of a wild dog leaped over him in
pursuit of the boy.

"Come back, you!"

Karana smiled, ignoring Grek's command, glad that the dog was following
and that the hunter had not chosen to rise and give chase.  Grek was no
youth, but he was strong and agile; only Torka and Supnah could outrun
him.  And Aar.

The dog fell into step now with Karana, looking up at him in the
darkness with blue eyes that reflected the starlight out of a wolfish,
black-masked head.

The boy frowned.  There was more than starlight in the eyes of Aar.
There was also rebuke.  Like old Umak--Torka's

grandfather, who had used his powers as a spirit master to befriend the
dog in a far land--Karana's relationship with the animal was unique.
There was an unspoken language between them, and understanding that
bordered on the magical.

Again the boy harrumphed.  "Karana will walk where he will!  When he
will.  Better to be alone in the darkness than in the crowded firelight
of an encampment with Navahk.  There is less danger to this boy here. If
Aar does not like it, he can go back to camp, to his pups and mate. This
boy has not asked you to follow!  This boy will not miss you if you go
back!"

He knew it was a lie.  Nevertheless, he lengthened his stride, glad that
the dog ran with him but resentful that not even the companionship of
the animal could brighten his mood.  It seemed to Karana that somehow,
impossibly, the eyes of Navahk were still watching him, following him,
burning holes into his back.

"Karana!"

Within his multilayered fur tunic, beneath his undershirt of
woman-chewed skins cut from the supple pelts of caribou fawns, hackles
rose on his back.  Navahk was calling his name.  Navahk was coming after
him.

Navahk will never catch me!  Never!  His thoughts were as black as the
sky.  Anger and frustration pricked him like the uncountable stars
pricked the skin of the moonless night.  He looked up for a moment and
was dazzled by the shimmering beauty that lay above him.  So many stars!
Vast, swirling rivers of them, so thick that they formed blurred,
cloudlike veils that, like the dog, ran with him as he loped across the
world.

The beauty of the night took his breath away, then returned it to him as
he tripped on a knee-high clump of tussock grass and looked down just in
time to see the ground rush up to meet him.

Stunned, he lay flat on his belly while a bird squawked and, raining
feathers, climbed for the stars on flapping wings.  Something warm oozed
beneath his palm, and he knew that he had been a fool to run so
carelessly across the benighted tundra.  He had come farther than he had
realized.  He could smell the pungent spruce groves in the
not-too-distant hills and knew that he had blundered into the same
expanse of tussocks that he and Torka had skirted earlier in the day.
With Grek and a bandy-legged hunter named Stam, they had
come out from the encampment to stand watch over the women as they went
high-stepping among the mounded grasses to set snares for ptarmigan, the
fat little partridge of the northlands that mated and nested in the
tussock grasses.  There were eggs to gather and snack upon, and this the
men had done as they made certain that no predators would fall upon
their females while they worked to make prey of the ptarmigans.

Now, levering up with his ungloved hands, Karana frowned.  He seated
himself and lifted his right hand.  It was slimed with egg and pebbled
with fragile, membranous shell.  Aar nosed close and started to lick it
clean, but the boy beat him to it.  He was sucking his fingers when,
suddenly, hackles rose on his skin again.  They ran upward along his
spine, stinging him like insects as he realized that he and the dog were
not alone.

Aar's head went down.  The dog made no sound; nevertheless, as Karana
wrapped a slim arm about Aar's neck, he could feel the animal's tension
as its hair bristled along its back and a growl began to form deep
within its chest.

"Shhh .. he whispered imperatively, the sound audible only to the dog.
Karana shifted his weight until he was balanced on the balls of his
feet, left leg slightly forward, his right leg braced and ready to
propel him outward into the night like a living spear if the need for
flight arose.  But for now, until the danger--if there was danger--was
defined, his best defense was to hold his position and be as still as
the night.

His right hand formed a fist around the bone handle of the nephrite
dagger sheathed at his hip.  It was a blade of many purposes.  The
greenish stone was beautifully flaked and sharp enough to lay open the
toughest hide; but it was only a dagger, a working tool designed to flay
dead meat, not to bring down living animals.  For this a hunter needed a
spear; especially when he was the one being hunted.  With a tremulous,
barely audible sigh of longing, Karana thought of his spears.  He felt
small and vulnerable and alone without them.  For the second time he
regretted his impetuosity.

Something was advancing toward him.  Silhouetted against the starlight,
the black form was the size of a mature bear.  It hunched against the
night, moving slowly, a hulking blur in the darkness.  Was it man or
beast?  Still stunned by his fall, Karana's usually acute senses failed
him.

He blinked and strained to see.  Aar's heart was thumping beneath his
left palm.  The dog saw it too--what Karana knew he could not be seeing.
That thing was man and beast!  It was the creature he had heard howling
in the winter dark long ago, when he had huddled with the other
children, waiting to die, to become food for ... the wanawut. Spirit
Sucker.  Beast of flesh and cloud and darkness, born to feed upon the
People, born to teach the People the meaning of fear.

Karana gulped.  His mouth was dry.  The words of the magic man moved
through his mind.  Fear.  He knew it all too well.  The creature was
close now, too close.

Illuminated by the starlight, it passed immediately ahead and to his
right.  It walked upright with a cautious, yet oddly rolling gait,
bending slightly forward, like an aging man with a bad back.  In the
darkness it seemed to be clothed, for it was thickly maned across its
shoulders and along its spine, and its entire body was darkly furred,
with shaggy guard hairs of gray that gave it a frosted appearance.  Its
massive neck sloped into equally massive shoulders from which long,
muscular, shaggy-haired arms swung with what, in a man, would have been
considered easy grace.  Impossibly, Karana saw that its hands were the
hands of a man, except three times the size and clawed.

Staring upward out of the thick, deep lakes of shadow between the clumps
of grasses in which he cowered, Karana saw the beast's out slung
bearlike profile.  He caught glimpses of its features: a flattened,
sloping cranium, a projecting brow, a flashing eye, a cylindrical
muzzle, a wide, flaring, hairless nostril, a large, slightly pointed,
grotesquely manlike ear set low at the side of its head, and a
broad-lipped mouth that was pulled slightly back to reveal glistening,
protruding canines that were longer than the boy's dagger.

Karana felt sick.  The teeth of the beast were unmistakably the stabbing
fangs of a carnivore.  Coupled with its narrow hips and bunch-muscled,
relatively short-boned thighs, they marked the creature as one that
leaped upon its prey.

It paused for a moment.  Karana's breath caught in his throat.  His
heart, like the dog's, was pounding so hard that he was certain the
beast had heard it.  But if it had, it gave no sign of it.  It seemed to
be resting as it turned its head and stared in the direction from which
it had come.

Then, after only a few heartbeats, it moved on again, and Karana heard
the deep, effortless suck of its breath and the
soft pad of its broad, toed feet as it moved on between the tussocks.
But its scent, like his own, was tangled in the gentle eddying wind of
the night, mixed into the smells of crushed grass and bruised tundral
earth, so that neither boy nor beast smelled more than only the vaguest
inference of the other as the creature moved away into the darkness.

Karana nearly vomited with relief.  Then, beside him, Aar shivered, and
the boy saw that from the distances out of which the beast had come,
others of its kind were coming toward him.  He held his breath and
gripped his dagger and the dog more tightly as, one by one, stooped,
bearlike shadows as hairy as mammoths walked past him.

None was as large as the first beast that had passed.  Some were much
smaller.  One limped badly.  It was totally gray and so grizzled that it
was almost white; from this, and from the strained, ragged suck of its
breath, Karana knew that it was old and injured.  As it moved past him,
he grimaced with revulsion at the sight of hairless, unpleasantly
human-looking breasts swinging pendulously against its shaggy chest and
was puzzled to see that one of its scrawny, patchy-furred arms was
linked through that of a powerful silver-backed male, as though the
stronger were actually being solicitous of the weaker.  The boy was
immediately struck by the incongruity of their behavior and troubled by
the realization that, among many of his own kind, the weak and the old
were not coddled or cared for; they were abandoned.  Memories of dying
children and his own abandonment surged through him.  As they passed,
Karana observed that the long, hairless fingers of the old female were
laced through those of a much younger member of her gender, who was
suckling an infant as she walked on the old creature's other side.

For an instant the eyes of the suckling met those of Karana.  Pale eyes.
Filled with starlight.  As clear as new ice upon which no snow has
fallen.

The boy was stunned by their clarity and their undeniable but unexpected
beauty.  Then terror struck him.  Had the thing seen him? Had it picked
him out from the shadows?  He squeezed his eyes shut, deliberately
breaking visual contact with the suckling, knowing that if it recognized
him as a living being, it had only to loose its lips from its mother's
hideous teat and, through sound and gesture, indicate his presence to
the others.  Even with Aar ready to leap to his defense, neither he nor
the dog would survive long.

But the thing kept on sucking.  Its eyes were the wide, vacant, glossy
eyes of the newly born, empty of all but starlight.  Karana knew it was
carried past him in the fold of its mother's hairy arm when he heard the
soft whispering of her footsteps in the grass directly ahead of him.

Then, after a while, all was quiet except the hammering of his heart.
Cringing with fear, he opened his eyes.  With infinite caution he peered
over the top of the grasses to see that the last of the beasts had gone
by him, trailing southward.

For a long while, exhausted by fear, the boy and dog remained motionless
and silent.  Until Torka came up from behind them.  And although Aar's
tail began to thump, Karana nearly leaped out of his skin in terror.

"I tell you, Karana, I have seen nothing."  Once again, as when he had
addressed the boy within the encampment, Torka's voice was stern with
admonition.  He stood frowning down at him in the darkness.  "This
country is crossed and recrossed by the fresh tracks of many beasts.
Since Torka disregarded the advice of others and came out from the
encampment in search of you and Brother Dog, this man has found it
difficult to pick up the trail of one small boy amid the spoor of so
many animals."

"But they were there!  An entire pack of them!  They came from the north
and walked to the south, into mammoth country at the base of the distant
hills.  And they trod so lightly, it seems now to this boy that they
deliberately laid no trail by which they might be followed. They--"

"Karana has seen only the flesh of his fear.  Karana's arrogance and
overconfidence have led him to see things that are not there.  Torka
says that this is good.  Karana should be afraid.  This man did not know
whether he would find you alive or dead!  Since Karana has cared nothing
for the fear that his action has brought to others, it is time that he
learns to fear for himself.  Perhaps he understands why it is not good
to challenge one's elders and then to run off alone, where no man can
stand with him against the predators concealed within the night."

Karana was on his feet, facing the man, shaking his head in angry
defense of his claim.  "They were not concealed!  I saw them.  They were
as close to me as you are now.  I saw the wanawut!  They were ugly and
hairy and--"

The boy suddenly found himself seated again as Torka shoved him so hard
that he knocked him down.  A startled Aar jumped aside, ears back, as
Karana, flat on his buttocks, his legs splayed and his mouth agape,
stared up in befuddlement at the man he loved more than any other in the
world.  He could not understand what he had done to make Torka angry
enough to strike him.

Torka shook his head at the boy's obvious confusion.  "Can Karana have
forgotten that among Torka's people it is forbidden to speak the name of
a thing without respect?  To do so is to dishonor the life spirit of
that thing.  And life spirits have wills of their own, be they the
spirits of men or beasts, of stones, clouds, the smallest biting fly, or
of Mother Below or Father Above.  A dishonored spirit can become a
crooked spirit--half flesh, half phantom--and who knows what such a
spirit will do if it decides to punish the one who has shamed it? Torka
says it is bad enough to be alone on the tundra with a foolish boy who
has put himself at risk because he cannot control his temper, but it is
worse to be alone with a boy who cannot control his tongue. Much worse.
And much more dangerous to both of us!"

Karana closed his mouth.  He looked up repentantly, knowing that Torka
was right.  The boy had forgotten the age-old taboo; it was a
proscription among Torka's people, not among his own.  It was easy to
forget that they had not always lived together as father and son, that
they were not of the same band.

"This boy meant no offense to Torka or to the spirits," he apologized.

The eyes of man and boy met and held.  Torka nodded.  His lean, handsome
features relaxed as he offered a conciliatory hand to the boy. "It was
wrong of me to strike you."

"It was wrong of me to run away," Karana admitted, gratefully taking
Torka's hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.  "But
Supnah's camp is a. bad camp.  This boy says that Torka's people should
not stay there."

"Torka's people?  I am one man, Little Hunter.  One man, with a woman
and a newborn daughter to care for.  Where should Torka lead his
'people'?  Into the unknown, where they would be alone and vulnerable
again?"

"Torka has Karana.  And Aar.  He would not be alone."

"But Supnah is your father.  His people are your people.  Would you
truly wish to be parted from them again?"

The question altered the boy's mood.  Sullen hostility darkened his
expression and thickened into bitterness.  "Torka has forced Karana to
dwell in the hut of Supnah.  This Karana has done--to please Torka, not
because Supnah has asked it.  But Supnah and his people fed Karana's
spirit to the wind, and this boy will not give it back to them.  What
they threw away, Torka has made his own.  With his own mouth, Torka has
called Karana son.  And so now Karana says that he has no father but
Torka.  We are of one band.  Forever."

The words touched Torka, and he grasped the boy's shoulder, wanting him
to know it.  "And so it is that for the good of Karana, my son, and of
Lonit, my woman, and of little Summer Moon, my newborn daughter, that
Torka says that we must all be of Supnah's band now--forever, if he will
allow it--because alone upon the tundra we are prey to our darkest and
ugliest fears, and even the strongest man soon grows weak when he is
beset by dread.  Within the protection of a band, even the weakest man
may dare to be brave and strong."

Karana shook his head.  "Supnah's band is a bad band.  And Navahk has
always been a bad man.  And the wana-- I mean, the beasts that I saw in
the night were there.  This boy saw them."  "As Navahk has seen them."

"Navahk is a liar.  He has seen nothing."

Torka's dark brows came together across the high, narrow bridge of his
nose.  Far to the east the sun was rising beyond distant,
glacier-smothered ranges.  The faintest banding of light had appeared
atop the mountains and was spilling over the ridges like mist, thinning
the darkness just enough so that he could make out the intensely drawn
face of the boy.  Not for the first time, he was aware of Karana's
marked resemblance to the magic man, but his awareness vanished as he
saw how haggard the boy looked.

"Come," he said gently.  "We must go back now.  Lonit worries about you.
When I left, little Mahnie, the daughter of Grek, was sitting with Pet,
your sister, and both were crying from fear that you would be eaten by
wolves."

"Pet is not this boy's sister!  And Supnah's camp is a bad camp."

"When you are a man, you will understand that we sometimes must do what
we do not wish to do--for others, not for ourselves."  He let the words
settle quietly, watching as the
boy's face worked against them.  Karana troubled him in many ways.  He
was headstrong, defiant, and often acted without thinking.  But he
always told the truth as he saw it.  And sometimes in his dreams or with
that strange sense that others did not possess, he did see things that
others failed to see.  Sight .. . sound .. . taste .. . touch .. . scent
.. . these tools Torka shared with the boy.  But not the sixth sense,
that other, undependable, not-always-trustworthy power of knowing that
was driving Karana to disobedience now.

Torka's hand patted his shoulder encouragingly.  "No band is without
dissension among its members from time to time, Little Hunter.  And fear
takes many shapes in the dark.  Look now to the east, into the face of
the rising sun, and tell this man that what walks there could not have
passed you in the night."

Karana glowered.  He saw tall, shaggy, reddish-brown humps moving on the
horizon, tusks extended like branchless, horizontal trees.  "Karana
knows a mammoth when he sees one," he retorted, his feelings hurt by
Torka's unwillingness to believe him.  "They are not what I saw!"

"Then when you return to the encampment, you must tell the People that
you have shared Navahk's vision.  And that what he has seen has been a
good thing for his people--a warning for them to be wary of the spirits
that walk hungry in the night."

"Men must always be wary of the night.  And this boy will never speak to
Navahk."

"Hard words for a boy to utter.  Karana should know that when he ran off
from the encampment, Navahk asked the People if what was given to the
spirits should be allowed to come back to live as flesh in the world of
men again."

"Karana is not afraid of Navahk!"

"Karana had better be--for Torka's and Lonit's sake, if not for his own!
This man has named you son!  If you are put out of Supnah's band, I will
not be able to watch you walk the wind alone.  I will have to walk with
you.  Lonit will take our baby and insist upon walking with me.  And
soon she and I and our daughter and even you, Karana, will die upon the
tundra, prey to lions or bears or wolves or simply to our own
mistakes--all beasts every bit as terrible as the nightmare shapes of
the wanawut that you claim to have seen."

Sobered, Karana frowned.  "We tried to live among another band before
and were forced to walk away alone.  Has Torka
forgotten how it was?  How Karana said that we must go from the mountain
cave where we lived with the people of Galeena?  How Karana said that
the mountain was a bad place and that Galeena's band was a bad band?
Torka would not listen.  But it was as Karana warned.  And so at last we
fled when they tried to kill us, and, as in Karana's dreams, the side of
the mountain fell to bury the cave forever, and within it Galeena and
all his people died.  But we have survived--alone."

"Barely, and always at the risk of death."

"Then do as Supnah says.  Become a magic man!  Let Navahk be the one to
walk the wind."

"No, Karana.  Torka will not assure his place within the band at the
cost of another man's life.  What I have said to Supnah, I say to you:
Torka is a hunter.  No more."

Karana clamped his mouth tight against frustration.  Torka was talking
to him in the kind, condescending tone that adults often took with
recalcitrant children.

Aar nuzzled his hand, to remind him that it was time to break the long
hunger of the previous night.  And from the west Supnah was trotting
toward them with his spear raised in greeting and his voice crying out
the boy's name with joy and relief.

Beyond the eastern ranges the sun was rising quickly now.  Its face was
still hidden, but its light had absorbed the stars and washed away the
darkness.  The night seemed long ago, its terrors muted by fatigue and
distance.  Karana sighed.

If he had been wrong to run away, perhaps his sight had been equally in
error?  Perhaps he had grown confused in the darkness and, looking east
instead of south, had only seen mammoths after all?

The tattooed woman smiled.  She was as big and as brash as a man, but it
was impossible to see her clearly, even though the sun was well up and
the tundral world was awash in the sweet, yellow light of the spring
morning.  Like the other women of the band, she was armored against
biting flies, in warm-weather leggings and a lightweight tunic of
caribou skins that covered most of her body; but unlike the other women,
every visible inch of her skin was blackened by tattoos.

Eyelids, lips, nostrils, earlobes.  Even her filed teeth, fingernails,
and the palms of her hands were covered with a maze work of dots and
slashes that formed a blur of intricate, circular designs--unwanted
gifts inflicted upon her by the tattoo-loving Ghost Band, to which she
had been enslaved since girlhood.  Then Torka, with the aid of Supnah
and his hunters, had rescued her.

Now she knelt outside Torka's shelter, happily helping his woman, Lonit,
to pound fat into oil that would be used to saturate the bundles of moss
that lay at their sides.  These would later serve as wicks for tallow
lamps of hollowed stone and, in the days of the long dark, would light
the pit hut of Torka during hours of endless night.  The tattooed woman
enjoyed both the work and the prospect of light in the winter dark, so
she smiled; but because her teeth were as black as her face, her smile
went unseen as she spoke with emphatic optimism.

"Aliga says that Torka and Supnah will soon return with the boy.  Lonit
will see.  The spirits seem to be with Karana.  His talk to the magic
man was bad talk, but he is the headman's son, and Supnah is so glad to
have him back, no harm will come to him because of his runaway feet and
tongue."

"It is not Supnah whom Karana should fear.  It is Navahk."

Lonit's long, graceful hands did not slow as she spoke.  "This woman
does not like the way the magic man looks at the boy or the way that he
looks at me ... or the unspoken words that hide behind the things he
says to Torka."  Her beautiful, delicately formed features were grimly
set as she pounded and scraped at the wedges of fat, using the grinding
stone that she held in her fist to crush them within the concave mortar.

Aliga, the tattooed woman, envied Lonit not only for her beauty, which
was unmarred by tattoos, but because she had a man to work for and worry
over.  A man beside whom most other men, including the powerful headman,
Supnah, seemed inconsequential.

Torka!

Aliga's heart always beat a little faster when she thought of him. Until
she had seen Navahk, the magic man of Supnah's band, she had not thought
it possible that a more physically striking man than Torka could exist.

But Navahk existed.  Navahk!  In his fringed clothes of white, with the
single winter-white flight feather of an Arctic owl braided into the
forelock of his shining, knee-length hair.  Navahk!  With a face as
finely made as a stallion's and eyes as black and lustrous as an
obsidian dagger.  That one, like Torka, could have any woman he wanted.
He would never look at Aliga; and yet if he did focus his magic eyes
through her tattoos to the substance of the woman beneath them, she
would look back boldly and let him see how her heart quickened for him.
He would know that he was the only man capable of shadowing Torka in her
eyes.

What sort of an ungrateful female was she?  Could she ever forget the
way Torka had rescued her and the others from the Ghost Band?  Or the
way he had noticed her shame as all the other captives--younger, less
tattooed--had found places beneath the sleeping skins of Supnah's
hunters?  What the men of the Ghost Band had found beautiful, the men of
Supnah's band found amusing at best and repulsive at worst. Although she
had a round, pretty face with bright eyes, a small, flat nose, and a
pert mouth that revealed a pleasant nature and a propensity for sudden
laughter, not one of them had offered to take the tattooed woman to his
bed skins.  To save her the humiliation of rejection, Torka had welcomed
her to stay at his fire until another man spoke for her.

So far, no man had.  She was not sorry.  The only one she
encouraged with her smile and her looks of longing was the magic man;
but she knew that she had little hope of winning so much as a glance
from him.  And, in truth, she found more than a little pride in the
knowledge that the people of Supnah's band assumed that she was Torka's
second woman in every way.  She knew that Torka would never dishonor her
by saying otherwise to his fellow hunters.

With a sigh, she recalled that from the first he made it quite clear to
her that he was more than content with only one woman.  His love for
Lonit was absolute and without bounds.  Aliga marveled at their
relationship.  In the night, when they lay in one another's arms, Torka
not only made love to Lonit, he actually talked to her as though she
were a male and thus his equal.  He shared his thoughts with her as he
would share them with a father or brother or trusted hunting companion.
Aliga had never seen anything like it.  Sometimes she found it
unnatural.  She told herself that it was this way because they had been
long alone together, without other men and women with whom to form
friendships.  She was not certain if she would want such a relationship
with a man; their thoughts were not woman thoughts, and their actions
were often befuddling to her.  She was more comfortable with other
women, working, chatting, gossiping, and laughing together.

Although she was loath to admit it, she knew that her place at Torka's
fire was puzzling to them.  Sometimes she overheard "What does he see in
her?"  whispered behind her back.  Bitterly, she would think: He sees
nothing!  He feels sorry for me!  But she could never explain that to
the women of Supnah's band.  Pity was alien to them; indeed, she
suspected that Torka's compassion, for which she was so grateful, would
be viewed as a flaw in an otherwise praiseworthy hunter.

She cast a sidelong glance at Lonit, glad that she and her man were not
uncaring like the others.  She had become close to Torka's woman. Aliga
knew her young friend well enough to be certain that Lonit would never
knowingly speak words to bruise the spirit of another. Nevertheless,
Lonit was fiercely possessive of Torka.  She wanted what was best for
Aliga but made no secret that she had no wish to share her man.

"Aliga is the best of women!"  she would exclaim to the other females
when they worked together within earshot of their men.  "Such a hard
worker!  So quick at her tasks!  How
fortunate is Lonit to have Aliga sharing the burdens of her days!" And
to Aliga she would say, "If Aliga would have a man of her own, she must
try harder to make them see through the skin to the merits of the woman
beneath!"

Aliga was not offended.  Torka's fire circle was becoming crowded:
Karana was often there, and Torka had taken the widow of Manaak, his
murdered friend, to dwell within his protection.  Poor, mind-blighted
lana, raped by the men who had murdered both her husband and her newborn
son, had not spoken a word since she had been rescued from the Ghost
Band.  Torka insisted that lana's responsibilities as a wet nurse for
Summer Moon freed Lonit for other chores.  Even now she slept within
Torka's hut of bones and fur, with his daughter contentedly suckling at
her breast, thus allowing Lonit the freedom to await the return of her
man while she worked with Aliga, desperately trying to distract herself
from worry.

"He will come back to us soon, and with the boy!"  insisted the tattooed
woman, herself distracted not by the work at hand but by her wandering
thoughts.

For the first time in her life Aliga was happy.  To share Torka's
shelter was to hold the hope that someday, when Lonit was in her time of
blood or again great with child, Torka would hold back his sleeping
skins and welcome Aliga beneath them.  She might never bear him a child,
but the thought of pleasuring a man as powerful and handsome as Torka
was enough to make her forget her years of sexual abuse at the hands of
the Ghost Band.

Kneeling beside Lonit, Aliga's lustful thoughts of Torka caused her to
blush with guilt.  What if the younger woman could read her mind?  The
boy, Karana, sometimes did.  She would find him watching her, and it was
as though his mind had melded with her own.  Startled, she would demand
that he look away.  But someone else was watching her now.  And,
suddenly, as she met his glance, her thoughts flew from Torka.

Navahk was looking at her!  He stood before the painted hide door flap
of a pit hut covered in the white skins of winter-killed animals.  A hut
before which his ceremonial staff stood, butt end piercing the tundra,
with its antelope skull gleaming and taloned, feathered skin streamers
streaming gently in the wind.  A hut he shared with no woman.

Aliga nearly swooned with disbelieving delight as his eyes
met hers, narrowing with what appeared to be almost sleepy speculation
as he smiled.  Yes!  At the tattooed woman!

It was all she could do to remain seated as he began to walk slowly
across the encampment toward her.  As he passed the dogs that lay in the
sun beside Lonit's and Aliga's drying frames, Sister Dog growled at him
and the pups whimpered.  Navahk proceeded as though the animals were not
there.  Aliga gave Lonit a sharp, meaningful elbow jab to the ribs and
practically sang a joyous whisper out the side of her mouth as she held
her head high, in the way of a woman accepting a man, and looked
directly at her suitor.  "Look!  When Torka returns, he will have one
less woman at his fire!  Navahk comes!  He comes for me\"

But when he reached her, acknowledging her presence with a gracious nod,
his smile was more demeaning to her than death, for his eyes swept over
her and rested upon the downturned head of Lonit.

"There are too many women at Torka's fire.  Navahk has no woman.  Lonit
will come with me."

It had not been a question; it had been a command.  It struck Lonit like
a stone.

She heard Aliga stifle a sob.  She looked up, not knowing whether to be
flattered or angry.  "My man is not here.  Navahk has no right to ask
for me."

His smile was barely perceptible.  "A man may ask.  A woman may accept
or refuse.  Only the spirits know if Torka will return."  Lonit allowed
her anger to surface.  "Do not speak so!  Would you bring the words to
life?"

His smile grew.  It rearranged his features, softened them, warmed them,
made them not only more perfect but infinitely likable and openly
seductive; yet somehow the smile did not reach his eyes.  They remained
cold, raptorial, as hard and oily as the stone pestle in Lonit's hand.
"With Torka here--or with him gone--Navahk says that it would be good
for Torka's woman at the fire of the magic man."

"Lonit has a man!  With Torka, she needs no other."

His smile did not waver.  He extended a hand to her.  "Come."

She stared up at him, her mind swimming in confusion, her body
inexplicably responding to him, betraying Torka.  From behind her
Wallah, the woman of Grek, came from her own pit hut to see the cause of
the young woman's exclamations.  Her wide-eyed young daughter, Mahnie,
peeked at Lonit from behind her mother's hare-trimmed skirt while the
other women of the band followed from their own dwelling, including
Naiapi, the woman of Supnah, and midnight-haired little Pet.

With his hand still extended down toward Lonit, Navahk's voice was as
soft and low as a summer wind hissing through the ripe grasses of the
tundral plain.  "Come .. . Navahk will make magic for Torka's return--a
magic he cannot make alone."  Lonit dared not move.  Her hand was curled
so tightly about the pestle that her aching fingers were growing numb
with the resulting stress.

"Lonit must go!"  insisted Wallah, appalled by the obvious hesitation of
the younger woman.  Did she not care for her man?  Did she not
understand that when it came to the making of magic, a magic man might
ask anything and not be refused lest the spirits be offended and turn
against the band?

The face of Naiapi, Supnah's woman, was unreadable.  Her chin was up,
and her long, generous lips were pressed so tightly against her teeth
that they were devoid of color.  Her eyes were fixed upon Navahk.  They
were unwavering and demanding eyes.  "Has Navahk seen a danger, then,
that Torka and Supnah will not return?"  He did not look at Naiapi.
"Navahk always sees danger.  That is why he is a magic man," he replied
obliquely, his hand still extended to Lonit, his eyes holding hers, his
smile unchanged and beckoning.  "Come.  We will make magic together. It
will be a good thing."  Naiapi moved forward.  "Navahk has no need of
Lonit!  She is Torka's!  I am the headman's woman!  Naiapi will make
magic with Navahk!  He needs no one else!"  The eagerness in her words
betrayed emotions that she had not intended to reveal.  The color bled
back into her lips, and she looked away from the watching eyes of the
women of her band.  They were no longer alone; drawn by the raised
voices of their women, Supnah's hunters had gathered around. Flustered,
Naiapi stared down at her booted feet until she became aware of Pet, her
little daughter, looking up at her, perplexed.  She made a rude noise at
the child, then defiantly met the gazes of those who were staring at
her.  Her voice was unnaturally high, with an odd, brittle edge that
cracked as she proclaimed: "For Supnah!  For the headman's safe return
to his people

does Naiapi offer herself to Navahk!  Come!  Now, to assure the safe
return of her man, will Naiapi and Navahk go to his hut, where we will
make magic together!"

Navahk laughed.  It was the merest exhalation of sound, but it was so
ripe with derision that all who heard it were stunned-but none more than
Naiapi.  "Navahk and Naiapi will never make magic together."

A young girl ventured forward.  "This girl will make magic with the
magic man for Karana.  Has everyone forgotten Karana?"  The question was
a peep such as hatchlings make, except that there was fear in it as
Mahnie, barely eight years old, looked imploringly at Navahk.

The magic man's head pivoted and his eyes focused on the little one. He
saw that she was shivering, and his smile grew liquid with pleasure.
"This man could never forget Karana, little one."

"Nor does Karana need his magic!"

Everyone whirled at the sound of the boy's voice.  Supnah was with him,
and Torka, and the wild dog Aar, all returned safely from out of the
night.

And as Lonit dropped the pestle, sprang to her feet, and leaped to stand
joyfully beside her man, Navahk's smile disappeared.

Torka could not remember when last he was as angry as he was now. "What
is this 'magic' that allows Navahk to walk into my fire circle and
attempt to take any woman from me when I am not here to face his
arrogance!"

The magic man raised his head with imperious disdain.  He folded his
arms across his chest and smiled.  "Magic is not for hunters to
understand.  It is a thing of smokes and dreams."

"Navahk's smokes, made to cloud other men's dreams!"  snapped Karana.

Torka looked at Supnah now.  "Among Torka's people, custom demands that
if a man wants another man's woman, he must first ask her man--not swoop
behind his back like a vulture hoping to steal what is not his!"

Torka's statement had been so molten with anger that all who heard it
stepped back lest they be burned when his temper burst into flame.
Supnah was taken aback by the intensity of Torka's feelings.  He
shrugged his shoulders apologetically and spoke in the tone of a born
conciliator.  "Among Supnah's people, if a
man wants another man's woman and the woman wants him also, the woman
may go with him ... if her own man is not man enough to keep her.  This
is the way of Supnah's people.  From time beyond beginning."

The headman's words stung Torka but did not drain the anger from his
heart.  "It is a bad way," he said.

Beside him, Lonit was trembling.  Her tall, slender body pressed against
him, and he could feel the opulent curve of her hip and the softness of
her shoulder.  Her wide eyes, as deep a brown and as thickly lashed as
the eyes of a frightened steppe antelope, looked up at him.  "Torka is
man enough!"  she said loudly for all to hear. "This woman looks at no
other!"

The magic man, apparently unperturbed, was smiling again.  His arms
unfolded like the wings of a graceful white bird, and his hands swept
outward in a gesture of conciliation.  "Torka's people are dead.  Their
ways and customs died with them.  Torka is of this band now.  He will
accept the ways and customs of Supnah's people, or he may walk away into
the wind.  The choice is his.  As for this man, Navahk only sought to
make the magic that would bring Torka safely back to camp with the
others.  To make this magic, it was necessary to seek the assistance of
Torka's woman.  Ask Naiapi if this is not so.  She and little Mahnie,
Grek's girl, were both willing to speak to the spirits through Navahk's
magic smokes on behalf of Karana and Supnah.  Would Torka not have
permitted his woman to do the same for him?"

Torka glared hatefully at the man.  He had seen the way Navahk had been
looking at Lonit and had not misread the sexual provocation that
underlay his seemingly innocent invitation.  And he had clearly heard
him refuse Naiapi's almost panting offer of assistance.

"It is so," Naiapi quickly affirmed.  Her face was unnaturally pale as
she looked at Supnah, hoping that he would believe her lie.  He had been
several paces behind Torka and Karana when the gathering had parted to
allow them through.  Perhaps he had not seen the wanting in her eyes or
heard it in her voice.

But the headman was not looking at his woman.  He was observing his
brother with stern-eyed speculation.  A guileless and pragmatic man,
Supnah usually heard what others wanted him to hear, accepting as truth
that which offered the least resistance to argument.  But Supnah had
seen the look of wanting in his woman's eyes, and he was emotionally
torn by the realization that last night, for the second time, Navahk had
been in a position of control over the life of Karana, and he had chosen
once again to negate that life.

After Karana had stalked away from the gathering, Navahk had portended a
thousand dangers to all who would walk after Karana and into the "night
of the wanawut."  He had the hunters cowering and the women moaning in
fear for them until, in frustration, Torka and Supnah had said that two
men were all that was needed to find one small boy. Navahk had shaken
his staff at them, warning them to beware lest they offend the spirits,
and had said that for the good of the band they must not put themselves
at risk for one useless, disobedient child. But they had gone despite
his warnings, leaving him to chant and whirl in foul smokes of his own
devising.

There had been a moment, as he had watched his brother perform before
the feast fire, when memories of their boyhood had risen within him, and
he had been ready to forgive Navahk everything.  But then he had seen
Naiapi looking at his brother across the flames in a way that no man
ever wants to see his woman look at another.  Resentment and jealousy
congealed into pure loathing, inspiring Supnah to suggest that Torka, a
stranger, might better serve as magic man in Navahk's place. His public
humiliation of Navahk had cleared the way for Karana's misbehavior.

The recollection made Supnah feel ashamed.  Naiapi had looked at Navahk,
but then all of the women looked at him; his beauty was that rare, that
perfect.  Supnah had to admit that he had never seen Navahk look back.
Never.  Navahk had not openly taken a woman to his bed skins since he
was barely more than a boy and had lived with a wandering magic woman.

Supnah looked at Navahk now, hoping to see that young boy somewhere in
the lean, magnificently imperious, hawklike face but failing.  In his
weariness, with everyone making him the focus of their attention, he
himself felt like a boy trapped within the skin of a man.  As often
happened, he longed to be free of a man's responsibility, to be a youth
again, with elders to tell him what to do and when to do it ... as
Navahk had so often done.

Guilt rose in him again.  Since Torka had come to the encampment with
Karana, Supnah's behavior toward Navahk had been hostile and
belligerent.  He had actually enjoyed
making his brother suffer and ground the fact of Karana's homecoming
into Navahk's pride at every opportunity.

By now Supnah had no doubts that Navank was capable of seeing clearly
into the spirit world.  When he and Torka had separated in their search
for Karana, Navahk's warnings had been proved right--there had been a
thousand dangers.  Supnah had seen lion and wolf sign and strange spoor
that he could not identify.  Just before joining Torka, he had seen
shadows moving upon the horizon--shadows that had so defied his
understanding that they made him feel old and weak with fear.  He had
seen the wanawut.

How long would it be before Navahk's words were once again fulfilled? No
man may see the wanawut ... no man may find its spoor or follow its
tracks lest it leap upon him from the world of spirits to feed upon him.

Was he marked for death by the wanawut?  Or by his own brother?

No!  He would tolerate no further suspicions!  Navahk was of his band!
Of his flesh!  When he spoke, he spoke with the wisdom and the power of
the spirits, and although Supnah would never again follow him blindly,
neither would he impugn his authority.

In the tone of one who has been severely wronged, the magic man was
speaking earnestly to the headman.  Startled, Supnah realized that he
had not heard a word.  Again he felt old and weary and wished that he
were a boy.

"... must tell Torka that if he is to dwell among Supnah's people, he
must accept Supnah's ways.  The things that Torka says are bad, crooked
things that enter the thoughts of Supnah's people to make them question
the ways that have been their ways since time beyond beginning."  The
magic man's words fell into the receptive soil of his brother's mind.
Supnah nodded.  The weariness was growing in him.  He thought of his bed
skins.  "Torka has heard the words of Navahk?"

"Torka has heard," said the hunter.

"Then Torka will obey.  Or he will walk from this band as he came into
it--alone."

Alone.

Torka's pit hut was filled with sleeping women and a suckling child, yet
he was alone, isolated amid the dreaming females, tormented by his
thoughts, unable to sleep, and suffocating in the all-confining darkness
in which he lay ... alone.

It was late.  Darkness would fill the sky for hours before it yielded to
dawn.  Torka lay on his back, naked beneath the bed skins that he shared
with Lonit.  She was warm against him, curled close, her breathing deep
and even, perfectly synchronized with his, as though one being lay
beneath the skins, not two.

He lay still, listening to the cool, mild wind move through the
encampment.  He could hear it prowling around the exterior of his little
conical hut, slap-slapping gently as it searched with invisible feelers
for gaps in the layered bison skins that covered the shelter's arching
framework of caribou antlers and mammoth ribs.  The wind might find
breaches in the coverings of other huts within the encampment, but Torka
knew that it would find no entrance here because Lonit had been
responsible for the skins that formed the walls of his shelter.  With
the help of Aliga, Lonit had sewn seams and patched where there was
need.  Then, while lana sat crooning to the baby as she nursed it, Lonit
and Aliga had lashed the dark, thickly pelaged skins down with strong
thongs laced crosswise and secured them to fire-hardened stakes of bone
that he had helped them to drive deep into the permafrost.

Them!

How had he come to have so many women?  Mad lana.  Tattooed Aliga. Lonit
of the antelope eyes.  And his tiny
daughter, as precious to him as her mother, and both of them as warm and
beautiful as the golden summer moon for which the child had been named.

Nevertheless, the presence of the women and child was strangling to him
now.  He drew in a breath, found no air within it, gasped soundlessly,
and rose, desperate to be outside, beneath the night, within the wind,
and alone.

A man could think when he was alone.  A man could not think when he was
surrounded by females.

Lonit sighed in her sleep, sensed his absence, and reached for him,
whispering his name.

Carefully, not wishing to wake her, he bent and tenderly drew the bed
skins back over her smooth, tawny form, pausing just long enough to look
upon the relaxed grace and suppleness of her body.  The sight of her
soothed him a little as, even in the darkness, the beauty of her profile
against the pale, spotted lynx fur of their pillows illuminated his
heart.

Taking his clothes from where they lay in a jumble next to his moss- and
down-lined sleeping pad beside Lonit's meticulously folded garments, he
straightened as much as the height of the pit hut would allow and, his
mind filled with images of his first woman, began to dress.

It never failed to amaze him that once, long ago, his people had
considered Lonit ugly--a too tall, coltish girl who should have been
exposed at birth.  Females were considered beautiful only if they were
dull eyed, short limbed, broad hipped, capable of working endlessly,
bearing children with minimal complaint, walking long miles under heavy
packs, and eating only as much as their men allowed them .. . and never
of prime portions.

Torka knew that Lonit's father had allowed her to live only out of pity
for her mother; the woman had never before been able to bring a child to
full term.  Kiuk had spent the rest of his days and nights regretting
his weakness and later had done all he could to abuse and degrade the
living proof of his unmanly generosity to a lowly female. After the
death of Lonit's mother, Kiuk's other women found endless uses for her
as a drudge, and the child became Kiuk's vessel for the outpouring of
his lust.  It was his right to mount the child in the night and to abuse
her verbally and physically by day.  Old Umak, Torka's grandfather, had
observed that by so doing, Kiuk degraded not the girl but himself and
the band.

The other members of the band had found amusement in his brutal
degradation of the unusual-looking little girl and had mocked Torka
when, pitying Lonit but admiring the way she clung to life regardless of
its adversity, he occasionally went out of his way to encourage her.
Umak had advised Torka to remain aloof from the child.  As magic man for
the People, Umak had already spoken to the spirits on her behalf; but
she was only a. female, after all, and would live or die according to
the whim of her father.  This was the way of the People.  From time
beyond beginning.

As he pulled on his buckskin boot liners, Torka's mouth worked bitterly
at the memory of that statement.  How many times had he been confronted
with those now-despised words?

This is the way it has been .. . always has been .. . from time beyond
beginning.

He jammed his feet into his boots, and as he began to lace them,
memories swam in the darkness.  One night Thunder Speaker, the great
mammoth that his people called the Destroyer, came to the band's
encampment to fulfill its name in death.  Its tusks had hurled them
high, and as its trumpeting, man-hating shrieks had cracked the sky, it
had ground their lives inte the tundra until it was not possible to tell
where earth ended and the flesh of Man began.  In the end only Torka,
Umak, and Lonit had survived.

And it had seemed as though it were time beyond beginning.  They were
First Man and First Woman, with a spirit master who was only a frail old
man.  Together they had fled across a savage, unknown land, without the
protection of a band, learning new ways, forgetting the past except for
that which served the present.  And so, against all odds, they had
survived.  In time Torka discovered the truth about Lonit, when he had
looked at her with eyes free of the blinding, insular conventions of
others.  He had seen that she was beautiful.

As he saw her now.

As Navahk had seen her.  And had dared to try to win her away from Torka
to his own fire circle!

In a sudden, so injudicious but righteously seething rush, the anger
that had caused him to challenge the magic man pulsed behind his eyes.
It was a fire-heated bone lodged at the back of his throat.  Again he
could not breathe.  Again the darkness was suffocating him.  If they
stayed in this camp, in
time Navahk would find a way to have his woman.  And nothing Torka or
Lonit could say or do would stop him.

On the piled furs that she shared with lana and the baby, Aliga made
smacking little sucking sounds in her sleep as, with a sigh of
contentment, she hefted herself onto her side.

The wave of anger crested within Torka as he focused on the tattooed
woman and the sleeping form of mad lana.  Why had he accepted the
responsibility for their lives?  Did he honestly believe that the
responsibility was only temporary?  No man would ever invite Aliga or
lana to leave Torka's fire.  They would be upon his back like a sodden
pack filled with boulders forever!  If starving times came to this band
again, Navahk would send them both to walk the wind, and if Torka tried
to stop him, Supnah would send Torka with them .. . and Navahk would
have Lonit and would never let her go.  Never!  Torka had seen this in
his eyes.

With two long steps he crossed the dark confines of the hut, pulled back
the door skin, and stepped out into the night.

To the south, far beyond the pit hut, a lion roared from out of the
tangled hills.  The sound rolled across the tundral world and echoed
through a thousand unseen glacial canyons.  Wolves answered--and
something else, something deeper than a wolf cry and less scraping then
the scream of the lion.  Something as full of latent power and threat as
the wind whistling across the land from out of the north.  Something
familiar somehow, something almost human.

Wah nah wah .. . wah nah wut .. . wah nahhh .. .

The wanawut!  He stiffened, listening, unable to believe what he heard.
Words?  Had he heard words?

The sound rose and fell, not one sound but many, calling, answering.

Wah nah wah .. . wah nah wut .. .

In his boyhood he had heard these strange bowlings and me wings in the
night.  And later, crossing the tundra close to the mountains, he had
heard them moaning and roaring in the long, burnished twilight of autumn
or whispering on the winds that blew down from the heights in the depth
of the winter dark.

Men did not go into the mountains, which were the realm of wind spirits.
Men hunted the open tundra, beneath the open sky.  And Torka, who had
stood against wolves, wild dogs, lions, bears, and the great mammoth
Thunder Speaker,

wondered why he should fear phantoms that existed unseen within the
misted mountains.

Yet now, as the voices of the wind spirits began to fade, he feared
them, as all men instinctively fear the unknown.  He stood listening
until the voices melded into the dark and wind-combed night.

A mammoth trumpeted somewhere to the east.  Torka looked toward the
sound.  The Mountains That Walk bulked against the horizon.  Two miles
high, they glistened blue on either side of broad grasslands that
stretched into the infinity of the forbidden country that Supnah's
people called the Corridor of Storms.

Navahk had said that the wanawut lived there.  Navahk lied.

The wanawut was in the southern hills, close to this encampment. Karana
had seen it, and Torka had heard its song.  He stood very still, feeling
the night, drinking in its sounds and scents.  His eyes strayed over the
sleeping encampment, past the smoldering bones of fire circles, to
linger on the charred rubble of the feast fire where, not for the first
time, Torka had observed the virulent antagonism that lay between Navahk
and Supnah.  That hatred would erupt someday, and one or both of the
brothers, and perhaps their entire band, would be destroyed.

In the days that followed, Supnah and his people broke camp and moved
south in search of new hunting grounds.  If any men or women saw sign of
the wanawut, they remembered Navahk's warning and spoke no assent to
their sighting lest wind spirits leap from the shadows to take their
lives.

At night, although weary from the day's trek, Torka slept fitfully, his
question demanding a decision from him.  Is it wise for Torka to stay
with Supnah's band?  It was not the sort of decision that a man made in
a night, or a day, or a week of days.  It was made and unmade a dozen
times.

He could not say that he did not enjoy their daily treks.  It was good
to walk across the land in the company of men, with Lonit at his side.
She held little Summer Moon close to her breast, while a distraught lana
often plucked at the wrappings of the baby's sling to make certain that
the child was safe in her mother's arms.  Aliga trudged behind, the dogs
at her side.  She would kick out at them if they came too close.  The
big blue-eyed male, Aar, walked with Karana, tongue lolling,

tail up and curled forward over his rump as he proudly carried side
packs loaded with the boy's belongings.  Sister Dog, Aar's mate, and her
pack of pups had taken a liking to Aliga, and nothing that she did,
short of tethering them and leaving them behind, could keep them from
romping at her heels and trying to grab at the loose ends of her boot
ties.

It was an amusing sight.  After the tension of the camp that they had
put behind them, the sight of the tattooed woman kicking and cursing at
the mischievous pups for mile after mile lightened Torka's mood more
than a little.  Although Aliga never stopped complaining about the dogs
and openly feared the older pair, she had an obvious soft spot for the
pups.  Her kicks were as ineffective as her curses.

The people of the band began to point and laugh with merriment at her
predicament.  Supnah was openly amused.  And for the first time in
longer than he could remember, Torka laughed with unrestrained delight
when the most tenacious of the pups, a blue-eyed, black-masked replica
of Aar, sunk its molars into a boot lace and, pulling hard, ran a neat
circle around Aliga's ankles, effectively hobbling her.  Seeing the big,
bold woman go to her knees amid a swarm of licking, yapping puppies--one
still tugging on her boot lace, his bottom up, tail curled, head down,
growling as ferociously as a bear in rut--brought everyone to pause with
laughter.

Then the magic man turned to see the cause of his people's unbidden
happiness.

"It is not natural for people to walk with dogs.  Look.  See how Torka's
woman slows our trek.  It is not a good thing!  Perhaps, in this night's
camp, we will eat the meat of these dogs.  The little ones will be
tender."

They did not eat the dogs.  Although Navahk would have liked to do so,
Supnah acquiesced to Karana, who swore that the dogs were his brothers.
No one seemed to know what to make of such a ridiculous assumption, but
the dogs were like no others that they had ever seen: The big male
carried a pack like a man, and the female cared for her pups as
diligently as any woman.

It was early evening.  The women had formed what Torka had come to think
of as a chatter circle.  He heard the sound of Lonit's laughter as she
sat with the other women, enjoying her baby and the company of other
females.  He watched her with troubled eyes and thought: /// take her
from this camp,

tshe will be alone with only mad lana and a tattooed woman for company.
Here the number of women makes the workload light for all.

His eyes strayed to Hetchem, an extremely pregnant female who, judging
by the gray strands in her hair and the many lines about her eyes, was
very old.  She claimed to remember seeing the sun rise to eat the winter
dark over thirty times, and her teeth were showing signs of wear.  Torka
could not help but notice how Lonit and Aliga and the other females of
the band doted upon the older woman.  In the morning they brought
special boot pads to soften her step on the long trek of the day.  In
the evening they brought poultices for her swollen ankles and charms to
string about her enormous belly.  They would break stride with their men
to walk beside her during the day, offering to share her load,
entertaining her with hours of idle female chatter.

Torka recalled the long, dangerous days that he had shared with Lonit,
Karana, and his grandfather upon the distant mountain and the open
tundra.  It was not good for Lonit to be alone with only one hunter, a
boy, and an old man.  She must have been lonely.  She must have been
frightened when she began to shed a woman's bhjod.  Or thought about
giving birth to the baby.  Torka cannot ask her to bear such fear alone
again!  It is good for a woman to live in a camp with others of her
kind.

It was early evening.  A temporary camp had been set up for the night--a
careless jumble of packs and lean-tos, of fire circles over which the
last meal of the day had already been prepared and eaten. The men
gathered to work their weapons and talk of the next day's journey. In
the thin, remaining light of the long Arctic dusk, while an unnaturally
sallow looking, exhausted Hetchem lounged on her sleeping skins, the
females kept her company while working happily at their various sewing
tasks, talking of those things that were a mystery to their men, until
Navahk walked into their circle.

Nearby, Torka watched from where he sat cross-legged before his lean-to,
instructing Karana in the best way to re knap a damaged spearhead.
Within the chatter circle Navahk paused before Hetchem.  He waved his
staff above her.  He spoke words that Torka could not understand.  After
a moment Torka realized that they were not words, they were some sort'
of chanting no man or woman could understand. They were for the spirits.
The women were impressed.

Karana was not.  He made a low harrumph of deprecation.  Torka
elbow-jabbed him to silence.  Navahk was smiling now, inquiring with
utmost solicitude into the state of Hetchem's health.  She beamed at him
out of a clammy face, assuring him that all seemed well with the spirit
within her.  The magic man nodded.  He told her that he had made good
smokes for the baby spirit.

"Hrmmph!"  This time Karana's exhalation was a little louder, and
Torka's following elbow jab a little harder.  The boy looked up at him,
frowning.  "What good will the burning of green sticks soaked in rancid
fat do for Hetchem's baby?  It is Hetchem who is sick!  Look at her
skin.  And her eyes.  The whites are as yellow as egg yolks.  Umak told
this boy that when eyes look like that, it is a very bad thing. Hetchem
should be drinking much bearberry juice.  This boy told her that, but
she would not listen.  As long as Navahk makes his smokes, his magic is
enough for her.  She will be sorry."

The boy's words had been audible only to Torka, but Torka was not
listening.  Navahk was smiling at the other women.  They were smiling
back at him, even Lonit.  It was impossible for a woman not to smile
back at Navahk; he was a cool, magnificent winter moon shining down upon
them out of the dying warmth of the springtime sun--and he knew it.  He
deliberately held the eyes of Lonit and offered an open, if unspoken,
sexual invitation with his smile until Naiapi glared resentfully at
Lonit and the other females tittered.  Flustered, her face afire, Lonit
stared into her lap.

Navahk turned to face Torka.  He smiled at him, but it was not the same
smile that he had bestowed upon the women.  It was a malignant leer of
contempt and daring.  He raised his staff and held it out toward Torka.
The horned skull of the antelope atop his staff stared sightlessly,
grinning as though it were somehow an extension of the man who held it.
Torka shook with revulsion, jealousy, and then anger as Navahk took
something from his medicine bag and dropped it into the pool of shadows
that lay in Lonit's lap.

Startled, she lifted a thong of highly polished, perfectly matched white
stone beads.  While the other women exhaled in envy, she looked up at
the magic man, not certain what he intended her to do with them.

"They are a gift!"  he exclaimed.  "From Navahk!  To Torka's woman!"

Her blush deepened.  She looked to Torka, saw the anger

on his face, and quickly turned back toward the magic man.  She did not
look at him as she handed the beads up to him, stammering, "Torka's
woman can accept gifts from no other man."

His smiled deepened.  "I am Navahk.  I am Magic Man.  You will accept
gifts from me!"  He turned then, allowing no further dispute from her as
he strode across the encampment to stand alone, arms raised to the
setting sun, head thrown back in communion with the spirits.

If Torka's spearhead had been attached to its shaft at that moment,
Navahk might have entered the spirit world permanently.  As it was,
Torka was shaking as his eyes moved back to where Lonit knelt, holding
Navahk's gift as though it were a living thing capable of stinging her
from each of a dozen polished round heads.

"This woman will wear it if Lonit finds it so repugnant!"  said Naiapi,
greedily reaching to snatch the necklace from Lonit's hands.  "Naiapi
would not insult the magic man of her people by refusing to accept a
gift from one who--"

"Take it!"  agreed Torka's woman, looking not at Naiapi but at Torka
with confusion and apology as she gratefully yielded the unwanted gift
to the headman's talkative woman.

But Supnah had risen.  He stalked to the women's circle and jerked the
beads from Naiapi's hands so abruptly that she cried out in protest.
"What Navahk has given to the woman of Torka, Lonit, not Naiapi, will
wear!"  He ignored the petulant glare of his woman as he put the
necklace roughly around Lonit's neck.

Torka saw his woman tremble as the weight of the stones fell heavily
upon her shoulders and over her long, plaited hair.  He was so angry
that he rose, holding the spearhead in his hand as though it were a
dagger.

Supnah was coming toward him.  The dogs that lay near his fire circle
tensed noticeably.  Slowly Aar got to his feet and walked forward to
stand, tail tucked, ears back, beside Karana.

The headman distrusted the wild dogs that were always close to Torka's
fire; and in particular, he disliked the big male, Aar.  He paused and
indicated the dog with a sideward nod of his head.  "Tell the spirit of
the dog to hold."

Karana hesitated.

"Tell him!"  commanded Torka, for the boy's sake, not his own.  Were it
up to him, now that Supnah had twice chosen
to encourage Navahk's advances toward Lonit, he would have allowed the
dog to leap for the headman's throat.  But Supnah was Karana's father,
and he had risked his life and the lives of his hunters to help Torka to
rescue his woman from the Ghost Band.  He owed him something for that;
but the headman was stressing that debt nearly beyond its limit.

Karana obeyed, frowning up at Supnah as the headman extended a hand to
him.

"Torka is not the only man who knows how to rework a damaged spearhead.
Come!  Karana spends too much time at Torka's fire."

Things went badly after that.

They continued southward toward the River of Caribou Spring Crossing,
traversing a barren land of broken gullies and long, windy hills. There
was little sign of game, and when at last they reached their destination
and made camp, it was under leaden skies that promised rain, and all
signs told them that the caribou had crossed the river many days before.
In the ever-shortening night, the people murmured with frustration, and
Supnah assured them that it was the way of the caribou to pass in a
segmented line: first cows and calves, then bulls. Days of intermittent
rain made the herd signs difficult to read. Perhaps the bulls had not
yet passed this way?

"This man will make the songs that will call the caribou to the river
and to the spears of the hungry people .. . if the spirits of the
caribou are close enough to hear."  Navahk looked meaningfully at Torka,
reproaching him before the entire band.  "Did I not say that it was a
bad thing when Torka's dogs and women slowed the trek?  Because of Torka
the caribou have crossed the river.  Because of Torka this band may go
many days without fresh meat."

Men hunkered by smoky fires of dried sod and bones that they had brought
with them from their last camp.  They ate traveling rations of dried
meat and fish and berries that their women had pounded into cakes of
fat.  Tomorrow, when the women had rested, they would seine for fresh
fish in the river and set snares for ptarmigan.  By tomorrow night
Navahk's magic might call the caribou; then they would feast upon real
meat and drink hot, nourishing blood beneath the cold and threatening
sky.

But although he chanted and danced and made magic,
smokes that rose from within his lean-to like clouds boiling on a
mountaintop when a storm is due the caribou did not come to cross the
river.  The only thing that came to the River of Caribou Spring Crossing
was rain--steady, cold rain.

"Torka's rain," Navahk called it.  "Just as Father Above has driven away
the game, he has made rain for Supnah's people because Torka and his
women walk with dogs.  This is not a good thing!"

All day the rain fell.  Navahk said that Father Above remained angry. He
told his people that he had heard spirit voices in his magic smokes,
telling him that it was not a good day to hunt.  Supnah's women murmured
with worry, but Supnah's men said nothing.  They were not in a mood for
hunting.  Torka chafed against the watchful, wary way that they looked
at him.  Navahk smiled at his discomfort.

Angry and frustrated, Torka fought down the desire to challenge the man
physically.  He put on his waterproof rain cloak of oiled bison
intestines instead, took up his spears and his spear hurler, and without
so much as a word to his women stalked out from the encampment alone. No
one except Lonit tried to stop him.  Aliga knew better than to try to
change his mind once it was made up.  From where he sat like a captive
within Supnah's lean-to, Karana made to jog after Torka when he saw the
hunter stride purposefully past the last of the lean-tos, but Supnah
pulled the boy back by the fringes of his tunic.

In the end only the dog Aar left the encampment with Torka.  They
returned by nightfall, the dog with the limp body of a fat ground
squirrel held proudly in its jaws, the man with the carcass of a steppe
antelope slung across his shoulders and several hares and a ptarmigan
hanging from his bone carrying stick.  With the dog at his side, he
stalked to the headman's lean-to, glad to find that the magic man was
there talking with him.  It was a spacious shelter, well braced against
the weather and wind, with Naiapi and Pet sewing at the back and Karana
playing a moody game of bone toss in a corner.

Torka interrupted them all without ceremony, dropping the game that he
had taken at the entrance to the shelter.  It splashed water inside. He
was not concerned.  They stared up at him, amazed by his rudeness;
somehow this did not concern him either.  If anything, it pleased him.

"Torka brings fresh meat for Supnah's hungry people.  As he has said, he
is not a magic man.  He cannot call the game to die upon the spears of
men.  But Torka is a hunter who can go out and kill it."  He hefted his
spear and shook it meaningfully at the magic man, as Nayahk had once too
often hefted and shaken his staff at him.  "This is a good thing!"  he
said, and taking none of the meat for himself, turned and walked to his
own lean-to.

The people were glad for the gift of Torka's kill.  The headman divided
it among the families, and all savored a share.  All except Navahk, who
would partake of not so much as a bite.

The rain fell for two days and nights, and for more than half of that
time, Hetchem screamed against the pitiless agony of childbirth. Navahk,
glad to be distracted from the food that Torka had so generously
provided, danced naked for Hetchem in the rain.  Within her damp and
frigid lean-to, while the women gathered outside, watching as best as
they could, he made magic smokes for her and brought forth from between
her legs the bloodied heart and entrails of the bad spirits of her pain.
He held these things up for the watching women to see.  They marveled as
they beheld his powerful magic and stared wide eyed as he threw the
small heart and finger-thin, ribbonlike guts of Hetchem's pain into the
flames of his magic fire.  Sizzling like any other meat, they made good
smoke.  Comforted, Hetchem slept and did not cry out again.

The next morning, while the sun rose into clear skies beneath which
Karana searched and called in vain for a missing pup, Hetchem died while
giving birth to a hideously deformed baby.

The women wailed.  The men were silent.

"We will go from this camp," announced the headman.  "The River of
Caribou Spring Crossing is a bad camp for Supnah's people."

No one spoke against moving on.  They broke camp eagerly.  Hetchem was
put to look at the sky forever.  The women dressed her in her best furs
and favorite adornments.  They placed her fire-making bag at her side,
with her sewing and working tools, and each woman brought a little
something from her own fire circle as a gift for Hetchem's spirit. When
finally they turned and walked away from their friend for the last time,
she was resplendent in nose and lip and ear

rings of pebbles and bone and precious wood .. . and a necklace of
polished, perfectly matched white stone beads glistened like a collar of
hailstones around her shoulders.

Torka smiled when he saw it, and hugged Lonit as Navahk glared hatefully
at them both.

A wind had risen out of the east as they gathered to perform one last
ritual before taking up their belongings and putting the camp of the
Caribou Spring Crossing behind them.  Rhik, Hetchem's man, would not go
with them.  He would stay behind to keep the mandatory five-day death
watch for his woman, lest predators come to devour her body before her
spirit had a chance to decide whether it really wished to leave her.
When the necessary number of days had passed and he was certain that her
spirit was free to be born again within the next child of the band who
would be given her name, he would follow and rejoin his people.

But first he must expose his deformed infant according to custom.  It
lay quietly sucking its fingers on the floor of the bloodied birth hut
where the women had been forced by tradition to leave it after its
father had refused to look at its face.  He did not look at it now.  He
brought it into the light of day, holding it outward toward the magic
man with an expression of abhorrence upon his face.  The people of
Supnah formed a circle around Rhik and the baby and the magic man as
Navahk shook his staff over the infant, proclaiming its life invalid.

"This life has never been born!  This life has no spirit!  This life is
not life!  The People put this dead thing out from among us!"

In absolute silence and solemnity, the members of the band symbolically
turned their backs upon the child.

Now the father knelt.  He lay the baby upon the sodden, spongy surface
of the permafrost.  Naiapi brought a small basket of woven grass and
placed it into his hands.  It was full of freshly gathered tundral
mosses.  As Naiapi turned away, the father stared at the contents of the
little basket; then, with grim determination, he proceeded to pack the
infant's mouth, nostrils, ears, and anal as well as vaginal openings
with moss so that whatever twisted life spirit it might possess would be
trapped within its body and incapable of being born again.

Torka stood with the other hunters, his back to the ritual killing of
the child, an unwelcome litany of words moving like
fever-chill within him.  This is the way of the People.  From time
beyond beginning.  This is the way it has always been.  This is the way
it will always be.

In silence the circle broke.  The people of Supnah left Rhik alone with
his dead woman and his dying child.  Packs were hefted.  People shuffled
off after Supnah without a word.  Even the dogs were unnaturally quiet,
although Sister Dog walked whining, nervous circles, searching for her
lost pup, until at last Karana came and, with only a touch, caused her
to follow the others.

As the band walked on, Torka looked back, troubled as his eyes fell upon
the solitary figure of Rhik, hunched forward, rocking himself in grief.
All semblance of dignity and composure had left him as he was wracked by
lamentation for the death of one who had walked beside him for a
lifetime, his back turned upon the naked infant that tradition had
forced him to suffocate with his own hands.

The people of Supnah walked in silence, bent beneath the weight of their
traveling packs.  All except Navahk, whose belongings were hefted by
Grek and Stam, so that he might walk ahead of his people unencumbered,
free to sing a death song for the woman and to shake his staff at the
world while eagles and teratorns and other carrion-eating birds began to
circle in the sky above and behind him.

Torka watched him.  Torka knew that he enjoyed his song, and that,
somehow, he was kindred to the carrion eaters of the world,

This is a bad band, thought Torka, and knew at last and without doubt
that he must leave it.

For many days Torka kept his decision in his heart.  For as many nights
he lay awake with it, measuring its worth as though it were a new woman
whose merits must be carefully considered before at last allowing her to
share his bed skins.  He wished that he had taken as much care before he
had first taken upon himself the double burden of lana and Aliga; but
what was done was done.  He would not dishonor them, or himself, by
turning his back upon them now--as he must turn his back upon Karana.
The thought of leaving the boy was like contemplating the amputation of
his spear arm.  Karana was as a son to him, but Supnah was his true
father.  And the more Torka watched them together, the more convinced he
became that it would be wrong to take the boy from his people. Karana
was as
stubborn as a musk ox and as unforgiving as the storms of the winter
dark, but Supnah's doting display of protective concern and paternal
affection would eventually make their mark upon the boy.  Karana might
become headman of his band one day, and in time he might even become a
man who would put his dagger-eyed uncle in his place; but in the
meantime Supnah would see to it that no harm came to the boy, and most
assuredly the headman would never allow his son to walk out of his life
twice.

The initial awe the band felt for Man Who Walks With Dogs had lost its
luster.  After he had allowed them to see that his spear hurler was not
a magic stick but only a tool that all the hunters might learn to make
and use, he became only another man in their eyes, an outsider who had
walked into their band to bring shame to their headman, magic man, and
themselves as well.

When they looked at him, they saw a man who had survived the terrible
long winter of the starving moon without abandoning his woman, his
ancient grandfather, or another man's child.  When they looked at him,
they remembered the old people and the children whom they had turned out
of their encampment to walk the wind forever.

And at last he understood why Supnah and Navahk had put aside their
enmity and focused it upon him.  Yes, he had brought Karana back to them
alive from the spirit world, but as long as he stayed among them, he
would be a constant reminder of the fallibility of Navahk's powers, and
Supnah would always see him as the stranger who had saved the life of
the beloved son whom he had sent to die.

Inside his shelter Torka lay quietly in the dark, with Lonit asleep in
the curl of his arm.  His thoughts no longer distressed him.  He had
made his peace with them.  Like a hunter who has come to a fork in a
game trail, he had carefully analyzed the signs and had made up his mind
as to which trail would most benefit him.

To continue on with Supnah would lead him to the loss of his woman and,
inevitably, to the loss of his own life.  He would never give her up.
Never.  Torka and Lonit were like the great dark swans that flew
together, male and female, hearts and lives bonded until death.  He
would fight for her against any man, as he had fought for her in the
past, barehanded against wolves and with spears and bludgeon against
men.  Unless she asked to go.  And then his life would be over.

He closed his eyes.  Beside him Lonit murmured against dreams.  They had
come far since leaving Rhik to sit death watch for his woman.  Only this
afternoon he had rejoined the band as Supnah had led them on a more
easterly course, out of the tundral barrens toward familiar hunting
grounds that lay at the confluence of two rivers, in a country that his
people called the Land of Little Sticks.

They would be there tomorrow.  The hunters said that it was good hunting
country, with many streams and groves of dwarf willow from which the
women could gather generous supplies of sticks for burning and twigs for
the making of baskets.  They had killed moose there in the past, and
sloth and horse.  There were fish for the taking, and good birding.  Men
could hunt in the Land of Little Sticks for many days before being
forced to move on in search of fresh food supplies.

Then they would turn back.  Beyond the Land of Little Sticks the tundra
stretched away to the southernmost extension of the Mountains That Walk.
There, in a wall of ice two miles high and no man knew how many miles
wide, the world ended.

Or did it?  Torka closed his eyes.  Memories filled him, of a land that
Supnah, at Navahk's insistence, had refused to enter.  It lay behind
them now--or perhaps, as an eagle flies, it lay somewhere ahead, hidden
within the mountain vastness.  It was a river of grassland ten to twenty
miles wide, running due east between the towering, transversely aligned
glacier-ridden mountains.  Supnah had called it the Corridor of Storms.
Navahk had said that it was forbidden country, the realm of the wanawut,
the end of the world.  Yet, as Torka allowed the memory of that land to
grow within him, it was as though he stood again on the bare,
black-boned ridge looking down at an undulating sun-washed land so thick
with the first new grass of spring that it rippled in the wind like the
fur of a green animal.  And everywhere upon that land he saw herds of
grazing animals.  So many animals that he was overwhelmed by the hunting
potential of the land that was forbidden to Supnah's people.  Navahk had
said that it was the end of the world.  To Torka it seemed to hold the
promise of a new beginning.

He opened his eyes.  A mammoth trumpeted in the night.  Torka stared
into the darkness as the high, shrieking cry reverberated through a
thousand distant, unseen canyons.

Lonit stirred against him.  He drew her closer, listening as the last
echoings of the mammoth's cry faded into the night.

She sighed, awake now.  "Listen.  Did you hear it?  Was it Thunder
Speaker?  Was it Life Giver?"

Life Giver.  She called the great mammoth that.  No longer the
Destroyer.  It had killed their people and set them to wander alone. It
had killed the men of the Ghost Band, but it had turned away and allowed
Torka to keep his life when he had dared to place himself before its
charge to save the life of Karana.  No one could convince her that
something magic had not happened in that moment, that a covenant had not
been made between man and mammoth.  And although he claimed otherwise to
all who had witnessed that encounter, within the deepest recesses of his
spirit he knew that she was right.  He and the beast had been one in
that moment when life and death had hung in the balance.  He had not
thrown his spear, and the mammoth had not charged. The Destroyer had not
destroyed him; it had given him the gift of life instead, and in his
heart he had named it totem.  He would never hunt it, or its kind,
again.  "Life Giver is far away," he said to the woman in his arms.  "In
lands from which Supnah has led his people."

"There was game there.  Beyond the country where the Ghost Band died. In
the long land of grass between the Mountains That Walk.  There was much
game."  Her hand strayed upward across his chest, stroked him softly.
"The women say that if hunting is good, we will winter in the Land of
Little Sticks.  The women say that if the hunting is not good, we will
walk northward again, crossing the Plain of Many Waters, following Big
Milk River to winter at the place of the Great Gathering. It is far,
beyond the country of the Ghost Band.  Wallah, Grek's woman, says it is
a big camp.  Many bands come there in the last days of summer, to settle
in for the duration of the time of the long dark, to trade and share
news and to barter women and children and goods. Naiapi says that Supnah
gave her father a robe of bearskin, two of his best spears, and a
marmot-skin bag filled with his favorite fishing hooks in trade for her.
Naiapi is proud to speak of that and says that the Great Gathering is a
good camp.  Wallah says that there are games, much storytelling, and
competitions between the women to test their cooking and sewing skills.
But mostly, in the last of the days of light,

there is ... mammoth hunting."  She paused.  "Would Torka hunt mammoths
in the last of the days of light?"

"Torka will not hunt mammoths in days of light or darkness."

The answer was what she wanted to hear.  She lay quietly in his arms,
her hand continuing to stroke him.  "Navahk will be angry if Torka does
not hunt.  He will say that it is a bad thing for his people.  Supnah
will agree.  He will make you hunt."  "No matter what Torka does, or
does not do, Navahk will always say that it is a bad thing for his
people.  Supnah will always agree.  But no man will ever make Torka hunt
mammoths."

Her hand paused, lay open over his heart.  She moved closer, her bare
body suddenly tense against his.  "Navahk has looked at me again. Always
he looks at me.  Awake or asleep, even now, in Torka's arms, Lonit sees
his eyes and knows that if she stays within Supnah's band, Navahk will
have this woman behind Torka's back.  Again and again he has said that
this will be so, and if Torka tries to keep her, Supnah and his men will
turn upon him like wolves turn upon any member of their pack who breaks
favor with the head wolf!  They will drive him away or kill him.  And
without Torka, Lonit's spirit will not want to live!"  She pressed even
closer, trembling against him.  "Sometimes in the dark this woman dreams
of the faraway land of grass that lies between the Mountains That Walk.
She dreams of game walking into the face of the rising sun.  She dreams
of a land that is forbidden to Supnah's people, and she wishes that
Torka would lead her there, beyond the end of the world, away from
Navahk and out of a band that is not a good band for us."

Her words startled as much as pleased him.  Until this moment he had
been hesitant to share his decision to leave the band with her, knowing
that when the time came, she would follow him, but not without
apprehension and certainly not without regret.  "Lonit would leave this
band?"

"Lonit would leave it."

He moved to kiss her, in the way of the People--an exhalation of the
breath of his life into her nostrils.  She drew it into herself and,
with open lips, returned it to him with one of her own.  Her arms
reached to embrace him.  Her hands moved like a warm summer wind over
his back.  Her touch roused fire within his loins as she opened herself
to him, eagerly melding the heat of her passion with his.  Heat became
flame.

Together they were one, burning wild like a summer grass fire until the
fusion of their passions became molten, surged, and glowed, cooling at
last and sweeping them away into the warm black river of exhausted
sleep.

They awoke in the thin blue light of dawn and lay joined in each other's
arms at the edge of the river of sleep, listening to the sound of Summer
Moon sucking at a sleeping lana's breast and to the dry clacking of
bones as Aliga, who was already up and dressed and out of the shelter,
gleaned re burnable fragments from the fire circle and tossed them onto
a skin in which they would be wrapped and carried to the next camp.

Torka propped himself onto an elbow and looked down at his woman
lovingly.  Several strands of her long hair lay across her face.  He
reached to draw them tenderly away.  Smiling, she arrested his hand,
drew it to her lips, and kissed his palm.  Then, suddenly, her smile
vanished, and she hurled herself upward, throwing her arms around him,
holding him desperately.  "Lonit is Torka's woman.  Always and forever."

Her heart was beating like that of a terrified bird caught within a
snare net.  Gently he put his hands upon her shoulders and held her away
from him so that he might look into her face.  "Always and forever," he
said, wanting her to see the affirmation in his eyes.  He drew her
close, loving her more in this moment than words could ever say.  "Lonit
would not be afraid to walk the world alone with Torka, with only mute,
mindless lana to help her with Summer Moon?  To be without the
protection of a band again?"

She held onto him as though he had just pulled her from an icy river and
she was terrified that if she relaxed her grip, she would surely fall
into it again and be drowned.  "Lonit is afraid now!  There is more
danger to us here, within this band, than we ever faced alone upon the
open tundra!"

"Lonit speaks Torka's thoughts."

She relaxed instantly.  Releasing her grip, she looked at him with
hopeful incredulity.  "It is so?"

"It is so.  From this day Torka walks with Supnah's people no more!"

The band made no move to stop him.  They did not even ask him in which
direction he would go.  They watched as he helped his women break their
encampment and ready their
belongings for transport.  Only Naiapi came forward to help Lonit in a
poor pretense of friendliness.

Wallah, standing with her little daughter, Mahnie, puckered her lips as
though she had just eaten something sour.  "Look at that.  Glad to get
rid of the stranger's woman, Naiapi is.  Now she'll be free to look
hungry eyed at the magic man whenever his brother isn't around!"  When
Mahnie grimaced and snapped her head hard to the left, Wallah's round
face blushed as red as an autumn bearberry, and she silently cursed her
own thoughtlessness; two other little girls sat in the shade of her
lean-to, playing with dolls made of leftover fragments of skins from her
sewing bag.  She had invited the girls to play with Mahnie's dolls, and
there they sat: Ketti, Stam's little one, and Pet, daughter of Naiapi.
Ketti, as bright as a polished bone bead but not nearly as pretty, had
clapped a grubby little hand across her mouth to stifle her giggles.
Pet, as pretty as her friend was bright, stared at Wallah with hurt
puzzlement upon her face.

Wallah tittered, trying hard to sound innocent of her slur against the
child's mother.  "And don't we all cast a glance at Navahk when our men
aren't around!  As handsome as the first sunrise at the end of the time
of long dark is that one.  Perhaps someday he will choose one of you
girls to warm his bed skins, eh?  What an honor that would be!"

Little Pet's dirty face went as blank as a moss-haired doll as she threw
the lichen-stuffed figure of skins onto the ground and, rising, fled to
her own fire circle.

"She is afraid of the magic man, Mother!"  said Mahnie in the tone of an
adult reprimanding a child.

"Look!"  instructed Ketti, her small eyes wide as Karana burst from
Supnah's lean-to, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he strode across the
encampment, Aar at his side, and paused before Torka.  "There'll be
trouble now," whispered the girl.  Beside Wallah, Mahnie protectively
clutched her doll to her skinny little chest.

"Karana will go with Torka!"  the boy announced.

Supnah, standing with arms folded across his chest, stoically observing
Torka's preparations for departure from the band, frowned.  "Karana will
walk with his own people."

"Hrmmph!  Torka's people are Karana's people!"  replied the boy coldly.

From beside Supnah, Navahk's smile had never been broader

or more malicious.  "All three of them.  What an impressive band!"

Torka had been tightening the thongs that held his antlered stalking
cloak to his pack frame.  He straightened.  No wonder the magic man
smiled!  The look on Supnah's face was appalling.  Once again the
headman was shamed before his people; his son preferred to walk off in
to the unknown with a stranger rather than stay within his own band.

Torka fixed his gaze upon Karana, and as he spoke, the words half choked
him.  But he knew that Supnah was so engorged with jealous hatred that
he might well send the boy off and then, when his anger cooled, pick up
his spears and come after Torka to kill him and the boy.  And then
Navahk would have Lonit.  So he spoke the hated words and put such
strength and command in them that all who heard them winced and took an
inadvertent step back from the anger he was directing toward the
headman's son.  "What sort of boy is this who tells a man what to do?
Has Torka asked Karana to come with him?"

Karana blinked, startled, confused, and dismayed all at once.  "I--"

"No!  Torka did not ask Karana!  Nor would he have him!  This is
Karana's band!  These are Karana's people!  Torka has stayed with them
long enough.  It is time for him to take his women and child and walk
his own way, but not with Karana!"  He turned his gaze to Supnah.  "Why
does this boy hover in Torka's shadow like a gnat on a summer day? This
man has brought him to his people.  Now it is time for Supnah to swat
him into place so that he remembers always that he is a headman's son
who must show respect to his people and to their traditions!" Then, to
the boy again: "Go!  Take your place at your father's side!"

Karana was so shocked by Torka's hostility that he could not react to
it.  His hand reached to his shoulder, remembering the night on the
tundra when Torka had been so angry with him that he had shoved him
down.  But that had been between the two of them.  This was different.
Now he had made a display of his anger for all to see.  The boy's face
burned with shame, but only when Torka shouted "Go!"  once more did
Karana obey.

For three days Torka led his little band north, then east, toward the
Mountains That Walk, avoiding the barrens through
which they had come with Supnah.  With Sister Dog and the pups at her
heels, Aliga walked with them, for although Torka had given her the
opportunity to stay, without a man to hunt for her, she would surely
have starved in the lean, dark days of winter.

It rained on the fourth day and again on the fifth.  The rain beat in
Torka's heart.  He missed Karana and brooded over the way they had been
forced to part.  Perhaps when the boy became a man, he would understand
that Torka had acted for the good of all.

In a sodden camp, while Aliga, lana, and the baby slept, Torka listened
to dire wolves howling in the distant hills and briefly wondered if he
had done the right thing.

"Those wolves," said Lonit, "are more constant and trustworthy
companions than the ones we left behind who walked upright on two legs."

"And Karana?"

She heard the longing in his voice and shared it.  "He will live in this
woman's heart forever."

Restless, he stood in the rain, looking eastward, thinking: If Karana
truly has the gift of Seeing, see now into this man's heart.  Know to
what land Torka would lead his people and come to us there.  Come to the
river of grass that runs between the Mountains That Walk.  Come to the
end of the world to be a son to this man again.

"Come."  Lonit's whisper startled him.  Her hand rested gently on his
forearm, drawing him back into the shelter of the lean-to.  "This woman
and this man will make a new son."

And so they traveled for many days under clearing skies, with Aliga
seining for fish in rain-swollen creeks and Lonit hunting beside Torka
with her four-thonged bola of braided sinew, with weights contrived of
the strange shells of stone that they had gathered in a far land.

The tundra was adorned with summer color by the time they reached their
destination and made camp amid mountain avens, heather, and flame weed
in the high, bony foothills that Torka remembered.  Night was little
more than twilight now.  Mammoths called to one another within deep,
ice-gouged canyons.  And into one such cleft in the bare bones of Mother
Below, Torka led his women through familiar corridors of stone, higher
and higher, until, at last, with the dogs panting at their side, they
reached the crest of a wide, black ridge and looked down at the end of
the world, at
the Corridor of Storms, at the river of grass that ran toward the face
of the rising sun for thousands of miles between the soaring, glistening
blue walls of mountains that towered two miles high.

These were the Mountains That Walk.  This was the end of the world. And
as Torka led his people into it, the dogs ran forward, alerted to the
barking of one of their own kind, and Torka paused to see a small,
fur-clad figure walking toward him with a spear in his hand.

It was Karana.

He was smiling.  "What took you so long?"  he asked.  "This boy and his
Brother Dog have been waiting many days to be reunited with their
father."

PART II.

CHILD OF MIST,

MOUNTAIN OF FIRE

They ran together against the wind, into the high, tangled refuge of the
glacier-ridden mountains where they had always found safety from the
beasts before.  But there would be no safety for them now.  They were
alone, a mother and a child, and although they were well into the
mountains, the beasts were still following, matching them step for step,
climbing out of the tundral lowlands like a howling, yipping pack of
blood-maddened dire wolves.

The mother stumbled.  She gasped against the pain of a wound that she
had managed to conceal from the child until now.  Blood bubbled at the
back of her throat.  Welling from her thorax, it filled her mouth and
seeped in rivulets from the corners of her lips.

The child smelled the hot redness of it.  It stared, startled, its gray
eyes wide with disbelief.  Bending close, it mewed with concern and
tenderly reached to wipe the blood away.

The mother stayed the gentle, caring hand.  There was no time for
tenderness.  The beasts were closing on them.  She forced herself to
rise, spat out a mouthful of blood, and pulled her child on.

And on.  Higher into the mountains, deeper into the familiar
labyrinthine canyons that cleft the sprawling, glacier straddled range.
The air was cold.  Gray and bitter with the scent of ice and shadows, it
was nonetheless sweet to the mother's pain-ravaged senses, for it was
the smell of home.  Now she took comfort in the knowledge that the way
she had chosen was proving too difficult for the beasts.  The distance
between prey and predators was increasing.  As she had hoped, the
beasts, being creatures of the open tundra, were intimidated by the
soaring walls of stone and ice across which she
led her child with the sure, fleet-footed abandon of a mountain ewe.

At last, light-headed from pain, exhaustion, and loss of blood, she
paused and looked back from the spine of a bare, precipitous ridge.
Beneath wide, prominent brows, her pale eyes squinted against the sun's
glare.  Although each ragged suck of breath seared her senses, her mouth
curved into a smile of satisfaction.  She could see no sign of the
beasts.  Far below, the vast, rolling tundral hills lay awash in the
green gold glow of spring.  Suspended between the earth and the savage
blue of the cloudless Arctic sky, a tera torn shrieked as it spread its
huge, condor like wings and rode the wind into infinity.

Upon the heights the wind was a constant tide sweeping across the
mountains from the north.  The mother breathed in, tensing against pain
as she held the wind captive, then released it slowly through her
nostrils and analyzed every cold, invisible fiber of it.  If the beasts
were still close enough to pose a threat, the wind would tell her; she
would smell the warm, ochre odor of their soft, oiled flesh.  Her belly
would turn, as it always did, at their rank brown stink.

Beside her the child sighed with exhaustion and leaned into her
powerfully muscled, gray-furred limb.  A strange, bewildering weariness
was filling.  her  Her heart was beating erratically as, with her free
hand, she stroked the head of her little one, soothing it.  The wind
bore no discernible scent or sound of the beasts; her touch conveyed
this to the child.  It relaxed at her side, comforted by the knowledge
that, somewhere at the base of the ridge, the beasts had abandoned the
chase.  Mother and child were alone upon the mountain now, safe from
prey that had unexpectedly become predacious and nearly home from a hunt
that had gone so terribly, unpredictably wrong.

She shivered.  Her memories were misted now, bitter, recalling a time
when the child was but an infant .. . when she had first learned what
the beasts and their flying sticks could do.  Visions filled her head..
.. Howling beasts driving her family ahead of them into a dead-end
canyon with cold stone walls through which they could not flee .. .
flying sticks and yipping beasts and crying babies and blood .. . being
pushed hard against the wall as the dead fell against her and the dying
screamed .. . her mate somehow pulling her and the child away from the
carnage, through a narrow
fissure in the stone that scraped their bodies raw as they forced their
way through it and into the dark heart of the mountain.

The sound of death had followed them as they went on until the mountain
turned to ice beneath their probing feet.  Suddenly the ice gave way,
and they fell into rushing water so cold that it was fire against their
scraped and bleeding skin.  She had held onto the child, and her mate
had held onto her, and together they were swept away through underground
corridors of absolute blackness, into the roaring channels of a river
that ran beneath the glacier.

Gradually the world had turned gray, then blue as the river carried them
into the light of day to a strange land, far away to new hunting
grounds.  To a new range of mountains where, after many days of sun and
many nights of endless dark, her mate died and their child grew strong.

They wintered with bears and voles and marmots in the deep, sheltering,
wind-protected canyons of the mountain, sleeping away the time of the
long dark, dreaming of the return of the great herds upon which they
would feed through the days of endless sun.

But with the herds came the beasts with their flying sticks.  In the
skins of the animals that they killed and ate, the beasts hunted in
packs like dogs and wolves.  The mother and child had watched them from
the heights, curious and amazed as they surrounded entire herds of musk
oxen and killed them to the last calf.  Working together, they drove
bawling, panicked herds of bison and caribou over obstacles of their own
devising and then slaughtered every animal that fell to injury. Like
lions, they dragged their prey away from the killing site; unlike lions,
they fed upon only a portion of what they killed and left the rest for
scavengers.

And so it was that she and the child, along with wolves, wild dogs,
leaping cats, and foxes, began to follow the beasts across the summer
tundra to feed upon their leavings.  And when they were careless or
abandoned their weak and young to die, she fed upon them, as her kind
had always done; only now their meat was the sweetest meat of all to
her, and when she ate of it, she remembered the way her band had died
and how she had been warned long ago that wherever her kind lived, the
beast would either run from them or seek them out and kill them with
their flying sticks..  ..

Now, as her weary eyes scanned the tundra, she was
puzzled.  Where were the herds?  They had vanished at the onset of the
time of the long dark.  Ever-moving in their constant quest for food,
vast, rive ring herds of bison, camel, and elk, of musk ox, horse, and
mammoth, and of moose, yak, and caribou had always returned to graze the
seas of summer grass and tundral scrub.  Their antlers, tusks, and horns
pricked the horizon of the Ice Age world like a forest of living bones
on the move.  But the time of light had returned to the tundra, and
still they had not come.  The time of the long dark had seemed longer
than usual this year.  The beasts had returned to the tundra to wait for
the coming of the great herds, as she herself waited, with wolves and
lions, and a winter-lean child that needed to be.  fed.

Thus she had come to hunt the beasts, certain that she was well out of
range of their throwing sticks.  But when she had noticed the straggler,
hunger had made her bold; hunger and the hatred she bore for their kind.
When they saw her leap at her prey, the other members of the pack had
not run away; they howled and stomped and shook their sticks at her. Yet
she had sensed more fear than hostility.  Only one of them, who walked
ahead of the others, had hurled a stick at her. That one had been
encased within the white belly skins of winter-killed caribou, and its
narrow, hideous face was bald except for a lateral strip of white fur
that encircled its elongated brow.  Black hair grew in abundance upon
its skull, falling downward over its back to its knees; rather like the
mane of a horse, yet so thick and glossy that, at first, she had thought
the beast possessed wings and would fly at her.  It had thrown its stick
instead.  And the stick had flown with the speed of a plummeting eagle
attacking its prey.  But the attempt had gone wide, striking the
straggler instead, making her kill easier.

Any other animal would have backed away then, granting deference to a
superior hunter, allowing her to take what she had slain.  But again the
beasts had howled and stomped and shaken their sticks at her, and then,
led by the one in white skins, they had advanced even though she waved
her fists and displayed her teeth to warn them away.  The entire pack
had run like bears moving downhill, crouched forward, heads out,
forelimbs dangling.  They were dangerous, unpredictable creatures, but
she knew their ways and was not afraid.  Then the beast in the white
belly skins had stood erect, reared
back, and hurled yet another stick, screaming like a bull mammoth.

Never had she seen a stick fly so far or so fast or with so much power.
It had struck her before she could turn away.  The child had not seen it
happen; she had sent the little one running ahead when the beasts had
not fled from her.  Her cry had been more an exhalation of surprise than
of pain.  That had come later, after she fled..  ..

A single sharp, bright tangle of red pain put an end to her thoughts.
She felt as though the core of her body was filled with molten light. It
pooled outward and filled every portion of her body, expanding with
excruciating brilliance within her head.  Then it ebbed like a river at
full flood, flowing backward into the stone-headed tip of the flying
stick that was embedded all too close to her heart.

She shivered.  Her heart lurched, then beat madly as the stone tip
invaded it and drew blood.  Unable to pull the stick from her chest, she
had broken it instead, leaving its stone tip buried within her breast.
She could feel it now, the source of her pain and bleeding as it worked
deeper and deeper .. . into her heart.

There was no pain, only coldness.  She was desperately in need of rest
as, with her free hand, she nudged the child.  They went downward now,
into the narrows of a dark, spruce shaded ravine.  Soon they would be
home.  Soon they would rest together within their nest of branches,
bones, and lichens.  Soon they would feed upon the forelimb and head of
the beast, which she had managed to rip from its body before the others
of its pack had driven her from her decapitated kill.

She was suddenly warm with hunger and intensely aware of myriad,
multicolored scents of the mountain: time-scoured rock and alpine
glaciers ... a pair of marmots cautiously observing from beneath the
protection of a lichen-flowered boulder ... a wolverine prowling far
below the ridge .. .

Despite her weakness she still clutched the forelimb, carrying it tucked
high beneath her thickly furred upper arm while the straggler's head
dangled from her hand by its hair.  Both would nourish her child while
she herself rested and recovered.  When stripped of the skins of dead
animals in which it covered itself, the meat of the beast man was the
best meat of all.

"Let it go, Navahk.  It and its little one.  Let it die.  // it can
die."

Grek's voice was an imperative whisper, yet it struck his fellow hunters
as though he had screamed.  They murmured, intimidated by his audacity
and by their surroundings.  Mountains were not a place for men.
Nevertheless, Grek was risking the anger of the magic man by urging him
to turn back from his purpose.

"Navahk--your brother, Supnah, is dead.  We will die, too, if we go on.
Let us go back now, before the wind spirits kill us because we have
succeeded in spearing one of their own."

"We?"  The magic man turned with the sharpness of movement of a man in
his prime.  In garments cut entirely from the white, silken belly skins
of winter-killed caribou, he seemed larger than his followers, although
he was actually smaller and leaner.  Starving times had threatened his
people twice in the three long years since Torka had left their band,
but the cutting edge of hunger had only sharpened and more fully defined
his beauty.  His body and face were still as finely honed as the most
perfectly chiseled spearhead .. . and as hard and as dangerous.  He
looked at the older, stockier hunter out of eyes that were as black as
obsidian, as if measuring whether Grek was worthy of his contempt.  "It
was the spear of Navahk that struck the killer of my brother.  Would
Grek, would any man, contest that?"

They would not.  Navahk's spear hurler had loosed the weapon that had
struck the wind spirit and driven it away from Supnah's mutilated body.
The had all seen it: Grek and Stam, Mond and Het, and aging, albeit
still wiry-legged, Rhik.  They had also seen Navahk's first throw miss
its intended target and strike the headman instead.  It was this
wounding that had made the hapless Supnah unable to escape the wind
spirit.

The creature's first attack had been a sudden, bold leap out of the
willow scrub in which it had lain in wait for unwary prey.  A heavy
ground fog lay upon the tundra.  The hunters waded through it, knee
deep, as though through the shallows of a river.  As Supnah had paused
to relieve himself, the wind spirit had hurled itself at him.  It was
the wanawut of legend and nightmare, the beast that no men saw unless
they were marked for death at its hands.  With one terrible, ripping
swipe, it had torn the headman's arm from his body.  But Supnah was
strong and quick and unwilling to die.  With
blood spurting from his horrendous wound, he had run with a speed fueled
by panic until Navahk's spear had struck him.  He had fallen with the
wanawut at his heels, and Navahk, raging in anguish, had then made his
second throw.  It was this spear that had struck the spirit's hairy,
grotesquely human torso.  It had been shaking huge, hirsute fists at
them and displaying canines that rivaled those of the feared saber
toothed leaping cats.  Its hairless chest had been bared to them, with
two spatulate breasts swinging.  When Navahk's spear had found its mark,
the men had cheered even though Supnah was dead by then, his head torn
from his body.

Their cheering had stopped as abruptly as it had begun.  The wind spirit
did not die.  They watched in silence as, shrieking, it ran off after
its child.  Navahk had struck it a heart wounding, but still it ran!
Sobered, they remembered that men could not kill spirits.  That was why
only Navahk had done a forbidden thing and risked loosing his spears
against the creature that had killed his brother.  If the spirits turned
upon him, perhaps Navahk, as magic man, could fight them in ways that
other men could not.

Now, as Grek deferred to Navahk with a grunt and a nod, he knew that the
magic man was justifiably mad with grief and rage and, yes, shame for
his failure to save his brother's life.  If Navahk insisted upon
following wind spirits, he and this small group of the band's bravest
hunters would shadow him, ready to spring to his defense, until his
madness passed, lest the wanawut fall upon Navahk and deprive the band
of its magic man.  Navahk had been brave this day.  They owed him an
equal display of courage.  Although all of them would have preferred to
turn and flee from the mountainous realm of wind spirits, their pride
kept them at Navahk's heels .. . pride and the knowledge that Navahk's
powers were great and that he was not a forgiving man.

In the shadowed narrows of the cold, spruce-choked ravine, the child
crouched over its mother.  With wide, long, hairy fingers, it mewed with
compassion as it probed the extent of its parent's devastating wound.
Blood was everywhere, darkening her chest, forming a black skin over her
bare breasts, and bubbling in a warm, pulsing spring around the child's
fingertips as it pinched at the stem of the spearhead, trying in vain to
dislodge it.

Once again the mother stayed the child's gentle hand.  The
little one was too cautious, too afraid to be the cause of pain.  The
mother's massive, hirsute hand formed a fist around the projecting end
of the shaft.  She must be rid of it; it was the source of her pain, and
to be free of her agony, she must first increase it.  Her powerfully
muscled arm, apelike in proportion to her broad, foreshortened torso,
wrenched the spearhead free, hefting it high. Colors flared, merged, and
became one searing flame of white.  Her pain neither decreased nor
increased; instead, she grew smaller, fell into it somehow, and became
the pain.  Disoriented, as frightened and confused as her child, she
howled as though in supplication to the bright hole in the springtime
sky.  It seemed to be sucking her upward, out of her body, drawing her
into distances where the teratorns had flown and disappeared.

The child cowered.  Beneath its sloping, bony brow, its small, gray eyes
were wide.  Fear and perplexity lived in them.  Its mother had never
made such a sound before.  Suddenly the contorted body went limp. The
spearhead fell to the ground.  The mother stared, gaping at the sky, not
breathing.

The child jumped away, then ventured close.  It picked up the bloodied
spearhead, sniffed it, cut its soft, hairless palm on the sharp edges of
the flat bit.  of stone, and cried out, dropping it.  The child whined a
little to itself, sucking its wound and wondering why its mother did not
rise to offer comfort.  It bent over her and sniffed her open mouth.
Bewildered, it breathed into her.  She did not breathe back.  Puzzled,
it hunkered on its strong, gray-furred limbs and whimpered, then
carefully picked up the projectile and reinserted it into its mother's
gaping wound.  It still bled, but thickly, smoothly, no longer pulsing.
The child pressed the spearhead deep, as though the killing stone might
somehow draw death back into itself and thus restore life to the mother.

A cold wind gusted through the narrow, stunted, misshapen trees of the
spruce grove.  Although the naked child was as heavily furred as its
dead mother, it shivered.  Unable to rouse its parent, it made a series
of high, thin little shrieks of near panic, then fell to silence,
listening.  Its head turned upward upon its thick, maned neck, and it
sniffed the air with broad nostrils that flared beneath the elongated
bridge of a nose that gave its heavy-jawed face an almost bearlike
appearance.

Beasts.

The child could smell and hear them.  They were ascending the ridge.
Soon they would stand high above the ravine, beneath the hole in the
sky.  Then they would descend into the gorge, where beasts had never
dared to come .. . into the high vastnesses of the tortured ranges where
their kind were unknown .. . where the child had been safe with its
mother until now.

Mother.  Safe.  The child began to whimper again.  The beasts were
coming, with their flying sticks and stones that cut flesh and took away
the breath of living beings.  Of mother.  How could the child put the
breath back into her, if not through the offending stone?  It jabbed it
in and out, in and out, desperate now.  The mother must breathe, must be
roused, to show the child what to do and where to hide, for surely the
arms of her little one were not strong enough to rip the beasts limb
from limb, nor were the clawed fingers and stabbing canines of the child
long enough to open their bellies or slash their hairless throats in
order to suck them dry of blood.  This was the way of the hunt, but the
mother had just begun to teach the child.  This was the way to defend
against predators, but the mother had always defended the little one.
Always.  Alone, the child had no defense--none except its raw instinct
for survival, and in this, the child was strong.

The beasts were close now.  Through the deep-green shadows of the trees,
it could see straight up along the wall of the gorge.  Stone and ice
reached to the sky.  The beasts stood high above, upon the ridge,
blocking the light given off by the hole in the sky.  The child shivered
so hard that it was afraid the beasts would hear; but they were
vocalizing in the odd way of their kind, briefly and in whispers, as
though to prevent the child, with its small, intricately lobed, batlike
ears, from hearing them.  It heard them clearly; it could even hear the
turn of a larva wriggling within the skin of the land. Although language
was alien to its kind, it sensed their intent.

Panic screamed for release, momentarily winning over judgment as the
little one screeched an echo of its mother's dying howl.  "Wah nah wa!
Wah nah wut!"  The sound had that deep, flat resonance of a creature
twice the size of the child and a thousand times more dangerous.  It was
the roar of a trapped lion, of an enraged bear, of a wind spirit
shrieking

across the world--a threat of power that would not come to fulfillment
until the child was grown.

In spite of his multilayered garments, Grek was colder than he had ever
been in his life.  In a meticulously stitched patchwork of the skins of
caribou, hare, dog, wolf, bear, and yak, he stood beneath the oblique
glow of the springtime sun and was as cold as if he stood naked in the
depths of the storms of the winter dark.

The voice of the wind spirit reverberated within the gorge.  Grek could
not tell if it was the sound of one creature or a dozen.  It rose from
the darkness, from the lake of shadows far below.  Trees rose from that
lake, and Grek, a man of the barren tundra, did not like trees,
especially when they formed groves.  Predators could hide within the
woods, and the trees were conspirators with them, concealing them.  A
man was at risk when he walked among trees, and it seemed to Grek that
the trees knew it as they stood as tall as a man, many armed, their
twisted bodies stinking of pitch and needlelike foliage palatable only
to mammoths--and to wind spirits; they were creatures of the mountain
groves, of the misted heights where the people of Grek's band never
ventured.  Until now.

"To go farther .. . this will not be good."  Grek's statement was spoken
casually.  It was not 'the way of his people to reveal the depth of
their inner feelings, and it was not the way of any man of any band to
admit to fear.  Now that Supnah was dead, Grek was almost certain to be
named headman when he returned to the encampment of his people.  His
woman, Wallah, would smile and say that this was only as it should be,
and his daughter, Mahnie, would be
Kroud.  When Supnah's daughter, Pet, came to her womanhood, she would
come to share Grek's bed skins and dwell once again at the fire of
headman of the band.  These prospects were pleasing to Grek; the
prospect of the gorge was not.  But if he wanted to be named headman of
his people, he must display no fear of it.

Nevertheless, he was afraid, of the mountains, the trees, the shadowed
gorge into which the wind spirit had fled with its little one, and of
Navahk, who still had the madness of pursuit in him.

At first it had seemed to be a maned man clad in the skin of a strange,
never-before-seen kind of bear; but it was too massively boned for a
man, and it leaped and ran with the
power and speed of a lion.  When it had stood over Supnah's corpse, they
had seen that it was naked, furred, female, and more terrifying than any
beast that stalked a hunter's dreams to mock his boldness.  It was its
striking similarity to themselves that roused a terrible outrage within
them because somehow it was not a beast.  It was human, and yet not
human.

Apprehension in their dark eyes, the hunters looked at Navahk, then at
Grek.  Their silence conceded leadership to the older man.  It was a
sudden and unexpectedly heavy burden, as though they had slung the
invisible carcass of a slain bison upon his back and now waited to see
if he could carry its weight alone.

At this moment Grek was no longer certain that he wanted to be headman.
His fellow hunters wanted to go back; the magic man wanted to go on. If
he spoke for the hunters and against the magic man, he was certain that
Navahk would accuse them all of being fearful and would never approve of
Grek being chosen as headman.  If he sided with Navahk against the
hunters and urged them to go on, they would have to face their fear or
be shamed by it; either way, they would never forgive him for forcing
them to make such a choice.  If they survived their encounter with the
wind spirits within the gorge, they would not elect Grek to lead them.
They would boast of their bravery, and when the time came to choose a
new headman, they would turn their backs upon Grek and name one of their
own number.  That man would have the right to bring Supnah's women to
his own fire and Pet to his bed skins.  Grek would have to turn away in
silence and see the disappointment in his own woman's eyes.

The older man scowled, drawing the back of a brown, unsteady hand across
his mouth.  He had already challenged Navahk once and had been ignored.
He understood why the magic man wanted to risk his life and the lives of
the hunters to take his brother's head and arm back from the wanawut
that had stolen them--without its head, Supnah's body could not be laid
out to look upon the sky; without an arm, his spirit could not hunt in
the spirit world until it was ready to be reborn into the band through
the birth of a new child.  In time, when what was left of Supnah's body
was consumed by predators, the wind would transform his spirit into a
crooked spirit, a ghost that would haunt those who had failed to
retrieve its head and arm, a phantom that would tear them

limb from limb as Supnah had been torn.  Not one of them would be born
again.  They would wander the wind forever, and future generations would
forget that they had ever lived at all.

Navahk had told them how it would be.  He had said that in his dream
times, when he walked with spirits, they revealed their world to him. It
was a desolate, lonely world that no man would wish to enter, except for
a magic man who must commune with the spirits on behalf of his band.

Frustration pricked Grek.  Navahk was responsible for Supnah's death. It
was his spear that had flown wide, causing his brother to fall prey to
the wanawut.  And it was Navahk who had wounded the wind spirit, causing
it to flee into the mountains with Supnah's head and arm.  By right, the
responsibility and the risk for reclaiming his brother's parts should be
his.

Yet what was a band without a magic man?  Weak.  Vulnerable to the whims
of the weather spirits, unable to anticipate the coming and going of the
game or to protect itself against the vengeance of the crooked spirits
of its members when they came from the spirit world to take the lives of
those who had prevented them from being reborn into the world of men.

This spring the great herds of grazing animals had not returned to the
tundra.  The newborns were crying with hunger, and mothers had little
milk for them.  The People had been reduced to living off birds and
vermin, camping closer to the mountain realm of the wind spirits than
they would normally have dared, so that they might set snares for
marmots and dig pit traps for sheep and wolves and bears.  It was
dangerous hunting, and their rewards had been small.  It was not a time
to offend the spirits of the mountains or to leave the mutilated corpse
of their slain headman to become a crooked spirit.

Grek sucked in a deep yet reluctant breath.  His course was clear now:
For the good of the band, for Wallah and Mahnie, and with the hope of a
future relationship with Pet, Navahk must be followed and protected as
he challenged the wind spirits.  The band must have its magic man.  And
if Grek were going to be headman, this was the time to take the lead.

Having accepted it, the weight of responsibility seemed lighter;
although, for the first time, he knew that authority was not without
disadvantages.  As he spoke with the unfamiliar tone of command, he saw
the expressions on the faces of his fellow hunters harden toward him.
"We will walk with Navahk into the shadow lake of spirits. Together we
will bring back the head and arm of Supnah."

Grek was as startled as the others when Navahk turned abruptly and, with
a single word, robbed him of command.  "No, he hissed.  His face was
raptorial, black eyes fixed upon them, broad mouth set.  "I am Navahk,
magic man.  I alone walk the spirit world.  No man may follow."

The child held its breath.  Through the green, fragrant spruce boughs,
it could see that one of the beasts was descending into the ravine. The
others, remaining where they were, still blocked the light of day; and
yet somehow the beast that was coming closer walked in the light, as
though the radiance of a winter moon emanated through his body and
shimmered in the white skins.  That which had seemed ugly and repulsive
from a distance was transposed into beauty within the eyes of the
watching child.  There was a lithe, fluid grace to the beast's
movements, a raw, savage tension in the way he held his head.  He was
like a white lion walking upright, picking his way downward along the
dangerous, precipitous face of the gorge.  The child sensed his intent.
Danger walked in the skin of the beast.

Navahk paused in his descent of the wall of stone.  This was the abode
of wind spirits, yet the wind was absent.  Within the gorge the air was
heavy, cold, unnaturally still.  He could smell blood and death in the
shadowed depths, and he smiled, pleased.  High above, Grek and his
fear-wracked companions stood watching.  What gullible, easily
manipulated fools they were to believe that the creatures they pursued
were somehow more than mere flesh and blood and bone.  Whatever they
were--and Navahk had never seen their kind before-they were not spirits.
Spirits were things of wind and air, clouds that formed in the substance
of men's minds and drifted through their dreams to gnaw upon their
reason.  Spirits did not bleed.  They did not cry out against pain or
flee in blind panic, leading their pursuers to their lair.

Navahk's smile widened.  Whatever the beast was that had attacked his
brother, it was so devastated by its injury that its poor judgment had
betrayed it.  Navahk would seek it out and, if it was not already dead,
he would kill it.  And its child.  As he had killed his brother.

Now Navahk's smile flexed against memories.  Supnah had always been the
superlative hunter, so powerful and fast that he could run down a
fleeing horse or antelope.  Navahk knew that Supnah's wound would have
healed in time.  Afterward, although maimed, Supnah would have been held
in awe for having survived an attack by a wind spirit.  Men would have
hunted for him; women would have vied for the honor of sharing his bed
skins.  Word of his miraculous encounter with the beast would have
spread from band to band until his reputation outshone that of his
younger brother.

Navahk frowned.  He could not have allowed that to happen.  As magic man
he had worked too hard and too long to maintain the subtle balance that
allowed him to be the driving force behind the band.  As headman Supnah
controlled the band.  As magic man Navahk controlled Supnah.  It had
been a comfortable arrangement until Torka had come to the band and
caused Supnah to challenge his brother.

Even though Navahk had succeeded in driving Torka away, increasingly
there had been bad blood between the brothers.  Now that starving times
had returned to the band once again--despite the best of Navahk's
chanting and dancing--it would have been only a matter of time before
Supnah saw into Navahk's heart and, recoiling, stripped him of his
status.  He had nearly done it once before.  Three long years had passed
since that night, but Navahk had not forgotten the heat of the feast
fire before which his brother had shamed him by suggesting that Torka
become magic man.  Had Torka not refused, Navahk might well have been
driven from the band.  He trembled with rage at the memory, which had
fed upon his pride for too many years.

So when the wind spirit had leaped at Supnah out of the mists, Navahk
had deliberately aimed wide.  He had feigned remorse when his spear had
struck his brother squarely in the back, and he had loosed a cry when
Supnah had fallen and the beast had hurled itself upon him.  As his
fellow hunters had howled and stamped their feet and ineffectively
threatened with their spears, Navahk had known that they would make no
move to help his brother; they were terrified of what might happen to
their own hides.

Wind slurred briefly in the gorge, stirring the treetops that created
the surface of the shadow lake below.  Was it the wind?  No--something
moved within the shadows.  Navahk's mouth pressed against his serrated
teeth.  Again he caught the
smell of blood and death, and he felt the eyes of something watching
him.  Something ... or someone?

His mind was filled with the image of the beast that had straddled the
fallen body of his brother.  Never, even at the heights of image-making
that he reached during the telling of his tales, or in the worst of the
childhood nightmares that had often sent him bolting upward out of his
dreams, had he seen anything to equal it.  It had stared at him out of
eyes that were the color of gray mist, out of a face that was neither
beast nor human but something in between.  And, unable to look away,
unable to move, he had stared back, appalled by its ugliness, enthralled
by its physical power.

Incredibly, he had been aroused by it.  It was female.  The awe she
inspired reminded him of Sondahr, the magic woman who had stayed with
his band long ago.  Old Beksem, the band's master of magic and
deception, had died just before her mystical arrival in the aura of
assurance that surrounded her as visibly and impressively as her cloak,
which was sewn entirely of the black and white flight feathers of the
giant tera torn  She had singled Navahk out so that he might learn from
her and share the secrets of shamanism.  Her teachings had been planned
to summon up both man and mystic from within the body of the youth,
challenging, nurturing, and inspiring.

But he had always been frustrated by her because he could never fully
satisfy himself upon her body and could only grasp inferences of the
complexity of her spirit as she spoke to him of good and evil, light and
dark, blood and water, fire and ice, earth and sky, and meat and grass.
And she would speak of men--men of flesh, and men of spirit. She said
that the latter were rare, able to transcend their bodies and walk the
world of dreams, where they communed with the spirits of all things,
animate and inanimate, living and dead.  He asked her if she was a
spirit woman, and when she said yes, he said that he would be a spirit
man.

Sondahr was mother, sister, lover, and prodder to him.  She posed
endless riddles but never told him if his answers were correct.  She
taught him the chants and magic that called upon the spirits of the game
to come to die upon the spears of the hunters of his band.  It was so
for her but not for him, and when he grew restless and frustrated, she
gave neither rebuke nor encouragement.  He watched her bring forth
babies from women whose time was at hand.  He witnessed the way she
expelled evil spirits from the sick and sang sad, gentle songs of
mourning with the old who knew that death was near.  He had little
concern for learning these things.  Seeing this, she told him that a
shaman must be a living fire for his people, to brighten and clarify the
clouded world of the men of flesh.  A band without a shaman was a band
that must live in darkness.

He had grown impatient with her words about spirits and shamanistic
light and asked her to tell him instead about the powers of magic.  She
told him that magic was a false and distorted thing and that a magic man
who was not also a shaman was a man of smoke; he blinded those who would
be warmed by his fire so that they could not see where, or to what, he
was leading them.  She had made him know that all his skills would
amount to nothing when compared to what they might be if he were a man
of spirit instead of flesh.

Those were her last words to him.  Like a late-summer mist that lay upon
the tundral lake at dawn and was gone by noon, she vanished.  She had
lain with his brother before she had left the band, to honor its
headman, to give to him the gift of her presence, and to leave with him
a feather from her cloak as a token of her favor.  To Navahk she had
left nothing but shame, for when Supnah had given him the sacred
medicine bag of Beksem shortly after Sondahr's departure, thus bestowing
upon him the rank and responsibility of magic man, he had worn Sondahr's
feather in his hair.  Navahk had known then that dull, uncomplicated
Supnah had pleased and satisfied Sondahr when he, Navahk, had failed. He
had hated her for that..  ..

Memories pricked behind his eyelids like the beaks of carrion-eating
birds.  Everyone loved his brother.  People followed Supnah as naturally
as grazing animals followed the greening grass of summer. The steady
warmth of his nature was like an inner sun that drew the loyalty of
women and fellowship of men while, for all of Navahk's cleverness and
extraordinary handsomeness, women feared him as much as they desired
him, and men tended to be wary of him, observing him from a distance.

Navahk hated his brother for this.  He had hated him since the death of
their parents, when Navahk was sent to share the fire of old Beksem.
Supnah, already a young man, had a woman and a fire of his own.  The boy
begged to live with him, but Beksem had chosen him to be the future
magic man
of the band.  This was an honor, although Navahk had not wanted it then.
Old Beksem had used him as other men used their women.  Supnah was
oblivious to his brother's plight, and Navahk would not be further
shamed by speaking of it.  As the years passed, he found other ways to
deal with his disgrace: by humiliating others and by learning to make
them fear his magic.  This was when he came to realize that his
brother's status was nothing when compared to the power that was held in
the hands of a magic man.

When old Beksem continued to use him into manhood, Navahk
surreptitiously fed him contaminated portions of the spleens and livers
of carnivorous animals.  The old man died slowly of the poison.  Navahk
had smiled; he liked to kill.  He had wanted to kill Sondahr and Supnah
when he saw her bright feather shining in his brother's hair, but he
contrived a new and better game--finding perverse pleasure in
insidiously undercutting his brother's natural dignity and gradually
overshadowing his status.

Everything had gone according to plan until Supnah's first woman had
died and he had bartered several of the band's superfluous females in
exchange for a new woman, whom he adored.  She was a virgin.  Violating
all taboos, Navahk had secretly entered the small, conical hut of
purification that the women had raised for her.  There the intended
bride of Supnah sat naked for the entire cycle of a single moon, amid
smokes of wormwood and fragrant grasses, cleansing her body and spirit,
preparing herself to enter a new life and to put her girlhood behind.

He had not desired her; he had desired to possess and impregnate that
which was to have been solely Supnah's.  He whispered that his body was
not his own but that of a spirit hunter who walked the wind, entering
the bodies of living men in order to enjoy the bodies of living women.
He told her that she must yield or be consumed in the fire of the
spirit's anger.  He warned her that to speak of the mating, even in her
dreams, would result in her becoming barren forever.  Her eyes, brown
and soft, had gone wild with terror as she had spread herself for him.

The fear in her eyes had aroused him--that and the thought of Supnah, in
his own pit hut, longing to lie with her, to bloody himself with her
virginity even as Navahk was secretly taking it for himself.  He had
laughed to think of it and had pierced the girl with no concern for her
pain as he whipped

himself into a frenzied passion, riding her to heights of ecstasy that
he had not thought possible.

Again and again Navahk secretly entered the hut of purification and lay
with Supnah's bride, thinking of his brother's disappointment when he at
last penetrated his new woman only to find that she was not tight around
his shaft but as pliable as an old skin basket.  But the moment of
victory never came.  Supnah's bride had used female trickery so that her
husband was given no cause to suspect that he was not the first to lie
with her.  As the woman swelled with life, Supnah spoke often of his
love for her, and when she looked at him, he saw his love reflected. The
woman had not looked at Navahk like that.  She spurned him, and months
later, when her child was born and Navahk prowled close to see what he
had spawned, she warned him away.  She called the magic man ugly and
devious and misshapen.  Then she held up her beautiful son, Karana, and
said that in the infant's face she learned the truth of Navahk's
treachery.  Karana was his son, not put into her by any spirit, but by a
brother who, for all his beauty, was not fit to walk in Supnah's shadow.

Karana had been a bone in Navahk's throat ever since.  Because Supnah
and Navahk shared a physical resemblance, Karana's true paternity was
not suspected.  But as time passed it became increasingly evident that
the little boy possessed all the precognitive genius that Navahk
pretended to own.  Navahk had jealously watched the power maturing
within the child until one day, like his mother, Karana had looked into
Navahk's eyes to see the core of deceit and treachery.

The magic man had known that it was only a matter of time before
Karana's powers eclipsed his own.  And so it was that, in the midst of
one of the longest, coldest winters ever suffered, he began to contrive
omens that would dispose of his unwanted child, his brother's beloved
only son.  Although weakened by starvation and illness, the boy's mother
had sensed Navahk's intentions but had been unable to convince the
guileless Supnah of his beloved brother's treachery.  Soon after, she
died.

Child abandonment was the way of his people during starving times, and
although Karana was no longer an infant or toddler, Navahk had seen to
it that he was among those to be abandoned.  When Supnah had balked,
Navahk had only to suggest that a headman who must ask his people to
sacrifice their children for the good of the band must not be unwilling
to offer his own child to the spirit of the storms.  He had almost
laughed when Supnah had agreed.  In an unprecedented vow, one made in
memory of the boy's mother, Supnah promised to seek out the children in
the spring.

Karana, standing tall, had strode off bravely with the other children,
as if he would somehow protect them until the band came for them. Navahk
smiled, knowing that the hated child was as good as dead.

Weeks later game was sighted.  The men of the band hunted.  The people
ate.  Supnah took up his spears and prepared to go after his son.

It had not been difficult for Navahk to convince Supnah that any effort
on behalf of Karana and the children would be in vain.  The magic man
swore that he had seen their deaths in a vision.

Supnah was a man broken by his losses.  Navahk virtually ruled the band
until Karana had walked back into his life with a story of survival that
had set the band to murmuring that Karana surely had been favored above
all men by the spirits.

Nothing had been the same since the boy's return.  For the first time
Supnah had been unsettled by Karana's resemblance to his brother, a
likeness that had been strengthened by the passing of time.  The headman
had begun to brood over the accusation he had refused to believe when
his woman had finally told him of it.  His loyalty to Navahk rapidly
deteriorated into open resentment.

But Supnah was Supnah.  The older man still held a hope that he had
misjudged Navahk.  Even after Torka had left and the boy disappeared,
Navahk would be aware of Supnah watching him out of brooding eyes, and
he would respond by secretly lying with Naiapi whenever he could,
despising the woman except as a vessel into which he could pour his
contempt for his brother, and with a brotherly smile for the headman,
which overlay a sneer of disdain.

After three long years of good hunting, starving times had returned, and
Navahk's chanting and dancing and magic smoke had failed to call the
herds to come to die upon the spears of Supnah's hunters.  The old
questions were back in Supnah's eyes.  His lack of faith in the powers
of the magic man was growing.  The people of the band had begun to sense
it.

And so Navahk had killed his brother.  Supnah had left him no choice.

The child huddled in the shadows.  Hidden beneath the thick, tangled
undergrowth, its body was a dark, shivering, shapeless blur within the
gloom.

The beast was there, just ahead, standing over the body of the child's
mother.  With all but his head and hands hidden within the white skins
of caribou, he seemed to be a creature composed of light, so beautiful
that, for a moment, the child was almost drawn out of hiding.

Then the beast smiled, and the little one saw his ugliness--a hideous
twisting of his naked face as he drew a stone from a double-sided length
of tree bark that he carried attached to a thong wrapped around his
midsection.  The child stared, squinting through shadows as it tried to
get a better view without being seen.  The stone was black, shaped like
a willow leaf, and as shiny as river ice after a sudden freeze.  It was
similar to the stone that had been embedded in its mother's chest; the
stone that now lay at the feet of the beast beside the motionless body.

The child sucked at the gash that the stone had made in its own palm.
The stones of the beast were sharp.  The child did not like them or the
way the beast was looking at its mother.  He was kneeling now, and
poking.  Suddenly the child nearly cried aloud, and only the pure, raw
instinct for survival kept the little one from leaping out of.  hiding
in order to stay the beast's hand.

In the dim, filtered light at the bottom of the gorge, Navahk lay his
head upon the corpse.  He could hear his own heart beating, feel his
blood throbbing as his nightmares dissolved and he realized that the
dead thing was no spirit.  She was of flesh, bone, and blood, animal and
human all at once.  And still warm.  His hand lay open upon her chest, a
large island of bare, bloodstained flesh exposing now-flaccid breasts
and a portion of massive rib cage.  The rest was furred, as gray as the
skin, wolf-toned, and as sleek, with a short, thick nap underlying the
longer, stiffer guard hairs.

Navahk stared down at the creature, appalled by her ugliness and
fascinated by the power that now lay stilled forever within her
extraordinary musculature.  If only such physical power were his!  He
would not need magic to manipulate the lives of men.

He looked up through the gloom, along the wall of the gorge to where his
fellow hunters stood peering down at him

in awe and terror.  His smiled intensified.  They shall have their magic
now!

Working quickly, he skinned the corpse, leaving its hands and head
attached.  The work excited him.  Pausing briefly, he looked for
Supnah's head and arm.  Neither was to be seen.  He was glad.  His
brother's soul was doomed to wander the spirit world forever, but Navahk
had no fear of him.  Dead or alive, Supnah's gentle, guileless spirit
would never be a threat to such as Navahk.

Standing, the magic man donned the skin of the creature as though it
were a robe of honor taken in a particularly dangerous and difficult
hunt.  Balancing her heavy head atop his own, wrapping her gory arms
around his neck and folding them across his chest in a grotesque
embrace, Navahk danced in her skin and felt her power rising within him,
as sweet and heady as blood sucked from the wound of a living beast.

Navahk's eyes glittered at the idea.  Bending, he savagely tore open the
chest of the mutilated corpse, ripped out its heart with his bare hands,
then consumed it, gnawing and gulping like a wolf.  No man would contest
his right to become headman now.  He was Navahk, the magic man who dared
to kill a wind spirit and dance in its skin!  The mystical force of the
wanawut was in him now.  No man would ever stand against his will again.

Suddenly aware of being watched from within the tangled shadows of the
stunted grove surrounding the little clearing in which he danced, Navahk
stopped.

He saw the child--a hairy, heavy-featured, misshapen thing as ugly as
its parent.  Nevertheless, its eyes were as rarely beautiful as the
softest gray of the clouds--but clear, without threat.  Yet they cut
Navahk to his soul as he stood in the skin of its mother as though he,
and not the creature, were mute and unintelligent.  But he knew in that
moment that somehow the creature's intelligence was as fully advanced as
his own; and in its grotesque, half humanness, he had glimpsed a
reflection of himself.

For a long time after the beast had wheeled and fled from the gorge in
the skin of its mother, the child barely moved, barely breathed. Around
it the world seemed to be holding its breath, too, as though in sympathy
with the plight of one of its creatures.

Bereft and stunned by what it had witnessed, the child
slowly returned to what was left of its mother.  Mutely it mourned. The
image of the beast was seared into its brain.  Hatred for all beasts of
its kind burned within its heart.  For a long time it sat, moaning
softly.

After a while hunger caused the child to stir and look at the arm and
head of the beast, which it instinctively had taken from its mother's
side before the beast in white had come into the gorge.  Man meat was
good; its mother had taught it that man meat was the best.  Weak with
exhaustion, the child began to gnaw upon the meat that its mother had
provided at such great cost.

Darkness filled the gorge.  The wind stirred softly.  The child slept
and dreamed terrible dreams, then awoke, thinking of the beast in the
skins of winter-killed caribou .. . thinking of how someday it would
hunt him and dance in his skin as he now danced in the skin of its
mother.

In the shadow of the Mountains That Walk, Torka and Karana stalked
antelope with the dog Aar.  They moved slowly, hunched forward,
concealed by the deep, sweet grass of spring.  The land sloped upward
beneath their feet.  Everywhere was the smell of grass and wind and
open, sunlit spaces.  They paused at the top of a knoll and lay on their
bellies in the shoulder-high grass, so content with the moment that they
decided to savor it before going on.

"It is good," said the youth, still breathing hard from the long,
unbroken trek out of the valley in which their encampment lay.  "It is
good," affirmed the man as his hand parted the long, tender stalks of
grass and his eyes scanned the land that lay before them.  It was like
no other.  Even now, three years after entering it, Torka remained awed
and amazed by it.  Neither valley nor plain, it was a twenty-mile-wide
swath of undulating tundral steppe that ran southeastward for uncounted
distances between towering mountain ranges.  On either side of the river
of grass, the Mountains That Walk, unlike other mountains, were not the
exposed bones of Mother Below.  They lay atop those bones, clothing them
in ice that stood some two miles high.

The grassland rolled away before them, pooled here and there with
tundral lakes, which sparkled silver in the sun, and veined with the
meandering rivers of meltwater cascading out of the surrounding,
glacier-buried ranges.  Westward the land rose into high hills, which
led off into familiar country where dark fingers of shadow spilled out
of canyons.  Hardy, weather-stunted spruce forests grew there, and a
scabrous, heavy-shouldered peak devoid of ice stood tall against
the sky.  Smoke rose from its summit as though, somehow, a band of men
were camped within and building ill-made fires.

Neither Torka nor Karana paid heed to the lambent smoke that clouded the
distant volcano.  They had passed within its sulfurous-smelling shadow
on their way into the new land, when they first had left the protection
of Supnah's band.  The volcano had been an object of fear and wonder
then, but no more.  Its plume was no longer remarkable; they found it no
more threatening than fair-weather summer clouds drifting before the
sun.

"Look," whispered Karana, his strong, sun-browned hand pointing off
through the grass.  "Can there be so many?"

Torka gestured the youth to silence; but beside him even the dog seemed
incredulous as it stared straight ahead, salivating, its body tense, its
blue eyes fixed and dilated in its black-masked face.

Torka's broad, powerful hand flexed about the bone haft of his spear. He
counted the various species that grazed ahead of him and thought: For
three passings of the time of light this man has hunted in this land,
and still the game comes, always walking eastward into the face of the
rising sun, vanishing into it at the beginning of the time of the long
dark and leaving my people with meat to feast upon beneath the rising of
the starving moon.  And now the time of light has come again. Again the
cycle begins.  And again this man wonders how a land so rich with game
could have been forbidden.

The question troubled him, but only for a moment.  A panorama of life
spread before him.  Bison, black maned and long horned, huffed and
bellowed and pawed up the fragile skin of the tundra, cropping the grass
in a vast, dark line of life the size of which Torka had not seen since
he was a boy hunting the broad hills of the high Arctic with his
grandfather.  They were miles away, but he could see the black blur of
them upon the horizon, feel their movement in the earth, and smell their
good, rich, acrid stink mixing with the smells of other animals.

Close to the western hills a moose stood shoulder deep within a tundral
pool, its head underwater as it browsed upon the bottom.  Nearer to the
knoll, antelope were grazing, and Torka could see a small herd of elk,
antlers furred with velvet, high stepping across a broad stretch of
tussock.  Nearby, a group of three camels, tall-humped and as irritable
as
always, observed the elk and brayed with the coughing, hacking, phlegmy
sound that old men make after too many years of breathing winter smokes.
It was a sound designed to drive the elk away; when it did not, the
camels hacked more loudly than before and scattered, indignant.

Karana supressed a laugh.  When Torka looked at him, the youth smiled,
and Torka smiled back.  To share in the sighting and observation of game
was a good thing, as was the love shared by this man and the youth.

The dog sat up and cocked its head.  Karana reached out and slung an arm
around the neck of the animal, drawing it close with rough and
well-appreciated affection.  Torka looked across the land.  He saw a
ring of musk oxen on a not-too-distant rise and knew that if the shaggy
beasts formed a circle, there must be wolves about, or lions.

Or bears, he thought, recalling the enormous paw prints that he and the
boy had seen earlier in the day while crossing one of the refugium's
innumerable outwash streams.  Once again he was troubled by his
thoughts.  He and Karana had been only a short distance from their
encampment when they had sighted the bear tracks.

For three summers they had lived in that camp, which lay within a wide,
wind-protected valley he and Karana had discovered while pursuing a
gut-wounded goat into one of the many canyons that cut deeply into the
glacier-smothered ranges.  Almost perfectly circular, its high, stony
hills stood between the valley floor and the surrounding ice-capped
mountains.  Sweet, warm springs bubbled from the earth, and the pools
remained liquid even during the coldest days of winter.  It had proved a
perfect refuge from the nearly incessant wind that ripped across the
game-rich grasslands upon which he and the boy did most of their
hunting.

Finding the paw prints of the great, short-faced bear so close to the
entrance to the valley had set him on edge, for no other predator was as
agile, aggressive, or unpredictably dangerous.  The short-faced bear was
almost exclusively a meat eater.  When Torka had knelt and measured the
paw prints, he had felt a terrible hollow expand within his belly. Only
because the prints had been leading away from the valley had he
continued on with Karana instead of turning back to make certain it was
not on the scent of the encampment.

"Torka ..."

Karana's whisper drew him back to the present.

"You still worry about the great bear?"

It was not unusual for the youth to know his thoughts.  He nodded.  "It
is so."

"The entrance to the valley is staked against predators.  If the great
one walks there, he will turn back or blunder into the pit trap that we
have dug and die upon the sharpened stakes within it.  He will be food
for us.  It would be a good thing.  Bear meat is fat.  It gives much
oil.  We would have plenty of tallow for our lamps in the winter dark."

The boy was right.  Nevertheless, the concern stayed on Torka's face.

Karana shook his head.  "Torka worries too much these days.  All is good
in this land."

"Yet we are alone--one man, a boy, three women, a child, and a
suckling."

"Karana is not a boy!  Karana will soon have seen the passing of
fourteen summers.  He is a man!  Torka does not hunt alone!"

"No, but Torka does worry.  When we walked from Supnah's band, it was in
this man's heart that we would soon find a new band--a better band--but
not once has this man seen a sign that even a solitary hunter has ever
passed this way."

"We are a band.  We need no others.  We have taught the women well.
Aliga is good with a-spear.  Lonit is better, and deadly with her bola."
"And lana is hopeless with either."

"lana does not need her spear.  We will hunt for her and protect her."

"And if something should happen to one or both of us?"

Karana shook his head and smiled, then leaped to his feet, spear braced
and nocked to his spear hurler.  "Torka must stop worrying!  Torka has
done the right thing by leading his people into this new land!  Look!
There is so much game waiting to be taken, the spirits will be offended
if we sit here talking like a pair of fat old men!  Come!  A blind man
could make a kill this day!"

On the horizon the plume of smoke that rose from the distant volcano
thickened visibly.  The moose raised its head from the tundral pool, and
its ears swiveled as it nickered loudly.  Then, with a wheeze, it broke
into a run, its nose and antlers dripping moss and water as it
disappeared into a grove of scrub spruce and alder.  Birds flew up and
wheeled screaming overhead, while foxes, lynx, wolves, and lions ran
with squirrels and hares, voles and lemmings, and made no attempt to
catch and eat them.

But Torka and Karana did not notice the odd behavior of prey and
predator, nor did they pay heed to Aar as the dog frantically attempted
to gain their attention by pulling at the fringes of their leggings. In
frustration they kicked out at him, and the dog, despairing, whined and
circled and hunkered close to the ground, yapping like a disoriented
pup.

The attention of the hunters was focused on the frightened herd of
antelope that skittered past them, circling and leaping and trampling
the high grasses, making pathetic bleats, oblivious to the man and boy
who had not even had a chance to position themselves downwind before
each of them had made a kill.

Amazed, Torka and Karana whooped with pleasure, raising and shaking
their bloodied spears .. . until Aar leaped with the power of a
saber-toothed cat and roared not like a dog but like a lion.  With tail
tucked, ears back, teeth bared, and every hair along his shoulders and
spine standing on end, Aar flung himself past the hunters as they
whirled to see the great, short-faced bear that had emerged from nowhere
to charge them out of the silken camouflage of the grasses.

"I tell you, this woman does not like the look or the feel of it.  It is
too quiet, much too quiet, except for the fish in the weir.  Even from
here you can see them jumping, as though trying to leap from the pool
and escape.  You would think we were standing over them with a net,
ready to scoop them up for dinner!  And have you ever seen the dogs
behave like this?"

Lonit tried to make light of Aliga's words, but the tattooed woman was
right: No birds sang.  No insects hummed.  The ground shivered beneath
her feet.  The water in the hot springs lapped at the embankment of the
pools, bleeding quietly into the surrounding earth.  The lashings of the
pit huts rubbed against the thongs that held them fast, and the huts
themselves, as well as the many drying frames upon which meat and skins
were stretched to cure, creaked and chafed against their trembling
frames.

It was as though a strong wind was blowing through the camp, but there
was no wind.  The air seemed suddenly heavy, and the dogs whined and
sniffed around in directionless confusion.  Sister Dog had disappeared,
carrying two of her newest litter of pups, with the rest trotting after
her, tails up, milk bellies half dragging on the ground. Aliga supported
the distention of her advanced pregnancy with her hands, fingers laced
protectively beneath it, as she rose with great effort from where she
had been sitting outside the main pit hut, cracking marrow bones.

Lonit looked at her and tried not to betray her own trepidation.  It was
not easy to do, since she had already reached for a spear with one hand
and held her bola at the ready in the other.  Aliga's advanced pregnancy
made Lonit feel increasingly protective toward her.  The tattooed woman
wanted this child desperately, not only because she longed for Torka,
who lay with her only when he sensed that she needed reassurance that
she was his woman in every way.  She wanted this baby because she had
been so sure that she was barren.  Lonit had borne only daughters to
Torka--first Summer Moon, and then, in the last time of the long dark,
precious, plump little Demmi, who had been named for Torka's long-dead
mother--and Aliga wanted to be the first to bear a son to Torka, in
gratitude to him for having taken her to his fire circle when no other
man would have her.  And she wanted it for herself, because she had
never borne a child, and because she could not forget that, among the
People, it was said that a woman who has never brought forth life can
never truly call herself a woman.

"Look, the dogs are quieting," Lonit said, relaxing a little.  The wind
was rising again.  The moment of unnatural stillness was passing.  From
within the shadowed interior of the main pit hut, little Demmi's baby
laughter bubbled like a warm spring as lana resumed a happy song.

Summer Moon's face appeared at the door flap, a little hand holding the
intricately seamed hide aside.  "This girl cannot nap!  Mother Below
make belch!"

The little one's statement brought a smile to Lonit's lips.  The child
saw it and dimpled, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she ambled naked from
the pit hut to seek comfort in her mother's arms.  Lonit lifted her
firstborn and held her tightly, glad that the strange moment had passed.
Perhaps she had imagined it.  The earth could not move.  Yet she could
have sworn that it had shifted beneath her feet.  No.  It could not have
been.  The dogs were relaxed now, birds were peeping from the willow
grove behind the pools, and the blackflies were back.

Summer Moon winced and began to cry as one of them pierced her tender
skin.  Lonit slapped it away, and to Aliga's consternation, rather than
going to dress the little one, Lonit put down her weapons and began to
take off her own clothes.

"Come," she said to the tattooed woman.  "Join us in the pools.  The day
is warm, and the steaming water will keep away the curse of the biting
flies."

As always, Aliga's face flushed at this invitation, the merest
suggestion of color seeping between the black swirls that covered her
face.  "This woman is not a fish!  This woman does not strip naked to
flop and splash in water!  What would others say?"

Lonit laughed.  "But there are no others in this world that we have made
our own!"  Even now she thrilled to think of their golden days in this
valley, where Torka had taught her to use a spear, to hunt beside him,
as finely honed to the dangers and excitement of the hunt as any man.

"One day others may come," snapped Aliga.  "One day we may choose to
walk out of this far land where there are no people!  What will others
say then, if Lonit forgets herself and takes up a spear as though she
were a man or encourages her children to peel off their clothing and
leap into water to splash like fish in a net?"

"Too much does Aliga speak of leaving this valley!  Does she long for
the Ghost Band?  Does she yearn for such bands as Galeena's people, who
smelled like fresh dung?  Or does she miss the peaceful life within
Supnah's band, when each night the headman and the magic man thought of
new ways of shaming Torka!"

Aliga's head went up.  Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth turned down.
"When this woman's baby comes, it would be good to have wise women and a
magic man beside her to help her bear it."

Now Lonit's head went up.  Her mouth narrowed and turned down.  "Lonit
will help Aliga, as Aliga has helped Lonit.  We have learned much woman
wisdom.  We need no others.  Because we have chosen to walk with Torka,
we are the wisest women of all!"

"But we have no magic man," lamented Aliga piteously.

"Then, indeed, we are wise!"  retorted Lonit, turning her back upon the
tattooed woman and heading for the pools with her child.

Suddenly, sharply, the world moved.  It flexed like the skin of a living
beast, knocking Torka, Karana, and the dog off their feet while the
great, short-faced bear went running by them, disappearing into the sea
of grass, not to be seen again, as the earth rolled like the surface of
a turbulent lake.

And then the roaring came--a terrible, all-pervasive growl that rose
from deep within the earth, far below the fragile skin of the permafrost
that now buckled and cracked.  One crevice yawned wide directly below
the hunters, and they fell into it, fighting desperately for footing in
a world that allowed them none, reaching and grasping for holds that
were not there.  Paroxysms of heaving earth pressed in against them
until they were certain they were being buried alive.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the earthquake was over.  Torka and
Karana scrambled out of the fissure and, spitting earth from their
mouths, reached down to help the frantic dog.  They stood amid the
broken grassland, too stunned to retrieve their spears or the carcasses
of the antelope that still lay within the fissure; too shattered by the
enormity of their experience to realize how fortunate they were not to
have been pierced by their own weapons when they had dropped into the
heaving earth.

Dust gauzed the air.  On the western horizon the smoke that issued from
the bare, scabrous mountain was a boiling cloud of steam and ash that
filled the sky as it rained fiery fragments of its inner core on the
world.

"We must go!"  Torka commanded, his mind filled with images of a ruined
camp and of his women and children consumed by the earth that had nearly
swallowed him and the boy.

Lonit screamed.

The pool dropped.  The water rose, covering her, then fell away, rolling
out of the pool entirely, while just upstream, in a broad, shallow pond
she had created by raising a semicircular dam that captured many fat,
lazy fish, the fish were leaping and splashing madly.  The earth shook
as though it would never stop.  Summer Moon clasped her little arms
about her mother's neck and matched Lonit scream for scream.  Lonit saw
Aliga fall as the fish in the weir pond were washed onto dry land and
the pit huts and the drying frames collapsed and the sods that lined the
fire pit tumbled into disarray.

Lonit found her footing, and with Summer Moon gripped
under one arm, leaped from the now-empty pool.  The earth threw her
down.  She rose again, holding the sobbing child as, sobbing herself,
she forced her way across the rolling earth, staggering to where her
baby and lana were trapped within the collapsed pit hut.  The framework
was heavy enough to stun a woman or crush a child.  They had built it of
caribou antlers from recent kills and of mammoth ribs and tusks that
they had taken from the long-dead carcass of a woolly mammoth they had
discovered in the willow grove behind the pools.  Lonit's heart was in
her throat as she fell upon her knees before the rubble of hide and horn
and bone, calling to lana, crying her baby's name.

When Aliga joined her, relief flared in her heart that the tattooed
woman was all right.  The convulsive movements of the earth had
lessened.  She put Summer Moon down and told her that she must be a big
girl and help to save her little sister.  The child gulped down her
tears.

Together they ripped away the hides and hefted the massive bones until,
at last, lana's face stared up at them, blinking, and they saw that
little Demmi lay curled in the protective fold of lana's arms, still
gurgling happily, as though the rolling of the earth and the collapsing
of the hut were a new game devised for her pleasure.  With a cry of
relief, Lonit lifted her infant, and as a dazed but unhurt lana was
helped to her feet by Aliga and Summer Moon, Lonit wept with joy.

Then her eyes swept over the ruins of the encampment, and her happiness
faded.  Everything had been leveled.  With the huts and frames down and
the small, ordered world of their encampment a shambles, a terrible
sense of vulnerability fell upon Lonit.  Where was Torka?

Roarings now reached her from the distant mountains.

"Look!  Mountains come down!"  exclaimed Summer Moon, clutching Lonit's
bare limb and pressing close.

Lonit's eyes widened.  The white plumes of enormous avalanches tumbled
from the heights.  Far to the west a great, gray cloud was filling the
sky like smoke rising from an impossibly huge fire.  The smoke was dark
as though with grease, and the wind that now blew into the valley from
out of that cloud was foul and reminiscent of the sulfurous mists that
occasionally lay upon the pools.

A black fly found the bare skin of her back and bit deep.  She hardly
felt it as she held her little one, tensing as the
world once again rolled beneath her feet.  It was not enough to throw
her off balance, but her mind expanded with fear.

Aliga stepped cautiously across the jumble of fallen drying frames,
meat, and skins.  She was holding her belly again, as though afraid that
her unborn child would fall out.  Her eyes were dilated, and her
tattooed lips were pinched against her filed, tattooed teeth.  She
paused beside Lonit, took off her doeskin apron, and wrapped it around
little Summer Moon.  "Lonit had best cover herself.  Her skin is as
black with biting flies as this woman's is with tattooing."

Lonit saw that Aliga was not exaggerating.  She handed Demmi to lana and
hurried to retrieve her garments.

"Will Torka come back?"  lana asked.

Lonit was wiggling into her under tunic when lana's question caused her
to pause, startled.  lana had not spoken to anyone except the children
since she had been rescued from the Ghost Band.  Lonit ran to embrace
her.  "Of course he will come back!"  Any other answer was unthinkable.
And yet her mind swam out across vistas of broken, earthquake-devastated
land upon which she visualized her man and Karana both lying dead.  No!
She would not let herself even think it!

Torka barely said a word when he returned to camp with Karana and Aar.
His face spoke -his relief when he saw the children and Lonit safe. She
ran to him, declaring that she and the others were well.  He held her as
though he would never let her go, but his features tightened when she
declared that all would soon be made right again.

"It is so!"  Karana agreed, fending off the welcome of the pups, Sister
Dog, and other members of Aar's ever-growing canine clan.  Over half of
the once-wild dog's progeny had run off to join the wild dogs in the
valley's distant hills, but Aar and his mate and the rest of their
strong, eager-to-learn pups stayed.  The unnatural alliance between the
dogs and the people of this band was strong; its roots lay deep in the
bond that Aar had forged with Umak, spirit master and Torka's
grandfather,

Torka gave no sign of having heard Karana.  The man's eyes had taken on
a sudden guarded look as he looked at Aliga, sitting cross-legged and
mumbling to herself on bed skins that Lonit had dragged out of the ruins
of the main pit hut.  Rocking herself and her unborn child, Aliga still
supported the weight of her belly within her folded arms.  As Torka
walked toward her, she did not even look up at him.

"It is well with you?"  Torka knelt before her, placing a gently
questing palm across her abdomen.  It was not like Aliga to sit when
others were on their feet.  She was usually up before the dogs in the
morning and the last to close her eyes at night.

"It is well."  She shivered and looked up at Torka reproachfully.  "As
well as it can be for any woman with child in a land that shakes! Lonit
has brought to this woman a horn of brewed willow, and she has cracked a
marrow joint for me to eat--as though these things would make me forget
what has just happened!  Lonit is so determined to live forever in this
land, she is willing to overlook everything."

Lonit came to stand beside Torka.  She had put the children into lana's
doting care in order to bring Aliga's favorite robe to her, which she
had made when they had first come to the valley.  Lonit had worked long
hours to sew the many strips of fur, which were taken from the prime
skins of animals that she had stalked and killed herself, for the
express purpose of making a gift for Aliga that would be a gesture of
sisterhood.  Aliga loved it so much that she wore it even on days when
it was really too warm to wear such a garment; but now, even though the
late afternoon was still warm, she was trembling against an inner cold.
Draping the robe around her shoulders, Lonit stepped back, not
understanding why Aliga had taken such a hostile tone.

"But this land has been good to us," Lonit told her.  "We have known no
hunger.  This valley has sheltered us against storms.  We have filled it
with songs of praise and have shared it with all the creatures that warm
themselves beside its hot springs in the time of the long dark. We have
seen Life Giver lead his children and his females close to our
encampment, and we have seen him walk away, leaving Torka and his people
to live without harm from him and his kind.  How can Aliga have
forgotten these things?"

"Aliga has not forgotten," the woman responded thoughtfully.  "Torka has
led his people well, and this has been a good land.  But now this woman
is troubled.  We are wanderers .  seekers .. . who should join other
bands to make great hunts together.  Navahk told us before the great
feast fire that we must prey upon the weak and the unwary among the game
animals, so that always they will be strong and able to flee before the
hunters who, in turn, are made strong by the chase!  Aliga says that
Mother Below has grown angry

with Torka's band!  She has shaken the ground to tell us that it is not
good to stay in one place.  Torka's people must go back into the country
from which we have come.  If we do not, Mother Below will shake the
world and swallow Torka's people, and we will be spirits moaning forever
within the earth and--"

"Say no more."  Torka's words were gently spoken as his hand moved from
Aliga's belly to her mouth, closing her lips.  "Be cautious, Aliga.
Remember that among this man's people, to speak of a thing is,
sometimes, to make it happen."

Karana was angry.  "Be wary, woman!  Do not let your female fears
control your tongue!"

"Female fears?  Watch your own tongue, boy!  The next time you are
pregnant in a land that shakes, with no wise women or magic men around
to help you, then you may talk of 'female fears'!"  She disliked Karana
these days.  He was beginning to look too much like his father's
brother, and Navahk walked her dreams in ways that Torka would not have
approved.  Somehow, she had the feeling that Karana knew this.  His wide
black eyes saw too much for a boy, private things that were not visible
to anyone else--sometimes not even to her until he made her aware of
them.  She knew that he was angry enough to speak his inner thoughts,
and fearing them, she attempted to silence him with her glare.

Karana would not be intimidated.  For all of his pretentious to
maturity, Karana was a youth; wisdom was as alien to him as the
apprehensions of the pregnant woman who sat before him.  "Aliga fears
giving birth in a band with no wise women or magic men to attend her. It
has been on her mind since she first knew that she was with child. She
does not care about Torka or his people.  Aliga cares only for herself!"

"Karana!"  Torka exploded.  Although the youth had displayed remarkable
intuition on a hunt, had seen the yellow sickness in old Hetchem, and
had warned of her death, Karana had failed to note the unnatural
dilation of Aliga's eyes.  Torka had learned enough about healing to
know that something was wrong when eyes looked like that in the light of
day.  How deeply wrong, only time could say.  He felt sick with worry,
remembering how she had wept and laughed with incredulous delight when
she had found herself to be pregnant.  Then, in the days that followed,
her mood wilted and she had grown ill.

He could not blame her for wanting to go back.  "Would
Aliga truly have Torka lead her back into the land of other people,
where women are not allowed to hunt beside their men, where one band
preys upon another, where babies are eaten in the winter dark or thrown
away at the word of a headman?  Does Aliga believe that the birth of her
baby would be less painful or dangerous, or that her child would be
better off among strangers in a starving land than here, among those who
love her?"

Aliga chewed her lower lip petulantly.  "Torka has met bad people.  But
not all bands are so.  Supnah's band was not so bad.  There were wise
women among them, and a magic man."

Karana's mouth curled into a sneer.  "All of the women of that band who
were old enough to be truly wise were sent walking the wind long ago.
Supnah's band is a bad band.  And Navahk is no magic man at all!"

"He is!"  she retorted, as though flying to the defense of a maligned
loved one.

Torka did not miss the underlying implications of her reaction.  He felt
no jealousy, only a sad, oblique pity.  He had come to like the tattooed
woman.  He was sorry that she could not have had the man of her choice.
"Navahk is far away, and this baby is very near.  It sleeps now, as
Aliga should sleep," he told her as he placed his open palm across her
distended belly.  If his unborn child stirred beneath his hand, he could
not feel it.

The earth trembled.  On the western horizon the Mountain That Smokes
sent up an enormous plume.  Even from this great distance Torka saw the
glow of falling debris that must have been the size of boulders.  It was
a sight that allowed no argument.  "The land of Navahk and Supnah's
people and of the Great Gathering lies there, far to the west, beyond
the Mountain That Smokes, beyond the cloud that rains fire.  We cannot
go back, Aliga.  Neither Mother Below nor Father Above will let us."

For three days the distant mountain smoked, but the earth did not shake
again.  Soon the pit huts, drying frames, and fire circle were
reassembled.  The sky cleared and the encampment looked the same except
for a thin, gray ash that continued to fall from the sky, coating
everything.  Torka and his small band remained on edge.  Only the little
ones slept well through the ever-shortening nights.

The days passed, and the weeks.  Now there was no night, and after the
first summer rain, the dust disappeared and the Mountain That Smokes
became dormant.  Its summit was no longer conical but concave, rather.
like a grinding tooth with a great cavity in one side.

Torka stood with Karana at the edge of the rebuilt encampment. Although
the hot-springs pools had filled again with warm, steaming water, no
fish swam downstream to become trapped in Lonit's rebuilt weir, and it
seemed to Torka that the waters smelled more consistently sulfurous than
before, so he could not bring himself to bathe in them. Lonit displayed
none of his reticence.  Now she bathed with lana and the children, and
it did his heart good to hear laughter echoing across the land.

Aliga sat glumly in the sun.  Torka had not heard her laugh or say a
positive word since he had told her that she must bear their child here.
Torka wished that the baby would be born.  Its time was near, and it
would be good to see Aliga smile again, even if her teeth were filed and
black.

A soft, cooling wind blew across the valley from the distant, snowcapped
ranges.  It was gentled by the encircling hills, yet still strong enough
to keep the biting flies at bay.  Not for the first time Torka noted
that the wind was untainted by the stink of smoke from the far mountain;
it had been many days since ash had fallen from the sky.

"The wind will be strong on the sea of grass," said Karana.  "It will be
a good day to hunt.  In his dreams this boy has heard the great mammoth
walking in the hills to the east.  And where Life Giver walks, the
spirits of the game are strong with favor for Torka's people!"

With Aar, Sister Dog, and three of the older pups at their sides, they
hefted their spears and loped through the narrow arm of land that bent
out of the valley and through the encircling hills, to open at last onto
the wide, windswept sea of grass.

Torka had learned long before that Karana's visions of where the game
would be were usually correct; as a result, he rarely challenged them.
When they skirted the pit traps and snares that lay at the entrance to
the valley, they headed east, into the wind.

The sound of battling horses drew them on, and although they ran, it was
with the measured pace of experienced hunters alert to danger.  The
grasses grew tall, as golden and brittle as the manes of young lions.
Torka drew his razor edged bludgeon of fossilized whalebone from its
sheath of tanned leather at his side.  He scythed the grasses aside with
it; the blade cut through them as easily as it cut through warm fat.  It
was a unique weapon, one that he had brought with him from a wide,
rolling land that smelled strongly of salt.  It, too, had been rich
grassland, yet troubling somehow, rousing nightmares of great, roaring
black waters that swept across the world, drowning all that lay before
them.  They had found the carcass of the great fish; but it was
stone--as were the shells Lonit had found--and it was from one of the
whale's ribs that Torka's bludgeon was made.

As he walked now with Karana and the dogs upon the sea of grass, he
tested the weight of the bludgeon within his hand and thought of that
strange land across which he had come.  There was no way for him to know
that it had once lain at the bottom of a shallow strait that connected
two oceans and was a bridge between two continents--or that, in
millennia to come, it would lie at the bottom of the sea again.  He
could only perceive some difference in that plain, as he sensed that the
Mountains That Walk on either side of the sea of grass were not
mountains at all but the leading edges of glaciers

larger than any that had ever lain upon the world.  He could not know
that three-fourths of the moisture of all the seas and oceans and rivers
on earth lay captive within their appalling mass, or that most of the
northern half of the North American continent, into which he had led his
tiny band from Asia, lay entombed in ice.

The sound of the horses was close now.  At the crest of a low hill
Karana signaled to the dogs with the flat of his hand, and as one they
hunkered in the grass beside him.  Torka joined them, watching through
the screen of summer gold as, below them in a narrow depression in the
sea of knolls and hillocks, two stallions fought savagely for dominance
over a small herd of shaggy, blocky mares.  The dominant stallion was
unusual not only because it pursued its older, less aggressive foe even
when the other horse attempted to run away, but also because its
uniformly pale coat was devoid of the dark stripe along the spine that
was characteristic of its species.

The frenzied, bleeding animals screamed and reared, kicked and bit and
pawed the air.  The older, more sturdily built stallion wheeled and ran;
the younger, leaner, fleeter animal pursued it and turned it back to the
battle.  The older stallion was clearly losing ground.  Torka marveled
at the beauty, power, and persistence of the pale horse. Beside him
Karana's head dropped a little as his pleasure ebbed.  Where Torka saw
beauty and power, Karana saw beyond the animal's physical perfection to
its unrelenting savagery and cruel and merciless power. It reminded him
of his father.

When suddenly a leaping cat sprang from a thick stand of scrub into
which the dominant horse had driven the exhausted older stallion, the
fight ended.  The lion-sized cat sank fangs that were nearly as long as
Torka's forearm into the hindquarters of the stallion.  Battle-weakened
and bloodied, it screamed but had no strength to flee.  Its rear legs
went out from under it, and in a moment the cat was at its throat while
the pale horse wheeled and raced away, neighing triumphantly.  It drove
its newly acquired mares ahead of it, viciously kicking and biting at
them as it ran, brutalizing them so that any that were pregnant with the
other stallion's foals would miscarry.  This was the stallion's way of
assuring that only its offspring would survive.

"Navahk would do that," hissed Karana.

But Torka was not listening.  The sudden, brutally quick
death of the stallion had worried him.  Torka could die in such a
way--quickly and without warning.  What would happen to my women and
children then, with only a boy and a pack of dogs to protect them?

As they went farther east, Torka could not keep his thoughts on his
tracking.  Karana scouted ahead with the dogs, but Torka stopped and
looked back, thoughts of Aliga haunting him.  Poor, frightened woman. If
she did not bear her child soon, she would die of it.  He had seen the
sickness and weariness growing in her.  And the fear of death.

"Torka!  Come!  It is a good day to hunt!"  The youth was beside him
now, gesturing.  They could see for miles, where great herds of
awe-inspiring numbers and diversity grazed.  "There!  Do you see?  As in
my dreams, Life Giver walks ahead, into the sun, leading us to the
game."

But Torka was still looking back, toward the world out of which he had
come, toward a distant land where mountains did not smoke, the earth did
not move, and where, if a man were killed, there would always be others
to care for his women and children.  "We will hunt for the last time in
this land without people," he declared, looking at Karana with stern and
uncompromising authority.  "Tomorrow we will gather our women and
children and return to the land of men."

PART III.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY

A frigid wind stirred the stunted, misshapen trees that choked the
bottom of the gorge.  The shadows were warmed by the light that seeped
into the world through the hole in the sky, but the child shivered amid
the scattered remnants upon which it had been feeding for weeks--the
bones of its mother of Supnah's arm .. . and his skull--smashed in the
child's attempt to extract marrow and the brain.  The bones were no
longer distinguishable; they were only splinters and jagged fragments,
rubble from which meat had been gnawed and all juices extracted.

For some time now there had been nothing nourishing left except the
small comfort that the child found in gnawing and sucking them.  It
lived on bark and spruce needles, insects and unwary birds, and the body
of a lemming that it had managed to root from its burrow beneath the
spruce trees.

It chewed the lemming now, grinding it between molars adapted to
masticate heavier, more nutritious bones.  The child trembled as it ate,
dizzy, its body craving more meat and blood than the stringy, sweet
flesh of the rodent could provide.

Mother!  I am alone!  Mother!  I am hungry!  Mother!  I am afraid!

There was no comfort for the child in the bones and meat of the lemming
nor in the warm, yellow wind that blew across the world from out of the
hole in the sky.  The child rose and climbed out of the gorge to crouch
upon the ridge that allowed an overview of the tundra.  Comfort came as
it stood, where it had once stood with its mother, and thought of her.
It leaned forward, head out, the wind ruffling its gray fur and filling
its nostrils with the scent of the beasts that camped far below upon the
plain.  Comfort came as its gray
eyes drew in the sight of the ones who had killed its mother.  Comfort
came with hatred, which nourished the child more than meat, bones, or
blood.

They had moved their encampment once.  The child had watched them,
perplexed, as they had dragged their shelters with them upon their
backs, plodding across the grasslands as slowly and ponderously as
sloths.  They went several miles, to a spot more protected from the wind
and closer to water.  For a brief time the child had panicked, fearing
that they would keep on walking, right off of the edge of the world,
leaving it alone with no one to hate.  But they had paused and raised
their odd shelters and built their smoky fires and lifted their voices
in the peculiar ululations.  The child found these sounds strangely
soothing, as beautiful as star song murmuring across the sky in the
depths of the winter dark.  For weeks it had watched them from the
heights, salivating each time it saw the blur of white that was the
object of its hatred, knowing that someday it would hunt him, kill him,
and dance in his skin, singing its own celebration of his death.

Now, light-headed with hunger, the child exhaled a hoot of frustration.
The encampment was gone!  The beasts were trailing off into the
distance, all bent beneath their packs, except the mother-killing one in
white, who led them.

The child whimpered at having lost the deep, perverted comfort from
knowing that those who had killed its mother were near.  Bereft, it
shifted its weight from one foot to the other again and again.  It beat
its curled, hairy fists against its hairy thighs.  If the beasts were to
walk off the edge of the world, how would it find them again?  How would
it someday leap from the mists onto the one in white, as its mother had
leaped, to rip him apart until he was red with blood and shrieking?

As the focus of its existence began to disappear across the eastern
horizon, the child screeched, enraged.  It knew instinctively that it
would die if it was deprived of its sole reason to live.  It hunkered,
apelike, then rose.  Supremely agitated, it swung its torso back and
forth as it waved its long, hairy arms.  It shook its fists at the
departing beasts, screaming in frustration and anger.

"Wah nah wah!  Wah nah wut!"

The beasts did not slow their progress, although the child saw the one
in white pause and look back.  The child drew its hand across its mouth,
erasing the blood of the lemming and hungering for the blood of the
mother killer.

The beast shone gold in the light of the hole in the sky as, slowly, he
turned and disappeared into the haze of distance.

Now the child's solitude was absolute.  Again it mewed for its mother,
for any of its kind, but all were gone--killed by beasts.

That thought gave the child courage.  The way down from the heights was
difficult, but the little one was undeterred.  Drawing energy from its
hatred of the mother killer, it left the familiar territory of its past
behind, coming out of the mountains and walking across the tundra alone,
to follow the band of the one in white, in whose skin it longed to
dance.

Karana bolted upright on his sleeping skins.  "No!"  he cried, still
tangled in his dreams.  Howling dire wolves raced across the tundra,
pursuing him.  He looked back, and as he did, the wolves turned into
hideous, half-human beasts that loped after him, with Navahk in the
lead--an amalgamation of magic man and wild stallion and something else
.. . something dark and terrifying that he had seen long ago ... a
shadow silhouetted against distant, glistening mountains of ice ... a
form moving in the night, furred, massive, and powerful, with glinting
eye and bearlike snout and broad lipped mouth pulled back to reveal
protruding canines longer than Karana's dagger.

The wanawut.

Spirit Sucker.

Navahk.

Hisfather!

He blinked.  The dream vanished.  And yet he did not think it would ever
vanish.  He sat shaking, his sleeping skins tumbling down from around
his shoulders into his lap.

It took several days to dismantle the camp and prepare for the long trek
ahead.  Each time he slept, Karana dreamed the same dream.  But each
time he spoke of it to Torka, leaving out no detail except the fact that
Navahk was his true father, the hunter silenced him with grim
admonishment.

"This man also dreams, and his dreams have been untroubled since he has
made up his mind to return to the world of men."

"It is a bad world."

"Karana left it as a boy and will return to it as a man.  Perhaps he
will find it better."

Karana harrumphed.  "Why?  Because there are girls?  Karana cares
nothing for girls!"

"Yet," replied Torka, finding it difficult to suppress his smile when
the youth stood chin up, arms folded belligerently across his chest,
taking on all of the mannerisms of Torka's beloved grandfather.  In
moments like this he wondered if, when old Umak had died, his life
spirit had entered Karana to live again within the flesh of youth.  It
was not an unpleasant thought; but, as always, he was startled when
Karana responded to it as though he had spoken it aloud.

"Umak has said that Karana would be a great spirit master someday. Umak
would have listened to Karana!"

"Torka listens.  But we must go.  Aliga is sick.  We have not the magic
or the medicine to cure her.  Her baby should have been born weeks ago."

"Babies come when they are ready."

"And if they do not come, then death comes to them and to the woman who
carries them."

Torka put a reassuring hand upon Karana's shoulder.  "Perhaps we will
come back to this place someday.  We have cached the meat and supplies
that we cannot carry.  If we meet with others who would wish to return
with us, we will tell them that hunting is good in this land.  But
Karana is quick to forget that beyond this Valley of Songs, within the
Corridor of Storms, the winter wind is cold and constant and crueler
than any storm wind that this man has ever known.  If, for any reason,
the game did not come to winter in our valley, we would be forced to
follow it into the sea of grass, and Torka wonders if a band could long
survive the winter dark within the Corridor of Storms."

"Longer than we will survive among Supnah's band!"

"It is not this man's intention to seek out Supnah's band.  Long and
hard Torka has thought on it.  If we leave our valley now, we should
easily reach the Great Gathering before summer's end.  There will be
wise women, spirit masters, and magic men there from many bands.  Think
of all the healing knowledge that Karana will learn from them!"

"They are mammoth hunters," the youth reminded sourly.

"We need not join in the mammoth hunting.  We can hunt for our own fire
and provide for our own needs.  Our women will savor women talk with
others.  Summer Moon has never seen little ones her own age.  And this
man longs to hunt and talk with other men again!"

Stung, Karana wondered if Torka would ever consider him a man.  "If
Aliga is sick, she should not make such a journey."

"Aliga feels better just thinking about it.  She will travel by sledge
and will be no worse for the traveling than she is for her worrying."

The boy shook his head, refusing to hear logic.  "Lonit does not want to
go."

Torka sighed.  Discussing this subject with Karana was like talking to a
mountain wall.  In time he would see the wisdom of Torka's decision; in
the meantime, there was no use arguing.  His hand opened as he patted
the youth's shoulder with paternal affection.  "Lonit, unlike Karana,
has learned that it is not good to challenge one's headman once he has
made up his mind."

"But will Torka remain our headman in the world of men?"

The question was sobering.  Since Torka had no answer for it, he turned
away.

Lonit knelt holding her spear across her thighs, sliding her curled
palms along the sleekness of the bone stave.  She had made the weapon
herself.  Torka had taught her how to soak the bone until it was
malleable, how to harden it and define its shape in fire, and he had
helped her to work the long, broad-ribbed, heavy head of shining,
lanceolate obsidian.  She remembered the laughter that they had shared
over her many mistakes, and how at last, when she had accidentally cut
the heel of her hand, he had kissed it, then taken the stone and
finished the work himself, while she sat back and marveled at his skill.
After securing the projectile point to the shaft, they had begun her
training, and after weeks of practice, she had, with this spear, made
her first kill.

She sighed and set it aside.  She would not be able to use this spear or
any other in the future.  Beyond the Valley of Songs women did not use
spears, nor did they hunt beside their men.  She sighed again, turning
her attention to the tools and clothing before her.  These were the
things she would take with her on the long trek into the world of men.
Winter things and summer things, all neatly arrayed on separate skins,
would be rolled into individual packs, then combined into one main roll,
which would be secured by thongs to her pack frame of caribou antlers.
There was so much that she wanted to bring, and so much that must be
left behind.  Never had she stayed long enough in one camp to enjoy the
luxury of accumulating personal belongings that were not essential to
the daily routine of nomadic life.  Never before had she come to love a
place, not only because it offered good and sustained hunting but
because it seemed as though she had somehow become a part of it.

She leaned back on her heels, resting her palms upon her thighs,
savoring the sleek texture of her beautifully tanned dress of unusual
pale-gray elk skin.  She had worked for weeks upon this dress after
Torka had brought the skin back to camp as a present.  She had slept
with the skin hair-side out, raw flesh pressed to her naked body so it
would absorb the precious oils and sweat of her own skin as she lay
bundled for the night under as many furs as she could bear.  Torka had
laughed with amusement, saying that she, instead of the elk skin, would
be soft and ready to be scraped by morning.  But she had survived the
night, greedy to begin work with her scraper.

She had used a sharpened caribou scapula to stretch and soften the hide.
With good-natured deprecation Aliga had teased her, asking why anyone
would need so soft a dress.  It had seemed wrong to say that she simply
wanted it.  She had the time to spend on such a luxury and considered it
a challenge to her skill.  But primarily her reason was that Torka had
brought the skin especially for her pleasure.  She was proud of this,
and when she wore it, she wanted the touch of it to pleasure him as much
as he had pleased her by bringing it to her.

After she had scraped and stretched it, she moistened it with urine
steaming hot from her own body, then left it to freeze in the early
autumn night.  She kept watch over it herself so that no predatory
rodent would nibble on it in the dark.  For three nights she sat guard
beside her elk skin, and on the morning of the fourth day, she whisked
frost from it, meticulously cut away the thin, fleshy layer of
subcutaneous membrane, and began the final scraping and thinning
process.  For days she kept at it.  Karana observed her with interest,
saying that he had not thought it possible for Lonit to make better
hides than she already did.

"We can always make things better," she told him.  "And Lonit remembers
what our old Umak used to say: "In new times, men must learn new ways."
It is so with women too."

He had nodded, reminiscing that his own mother had once worked hard like
this to make special clothes for him.  "The tunic she made for my first
hunt was of many skins--one strip

for each kind of animal that a hunter may hope to kill in his lifetime."

She had not missed the sadness in his eyes when he spoke of his
long-dead mother.  Without slowing the stroke of her scraper, she had
promised herself that when she was finished with her dress of gray elk
skin, she would make Karana a tunic of many skins--perhaps not of all
the species of animals that a man might hope to hunt in a lifetime, but
at least of those animals that a woman might kill with her spear and her
bola.

And this she had done.  It had taken her over a year to collect the
skins, and Karana, Torka, and Aliga all agreed that they had never seen
a finer tunic.  Lonit still preferred her dress of elk skin because
Torka had brought the skin as a gift to her.

She smiled with pleasure at the recollection of that shining moment.
Whenever she wore the pale-gray dress--with its long-fringed seams to
which she had sewn many of the tiny, spiral, shell-shaped rocks that she
had carried with her into the Corridor of Storms--Torka not only enjoyed
touching the dress, he enjoyed touching it so much that, whenever they
were alone, he peeled it off her and began to enjoy touching her much
more.

How could a woman not love such a dress or the man who loved her above
all others?

But he did not love her enough to stay in the land where they had been
so happy.

He was coming toward her now, his eyes looking at her but not seeing
her.  He paused, knelt, and focused on the traveling bags and bladder
flasks of oil that lay at her side and the objects arrayed upon the
traveling skins.  He nodded approvingly at the adze and awls and
scrapers, the fur comber and antler straightener, and the bow drill of
bone and the little bag of dried lichen and moss that would be used for
wicking and kindling, then at the multipurpose loops of thong and sinew,
the birding nets of braided musk-ox hair, the fishing trident and lures
and hooks of bone, the skinning knives, and at the feather shafts filled
with dried blood, which could later be liquified with spittle and used
as glue.

He frowned when his eyes fell upon the smaller of her two soapstone
lamps.  Both were oblong, flat-bottomed vessels for the holding of oil,
in which moss wicks were laid and burned.  He shook his head.  The
little lamp had been the first one that he made for her when they had
come to the valley and discovered soapstone in the encircling hills.
Summer Moon

had accidentally dropped it, and the little lamp, badly cracked along
its right side, had leaked oil ever since.  He had assumed that she had
tossed it away when he had carved the new one for her.

"Our journey will be long," he said.  "That lamp is damaged.  Leave it.
Lonit's pack will be heavy enough as it is."

He reached to take it off the skin, but her hand stayed his.  "This was
the first tool that Torka made for this woman when we came to this
valley.  This woman would keep the lamp always."  She hesitated, barely
daring to speak the next words.  "As she would stay in the Valley of
Songs always."

"It cannot be.  For Aliga, we must go back."

Her heart sank.  "Yes.  It must be so."

His hand caught hers and gripped it.  "Is Lonit not afraid to stay in
this land that walks, where the mountains rain fire?"

"The land walks, but no one was hurt.  We have raised our huts and
drying frames again.  The mountains rain fire, but far from this valley.
Who can say that the land did not also walk to the west, or that
mountains did not rain fire there too?  In this valley, Torka is
headman.  The band may be small, but it is strong because Torka is
strong.  Life is good because Torka is good.  For the first time in her
life this woman has been completely happy.  As long as Torka is beside
her, Lonit is not afraid."  She knew from the expression upon his face
that she had spoken the wrong words.

"And when Torka is not beside her?  If someday Torka should go from this
valley to hunt within the Corridor of Storms and not return .. . ? Would
Lonit be afraid then, alone with her children and two other women in
this far land, with only an inexperienced youth to protect her?"

She wanted to lie.  She wanted to reply boldly, saying that with her
bola and spear she could face any danger, but he would see the truth in
her eyes.  Without Torka she would be afraid--and not for herself. Were
it not for the children, Lonit would have no desire to live without him.

Or would she?

The question terrified her.  There were worse things to fear than a
lonely death--things she could not speak of to her man or admit to the
other women.  There was the memory of a flame-lit night and of a man in
white, more beautiful and mysterious than the night itself, dancing and
whirling before her, telling her that she was beautiful, inviting her to
turn her back on Torka and join with him at his magic man's fire.

And there was the memory of wanting to join with him, of longing to rise
and take his hand and walk into the fire-lit night with him and lie with
him and never look back.

Never.  Not for Torka.  Not for Summer Moon.  And that was more
frightening than death.  Knowing that for one shattering moment she had
been close to abandoning all that she loved, all that made her life
worth living.

He nodded at her silence, misunderstanding it.  He saw the fear in her
eyes and kissed her lightly on the lids.  "It is good that Lonit has
been brave in this land.  As for Torka, he is afraid for all of us, and
he will not stop being afraid until we have found protection within
another band at the Great Gathering."

He held her.  He loved to hold her, to smell the sweetness of her skin
and the long, fragrant swan-black strands of her hair into which she
rubbed the pungent oils of artemisia .. . to feel the full, swelling
firmness of her breasts against his chest and the warm sleekness of her
elk-skin dress against his palms.  She never failed to stir man-need in
him, especially when she wore this dress.  His hands slipped downward
along the bend of her back, enfolded her hips, swept back upward to her
shoulders, began to work at the laces of the dress, then paused.  The
pit huts were down.  Aliga, lana, Karana, and the children were watching
from where they were assembling their own traveling packs and awaiting
his inspection of them.

He put Lonit away from him, suddenly understanding why she had chosen to
wear this dress instead of her heavier, more serviceable hunting and
traveling clothes.  He shook his head as he looked at her with eyes
filled with love.  "Lonit must change into traveling clothes.  This man
will not turn away from his purpose.  And never will he consent to allow
Lonit to go to another man's bed skins.  In this valley, or in the world
of men, in the dress of elk skin or out of it, you are Torka's woman,
always and forever."

She bowed her head, devastated by the love that she had seen in his
eyes, terrified that he would see the indecision and betrayal in hers.
If Navahk came to the Great Gathering to join with the other magic men,
if he danced before her in the firelight beneath the whirling stars, if
he held out his hand to her again and asked her to come with him, she
was not certain that she could refuse.

She was not certain at all.

Beneath the endless day of the Arctic summer, Torka led his little band
out of the Valley of Songs.  The terrain did not easily accommodate
heavily burdened, sledge-dragging travelers.  Their progress was slow,
and they walked in silence.  The dogs trotted ahead of them, Aar and
Sister Dog and three of the older pups carrying side packs, looking back
often, as though they could not understand what was taking the men and
women of their pack so long.

They plodded on, deep into the narrows of the valley that opened into
the Corridor of Storms, against a wind that seemed determined to shove
them back to their encampment.

"You see?"  Karana asked.  "The spirits of the wind wish us to stay."

"And the spirit of survival tells Torka that it wishes us to continue."

On they walked, pausing at last on the other side of the stakes and pit
traps that had kept large carnivores from entering their valley.  The
great, glistening walls of the Mountains That Walk lay before them,
silent sentinels flanking the vast, rolling river of grass.  Ahead and
to the west, the Mountain That Smokes was without its usual plume.
Above, the sun watched them, as did the great woolly mammoth, Life
Giver.

Eighteen feet tall at the shoulder, it loomed directly ahead of them,
about a mile away at the crest of a broad, tundral rise.  Life Giver's
massive, twin-domed head was raised, its ears twitched forward, its
tusks were extended, its trunk up curled

"Look!  Big Spirit has come out of the valley," said Aliga, pointing
from where she lay upon the fur-padded sledge of crossed, sinew-bound
caribou antlers.

Karana set down his end of the sledge, and Torka did the same.  "The
Great Spirit wonders why we are headed out of the valley and into the
world of men--men who would hunt him and us, if they had the chance."

Torka cuffed the youth hard upon the shoulders.  The boy stood firm
against it and dared to challenge the man again.

"They will, you know," he pressed.  "Torka is not like other men; he
cannot live within a band.  He must lead it.  And so other men will
always try to bring Torka down or drive him out from among them."  The
words of the youth were heavy with a truth that Torka had no wish to
acknowledge.  "Torka has no desire to challenge the authority of men
older and wiser than he.  Torka
will live within a band again.  This time, Torka will walk with caution,
lest he cause offense."

"Hrmmph!  If Navahk is at the Great Gathering, he will find a way to
trip you."

"Amid the throng at the Great Gathering Navahk will be only one man
among many.  This man will not misjudge him again--nor will he fear him.
Navahk may be a magic man, Karana, but he is only a man."

"He is a very bad man."

Torka shook his head, giving up on the conversation.  "Come," he said
sharply, annoyed with the youth for having visibly upset Lonit.  "Torka
has thought much of this, and so he says now to Karana: Just how bad can
one man be, after all?"

They walked until their need for sleep caused them to stop.  Beneath the
light of the endless day they put down their sledges and packs, ate a
light meal of traveling rations, and, except for Karana, slept.

With Aar curled and dreaming at his side, he sat with his arms folded
around his knees, his back to the wind as he looked back across the
miles toward the Valley of Songs.

The mammoth was still there, far away now, grazing alone at the base of
the tundral rise that stood before the neck of the canyon that led into
the valley.  Karana could not have said what motivated him to rise,
waking Aar, and to move toward the animal, but it seemed that the warmth
of the sun was rising in him, blinding him to all but the mammoth.

Well away from his sleeping fellow travelers, he broke into a lope. With
Aar bounding at his side, he ran through molten gold--the gold sun above
and golden grasses all around.  Karana ran until the miles that lay
between him and the great mammoth ceased to exist.

The mammoth raised its head, watching him come.  The creature swayed
restlessly, raised its huge tusks so high that they seemed to touch the
sun.  Karana stopped less than a spear-throw's distance away.  But he
had come unarmed and stood with his arms hanging loose at his sides, his
heart pounding and his breath coming in deep, even rasps.

The mammoth lowered its great, twin-domed head and fixed the youth with
its ancient eyes.

Karana stared back.  He was so close he could clearly see the discolored
tips of the mammoth's tusks and the crooked
scar high on its shoulder where Torka's projectile point had struck it
so many years ago.  Karana could see the jagged tip of the spear shaft
that the mammoth had broken off, extending from the animal's tough hide.

Beside him, Aar looked up, curious.  His blue eyes moved from Karana to
the mammoth.  The dog saw the animal through the tall golden grasses, a
towering, mountainous form.  He smelled the beast and knew through its
scent that there was no threat in it--as long as Karana stayed where he
was.

But slowly, raising his arms, the youth began to move forward.  He
softly whispered for the dog to stay, and Aar, trembling in confusion
and frustration, reluctantly obeyed.

Karana was warmed by the sun.  Its light filled him as, across the
golden land, he walked entranced, his mind as wide as the sea of grass,
as free and light as the spirit wind that whispered within his head. "I
will come back!"  he shouted to the mammoth, to the land, and to the
surrounding mountains.  The wind took his voice and sent it rushing on,
on, back into the Valley of Songs, where it caressed the familiar hills
and pools and rushing stream.

Behind him Aar whimpered and hunkered back, tail tucked, hair bristling.
Karana seemed a stranger to him in this moment--no longer a youth, but
aman ... a man of power a magic man, a man without fear.

The mammoth was moving toward him, but Karana stood unflinching.  As his
arms were raised, so, too, was the trunk of the mammoth raised. And in
the golden light of the sun, his body aflame with the spirit wind,
Karana reached, touched, set his splayed hands upon the tips of the
great tusks, and named the mammoth Brother.  "I will come back!"  he
vowed again.  "And in the land of men I will raise no spear against your
kind, nor eat of your flesh, nor drink of your blood.  You are totem to
me.  Life Giver, forever!"

For a thousand miles the wind moaned across the land, and the people of
Navahk moaned with it.  Although tradition forbade it, the magic man was
also headman now.  He had won that right when he had walked into camp
wearing the skin of the wind spirit, explaining that Supnah's arm and
head had vanished and that the former headman would never be reborn into
the band.  Navahk had not explained how a spirit had come to have a skin
or earthly form, but no one had asked for an explanation; Navahk's power
was incontestable in this world and the next.

His face and arms upraised to the sun, he stood now clothed only in
ornamental feathers: the white owl feather that adorned the forelock of
his knee-length hair; the headman's circlet of eagle, hawk, and tera
torn feathers about his brow, wrists, and ankles; and the broad downy
collar that had once been Supnah's, with its grotesque fringe of taloned
claws draping his shoulders and chest.

His people sat around him, making a song of their moaning, slapping
their hands upon their thighs in a slow, desultory rhythm that matched
the low, resonant hum of the flies buzzing around the drying frames that
held wind-stiffened ribbons of meat, fish, and whole, gutted, un
feathered fowl.

It was the time of year called time when the caribou change hair, long
past the time when the caribou came to familiar crossings en route to
northern calving grounds from winters spent to the south and east.
Navahk's band had wintered at such a crossing, but they had still been
the people of Supnah then, and now they knew that it was Supnah's fault
that the caribou had not come.  Navahk had assured them of that; he had
told them that the spirits had not favored Supnah for a long time--that
was why they had

sent the wind spirit to kill him and had sent the spear of the magic man
flying wide so that they might commune with Navahk now, as he stood
naked beneath the sun, listening expressionlessly as his people's songs
of adoration droned around him as atonally as the flies droned around
the meat.

They sang of Navahk, story-chanting, as was their way at festive
occasions.  They sang of how he had returned from the mountain of the
wanawut wearing the skin of the spirit that had killed his beloved
brother.  They sang of how he had kept the mandatory five-day death
watch for Supnah and of how, to prove his merit as a hunter to his
people, he had led them to hunt successfully once again.  They sang of
finding the smaller herds of caribou that broke off from the main thrust
of the migration to forage until signs of the impending time of the long
dark called the small groups into a single river of life, and together
they walked southeastward into the face of the rising sun.

The rhythm of their chant quickened.  The men boasted of following
Navahk from one hunting camp to another, of killing caribou until there
were no more.  They did not add to their song that their kills were
small, a cluster of cows and calves here, another cluster there, not
once equaling the great kills on which Supnah had so often led them,
kills that enabled them to stay in one camp for months on end and
sometimes for an entire season.  The chant did not ask the spirits why
the great herds of caribou had not returned to this portion of the
tundra.  They did not ask the forces of Creation why the spirits of
bison and elk and ox grazed not upon the grass where the band might find
and hunt them.  Instead they praised the spirits of the caribou, without
embellishing their songs with the information that by late in the season
the animals were fly bitten, their valuable winter pelage long since
replaced with the stiffer, shorter hair of summer, suitable only for
making boots and pouches.  Instead they sang of how, at any time of
year, men were grateful for meat and for magic men who led them to it.
They praised the changing season that had brought two of their girls to
womanhood and chanted to the spirits of the owls, ptarmigans, hares, and
foxes, which had completely shed their coats of winter white, exchanging
them for less conspicuous tones of brown and gray. The rhythm of the
chant grew faster still, the words more boastful, warning the creatures
of the tundra that their new hiding coats would
make no difference.  Navahk was headman of this band!  The animals of
the tundra must be wary, or the magic man would call them forth to die
within the snares and nets and upon the spears of his people.  No animal
or spirit could refuse the command of Navahk.  Not even the wanawut!

And certainly not the new women, Pet and Ketti, who now waited within
the blue smokes of the hut of first blood, which the women of the band
had raised for them.  Within it they had passed their first time of
blood.  The hut would be burned at the end of this day's ritual, during
which both new women would be ritually deflowered by their magic man,
whose port endings would determine their new status within the band.

Mahnie was afraid.  She sat beside her mother on the women's side of the
circle and watched as Ketti and Pet were led stiff-legged with fear from
the hut of first blood to stand before the magic man.

Across from her the faces of the men of the band were rapt, strangely
hungry eyed, as though they were viewing game instead of girls.  Their
chanting was strident now, tensely drawn, like their faces.  One would
think that they had never seen a naked female before.

Mahnie licked her lips and felt the sun's heat beating upon the top of
her head, rousing a dull ache.  She reached to rest an open palm
protectively upon her head and was startled to feel how hot her hair
was.  She was equally startled when Wallah grabbed her wrist and
forcefully returned her hand to her thigh.  She looked up at her mother,
saw a warning in dark eyes that communicated the need for self-control,
and felt afraid again as she forced herself to clap and chant with the
others.

Mahnie did not like the chant; it reeked of insincerity, and the men had
all the words.  The females merely accented them in low, tedious sucks
and exhalations of air, rather like dull-witted animals giving birth.
Beneath the thin, lightweight buckskin of her skirt, her thighs were
growing numb from the repeated slapping of her palms against them. Still
the chanting went on and on.

And still the magic man stood motionless in the center of the circle,
his body greased to prevent biting flies from piercing his skin, his
head back, the paraphernalia that he would soon use arrayed at his feet
upon the terrible skin of
the wanawut.  He stood so still that had she not seen the pulse beat at
his throat and the subtle, throbbing movement of his engorged, erect
penis, she might have taken him to be dead and stretched upon an
invisible drying frame.

She stared at his organ, not liking what she saw.  Nudity was common
among her people within the confines of their pit huts, not flaunted
beneath the blazing eye of the summer sun.  She had seen all of the men
of her band naked at one time or another--as they had seen her--but
never had a man displayed himself like this .. . nor had she ever seen
an organ so engorged that it stood upright, above the magic man's navel,
moving slowly, as though it had a life of its own.

The sight of it unnerved her, as did the entire atmosphere of the
impending ceremony.  It had been the talk of the band for days now, ever
since both Pet and Ketti had come to their menses simultaneously and the
women had hurried to raise the hut of first blood for them. She had been
jealous at first; at eleven she was nearly as old as they. Her mother
had consoled her, saying that it was difficult to predict when blood
would come to a girl, and starving times could delay a girl's time
indefinitely: Under the starving moon many women did not bleed at all.
And in a band where most of the children had been abandoned years
before, everyone doubly rejoiced when first Ketti, and then Pet, had
announced within hours that at last their time of blood had come.

Mahnie had found it unfair.  The three of them always did everything
together.  Wallah had hugged her and said that her time would come soon
enough, and in the meantime Wallah would enjoy having her little girl
for a bit longer.  But Mahnie did not want to be a little girl when Pet
and Ketti were women.  She had pouted as she watched the hut of first
blood go up and saw the special treatment accorded to her friends.

Everyone was so happy, especially Grek.  Her father had been eyeing Pet,
Supnah's girl, for years.  And for years the two girls had giggled about
it.

"If I bleed before you, I will come to share the bed skins of your
father.  We will share the same hut, and you will have to call me
Mother!"

It had been a great joke between them.  When Grek was not within hearing
distance, Mahnie often teased Pet by calling her Mother.  Pet teased her
back by calling her Daughter, turning up her pert little nose, and
ordering her to do as
she was told or Grek would hear of it and Worthless Daughter would be
punished.  Overhearing, Wallah had been amused.  She liked Supnah's
gentle, pretty daughter.  There would be no jealousy at Grek's fire; the
more women in a man's camp, the less work for all.

For three long days Mahnie had been angry with her friends and the blood
spirits, who denied her the privilege of sharing the hut of first blood
with Pet and Ketti.  Then, slowly, as the days passed and the women came
and went from the hut, their rejoicing became a quiet introspection.
Sometimes, if someone spoke too loudly, the women jumped and skittered
off across the camp like frightened antelope.  The men were different
too, watchful, full of unspoken secrets.  And the magic man was not seen
for days after he retired into his own hut to do whatever magic men did
when they were alone and preparing for a ritual ceremony.

Mahnie asked her mother why the other women were so tense, but suddenly
Wallah was nervous and flighty like all the others, with no answers at
all.  So she asked Grek, who grunted, looked for Wallah, and not finding
her, explained as best as any man could about woman wisdom.

"It has to do with the acceptance of the girls into the band."

She sensed evasiveness, which was not her father's way.  Even when
Navahk had become headman, when everyone had known that eventually Grek
was to have been chosen, he had dealt with the matter in a
straightforward way.  He made no attempt to hide his disappointment, but
he did not brood on it either.  When Wallah had attempted to console
him, he had brushed her away, saying simply that the spirits had chosen
who would lead the people; a man did not argue with the spirits.

And girls did not argue with their fathers.  But Mahnie was Grek's only
surviving child.  She was only a female, but he adored her, and she knew
it.  So she pressed him.  "The girls are already members of the band?
..."

The statement was a question.  From the look on her face, he had known
that she needed an answer from him.  "As girls, yes.  As women, no.
Since time beyond beginning, it is up to the headman of each band to
accept each daughter of his people into the protection of the band--to
blood her, or, by refusing to blood her, to deny her that protection."

"Blood?"

"First piercing.  It must be done by the magic man.  Then the headman
makes second piercing, as a man.  And if he does not choose to keep the
woman for his own bed skins, then her father may at last be rid of her
by giving her to the man who gives him most for her."

"Does Grek long to be rid of Mahnie?"

"Of course!  You are a girl, aren't you?"

She saw his love through his scowl, but her heart had not been lightened
by it.  The ritual of first blood no longer seemed a thing to be envied.
"Grek has said 'deny."  Do you mean, turn her out to walk the wind
forever?"

"Something like that, but that has not been done among this people since
time beyond remembering."

"But it has been done?"

"Not in this man's memory.  Not in the time of Supnah.

"Navahk is headman now."

The sky bled heat.

Navahk looked up, directly into the molten eye of the sun--then through
it, to the other side of the sky, to the endless, burning lake of power
that lay beyond.

Heat and light poured into him, burning his eyes, but he did not flinch.
He drew his strength from them, as he drew strength from the flame light
of feast fires, from the cold, distant fires of the uncountable stars,
and from the dazzling color displays of the aurora borealis that so
cowed and intimidated his people.  And from their fear he drew his
strength.

He closed his eyes.  The sun shone beneath his lids, pooling outward in
red and orange, in yellow and white-hot, evanescence; like the
glimmering lake of heat he had glimpse beyond the eye of the sun, on the
other side of the sky, it was power .. . pure, mind-consuming power.  If
it were possible for him to fly up into it, piercing the eye of the sun,
then to swim in that lake of fire, he would do so.  He would not be
consumed by the flames; he would be transformed by them, like a spear
shaft is strengthened when it has been subject to the searing heat of
coals.

The imagery pleased him.  He felt the power of the sun engorging his
maleness, his pride, and his sense of control over his people and the
two young women whose fate lay within his hands.  He opened his eyes
again, still daring to stare into the eye of the sun, opening himself to
its heat,

filling himself with its light as though it were blood that might be
sucked hot from a living beast.

It burned.  He smiled.  Pain was sweet to him.  Slowly his eyes focused
upon the two girls.  Ketti, bright and eager in her fear.  Pet, wide
eyed, trembling lipped.  He despised Pet.  He saw his brother in her
face.

She saw the hatred in his eyes.  Her lips went white.

His smile broadened.  He knelt.  The chanting of his people stopped.
Absolute silence was a song of its own, beating its portent in his ears
as, from the skin of the wanawut, he lifted the horn of First Man, a
heavily greased phallus that was said to be the penis of the first man
in all the world.  It was not a penis; it was the bone like protuberance
that once grew atop the nose of what must have been a massive woolly
rhinoceros.  The wide base had been cut away.  All that remained were
twelve inches of narrow-tipped, up curling deadly looking horn. Smoothed
by age and generations of handling, it was black with a patina of oils
and fat, body fluids and dried blood.

Navahk rose, holding it as though it were his own organ, working it,
walking a circuit around the two girls, then pausing before Ketti.

Behind him he heard murmuring as Ketti took the position the women
instructed her to take.  With knees bent, hips arched, and limbs
splayed, she waited.

He looked at her with interest only because her bravery annoyed him. Her
bare body did not excite him; if his organ was erect, that was due to
the thrill of power that the ceremony was granting to him.  He did not
look forward to sharing his bed skins with either of them, but he did
look forward to the moment of blooding.  The horn was smooth and warm
within his palms.  His lips were taut across his teeth.  He raised the
horn high above the girl.  He saw her grit her teeth and close her eyes,
readying herself for pain.

The magic man saw no reason to disappoint her.  Nor did he see any
reason to prolong the blooding for the pleasure of the girl or the
watchers.  When Supnah had lived, Navahk had done it that way, to please
his brother.  Now Supnah was dead, and Navahk pleased himself. His arm
arced down.  The horn went in fast, hard.  If the girl had moved, it
might have pierced her womb.  But she did not move; the women had warned
her that she must not move.

Navahk was disappointed.  He snarled as he raised the bloodied horn.  A
jubilant cry went up from the People.

Ketti's entire body blushed pink with relief and pride.  She had
survived!  She had survived bravely, without a sob or a tear!  Her eyes
sought Mahnie among the women.  Finding her girlhood friend, she beamed
with pride as Navahk announced to all that Ketti was now accepted as a
woman of his band.

And now it was Pet's turn.  The girl was deathly pale.  She fought to
take the required position of submission.  She shook so badly that
balance was difficult; her knees buckled, then locked, then quivered
pathetically.  Beside her Ketti stood as tall as her plump little figure
would allow, her posture and expression informing Pet that the worst
would soon be over.  Be brave, her eyes said.  Do not be afraid. It is
not so bad.

Navahk read the reassurance in her eyes and reacted perversely to it. He
looked from Ketti's plain, round face to Pet's more defined, infinitely
prettier one.  Again he saw his brother in the girl.  And himself.  And
Karana.  The same eyes.  The same nose.  The same mouth. Cut to feminine
dimensions, but the same.  It occurred to him then, as it had before,
that she might be his get.  He had secretly joined with Naiapi enough
times to make it a distinct possibility.

His head eased to one side, his eyes lingering on the girl's face as he
recalled that both he and his brother were the sons of many generations
of magic men.  How many of their fathers had stood where he stood now,
holding the sacred horn of First Man?  Karana would have known.  Karana
would have stood beneath this same sun, and the power would have come to
him from the other side of the sky, as it had yet to come to
Navahk--fully, effortlessly.  Karana would have seen through time as
Navahk had never been able to see.  Karana would have been able to give
his father an answer.  Karana had the power.

He had not thought of the boy in many days, but he saw Karana now, in
the face of Pet.  In his dreams the boy walked the other side of the sky
and was still too innocent to realize it.  He saw a similar innocence in
the eyes of Pet.  Looking at her now, he wondered if, although Supnah
had possessed no precognitive powers, it was still possible for the girl
to have inherited those powers through his brother.  Or, if she had
inherited them, had they been a gift from him, if he were her real
father?  She had none of the bold inquisitiveness of Karana, but she was
only a female.  Females were deceitful creatures.  Perhaps her fear of
him was feigned, and she was a latent force waiting to overshadow him
before he managed to hone
his abilities into the perfection and absolute power that still eluded
him?  The possibility reminded him of the magic woman Sondahr.

The sun was very hot on his back.  For the first time since he had come
to stand naked in its light, it began to sap him of energy.  Anger rose
in him at memories of Sondahr, and of Lonit, who had shamed him before
his people by preferring to walk into forbidden country with Torka than
to share the fire of Navahk.

Anger fused with hatred and jealousy.  Now he was strong again.  His arm
rose, holding the bloodied horn of First Man high.  The power was in
him--the power of headman, the power of magic man, the power of life and
death.  His arm arced with the force of a spear thrust, driving twelve
inches of rhinoceros horn straight up through her belly into her heart.

Naiapi screamed.  She did not break from the women's side of the circle,
nor did she run to her only child as Navahk ripped the horn from the
dead girl's breast.  Pet's death had been quick, although she had shamed
herself by crying out at the moment of her unexpected impaling, an
unforgivable offense not only for her, but for the mother who had borne
her.

Navahk was advancing slowly toward the women's side of the circle, to
where Naiapi cowered before him.  The woman expected to be killed. Death
was in his eyes.  She met it boldly with her own.  Since Supnah's death
Naiapi had lived at the fringes of the band.  Pregnant with a dead man's
child, no other man welcomed her to his bed skins.  She had gone to
Navahk, offering herself, saying that the child she carried might well
be his and that she would be his woman on any terms, on any day or night
he wanted her.  But he did not want her, or the infant, or her daughter.
She and Pet had lived apart, grateful for Navahk's sufferance, knowing
that soon Pet would be a woman at Grek's fire, and that once Naiapi's
infant was born and exposed--if it was not male-one of the hunters of
the band was certain to welcome such a comely woman into his protection
... if Navahk allowed it if Navahk did not take her for himself.

But now that would never happen, for Naiapi had screamed at the moment
of her daughter's death.  Despair growled at the back of her throat. If
only she could bring herself to break tradition once again by daring to
tell them all that her scream
had not been a protest; it had been a cry of surprise and joy.  She
would have exposed the girl at birth, as she had exposed all the
others--four little girls--had Supnah not insisted upon her keeping the
child.  Pet--another daughter--had been living proof that Naiapi could
bear no sons.  But Supnah had insisted upon accepting the child.  Her
mouth twisted.  How she loathed the girl!  Navahk should have killed her
years ago instead of allowing her to live to soften the headman's grief
at Karana's abandonment.

Her eyes held upon Navahk now.  If only he and not Supnah had seen her
first, when their band had come to the Great Gathering!  She was glad
Supnah was dead.

The magic man paused before her.

The band watched, waited, for Navahk to loose Death once again. Instead
the magic man smiled.  The woman at his feet impressed him. She was
unflinching, brave, hungry eyed, and distractingly brazen with open
sexual invitation even at the moment of her death.  She was beautiful,
even though she was no longer young and her body was distorted with
pregnancy.  Many men were eager to have Naiapi free of Supnah's child so
that they might attempt to win her.

Navahk's eyes left the woman and scanned the men's side of the circle.
There was no missing-the resentment on Grek's face; he had wanted Pet
badly, just as others wanted Naiapi.  Frustration twitched visibly at
the corners of Navahk's mouth.  His blood was up for dealing death. But
while the death of Pet had served him, the death of Naiapi would not.
Too many lusted for a chance to win her, and he would alienate them if
he deprived them of that chance.

His smiled expanded.  Naiapi would live, but Navahk, like the wild
stallions of the steppe, would suffer no offspring of Supnah to survive,
lest it grow to sap him of his powers.  The men of the band would not
object to the expulsion of the child from her womb.  If she survived,
they would thank Navahk for cleansing the woman for their use.

As the woman herself seemed to be thanking him.  Her eyes had seen the
subtle change in his expression, telling her that he was not going to
take her life--unless she died as a result of his killing of her unborn
child.  She shivered, but he knew it was not with fear.  Her eyes were
wide and shining with expectation, as though what must surely follow
would pleasure rather than pain her.  He knew her reputation for
being a woman who had, with her own hands and a notable absence of
grief, willingly exposed four of her own infants.  At the height of the
great killing winter, she had come to him behind his brother's back and
asked him not to spare the life of her daughter.  She had even dared to
imply that he might be the father.  She had taunted him with that and
suggested that if he was asking Supnah to abandon his child, he should
be willing to offer up his own as well.  She had told him that she was
sick of daughters, and she had offered herself to him then, suggesting
that he put a son in her.  He had considered killing her and was sorry
that he had not, as once again she offered herself to him.  She knelt,
limbs spread wide, hips arched forward, moving with slow, deliberate
provocation.  As she threw back her arms and exposed the great, mounding
expanse of her belly to him, her mouth expanded across her teeth into a
mad, salivating smile of anticipation.

"Kill it!"  she whispered with low, hissing ferocity.

Her insane sexual eagerness for pain excited him.  His organ swelled and
throbbed as he obliged her.  Once, twice, half a dozen times, his foot
struck into her belly.

Although she fell onto her side and gasped against the pain of his
blows, she smiled up at him.  "With the horn ..."  she begged, opening
herself wide to him.

As the members of the band watched in stunned silence, again he obliged
her, straddling her now.  Slowly the horn of First Man entered Naiapi,
to pierce the unborn infant without undo injury to the woman who
accepted it and moved on it as though it were the organ of the man who
held it.  Then he suddenly removed the horn, and it was his organ that
penetrated her, thrusting deep, savagely seeking to rouse pain, then
withdrawing in disgust as she cried out with the anguished delight of
orgasm.  Bloodied, his penis still hard and upright, he got to his feet.
As the women turned away and Mahnie sobbed into her mother's lap, Navahk
smiled and held out his hand to Ketti.

"Come," he said.  "It is your turn now."

They put the Corridor of Storms behind them and walked westward into
familiar country.  They traveled most of the day, resting only when
necessary.  This was a haunted land for them: In the low, rolling
country to the south, they had encountered the Ghost Band and had seen
their loved ones murdered; here they had walked with Supnah's people,
and witnessed the death of Hetchem and the abandonment of her poor,
misbegotten child.

In the high hills that stood between this open land and the Corridor of
Storms, Torka had stood before the great mammoth and been given the gift
of life.

And now he walks away from that life!  thought Karana, begrudingly
dragging Aliga's sledge, plodding grimly beside Torka.  It was as though
the sky were a great, gray blanket, weighting all those who moved
beneath it.  The land seemed gray, and the mood of the youth was even
grayer.  It seemed hours since anyone had spoken.  Even the dogs were
subdued, their heads down and tails sagging.

As they came to the bones of the encampment that they had shared with
Supnah's people near the Land of Little Sticks, they veered away into
unfamiliar country, until the sun disappeared behind the high,
glistening blue walls of the Mountains That Walk.  At last they shrugged
off their packs and gratefully began to make camp in stony, broken
country beside a wide, shallow tributary of the River of Caribou Spring
Crossing.  From here they would continue toward the northwest until they
came to the broad outwash plain at the base of the high, forested hills,
where they would join the Great Gathering.

Torka and Karana raised shelters against the rain that they

knew would come before morning.  The wind had changed.  The clouds had
thinned to mere streaks.  Tomorrow, thicker, darker, more potent clouds
would follow.  Now the sky glowed.  It took on the color of clear water
into which blood has seeped.  Only if they looked very hard could they
see stars at all.  This was the time of light.  There would be no night,
except in their bones and muscles when fatigue told them that it was
time to sleep.

Lonit, lana, and Summer Moon searched for additions to the traveling
rations of dried meat and cakes of fat into which berries and bits of
wind-cured fish had been pressed.  In the shade of scrub willow, birch,
and alder growing along the river, the women speared graylings with
their fishing tridents.

Lonit and lana used digging sticks of fire-hardened bone to uproot
tubers and picked the crisp, deep-green leaves of mountain sorrel,
munching as they worked.  Summer Moon followed them eagerly, imitating
their every move as Lonit instructed her tiny daughter in the names and
uses of the growing gifts of Mother Below.

They feasted upon fish, fragrant leaves, and sweet roots, saving their
less desirable traveling provisions for another camp.  Aliga sighed,
rose weakly to her feet, stretched her great girth, then leaned on Lonit
for support as the younger woman helped her to hobble off to a private
place within the shrubs where she could relieve herself.  This done,
Lonit helped her back to the campsite again and gently assisted her as
she seated herself.

Seeing that Torka and Karana had gone off to attend to their own needs,
Aliga leaned close to Lonit.  "Do you think that Navahk will be at the
Great Gathering?"

Lonit frowned at the ever-deepening sallow color that she saw within
Aliga's swirling tattoos.  She touched Aliga's brow, testing for fever.
"This woman has no wish to see that one again," she replied.  Her fever
was still there, but low, barely perceptible, like a tiny ember glowing
within the ash of a well-banked fire.  She wished that Aliga would drink
the bearberry brew that she made for her at Karana's advice, or at least
chew on fever-eating willow leaves.  But Aliga was not willing to give
much credence to either Lonit's or Karana's attempts at healing.

"That one was the most beautiful man that this woman has ever seen,"
exhaled the tattooed woman, closing her eyes, smiling at memories. "And
so powerful, so strong in his

magic.  Navahk called the bad spirits out of Hetchem.  He called them
out of her and held them up for all to see!  He could do that for this
woman!"

Again Lonit frowned.  The mention of his name caused an unwelcome and
instant quickening of her heart.  "Aliga's memory does not see beyond
the face and smile of the man!  Has she forgotten that Hetchem died?
Navahk's magic smokes and chanting did not save her."

"He could have.  But Hetchem was too old for baby bearing.  Aliga is not
so old.  The magic of Navahk could help this woman.  Aliga is sure of
it."

"Karana says that his magic is trickery, that there is a darkness in
him."

Aliga's blackened lids fluttered open.  She shook her head weakly and
smiled conspiratorially at her friend.  "What does a boy know of how a
woman sees a man, eh?"

"We are Torka's women!"  Lonit replied defensively.

"Yes, but we would have to be blind not to respond to Navahk or want to
be with him, at least once."

"This woman never wants to see him again!"

The intensity of Lonit's reply did not pass Aliga unnoticed.  "Not even
if he could save this woman and bring forth her baby?"

Shame and guilt burned Lonit's face.  She wondered if Aliga had seen
into her heart.  "There will be many magic men at the Great Gathering,
Aliga," she responded evasively.  "This woman asks the spirits every day
that one of these healers will help her sister.  Also she asks that it
not be Navahk.  Navahk's magic is bad."

Aliga measured her out of jaundiced eyes.  "Bad for whom?"  she pressed,
then shook her head again and clucked her tongue knowingly. Sighing, she
drifted into sleep, leaving Lonit to ponder a question that she had no
wish to answer.

Karana first saw the strangers, although the dogs were on their scent
long before the youth pointed toward them.  Alerted by the frenzied
barking and circling of the animals, Torka rose from his sleeping skins,
hefted his bludgeon, raised his spear, and stood tall, unmoving, and
silent as the interlopers advanced.

Lonit was instantly awake, alarmed by the dogs and the tension that she
saw in Torka's back.  She sat up beneath their
lean-to and called out to lana, who shared another shelter with the
children.

"Keep the little ones close!"  she commanded as she shoved her bed skins
aside.  Jamming her feet into her hoots, she took up her bola from where
it lay close to her lynx-skin headrest, and clambered to stand beside
her man, thankful that they had not all stripped naked before retiring.

The strangers were clothed in well-worked skins.  Theirs was a small
band, not more than thirty people.  But next to Torka's tiny company,
the number seemed enormous, as was the noise that they made.  Bent
forward under heavy pack frames, they boldly sloshed across the shallows
of the river.

Then they paused, transfixed with amazement and terror as they saw the
pack of wild dogs that threatened them from the far embankment.  They
stopped dead, squinting, trying to make sense of the fact that the dogs
seemed to be a part of Torka's tiny band.  The women began to murmur
against grave misgivings.  A child began to cry.  The hunters took their
spears and waved their arms, shouting and hooting, pretending they were
not intimidated.

Under Aar's leadership the dogs were entering the river, heads out,
teeth bared, entire bodies straining forward as if about to leap to the
attack.  A single word from Torka caused the animals to hold.  When one
of the younger males moved forward, Aar and Sister Dog leaped upon him
and sent him yipping back to join his siblings.

"Aiyeeeh!"  The cry of amazement went out of every mouth in the strange
band.  The threat of the attacking dogs was less frightening than the
specter of a lone man controlling a pack of wild animals with a single
word.  As one they stepped back, stumbling over themselves until they
were safe on the far shore.  The women clutched their children while the
men again raised their weapons and shook them violently.  One of their
number levered back and hurled a spear at Torka.  It was an impressive
throw but short of its target.  It landed near the water, its head
embedded in the riverbank, its painted shaft quivering as though with
embarrassment for having failed to serve its master.

Torka did not move.  Behind him, kneeling within her lean-to, lana
struggled to hold the children while Summer Moon was straining angrily
to be free.  From beneath the skins of her own shelter, Aliga peeked
with groggy curiosity from her jumbled sleeping skins.

Karana stood brazenly with spear in hand beside Torka, who was proud
that neither of them flinched when the man hurled his weapon from the
far shore.  Three long years of hunting together had taught them that a
spear thrust from such a distance could be no threat.  From the way that
the stranger balanced and hurled his weapon, Torka was certain that the
man must have known it too; it was simply his way of keeping his pride.

"A fool's throw," Karana sneered.  "The spearhead will be ruined, and
from the way the shaft quivers, the bone is cracked."

Torka nodded.  "Nevertheless, the spear spoke well for the man.  He does
not want us to think that he is afraid."

"But why does he fear us?"  Lonit asked, herself fearful.

"I would imagine that he and his people have never seen men walk with
dogs before," Torka answered.  "It was so with Supnah's people until
they learned that there was no special magic to the relationship.  But
this man will not make the same mistake twice.  The few are always weak
among the many unless the many have cause to fear them.  Karana, bring
this man his spear hurler.  We'll show them some real magic."

It was a graceful, elegantly carved tool.  Years of refinement had made
it much more accurate and easier to handle than his first design.  This
hurler was of caribou antler, considerably lighter than the first, made
from the pelvis of a bison.  He smiled in anticipation of the strangers'
reaction to the spectacle to which they were about to be treated.

"Are you going to kill him?"  Karana asked eagerly.

"Not unless I've lost my eye and touch," responded Torka, and knew that
he had lost neither as, commanding Lonit and the youth to stand aside,
he balanced himself squarely on both feet, pivoted to the right, then
leaned back, back, until all of his weight was on his right leg.  And
still he twisted his body back until he felt his power burning along his
entire right side--the exquisite pain of absolute control--as he took
meticulous aim, and in a sudden burst of energy, whirled around and felt
his power uncoiling, releasing up through his body as he hurled himself
forward, caught his balance on his left foot, steadied it again on his
right, and threw the spear, not just with his arm, but with a sharp
snap-and-fling motion.  The spear hurler effectively became a second
forearm and wrist as it launched his weapon with twice the speed of any
normally thrown spear and across twice the distance.

The headman jumped straight up as Torka's spear landed at his feet. He
stared, gape mouthed.  No spear could fly so far!  But this spear had.
It could have struck a killing blow.  But clearly the man who had thrown
it had not intended that.

"Aiy yah!"  cried the women.

Every man and boy of the band sucked in his breath with wonder and
covetousness while their headman tentatively touched the powerful,
magical weapon.

And so, with the thrust of a spear, an alliance was begun; for in that
moment Torka raised his now empty spear arm in a sign of greeting and,
alone but not unarmed, waded out across the river.

"You hold the spear of Torka," he offered, striding out of the shallows.
His right hand was open and extended imperiously toward the headman, his
left curled about the haft of his bludgeon.

The man had pulled Torka's spear from the ground at his feet.  He was
small and burly.  His large head, puffed along his right cheek and jaw,
seemed even larger from a turban like helmet of bison skin, to which the
time-worn, fly-bitten body of a fox had been stitched.  The tail trailed
down the man's back, and the ferretlike face stared with eyes of
polished stone over his brow.  From beneath the fox's snout the man's
heavy features were lean with hunger.  There was wariness and fear in
his eyes as he stared at Torka, but no malice, anger, or cruelty.  A
chapped, chunky hand shot outward, fingers curled about Torka's spear.
"The point will need re knapping but the shaft is still sound.  "Here.
You take!  Torka is a man of much power to walk with beasts and tell
them what to do!  To throw a spear so far, so fast, with so much
strength!  The spirits of hunting magic must be strong in Torka, says
this man, Zinkh!"

Torka held his tongue, letting Zinkh think what he wanted him to think.
Torka looked past him to his equally lean looking people.  He counted
children of varying ages, infants, women, and several faces so seamed
with age that, were it not for their clothing, it would have been
difficult to guess their gender.  This band is lean, but it has not sent
its old to walk the wind so that its young might grow fat upon their
leavings.  He scanned the watchful faces of at least eight strong
hunters--young men in their prime, all with eyes like their spokesman.
Watchful and wary but without guile.

Torka allowed himself to relax a little.  Had he found the band he had
been seeking?  "Zinkh will keep the spear of Torka."

"Ahhh ..."  The man's face puckered with pleasure.  Then he winced, his
free hand flying to his swollen jaw, where his fingers pressed to
relieve pain.  "And what does this man Zinkh have to give in return to
Torka?"

"Torka asks for nothing."

"Good.  Zinkh and his band, we have nothing.  Has been bad season for
hunting.  Not much meat.  Many say passes to far north and west are
closed by walking snow.  Game cannot come through to eat spring grass.
So now in lean days of summer, Zinkh and his people, we journey to make
winter camp at Great Gathering.  It is good place to winter.  Hunt
mammoths if nothing better turns up.  Phuggh!  Stinking mammoth!  Taste
like trees!  Torka of much power, you like mammoth meat?"  "This man
does not hunt the mammoth.  It is his totem.  But Torka also journeys to
the Great Gathering, to winter there and to find a wise woman with
healing powers for one of my women who is.  slow to give birth.  But
Torka knows no hunger.  My people walk out of the east with bellies
full.  And Torka's camp across the river is filled now with fresh fish
and much dried meat.  Gladly would we welcome Zinkh and his people to
share meat.  And perhaps, among your women, there are wise ones who
could ease the worries of my woman who is with child?"

The man's face expanded into a smile that seemed to split his face. "We
travel to Great Gathering together!  Make one band.  Zinkh and his
people could use a hunter of much power like Torka!  We tell old Pomm to
make baby-come forth songs for woman of Torka!  Old Pomm, she knows
everything about babies!"

Old Pomm thought she knew everything, but she knew nothing.  She
possessed such absolute and aggressive conviction, there was no arguing
with her.  She was not a wise woman in any sense of the word, nor did
she pretend to know magic; but she was the closest to wisdom and magic
among her simple, straightforward people.  They were proud of her, and
she marinated herself in their pride like a prime, plump fillet of
haunch meat set to soak in fermented berry juice at
summer's end.  She absorbed it and grew fat upon it--so much so that
when Zinkh called her to cross the river with him, fear of the strangers
was absorbed by her pride.  Great indeed must her knowledge be, if such
a man as Torka asked for her!

The people of Zinkh stared with solemn anticipation of the worst as
their headman escorted Pomm across the shallows.  Not one wished to make
the crossing, even for the promise of food.  They were intimidated by
the large, wolflike dogs and murmured respectfully of the unprecedented
bravery of their headman.  But that was what headmen were for; after
Zinkh had tested the waters of Torka's camp and found them safe, only
then would his people follow.

So Zinkh and Pomm came alone and were greeted with friendship.  Custom
demanded that strangers be given food, so Lonit stood by, ready to offer
leftover roasted grayling to the headman and the fat woman the moment
they sloshed out of the river.  Both eyed the fish as though it were
offal.  lana held out a skin basket filled with cakes of fat and long
ribbons of dried meat.  Zinkh and Pomm greedily took handfuls of both,
and while the fat woman grunted her approval and appraised Karana with
eyes as ravenous and bold as her appetite, the headman nodded with
exuberant appreciation of the food.

"Not taste bison, fresh or dried, for long time now," said Zinkh.  "Eat
fish, all the time fish--and bird and rodent.  Phuggh!  Not man meat!
Woman meat!"

Lonit was glad that her eyes were downturned, lest the stranger be
offended by what he saw in them.  After three long years of living with
Torka in the Valley of Songs, she had forgotten how rude other men were
to their women.  The grayling she had offered were whole and untouched.
Each weighed well over five pounds, gutted, and had been prepared with
care, stuffed with sorrel leaves and slow-cooked over the coals.  Now,
although they were cold, they were still fragrant and tender.  Anyone
who claimed to be hungry but dismissed such well-made food was not only
rude, he was stupid.  Lonit gritted her teeth.

Both Pomm and Zinkh eyed the well-packed basket as they stuffed their
faces, chewing with infinite pleasure, as the headman asked through a
mouthful: "Torka of much power has much man meat to share?"

"Torka has packed much man meat out of the east.  Bison, camel,
antelope, horse--"

Zinkh's small, bright eyes went round with surprise, then narrowed with
speculation.  "East!  Where east?"

"Between the Mountains That Walk, within the Corridor of Storms."

A well-chewed spattering of food exploded out of Pomm's mouth.  She
choked.  Zinkh slapped her on the back hard enough to drop a horse; she
did not fall.

The headman stared at Torka.  "No man hunts there," he whispered, as
though he feared being overheard.

"Torka hunts there."

Lonit cast a sideward glance up at her man, proud of the disdainful
authority with which he spoke to the overdressed, rude little headman.

"It is forbidden."  Zinkh was still whispering.  "No man has ever walked
into that far country and come back to tell of it."

"Torka has come back to tell of it and to share its man meat with
Zinkh."

The man gulped, no longer certain that the meat was as tasty as before.
But he had already eaten it, and it would be an offense to the life
spirit of the game animal that had died to provide it if he vomited it
up.  now.  Besides, it was the tastiest dried meat that he had ever
eaten.  Even the disgusting white flesh of the river fish had given off
a tempting aroma.  He wondered if Torka's women cooked with magic.
Perhaps Torka himself was a spirit man.  He gulped, wondering what
powers the spirits would grant to him and to his people if they walked
with such a man.  "Torka is a man of much power?"  The question trembled
with excitement.

Torka's face was expressionless.  "Torka is what Zinkh sees," he replied
obliquely.  "And now, if Zinkh would bring this woman...."

It was obvious from their behavior that they would do whatever Torka
asked.  They followed him obediently to where Aliga lay, and while Pomm
winked at Karana and flashed a snaggle-toothed smile that caused the boy
to blush to his hairline and turn away, Zinkh openly admired the neat
lean-to.

The little man in the enormous headdress eyed the sky.  "Torka think
rain will come soon?"

"Rain will come."

"Soon?"

"Soon."

Zinkh nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his cheek, wincing again against
pain.  "If Torka say it will be good, Zinkh will make one camp here with
Torka's people.  If Torka's dogs will not eat us--?"

The question reeked of deference and fear.  Torka looked down at the
little man in the elaborately constructed garments and the absurdly
overwhelming helmet.  Zinkh had deliberately taken a tone and position
of subservience.  He stood with his head twisted to one side, his throat
bared, like a wolf or dog cowering before a dominant member of its pack.
Startled, Torka realized that the little man was relinquishing his
position as headman, yielding his authority to a man whom he feared
capable of taking it and leaving him nothing in the bargain.

"The dogs are this man's spirit brothers.  They will do as Torka
commands," he said, and knew that Zinkh and his people would do the
same, as long as it served them.  "Go.  Bring your people across the
river.  Torka says that, until we reach the Great Gathering, it will be
a good thing if we be one band."

Pomm laid her hands upon Aliga's belly.  She raised her voice in what
she called a song.  It had the yapping cadence of a dog when its tail
has been stepped upon.  As the members of her band crossed the river,
set up their lean-tos, and gratefully fed upon Torka's rations, Pomm
sang and sang until she grew tired and asked that more food be brought
to her.

While she ate, she could not sing, and although no one said as much,
everyone was glad for the silence--especially Aliga, who midway through
Pomm's caterwauling looked beseechingly at Lonit and asked, "This is the
healer you would bring to me instead of Navahk?  This fat one will sing
me to death."  With that she pulled her bed skins over her head and lay
moaning while Pomm continued her song.

Now she knelt beside the sick woman's fur-covered form.  Lonit watched
Pomm, who stared at Aliga.  Her weather savaged face would have been as
runneled as an outwash plain except that her fatness absorbed her lines.
Lonit wondered how she stayed so fat when the rest of her band was lean
with hunger.

Pomm belched resoundingly, then patted her belly, which was rounder than
Aliga's.  "Good food in this camp," she commended, nodding at Lonit.
Then she sighed and looked to Aliga again.  The tattooed woman had
drifted back into sleep.  Pomm made a tis king sound with her tongue.
"Pomm says that we talk quiet.  Sleep is good for woman with baby in
belly.  Baby sleep long enough, it wakes up and says, "Too long has this
one dreamed alone in the dark.  Now will this child be born! Now will it
come forth into the world of people, to be alone no more!" "

"Karana has tried to convince Aliga to drink bearberry tea, for the
yellow in her eyes and skin and--"

"Karana?"  An unmistakable glint of interest sparkled in the woman's
eyes.  "Karana be handsome boy that Pomm sees with Lonit's man?  Who
sits now alone--"

"Yes.  And Karana says that Aliga needs--"

"Shhh!"  Pomm's fat index finger flew to press warningly against her
small, childlike mouth.  "Not say name!  This is the most powerful
medicine of all.  Teas?  Bah!  Bearberry juice?  Bah!  Lonit, listen you
good what Pomm she tells you now: Tattooed woman, she sick with bad
spirit.  Bad spirit loves that woman whose name you speak, and it will
live forever in the belly of that woman unless we confuse it ... unless
we make it want to go away."

"How?"

"Give woman new name!  Never more call her by old name.  Spirit will
mourn, then it will go across the world until it finds another woman
with the same name!  Is great magic, Lonit!  You learn from this woman,
you will be wise someday, and all people will look to you for healing
magic!  Pomm is greatest healing woman in all bands!  At Great Gathering
Lonit will see how big is Pomm's magic!"

"Lonit sees that now," she said quietly, and turned away, despairing for
Aliga, who grew weaker daily, and for the unborn child, whose chances
were slim indeed if its life lay in the hands of such would-be healers
as Pomm.

They slept as one band beneath the light of the midnight sun.  Then
suddenly Zinkh jumped straight up from beneath his sleeping skins, his
hand pressed to his jaw.  He cursed and paced.  As everyone stared at
him in stunned amazement, he took up a bone awl and shook it at the sky.
With the index
finger of his left hand hooked into his cheek, he exposed his teeth and,
and with his right hand, gouged the offending member from his mouth.

"No more will that tooth cause this man pain!"  Blood seeped from his
mouth.  He stamped upon the tooth, grinding it into the tundral earth.
"There!  Now Zinkh laughs at you!  Ha!"  Blinking, Karana shook his
head. The headman was bleeding badly.  His laughter had vanished as
suddenly as it had come.  He had removed his tooth but caused greater
pain.  He slapped his hand against his jaw and moaned in abject misery.

Karana waited for Zinkh's wise woman to rise and bring him a paste of
ground willow shoots to pack into the wound; this would slow the
bleeding and ease the pain.  But the little headman began a frenzied
dance, blood bearding his chin and staining his clothes while Pomm
watched, unmoving.  With a sigh, Karana rummaged through his supplies,
found what he needed, and went to the headman with it.

"Here.  Take this.  It will stop the bleeding.  It will drive away the
pain spirit."  He was suddenly aware of everyone's rapt attention.  Old
Pomm was frowning.  Zinkh, holding his jaw with one hand, opened his
mouth like a baby waiting to be fed.

Grimacing, Karana stuck a finger into the narrow ointment bag, took up a
generous amount of the efficacious pulp, and obliged Zinkh by
administering it directly to his wound.

It was instantly soothing.  Zinkh's eyes widened.  He embraced the
embarrassed youth.  "You!  Pain Eater!  Magic Maker!"  He kissed him on
both cheeks, looking over his shoulders at Pomm.  "You!  Why does Woman
Who Knows Everything not know this?"  His hands gripped Karana's
shoulders and enthusiastically shook the youth.  "Zinkh to Karana give
great gift of thanks!  To Karana, this man gives Pomm!  You teach Woman
Who Knows Everything.  Together your magics be big."

Karana was flabbergasted.  "It is only the pulp of willow root, ground
with oil from--" "You teach Pomm, not Zinkh!"  She was at his side,
grinning rapaciously.

Karana had not imagined that anyone so fat could move so fast.  She was
on him as voraciously as a leaping cat.  Her strong arms went around
him, and she hugged him so hard that the air went out of his lungs.

"Come!  Karana teach Pomm later!  Now Pomm make Karana happy.  Pomm will
make Karana give her big gift!"

Everyone except Karana laughed at her brazen lewdness.  He was appalled
and horrified.  She had him by the hand and was pulling him toward her
sleeping skins.  "Wait!"  he implored, his eyes seeking Torka's, his
heart sinking as he saw that Torka was as amused as the others.

"There must be a first time for every man," Torka jibed with paternal
affection.

"Perhaps," Karana retorted, anger giving him the strength to jerk away.
"But this will not be the time for me!"

In all of her years, Mahnie had never seen her parents so preoccupied.
The entire camp was quiet--too quiet.  Now and then, from beyond the
walls of her family hut, the whispering voices of a man or woman would
rise slightly, then ebb away, and Mahnie would try to sleep again; but
when she did, she saw Pet and Ketti and Naiapi and the horn of First Man
and blood .. . everywhere .. . blood.

She sat up and leaned back on her palms, staring and blinking, trying to
obliterate her memories.  Three little dolls stared back at her from the
far end of her sleeping skins.  Three little dolls of remnant fur and
hide, with eyes of dried cloud berries and mouths of sedge seeds, with
bodies of doeskin stuffed with moss and encased in summer dresses and
trousers, and tiny boots, and long hair made of cuttings from Wallah's
own hair, so that Mahnie and her friends could enjoy combing it with the
tiny bone combs Grek had carved for them.  A sob of grief shook the girl
as she reached for the dolls and drew them into her protective embrace.
A doll for her, one for Ketti, one for Pet.  She buried her face in
their softness and let her tears fall as she mourned for days of
childhood happiness that could never come again.

"Leave the girl alone."

Grek's voice was soft, but Mahnie heard it and knew that Wallah had
moved, wanting to comfort her.

"There is no consolation," he said bitterly.  "Not for what she has
seen.  Or for what she will fear until her own time of blood has come
and gone.  And even then ..."

Her father's words trailed off into a sigh.  Bed skins rustled, and she
knew that Wallah was comforting him now.

"It was his right," whispered the woman tremulously.

"Right?  To kick Naiapi's unborn child to death in her womb?  To take
the life of Pet before the entire band, with the children watching?"

"Your sadness over the loss of the girl talks for you, Grek. First-blood
rites are always viewed by all.  It is just that this band has had no
one to blood for so many years, we have forgotten how--"

"Forgotten?  Never in all of this man's years has he witnessed anything
like what happened today.  Never in Grek's memory has the horn of First
Man been blooded by anything but the first blood of a woman.  To take
more than that, to take a life--such a thing has not happened since time
beyond beginning.  And yes, this man thinks of Pet.  She was like a
daughter to you, Wallah!  Like a sister to Mahnie!  And Navahk knew that
she was for me.  He knew it!"

The bed skins rustled again.  Mahnie heard the whispered soothings of
her mother and the infuriated, restless breathing of her father.  She
looked up at them through her laced fingers, where they sat together
upon their piled sleeping skins.  Although the time for sleep was nearly
over, neither had undressed or slept.  Mahnie doubted if anyone within
the entire encampment had slept.  She frowned.  Grek looked old and
haggard.  His face was drawn with grief, his eyes focused inward in
solemn introspection.  Wallah rested her head against his shoulder, one
arm beneath his and draped around his back, the other held across his
chest, her hand idly stroking.

"This woman wishes that Grek had been named headman instead of Navahk.
Grek would have been a good headman.  He is a better hunter than Navahk,
and Pet would be alive to come to this hut.  How Mahnie had looked
forward to that.  Mahnie--" Her words caught in her throat, and her hand
froze.  "When the time of first blood comes to our little one, the magic
man would not--"

Mahnie's heart stopped.  She shared her mother's fear.  Her inevitable
trek to womanhood would unavoidably bring her to where her life and
death lay in the hands of a magic man who seemed to loathe all women.

She could hear him howl now like a wolf from within the hut of
purification into which he had disappeared with Ketti hours before.
Mahnie shivered.  The howling stopped.  It had not been Navahk--it had
been Ketti.  A single high cry, answered by the baying of wild dogs that
roamed the distant hills.

"Sometimes this man thinks that he would have been wise to have taken
his women and belongings and followed Torka.  Torka was a good man. But
Navahk is new to woman making.  By the time it is Mahnie's turn, he will
have learned how to be gentle."

Grek looked with love at his distraught woman and thought of Pet.  His
heart bled.  Something deep and basic to his nature had changed within
him when he had witnessed her death.  He felt drained of himself,
somehow, as though a stranger filled his skin and all that was trusting
and open bled out of him, leaving him hard, unforgiving, and infinitely
protective of those who were dearest to him.  When he thought of Navahk
and all that had been conceded to him, Grek's eyes narrowed.  "The magic
man had better learn how to be gentle by the time this man's girl conics
to first blood, or Grek will teach him another lesson: He will teach him
how to die."

The horn went deep, moving, probing.  Ketti fought to be free of its
invasion.  She screamed again, but this time the sound was forced back
down her throat by the smothering kiss of the magic man.  His body lay
splayed across her, pinning her down while he worked the horn deep
between her thighs, deliberately tearing her womb so no child would ever
take root.

His tongue entered her mouth, stabbed rhythmically, keeping perfect
cadence with the jabbing, circular movements of the horn.  She was too
tired to fight him.  He sapped her of life.

"Move!"  He rammed the horn deep and smiled when she went rigid against
it.  "Dance in the way you were taught by the women, in the way you
first danced naked before me when we entered this hut.  Dance!  Open
yourself, offer yourself.  But we will see who is weakened by your
women's dance, you or this man who takes his pleasure as he sees fit,
not in the way that you would give it!"

She nearly fainted as he knelt back from her.  She could breathe again,
but only for a moment.  His left hand slipped beneath her buttocks,
forcing her hips up while the other hand still worked the horn, rousing
pain, not the pleasure that her mother and the other women had promised.

She felt blood upon her thighs and through the daze saw him smile as the
horn slipped out.  He bent to browse between her thighs, to lick her
blood, to suck, to bite until she
could bear no more of him.  Summoning all her strength, she lurched up
screaming, pulled herself away, and kicked him hard in the face.

He caught her ankle and pulled her back.  Impossibly, his smile had
broadened.  His nose was bleeding; he seemed strengthened by the pain.

"Ketti is bold.  Ketti is brave to defy Navahk.  Would you be like
Torka's woman, then?  Yes, like Lonit.  She would be bold.  She would
dance bravely against the pain that I would give her."

For the first time in all of the hours of abuse that he had inflicted
upon her since entering the hut of purification, he penetrated her with
his organ.  He was hard, engorged, impossibly huge for a mere man.  But
he was not a mere man; he was Magic Man, a dark and perverse power that
defied her understanding as he called her by another name--Lonit-and
hissed with pleasure, thrusting deep, swelling within her, shivering as
he heard her sob.  He smothered her cries with his open lips, invading
her mouth with his tongue.

She could not breathe.  She wanted to die.  Perhaps he was leading her
to that, and she would be with Pet soon, a spirit woman, free of him,
and that would be a mercy.

"Dance!"  The word was an imperative snarl.  His organ was shrinking as
he gripped her hips and rode her brutally, viciously, to a release that
would not come.  He cursed and rode her harder.

A terrifying howl suddenly pierced the silence of the encampment.  It
was the cry of a wild animal, followed by the scream of a fear-maddened
child.  Yet the scream was not fully human.

Navahk, still joined to the girl, stopped and lifted his head,
listening.  "Wanawut ..."  He exhaled the word with reverence,
visualizing the shadowed gorge, the female corpse of the massive,
half-human thing with the breasts of a woman and a musculature powerful
enough to rip off the arm of a man with one casual swipe and to remove
his head with another.  The vision thrilled him.  He looked down at the
girl.  So small.  So weak.  So shattered by his power.

Sensation flooded back into his organ, swelling it until, suddenly, as
he closed his eyes and imagined how it would be to couple with the
wanawut ... to ride it as he rode the girl to lick its blood ... to draw
its power into himself, release came, and he poured himself into the
girl while crying out with the pure, savage ecstasy of ejaculation.

He slept then and did not wake until the girl's pathetic mewing roused
him.  Her hands were pressing against his shoulders.

Far away within the distant hills the howling had begun again.  Navahk
listened, transfixed and envious, knowing that the beast-child that he
had chosen not to kill would someday grow to dimensions that equaled its
parent's.

He felt suddenly weak.  He rolled off the girl, hating her.  She had
sapped him of the exquisite feeling of power that had swept through him
just prior to ejaculation.  If only he had been able to maintain the
strength that had been in him at that moment, his power would equal that
of the wanawut--a power greater than any man could ever hope to own.

Just thinking of it made him potent again, but this time he wanted no
part of the girl.  Her very femaleness disgusted him.  Tomorrow he would
give her to Rhik, who was old and a widower and would appreciate having
a young girl to ride again.  And tomorrow, if Naiapi was still alive, he
would give her to Grek lest she continue to come mewling after him. That
would repay the aging hunter for daring to challenge him with his eyes
when he had killed Pet.  Oh, yes, Grek deserved Naiapi.  She would be a
bone in his throat to the end of his days or hers.  He got to his feet
and left the bloodied bed skins that the traditions of his people had
forced him to soil through his use of the girl.  Impatiently he
backhanded the hide door flap away and left the hut to stand naked in
the watery, bloodred glow of the midsummer morning.  The sun was rising
from above the eastern ranges.

Trembling, his organ fully erect again, the magic man raised his arms
and invoked the forces of Creation.  As though in response, the wanawut
answered him out of the distant hills.

PART IV.

THE GREAT GATHERING

The child huddled within a stand of scrub willow, shivering against the
cold of an early, wind-driven snow.  Weak with hunger, it drew aside a
frost-britt led screen of yellow-leaved branches with hairy-backed,
snow-dusted fingers.  Beyond, falling snow gauzed a rolling, tundral
world, which had only moments earlier been aflame with the colors of
summer's end as the sun's last rays had pierced the cloud cover.  The
child drew in a thousand tawny scents: shrubs, grass, bogs, rivers and
ponds thickening with ice, ripening berries sheened white with frost,
distant forests of climate-stunted spruce and hardwoods, open miles, and
ranging glacial vastnesses ... all masked now by the impending night,
the stinging white smell of the snow, and the overriding smell of that
which the child feared--the beast.

He was hunting alone again, walking boldly with the wind at his back and
making no attempt to hide either his scent or his presence.  As he had
done for several evenings now at the end of each daily trek, the beast
in white was coming away alone from the traveling camp of his kind.  And
the child, exhausted at the end of each day of following the beasts, put
aside its desire to seek a nest in order to watch the one in white.

The child trembled, frowning against the now familiar smell of smoke on
snow, which tainted the evening wind.  The beasts were making day-end
fires and building their odd shelters against the stormy night to come.

Cowering within the meager, ice-rimed protection of the willow grove,
the child instinctively knew that the beast was hunting it.  For days it
had been so.  The child could see him clearly now, walking slowly, head
up, scenting the wind,

then stopping, bending, checking the earth for sign, finding it, and
moving forward.  Closer .. . ever closer.

Trembling with hatred, the child wished that it could break from its
hiding place within the willows and run forward to pounce upon the beast
to kill and devour him, but even if it was brave enough to do so, it was
still too small to inflict enough damage.

Yet.

Again it trembled, this time not so much against cold and hunger but
with the frightening knowledge that it was growing.  Slowly, inexorably,
despite the ravages of hunger, the child sensed bewildering changes
within itself.  Its head moved to one side as its hands rose to lay open
upon its chest.  Not only did its body ache with hunger, it seemed to be
transforming itself, sprouting two hot, painfully tender lumps that were
forcing its once-flat nipples outward.  Its hands seemed bigger, its
limbs longer, and often it whacked the top of its head upon branches
that it could have walked under with ease only days before.

Now, staring through the ice-rimed branches of the willow grove, the
child hunched forward, one hand pressing its breasts, the other resting
upon the top of its bruised head.  It shivered violently against the
cold, confused by it.  It was too soon for snow; the luxuriant, downy
undercoat of thick, silvery fur that kept the child warm through the
long, brutal storms of the dark times was only halfway grown.  The wind
combed through the shaggy gray guard hairs that covered nearly all of
the child's emaciated body.  It parted them, found the child's pale,
delicate skin, and made no concessions to its youth or pitifully weak
condition.  Again the child shivered, this time so violently that the
spasmodic movements actually warmed it a little.

Its body's battle against the cold brought a sudden, overwhelming surge
of exhaustion.  The child slumped to its knees in the thick, resilient
layer of faded, crinkly leaves and deep orange moss that carpeted the
floor of the grove.  Because the trees grew so thickly, there was only a
thin veining of snow despite the driving wind.  Impatiently the child
whisked the snow away and, moving quietly, dug itself a burrow within
the insulating blanket of vegetation.  Its work accomplished, it scooted
gratefully into the nest, covering itself entirely as fatigue allowed it
to forget that it had sought the grove not only for shelter against the
impending storm but as
a place to hide from the hunting beast.  It dozed blissfully, then came
up abruptly out of sleep, sitting upright, shaking leaves from its
shoulders as it remembered that it was in danger.

Groggy, dizzy with fatigue, the child stared out of the grove.  The
beast, although a good distance away, was still there.  It had paused,
scanning the rolling hills that were rapidly losing their color to the
thickening snowfall and ebbing light.  Above, wind-driven snow clouds
skeined across the darkening sky, now and then revealing the full,
staring face of the moon.

The child looked up just as it disappeared behind a thickening bank of
swirling cloud from which snow hurled itself vengefully at the earth.

Snow.  The child had loved it once, and scampered through it at its
mother's side.  Together they had rolled and played in it, savoring its
coolness against their bare faces and chests and the thick, callused
padding of their feet.  They had lifted great handfuls of it and tossed
it high."  hooting with delight.

Mother!

The child's longing was almost unbearable, until it realized that the
snow had caused Mother Killer to pause.  The beast had evidently lost
all trace of the child's sign.  He stood like a stallion, with his head
raised and nostrils wide, drawing in the wind.

The child, confused by its emotions, salivated.  It wanted the beast to
come, to kneel, to stare into the willow grove, to make eye contact, as
he had for the past five dusks, and then to go away, as he had also
done, speaking low and leaving tiny morsels of meat before turning away.
The starving child was always transfixed with terror and bewildered by
his behavior, while thinking of the miserable stalks, leaves, berries,
insects, and occasional rodents that had formed its diet since its
mother's death.

Better to go hungry than to eat the leavings of Mother Killer, thought
the child stubbornly.  But it was not easy to go hungry; it was painful
and weakening and frightening.  And each time the beast looked into the
child's eyes and then turned away, the child was filled with a strange,
half remembered, oddly calming recollection of a star-strewn night, of
being carried across the world as an infant at its mother's breast while
others of its kind paraded silently ahead ... of staring into eyes that
observed it from the tangled blackness

of the earth--eyes that it knew now were the eyes of a
beast--frightened, awe struck, filled with the wondrous reflection of
the night; and in those dark, starlit eyes there was no threat, no
threat at all.

Not like the eyes of Mother Killer.  Not like the eyes of the beast that
had eaten its mother's heart and danced in her skin.

Or were they?  Mother Killer brought meat.  Mother Killer walked alone
out of the encampment of its fellow beasts, hunting the child and
finding the child, not to kill it but to feed it.  Why?

Confusion, coupled with exhaustion, muddled the child's memories.  It
lay down onto its side, assuming a fetal curl as it worked itself so
deeply under the leaves that only one side of its head was visible.  It
was warm under the leaves, and the child relaxed a little, still
watching the unmoving beast, as though he were somehow a man of ice,
frozen solid.  Frozen beasts were no threat.

The child's eyelids drooped.  Far off, wolves howled at the storm-veiled
moon.  Sleep filled the child, and in its sleep it moaned and cried
softly, longing for its mother, drifting into a delirium of dreams .. .
images of its mother hunting, killing, savaging, leaping out of the
shadows at unwary travelers.

Its stomach contracted, lurching with hunger.  It awoke, listened to the
wind and the wailing wolves, and stared out of its lonely bed of leaves
and moss--into the watching eyes of the beast.

Navahk smiled.  The mist-gray eyes that stared at him out of the tangled
scrub did not smile back.  They were wide, filled with fear and hatred.

Navahk's smile deepened.  Above and behind him night absorbed the last
pale glow of dusk.  Now the world, lit solely by the rising moon, was
silver and black with deep, rive ring shadows.  Other hunters would have
turned back for the comfort and firelight and company of an encampment.
Men did not hunt the tundra alone at night.  But Navahk was a magic man,
and unlike other men, fear was a food to him.  He felt emboldened by it.

The wind was gusting from the north.  Hard, thin pellets of snow stung
his face as the nocturnal animals of the tundra began to stir.  He
listened, his senses alert.  He was one of them now, and only his
concern that the creature that cowered
before him might bolt away kept him from howling with pure, animalistic
pleasure.

Navahk looked down at the half-human face buried amid the leaves and
shadows.  His smile faded.  He saw a double image of the moon swimming
in the twin lakes of the creature's eyes, and within those moons he saw
himself--a part of the beast, a part of the moon and the night, a part
of the savage storm wind.  It was a startling vision--absolute beauty
held captive within the eyes of a creature of absolute ugliness.

Instinctively Navahk's hand tightened upon the haft of his spear.  His
smile returned.  He could hear the shallow rasp of the creature's
breath; he could smell its fear and see that its hideous, hairless,
bearlike face was gaunt and haggard.  Yet as it moved uncomfortably
under his scrutiny, he caught sight of its furred shoulder and arm and
knew that, despite its obvious near starvation, it had grown since he
last saw it, and that was only yesterday.  Navahk frowned, envious of
the power within its musculature.

Soon it will become a beast like its mother.  Soon!  It does not mature
like a human child.  In one summer it has grown as much as a man would
grow in half a lifetime!

He stared at it, enraptured by the thought that had driven him to find
the beast at the end of each day.  Hunting had not improved since the
ceremony of first blood.  Although he had led his people down all the
old, familiar game trails, along none of them had they found the game
that he had promised: enough game to provide meat for a winter camp,
enough to guarantee his people's survival through the coming time of
long dark.  So it was that they were slowly traveling toward the place
of the Great Gathering.

Navahk knew from Grek's continuing, thinly veiled hostility that the
older hunter would never forgive him for killing Pet, and that if
hunting did not improve, Grek would remind others that Navahk had broken
tradition by becoming their headman as well as their magic man. He would
say what others were already thinking: If Navahk is strong in the favor
of the spirits, why do the life spirits of the game not come to die upon
the spears of his people, and why does the wanawut follow us to howl in
the night in mourning for the one of its kind that Navahk has killed?

Navahk trembled with frustration.  "Why?"  he hissed to the terrified
thing that crouched within the shadows.

The sound of his voice caused the creature to stiffen and
widen its stare.  Its eyes were opaque with fatigue.  "Wah?  ..."  it
mewed pathetically.

Navahk sank to his knees in shock.  It was the magic man who stiffened
now.  The beast had spoken!  It had echoed him, the way an infant echoes
its parents.  For days now he had heard it howling beneath the midnight
sun, always the same dirge like "Wah nah wah .. . wah nah wut ..."  And
for days it had followed his people across the tundra, had run from him
when he had sought it, and had refused the food he secretly offered.  He
had wondered how his people would react if he simply killed the thing
and dragged its corpse back into their encampment to prove to them that
it was no phantom but an animal that could be meat for them, to be
feared no more than any other predator. But that would lessen the murder
of its mother.  He had held back, thinking of its power, wishing he
could possess it, control it, and bend it to his will while it was still
a small, weak child.  What would his people say of his magic then?  No
men would dare to challenge his powers, or he would bring forth the
wanawut and command it to feed upon their flesh!  The concept inspired a
radiant smile.  Now, from the leather sack that he carried wrapped in a
larger sack of oiled bison intestine, he drew a handful of bloody
antelope meat and guts.

"Wah nah wuh .. . wah nah wut ..."  Navahk whispered, slowly extending
his hand, holding the meat toward the half human thing, repeating the
sounds softly, encouragingly, lovingly, as a parent might have spoken
them.

The thing mewed pitifully and edged back from its nest into the deeper
shadows that filled the grove.  As the gentle lulling of the magic man
whispered on, the beast hugged and rocked itself, making weak, fretful
sounds of confusion and indecision.  Its senses were obviously dulled by
malnutrition.  Navahk knew that his voice was both soothing and
befuddling it at the same time.  Was it Man or Mother who offered it
food and spoke to it in its own tongue?

"Wah nah wuh .. he repeated, then ate of the meat himself, slowly,
pausing to smack his lips.  He offered it again, making low sounds of
invitation.

This time the creature's need for sustenance outweighed its caution. It
sprang forward, snatched the meat from the hand of the man, and began to
eat ravenously.

Navahk could have roared with triumph.  Instead he remained absolutely
still--watching and smiling.  The beast had eaten from the hand of the
man!  And when the meat was consumed, Navahk offered all that was left
within the sack.

"Wah nah wuh .. . wah nah wut .. he whispered.

This time the creature did not echo him.  Nourishment had brought
clarity back into its eyes, and Navahk, meeting its gaze, was startled
to see tears of frustration brimming over as, with a grunt of
self-revilement, the thing grasped his offering and began to devour it,
hating the magic man for putting before it that which hunger would no
longer allow it to deny itself.

Tears?  What kind of animal cries?  he wondered, incredulous.

And as he watched the creature finish the last of the meat, he saw the
moon in its eyes again, and his own image, shining and white and
beautiful, and knew that in all of his life, he could not remember ever
having shed a tear for anything, or for anyone.

Two days after a thin, driving snowstorm left the tundra as white as the
grizzled beard of an ancient musk ox, Torka led his people and Zinkh's
to the place of the Great Gathering.  The dry snow had been followed by
a day of severe cold, then by clear, windy skies and a brazen sun that
melted the snow in less time than it had taken it to fall.  It was on
this day, beneath this sun, that Torka and his women and children, with
Karana and Aar's pack, and the hunters of Zinkh at his side, walked
across broad, well-traveled land toward the great encampment.

They walked with purpose, lengthening their stride as their destination
came into sight .. . and sound .. . and scent.  Beneath their traveling
packs, they were dressed in their finest ceremonial attire.  Lonit had
donned her gray elk skin dress.  Torka was clad in his parka of golden,
black maned lion skin.  Around his neck he wore his neck let of wolf
fangs and paws.  The clatter and jangle of their traveling gear, their
women's bone jewelry, and the stone-beaded fringes of their own garments
would have been audible for miles had it not been for the cacophonous
din of the vast encampment they were approaching.

They paused, transfixed.  Completely encircled by a massive windbreak of
mammoth bones, it occupied the entire western edge of the plain. The air
trembled with the sounds of song and whistles and lap drums, of laughter
and argument, of haggling and baby cries.  The smoke that rose from over
a hundred fires fogged the sky and imbued the wind with the rich smells
of roasting meat, charred bones, burning turf, and human refuse. "Bigger
camp than last time this man winters here!"

claimed Zinkh, nodding with such enthusiasm that his headdress slid to
one side.  Only hasty adjustment kept it from falling off.  He grinned
up at Torka from beneath the scabby looking fox head.  "Here for
certain, Zinkh says, we will find healing magic for Aliga, and maybe
even lana will find her tongue again, yes!"

"Bah!"  Pomm snorted rudely from where she had paused next to Lonit and
lana at the front of the line of women.  "No one make better healing
magic than this woman!"  she insisted under her breath to Lonit.  "You
see soon!  Pomm will have great rank in this camp!"

Bound securely inside lana's pack frame, little Demmi made baby noises
that, under different circumstances, would have told Lonit that her
infant daughter's swaddling of moss needed to be changed.  But Lonit was
so overwhelmed by the enormity of the encampment that she neither paid
heed to her infant nor heard Pomm's boast.  She held Summer Moon
tightly.  The child's slender, trousered limbs encircled her waist.
Lonit could feel the excitement of the little girl as she strained
forward, pointing to the scene that held Lonit's eyes.

"Look!  Big bones!  Stinky smoke.  Many people!  There be children
there?"

"Yes, little one.  Many children."

"We play?"

"If they are good children."  She could see them now, coming out of the
encircling wall of bones with their mothers and fathers.  So many
people!  Never in all of her days had Lonit imagined that there were so
many people in the world!

She felt ill and longed to be far from this place where there might be a
man in white who had danced before her one flame-lit night and held out
his hand to her and told her that she was beautiful..  .. No!  If he
were at the Great Gathering, she would not allow herself to see him. She
would stare at her feet and not lift her eyes from the ground. She was
Torka's woman.  Always and forever.

And now Torka, frowning as he stared at the wall of mammoth bones and
tusks, was urging his people onward.  Beside him Karana shook his head
dubiously.  "This place has too many people, all surrounded by the bones
of our totem's kin.  We are sworn not to kill mammoth.  This is not a
good camp for us."

Without slowing his step, Torka cut him short.  "This is the last time
that Torka will hear those words.  This man has come to think that there
is not an encampment in all the world that Karana will ever find to his
liking!"

The youth shrugged.  "The Valley of Songs was a good camp."

"This will be a good camp too.  You will see."

Through a haze of eye-stinging, drifting camp smoke turned orange by
sunlight, Torka led his people closer to their destination, then signed
for them to stop in front of the many people who had come out to meet
them.  He gripped his bludgeon in one hand and raised his spear upright
in the other in the sign of peace.  Those who first saw him striding
boldly at the head of the respectably sized band, with a pack of
ferocious, burden-carrying dogs running alongside his women, made
gestures of awe and wonder to the spirits they most feared as they spoke
in many dialects of a root language that had once been universal.

"Another man of magic comes to gift the Great Gathering with his
powers!"

"Eh yeh!  The weatheh chenges as he khums!"

"Look!  Dogs walk with him as though they were his brothers!"

"Not brothers--slaves.  Man speaks .. . dogs listen .. . dogs obey!"

"See there, hey!  Animals carry women burdens!"

"Impossible!"

"Man khum .. . sun khum .. . and snow melts beneath his feet!"

"Great must be the magic of that man!"

"Great yes!"  affirmed Zinkh, seeking and finding a few familiar faces
in the crowd that surrounded them.  "So great that even Zinkh--and many
here know how much great hunter Zinkh he be--has said: Man Who Walks
With Dogs, his band and Zinkh's band be one band!  Together, we have
much magic!  Together, Torka and Zinkh we journey far to Great
Gathering.  We share our magic and meat and furs with many there!"

"This is so?"

The question came from an old man who headed what was evidently a
contingent of magic men, for all were elaborately dressed and carried
themselves with an air of condescension.  The speaker was easily the
eldest of the lot; perhaps the oldest human being Torka had ever seen.
Judging from the
crenelated escarpments of his craggy face and from his oddly flattened,
grotesquely high-veined, twisted hands, Torka guessed that he had lived
to lament the passing of at least fifty summers.  He was gray of hair
and skin and dressed entirely in the pelts of birds, with layers of
dried, outstretched wings cut from varying small raptorial species
arrayed along his sleeves.  His face, eyes, and mouth were hard.  Even
though he squinted up at Torka, he seemed to be looking down at him from
either side of a nose that was as beaked as a tera torn and the query
that he had directed to Torka had been every bit as sharp.

"This is so."

Startled because he had not spoken the reply, Torka saw a tall,
astoundingly beautiful woman step through the ranks of the assembled
magic men.  Her voice had been as low and languorous as a river moving
beneath the turgid warmth of the summer sun.  She stood as straight as a
well-made spear; like the elder, she exuded confidence and authority.
Her garments were constructed of the pelts of birds: a black and white
cloak made entirely of the flight feathers of the great condor like tera
torn fell over her shoulders, and a circle of snow-white swan's down
crowned her head.  The thick, intricately plaited forelock that fell
gracefully over one shoulder to her waist was gray, and there were long
streaks of silver in the remainder of her loose, knee-length hair. When
she smiled, little fans appeared at the corners of her eyes, betraying
the fact that the days of her youth lay far behind her, but her teeth
were still strong and straight and white between lips as soft and full
as a young girl's.

"There are many kinds of magic," she said, speaking to Torka but looking
directly at Karana, as if puzzled to see in a stranger someone she had
known before.

The youth blushed red under her glance.

Torka was stunned not only by her beauty but by her easy assumption of
equality with the males among whom she had seemingly taken a dominant
role.  Beside her the supreme elder bristled.  "Sondahr honors us with
her insight," he said, sneering.

Her head went up.  "Sondahr thanks Lorak for his words of confidence,"
she replied evenly, returning sarcasm for sarcasm as, not without
difficulty, she forced her eyes from Karana.  She observed Torka and the
wolflike, blue-eyed dog that stood between him and the youth.  Aar
cocked his head.

Her eyes moved past him to the people of Torka and Zinkh.  Showing no
fear of the dogs that stood as sentinels beside Aliga, Sondahr regally
swept out of the ranks of the magic men and walked to where the sick
woman lay upon her sledge.

When Sister Dog lowered her grizzled head and growled, the woman merely
looked at her and the dog relaxed, allowing her to come near, watching
as she drew the furs away from Aliga.  She touched her belly and her
brow, breathed in the scent of her breath, then turned back to Torka,
her troubled eyes seeing no one else.

For a long moment she said nothing, then: "Torka has not come to the
Great Gathering to hunt the mammoth.  He will not eat of the meat of
great tusked ones.  He has come to seek healing for this woman."  She
spoke casually, as though it were the most natural thing in the world
for her to know the reasons behind the stranger's arrival.  "Come, Man
Who Walks With Dogs.  Bring this tattooed woman to the fire of Sondahr.
I will do for her what I can."

As Pomm glowered resentfully beside Lonit, Aliga stared at the magic
woman out of eyes filmed pink by fever.  "You are not Navahk."

"No," assented Sondahr obliquely, her eyes straying to where Karana
stood gaping at her as though he had never seen a woman before.  "That
man is not in this camp."

Lonit was so relieved by Sondahr's revelation about the magic man, she
forgot to be jealous of her.  Pomm, however, was jealous enough for the.
two of them.  One of Zinkh's burliest hunters took up the burden of
Aliga's sledge, and Karana followed Sondahr like a moonstruck shadow.
With the strong little headman happily basking in Torka's reflected
glory, Lorak and the magic man led Torka and his people through the
mammoth bones and into the encampment of the Great Gathering.

Terrified of the dogs, children stopped in the middle of their games
while the adults cleared a path, murmuring, pointing, and whispering in
awe.

Torka's band passed innumerable pit huts and crude lean tos of bones and
hide and thatch before which small groups were gathered at various tasks
and games.  A twosome of half-grown girls tossed a toddler high; the
little one flew up, laughing ecstatically, his pudgy arms and legs
akimbo as he
fell and was caught in a tightly held skin.  The girls snapped the skin
so hard that it cracked the air as the toddler again flew upward,
giggling and shrieking.  This time when they caught the little one, the
girls saw the strangers and their dogs.  The girls put the skin down,
and the toddler peered out of it, as incredulous as his playmates.

Lonit smiled at them as she passed.  In her arms Summer Moon stared wide
eyed, amazed by the sight of so many children and as dazzled as her
mother by the many cooking fires, row upon row of drying frames, the
aromas of food, and the presence of so many diverse people.  For a
moment Lonit half expected lana to cast off her lethargy and speak
delightedly about the many happy, noisy children.  But the sad-eyed
woman walked on as before, in silence, with Demmi asleep upon her back.

Lorak spoke as he walked, naming the various bands and headmen, their
attributes and shortcomings.  He complained of a season of poor hunting,
explaining that this was why so many were assembled at the Great
Gathering.

"In lean times many come into this country, forgetting that they are
eaters of bison, caribou, and the grass-eating game that they say is
sweet of meat and blood.  They say that mammoth meat is strong with the
taste of spruce, bad meat, except in lean times."  He deliberately let
Torka know that he held those with no preference for mammoth meat in
disdain.  "It is from the meat of the great tusked ones that true men
draw their strength," he said, eyeing Torka sideways to see his
reaction.

Torka smiled at Lorak's obvious baiting.  He would not give him the
satisfaction of rising to it.  Faces were looking toward them from
countless fires.  He was aware of the dogs slinking under the burden of
their packs as they walked with tails tucked, sensing the fear and
potential hostility.  A boy suddenly leaped from the sidelines to touch
one of the larger pups--to prove his bravery and to assure himself that
he was not seeing things.  With a shriek he fell back as the pup leaped
straight into the air, snarling and puncturing the boy's offending
finger with a well-placed canine before Torka's single command brought
the animal into line with its siblings.

"Forbidden!"  Torka echoed the dog's snarls to the boy who had shrunk
back, looking much like a startled pup himself as he sucked his injury.
"These be spirit dogs!"  shouted Zinkh, emphasizing Torka's
warning to all within earshot.  "Only Torka's people and Zinkh's people
may walk as brothers and sisters with these dogs!  All others stay away
from the magic dogs of Torka!"

Torka rolled his eyes.  Zinkh, obviously enjoying his newfound,
much-elevated status, was making the best of a good thing.

Lorak looked with misgivings at the dogs but said nothing.  He led the
newcomers on, pausing at the base of a sparsely populated rise of
tundral earth amid a broad clearing, upwind of the latrines.  "There.
Ahead in that place may Man Who Walks With Dogs build his fire and raise
his pit huts," he commanded.

"Great honor!"  cried Zinkh, grinning at Torka with obsequious
adoration.  "This be Hill of Dreams!  Best place in camp.  Rain comes,
it runs off into other men's camps!  Wind blows, it carries flies and
stink of offal pits away.  A place of shamans!"

"But not for you!"  Lorak added with relish.  "This man has seen Zinkh
and his people at his camp before.  No magic walks with you!"  He looked
again at Torka with wariness.  "But by Zinkh's words, Man Who Walks With
Dogs is a shaman, so he and his women and son must camp in this place.
Zinkh and the rest of this band, you may camp wherever you can find a
spot!"

Torka saw Zinkh wilt with disappointment, and he resented the way the
little man had been deliberately demeaned by the supreme elder.  "Zinkh
and the rest of this band, they are Torka's people now," he protested.
"We will make one camp together.  We will camp here."

"Come," urged Sondahr.  "Bring the tattooed woman to me upon the Hill of
Dreams.  Others will help your women and son to raise your camp." She
pointed to the hunter who had been carrying the sick woman's sledge.
"You will stay here.  Her man will come with her--only her man."

Torka obeyed.  Slinging off his traveling pack, he lifted Aliga gently
from the sledge and carried her as he walked with the magic woman onto
the Hill of Dreams, past several small conical, hide-covered huts, and
one larger one that was completely covered with the black and white
feathers of teratorns.  He assumed that this was her hut and paused, but
she looked back at him over her shoulder and shook her head, smiling.

"That is Lorak's place of dreams.  If the wind is right, perhaps someday
it will fly away and take him with it."  She continued on.

He followed, marveling at the wondrous views that the hill afforded: He
could see for miles in all directions, across the teeming encampment to
the vast, river-veined, lake-pocked land that lay beyond.  He could see
the glistening, northernmost edge of the Mountains That Walk and
followed their towering blue-white splendor east and south until
distance shrank them into insignificance.  Had he not walked there, into
the land of grass that lay between them, he would have thought them to
be not mountains at all but clouds piling high into the sky. Briefly he
thought of the Valley of Songs, of the sweet, warm pools where he had
laughed and loved with Lonit.  A pang of longing struck him.

He turned his eyes away and, hefting Aliga's weight, drew his thoughts
out of the past and looked westward to closer, craggier, deeply cleft
ranges of stone that formed the horizon of the world of men--a world
where his women and children were safe at last within the protective
circle of another band .  where he would find healing for Aliga.  He
stared into those dark and spruce-shadowed canyons.  Soon mammoths would
come to them, along with other game that sought refuge from the savage
winter storms that whipped across the tundral grasslands.  With Aar and
the other dogs he would hunt with his spear hurler and show the people
of this encampment what his kind of magic could do--a magic of practical
inventiveness that had nothing to do with smoke or dreams.

"Come."  Sondahr beckoned to him.

He walked on.

At the summit of the hill was a great long house built entirely of
mammoth bones and tusks.  The bleached and polished skulls of two
massively tusked bulls sat on the ground at either side of a high,
arching entryway made of two upright tusks braced at the base by
stabilizing bones.  The tips of these tusks were lashed together by a
lacing of intricate thong work while four tusks extended out from the
two skulls on the ground formed a walkway.  Sondahr skirted it and
continued on, at the crest of the hill, where she stopped beside a small
mound covered by the shaggy, weather-darkened red hide of a mammoth. She
bade Torka enter through an arching entryway composed of a single
unusually curved tusk.

Torka stooped as he entered.  The dark interior was redolent of a
well-banked fire in which wormwood had been recently burned.

"Torka may place his woman here."

He paused, squinting until his eyes gradually adjusted to the dark
interior.  He saw that the walls of the mounded hut were composed of
mammoth ribs.  The central fire pit was ringed not by stones or turf but
by the grinding teeth of mammoths.  Similar teeth formed the under
structure of the hut.  The pallet was also covered with shaggy red
mammoth hide.  He crossed the little room and gently placed the barely
conscious Aliga onto the pallet.

Sondahr removed her cloak and brow circlet.  She knelt, pressing her
cheek, ear, and open palm against Aliga's belly.  Her hand moved,
questing, then lay still.  Her eyes closed.

Torka frowned.  The magic woman seemed to be sleeping.  Then she exhaled
and spoke as though out of her dreams.

"How long has this woman been with this child?"

"Too long."

"I can feel no life in her beside her own heartbeat and breath."

"Aliga feels it."

"Your woman longs to feel it, and so, perhaps, she does.  It will take
time for me to tell."  She sighed again and rose to her feet in one
graceful unfolding of limbs and torso.  "You will leave her with me for
the passing of a day or more?  To rest, to drink strengthening brews,
to--"

"For as long as you need to bring forth the child."

"There may be no child."

He was stunned.

She saw his reaction and stepped close, guiding him out of the hut.
Together they stood in the sun, yet as she spoke, Torka went cold.
"There is no form, nothing I could feel within her belly.  None."

"But she has felt it move!  Many times."

"She has never borne a child and so feels what her soul has need of
feeling.  It is Spirit Sucker that lives in your woman's belly, Torka.
It is draining her of life as it feeds upon her.  I have seen it before.
There is no healing for it.  But she is lucky; she has a man who cares
enough for her to keep what I now tell him a secret and who has brought
her to live her last days among other women.  That will be good medicine
for her.  It is what she has wanted.  Until the end she need not
know what is to come.  No one need know except Torka, so that until the
end a caring man will hunt for her and hold her in his arms at the
moment when her spirit leaves her body to walk upon the wind forever.
That is more than most women will ever know."

He turned away, wanting to hear no more.  He would have left the hill,
but she lay her hand upon his forearm and caused him to face her again.
"You are no shaman," she said quietly.

"Zinkh has said it, not I."

"You have not denied it."

"As you have said, there are many kinds of magic."

"The youth who walks at your side, he can work them all.  He is not your
son?"

He heard a question in her voice, and fear.  "He is my son," he said,
meaning it; no son of his flesh could mean more to him.

Her hand moved quickly to touch his loins.  "Not the son of this!"

He slapped her hand away.  "You assume too much, Sondahr."

A look of terrible sadness moved across her incomparably beautiful face.
"I assume nothing, Torka!  I know.  As the birds rise from the waters at
summer's end and fly into the face of the rising sun, as the game moves
eastward into that same sun as night grows to feed upon the day, I know
when winter is coming--before the hunters know it, before the geese and
the swans know it, before the spirits of the sky and storm and cloud
know it!  The winter I see and foretell is not a season, Torka; it is a
winter of the spirit, a cold, clouded remembrance of things that have
happened and will happen.  And for this knowledge there is no
healing--none.  Like your woman, there is no help for me."

"Rhino!"

One word and the hunt was on.  From every hut and shelter within the
encampment, men and youths took up their spears and ran eagerly toward
danger.

"Now we show them what magic is, yes?"  asked Zinkh as Torka came down
from the Hill of Dreams to find his camp already nearly set up.  He
nodded, pleased to see that Zinkh and his men had dug the ground for
their pit huts as well as for his own.  Lonit, lana, the other women,
and children were busy gouging trenches to assure that rain would be
channeled away from their shelters and into pools from which they would
be able to draw fresh drinking water.  He smiled to see Summer Moon
doing her best to help the others, while Lonit overlooked the fact that
the child was succeeding mainly in scattering soil all over herself.

Nearby, a sullen, dreamy-eyed Karana had the dogs under control, which
was no easy task because, until the cry of "rhino" had gone up, every
youth in the camp was hunkering in the vicinity, trying to learn by what
magic the dogs obeyed the commands of a human being.  Now, in their
enthusiasm for the hunt, they had vanished as quickly as flies before an
early summer gale, and Karana was left looking at Torka with the
strangest expression on his face.  Torka had seen it before, on the
faces of other men, but never before upon Karana's: jealousy.  But of
what?

"Where is Aliga?"  Lonit asked.

Torka frowned.  The same jealousy was upon her face.  What was the
matter with them?  "She will stay with the magic woman for a few days.
The woman says that she has brews that will ease her."

"Bah!"  retorted Pomm, then flushed and pretended to be wiping gnats
from her nose when she realized that, in her jealousy of the magic
woman, she had unintentionally challenged a man.

"She is wise and beautiful," Karana breathed, as though he were making a
litany to the spirits.

Torka's smile returned now that he understood.  "I thought that Karana
had no use for girls?"

"That is no girl!  She is the most beautiful woman in the world!"

"She may well be that," conceded Torka, taking such pleasure in seeing
the love struck look on the boy's face that he failed to note the
expression of abject misery that transformed Lonit's features.

"Come!  We hunt now!"  Zinkh had his spears in hand and his fellow
hunters at his back.  "Look, even old Lorak walks out of camp with his
spears--not that he can use them.  Wait till he sees what Torka can do
with his spear hurler, then he will know what magic truly is!"

They went out across the land like wolves, a great pack of howling men
and youths, with the dogs running point as though they were directing
the hunt.  The old woolly rhino heard them long before its small, dull
eyes saw them circling through the frost-toughened sedges of the bog in
which it had been chomping berries--leaves, branches, and all.  Its
horned head went up; its ears swiveled; water and muck from the bog
bottom dripped from its sloppy lips.  Broken leaves dangled from its
jaws, and the blue-black blood of its vegetarian feast stained its
snout.

The first spear went wide, as did the second and the third; but each
served to alert the animal to impending danger.  Short-tempered and
incautious, it huffed several times, adjusted its great, shaggy weight,
and charged.

As panic-stricken men and youths went rushing past him toward the rhino,
Torka held his position on a rise just beyond the bog, appalled and
angered by the raucous, totally undisciplined, flagrantly careless
manner of the hunt.  Now, with one of his spears positioned in his spear
hurler and the others easily accessible, aligned upright across his back
in his spear carrier, he stood prepared to escape from the assault of
the dangerous beast, which should have been stalked in silence.  If the
hunters had used the wind to mask their scent,

they could easily have edged to within striking distance and dropped the
monster while it was still wallowing within the bog.

But they were out for sport as well as for meat, and from the first it
had been their intention to provoke the animal.  Thus they should have
expected its violent charge and its sideways, head-swinging attack, as
Torka had.  He warned Karana to stay back, to be ready to leap for his
life.

The rhinoceros thundered past them in a blur, its horned head stabbing
upward with such power that, had any of them failed to leap aside, they
would have been impaled and thrown over the shaggy back of the animal
and into the bog.

It stood facing them on open grassland now.  Blowing enraged snorts of
air, it pawed the earth, sending grass and soil flying.  Led by Aar, the
dogs circled it, barking, snapping, charging in and out in threatening
forays.  The rhino's small eyes, white with cataracts, strained to see
its attackers through a fog of near blindness.  It tossed its head, made
high, whistling noises of threat as it trotted in circles, its tail
flicking angrily.  One of the older dogs, a member of Aar and Sister
Dog's first litter, lunged just as the head of the rhinoceros swept down
and sideways, slicing the air and the dog with its great horn.  The dog
flew through the air, yipping pathetically and raining blood before it
disappeared into the bog scrub without a further sound.

Torka was angry.  Beside him, still on high ground, Karana stood
white-lipped and trembling, the butt end of his spear notched into the
barb of his spear hurler, the haft of the weapon poised across his
shoulder as, like Torka, he wondered why Zinkh and the men of the Great
Gathering were taking such obvious pleasure in risking themselves, and
Torka's dogs, unnecessarily.

But the death of the dog had excited them, and they howled now in
appreciation but disappointment over the rhinoceros's killing of the
bold and fearless animal.  Never had they seen dogs hunt with men as
though they were of one pack; they had not believed that such an
alliance was possible, in spite of what Zinkh had claimed.  They were
still howling as, with Aar ferociously leading them, the other dogs
continued to menace the prey, confusing it, enraging it.  With old Lorak
in the lead the hunters howled, urging the brave dogs on as though they
themselves were dogs, but with none of the canines' dignity.  They
stamped their feet, danced
sideways and back and forth, mocking the great, harried rhino with
chants of deprecation, threatening with their spears, then hurling them
as one.

Only two of the projectiles struck and held, neither inflicting a mortal
wound, for the rhino was encased in an armor of thick, matted
brownish-gray hair over a tough, virtually impenetrable hide and
insulating fat.  With the spears protruding from its shoulder hump, it
whirled and ran.

Lorak raised a feathered arm and shrieked his whooping cry.  The others,
enflamed, followed him and burst into a run, also screaming. Again they
were wolves.  But this time their run was short.  The rhino had not gone
very far before it wheeled and reversed the order of the chase.

Now, pursued by the pounding-footed, slobbering-lipped, shaggy mountain
with death in its half-blind eyes, dogs and men raced toward the rise
where Torka and Karana still stood.

Old Lorak had been in the lead, but now he was falling behind.  Looking
back over his shoulder proved a serious mistake, which caused him to
lose ground, trip over his own feathered garments, and fall flat.  As
Torka and Karana stared, the old man bravely positioned himself, spear
up, ready to impale the rhinoceros as it ground him into the earth.

Still on high ground, with their spear hurlers already positioned, Torka
and Karana loosed their weapons simultaneously.  Their spears arced over
the running hunters.  With the power of a grown man behind it, Torka's
weapon struck first.  Its pointed stone head tore through the skin and
fat of the rhinoceros's shoulder, carrying the shaft through the beast's
flesh as the projectile point buried itself in bone, then shattered. The
animal screamed and nearly fell as it veered sharply, just as Karana's
spear found its side, ripped through hair and hide to penetrate one of
the animal's lungs.  Choking on its own blood, the rhinoceros threw up
its head, gasping for breath.  In this moment Torka's second spear
penetrated its breast to sever veins and arteries in a mortal wounding
that struck cleanly into its heart.

While Zinkh jumped up and down with pride and all of the other hunters
looked back in disbelief and awe, Lorak shamed himself by crying out
with relief when the rhinoceros collapsed into a heap of bleeding meat
that had come only breaths away from crushing him to death.

They stood in reverence of Torka and Karana--of their magic spears and
the power that they exerted over their dogs.  Having learned a bitter
lesson in Supnah's band, Torka spoke no denial of the magic.  Let the
people of the Great Gathering think of him what they would; a man needed
status when he walked among strangers,

They opened the belly and throat of the fallen rhinoceros.  Torka and
Karana were honored with the prime portions because they had made the
kill, which not only had brought man meat to the people at the Great
Gathering, but had saved the life of Lorak, supreme elder among magic
men.

They lounged by the corpse, gorging themselves on hot, sweet blood, then
the ultimate delicacies: the tongue, liver, heart, and contents of the
intestines, which Torka and Karana graciously insisted upon sharing.
They passed around the eyes and sucked the juices from them. No man
complained when Torka and Karana offered generous portions to the dogs;
they had more than earned it.

When they had eaten their fill, a call went out to the women, who came
with their butchering tools, carrying babies in frames or walking with
children beside them.  Lonit basked with pride.  This was the kill of
the males of her fire.

She stood tall before them, surveying the size of the great and
dangerous animal they had -slain.  She was happy that lana had remained
behind with Demmi and Summer Moon, lana was not really Torka's woman,
not in the full sense of the word.  Nor was Aliga, she thought.  Torka
sometimes went to ease her loneliness within the night because it was a
man's responsibility to keep his women content.  But once Aliga was
pregnant, Torka lay only with Lonit.  She was his first and only woman
again, and she was glad!

But her mood darkened as she thought of Aliga at Sondahr's fire.  Torka
had gone with her.  He had admitted to Karana that he thought her to be
the most beautiful woman in the world.  Sondahr, with no man of her own,
truly was worthy of Torka.

But if anyone could help Aliga, Sondahr could do it; her healing powers
were all that the women had spoken of when the men had gone off to hunt.
If Aliga gave birth to a son, Torka would never let her go.  A woman's
value was measured by her strength and her skills and, ultimately, by
her ability to bring strong hunters into the world.  And Lonit had borne
only daughters.

Her shame deepened because her preoccupation had caused her to neglect
her own responsibilities.  Torka had called her to partake of the meat,
so she must praise him with song, in the way of their people, and hope
that the onlookers would not laugh.

But they did not laugh.  They were quiet, entranced by the measured
grace of her steps, the quiet cadence of her song, and her beauty. When
at last she completed the required circuit of the fallen game and
paused, eyes downcast, before her man and Karana, asking permission to
butcher and eat their kill, everyone exhaled with approval.  Her heart
swelled with joy and relief to see that he was beaming with pride and
love.

But then his eyes focused beyond her, and Karana also seemed transfixed.
She turned to see Sondahr standing behind her.

The meat of the woolly rhinoceros did not last long when shared by many.
Lonit allowed the other women to assist in the butchering.  They praised
her for her generosity, and all but Sondahr helped to skin the animal,
pack its meat, and carry the usable portions of its dismembered carcass
back to camp.  The women, headed by a particularly belligerent Pomm,
drove Sondahr away, telling the magic woman that her powers were such
that she would have her share and must not bloody her hands in the work.
In the night of feasting that followed, all the meat was eaten, but the
magic woman stayed with Aliga within her hut upon the Hill of Dreams and
did not come to claim a portion of it.

In the morning one of the magic men brought word from the Hill of Dreams
that the tattooed woman's fever had lessened and that, in the care of
the mystical Sondahr, she was sleeping easily.  Lonit asked if she might
sit with the sister of her man's fire, but was told that only magic men,
Sondahr, and those specifically invited by them might set foot upon the
sacred hill.

Disappointed and trying hard not to be jealous of Sondahr, Lonit set to
work with the other women.  By the end of the day they had stretched the
rhinoceros hide and secured it to a drying frame for curing.  Its sinews
were strung, its fat rendered, its bones cracked and scraped of precious
marrow, and its skull added to those that lined the encircling wall of
bones and tusks.

The beast's horn was set upright at the edge of Torka's camp circle. He
and Karana initially had placed it next to the entrance to their pit hut
but were soon forced to move it.  The horn was reputed to have great
magical powers, so every
male ventured near to lay his hands reverently upon it.  Since the men
were forced to run a gauntlet between barking dogs to do so, Torka
carried the horn well away from the fire and the dogs to assure quiet
and make certain that no one was bitten.  Nevertheless, Lorak,
glowering, said that magic such as that within the horn had no place
among the encampment of mere men.

By dusk the elders of the various bands were calling for a night of
storytelling, games, and dancing to celebrate the hunt, but the supreme
elder was still sulking.  He kept to himself, expressing only surly
resentment of those who had saved his life.

"Better to have let the great horned woolly one take the life spirit of
the ungrateful old condor," hissed Zinkh, still holding a grudge against
the supreme elder for the way Lorak had publicly insulted him.

Torka looked at the summit of the Hill of Dreams where Lorak brooded
alone outside his feather-covered hut.  He had unintentionally made an
enemy of the supreme elder.  For the sake of his women and children, it
was not wise to displease Lorak's many friends among the magic men;
theirs was the power behind those who were assembled at the Great
Gathering.  Besides, he felt sorry for old Lorak.

"It must be a terrible thing to lose one's pride," he told Zinkh.
"Perhaps this man can find a way to give back to Lorak that which he and
Karana have inadvertently taken."

So he took up the horn, and since all believed him to be a shaman, he
had Karana follow him in unquestioning silence onto the Hill of Dreams.
As several magic men appeared at the entryway to the house of bones,
Torka respectfully placed the horn before the seated old man.

"Torka's spirit has walked his dreams," said Torka, searching for the
right words, standing stiffly beside Karana in the overbearing way that
he had seen magic men always stand when they wished to press a point in
a manner that would allow no debate.  "Torka's spirit has relived the
hunt.  Torka's spirit has understood that by the tradition of this man's
people, the horn of the great woolly one must go to the one who risked
his life so that others might make the kill."

Lorak frowned up at him, not understanding.  From the house of bones the
watching magic men murmured.  Karana looked at Torka, confused by his
words and his uncharacteristic behavior.

"It was bold and brave and beyond the ways of most men to fall
deliberately before a charging rhinoceros so that the other members of a
hunting party might escape death."

Lorak winced at Torka's statement, knowing it to be a lie and suspecting
that Torka also knew it.  Their eyes met and held.  Why was this
younger, physically stronger man deferring to one who, in a moment of
terror, had screamed and fouled his garments like an infant?

Lorak growled resentfully.  Lie or not, Torka's premise promised a path
to heroism.  He had only to assent to it, and he would be supreme magic
man again.  And Sondahr would respect his power once again.  And he
might finally find a way to seduce her into sharing his bed skins!

"Yes.  It is so!"  he snapped.  "It took Torka long enough to see past
his arrogance to the truth!"

They went down from the Hill of Dreams, with Karana looking back to
where Sondahr stood at the crest of the hill, looking at him as no woman
had ever looked at him before.

That night, when the games of evening were finished, Karana came away as
a delighted and breathless victor from nearly every challenge that Torka
forced him to accept from youths of his own age.  Several of the
combatants came to him and offered friendship.

"I am Yanehva, son of Cheanah.  My brother Mano and I say that there is
much we could show you in this camp.  And with Tlap here, and also Ank,
we could hunt in the days to come and show the men what we can do, eh?
And now, if you want, we can show you another kind of game."

Karana was amazed.  It had been many years since he had had friends his
own age, so he did not know what to do except nod and follow happily as
they led him off in a circuitous route in search of the huts of the
prettiest and most well-endowed girls in the camp.  Here they stalked in
the fire lit shadows, peeking through seams in pit-hut walls well known
to the brothers, winking and suppressing laughter at the sight of the
women and girls as they dressed for the night's festivities. Karana
enjoyed the company of the other youths, but though many of the girls
were beautiful to behold, his mind and heart were filled with images of
the proud and mysterious Sondahr.  He could think of nothing else and
soon wandered off, bored with the game and content to sit with Torka as
he savored the camaraderie of other hunters.

Soon a great feast fire was blazing.  Karana joined Torka and the others
around a huge, stone-lined pit in which flames fed off turf and lichens
and bones, crackling, popping, spitting sparks high into the stars.  In
the sky above the eastern horizon an aurora glowed like a shivering, ox
bowed river of red and gold.

As was customary, the women and children sat together on one side of the
circle, while the men and youths sat on the other.  All listened as
Lorak pointed to the sky and told wondrous stories of the great fish
that swam in the sky rivers, of the stars that were their eggs, and of
how, when clouds covered the sky and the rain fell, the stars fell to
earth in the rain.  This, he said, was how fish came to swim within the
rivers of the earth so that men and women could catch and eat them.
"Fish!"  exclaimed Zinkh with disgust when the story was done.  "This
man says it would be a fine good thing if the sky rained stars that were
the eggs of man meat instead of woman meat!  In this land there is
lately too much fish and berries and birds."  "All food is spirit
given!"  countered Lorak.  "All!  We who gather here to await the coming
of the great mammoths will eat only that meat if the choice is given.
But the gifts of Mother Below are gifts, nonetheless; and while we wait
for the coming of the great ones, fish are plentiful in the streams and
rivers, and waterfowl are fat with summer's end, and berries are sweet
for our children.  We are of many bands in this camp. If woman meat is
forbidden you, then refrain from partaking of it. When the hooves of the
great herds move across the world, when the wind spirits howl in the
distant canyons, when Thunder Speaker's roars split the sky, then all
men know that Father Above is the force that puts life to man meat
within the bellies of the mothers of the game!"

"Eh yah, hay!"  The affirmation was spoken in unison from many youths.

Courteously, and with much pride in their style, men of many bands
joined in the storytelling.  They spoke of far lands and of different
yet always similar ways of life.  They boasted of adventures.  They
thrilled their listeners with tales of survival.  The last man to speak
enthralled them all with a story of how he had single-handedly killed a
great short-faced bear and had eaten it himself, sharing none of it with
his women because its belly had been so filled with just-eaten char that
there had been enough of that to feed his women for weeks, while he
alone savored the meat of the great bear.

"The red meat of the great horned one was the first fresh meat that many
men in this camp have eaten in all too many days.  The man Torka has
brought luck with him to the Great Gathering," said one magic man, and
all of the hunters who had seen his spear fly faster, farther, and
harder than any other cheered him.

"Tell us of your band.  How is it that Torka's people come to this camp
speaking of a land rich in man meat when we have hunted the game trails
of our fathers for an entire season with little to show?"

Torka spoke quietly, with no embellishment.  None was necessary, for all
men knew of the great mammoth Thunder Speaker.  They trembled when he
told them of how it had destroyed his band and forced him to wander the
world with only an old man, a young woman, and a wild dog, until at last
he had made his peace with the Destroyer and had come to name it Life
Giver for leading him to a new life in a strange and forbidden land.

"Why should land rich with game be forbidden?"  The question came from
one of two disreputable-looking band less hunters who hunkered close
together.  Between them, tethered with a thong collar, was a frail,
femininely pretty, haggard looking boy.

"And why has Torka left this land of good hunting to winter in a camp
where neither mammoths nor any of the great herds have come?"  pressed
the second of the two hunters, drawing Torka back to the moment as he
looked him straight in the eyes.  Torka's head went up defensively.  He
measured the dirty, grimy-faced man.  The rudely prodding tone of the
question had not startled and offended him.  But among his people and
all bands he had ever had contact with, it was forbidden to look
directly into the eyes of another unless that person was kindred or
lover, and thus a part of one's own life spirit.  To do so was to invade
the other person's soul through his eyes and open a vent by which the
life spirit could escape and fall under the control of the invader.
Perhaps the man was unaware that he was breaking an ancient taboo. Torka
deliberately met his stare; to look away once eye contact was made would
be an admission of weakness.

There was something of an overfed lynx about his features

as one of his hands played idly with the thong that held the boy captive
beside him.  The hunter flinched and looked away.

"The game has followed Torka to this camp!"  declared Zinkh to the
hunter.  "Or did you and your boy-using brother not hunt with us and eat
of the flesh of the great woolly rhinoceros?"

"We hunted.  We ate.  But the flesh of the horned one is gone, and you,
Zinkh, are always the first to complain about eating woman meat in this
camp.  Mammoth meat is the best meat for us, but Tomo and Jub, we will
eat anything and not complain.  We do wonder why a man who says he will
not hunt the mammoth has come to this camp of mammoth hunters, and why,
if Torka has come from a hunting ground full of game, he does not tell
us where it is, so that we may go there.  We are not afraid to hunt
alone.  You--all of you here--would be amazed at the stories Tomo and
Jub could tell of the things that we have killed and of the kinds of
meat that we have eaten."

"It is a land forbidden to men," said Zinkh, bristling as he spoke in
defense of Torka.

"Yet Torka went there.  He has brought prime skins.  He has--"

"Torka is a magic man!  The spirits walk with him.  He may go where he
will go!"

Torka waved the pugnacious little Zinkh to silence, needing no advocate
to speak for him.  "This man followed his totem, Thunder Speaker, into
the Corridor of Storms.  Although there may be game, there are no
people, and so a man who is without a band--even if he is a magic
man--must live in constant fear of what must happen to his women and
children if his life spirit should walk the wind.  For this reason Torka
has come back into the world of men."

"No man has ever returned from the Corridor of Storms to tell of it!"
Lorak's tone was sharp.

"I tell of it," replied Torka evenly, momentarily regretting his
kindness to the elder, which had been at his own expense.  "Far to the
east is an endless river of grass--the forbidden Corridor of Storms, a
place of constant wind that speaks gently to a man in the time of light
and savages him during the time of the long dark.  No one could long
survive the dry, freezing storms of terrible cold except in hidden,
wind-protected valleys.  In one such valley has Torka lived

beside hot springs that feed pools of water that do not freeze, even in
the darkest nights of winter, and to these pools game comes to--"

"Torka must also tell the people that it is a land where the mountains
rain fire and the earth shakes, to demolish the camps of men!"  Karana,
heart pounding, was on his feet.  He had been sent a sudden vision of
the land that he had reluctantly left behind.  The image was as red and
hot as blood.  It laked within his eyes, scalding them as he looked at
Tomo and Jub.  He knew for a certainty that if such men entered the
Valley of Songs, they would desecrate it by hunting its creatures to
extinction, including Life Giver himself.  "It was a bad land, a land
wisely forbidden to men by the spirits.  That was why we left it!"

The intensity of Karana's words affected all who heard them, including
the youth.  He had not meant to shout or to shame Torka by his outburst,
but he was certain that he had done both.  His face was burning with
emotion as a terrible restlessness took him, and he strode boldly out of
the firelight, leaving Torka and Lonit staring after him, confused by
his violent change of attitude, and everyone else gaping in amazement at
his audacity.

Karana walked quickly.  The darkness covered him.  He was glad.  Had it
not, he knew that Ppmm would have followed him, as she had taken it upon
herself to follow him everywhere, backhanding away any young girl who
even dared to come close.  She shadowed him even when he went to the
latrine, where, angry and frustrated, he made no attempt to hide his
bodily functions from her.  She watched him with moon-eyed adoration,
and not even the strongest of his epithets had succeeded in driving her
away.

He looked up now at the stars and the trembling, arching rivers of the
aurora borealis.  Somehow the light seemed to flow within him: He felt
the colors, was warmed and strengthened by them as he picked his way
through the dozing dogs.  Aar looked up at him.  Sister Dog did not
move.  She eyed him listlessly and exhaled softly; she had been moping
ever since Torka had carried Aliga onto the Hill of Dreams and had
commanded her to stay behind.

Karana bent and touched her head, communicating understanding.  She
whined softly, nuzzling his hand.  He walked on, restless almost beyond
bearing as he passed the capacious pit hut that he shared with Torka and
his family.  It had been
his intention to enter and throw himself onto his sleeping skins; now he
could not bring himself to go inside.

He turned and looked back to the communal fire.  From where he stood, he
could not see Torka, Lonit, or any of Zinkh's people.  He found himself
smiling a little as he was forced to admit that the funny little headman
in his outrageous helmet with the dead fox hanging over the top of his
brow was proving to be a loyal friend.

Then his smile vanished as he realized that Torka had been right: This
was a good camp.  It had been so long since he had been in the company
of those of his own age that he had forgotten the enjoyment such
associations could bring.  His part in the killing of the rhinoceros had
given him status not only among his peers but among everyone at the
gathering.  As much as he was loath to admit it, the prospect of
wintering here no longer seemed repugnant--the thought of being anywhere
near the magic woman Sondahr was enough to warm him and send his wits
flying happily from his head.

Thoughts of her took the moment.  He looked up along the smooth, sloping
contours of the Hill of Dreams.  Sondahr had not been at the communal
fire.  She must be there, in the hut that Torka had described to him,
working her healing magic upon Aliga.  It was dark upon the sacred hill.
The bones of the council house shone dully in the soft pink light of the
aurora.  He shivered at the sight of it, recalling the vision that had
prompted him to interrupt Torka at the communal fire.

Blood.  Death.  Desecration.  These things filled his senses, then
ebbed, leaving his mind almost painfully clear.  Karana had felt so
welcome here that despite the encampment's circling wall of bones and
tusks and the council house of bones upon the Hill of Dreams, he had
forgotten that these people were primarily mammoth hunters.  Tomo and
Jub had caused him to remember.

He looked again at the communal fire, which had ebbed into hot, glowing
coals giving off smoke that smelled of burned bones and fat and of sods
cut from the skin of the tundral earth.  In their red, pulsing light,
Karana could see that several middle-aged women had risen to dance for
the assembly within the circle.  He heard the flat, nasal, atonal
resonance of their song.  It had to do with the pride that women felt
when their men killed mammoths, the joy they experienced when they were
called to butcher mammoths, the pleasure they knew when working together
at the stretching

and scraping of mammoth skins.  It chafed some inner portion of his
consciousness that could not bear the sound of it.

Just sharing the mammoth hunters' encampment made him a consenting party
to their ways.  And he had sworn before all of the spirits of Creation
and the great Life Giver himself that he would never hunt the mammoth.
Never.  He felt suddenly confined by his surroundings.  He was desperate
for the open tundra, for the song of the free, unfettered wind.

With a grunt of determination, he took one of his spears from where it
stood upright against the pit hut next to Torka's weapons and walked
across the broad compound, past innumerable huts, shelters, and drying
frames, until at last he reached the break in the wall of mammoth bones
through which he had first entered the camp with Torka.  He paused,
reached out, and lay an open palm against a great tusk.

"Mammoth spirit, know that Karana has not come to hunt your kind.  He
has come with Torka's people to winter in this camp with those who have
not named you totem.  But though they may draw their strength from your
spirit, Karana and Torka will not wet our spears in your blood, nor eat
of your flesh, nor point the way to the river of grass or to the Valley
of Songs to which Life Giver has gone."

Beneath his palm the tusk seemed suddenly warm, as though the spirit of
the great mammoth had heard the promise of the youth.  Karana withdrew
his hand, startled.  For the first time he noticed that Aar was at his
side.

"Come, Brother Dog," he said softly, grateful for the company of his
faithful companion.  "You and I will walk alone a while.  Karana's
spirit feels small and confused in this place of too many people."

Together they ran beneath the open sky and breathed in the clean, cold,
smokeless Arctic night air.  The youth and the dog paused atop a high
mound of tundral earth and listened to the singing of wolves, and Karana
raised his arms, crying aloud to the forces of Creation.  The wind
carried his voice to the magic woman, unseen upon the hill.

"Great spirits, bring forth the game to this land.  Bring forth the
bison and the caribou to die upon the spears of men who hunger for the
red meat of life!  But great spirits of the mammoth, hear Karana!  Walk
now away from this land.  Do not come to this place wtare death awaits
you!"

The next day the people at the Great Gathering slept long, and only the
magic woman, standing as a silent, lonely sentinel upon the crest of the
Hill of Dreams in the light of dawn, saw dust and circling birds upon
the far western horizon.

Bison.  The youth has called them!  He has the power!  Tomorrow we will
hear them.  Tomorrow most of the men will hunt.  But the meat will not
be mammoth meat, and neither they nor I shall be nourished by it.

She turned and went back into her hut.  The tattooed woman was awake,
sitting up, sipping at a warm broth of strongly steeped bearberry leaves
and thick, oily marrow extracted from the bones of many animals--but not
from the rhinoceros whose flesh she had not been allowed to butcher.

"The magic of Sondahr is great!"  proclaimed Aliga, smiling, displaying
her filed, tattooed teeth.  "The woman of Torka feels stronger every
day!"

The magic woman expressionlessly observed her patient.  Untroubled rest
and the rich broths had done Aliga much good, but her eyes were still
yellow, and her fever, although under control, was still there.  The
slightest stress would set it free to burn wild once again.

"My baby sleeps, growing strong.  It will be born soon, yes?"

Sondahr felt such overwhelming pity for the woman, it was difficult to
remain aloof; but she had learned long ago that a betrayal of emotion
was also a betrayal of power.

Frowning, she moved to sit beside the tattooed woman.  "The youth, the
one you call Karana.  Tell me of him."

Aliga's smile disappeared.  "There is nothing to tell!  He is a rude boy
with eyes that see too much for his own good!  With
luck he will find a woman in this camp and follow Torka's people no
more!"

"As Torka's son is it not more likely that he will eventually bring the
woman of his choice to walk with his father's people?"

Aliga rose to snap at the bait.  "This woman will bear Torka's son!
Karana is named by Torka as his own only out of kindness and blind
affection.  But the boy is son to the headman Supnah, and by right he
should walk with his own true people.  Do you know the band?  They have
a wondrous magic man among them--Navahk, the most beautiful man this
woman has ever seen.  I mean no offense, but in truth I had hoped that
Navahk would be in this camp."

"No, Navahk and his people have not been to the Great Gathering in many
years.  And I am not offended, Aliga.  I have never known a woman who
was not drawn by the beauty of Navahk--including myself long ago, when
he was not much more than a boy who looked so much like Karana that..."
She paused.  She had known the truth from the first moment that she saw
him.

Aliga made a face of annoyance.  "Karana thinks that he will be a magic
man like his uncle someday!  He goes off alone.  He calls upon the
spirits.  He sees things, that one does.  Things that no one but a true
shaman has a right to see!  You would do well to put him in his place,
Magic Woman!  For he will never be like Navahk!"

"No one in the world of men or spirits will ever be like Navahk,"
Sondahr replied guardedly, her eyes full of memories.

Aliga dared to reach out and touch the forearm of the older woman.
"Sondahr's powers are great.  If you called to him, if you put your
summons upon the spirit winds, would Navahk come to this camp to help
this woman's baby to be born?"

Sondahr rose.  Her exquisite features hardened into reproach.  "Navahk
is a man whose magic is a thing of death, not of life.  Be glad that he
is not in this camp.  Be glad that this woman will not summon him.  I
will summon a better man for you--Torka, He may take you back to your
own pit hut now.  I have done all that I can for you."

It seemed to Lonit that Torka was not ever going to come down from the
Hill of Dreams.  When he did, he carried Aliga in his arms and was quick
to share with Lonit the
information that the magic woman had given him about how the tattooed
woman must be cared for.

"She must have rest and plenty of sleep," he explained, placing Aliga
onto the piled sleeping skins that Lonit had arranged with great care so
they would be ready for her return.  Aliga settled herself without so
much as a word of thanks, commenting huffily that the pallet of the
magic woman had been thicker with heather and moss and therefore more
comfortable, then added that Lonit must learn to make a better bed.

"This woman has always tried to do her best," Lonit countered.  She was
actually glad to have Aliga's waspish tongue stinging her again; she
must be feeling better!  "Aliga has never complained before."

"Aliga complains now," drawled the tattooed woman, folding her hands
across the dress skins that were tautly stretched across her enormous
belly.

"She must have this to drink with her food," Torka continued, handing
Lonit a bladder flask of brew that Sondahr had given him.

She took it, lifted it, sniffed it, and blinked in surprise.  "It is
what this woman has been brewing for her all along!  Marrow broth with
bearberry leaves."

"Lonit just thinks that this is what it is," said Aliga haughtily.
"Lonit's brews never helped this woman!  But look, Aliga is much better
now!  Sondahr has mixed much magic into the medicine that she has made
for me!"

The strangest expression crossed Torka's face.  "Yes, much magic to have
made Aliga feel so much stronger.

Lonit could not read his face.  He seemed lost in his solicitude to
Aliga, so much so that he did not notice when Sister Dog slunk in from
outside.  Eyeing Torka and Lonit warily, expecting to be commanded out
at once, the dog made it to Aliga's side and hunkered low, extending her
snout in wary greeting.  Lonit scolded the animal and made to shoo her
away, but the tattooed woman was actually glad to see the dog.  She
ruffled the grizzled fur of the animal's wolflike head with her fingers
and asked Torka if the dog might stay,

Lonit was amazed.  Aliga had never shown affection to the dogs; indeed,
she usually kicked the pups and complained about the fact that Sister
Dog had taken such a fancy to her.  And the dogs were never allowed
within the pit hut.  Even during the coldest storms they were content to
stay curled

close to the lee walls, tucking noses beneath tails, their thick coats
forming more than adequate insulation against the cold.  Karana had
begged Torka to allow them inside, and he had agreed once.  The pups had
come in to loose such pissing pandemonium that the entire hut had nearly
collapsed, and the interior had never been completely cleansed of the
strong odor of puppy urine.  Since then it had been an unspoken law: No
dogs were allowed within the pit hut.

So it was that Lonit was startled when she was reprimanded by Torka for
trying to make Sister Dog remember her manners.

"If it would cheer Aliga, let the dog stay, Lonit.  And stop arguing
with her.  She needs her strength."

Hurt and confused, she bowed her head and backed out of the hut.  lana
sat outside with the baby, changing is swaddling moss.  Summer Moon was
sitting cross-legged before her, trying to untangle the mess that she
had made out of an old fishing lure of musk-ox hair.

The encampment was athrob with morning activities.  Everyone was up and
about.  Smokes rose from cooking fires, so thick that they stung Lonit's
eyes--or were those tears that burned beneath her lids?  She impatiently
backhanded them away.  Across the coals of her own meticulously made,
nearly smokeless fire, a summer-fat ptarmigan was roasting to
perfection, dripping pink juices that had the dogs up and at attention.

Karana sat close by.  He had torn off one of the bird's legs and was
gnawing on it as he made certain that the rest of the bird did not burn
or fall prey to the salivating dogs.

Miserable, weighted by all of the old self-doubts that had plagued her
since childhood, Lonit took up her bola and walked through the teeming
camp, knowing that the men who looked at her as she passed must be
pitying Torka for being burdened by such a worthless female.  Several
women said good morning.  She answered and barely knew that she spoke at
all.  Perhaps along the shores of the tundral lake that lay south of the
encampment she could snare a few waterfowl to add to her family's main
meal; because of her generosity, much of the rhinoceros meat that
otherwise would have been drying within the peripheries of Torka's camp
circle was now in the bellies of strangers.  Her man had given her
permission to portion the butchered meat and share it, and as his first
woman, she could have turned up her chin and said that until
her own camp was fully stored, other women must be content to butcher
the kills of their own men.  But she knew that Torka wanted to make
friends among the hunters.  As she walked out of the encampment now, she
nevertheless wondered if she had done the right thing.

The sky was free of clouds, and the sun was warm.  The wind was so
strong that biting flies were instantly carried away on a wing-shredding
tide of air that allowed no safe landing or return.

Lonit walked across a russet-colored land and paused at the edge of
sedge grasses that lay between her and the lake.  The wind skimmed
across the surface so that the lake seemed to be running like a river.
Now, in that brief time of year when berries ripened and tubers were
sweet and ready for picking, cranes were still standing stilt-legged in
the shallows.  Loons called, and Lonit saw the bobbing forms of myriad
species of ducks and geese and the larger, more elegant swans.

Her bola was a compound sling composed of four long lengths of braided
sinews drawn together at one end.  The loose end of each sinew was
weighted by shell-shaped stones of equal size--rare finds gleaned in the
far, undulating land that had smelled strongly of salt.  She could not
know that the shell-shaped stones were not stones but fossil remnants of
another age.  Yet somehow she sensed magic in them and a strange
gentling of her spirit whenever she handled them.

Now, moving boldly forward, she took the secured ends of the thongs in
her right hand and the shell-weighted ends in the other.  She drew the
thongs taut as, whistling and hooting, she deliberately frightened the
birds into flight.

The sky was filled with the sound and presence of wings.  Had she
possessed no skill at all, she still could have easily killed one of the
hundreds of eider ducks.  She flung the weighted ends of her bola up and
out and sent the weapon whirling in a deadly spin.  Encircling the body
of the hapless bird and breaking its wings instantly, the bola rode the
duck to earth, where Lonit easily retrieved it, broke its neck, and in
seconds had the bola flying again.  And again, until she had a dozen
birds strung through their beaks upon a carrying thong. She paused,
breathing hard, forced to admire her own skill.  Not one bird aimed at
had been missed or struck in a way that she had not intended. The fat,
pink meat of many ducks would be sweet in the camp of Torka this night.
They
would feast.  Later, the white feathers would make lovely tunic
trimmings.  The down would insulate the winter boots and mittens of her
family.  And surely, as Torka, Karana, Align, lana, and the children
wiped warm grease from their chins, they would praise Lonit's efforts on
their behalf.  In this she was worthy, and nothing would make her
believe otherwise!

Feeling better, she seated herself amid the soft, feathery, virtually
unbloodied mound of dead ducks, plucking at them idly with her
fingertips.  Their eyes were glazing, looking at her.

Woman meat.

Did the admonition come from the spirits of the slain waterfowl?  She
had forgotten to thank the ducks for the gift of their lives.  Shame
replaced pride.  She thanked them now, wondering why she should believe
that her man would admire her for bringing back to camp the kind of meat
that every woman knew how to kill?

\o woman is as good with a bola as Lonit.  No woman dresses better skins
or makes a better fire or devises more clever fishing lures or cooks a
better meal or raises a more wind-resistant pit hut or loves her
children or loves her man more than Lonit does.

She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms about them,
waiting to feel guilty for agreeing with the voice that spoke within
her.  Strangely, she felt no guilt.  Startled, she thought of all the
years of childhood punishment and abuse that had cowed her and forced
her to hone her skills so that, through their excellence, she who had
been called ugly and unworthy would be useful enough to her people so
that they would not abandon her to death.

For the first time in her life the memories made her angry instead of
ashamed.  The inner voice made her feel bold, heady, much as she had
once felt within the Valley of Songs after drinking too much fermented
blood and berry juice at a summer's end feast, when her life with Torka
was everything that she had never dared to dream was possible for her.

The grasses broke the wind, and the warmth of the morning was making her
sleepy.  She yawned.  Dreamily, with her chin on her knees and her head
tilted to one side, she eyed the ducks thoughtfully.

"Tell me, was the aim of this woman not so true that you fell from the
sky before you even knew that you were being
hunted?  Was the strength of her thrust not such that, when her bola
struck you, you fell stunned to the earth in little pain?  And was her
hand not steady when she snapped your necks so quickly that death was
yours before you knew fear of the ending of your life?"

She stared at the silent birds and knew that had they been alive and
able to speak, they would have confirmed her confidence:

The woman who has killed us is a bold hunter.  The woman who has killed
us struck us down before we could fully react to danger.  The woman
whose bola brought us to the earth flung it with such accuracy and power
that we never knew what felled us from the sky.  The woman whose hands
brought quick death to us was merciful.

"Yes, Lonit is merciful, and because she is such an excellent hunter,
the meat of her ducks will be tender from their quick death, for which
she thanks them."  Another yawn stifled her words.  She closed her eyes,
drifted into sleep, and dreamed that she was a black swan such as one of
the mated pair that she had seen upon the lake .. . flying away with
Torka and her swan babies into the face of the rising sun, back into the
Corridor of Storms where the Valley of Songs awaited her return and
there were no people to disrupt her life or her love .. . forever.

"Where is Lonit?"

Torka's question caused Karana to put down the second leg of the
ptarmigan.  "She went off with her bola.  Birding, I imagine."

"Alone?"

The youth shrugged and snapped an irritable answer.  "How should I know?
She is your woman, not mine!"  He had been too busy staring off toward
the Hill of Dreams, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sondahr; and he was
still more than a little annoyed with Torka for not allowing him to
accompany him to the magic woman's hut when he had been summoned there
to retrieve Aliga.  "Why do you look so worried?  She always hunted
alone in the Valley of Songs."

"Your memory does not serve you well, Karana, if you have forgotten that
our pit traps and snares kept dangerous carnivores out of the valley.
That is not the case here.  And Zinkh says that the tracks of a leaping
cat were seen not far from where we took the rhino."

It was neither scent nor sound that roused her from her dreams.  It was
the sensation of being watched and the sudden, unnatural quiet of the
tundral world around her.  No loons called.  No ducks chortled.  No
geese or swans cackled or honked or whistled.  There was only the sound
of the waters of the lake rolling incessantly landward, lapping at the
shore as the wind hissed benignly through the tall grasses and, far
away, the sounds of the huge encampment droned like distant insects.

She awoke with a start.  Something was lurking, poised to spring upon
her from within the grasses to her left.  Panic screamed at her to rise,
to run, to flee from whatever the danger was, but the inner voice of
boldness overrode it.  She knew from Torka and Umak that panic was her
worst enemy.  Panic fed upon caution, and without caution, prey stood no
chance against predator.  It was not often that the caribou fawn, frozen
in camouflaged terror amid the scrub, drew the eyes of lions, wolves,
and bears; it was the frightened animal, young or old, weak or strong,
that bolted from cover and inspired the hunter to take chase.

She barely breathed.  Her heart was racing, and she could feel her blood
pounding in her veins.  Whatever was watching her might be doing only
that.  It might not be hungry.  It might have fed upon other meat and
was merely drawn by curiosity to see what sort of animal was dozing in
the grasses with a pile of dead birds at its feet.

Slowly, invisible under the fall of her windblown hair, her eyelids
opened as her fingers tensed around the thongs of her bola.  A small
spark of relief flared within her--at least she was not totally unarmed.
A bola was not a spear, but the thongs were threaded through her
fingers, the weighted tips dangling loose, and the weapon was ready to
be thrown in a deadly arc if--when--the moment came.

Lonit's eyes focused on the grasses through the windblown stalks of gold
and russet to a deeper gold that lay beyond, to meet the eyes of a
great, fang-toothed, lion-sized leaping cat.

Panic threatened her again, but the inner voice counseled: Do not run!
To run is to die!  You have seen the thing you fear.  It is the thing
that one does not see that one must fear.  The woman is wise, while the
great leaping, cat is stupid.  Be clever, Lonit!  Be hold if you would
live to see your man and your children again!  Do what the great leaping
cat will
not expect!  Make it fear you!  Do not let it make the first move! What
have you to lose?  Only your life, and that may be lost already!

Without another moment of thought, Lonit leaped to her feet, shrieking
as ferociously as any lion.  She lifted the thong of ducks and, with all
of her strength, threw them into the grasses where the great cat lay
waiting to pounce.  And now, bola swinging and whirring above her head,
Lonit went crashing through the sedges, howling like a wolf with its
blood up for the chase.

Stunned by falling ducks and confused by the fearless onslaught of the
woman, when the bola was released and its weighted thongs hit the cat
squarely across its face, blinding it in one eye and shattering its
broad, flattened nose, the animal jumped straight up in the air,
screamed in terror, turned, and ran for its life.

Led by Torka and Karana--with Aar and the dogs running out ahead of them
on Lonit's scream--Zinkh and a small party of hunters stopped dead when
they saw the golden body of the huge cat leap from the grasses. As it
shrieked, its stabbing fangs flashed in the sunlight and its massively
shouldered torso twisted into a grotesque circle of pain.  It seemed to
hang suspended for a second before it arched its body back and around
and disappeared into the grasses.

The dogs froze, awaiting Torka's command.  On either side of him Karana,
Zinkh, and the others, eyes wide with disbelief, stood with their spears
poised.  They had seen Lonit stand bravely to some unseen danger and had
heard her wolflike howl.  As they watched her throw her thong of ducks
and hurl herself and her bola at something within the sedges, they
realized that they were too far away to help her.  Not even the spear
hurlers of Torka and Karana could have sent a thrust the required
distance.  Besides, there had been nothing to aim at until the powerful
body of the great cat had jumped straight up and then disappeared.

"Torka's woman fears nothing!"  exclaimed Zinkh in profound admiration
as the hunters stared in gape-jawed awe of the woman's unprecedented
behavior.

Torka was shaking with relief and pride.  From where he stood, Lonit's
beauty and strength were at one with the wild, golden land and the
incomparable grace and beauty of the black swans that had risen from the
lake.

"We will go after that great cat, yes?"  prodded Zinkh.  "If the woman
has wounded it, it will be doubly dangerous."

The suggestion was enthusiastically taken up by his bandsmen.  They
spoke of the threat that a large, injured carnivore would be to their
women and children when they ventured from the encampment to fish and
gather berries and roots.

Torka told them to venture on without him and insisted that Karana go
along to command the dogs and to try to claim the first strike for
himself.  Torka watched the youth go off eagerly with the others, Aar
loping at his side like a faithful shadow, as he had once run with old
Umak.

They reached the lakeshore, and the dogs became invisible except for the
indentations that they made in the sedges.  He saw Lonit proudly stand
to greet the hunters.  She was as tall and beautiful as Sondahr, and he
could tell from her stance that their words pleased her.  Karana turned
and pointed back, and he knew that she asked why he was not with them.

For a moment she stared across the distance that separated them; then,
purposefully, with her head held high and a newfound pride in her step,
she strode toward him.

Strength was returning to him.  He began to walk slowly.  The tide of
relief that had swept through him when the cat had turned away from her
had awakened him.  If the cat had leaped upon her, she would be dead-
now, and for Torka life would be a burden to be endured for the sake of
their children.

She was before him now, holding out her thong of ducks, her face
radiant.

"This woman has driven off the great leaping cat!"  she proclaimed,
awaiting his approval.  "Alone!  With only her bola!  The hunters of
Zinkh were impressed!  This did they say to Lonit: that she was bold and
brave and beautiful, and in these things, a magic woman like Sondahr!
Did Torka see how Lonit faced death boldly?"

"Torka saw."  He could barely form the words.  He wanted to draw her
into his arms, to hold her close, to kiss her mouth, her nose, her eyes
... to tell her that he did not need the words of other men to know that
she was bold and brave and more beautiful to him than the strange and
aloof Sondahr could ever be.  He wanted to tell her that her love for
him was the pride of his life.

But he had never been a man who could easily speak of his feelings.  He
felt ashamed for not having been able to help

her, and shame became anger at himself, at the great cat, and at the
woman who had put her life in jeopardy.

And so now he saw only the ducks.  He glared at them.  At
feather-covered, stiffening flesh and beaks, and at webbed feet from
which the juices of life had already faded.  Suddenly he was furious. He
struck the offending birds from her hand with such power that she spun
around, crying out in dismay.

"Ducks!"  he raged.  "Lonit has risked her life for ducks?  And for this
taking of woman meat she is compared to Sondahr?  Sondahr is wise!
Sondahr is wary!  Sondahr is watchful!  Unlike Lonit, Sondahr would know
better than to cause men to put their lives at risk so that she might
return safely to her camp--from which this man gave her no permission to
stray!  For ducks\"

The cat died hard.  Half-blind, fighting for breath through its mouth
since its ruined nose would not serve it, it went down with Karana's
spear through its lower side, just above the pelvis, in the soft flesh
that covered its belly.  The barbed, obsidian spearhead tore through
flesh and went straight through the animal to bury itself in the
permafrost, pinning the mortally wounded cat to the earth.

Zinkh and the other men cheered while the dogs barked and circled madly.
Karana stepped back to allow the others a chance to wet their weapons,
observing as they closed for the sport of a prolonged kill. The great
cat flailed in agony, screaming in outrage as each man placed a spear
for pleasure, until at last, with a final and unexpected burst of power,
it pulled itself free of the earth.

It was on its feet now.  Its body bristling with spears, it staggered in
pathetic circles while Zinkh and his men stamped their feet and chanted
at it.

"Leaping cat spirit come forth!"

"Come to the brave men who have killed you!"

"Come, spirit.  Too long have you lived in the skin of the one who
leaps!"

The right side of Karana's upper lip lifted into a sneer of contempt for
the hunters.  When the cat had been on the run, they had not been so
quick to taunt or venture near it.  It was the dogs that had run the
injured beast to exhaustion, and it was his own spear, thrown from the
spear hurler, that had struck the first blow.  If Zinkh had not yipped
with excitement at the moment of his weapon's release, it would have
struck

true and the great cat would be dead, its spirit free to roam the world
of spirits, not suffering such a dishonoring as Zinkh and his men were
torturing it with now.

Karana was sorry that he had not killed the cat.  He had no taste for
this kind of hunting.  Zinkh stood ahead of the others, directly between
Karana and the cat.  His hat slipped into an odd, sideways angle as he
jabbed with his spear, brazenly flaunting safety as he ventured to
within what would have been easy range of the swiping paws of a healthy
animal.

Karana saw no bravery in his action.  The cat looked as though it were
incapable of doing anything more than dropping dead.  But suddenly, with
lightning-fast motion, the cat pounced.  Zinkh fell, with the cat on top
of him, and the dogs on top of the cat.  The hunters surged forward, but
only Karana's position in the line of men allowed him to strike the
mortal blow.

The cat went limp.  Karana called off the dogs.  A snarling Aar forced
them to obey as the hunters approached and, cautious now, rolled the
body of the cat off the headman.  He had instinctively pulled himself
into a fetal tuck when the beast had downed him.  He lay unmoving, his
clothes soaked in blood--his or the cat's, no one could say.

"This man ... he is still alive, yes?"  Zinkh did not sound certain.

No one could have been sure, except that common experience told them
that dead men did not usually speak.

He began to uncurl slowly.  With the exception of severely clawed
garments and several bleeding lacerations that would need stitching
where the cat's claws had penetrated the fabric, he appeared little the
worse for his mauling.  When Zinkh had gone into his tuck, the cat had
sunk its fangs into his helmet, not his head.  Now he sat up, looked at
his hat, held it out, noted the punctures and the tears and the fact
that what was left of the ornamental fox was conspicuously missing a
head.

His eyes strayed to the dead cat.  The spears of each hunter were
clearly incised as to ownership; only Karana's were unmarked, and the
one spear that protruded from the fatal heart wound was his.  Zinkh
looked at the youth, then at his mutilated hat, then back at the
spear-riddled corpse.

"It is better the leaping cat eats fox instead of man, yes?"  He set the
ruined helmet purposefully back onto his head.  "This hat has always
been lucky for this man."  He rose,

walked stiffly to Karana, and, to the youth's astonishment, solemnly
took the helmet from his head and placed it firmly onto Karana's. "Now,
for son of Torka, this hat be lucky hat.  Now does Zinkh give in
gratitude this hat to one who saves his life!  Now will Karana wear this
hat .. . always."

So it was that when Karana walked back into the encampment of the Great
Gathering, he wore the hat of Zinkh and the mutilated, spear-riddled
skin of the leaping cat as he brought forth the fangs of the beast to a
sad-eyed Lonit and was disappointed to find that there were no ducks for
dinner.

Wavelike vibrations trembled within the permafrost, caused by the great
herd passing far to the west of the encampment.  Grazing as it moved, it
passed slowly, in numbers so vast that, although darkness and distance
made it invisible, the thudding of countless hooves was a low, constant
rumble.

Karana awoke.  Staring into darkness, he lay unmoving, his senses taking
measure of the night, knowing exactly what it was that had drawn him
from his troubled dreams: dreams of wild horses running toward him
across the starry sky ... a pale stallion leading them, white mane
flying, tail upturned and twitching upon the wind.  The dream stallion
tossed its head and tore open the skin of the sky with ripping
teeth-fanged teeth, not the teeth of a horse at all, but the teeth of
the great leaping cat that Karana had killed.

Dreams of falling stars and disembodied eyes watching him out of a
bleeding sky .. . red dreams ... of blood ... of Navahk .. . coming
toward him.  He shuddered, glad to wake from such nightmares.  He lay
very still, wondering if they were drawn from fear or premonition.  He
could not tell.  Or perhaps he did not want to know.  Either way, he was
awake now.  He willed the dreams out of his mind as he listened to the
sound of the distant herd and realized that only last night he had
called the game, and now it had come.  It had come!  The realization
sent shivers along his arms.

Coincidence, he told himself, reasoning that the encampment of the Great
Gathering lay upon the migration route of many game animals.
Nevertheless, instinct told him that it was more than coincidence.

He closed his eyes.  He saw the herd.  Bison--not caribou or
mammoth or elk--but a teeming river of bison, which would take days to
pass.  And while it passed, the people of the encampment would hunt and
hunt and hunt again.  When the time of the long dark fell upon them,
they would have meat and marrow, hide and horn, tallow and sinew to last
them well into spring.  They would have no need to seek the flesh of
mammoths.

He had to be sure.  He had to see with his own eyes if reality would
mesh with what he saw within his vision.  He rose from his sleeping
skins, glad that he had slept beside Aar outside Torka's pit hut, as he
often did on summer nights.

Fully dressed and still in his boots, he hushed the dogs and, with Aar
treading quietly beside him, silently made his way across the encampment
to the break in the wall of bones.

Above him the aurora was not nearly as bright as it had been the night
before.  The night was afire with stars, but already the first pale glow
of dawn had turned the sky above the horizon to a thinner, softer
darkness against which the distant mountains stood in black,
impenetrable silhouette.  A faint gauzing of dust sheened the air above
them, and as the wind blew out of the west, it was strong with the stink
of herd animals.  But just what species of animal were they?  Had his
vision been correct?

"Bison."

The affirmation was not his.  Sondahr stepped out of the shadows
directly to his right.  Her clean, mild, smoky scent had been masked by
the overpowering stench of the wind.  She was slightly taller than he.
Even in the dark her beauty was staggering.  Karana was startled to see
her.  Aar gave off a "woof and then a low growl that somehow sounded
more embarrassed than threatening.

The magic woman stood her ground, as though the dog were not there. "The
encampment will awaken soon.  I thought you would come long before now."
Her statement was puzzling, her tone vaguely hinting of rebuke, as
though he had disappointed her.

"How could you know that I would come at all?"

"I knew.  As you knew the name of that which walks within the night."

"I did not speak to name it.  You did."

"Yes.  But last night, was it not you who raised your arms and implored
the forces of Creation to hear your voice as you called the game to come
to die upon the spears of men?"

He was appalled.  "You could not have heard.  I was too far away."

"Have you never heard without your ears, Karana?  Have you never heard
from within the core of yourself, understood things unspoken in the
hearts and dreams of men?"

He blinked.  She had trespassed into his soul, into that portion of
himself that not even Torka could accept or understand, and she had
understood.  "It is so," he assented with wonder.

"Yes, I knew it the moment I saw you.  You are his son, and yet, as I
have watched you I have come to know that you are all that he could
never be.  The gift is yours.  You will be a man of spirit as well as of
flesh."

"He?"

"Your father."

Somehow he knew that she was not speaking of Torka.

four father.  You are what he could never be.

Was this, then, why the magic man had hated him?

"He is nothing to you, Karana.  Flesh holds no lasting bond to the
spirit.  Put away the past unless it serves the present.  Soon, when the
dawn is fully ripe, you will see the bison summoned by your power as a
gift from the forces of Creation.  For now, since you have not yet come
to trust your inner vision, breathe in the wind.  Let it be your eyes.
Let it serve your other senses."  Her voice was no louder than a sigh.
"The herd comes closer.  Do you feel it?  Do you hear it?  Do you smell
it?"

She was so close to him that her left arm brushed his as she turned
slightly and stood poised within the night.  Her head was raised.  Her
eyes were closed as, through her nostrils, mouth, and skin she drew in
the smells of the wind and the night.

Karana looked up at her.  The night did not exist for him.  The wind did
not blow around him.  He was aware only of her.  He smelled the
exquisite, earthy essence of her body, her soft skin and hair and
garments redolent of the smoky fires kindled with fragrant artemisias
and dried, crushed tundral blossoms.  He knew at last what it was to be
totally enraptured by a woman.  Although she was probably twice his age,
she was the most perfectly beautiful creature he had ever seen; and she
was beside him, seeing into his heart, talking to him, expecting an
answer from him.

His mind was blank.  He forced himself to speak, lowering
his voice, trying to sound manly and intelligent and fully in charge. To
his dismay a boy's voice mumbled about the smell of grass and cud and
urine.  He was grateful to the fading darkness for concealing his blush
as he cursed his ineptitude and wished that the tundra would open to
swallow him whole, as it had once before within the Corridor of Storms;
this time, he would not come out!

He thought he saw her stifle a smile.  He knew only that she was looking
at him now, her hand \ipon his forearm.  His reaction to her touch was
so intense that he nearly cried out.  He would have run off like a
frightened animal had her fingers not tightened upon his arm as she
spoke with enthusiasm and the rising excitement of anticipation.

"Yes, you are right.  Grass and cud, and a urine that smells so strong
that it burns the eyes and can strip the hair from a hide at first
contact!  That is bison!  Tell me now of caribou!"

He gulped.  He forced himself to think.  He spoke reluctantly, afraid
that his voice would humiliate him again.  This time it held steady, at
a normal pitch.  "Caribou reek of the moss and lichens that are its
favorite browse."

"Yes!  And at this time of year bull elk whistle and scream like women
giving birth, while mammoths walk in the ever present scent of spruce,
and highland shadows seem to cling to their backs like mists that smell
of fog and rain and rock gone rotten under ice.  But you are a hunter.
These things you have been taught to see.  There is another seeing, and
Sondahr tells you now that, had your eyes been bound and your nostrils,
mouth, and ears packed with moss, you would have known that the herd
that walks to the west of this camp is a herd of bison, not elk or
caribou or mammoths.  And this sense--this Seeing--is what brought you
out of your dreams and led you to stand here in the dark to affirm to
yourself that what you summoned from the world of spirits has indeed
come to walk among the world of men!"

"I hoped that the game would come."

"There is no power in hope.  Hope is nothing.  Hope is as a man cowering
beneath darkening clouds and saying that he hopes it will not snow, but
if it does, he will deal with whatever comes!  Does the hopeful man want
it to snow or not?  If not, why does he not clearly say so!  As Karana
clearly asked the game to come.  With your arms raised and your voice a
command, you made the spirits listen as you commanded the
forces of Creation to bring forth bison or caribou but not mammoths."

"Mammoth is forbidden meat to my people."

"Not to mine!"

He was startled by the sudden angry intensity of her tone.  It vanished
as quickly as it had flared.

"You have much to learn, Karana, of your gift and the power of Seeing.
You will be a great spirit master someday.  This woman will teach you
all she knows.  It is what I do best, for the spirits have named me
Teacher.  I have lived among many bands, but I am at this camp because
my power comes to me through the flesh and blood of the great mammoths.
That is why tonight, while the others feast upon the meat of the bison
that you have called to die, you and I must stand together and call upon
the forces of Creation to inspire the spirits of another kind of game to
come forth."

"Mammoth?"

Despite his overwhelming attraction to her, he felt like a guileless
animal that has been suddenly maneuvered toward a pit trap.  But he had
seen the overlay of branches in time and now veered to escape.  "You are
a magic woman, Sondahr.  If you and your people hunger for the meat of
the great tuskers, you call them forth!  Your powers are greater than
mine!"

"I am a teacher, Karana, and a healer, but because I am a woman, denied
the use of a spear, so, too, am I denied access to the power of calling.
Through me the forces of Creation work for the good of all, but they
will not respond to my command.  That is a gift given only to spirit
masters, only to hunters, only to men."

"Then you must seek another man to call the mammoths, Sondahr.  Lorak,
perhaps."  "Lorak is a man of flesh, not of spirit.  Few indeed are the
true callers, Karana.  So few that in my lifetime I have known but a
handful, and all were weak, all put flesh above spirit."  She paused.
"You might be a true spirit master ... if you let me teach you."

"I will not call forth mammoths to die upon the spears of men, Sondahr.
Not even for you."

"Bison!"

It was Lorak who gave the cry from the Hill of Dreams as several of the
younger magic men, hunters now, hurried out of the house of bones and,
still pulling on their outer clothes,
poured down from the hill to join with various bands, eager, after their
predawn chanting, for the excitement of the chase and kill.

In the thin light of the rapidly growing morning, the encampment burst
to life as people clambered out of their huts.  Men gathered their
spears, and whole families rushed past the wall of bones to observe the
passage of the bison.

The herd was still several miles away and would probably not come much
closer.  Nevertheless, the sound of it filled the sky, and the weight of
its passing shook the earth.  As far as the eye could see, it was not so
much a grouping of animals as a vast, surging wall of life that
obliterated the horizon.  Little children were held high by their
mothers and fathers to view the distant parade as their parents named
the beasts and spoke of past hunts.

With Summer Moon riding excitedly on his shoulders, Torka joined them.
At his command, Lonit followed, withdrawn and obedient, as she had been
ever since the incident with the great cat, as though she were waiting
for him to forgive her for her carelessness with her own life.  But he
would not do that, ever.  Surely she must have known how much she meant
to him when he had drawn her to him in the night and had made love to
her, wordlessly lest he disturb the others; yet she had seemed sad and
listless.  No doubt the confrontation with the beast had exhausted her.
No doubt she would think twice before going off to hunt alone again. He
nodded, satisfied; if she had learned that lesson, then to the end of
his days he would thank the spirit of the great cat whenever he saw its
fangs dangling from Karana's neck.

Karana.  The boy had not been in his sleeping skins when he had gone to
wake him.  Where was he?  As Torka made his way through the crowd, he
saw him slipping back into camp from beyond the wall of bones with Aar
at his side and Sondahr following.

"That's an interesting twosome, he said to Lonit, startled and curious.

She made no reply, but Pomm did.  The fat woman had fallen into step
behind him, along with others of Zinkh's band.

"That one is old enough to be his mother!"  Pomm glowered when they
passed her.  Her mumbles of frustration were intended for herself, but
Torka heard every word.  "What does he see in her?  Everyone knows she
is too bold for her

own good!  She has used her magic on him, just as she uses it on all of
the magic men, who should make her behave as a proper female.  It would
be like Sondahr to take a better woman's man!  Karana is mine! Zinkh has
said so!  The youth may not have seen my fine points yet, but he will if
Sondahr stands away and minds her place!  Bah!  Her magic's no good.
Can't people see that?  Torka's new baby should be born by now.  This
woman told Lonit to change the sick woman's name and drive the bad
spirit off in search of it.  But does anyone listen to Pomm? No!"

The men who intended to hunt gathered before the wall of bones for a
meeting that would set their strategy.  All wanted Torka, with his magic
spear thrower, to lead them, and his dogs to run point for them, as they
had when they had successfully taken the rhinoceros.

It was to be a team effort, yet to Torka's surprise, fewer than a third
of the able hunters had the desire to go out after any other meat except
mammoth, and Lorak enthusiastically supported their reticence.

"Most men in this camp are mammoth hunters," he explained with a
condescension designed to imply that a man who hunted any other kind of
animal degraded himself.

"You hunted rhinoceros quickly enough," reminded Karana, who had joined
the hunters after retrieving his spears.

The supreme elder's head went up defensively.  "Rhinoceros is
rhinoceros!  Like mammoth, it has great spirit, great power!"  He
paused, allowing the words to settle, then gestured widely with a benign
equanimity that was canceled by his scowl.  "This man would keep no
other from hunting when there is meat on the hoof waiting to be taken.
Torka has said that mammoth is his totem.  He cannot hunt it or eat of
its meat.  So go, all of you who are caribou people and bison people and
eaters of anything that walks.  You have not come to this camp to hunt
mammoth.  You have come here in days of lean hunting to seek shelter
during the coming winter.  So go, those of you who would follow Torka,
those of you who have need of magic spears and dogs to help you make
your kills.  Strike the bison!  Kill the bison!  It is man meat .. .
more or less.  But it is not mammoth!"

Once again Torka regretted having gone out of his way to restore the old
man's pride.  Lorak's reasoning was dangerous, but too many thought he
could do no wrong.  "This man
intends no disrespect, but what if the mammoths do not come?"

The question brought the old man and the mammoth hunters to absolute
attention.  "The mammoths have always come!  Then Lorak and those who
are mammoth hunters will take meat.  Until then we will fast.  Our
sacrifice will call the spirits of the great tusked ones to us."

Several men scowled at Torka.  Others laughed.  A few youths elbowed
each other and shook their heads.

Karana stiffened resentfully as Lorak's frown expanded into an
expression of contempt.  "Since time beyond beginning, men have come to
this camp to hunt mammoths and to feast upon their flesh throughout the
long dark winter.  Since I was an infant sucking the milk of life from
my mother's breasts, I have known the taste of mammoth, for her milk was
strong with it, and its meat was all we ate when we wintered in this
camp to which the mammoths have come always."

Always.  The word troubled Torka as he tried to conceptualize it.  The
mountains, the sky, the mile-high glacial lobes that extruded from the
passes onto the broad, rolling skin of the tundra--these things were
always.  And yet he had seen the mountains fall and the glaciers
collapse and the sky rain fire.  Uneasily his eyes scanned the thousands
upon thousands of bones and tusks that comprised the long, encircling
windbreak walling the encampment.  Was it possible that so many mammoths
had ever lived?  Even the majority of the pit huts and the council house
of this encampment were built of mammoth bones. Could it be that these
mammoth hunters had killed all of the world's mammoths with the
exception of Life Giver and those that walked within the Corridor of
Storms?  Could it be that the great beasts that were always a part of
the seasonal migration of animals would never again set their shadows
upon the earth because of wasteful hunting practices of generations of
mammoth hunters?  Could the consistent hunting of one species annihilate
another?

The premise was shattering.  Torka was stunned by the thought that a
time might come when hunters might be forced to become grazers because
they had hunted to extinction all but themselves.

No!  It could not be!  He had only to look at the vast, black river of
bison to know that there were not enough hunters in all the bands in the
world to deplete the great herds of
grazing animals.  Men were few.  Grazing animals were many.  They would
feed man--always!

Yet the mammoths were late this year.  And in their place had come
bison.  To watch them walk away while men capable of hunting stood by
seemed to Torka to be an offense to the spirits of life.  He felt a need
to speak.

"Among the people of Torka it is said that when the spirits of the game
come forth to die upon the spears of men, they must be honored, they
must be hunted, unless the camps of men are already full of meat and any
further kills would be wasted.  Among my people caribou is to our
hunters what mammoth is to the men of this camp.  Of its meat and skins
and sinew and antler were our lives made.  The caribou, upon which my
people had always depended, failed to return along the migration route
they had always taken, because one winter the storms of the time of the
long dark refused to end and snow blocked the passes.  More than half of
Torka's people starved to death that winter.

"And so Torka says now to Lorak that he and his mammoth hunters must do
as the custom of their people commands.  But since the mammoths have not
returned, Torka would lead as many hunters as would follow him in
pursuit of bison.  The days of light will soon be ending, and the time
of the long dark will follow.  In this camp are many men, many women,
and many children.  But where is the meat that will feed them if the
mammoths do not come?  There, to the west, is meat.  It may not be
mammoth, but in these times when mountains walk, when winter snow closes
the passes and does not melt in spring, and when game must find new ways
of migration to calving and wintering grounds, Torka remembers that it
was said by the father of his father that in new times men must find new
ways ... or die."

They approached the herd at a trot, running into the wind so that the
beasts would catch no scent of them.  They could see individual animals
now, no longer a black blur of noise.  Their shaggy, fat-rich humps rose
an average of six or seven feet above their hooves, and their horns were
enormous, horizontal projections that spanned outward on each side of
their skulls, narrowing into deadly, forward-curving tips.

The grasses concealed the movement of the hunters.  The land conspired
with them in their hunting plan.  Torka soon understood why this area
had been chosen for the Great
Gathering year after year.  Not only was it along the major easterly
winter migration route of mammoths and other big game, but to the north
and south of the nearby lake it was cut by long, deep, natural gullies
into which panicked animals could be driven by experienced hunters. And
this they were.

The herd grazed, ambling mindlessly along in broken segments of hundreds
to thousands of animals.  With Karana and Aar directing the movement of
the other dogs, the animals hunkered low and twitched with restrained
excitement as the hunters slowed their steps.  In groups of fifteen to
twenty men and youths, they advanced slowly on a group of several
hundred animals.  The grasses provided ample cover.  At a shout from
Torka, they burst forward into a mad run, closing on the startled
animals, leaving them only one route of escape as spears rained down.
Panicked, the bison grouped into a protective mass and stampeded in the
only direction available to them--toward the lake, directly into the
waiting gullies.  A few of the younger, lighter, and more agile of the
animals managed to leap across and run to safety.  Others fell,
stumbling headfirst into deep, narrow defiles from which they could not
extricate themselves.  Other animals fell on top of them, crushing them,
suffocating them as still others charged across the ravine, over a
bridge now made of dying bison.

And then the herd was gone, rumbling off across the edge of the world,
while Torka, Karana, and the others shouted praises to the life spirits
of the dead animals.  They killed those that were still alive, driving
their spearheads deep into quivering, bawling flesh.  The dogs barked
and pranced around, snapping at any hapless beast that seemed even
half-capable of dragging itself out of the pit.  Now that the excitement
and pleasure of the hunt was over, the work began.  It took four or five
men to heft a single two-thousand-pound bison out of the ravine for
butchering.  This done, one man twisted its head around by the horns
while another slit its throat with a stone splaying dagger, then reached
up and under its jaw to sever its tongue, jerking it loose.  He sliced
it into portions, and each man hunkered down to indulge himself in this
tender est and tastiest meat.

They ate in silence, nodding and smiling at one another with
satisfaction.  When all had eaten their fill, they shared the delicacy
of the tongue meat with the dogs, then rose and rolled the carcass of
the tongueless bison over, four men holding it so that one might open
the hump.  The knife wielder cut out wedges of bloody, fatty meat, and
again they ate and smiled, glad that they were men who did not choose to
limit their diet to only one kind of animal.  This had been a good day
to hunt.  Thirteen bison lay waiting to be butchered along the rim of
the ravine.  Over one hundred more still lay within the pit.

"Even if the mammoths do not come, there will be enough meat to feed the
entire encampment throughout the winter," said Torka.

"The mammoths will come," assured one of Zinkh's men.  "Truly it was
said that they have always come.  Perhaps tomorrow, yes?"

Torka nodded.  "Perhaps.  But in the meantime this man will eat bison
and be glad for the gift of life that the spirits have given him today."

The butchering went on for days.  Still the mammoth did not come.  But
the bison killers were not concerned--they would have meat to see them
through the time of the long dark, and the thick, shaggy hides of the
slain bison would make warm robes and sleeping skins for them and their
women and children.  While those mammoth hunters who had refused to
participate in the hunt continued to pursue their day-to-day activities,
the bison hunters set up a temporary butchering camp under Torka's
direction on the killing site.

Their women and older children had come out from the great camp to begin
the enormous task of butchering so many animals.  They dismembered the
carcasses and set to the arduous work of fleshing the skins and staking
them out in the wind to dry and cure, according to the various methods
of their bands and the different uses to which they would be put.  But
first they had praised the hunters and delighted in their good fortune
as they were allowed to feast upon leftover tongue, intestines, and
blood meats before setting prime haunch and hump steaks to roast over
spits of bone.

By nightfall the exhausted women slept together with their children,
apart from their men but close to their work.  And the next day Torka,
Zinkh, Karana, and several others went back to the main camp and told
all who were interested that if they would come out and help with the
preparation of the meat, they and their families would be welcome to
their fair share of it, for there was more than enough for all.

A few came.  Many, noting Lorak's scowl of disapproval, did not.

That night in the butchering camp, while exhausted women again slept
close to their work, bison hunters and mammoth
hunters ate together.  The smell of the roasting meat and dripping fat
drew wolves, wild dogs, and other larger, more dangerous carnivores
close to the butchering site, but sentries, along with Aar and his pack,
kept watch.  No one ventured far from the camp, not even to relieve
himself, for in the night, eyes glowed from every tundral rise and the
surrounding grasses, and the wind carried the scents of many animals.

But not of mammoth.

Lonit slept deeply but fitfully, too bone weary even to remove the thick
pads of rhinoceros skin that she wore to protect her palms from being
worn raw or nicked by her razor-sharp obsidian skinning dagger. She
dreamed tortured dreams in which Torka turned his back upon her and
walked off toward the Valley of Songs with Sondahr at his side.  She
awoke, her heart aching and her mind a roiling river of confused
emotion.

Suddenly fiercely annoyed with herself, she sat up and stared across the
moonlit butchering camp to the Hill of Dreams.  The council house of
bones gleamed white, and she could just make out the white-tipped tera
torn feathers that covered Lorak's hut; they made it look as though it
had been encrusted with ice.  Smoke issued through the vent hole. Lorak
must be within, doing whatever magic men did in such high and mysterious
places while, on the crest of the hill, the figure of a woman stood
against the sky, arms raised, head back, as though opening herself to
the forces of Creation.

Sondahr.

Lonit almost spoke the other woman's name aloud with resentment.  Every
night, while the majority of the women fell exhausted into sleep,
Sondahr stood upon the Hill of Dreams, making her songs and chants to
call forth the mammoths.  It seemed blasphemous to Lonit, who had
suffered near starvation many times, for anyone to so prefer the meat of
one species of animal to the exclusion of another.

Nearby a little girl tossed in her sleep and whimpered that her hands
hurt.  Her mother, who had made a new skinning pad for her, whispered
softly to her, telling her to go back to sleep, that in time her
blisters would heal and become calluses, a mark of pride she could show
to prove to any man that she was a hard worker and would make a worthy
mate.

Lonit sighed, missing her children.  She longed for the day
when Summer Moon would be old enough to join her in her work and not
remain always at lana's calm, ever-doting side.  Shadows skimmed across
her thoughts.  The children adored lana; did they love their mother less
because by necessity she hunted as a man beside their father in the
Valley of Songs, spear and hurler in hand, her bola bound around her
brow, the shell-weighted ends dangling behind?  She had been not only a
mother to her children, but a provider of man meat as well.

Lonit frowned.  She had seen the hands of Sondahr.  They had no
blisters, no calluses.  That woman did not hunt.  That woman did not
butcher or flesh or work skins or make garments for the many men who
stared at her with open adoration.  Other women's men hunted for her and
brought meat to her fire.  They considered themselves honored by her
smile and blessed by her invocations to the spirits on their behalf.

And yet Aliga's baby did not come forth.  And yet the mammoths did not
come.

Lonit smiled.  Why should she sit here in the night, full of self-doubt?

Lonit can hunt as well as any man.  Lonit can butcher and flesh and cook
and sew, and Lonit has stood alone against a great leaping cat! Lonit
drove it off with only a bola and a thongful of ducks!  Sondahr would
not have been so brave!

Yet Torka has said that Sondahr is wise.  Sondahr is wary.  Torka has
said these words to Lonit's face.  And Sondahr is so beautiful that she
does not have to be brave!  What man would not desire to possess and
protect such a woman .. . even if she is useless.

She lay back, feeling miserable.  She pulled her sleeping skin over her
head, wanting to feel bold again, recalling that in this camp, as in the
camp of Supnah, many men had looked at her, including the disreputable
twosome that held the little boy captive by the thonged collar.  She had
not seen them in the camp for many days and often wondered what had
happened--not to them but to the unfortunate child who suffered at their
hands.  They had come close to her once, when Torka was off with some of
Zinkh's hunters, and made lewd comments, suggesting that any time she
grew tired of living with a man who walked with dogs, they would show
her what they could do for such a beauty as she.

After she had threatened to tell Torka if they did not go away, they
slunk off like a pair of dirty foxes, leaving her

appalled by their outrageous behavior toward another man's woman, yet
strangely pleased by their flattery.  After nearly a lifetime of
thinking herself ugly, it was now always gratifying to know that among
all but her own people, she was considered beautiful.  Even funny little
Zinkh had said so, and his hunters had echoed him.  And far away, long
ago, another man had looked at her ... a man more beautiful than the
moon ... a magic man whom every woman wanted..  ..

Navahk.

At last the butchering was done.  But still the mammoths had not come.

Using the thigh and rib bones of their kills, they fashioned crude
sledges upon which they piled their meat on neatly stretched skins,
which they then folded into packets so that they could more easily drag
their bounty back into the camp.

As the hunters trudged toward the wall of bones, the people of Zinkh's
band watched in amazement as Torka, Lonit, and Karana not only devised
sledges for themselves but also for their dogs.  When at last they stood
ready, their own bodies were burdened by less than half the load of the
others.

"Could other men do the same with other dogs, or would they need a magic
power such as Torka's?"  The question came from Simu, one of Zinkh's
young bandsmen.

Zinkh, whose minor wounds had been stitched and were healing nicely, had
come out to keep company with the men and women of his band.  Now that
he was feeling more or less well and strong again, he wanted to do his
share in helping to carry the bison meat back to the encampment. He was
not in a good mood.  His lacerations were tight and itching, and during
the last few days he had begun to chafe at the sight of Torka leading
his hunters.  It seemed that no one asked him anything unless Torka was
unavailable.  He was also insulted by the fact that Karana was not
wearing his good-luck helmet.  The youth had assured him that he had
left it on his bed skins within the main encampment lest it be damaged
in the hunt, but Zinkh was not happy with the reply, any more than he
liked Simu's query.

So he snapped emphatically, as nastily as a dog irritated by blackflies,
"What kind of man be you to question the magic powers of Torka?  It is
enough that he and his spirit dogs walk with you in one band!  He will
not share his magic!  You will
not ask him again!  You are Zinkh's band.  Always for us carrying
sledges has been a good way.  Why now, suddenly, is it not good enough
for you and your woman?  Does Simu think he is better than the rest of
Zinkh's people?  Maybe he would make his own band with Torka as leader
and forget that Zinkh has been his headman and leader and friend, yes?"

Standing beside Eneela, his pretty and very pregnant young woman, Simu
sucked in his breath with shame.  As he looked down at his feet, unable
to look at his woman or at any of his people, his face congested with
resentment of his unwarranted humiliation.

Torka was astounded by Zinkh's unexpected display of animosity.  He had
not failed to note the sting in the little man's voice when he had
snarled his name.

He was aware of Karana watching him with a bemused expression upon his
handsome young face and was suddenly struck so sharply by a memory, it
was as though the boy had flung it into his head like an invisible
spear.

Torka is not like other men.  Torka cannot live within a band, he must
lead it.  And so other men will always try to bring Torka down or drive
him out from among them.

Karana had spoken those words on the day they had left the Valley of
Songs.  They had rankled him then; they rankled him now.  Once again
Karana seemed to be right.  Torka found himself virtual headman of
Zinkh's people, and now Zinkh, who had been so eager to yield his rank,
coveted it and resented Torka for having accepted it from him in the
first place.  Torka snorted as he realized that he had not even set foot
within the encampment of the Great Gathering before he had inadvertently
roused hostility and jealousy in old Lorak, who seemed determined to
lock horns with him.  Surely he meant no challenge to the supreme elder.
Yet he had challenged him over his decision to refrain from hunting when
so much meat was at hand.

Nevertheless, his course was set.  For the sake of his women and
children, he would not be intimidated by either man.  To be the only
adult man in a band composed of women and children compromised the lives
of his loved ones.

He eyed Zinkh and saw for the first time that he was a small man, in
ways that had nothing to do with his minimal stature.  Torka knew he
must give Zinkh back his sense of importance, or for all that the man
feared his powers, Torka would have an enemy in him.

"Zinkh is headman of this band, and Torka walks beside him at his
sufferance," he declared, taking that chin-out, arms crossed over chest
position that magic men always assumed.  "But it is good that Simu asks.
Zinkh has taken Torka into his band as though he were a brother. Perhaps
it is time that Torka behaves as a brother and makes Zinkh and his
hunters magic men at Torka's side?"

And so it was that in the days that followed, Torka began to teach Zinkh
and Simu and the hunters of his new band the way to use a spear hurler
and the way to gentle a dog so that it would respond to commands.  He
was a patient teacher.  The men were eager pupils, and since the use of
the spear hurler was an exacting and difficult discipline, it was easy
for them to believe that only through his magic were they able to learn
.. . that the gift of the knowledge and skill that he gave to them was
special and only for them.  Zinkh was given back his pride, and his
hunters strutted more boldly than any others and kept the secrets that
Torka gave to them, lest other men learn them and thus become their
equals.

And still the mammoths did not come.

The women gathered berries.  The children's faces, hands, and tunics
turned red-purple with juice.  With several hunters to guard them, they
sloshed through the bog lands around the lake, waded across a cool,
clear freshet, and headed out of surrounding willow scrub upward toward
a thick expanse of berry shrubs, which grew on a slight rise amid a thin
stand of birch trees.  They formed a small, white-barked, stunted
forest, with broad areas of sunny patches between their meager trunks.

With Summer Moon holding her hand, Lonit paused and looked back toward
the stream, noting the way it tumbled easily from the heights, emptying
into the lake within a small, stony-bottomed, shallow cove, which would
serve as a wonderful catch basin for fish if a stone weir were built
across it.

"What see you there?"  asked one of the other women, wondering why she
had fallen behind.

Enthusiasm filled her as, beaming with memories of the days when she had
devised the weir within the Valley of Songs and had caught her first
captive grayling, she told that woman and several others what they could
accomplish with minimal effort if they all worked together. "There would
be
fish in the pool always.  We would need only to come with our tridents."

"We are not fish eaters in this camp.  Except in the worst of starving
times, our men will not eat of such woman meat."

"Fish is good!"  piped Summer Moon, frowning, not liking the disdainful
tone with which her mother had been addressed.

Lonit could have kissed Summer Moon for her loyalty.  She would, later.
Now her fingers curled about her daughter's pudgy little hand,
communicating her desire that the child should be still.  Summer Moon
obeyed but continued to pout as Lonit quietly replied that she had been
taught as a child that she must eat whatever food was put before her,
not only by her own parents, but by Father Above and by Mother Below.
"All meat gives life from life, and all food is spirit given," she said.

A broad-bottomed, flat-faced matron named Oga turned up her bridge less
nose with a snort of reproof.  "The man of this woman is a mammoth
hunter, not an eater of bison or of things with scales or feathers!"

"Then you must be growing hungry, Oga," Lonit responded coolly.  "For
this woman has seen no mammoth anywhere near this camp."

"Come!  We are one band in this camp until the time of the long dark is
over," Pomm cut in.  "We women have enough work to do without arguing
about whose ways are the best."

They went on, with snow geese scattering out of the bushes before them,
tails up, honking hysterically as they ran from cover to cover.  The
great white geese were flightless now, bound to the earth by the
seasonal molt that made them easy targets.  Crying aloud with 'delight,
the women momentarily forgot about berry picking and turned to goose
killing instead, striking the hapless birds with stones that they
carried in pouches at their belts.  Feathers flew like snow in a
blizzard.  But only a handful of women seemed to be killing for meat;
the rest left their prey where it fell, having merely enjoyed the sport.

When Lonit refrained from joining in, Oga looked at her with
satisfaction.  "You see, we have no need to learn to use the weapon of
Lonit.  The sling with many arms takes too much time to master.  In this
camp if we hunger for goose, we eat it now, not in the season when the
birds can fly away from our stones."

"But there is so much meat in the encampment now.

There is no need for you to hunt the white geese," Lonit pointed out.

"Not all of us are bison eaters!"  Oga snorted with derision.

"But most of you are leaving the birds that you kill!"

"What do a few birds matter?  Soon the sky will be filled with so many
birds that anyone who makes the mistake of looking up will be sorry!
Those of us who will eat their flesh will take the fattest geese and
leave the rest with thanks to their spirits for allowing us to perfect
our stone-throwing aim."

"But there might well come a time when you will hunger for the meat that
you have thrown away.  The birds could be smoked and dried and--" "Look
who would tell us about bird hunting!  Just because your man walks with
dogs and teaches the men of Zinkh to throw their spears farther than our
men can, that does not mean you know everything!  Why do you have to
make a special weapon to hurt birds, one that nobody but you can use?"

"I would gladly teach you."

Oga snickered.  "For what purpose?  All the women here know that when
the berries are ripe, the white geese lose the big feathers that allow
them to fly.  Why waste time hunting birds before then?  And not one of
us would go out from camp alone and make our men come after us!"

She walked with them, trying not to be angry as they left the dead geese
where they lay and set to picking berries in earnest.  She blamed her
irritability on exhaustion; it had only been a week since she had
returned from the butchering camp.  Even her hands were still sore. She
reminded herself that these were women of the open tundra.  They would
never believe her if she told them that in a far and forbidden land that
their men feared, she had hunted as a man beside Torka and Karana, using
a spear and spear hurler as effectively as any male.  If they knew that,
her companions would surely shun her as one who had offended the spirits
of Creation.

A dark thought crossed her mind.  Perhaps she had?  Perhaps that was why
the land had shaken and the Mountain That Smokes had rained fire from
the sky.  But no, it could not be!  While working at the butchering,
other women had spoken of how the earth had shaken this part of the
world and how a great cloud of smoke and ash had drifted across the sky
from the east, pouring down dirty rain for many days. They
had wondered among themselves if this was the reason that the mammoths
had not come.  She had kept her thoughts on the subject to herself.  If
Torka had heard of it, she did not know; he was so busy with Zinkh and
the other hunters that he hardly spoke to her these days.

She sighed, longing for him and for the love that they had shared in
that far, sweet land.  Perhaps it was best not to think of it.  It only
made her unhappy.  As she filled her skin basket, eating her fill of
berries as she walked, she smiled down at Summer Moon, who strode
happily in her shadow with her own little basket, scrupulously plucking
her own berry harvest.

Pomm caught up with her.  "Do not worry about the other women.  They be
not magic women, like Pomm and Lonit!  They all have noses stuck up like
Sondahr.  Bah!  Women they be jealous that you have fine man like Torka.
Girls they jealous that Pomm has fine young man like Karana."

Lonit felt sorry for the ungainly old woman.  She still honestly
believed that Karana, given time, would see her in the same light that
she saw him.

"Where is that Karana?  He is never around when Pomm looks for him."

"He will not be found picking berries and braining geese with a bunch of
women," Lonit answered while she thought: Nor will he ever be where you
can find him, poor woman.  Unless you catch him by surprise .. . and
Karana is not one to be caught--unless he wishes it.

Pomm stuffed a fistful of berries into her mouth and chomped noisily
until juices appeared at the corners of her lips.  She backhanded them
away with a fierce look of determination in her little eyes.  "Tonight
Lorak has called a great meeting of all men and women.  Tonight, while
children sleep, at the plaku dance, this woman will dance naked for
Karana.  He will see what he is missing and come hard and hungry to--"

"Plaku?"  If another earthquake had moved the ground beneath Lonit's
feet, she could not have been more shaken.  Not even the thought of fat
old Pomm dancing naked in the firelight could obliterate the sick,
sinking feeling that had suddenly overwhelmed her.

"Lonit knows the plaku dance, yes?"

"Lonit knows it."

"What is a plaku dance?"  asked Summer Moon, her wide
eyes, so like her mother's, growing heavy lidded with drowsiness in the
warmth of the morning sun.

"It is a dance to call the spirits of the great mammoths to this camp
before those who have chosen to fast become so weak-kneed that they
cannot hunt, let alone dance."  Pomm answered for Lonit,
enthusiastically smacking her lips and sucking the last traces of juice
from them.  "When you are a big girl, someday at some camp you will
dance the plaku for the men of your band--for the man that you like
best.  He will come happy to your fire, and the spirits of Creation
shall grow strong because of the dance you will do together."

"Will you dance for Father, Mother?"

"No!  Never!"  Again the fat woman answered before Lonit could speak.
"On the night of the plaku dance, a woman may not dance for her own man.
She must choose another for that one night."

Summer Moon looked very serious.  "Father will not like that."

Perhaps he will not care.  Lonit very nearly said the words aloud, but
once again Pomm went on euphorically about how the women would wear
paint upon their bodies and masks of feathers over their faces.  "It is
a much long time since a plaku was danced, at the last Great Gathering.
Surely now that Lorak has called for a plaku, the mammoths will come! It
will be a good thing!  Pomm will look her best for Karana!  He will see
what he has been avoiding and be sorry, this woman can tell you that.
Yes!"  Lonit took her daughter's hand and turned away.  "Come, my little
one.  We have more than enough berries.  This woman no longer feels like
picking, and it is time for your nap."

As preparations for the plaku began, Karana stood back, observing with
dismay.  He had witnessed the ceremonial dance once before, years ago,
when the cave that he had shared with Torka, Lonit, and Umak high upon
the flanks of the distant Mountain of Power had been taken over by the
despicable headman Galeena and his band of filthy, murderous usurpers.
Only a boy then, he had hidden in the shadowy recesses of the cave,
watching as men and women joined in a fire lit orgy of drinking and
dancing.  Torka had been forced to participate while a pregnant Lonit
had turned away in shame for them both.

Now Karana was suddenly aware of Pomm looking at him lasciviously from
her fire circle.  He winced.  He had told her a thousand times that he
was not yet of an age when he felt ready to take on the responsibilities
of a woman!  How could the old hag be so insistent? Had she no pride?
Her behavior was ludicrous!  It was degrading!  But it was also apparent
that as long as Pomm deluded herself into thinking she was a young and
attractive woman, she would behave like one. Behind her back, however,
men rolled their eyes and women younger than Pomm who were sagging,
graying, and toothless shook their heads at her. But the worst part for
him was that while Pomm persisted in her aggressive pursuit, the eyes of
many young girls were on him as they giggled conspiratorially with their
mothers, aunts, and grandmothers.

They were giggling now, and blushing.  And tittering together as girls
had a tendency to do when they whispered secrets to one another.  It
suddenly occurred to him that he was the object of their secrets.
Flustered by their unwelcome attention, he wondered if they knew that he
was still a virgin.

And then, suddenly, it struck him: Tonight the men and women of this
encampment would dance the plaku, and he was a man.

Over and over he had insisted upon that fact to Torka, claiming that he
was no longer a boy to be bullied or a child to be coddled, but a man
fit to make decisions and mature enough to live by them.  But was he man
enough to dance at a plaku and be initiated into sexual activity with
every man, woman, and peeking child at the Great Gathering looking on?

No!

For this he would choose his own time, his own place, and most assuredly
his own partner.  If he stayed for the plaku, he would have Pomm; she
would make certain of it.  The thought was too much to bear.

Several of the youths with whom he had hunted and engaged in contests
and friendly bouts of wrestling sauntered by to make lewd, lustful
boasts about the coming events.

"Come, join us.  It is traditional for the men to build the great plaku
fire while the women--except those who are pregnant--prepare themselves
to pleasure us ... and the spirits of Creation.".

"Which one do you want to dance for you, eh, Karana?  That one there, or
the little plump one sitting with her skinny sister?  All will dance
except the ones who are in their time of blood or who have not yet
bled."

"Girls!  Babies!"  scoffed the first youth.  "They may have holes in the
soles of their boots, but they can't compare to their mothers when it
comes to dancing under a man."

"Holes in their boots?"  Karana queried.

They laughed.  They made crude, unmistakable signs with their hands to
indicate that their statement alluded to the first piercing of a female
by a male.

He blushed at his naivete.  There was not a youth standing around him
who was more than a year his senior, yet it was clear that not one of
them was inexperienced when it came to joining with the opposite gender.
It was also clear from their friendly, taunting winks that they all now
knew that he had yet to lie with a female.

"Come," they urged.  "There are a mammoth's weight in bones to gather
for the burning!"  He did not move.  He watched them leap and dance off,
flirting with the watching girls, who flirted back.  He told them that
he would be along as soon as he fed the dogs; but
the dogs had already been fed and were dozing in the sun.  Torka was off
with the men of Zinkh's band, and Lonit was inside the pit hut with
lana, Aliga, and the children--resting, no doubt, for the activities of
the night to come.

He went in.  He told them that he was tired and lay on his bed skins. It
was quiet.  The children were sleeping.  He waited tensely until, at
last, shadows grew long and he crept out of the pit hut, wrapping
himself in them and in his traveling robe, taking up his spears and
making his way through the camp, avoiding all fire circles where he knew
that Pomm or girls would be watching for him.

Just beyond the peripheries of the wall of bones, he broke into a run,
heading for the tundral rise where he had made his invocation to the
spirits of Creation, calling to the game while asking the mammoths to
stay away.  The air was clear of smoke this far from the camp, and the
soaring vault of the sky swept all apprehension from his soul.  He
breathed freely at last, with infinite relief.  Somehow, as always
seemed to happen, he looked down to see that Aar was with him.

"We made it, Brother Dog!"  He sighed, then ruffled the fur on the dog's
shoulders as he hunkered down.  Alone with his faithful companion,
Karana was profoundly happy.  Content with his solitude, he stood and
raised his arms, threw back his head, drew in the scents of the wild
land, and heard the voices of the spirits whispering all around him in
the wind.

Upon the Hill of Dreams Sondahr's brow furrowed thoughtfully as she
watched the large, wolflike dog follow the solitary figure at a lope
across the tundra until the hunter paused on a distant tundral rise and
lifted his arms to the infinite.

Behind her, heavy smoke was rising from the council house, and Lorak, on
his way to join the other magic men within that structure, saw her and
paused.

"Sondahr, will you dance tonight?"

His high, whining voice offended her.  It was predacious, yet she did
not move.  She was conserving her strength; days of fasting were having
their effect.  She felt light-headed, yet more in control of her body
and aware of her senses than usual.  Sound, light, texture--everything
seemed brighter, louder, more intense.  Fasting was not alien to her, so
she knew that if she did not eat soon, the brightness would fade, sound
would grow dull, textures would seem flat, and what
little power was left to her would become as ashes in a wind-scoured
pit.

"Sondahr, do you hear Lorak speak to you?  Will you dance for the
spirits to bring forth the great mammoths for the good of the gathering?
Will you dance tonight?  And for whom?"

She heard the hope in his voice and despised him for it.  He had wanted
her for years but had never had the courage to confront her openly with
his lust--no doubt because he feared that it might make him only a man
and not a shaman in her eyes.  No doubt he wanted her to believe that if
he truly desired her, he could enchant her into a reciprocal emotion
even if it were totally against her weaker woman's will.  Her mouth
moved with displeasure.  Lorak was a miserable old hawk who imagined
that he might dare to fly with eagles.

"Sondahr will dance," she replied obliquely.  "For ..."
"One whom the spirits have chosen."  She did not move.  She felt him
waiting for a more descriptive answer.  She remained in silence, and
when at last he turned away in frustration, she smiled.

Night came slowly to those who had gathered eagerly around the great
communal fire circle that the men had made.  They had come early to
assure themselves a good spot for viewing.  In the background, out of
the direct light of the sacred fire, a grouping assembled to watch:
pregnant women, women in their time of blood, the elderly, and even
Aliga, who insisted that she be allowed to observe because of the
healing powers that everyone knew emanated from the flames of a plaku
fire.  Torka carried her.  Leaving the children in lana's care, Lonit
followed with furs for the sick woman to lie upon.  She was pleased when
everyone fussed over Aliga and expressed gladness to see her feeling
well enough to attend the night's festivities.

"The magic healing powers of Sondahr are great!"  she told them. "Soon
this woman will bear her child.  Soon she will be completely well again!
Next time there is plaku at the Great Gathering, this woman will dance,
and you will have the pleasure of seeing this tattooed woman all over!"

Everyone laughed, and Aliga settled contentedly into her furs,
contemplating the future with happiness.

Torka made no comment.  The moon had shown its horns eleven times since
Aliga had first danced in happiness over
her pregnancy.  Too long .. . much too long.  And though she claimed
that the child moved, he had watched her in the night, focusing on the
mound of her belly, watching for ripples of life that never came.

One of the nearby crones startled him by winking at him.  "This woman
has heard much woman talk.  Many will dance before Torka this night.
Tonight we will all see what Torka's magic can or cannot do!  Best rest,
man of Lonit!  You would not shame your woman by not being able to rise
to them all!  And talk is that Sondahr will dance this night. Rare it is
for that one to choose a man.  Perhaps this night it will be Torka, and
there will be great magic between you, eh?"

The old woman was trying to embarrass Torka, but he was not a man to be
embarrassed easily, and he was not embarrassed now.  He was annoyed. The
old woman's words had sent Lonit hurrying back to their shared fire
circle.  He was irritated over the fact that his woman would have to
dance before another man and actually grew angry when he thought of her
lying with anyone else but him.  He had bad memories of the last plaku
he had been forced to attend, and if there was a way of avoiding this
one without offending the elders of the encampment, he would do so.  He
had said as much to Lorak, but the supreme elder had pointed a horny
finger at him and made it quite clear that he must participate or take
his women and children and leave the encampment.  With the time of long
dark coming on, he had no choice but to stay and join in the cursed
ceremonies.  Surely Lonit must know that he wanted no part of them--not
for himself and most certainly not for her.

His eyes followed her as she disappeared between several pit huts en
route to their own shelter.  How tall and graceful and beautiful she
was!  Sondahr might match her, but only that, no more; it was the magic
woman's arrogant, almost masculine bearing that drew the eyes of all men
to her--to the strong, confident line of her shoulders, to the careless
way she walked and stood so that her breasts seemed always to be moving
restlessly beneath her downy tunic.

Most of the men within the encampment resented the way she intruded into
the council of elders at will, as though she were not a female at all
but a man deserving of every privilege and courtesy accorded to their
superior gender.  A member of no band but welcomed by all who knew of
her powers, it was said that she moved at whim from tribe to tribe,
teaching and healing.  Her presence was tolerated with a combination of
awe and distress, for although she blithely ignored every rule that
applied to others of her sex, her well-proven gifts of Seeing and
healing were too valuable to disdain.  Truly, it was said, Sondahr was a
magic woman of great power.  It was wise to fear her.  And both men and
women did; but Torka knew that there was probably not a man in the
encampment who would not have liked to put her in her place, to take her
down and ride her to submission.

He drew a breath.  He had to admit that that would be an interesting
endeavor; yet when she had called him to walk with her onto the Hill of
Dreams, when he had seen her with Aliga, he had seen another side of the
woman--a gentleness a sadness ... a loneliness--and he knew that if the
choice were hers, she would relinquish her, powers for what seemed a
gift to others was a curse to one who was, because of that gift, forever
set outside the circle of friendship and easy companionship. For all of
her beauty and haughtiness, Sondahr was one of the loneliest, saddest
individuals that Torka had ever known.  He thought of her wintering
alone in her permanent hut of tusks and mammoth bones upon the Hill of
Dreams.

"Go, Torka.  Cleanse yourself now.  The sun has set, and the plaku shall
soon begin."

It was Aliga who prodded him.  He was glad to go from her, and from the
others.  He ignored their snickering and further comments as he followed
Lonit, eager to talk to her now, to tell her that perhaps there was a
way for her not to join in the dancing.  She had only to declare that
she was in her time of blood and she would be excused, allowed to sit
out the ceremony with others who were similarly afflicted.  He reached
his pit hut and called to her to come out to him.  She obeyed, her eyes
red, as though she had been crying.

"You need not dance," he said, and told her what was on his mind.

"It would be a lie.  The spirits of the night would know.  They would be
offended.  Besides, the other women would remember that I have only
recently shared the hut of blood with them.  They would know that it was
much too soon for me."  She paused, her mood suddenly lightened. He does
not want me to dance!  He does care!  For the first time in days she
smiled and tried to devise a plan that would accommodate their purpose.
"But sometimes the time of blood is a

thing of whim.  Lonit could say that it is so with me, and perhaps the
old women would not seek to check the truth of my words."

"But if they did?"

"It would not be a good thing.  They would be angry."

His face worked with frustration.  "And then, if their precious mammoths
do not come, they will lay the blame upon you, for having offended the
spirits."  He shook his head.  "Who knows what would happen then?  Lorak
is not exactly in love with Torka or his band.  No, it is not worth the
risk--not for the sake of my pride."  Her smile faded.  He had not said
"my love."  He had said "my pride."  Her heart sank.  She was one of his
women, a possession; and Torka always looked out for his possessions.
"You will dance .. . with Sondahr?"

"I must dance.  Lorak has told me that if I do not, it is finished for
us here."

"We have much meat and many hides.  With the dogs to hunt as men beside
us and Karana to help .. . We have been alone before."  His voice was
sharp.  "This man will not live with that fear again, Lonit."

She hung her head.  "This woman was not afraid."

"And what of Aliga or lana and the children?  They are happy in this
camp.  They are safe in this camp.  Even Karana has stopped his endless
complaining!"  He wanted to draw her close and hold her, to kiss her, to
speak assurances of the love and pride that filled his heart whenever he
looked at her.  But surely she already knew this.  And among their
people it had always been considered unmanly to speak of such things to
a woman.  So he put his hand beneath her chin and turned her face up to
his.  "We have survived the humiliation of the plaku before.  We will
survive it again for the sake of our children.  We will dance.  We must
dance, and tomorrow nothing that has happened tonight will matter .. .
except that we will have assured the future."

"Help!"

Coming from Pomm, it was a thoroughly uncharacteristic word.  Lonit
looked up from where she sat dejectedly outside her pit hut, to see the
fat woman gesturing pathetically through the deepening shadows of
evening from her own little pit hut.

"Come, Lonit, yes?  Help make Pomm beautiful for the plaku?"

It was not the sort of request she could easily refuse, even though no
amount of help could achieve what Pomm requested.  That would require
the forces of Creation.

She rose, still in her berry-stained picking apron, and entered Pomm's
pit hut.

Stark naked, looking very much like a wide, soft, fleshy mushroom that
has forgotten to stop growing after a bounteous rain, Pomm sat
cross-legged upon a neatly stacked pile of furs with a bladder flask in
her lap.  "Come, good friend of Pomm.  We will drink together before we
prepare ourselves for the plaku."

Lonit knelt across from her, accepted the flask, and took a sip.  Not
much liquid passed her tongue into her throat, but it was enough to make
her gag and choke.  "What is this?"  she sputtered, wide-eyed.

"Just a few berries, roots, blood, and herbs from last year's camp.  It
is good, yes?"

Lonit had had fermented berry juice before, but nothing that came close
to the fiery sweetness of Pomm's drink.  "It is good," she agreed,
sipping again, carefully.  "But it is also very strong."  "Without heat,
what good is the flame, yes?  Drink!  It will make Lonit dance better at
the plaku."

"Lonit does not want to dance at the plaku."

"Lonit must dance!"

"Yes, Lonit must dance."  She took another sip.  It was sweet and it was
fire, but now that she was used to it, it no longer burned.  She drank
deeply.

Pomm reached out and took the flask from her.  "Drink it quick like
that, and you will not dance at all.  You will sleep for days!  And when
you wake, sorry will you be!"

"No," responded Lonit, suddenly angry and frustrated.  "I would not be
sorry!  I would be glad."

Pomm sipped and shook her head sadly.  "Strange it is that the woman of
Torka is sad to be a part of the plaku.  Many men are no doubt hoping
that she will dance for them, and here sits Pomm--fat Pomm .. . old
Pomm--wanting so badly to dance, but only for one man.  For Karana, and
because he knows this, he has run away."

"Karana is only a boy, Pomm."

"To one who had been as a mother and sister to him, yes.  But trust this
woman to tell you that to the eyes of any other woman than Lonit, he is
a man."

"A very young man, then."

"That is the best kind."

They sipped in silence for a while, slowly but steadily.  Lonit had
never seen Pomm in such abject misery.  It was as though she had
suddenly looked into clear ice and, seeing her own reflection for the
first time, knew at last what time and the forces of Creation had made
her: an old, ugly woman, whom no youth in his right mind would lie with.
Lonit felt great pity for her and wished to lessen her pain.

"Truly, Pomm, he is only a youth.  A woman of your .. . uh .  maturity
would be better served by a more experienced man."

"A more experienced man will turn his back on this woman at a plaku
unless he is drunk on his own woman's berry juice.  And then he would be
no good to anyone at the plaku."

Once before, within the Valley of Songs, Lonit had sipped too much of
her own fermented berry brew and grown slightly giddy on it; but never
before in her life had she been fully intoxicated.  She was intoxicated
now.  The liquor was so sweet and flavorful that it was difficult to
stop sipping it.  It tingled in her blood and put a strange edge to her
mood and tongue.  She found herself speaking more freely, although her
words sounded a bit slow and slurred.  For a few moments a delicious
sleepiness swept through her, then passed, leaving her blinking and
suddenly feeling bold and angry.

"I do not like this plakul I do not want to dance or lie with any man
but my man!"  Her thoughts drifted through a warm haze, and from
somewhere within that haze the form of a man in white took shape to name
her Liar.  She had not invited Navahk into her thoughts.  He made her
feel guilty.  She did not want to feel guilty.  With a blink she
banished him.  Torka took his place.  Torka, the one man she had ever
truly loved or desired.  Torka!  He was the best man of all.  And he was
her man.  Possessiveness ignited anger within her.

"If any woman, especially Sondahr, dances for Torka, I will" She paused.
What would she do?  She was Lonit.  Sondahr was Sondahr, and a magic
woman.  But she was not afraid of her.  She felt very brave, very much
in control.  "Sondahr will see what this woman will do!  Do you know,
Pomm, that
Lonit can throw a spear as far as any man and use a spear hurler? Yes!
It is so!  Lonit has hunted beside Torka and taken much game! Man meat
too!  Not just fish and fowl, scales and feathers!  And Lonit would
wager that Sondahr could not say that!"

Pomm belched, sighed, and belched again.  Then she daintily lifted a fat
little finger to cover her mouth as it puckered into a thoughtful knot.
"Sondahr should not know of this, I think.  Or Lorak, either, or any of
the magic men.  Truly .. . Lonit has used a spear?"

"Truly so, against wolves and bear and all kinds of man meat.  And maybe
now against Sondahr if she tries to take my Torka from me!"

"Sondahr ..."  The fat woman's thoughts slid into oblivion for a moment,
then returned blearily to Lonit.  "Pomm will tell Lonit that the magic
woman is not prettier than Torka's woman.  Same height, same body
shape--slim, but not skinny--breasts big, but not too big .. . men like
that.  Naked with your faces behind a feather mask and a few ashes
streaked in your hair, no one could tell the difference."

The words were almost sobering to Lonit.  "Sondahr could tell the
difference."

"But she will be naked too.  Her face will be hidden behind a feather
mask."  Pomm shrugged, took her turn at sipping from the flask, and
followed a long swallow with a loud burp.  "Pomm says that men at this
plaku would very happy be if two Sondahrs danced at their fire.  Then
Torka's woman could dance before her own man, and no one would
know--maybe not even Torka--and if she danced better than Sondahr, he
would turn his back upon the magic woman and take Lonit.  It would be a
big joke on everyone, yes?  And only the spirits would know."  "It is
not a good thing to make jokes on the spirits."

Pomm's little eyes narrowed into slits of resentment.  "Maybe not, but
look here at young Pomm trapped in the flesh of an old woman.  The
spirits make jokes on me!  They make jokes on all of us in time.  But
come now, the night will soon be upon us, and the men will light the
plaku fire.  We must be ready to dance.  Help me to be beautiful, Lonit.
Help me to be young and unashamed for this one night."

Night.  Stars.  Fire.  And heat.

The world burned.  Torka burned--with frustration at have ing to endure
the night, and with a basic, sensual anticipation of it.  No man, no
matter how he might claim to be averse to the ceremony, could long
remain cool and aloof on the night of a plaku.  They had laid out the
great ceremonial fire and cleared a broad circle around it for the
dancers and viewers; this done, men and women began to gather and jostle
for the best places, until Lorak called the hunters to join with the
magic men in the council house of bones.

Inside, within the overcrowded gloom, a fire burned somewhere beneath
the floor of mammoth bone.  Smoke and steam issued upward through the
planking.  It was hot .. . close .  humid.  The smoke was so thick, the
hunters could barely see as they stripped naked and sat in silence,
sweating out the impurities of their spirits, which had accumulated
since the last such gathering, ex foliating their bodies with rough,
pungent stalks of wormwood, drinking deeply from a flask of ceremonial
liquor that they passed round and round.  Somewhere along the way
someone must have refilled it or substituted another when it went dry,
for magically it was always nearly full when it reached Torka.  The
drink was good, intoxicating, as thick and sweet as blood sucked hot
from a recent kill.  He drank deeply and passed the flask once, twice,
until soon he lost count as the magic men, led by Lorak, chanted to the
spirits of Creation and asked that the mammoths come forth to die upon
the spears of the assembled hunters.

Torka sat amid the throng, drinking with them, a part of their ceremony
but still feeling very much the outsider.  He alone had no wish to kill
mammoths.  It seemed to him that in a camp full of meat, the hunters
should be praising the spirits of Creation in thanksgiving, not begging
for more.  Nevertheless, he understood the reasoning behind their need,
even if he did not agree with it.  He looked for Karana but could not
see him.  He worried a little; Lorak would be very angry if he
discovered that anyone who sheltered within the Great Gathering of
mammoth hunters saw fit to flaunt their traditions.

The chanting of the men droned on.  Even Zinkh and his hunters sang as
if their lives depended upon the flesh of the great mammoths, not like
those whose bellies were full of bison meat.  Torka listened.  All sang
the song, the same prayer, intoned in countless dialects.  Somehow they
blended into one, as soothing to his ears as the soft summer run of a
river--one body fed by many tributaries, gathering its life from the
substance of many.

He listened, closing his eyes, letting the mood wash over him.  It was
good to be a man among men again, a part of a whole--no longer alone,
vulnerable, his every hour weighted by the responsibility he had taken
upon himself for the lives of his women and children.  If his spirit
were to fly from his body this very moment, they would be safe, members
of Zinkh's band, and through generations of his children yet to be born,
his spirit and his name would live forever.

Suddenly the chanting stopped.  Lorak spoke so sharply that Torka looked
up, startled, to see the supreme elder, nude and scrawny under a cape of
shaggy mammoth hide, strutting and posturing violently as he invoked the
spirits with raucous and almost angry intensity.  He sounded like a tera
torn squawking in pain after a spear had been thrust through its breast.
After a moment it occurred to Torka that Lorak was imitating the
movement and trumpetings of a bull mammoth .. . not very well, but he
was trying, and everyone else seemed very taken with his performance.
They began to sing again, and clap, inspiring the old man to an even
louder and more aggressive display.  Even Torka had to admit that it was
a valiant effort, until Lorak whirled and pointed a finger directly at
him.

"Torka does not sing!"

"Torka is new to this camp.  He does not know the song."

"Perhaps he makes another song--a silent song--one that will drive the
great tusked ones away from this camp!"

The accusation did not surprise Torka.  Although he knew that Lorak was
wrong, the old man was justified in his suspicion.  "The supreme elder
is right.  This man will not hunt the mammoth.  But he would do nothing
to keep others from the hunt.  He will join in the plaku ceremonies that
take place in the hope of awakening the spirits to the needs of the
people at the Great Gathering.  Torka honors the mammoth hunters among
you and is grateful to those who have taken him into their winter camp
and offered his women and children a place of refuge."

Lorak growled, shaking his head.  "It is not enough.  Torka will sing
with us.  He will call the mammoth to this camp, or Torka will take his
women and children and dogs and leave this camp forever!"

And so he sang with them, no longer an outsider except in
the sharp, hot fires of Lorak's eyes, which continued to burn him until
they walked from the council house and were sobered by the cold sting of
the night wind as they walked together to the great fire circle.  The
plaku dance began.  His mind thick with drink, it did not seem important
at the time.  Calling mammoths was not the same as killing them.  Life
Giver was far away, in another world.  And it was good to feel one with
a group again.  A member of a band again.

The fire burned high.  It was comprised of bones and turf, grass and fat
and secret offerings from many a man's and woman's pouch of little
talismans gleaned over many years and upon many a past hunt.  These were
sacrifices to the fire, gifts to the life spirits of the great mammoths
so that they would see the flames, feel the heat, and know that the
people at the Great Gathering were summoning them to come and give them
life.

The men made music on bone flutes and hide drums.  They clapped their
hands, and the women danced naked in the dark, circling before them,
their hair loose, their faces hidden behind elaborate masks of feathers,
their bodies adorned with anklets, necklaces, and bracelets of stone,
feathers, bones, teeth, and claws.  Their flesh was burnished in lines
and dots, and swirling patterns made from the juices of the berries they
had picked earlier in the day.  And fat Pomm was conspicuous-not because
she was old and ugly, but because of the long, white, lovely strands of
goose feathers that cascaded from the topknot of her tightly plaited
hair, disguising her girth and floating down about her aged form like
downy mists, actually making her appear to float over the ground with
the grace and confidence of a young girl.

Their circle widened, closed, and widened again.  And all the while they
moved, circling, sliding their bare feet sensuously along the earth,
their backs to their men, arms raised to the spirits, drawing down the
forces of Creation into themselves.

Sondahr danced with them.  She was taller than the rest, more lean and
supple than the others.  Voices called out to her:

"Sondahr .. . Sondahr .. . dance for me ... for me ..."

There was not a man there who did not lust for her.  Including Torka.
But she circled with the others, passing the salivating Lorak and a
slack-jawed Zinkh.  Torka thought that she was the most beautiful woman
he had ever seen as she
moved slowly past him, half shadow, half flame.  Her contours were so
similar to Lonit's that, along with his passion, jealousy flamed and he
found himself looking for his woman in the line of sinuously moving
dancers.  For whom was she dancing?  What man would dare to lie with his
woman this night?  He could not see her.  She had disguised herself
well.  Or perhaps she had refused to participate, after all?

The line stopped.  The women turned as one.  Sondahr stood before him,
her face hidden behind a mask of owl feathers, her long gray forelock
festooned with a roping of white feathers and tiny, vaguely familiar
shells.  The dance began again.  This time the women remained in one
place, moving for one man alone.  Torka caught his breath, enflamed by
fire, smoke, and drink.  Sondahr danced for him.  She performed the same
movements as the others, a dance of pure sexual provocation.  Yet hers
was magic.  There was a bold, almost angry assertiveness to her motions.
With her long arms still raised, knees bent, limbs splayed, she rocked
from heel to toe and back again, her hips rolling, inviting, her breasts
swaying, nipples circled boldly with paint, like eyes watching him,
waiting for him as his eyes looked back.  Firelight glowed gold and red
between her parted thighs, defining the curves of her hips and sides and
soft, entwining arms.  He saw that along the pale, velvety skin of one
of her forearms, meticulously painted patterns failed to cover a series
of impressive scars that looked as though they might have been made by
the slashing teeth of a large carnivore.  A wolf perhaps.  Or His mood
shattered.  Wolf scars on her inner forearm?  Lonit had such scars!
Scars inflicted long ago when she had risked her life to stand with him
and Umak against a marauding pack of hunger-maddened animals that had
nearly killed them all. Incredulous, he squinted through fire and smoke
and shadows to see not Sondahr but Lonit--his woman-dancing as he had
never seen her dance before, moving as he had never seen her move, with
every man in the band looking at her .. . wanting her .. . certain that
she was Sondahr, Sondahr the beautiful, Sondahr the wise.  But not half
as wise as his own woman, and surely not half as beautiful, from behind
her owl like mask of feathers.  He saw her eyes, Lonit's unmistakably
beautiful eyes, no longer as wide and soft and vulnerable as an
antelope's but as hot with drink and firelight as his own--bold eyes,
risking everything so that
she would not be forced to lie with another man, so that he might not
lie with another woman.  Tonight she was Sondahr .  for him .. . only
for him.

And as he leaped to his feet, inspired by the bravery and daring of her
ruse, he danced with her, matching her move for move, and could have
thrown back his head and howled her name like a wolf baying to the full,
brazen face of the rising moon; he was that filled with pride and love
for her.  But to speak her name, to acknowledge her identity would
betray them to others who were near, choosing partners now, dancing,
taking them down in savage, drunken ruttings all around the fire circle.
No man was allowed to mate with his own woman on the night of a plaku.
But he was Torka, grandson of Umak, and he knew that in new times men
must dare new ways.

He pulled Lonit to him.  Lustfully, his hands slipping from her
shoulders, cupping her breasts, then easing downward around her supple
waist, he drew her down .. . down .. . kissing her .. . whispering his
love to her so that, if anyone should overhear, only she would know that
he knew the dangerous secret that they shared.

"Sondahr ..."  He spoke the other woman's name, knowing that she knew
that he meant Lonit, only Lonit, for Torka the first woman, the last
woman.  "Always and forever, Sondahr ..."

Drumbeat throbbed across the tundra.  In the darkness, beneath the
rising moon, Karana felt it beating .. . pulsing in his heart and mind
and loins.  He could see the fire clearly, a red aurora leaping into the
sky, illuminating the wall of bones and the Hill of Dreams and the tiny
fingers that danced around it, circling, merging, falling away into the
fire lit shadows.

He did not know just when Sondahr joined him.  Suddenly she was there,
standing between him and the fire glow, a tall form wrapped in a robe of
feathers with a white circlet of down upon her brow.

"Karana."  She spoke his name in a whisper as soft and as warm as the
wind.

He caught his breath, startled.  Beside him Aar lay his head down upon
his paws and made a low huffing exhalation that sounded very much like
self-recrimination.  Once again the
magic woman had come upon him unaware; the animal sensed no threat in
her, except to his self-respect.

She stood very still, unfolding her cloak as though it were not a single
garment but a pair of wondrous wings.  The wind took them and blew them
back.

Karana gasped.  Beneath the winged robe Sondahr was naked.  She did not
move.  She might have been a woman carved of bone.  In the pale glow of
the moon she was that white, that smooth.  Then the wind touched her and
she trembled, and the youth knew the softness of her form with his eyes.
He took in every curve, every line.  He could not look away.

She knelt.  Her hands reached for his, drew them to her breasts, filled
them with her breasts.  She sighed, arched her back, and tilted her
head, revealing her throat to him, yielding all to him.

He burned as though the fire upon the distant plain had somehow come to
flame within his flesh.  Eyes, mouth, heart, lungs, loins--all burned,
especially his hands.  A boy's hands, so full of woman that he was
afraid to move them.  If only he knew what to do with them!  He could
have cried at his ineptitude.

She straightened and drew back, smiling softly, understanding.  The time
was not right.  She drew her robe around her and moved to sit beside
him, close but granting him space--room to breathe, room to cool as the
wind rose.  As the moments passed, neither youth nor woman spoke.  They
needed no words.  They were attuned to each other, to the land, and to
the black, star-filled enormity of the sky.  Slowly, within the caul of
the wind, beneath the silent sentinel of the moon, their hands reached,
touched, held.  They were one with the night. Theirs was a joining more
profound than a physical mating; their souls were one as, from across
the tundra, dire wolves howled, and far across the world a high, thin
cry ululated across the night, like that of a lost child mourning for a
parent it knows will never come.

Torka awoke with a start.

Lonit lay sound asleep, curled in the fold of his arms.  Shivering, his
head pounding, he listened to the lonely howling in the distant ranges.
No wolf or dog that he had ever heard had sung a song like that.  It was
almost human, as though a young girl moaned from across the miles.

Images flared, misted, tangled in memories of the distant past.  Wind
spirit.

He had heard its voice before.  In the depth of the winter dark, from a
hundred unnamed and all-but-forgotten camps, he had listened to its kind
howling in the night.  Beneath the light of auroras long faded from his
memory, he had heard it cry as he had hunted as a boy with his
grandfather.  As they had hunkered together in the endless winter days
of impossible cold, Umak had pointed to the glittering vapor that hung
above the earth.  Not unlike smoke from invisible Gampfires, it sparkled
white, blue, red, and gold, in the way stars shimmered on clear nights.

Umak had told him that this was the mist that killed, for it was so
dangerously cold that if a man or boy inhaled carelessly, it would cut
his lungs and he would die.  As patient as the night, Umak instructed
Torka how to breathe through the cold-filtering guard hairs on his ruff
and told his grandson how in such cold as this, the stars above froze
and shattered and fell to hover low in particles so small that they
formed the mist that kills--star mist, he called it--and only spirit
masters could tell that it was a thing of the sky and not of the land.
In his dark curly winter robe of bison hide, the spirit master had told
Torka to observe the star mist closely, and if the stars allowed, he
would hear them calling to the wind to blow them back into the sky where
they belonged.

"And so it is that hunters must be wise and wary, for if the wind comes
and they are caught within the mist of stars, then they shall be blown
away into the sky, never to walk in the world of men again."

The boy had been frightened and fascinated all at once.  In his hooded,
multilayered garments of caribou hide, with his hands stuffed into
thickly furred mittens padded with swan's down, his face buried deep
within the extension of his wolf tail ruff, he had listened, thinking
that it would be a wonderful thing to hear the stars speak.  But the
wind never came, and he never heard the voices of the stars in the
strange, glittering mists that hovered above the earth in times of
severe and protracted cold.

But he had heard the voices of wind spirits.  With Umak at his side he
had looked through the star mist toward the clouds that wreathed the
higher, night-veiled ranges, and he had heard the lonely keening of the
creatures of the wind.

Umak had told him that men did not hunt within the mountains, for the
high country was the realm of the wind spirits.

"Since time beyond beginning it has been so."

Torka's fingers moved to press his eyes.  It was as though Umak were
with him now, speaking to him, and he was a boy again, listening eagerly
as his grandfather lowered his voice and reverently explained that wind
spirits were neither man nor beast but things of mist and power.  They
caused avalanches to thunder from the heights and captured men nol only
to feed upon their flesh but to mate with them and hold them captive, to
suck the blood from them until they were dry and wasted like fragments
of old skins blowing on the wind.

The words of the old man faded.

The howling stopped.  He closed his eyes and slept, to dream of the
past, of Umak, of a great white bear with his grandfather's spear in its
belly.  Of childhood.  Of his people.  Of laughter and of all the good
things that could never be again.

When he woke, it was not yet dawn.  Lonit was still curled against him
within the fold of his arm.  The plaku fire was dead, and the dancers of
the night before were asleep in snoring little heaps and piles of
tangled limbs and arms.  Memories of the past night drifted through his
head.  The ache was still there.  He regretted drinking so heartily of
the liquor that had been passed around in the council house.  He
wondered if Lonit had partaken of a similar brew.  Perhaps this was what
had enabled her to overcome her shyness among strangers.  He stroked her
shoulder.  She shivered.

Suddenly he realized that if others awoke to find them in each other's
arms, her masquerade would be discovered and her deception and flaunting
of tradition of the plaku would endanger them both.

"Come .. he whispered, lifting her as he rose and began to carry her
away from the fire circle.

She awoke and wrapped her arms tightly about his neck, nestling close.

Her warmth stirred him.  He quickened his pace, stepping over sleeping
bodies until he was well out of the area of celebration and halfway to
his own pit hut.  He was smiling as he spoke to her, softly, in the tone
of a passionate and loving conspirator.  "Torka is proud that "Sondahr'
had chosen him.

Torka desires no other woman.  Always and forever he would have
"Sondahr."  "

She moved so quickly that she cut off his words.  Exhaling a little cry,
she twisted from his grasp, leaped to her feet, and ran off into the
dawn.

The next day it rained, but no one cared except the dogs.  They remained
outside, tucking noses beneath tails against the weather while the
people were content to remain inside their huts, nursing the headaches
and nausea that invariably followed a plaku.  It would be several days
before anyone felt strong and rested again.

Within Torka's pit hut, while Summer Moon listened wide eyed with
wonder, Aliga babbled constantly about the plaku and could not refrain
from informing Lonit that her eyes had not missed the fact that Lonit
had somehow avoided attending the sacred dance.

"This woman was there," replied Lonit dully, her eyes on her sewing, her
fingers tightening noticeably on her bone needle--so much so that she
cracked it and, despite the protection of her leather thimble, pricked
herself.

"Do not worry.  We are sisters.  This woman will keep your secret."
Aliga smiled and turned from Lonit to display her pointed, tattooed
teeth for Torka as he came in from the rain.  "It is a true thing that
no woman of Torka would want to dance before other men."  She smiled at
him.  "Of all the women at the Great Gathering, Sondahr chose you, and
this woman saw how beautiful you were together!"

He stood looking down, trying to win Lonit's glance but failing as a
startled Karana looked up from his sleeping skins, where he lounged
moon-eyed and quietly daydreaming.  "Sondahr danced for Torka?  But that
is impossible!  She was with me."

Aliga laughed.  She was growing weary and beginning to feel vaguely ill
again, but the youth's statement brought welcome amusement to her.  "Go
back to your dreams, little
boy!  What would the magic woman want with you and your pretentions? She
would see right through you and name you for the arrogant, foul little
wind that you are!"

Karana sat straight up.  "I tell you, she was with me."

Lonit felt sick.  Her eyes met Torka's for the first time since she had
run off after hearing him proclaim his love to Sondahr.  Now he would
know the truth.  Now he would be angry for the deception that she had
worked upon him.  He would be ashamed for the words that he had spoken
to Sondahr, realizing that he had been speaking to Lonit all along. His
eyes met hers.  Her heart nearly broke.  There was no shame in
them--only an expanding anger as he looked at Karana with absolute
warning.

"All saw it!"  Aliga persisted.  "At the plaku, Sondahr danced for
Torka.  At the plaku, for the good of the Great Gathering, to entice the
spirits into watching and hearing the need of the mammoth hunters, Torka
called forth the mammoths and joined with Sondahr and--"

"Torka called the spirits of the mammoths to come forth to die?" Karana
was incredulous.

"Torka called them forth.  Torka will not kill them!"

"In the end it is the same thing!"  The youth's head swung slowly from
side to side in disbelief.  "Torka would not do that any more than he
would lie with Sondahr.  And she was with me.  Torka could not--"
Torka's face flushed with defensive frustration.  "Karana cannot say
what this man would or would not do to protect his band!  With the magic
men in the council house of bones, my choice was to call forth the
mammoths with the others or be driven from the encampment.  So it was
done for the good of all of us.  And for the good of all of us, the
entire gathering saw Torka dance and lie with Sondahr!  Karana will not
challenge that fact again!"  he shouted, not daring to speak the truth
to Karana lest Aliga, lana, or the children inadvertently reveal it to
others.  When they were alone, he would explain it to him.

"Karana must be wary of his words and his actions, he advised, hoping
that Karana would understand and, for once, be as perceptive with people
as he was with game and the vagaries of the weather.

The youth glared back at him.  "Karana will not sit here and be shouted
at and called a liar by a--a--mammoth hunter!  Unlike Torka, I have not
forgotten that I am alive only
because Life Giver chose to give me my life instead of my death.  The
great mammoths are totem to me, and I will not live with one who would
call his totem forth to die!"

"It is a bad sign, this rain."

Lorak's voice cut sharply through the gloom of the council house.
Several elders winced.  The shamans sat cross-legged on the
uncomfortable bone floor, nursing the aftereffects of the previous night
with sips drawn from the same brew that had made them ill in the first
place.

"It always rains this time of year," reminded one of the bleary-eyed
men.

"Not after a plakul" Lorak glowered.  "Who among you remembers it ever
raining after a plakul"

"After days of fasting, followed by a plaku, Lorak, there are not many
who will remember much of anything."

One of the older men nodded and smiled euphorically.  "I remember.... I
lay with a good woman last night.  Fat she was under many feathers, and
not young, I think.  She danced for many men before I grabbed her.  Her
elbows were horny, even with all that fat, but she could not have enough
of the meat that I gave her and said that it was mammoth!  An older man
weak from want of mammoth meat needs a woman who can make comparisons
like that.  But she was gone when I awoke.  Phssht!  Like a dream.  A
good, fat dream.  I wonder who she was."

"Forget women!  Forget meat!  Unless it is the coming of the flesh of
the great mammoths to this camp!"  Lorak shouted, enraged.  "Know only
that the spirits rain upon the earth of this camp.  The signs are bad,
all bad."

"Perhaps not," suggested the man who had just spoken with such pleasure
of his union with the feathered fat woman.  "Perhaps the spirits give us
other sign--bison.  Perhaps the mammoths will not come, as Man Who Walks
With Dogs has said?  Perhaps the spirits have sent us other meat and
would have us eat of--"

"Never!  We are mammoth eaters.  Our fathers and their fathers for
untold generations have hunted only that meat and praised only that
great spirit.  Of its bones is this encampment made, of its flesh is our
flesh made.  To forget this is to forget life!  Is this what befalls us
when we are generous in lean times and allow caribou eaters and bison
eaters to winter among us?  They are not our kind!  Their spirits are
not our
spirits!  The game that they kill cannot feed us!  Man Who Walks With
Dogs cannot nourish us--not with his flying spears or hunting beasts or
bison meat, which offends the spirits with its stench!  If the mammoths
do not come, Lorak says now that it is because Man Who Walks With Dogs
has driven them away--as he and his people should be driven away."

Red-eyed men looked at their supreme elder and wondered how, after days
of fasting and a night of plaku celebrations, he could still seem as
restless and full of angry energy as a man half his years.  Then they
remembered that when Sondahr had chosen not to dance before him, when
she had lain with the Man Who Walks With Dogs, they had seen the
jealousy in Lorak's eyes as, growling, he had turned away and stalked
off into the night, to spend it alone within his hut upon the Hill of
Dreams.

"It is also an insult to the spirits to accuse a man behind his back
because you are offended by the actions of another whom you believe
favors Torka above you."

All eyes flew to Sondahr as she drew back the heavy door skin of mammoth
hide.  She stood fully clothed in the arching entryway, then advanced
boldly into their midst to stand before Lorak.

Shocked, the supreme elder stuttered, "No woman may enter here!"

"I, Sondahr, have entered."

"You, Sondahr, may un enter  No man wants you here!"

"Do they not?"

Her question was so sweetly baited that the others hung their heads
lest, in their weariness, they laugh at Lorak and risk rousing not only
his rage, but the further marauding of their hangovers.

"Torka is a good man, Lorak," the magic woman said coolly.  "He is a
strong hunter who sacrifices his own desires for love of his women and
children .. . and son.  He has shared all that he has with us, and
still, although you know that mammoths are his totem, you forced him to
join with you to call them forth to die.  But this he did, and not
easily, lest your threat against his family be carried out."

Lorak's head flew up so fast and hard that for a moment, it seemed it
would leave his neck.  His eyes bulged.  "How can you know these things
that your eyes have not beheld?"

"I am Sondahr.  I am a shaman.  I know."

"Because he has told you!"  His features twisted with malevolence.
"Torka betrays this council!  And no woman can be a shaman!"

She measured him as though he were worthy of nothing more than her
contempt.  "If you would accuse such a proud and honorable hunter as
Torka, you owe it to him, and to the honor of the spirits of this
encampment, to speak your accusations to his face."

"Lorak owes Torka nothing!  Torka owes everything to Lorak!  His place
in this camp, Lorak has allowed!  His permission to hunt the meat of his
own choice, Lorak had allowed!  Allowance to bring within the great wall
of bones meat from species other than the great mammoth spirit
sanctified here, Lorak has allowed!"

"And in the long dark days of winter, the meat that Lorak had so wisely
suffered Torka to bring into this camp will feed the people who have
gathered to hunt mammoths that do not come."

He glared at her, measuring her as she measured him, and then he smiled
a grotesque parody of mirth at her expense.  "You may speak for Man Who
Walks With Dogs, Sondahr, but you cannot heal his woman or bring forth
her baby.  Your powers are weakened because you, like us, are a mammoth
eater.  You fast even as Lorak fasts.  Whatever powers you say you
possess are drawn from the 'flesh and blood of the beasts whom Man Who
Walks With Dogs has sworn that he will not kill.  Will he kill them for
you, Sondahr?  Or will he stand by and watch you die--for without the
flesh of the great tusked ones, Sondahr is nothing.  Less than a woman."

The assembled elders saw her eyes go blank.  The words of the supreme
elder had struck her deeply.

Her beautiful head rose.  Her face remained impassive.  "Lorak's powers
grow as weak as Sondahr's if he imagines that it is Torka who keeps the
mammoths from this camp," she said.

"Then who?  What?"  screeched the old man, so vexed that he nearly came
at her with his fists.

"I am Teacher.  I am Healer.  I am Seer.  But as Lorak has said, I am
also a woman, and it is true I hunger for the flesh of that which
nourishes.  Without it, all that I am is lessened.  But even with it,
Lorak has made it quite clear that Sondahr must not offend the masculine
spirits of this council by suggesting that she might possibly know what
Lorak, the supreme elder, does not."  This said, she turned and strode
regally from the shadowed space and into the falling rain.

In the rain, under a leaden sky, Karana walked with Aar across the land,
and as the distance slipped away he wished that he had not been so
impetuous.  He had stalked out of the encampment without his rain gear.
Beneath his boots the tundra was soggy as he sloshed along, thinking
that soon his feet would be quite wet while his waterproof leggings and
over boots sat warm and dry beside his bed furs within the pit hut, not
far from the fine new raincoat of oiled bison intestines that Lonit had
sewn for him.  That had a hood, which could be pulled snug about the
face with a sinew tie, and an effective water baffle, which projected
well outward over the eyes and sent rainwater funneling off his head
without spattering into his face.

But there was no use lamenting now.  At least he had his spear, and
although his clothes would soon be soaked, the rain was not unduly cold.
He would be uncomfortable, but he would not freeze.  He looked up. Water
sloshed into his eyes and sheeted off his face.  He grimaced at the
rain, at the sky, at himself, and at Torka, for having been the cause of
the anger that had driven him to leave the warm, dry pit hut without
thinking about where he was going or what he was going to do when he got
there.

Aar looked up at him, blinking against the rain, his mouth straining
back into that stressed smile that dogs displayed when they were
confused and nervous.  Woofing softly, Aar circled, pointing the way
back toward the encampment.

Karana felt the blue eyes of the animal censuring him when he did not
move.  He looked down and shook his head.  "I am sorry, Brother Dog.  I
will not go back yet--not until I think things out.  Lay the blame on
Torka for your soggy coat.  Would you ask Karana to stand back in
silence when Torka is wrong?  Who else will speak the truth to him? Not
that he listens.  He will always look upon me as a boy, no matter what I
do or say."

The dog's eyes were steady in its sodden, black-masked face as it cocked
its head, trying to understand the words of the youth.

Again Karana shook his head, sending rainwater flying.  His mood was no
better than when he had left the encampment.

He walked on, full of anger, pounding across the land, complaining
aloud, imploring the spirits of the great mammoths to hear him, to heed
him, to ignore the chanting and dancing of Torka, to stay away from the
camp of the Great Gathering where men were waiting to kill them.

The tundra was sodden and treacherous beneath his feet as he walked on,
lost in thought, paying no heed to the fact that he had blundered into
an area of tussocks.  Each mound of grass was a wide, spongy island of
new growth sprouting from a near knee-high clump of accumulated years of
now-dead growth.  To move through this pyramidal forest of grass
required either hopping from tussock top to tussock top or finding
surer, albeit soggier footing between the clumps.  Because his mind was
on his argument with Torka, Karana did neither.  Instead he slogged
blindly forward until he tripped and went down hard onto his face and
belly.  He felt the uneven, mounding surface of the tussocks against his
chest and gut and thigh, and heard his spear snap beneath him.  He was
certain that its obsidian head had slit through his clothes to pierce
his shoulder--not because of the pain, which was minimal, but simply
because he knew that in his carelessness he deserved no better luck.

Cursing, he levered up and shook himself like a wet dog; pain flared, so
intense that he fell again and lay still until it passed.  With caution
now he rose to his knees, knelt back, stared a moment at his broken
spear, then examined his injury.  His clothes had blunted what might
have been a major wound; as it was, with clenched teeth and fixed will,
he drew two inches of spearhead from the flesh of his left shoulder and,
gasping, nearly fainted as blood spurted along with pain.

Then the pain ebbed; the flow of blood did not.  He sat still, gathering
his thoughts.  He packed the wound as best he could with grass and mud
and watched the blood continue to ooze through, making a mockery of his
efforts, informing him in its own hot, red terms that he must get back
to the encampment and have someone knowledgeable tend him.

Lonit!  Her adept and gentle fingers would have it stanched and stitched
in no time.  He felt better just thinking of her.  But if he returned to
the pit hut, he would have to face Torka and endure another
tongue-lashing.  This one he would deserve, but he was in no mood for
it.  Until Torka was willing to listen to reason concerning his
compromising attitude toward the mammoth hunters, Karana would not
listen to any criticism from him.

Aar whined and hunkered close.

Karana lay one hand on the dog's shoulder while the other pressed his
wound, trying in vain to slow the loss of blood.  He began to worry. He
had come so far from the encampment.  He felt weak, but from the
bleeding or from fear, he could not tell.  The wound was starting to
ache cruelly now.  He must get help.  But could he make it back to camp?
And if he could and did not go promptly to Torka's pit hut, old Pomm was
bound to see him and pounce upon him.  After that, no other healer in
the encampment would be able to come near him, unless .. .

His thoughts drifted.  He felt less weak.  Shakily he got to his feet
and began to walk.  "Come, Brother Dog.  We will go home now ... to
Sondahr."

She was standing in the rain outside the wall of bones, as though she
knew that he would come and would need her.  She was strong for a woman,
and he was glad to have her arm about him and her shoulder to lean on,
because he could barely walk as she guided him around the peripheries of
the wall and into the encampment through a narrow break in a piling of
great, weatherworn tusks.

"It would not be good for either of us if any of the elders should see
me with you now," she explained.

He did not understand or care.  With Aar following, she led him upward
along the back of the Hill of Dreams and into her hut before anyone saw
them.

He was weak and shaking with cold as she guided him through shadows. The
dog watched protectively as she helped him to strip out of his clothes.
She gentled him onto a fur-covered pallet and covered him with soft,
combed pelts beneath which he shook himself warm, watching as she
exposed the wound to her scrutiny and then, still without a word,
brought a bone bowl of water and began to cleanse it with the ends of
her hair.

"This will need fire now," she said at last.

He stared at her, wondering if any flame could burn as hot as he now
burned at the sight of her .. . even now, in his pain and weakness. And
then, suddenly, he knew that the answer was yes as, with tongs of
fire-hardened antler, she
pressed a burning coal to his wound and he half leaped through the roof
of her hut in agony.  Then he fell back and knew nothing at all for
hours.

When at last he awoke, Aar was sleeping peacefully in the shadows. Days
or weeks could have passed and Karana would not have known or cared, for
he awoke with Sondahr naked beside him beneath the bed furs, touching
him as no woman had ever touched him, guiding him to touch her as he had
not even dared to dream that he might ever touch a woman. Trembling with
pleasure, he knew that he must be dreaming and gave himself fully to the
dream .. . and to the woman.

His wound ached dully, but his dream balanced above him, murmured above
him, pressed so lightly that he barely had to move at all as he was
enveloped in moist warmth, throbbing, moving, dancing--yes, it was a
dance--and when it was complete he awoke and stared into the face of
Sondahr and knew that it had been no dream.

"Again ..."  she whispered.

And although his wound brought pain, somehow it enhanced the pleasure
that was now real to him, alive to him, as Sondahr arched back, still
joined to him, moving and leading, then being led as Karana's world
caught fire.  His hands gripped her, moved her, and he was a man with
her, taking her as he would, slowly, surely, plunging and withdrawing
and then plunging again, ascending to heights of passion that carried
them both away until at last they lay exhausted and fulfilled within
each other's arms.

Karana slept again and dreamed of mammoths being driven across the
tundra by a pale, savage stallion whose hooves cut the earth and made it
bleed.

"Navahk!"  he cried, and within his dream he leaped upon the stallion's
back and called to the mammoths to follow, to come forth to die upon the
spears of the hunters of the Great Gathering.  "No!"  He awoke with a
start.

Sondahr knelt before him, offering a horn of liquid.  "A bad dream?  I
have them often.  Here.  Drink.  This will ease you and give you
strength."

He complied.  He drained the horn of its watery brew that tasted of
blood and the sap of spruce bark.  "Mammoth blood!"  He spat out what
was left in his mouth and threw the horn away.  "Have you given the
blood of my totem to me to drink?"

"Yes.  Old and dried and cherished from last year's hunt.  And now it
flows within you, a part of you, and in your dreams you have called the
great tusked ones forth to die."

He was so angry that he could barely see.  "This is what you intended
all along!  Yes, of course!  I should have known better than to trust
you!"

Her hand rose to touch the packing that she had placed into his wound.
It was oozing again.  He did not care.  He slapped her hand away.

"Do not be angry with me for tricking you, Karana.  But your powers are
greater than you know.  I have seen this.  The mammoths must come,
Karana, for truly Lorak is right.  Although this camp may be stocked
with other meat, it will not nourish my people.  They will die without
the flesh of the mammoth, as I die now--slowly, day by day."

"Meat is meat!  Flesh is flesh!"

"Then you should have no repugnance at consuming the flesh or blood of
that which you claim is forbidden to you."

He covered his ears and shook his head in furious negations of her
claim.

She persisted, pulling at his hands.  "If the mammoths do not come,
Torka and his people--you, Karana--will be driven from this camp.  And
Aliga will die the sooner."  The threats rattled him, but he would not
allow her to have the satisfaction of seeing it.  "Lorak will not know
unless you tell him," he snapped, and almost added that he did not care
about Aliga; yet that was not true.  He did not like her, but he wished
her no ill.  And what he saw in Sondahr's eyes now was so sobering that
it cooled his anger.

"There is no child in her belly?"

"No."

"And you could not heal her?"

"I could not even if I had the powers of all Creation.  But in this
camp, with the company and gossip of other women, the tattooed woman
will not die alone or afraid.  By the power that names you shaman and
allows you to see into my thoughts, you know I would never betray you to
Lorak.  Yet I swear to you now, Karana, that with mammoth blood to
strengthen me, I can heal others and will teach you to form your powers
into such spears of insight that such as Lorak will be rendered into
melted fat that will burn transparently before all, thus depriving them
of the authority they have no right to possess!  You are a seer, Karana,
but you have not yet learned to focus

your sight any more than you can control your temper.  And until you do,
you will be as a man in fog, sensing but never quite knowing what danger
lies ahead.  But it will be all right now: The mammoths will come; you
have called them.  And in time you will forgive Sondahr for her
trickery."

"They will not come!  What is said from dreams is not heeded by the
spirits!"

"We shall see...."

He glared at her.  Throwing the bed furs aside, he swung his legs off
the end of the sleeping platform and demanded his clothes.  She brought
them to him and would have helped him to dress, but he backhanded her
away and did not thank her even when he noted that she had tended them
with great care, so they were neither stained by blood nor stiffened by
water.

He dressed quickly but not easily or without rousing pain from his
injury.  She stood in silence, watching and waiting.  He swept by her
without a word and, pulling the shaggy door skin aside, bent and strode
impatiently out of the hut into the clear light of early morning.

From the smell of the cold air, several days had passed since the last
rain.  The sky was clear, cloudless.  He walked boldly to the crest of
the Hill of Dreams, ignoring the hateful stare of Lorak and the envious
glances of several magic men who were lounging before the entrance to
the council house.  He looked beyond the encampment to a world gone red
and gold and umber with the full fiery splendor of autumn .. . and saw
with a start what no one else had yet seen: A large band was approaching
from the west, led by the unmistakable staff-carrying figure of a magic
man dressed all in white, except for a robe of gray and the head of some
huge and misshapen beast upon his head.

"Navahk ..."  He exhaled the name.  He remembered his dream and knew
that the mammoths would not be far behind.

PART V.

SPIRIT KILLER

For endless days it seemed, the child had followed the beast as he led
his kind across the world--hunting, camping, then moving on eventually
to hunt and encamp again.  As his kind moved from one place of shelter
to another, the beast would always pause and look back, making certain
that the child was following, and would leave meat when he could not
come away from his kind to deliver it himself.  And when he did come, he
stayed longer and longer each time, making sounds and offering no
threat--only food, only sustenance.  In the dark he would hunker low and
purr like a great white lion, his eyes fixed, pupils huge, and garments
as pale as ice glittering beneath the stars.

The child would look at him and think about how one day she would leap
out of the shadows of the shrubs in which she always hid herself, and
the man would be her meat.  And she would dance in his skin, as he had
danced in the skin of her mother.  Soon now, very soon.

When she looked at her body, she saw her mother gradually taking form
before her very eyes.  She sensed that her kind must grow much faster
than the little ones of the beasts, for she had watched them walking
close to their mothers, perceptibly no larger now than when the beast in
white had first led them off across the world.  They were very small.
Sometimes they would fall behind the other beasts, and the child would
observe them and measure the many heartbeats that passed before their
mothers would come shouting after them.  It would be easy to leap at
them, to drag them off and eat them.  But the child was well fed. It was
the beast in white that she wanted.

She mewed in sudden confusion.  When she ate him, his
meat would soon be gone and she would have nothing left to hate.  And
when she danced in his skin, he would be a limp, lifeless, silent thing
that did not purr and speak and, through his presence, take away the
loneliness for just a little while.  And once he was eaten, who would
leave meat for her?

The wind of fear ran within the child again.  The beast had always left
meat for her.  Always .. . but no more.  Not since he had led his kind
into their new country of broad outwash streams and distant hills that
sometimes glowed blue upon the horizon.  Not since he had begun to
follow the huge tusked creatures that the child recognized but had no
desire to eat because memories recalled their bitter and unpleasant
taste.  She hoped that the beast would hunt other meat, but if he did,
the child never tasted it.  He and his kind pursued the tusked ones but
made no move to raise their flying sticks against them.  They seemed to
be driving them instead, shouting, keeping them moving away from water
courses and the forested hills toward which they seemed to want to go.

And all the time they drove the tusked ones, the beast did not look back
to see if the child was following, nor did he leave meat for her or come
to purr to her in the night.

And now the child was hungry and afraid.  The tusked ones had been
driven into a dead-end canyon.  The beasts had dug a long hole in the
earth and made piles of sticks and bones and grass, and in the night
light leaped and danced from those piles and the child heard the tusked
ones bellow with fear.

That night the beast again brought no meat to the child, and the next
dawn, when light seeped into the world through the hole in the sky, the
child had awakened to discover that the beast in white was gone, and
most of his kind with him.  Only a few still sat with their flying
sticks before the smoking, stinking piles of light behind which the
tusked ones still bellowed.  In panic the child followed the beast. For
a day she walked, and for another, resting only in the deepest dark, and
even though she cried for him to bring her meat, he did not come.

And now, at last, the child had found him.  She stood upon a tundra rise
and looked at the great camp toward which the beast was leading his
followers.  Bones surrounded the camp.  Dogs ran out of it.  And many
beasts came forward with flying sticks to greet the beast in white.
Together they walked toward the circle of bones over which the air was
filled with

smoke, as though the tundra burned beneath it from a summer grass fire.

The child's belly lurched with hunger, and fear kept her in her hiding
place.  But it was rage and hatred that made her scream.

Once again, as he had not done since the first day the child saw him,
the beast walked in the skin of her mother.

"Mammoths!  The new band speaks of mammoths not two days' walk to the
west!"

The words moved through the Great Gathering like slingshot stones
rebounding off canyon walls as Zinkh came running into camp shrieking
the news.

Sitting with Pomm inside her little hut, Lonit winced as though one of
the stones had struck her.

Pomm saw her reaction.  "You will have to go out now.  The men will
hunt.  The women will be called to butcher.  Your man will want you."

"Torka will never hunt mammoths."

The fat woman scrutinized Lonit and shook her head.  "You cannot hide
here with Pomm forever.  Does Lonit not miss her children?"

Lonit flushed.  "lana cares for them while I am away and I have not been
hiding.  Torka agreed that this woman should come and stay with Pomm
until Pomm felt better."

"Pomm will never feel better," stated the fat woman, pouting like a
spoiled child.  "Not as long as Karana stays on the Hill of Dreams with
Sondahr."

"He is hurt.  She is a healer."

"Bah!  This woman knows what kind of healing she does!  And I can
imagine how Karana rises to the treatment!  Pomm is shamed before all!
Zinkh gives me to Karana.  A fine and valuable gift!  Why will Karana
not see this?"

"I have said it before, Pomm," Lonit replied with elaborate patience,
"he is very young.  Sometimes, as with the very old, the young do not
see things clearly.  And in the light of Sondahr, I wonder if all men
are not blind."

"Bah!  Together Karana and Pomm could make best ever magic in all the
world!  Not like with Sondahr.  What kind of magic woman be she if she
cannot even make one small baby come out to be born?"

Lonit sighed.  "She is beautiful...."

"Bah!  On the night of the plaku, Pomm was beautiful.  In
all her feathers she danced before many, but Karana was not there to
see.  That is bad, very bad--an insult to the spirits, an insult to
Pomm.  That was why the old man grabbed me--the little one with skinny
knees.  What could Pomm do, yes?  It was a plaku, yes?  He did not seem
so old in the dark.  Pomm could imagine that he was a boy, young like
Karana.  We were very drunk, both Lonit and Pomm, yes?"

"Yes, very drunk," Lonit assented quietly, regretfully.  Nearly three
days had passed since she had come to nurse Pomm through an after-pia/tw
illness that seemed to be plaguing all the participants in the form of
lingering headaches and stomach distress.  She herself had not been an
exception.  Nor had Torka.  She believed that the sickness must have had
something to do with the magic of the night--a reaction to such close
contact with the spirits of Creation or to overindulgence in the
celebratory brew.  Regardless of the cause, when word had reached her
that Pomm was feeling so ill that she refused to leave her hut, Lonit
found the excuse she needed to avoid facing Torka.  She was afraid she
might shame herself by weeping or losing her temper.  Either would be
unforgivable; she was Torka's woman, the mother of his children, and she
owed him her loyalty, her dignity, and her best efforts in all things.
He had always been good and caring toward her.

"Is bad woman, this Sondahr," Pomm hissed, "to take Karana from Pomm.
And it is bad for Karana to take her to be his woman, when Zinkh gave me
to be his first!"

The words drew Lonit from her reverie.  Karana was like a younger
brother to her.  It always set her on edge to hear him criticized. When
word had reached Torka's pit hut that he was on the Hill of Dreams
recuperating from a minor injury, in the care of the magic woman, she
had been relieved to know where he was and that he was not seriously
hurt.  Torka had been so distraught that he stalked onto the Hill of
Dreams to see for himself the extent of the youth's injuries.

When Torka had come down from the hut of the magic woman, he had smiled,
nodding to himself as he explained that Karana was sleeping and, with
Sondahr's special care, would soon be "a new man."  Seeing secrets
dancing in his eyes, Lonit's emotions had eddied like whirlwinds.  Her
face had flamed with jealous anger, and she had nearly wept with grief,
certain that he knew all too well of the special sort of care that such
women as Sondahr could give.  It was then,
unable to face him, that she asked to sit with the ailing Pomm.

Now, in the warm, day lit shadows of the little hut, a cool wind slapped
at the door skin, which was held open by a loop of thong. Pomm's hut was
cleaner than most, but since she lived in it alone and carried its bone
framework and skin walls from camp to camp upon her own back, it was
also by necessity smaller than most.  It smelled of oil and rancid fat,
of leather and old furs and stored meat that might have been cured more
carefully.  But the air from outside was tangy with autumn, and Lonit
found it soothing.  It helped to clear her head of memories and longings
that she knew could never be assuaged unless Torka came to her and told
her with his own lips that her fears were in vain.

She sighed disconsolately.  She felt no anger, no grief--only
sadness--and was strangely composed and strengthened by her thoughts.
She could face Torka and whatever came now.  Torka had been her first
man, and no matter what the future brought, she would have memories that
few women could share and all women would envy.  That would be enough,
always and forever.  They would be everything.

"Lonit!  Have you heard a word that Pomm has said?"

"Yes, I have heard."

"The spirits should make Sondahr pay for her kind of magic.  Together we
could call the spirits.  This woman knows the words.  Lonit and Pomm
could make Sondahr sorry that she had shamed us by taking our men!" Her
small eyes glinted.  "Lonit doubts Pomm's magic!  Yes!  It is so because
of Sondahr!  Because of Karana' He shamed Pomm from the first. He makes
this woman feel old!  Fat!  Ugly!  Lonit must warn Karana.  He listens
to you.  Tell him to remember that Pomm is his woman and that if she
tells Lorak that he was not at the plaku, it could be bad for him!  Bad
for all of Torka's people!"  Pomm glowered at her across the soapstone
lamp.

Lonit was startled, not only because of Pomm's unexpected threat but
because the fat woman seemed to have no memory of assisting Lonit to
disguise herself as Sondahr.  Lonit frowned.  Where was the sad,
endearing woman who had touchingly lamented the passing of her youth and
beauty?  Watching Pomm now, Lonit saw her petulance, her anger toward
Karana, and her blind jealousy of Sondahr.  She hoped that she had not
revealed too much of herself to the woman

while intoxicated.  Pomm would make a nasty and vindictive enemy.

The sounds of the encampment intruded into the little hut.  The
shouting, chattering, and laughter increased as Zinkh stuck his head
inside.

"Come, Pomm.  Strangers come!  Very great, proud band!"  Excitement
shone on his face.  "You, Lonit!  You come too!  Everybody come!
Tomorrow we hunt the mammoth!  Great spirit master, Navahk, he will lead
us to the kill!"

He stood boldly to Navahk as he came forward at the head of Supnah's
band.  Torka knew immediately that Supnah was dead, because along with
the skin-beribboned staff of bone that proclaimed the magic man's rank,
Navahk wore his brother's taloned collar and headman's circlet of
feathers.  But the circlet did not crown his brow; it adorned the skull
of the thing in whose skin he walked.

Torka was not the only man to stand in repulsed amazement at the sight
of the pelt.  He stood near Simu, in line with Zinkh and an assembly of
hunters from several bands.  Ahead, Lorak and the magic men were
posturing so the newcomers would not mistake their importance.
Nevertheless, Navahk shone among them, more handsome than Torka
remembered as, in his fringed.  garments of white, he smiled within the
shadows created by the massive head of the beast balanced atop his own.

Torka stared at it as those around him whispered and frowned, asking one
another what sort of animal it was--or if it was an animal at all.

In life it would have been the size of a small bear, yet it was more
narrow across the back and midrib than a bear.  Its pelt was gray,
wolflike--a summer pelt, thin, with sparse underfur and long, darker
guard hairs.  If it had a tail, it had been removed, as had its rear
paws.  Its forelimbs were draped forward and attached to the arms of the
magic man, its paws overlying his own hands.

Torka took a second look and recoiled.  They were not paws; they were
hands--broad, hairy, and huge despite the withering effects of
desiccation.  Four furred fingers and an elongated, opposing thumb hung
stiffly down--long, wide fingers that must have been graceful in life,
inordinately powerful and dangerous because, instead of flattened nails,
they had claws.

But it was not the hands of the thing that held Torka's glance and
hardened his gut with revulsion.  It was its skull, balanced atop
Navahk's own head.  Still attached to the hide, its lower jaw had been
cut away.  Its cranium was covered not so much with fur as with thick,
stringy, humanlike hair that fell around pointed furred ears, which were
lobed like a man's.  Its hairless snout was bearlike, yet impossibly, it
had the nostrils of a man, soft fleshed and very wide, turned back in a
hideous face.  Heavy brow ridges encircled eye sockets in which the
eyeballs had shriveled and sunken beneath lids that had dried and
darkened to the texture of leather.  At either side of the temples the
bone structure of the upper jaw was massive, leonine, clearly designed
for breaking and crushing bone, but nonetheless the face of the thing
was disturbingly like that of a human being.

Its desiccated skin twisted as though in agony, its lips turned up
against fleshless gums to reveal teeth that also looked human, except
that they were oversized.  Any man who had ever been pursued by wolves
would have envied the stabbing teeth, for with such canines, he could
have turned and faced his predators on equal terms.  And beneath the
hideous, half-human face of the beast, Navahk was smiling at Torka, his
small, white, unusually serrated teeth glinting like those of a
predacious animal.

"We meet again."  There was no welcome in the words, only challenge:
low, resonant, like a deep growl emanating from the throat of a lion
poised to pounce.

Lorak looked back, his expression showing resentment of the newcomer's
recognition of Torka.  "Spirit Killer knows Man Who Walks With Dogs?"

"Spirit Killer?"

Navahk's smile broadened with smug satisfaction at Torka's query.
"Navahk walks in the skin of the wanawut.  It is a great pride and power
for my people.  Torka must remember the wanawut--the wind spirit that my
brother did not fear because he had never seen it?  Look upon it now--as
Supnah looked upon it in the moments before it killed him and fed upon
his flesh.  Now the life spirits of my brother and of the wanawut are
one with Navahk, for I have eaten the flesh of the thing that ate of
Supnah.  I have partaken of the heart of the wanawut, and because of
this power, I drive the mammoth before me as a gift to the hunters of
this band!"

Zinkh nodded with ecstatic affirmation.  "Two days to the
west he says, for a band walking.  Less than a day for running hunters!"

Torka was aware of the tension of the men who stood with him and of the
whispering that moved through the people of the Great Gathering like a
tremulous wind.  Never had any of them looked upon the actual body of a
wind spirit, of the wanawut.  They must be thinking that a man who could
kill a spirit must be more than a man, more than a shaman.  Torka
frowned.  He knew Navahk well enough to think that there was not a word
to describe what he was, unless it was manipulator.

He looked past Lorak, past Navahk, to the familiar faces of the people
of Supnah's band.  They looked well fed but drawn with tension.  He saw
Grek.  There was a good man.  He should have been headman in Supnah's
place.  He would have led his people well, with wisdom, not guile and
deceit.  Their eyes met and held.  Grek's head went up.  He looked older
than his years until, holding Torka's glance with what could only be
described as ferocious relief, he smiled and suddenly looked almost
young again.

Mahnie stood between Grek and Wallah and peered through the gaps between
elbows and sides in the wall of hunters.  Her eyes widened at the sight,
of so many magic men in one place, and at ferocious-looking old Lorak in
his feathers, and beyond him at Torka.  It was good to see Torka!  When
he had first walked into Supnah's band--had it been more than three long
years ago?--in his black-maned lion skins, with his bludgeon and spears
and tall, beautiful, antelope-eyed woman, Mahnie had thought that he was
the most wonderful-looking man she had ever seen.  Much better than
Navahk, who had cruel eyes and the perpetual smile of a bird of prey; it
bent his mouth but never touched his eyes. Even before he had killed
Pet, Mahnie had seen no beauty in him.  But she had seen at once that
Torka was kind, and although he had not smiled easily, his eyes were
clear and unguarded, and he had always had a caring or amusing word for
children.  He had been a man to put all men of her band to shame. Except
Grek, of course.

She looked up along her father's back, frowning a little at the
half-dozen crooked strands of gray in his hair.  Grek was growing old!
The other day, when Navahk had forced them to travel instead of allowing
them to rest at the head of the
canyon where the men had driven the family of mammoths into the bog, she
had overheard her mother say sharply to Naiapi that Navahk should heed
the advice of Grek, who made no secret of the fact that he did not care
whether they wintered alone or at the Great Gathering, as long as they
settled into a good camp.  There, after winter supplies were prepared,
women could rest after their arduous and seemingly endless trek, and
their children could play the games that little ones needed to play if
they were to grow strong and straight.  Mahnie had pretended to be
asleep in her bedroll, worrying that Grek had challenged the magic man
again by asking why they must go on to the Great Gathering to summon
other men to hunt meat that could easily be taken by their own hunters.

Naiapi had looked down her nose at Wallah and replied that Navahk knew
what he was doing and that no man had a right to question
him--especially Grek, who was obviously complaining because he was
growing old and tired and incapable of keeping up with younger men.

Wallah had grown purple in the face but had managed to reply calmly that
Grek was the most experienced hunter in the band and that any hunter who
was still strong and agile after over thirty risings of the starving
moon was a man to whom others should listen.

Over thirty years!  Mahnie could not imagine anyone being so old until
she saw the ruin that time and weather had worked upon Lorak's craggy
face.  Would Grek look like that someday?  Would Torka?  And--her heart
beat a little faster-would Karana?  Would he be here, with Torka in this
great camp?

When he had run away from Supnah's band, everyone said that such a young
boy had virtually no chance of catching up with the Man Who Walked With
Dogs.  But Mahnie knew that with the great dog Aar at his side, he would
do it.  He was the most arrogant, willful, and accomplished boy she had
ever known, as well as the handsomest.  Yes. Easily that.  So handsome
that sometimes it hurt just to look at him. When he had walked near her,
she stared and stammered and could not even bring herself to speak his
name, except on the night that he had run off alone into the darkness;
fearing that he would become food for stalkers of the night, she had
cried out to him.  He had not listened. She had run to Torka to tell him
in what direction Karana had gone, but Torka had already taken off after
him with Supnah.  She had wept, wishing that she were old enough and
brave enough to go after him herself.

The band was beginning to move forward again.  Wallah took Mahnie's hand
to be sure that she would stay near, but the girl waved the gesture
away.  She was nearly twelve, too old for holding hands with her mother,
although she had yet to shed a woman's blood.  She was in no hurry for
that.  Just thinking about the ritual of first blood made her palms cold
and her mouth dry, and although Wallah was full of assurances, her
mother's eyes grew haunted when she spoke of her little girl growing up,
and Mahnie knew that they both were seeing the same ghosts.

She looked up at her father now and could see just enough of the side of
his face to know that he was smiling.  Oh, it had been such a long time
since Grek had done that!

She walked through scattered groups and individuals with Wallah and
Grek, past the many pit huts and shelters of the various bands, toward
the Hill of Dreams--and stopped dead in her tracks.  Someone bumped into
her, impatiently spoke her name, and told her to move on.

She did not turn to see who it was, nor did she move.  She stared ahead
to where the hill rose smoothly out of the pall of smoke that lay across
the encampment.  She saw the enormity of the council house of bones and
the odd little shelters of the magic men, but these things were only
background to a somehow large and infinitely more entrancing image:
Karana.

He stood motionless upon the hill, intently watching the approach of the
newcomers, of the magic men, and of Navahk.  As in the past, the great,
black-masked, blue-eyed dog Aar stood at his side.  The dog was exactly
as Mahnie remembered him, but Karana was not: He was a young man now,
tall and strong and so handsome that she caught her breath not only at
the perfection of his face and form, but at the startling resemblance
that he bore to Navahk, who was staring back at him while standing stock
still beside Lorak at the head of the congregation of magic men.  His
face was so contorted with loathing that, although his smile was fixed
beneath the hideous skull that shadowed it, there was no mistaking the
expression of murderous hatred.

Mahnie shivered with apprehension as she looked from Navahk to Karana
and back to Navahk.  Dark inferences of things best kept unknown and
unspoken disturbed her.  What
could lie between two people that could cause such enmity?  And how
could Karana look so much like a man who was not his father?

Wallah tugged at her sleeve.  "Come, my girl.  Stop gaping.  We must
move on to our campsite."

She looked up at her mother, her face aglow.  "Do you see him?  There!
Upon the hill, it is Karana!  I told you he would be all right!  I told
you he was alive!"

"I see him," Wallah replied, so eager to be free of her pack frame that
she was barely seeing anything at all.  She told Mahnie to follow before
they lost sight of Grek, who was walking on ahead with the other hunters
of their band.

Mahnie sighed.  Her own weariness suddenly struck her, but not so
intensely that she could not turn back for one last look to make certain
that Karana was still there and that her eyes had not been tricking her.

They had not.  He was still there.  But he was no longer alone. Mahnie's
heart sank.  A beautiful woman in a robe of feathers, with a crown of
white down upon her head, had come to stand just behind him. Karana gave
no visible acknowledgment of her presence, but from the way the dog
moved to nuzzle her hand, Mahnie knew more than she wanted to know.
Turning on her heels, she followed her mother, wishing miserably that
she had not turned back for that last, painful look.

"Torka will hunt!"  Lorak's command was as sharp as a well placed spear.

Torka turned.  He had intended to leave the other men to their hunting
plans and return to his own fire, where he hoped to find that Lonit had
returned from tending Pomm.  The supreme elder's shout caused him to
stop and look back.

Navahk stood beside Lorak, in front of the other magic men and hunters.
"As this man recalls, Torka does not hunt the mammoth," he said with
false affability.

"And since when does Navahk hunt at all?"  retorted Torka with no
attempt at affability.

"Torka would be surprised at what Navahk had stalked and killed since he
left the band of my people."

Torka measured him coldly.  "Nothing you could do would surprise me,
Navahk."

Lorak's face collapsed about his nose, as it always did when he frowned.
"Torka will make ready to hunt.  This man Navahk, he speaks of many
mammoths mired in a bog, driven there by his hunters as a gift for the
people of this camp!"

"Navahk and his hunters are generous.  Why have they not killed these
mammoths for themselves?"

Navahk's eyes narrowed at Torka's question, but his smile never
quavered.  "We are few compared to the many who will winter at the Great
Gathering.  In lean times like these, we thought it would be a good
thing to share this kill with those people who look only to the spirits
of the big tuskers for sustenance."

His words were so well received that the din of appreciation did not
quiet for several minutes.  Lorak waved his people to stillness.  "It is
a good thing!  Thanks to the spirits

and to Navahk, at last we will hunt!"  His eyes fixed Torka.  "And all
will be mammoth hunters in this camp.  Not to hunt when the mammoths
await our spears would be to offend their spirits.  So Torka will join
in this hunt, or he and his people will winter in a camp of their own,
far from this place."

"Torka's 'people'?"  pressed Navahk, his smile benign, his eyes
malicious.  "You were one man, a child, and three women when last I saw
you, and only one of those women was worth keeping--the tall one with
the eyes of an antelope' and the grace of a swan.  And I see you have
brought one of my band along with you.  Or has Karana somehow managed to
stumble onto this place on his own?"

Navahk's reference to Lonit caused jealousy to erupt within Torka.
Memories flared along with anger.  This man has shamed me.  This man has
tried to take my woman.  If he tries again, that smile will not be long
upon his face, nor will any woman want to look at him when Torka has
given to him what he deserves.  Deliberately avoiding the mention of
Lonit's name, he replied with open disdain: "Karana is called Lion
Killer in this camp.  This he has done, and in this killing he has saved
the life of a man.  He has hunted the great horned rhinoceros. He has
shown that he has the gift of healing.  Karana left his people of his
own accord.  He has come to the Great Gathering at Torka's side, and
Torka is proud to call him son, since the members of Navahk's band, at
Navahk's urging, abandoned him to die."

The tension between Torka and Navahk was palpable.  Everyone felt it.
The two men measured one another.  Lorak measured them both, then looked
toward the Hill of Dreams, where Karana was still standing with Sondahr
at his side.  The old man's jealousy was overwhelmed by his impatience.
Although strong, dangerous winds of hostility were blowing between Torka
and Navahk, Navahk spoke of hunting mammoths, and Lorak had been fasting
for far too long.

"Enough talk!  There will be time for that later!  Now, come!  It is
time to hunt!"

When the hunters reached the mammoths, they were greeted by Navahk's
watchman.  As night slowly fed upon the last light of day, they ate
traveling rations together, resting before the trench that Navahk's
people had dug across the narrow neck of the canyon lest any of the
animals struggle

free from the bog and attempt an escape.  Navahk's hunters related how
Grek had led them to the bog; along with Stam and Rhik, he recalled
killing an entrapped mammoth there many years before.  It was spruce
country, so the mammoths had turned toward it almost gratefully.  With
Navahk in the lead, the hunters had driven the creatures into the
dead-end canyon, setting fire to the dry summer grasses that surrounded
the lake.  This forced the animals into the water, where their great
bodies sunk to the knees in the treacherous, quicksand like loess that
lay below.  Hurriedly, the men had felled young trees, stripped them of
leaves and branches, and carved them into stakes sharp enough to keep
even mammoths at bay; if the tuskers tried to cross the trench, the
stakes would allow them no footing.

From where they sat at the peripheries of the large group of hunters,
Torka and Karana could see the mired animals-several cows and calves
ranging from yearlings to adolescents.  Their low, weary moans told the
hunters that there was little fight left in them.  One of the older cows
was already dead.  She had lost her balance, the hunters said, and had
fallen onto her side.  Using their trunks and tusks, the other mammoths
had tried to help her up; nevertheless, unable to right herself in the
deep ooze of the lake bottom, she had soon succumbed to exhaustion and
drowned.  Now her calf leaned against her enormous exposed side,
shoulder deep in the muck, its head down, its trunk moving listlessly.

Lounging and speaking in the slow, mellow tones that tired men on the
verge of sleep will use, the hunters droned on about meat and hides and
killing, while the magic men sang softly to the spirits of the night,
asking that tomorrow's hunt be all that their people desired.

Torka and Karana listened in silence.  Then the youth spoke, his voice
low and urgent.

"I have come because Torka has asked it.  But Karana will not wet his
spear in the blood of his totem."

Torka nodded.  "I have told Lorak that we would hunt.  I have not told
him that we would kill."

"Is consenting to an act of killing truly different from taking part in
the act itself?"

Not for the first time, Torka was taken aback by the youth's wisdom. The
question stung him because he knew the answer as well as he knew that he
had never been a man to hold patience with expedience. Nevertheless,
Lorak's threat

weighed heavy on him.  He repeated it to the youth, only to have Karana
shake his head.  He seemed older since he had come down from the Hill of
Dreams, somber and more reflective.  He sat with his back to the magic
men.

Since returning from Sondahr's hut, he had avoided Navahk completely,
refusing even to speak his name.  Now he gestured toward him with a snap
of his head.  "Do you really think it matters to Lorak whether you kill
mammoths or not?  He only threatens you to prove his authority over you.
He has disliked you from the first because you see through the thin
mists of his magic.  And now he is here, just as I warned before we left
the Valley of Songs.  I have seen him in my dreams a thousand times
since we turned our backs upon the land to which Life Giver led us. With
Navahk in this camp, it will be as before: Navahk will turn the others
against you.  You will see.  Already he has Lorak on his side."

That night the wanawut howled in the nearby hills, and men awoke to
listen to her cries while Navahk stood motionless with Lorak, beneath
stars veiled by thin bands of ice crystals.  As magic men of lesser
status circled and chanted, Navahk and the old man raised their voices
as one, asking the forces of Creation to grant the hunters a clear dawn
that would give birth to a good day to hunt.

And it was so.  The killing began at dawn--an orgy of killing led by
Navahk and Lorak.  With the hunters whooping and yipping at their heels,
they swarmed into the canyon, scrambling for footing on high ground that
allowed them to rain spears down into the trapped mammoths. The lake
turned red with blood, and the frenzied screams of dying animals filled
the world.  On that day Torka lost much of his reputation as a magic
man, for Navahk and his hunters used spear hurlers that he had taught
them to make.  And since he had also instructed them in their use, their
skill was great, but not so great as Navahk's, who boldly claimed the
invention as his own.

"Come, Lorak says you must join with us.  You must not stand back from
the kill!"  Stam cried to Karana, gesturing Torka and him forward.

Karana had never liked Stam.  He was a dull, indecisive hunter who had
always deferred to the magic man, carrying his pack and sharing the best
portions of his kills with him.

Karana glowered, pointing at Stam's spear hurler, which the bandy-legged
man held balanced over his shoulder.  "It was Torka who taught you to
use that."

Stam looked at Torka with wide-eyed innocence.  "Was it?"

"It was."  Torka's tone was as cold as his rising anger was hot.

Stam shrugged.  "Navahk says not.  Stam does not argue with Spirit
Killer!"

Torka clenched his teeth.  His hand tightened about the grip of his own
spear hurler as Stam turned and ran into the canyon where Navahk could
be seen climbing a high promontory that jutted out of the canyon wall.
It was a gray, lichen scarred slab upon which the agile, graceful magic
man found solid footing from which to lever back and make his throws.
Below him most of the hapless mammoths were already dead or dying, their
bodies riddled with the spears of the hunters who stood in howling,
arm-waving ranks along the shore of the lake.  Torka saw Zinkh and his
men among them and wondered where their undying loyalty to him and
dislike of mammoth meat had flown.

Beside him Karana pointed, drawing Torka's glance away from the hunters
and back to where, bellowing pitifully in the mud-thickened lake of
blood, the little calf that had moved so listlessly beside the body of
its dead mother the night before now slipped beneath the water.  Only
the bubbles of its dying breaths and the spears embedded in its side
were visible.

With a shudder of empathy, Torka allowed his anger to surface.  The body
of the little animal was lost now, its meat irretrievable, and, hence,
its death useless and an affront to the spirits.  At his side he heard
Karana exhale a hiss of contempt and knew that the youth shared his
thoughts and feelings.  He put his free hand upon Karana's shoulder,
wishing to communicate his sadness and discontent with the killing.  He
was startled when the youth shook himself free, turned violently, and
glared at him with his teeth bared and his tear-filled eyes wide with
rage.

"Karana will not stand and watch this!"  he shouted.  "Karana has not
called the mammoths!  No matter what Sondahr may believe, Karana has not
called his totems to this\" He was sobbing like a child.  "If I truly
possessed the power of calling, as Sondahr believes, know that I would
call Life Giver from across the far land, upon the back of the winds.  I
would call
him and name him Destroyer and command him to kill them all.  AW"

He wheeled and fled from the scene, back toward the encampment, as a
defiant shout from Navahk caused Torka to turn back toward the lake just
in time to see the magic man, his last spear spent, hurl himself into
space.  Torka stared, only half believing his eyes as, with arms out,
Navahk appeared to fly to a perfect landing upon the back of the largest
of the cows.  Riddled with spears, with blood pumping from her wounds,
the animal was weak and near death, but she still had enough life left
in her to try to rid herself of the weight of one of her killers.  Her
eyes rolled madly as she trumpeted in outrage.  Tossing her massive
head, she gored the sky with curling, twelve-foot-long tusks, and as
Navahk withdrew one of his weapons and with triumphant cries of pleasure
drove it deep again and again, the cow, enraged by pain, managed to pull
a single forelimb free of the muck that imprisoned her and, with all of
her failing strength, reared up--but then, still screaming, finding no
footing in the bog, fell sideways.

Navahk leaped straight into the air like a great, white bloodstained
lion.  He roared and laughed with delight as he landed once again, this
time on the heaving side of the beast.  The cow lay nearly immobile now,
her great, domed head straining to remain above water.  Failing, her
trunk twisted upward for air as her head went under.  And Navahk, mad
with the joy, stabbed his spear deep into the shoulder of the mammoth,
withdrew his butchering blade, and bending, set himself to flaying open
her hide, to eating of her flesh while she jerked and spasmed in agony
beneath him.

Torka could not have said just when he entered the canyon and, in an
explosion of rage and hatred, ascended the promontory.  He only knew
that suddenly he was standing above the lake, breathless from his run
and climb, watching as his spear went flying, falling, its broad,
lanceolate, deadly sharp head burying itself in the flesh of the
helpless mammoth, striking deep, striking true--killing instantly, and
mercifully ending her agony.

And only the depth of his love for Lonit and his children prevented
Torka from hurling one more spear .. . into the throat of Navahk.

"Lonit ..."

She turned, startled by the sound of her name, and was more startled to
see who had spoken it.

Sondahr stood at the entryway to her pit hut.  "Come out," she beckoned
swiftly.  "This woman would speak to the woman of Torka."

Within the shadows behind Lonit, Aliga stirred on her pallet.  She was
sitting upright, her tattooed face all but invisible except for the
yellowish whites of her eyes.  "Torka has three women," she said
belligerently.  "Lonit is only one of them."

Sondahr's features remained expressionless.  "Lonit is Torka's first
woman.  My words are for her alone."

Lonit's heart sank.  She has come to tell me that she wants my man. She
has come to win my understanding.  Look at her, standing with the sun
behind her.  Could any woman compare with her beauty?  Is there a man
alive who would not want her as his own?

"Feather woman .. . pretty ..."  piped Summer Moon, pointing to the
crowns of swan's down that circled Sondahr's brow.  The little girl sat
between Lonit and lana, playing with a buckskin doll that Lonit had made
for her and with a blunt, baby-sized needle with which Lonit was
teaching her the basics of sewing by allowing her to mend a rip in the
waistband of the doll's feather skirt.

The little girl held up the doll and dimpled as she waved it at Sondahr.
"This girl's doll wears feathers too!  Like feather woman! Do you make
magic?"

Sondahr smiled tenderly at the child.  "There are many kinds of magic,
little one.  I do what I can to help others, that is all."

Aliga snorted.  "It has not been much, not for me!  But now that Navahk
is here, we will all see what a true magic worker can do!  In the end,
it takes a man to make real magic."  With the mention of Navahk's name,
Aliga's features changed, her voice softened, and she fairly glowed with
anticipation.  "He is like no other man.  He will make my child come
forth.  You will see.  When the hunters return, when the women have done
with the butchering, and all gather together at the feast fire, you will
see what Navahk can do."

"Lonit, come.  This woman must speak with you now."

Lonit winced against Sondahr's command and knew that she was behaving
like a child.  She could not put off the
inevitable.  With a sigh of acquiescence she rose and went out into the
light of the ebbing day, following Sondahr through the camp, onto the
Hill of Dreams, and into her hut.

A tallow lamp burned in the center of the little shelter.  It smelled of
old fat scented by oils pounded from the leaves of artemisias. Inhibited
by the confines of the unfamiliar interior, and intimidated by the
presence of the magic woman, when Sondahr bade Lonit to be seated, she
obeyed, albeit hesitantly.  She was almost painfully aware of her
surroundings.  Mammoth bones.  Mammoth teeth.  Mammoth tusks. Mammoth
hide and hair and' You are a stupid, foolish woman."  Sondahr's
accusation was spoken evenly, directly, without malice.  She had seated
herself opposite Lonit, on an identical raised platform.  Its base was
the grinding tooth of a mammoth.  Its seat was softened by moss and
lichen-stuffed cushions of mammoth hide, overlaid by shaggy skins that
had been brushed to a sheen no mammoth had ever known in life.

Lonit was so taken aback by Sondahr's words that she stared, unable to
think of a reply--perhaps because she half agreed with them.

"You fear losing your man to me?"

Again the directness of the magic woman was unsettling.  Lonit felt
ashamed but could not quite understand why.  "I..."

Sondahr's left eyebrow arched toward her hairline.  "You should be
ashamed," she said, in the same disconcerting way of reading thoughts
that Karana had.  "Do you truly believe that Torka thinks that he danced
with me instead of you on the night of the plaku?  Can you imagine that
he is such a fool that he could not tell us apart because of a few
feathers and strokes of paint?  Believe me, Lonit, when Sondahr dances
for a man, he knows with whom he lies, and any woman who cannot say the
same for herself is indeed unworthy of any man at all!"

Lonit stared, aghast.

"Are you unworthy of Torka, Lonit?"

Her mind was swimming.  "I--I-He is so fine a man, and I am .. . am ..."

Sondahr's head went up.  "You are young, woman of Torka.  You are
beautiful.  You look strong, and your skills are many for one who is
blind, and deaf, and very, very dumb.  If you believe yourself unworthy,
you will be."

Lonit blinked.  She was suddenly angry.  "You have no right to speak so
to me!"

Again Sondahr's left eyebrow arched.  "You have given me the right,
through your silence and your stupidity and your misdirected jealousy."

"I--I--"

"Stop stammering.  If you want to keep your man, you must learn to be
bold, to fight for him against anyone or anything that threatens him."

Now it was Lonit's brow that arched.  Her fingers curled against her
palms so tightly that her knuckles went white.  "What does Sondahr know
of fighting?  Lonit has fought for Torka!  Against wolves, storms, and
the forces of Creation that nearly took his life spirit after he dared
to stand against Thunder Speaker.  Lonit has fought for Torka until her
body bled, and she would fight again--to the death, if the spirits would
ask it of me!  But Lonit is only a woman.  Lonit has no rank!  No
authority!  No power!  Lonit cannot fight against you, a magic woman! If
Torka chooses Sondahr over Lonit, that is his right.  Lonit cannot--"

"--be as blind as she seems!"  Sondahr's beautiful head swung slowly
from side to side.  Her features relaxed.  She sighed, rose, crossed to
Lonit's pallet, and sat beside her.  "Lonit, this woman does not want
your man, and even if she did, his heart is yours.  His spirit is one
with yours.  Never has Sondahr seen a man so loving of one woman.  Can
it be that Lonit truly does not see or understand this?"

Lonit's anger shriveled.  Again she felt ashamed and confused.  "But I
have seen him look at you.  He has been with you alone in this place of
magic."

"Yes, Torka has been with Sondahr, but only to ask for healing for the
tattooed woman--nothing more.  Yes, he has looked at Sondahr as a man
looks at the beauty of the first dawn of spring or the great herds of
caribou when they move across the world in the last red glow of sunset,
to winter in the face of the rising sun.  He has looked and has looked
away, knowing that he has seen a rare beauty but nothing more than that,
nothing that he would reach to keep and hold."  Sadness moved upon the
magic woman's face, and with it came regret, then acceptance as a small,
bitter smile lifted the corners of her mouth.  "All men look at Sondahr.
It has always been so.  And Sondahr has lain with many men, although she
assures Lonit that Torka has not been one of
them.  Not that she has not envied Lonit, for Torka is the best of men.
But Sondahr will never have a man of her own.  Sondahr is Teacher.
Sondahr is Seer.  Sondahr is Healer.  Sondahr is all that the forces of
Creation have conspired to make her, and so she has no band of her own.
All men fear her as much as they desire her, and many resent her for her
gift, so that she has wandered among the people of the tundra, until
now, at last, she dwells alone in a house of bones and grows old,
childless, sharing her gift with the young, like Karana, who show
promise as shamans.  Sondahr had hoped that someday one of them would
truly have the power to take the gift from her so that she might at last
be 'only' a woman, content to walk beside one man, with children sucking
the sweet milk of life from her breasts.  Sondahr has lived long and has
learned that the gift of love between man and woman is the greatest
magic--the only true and lasting magic--a magic that Sondahr has never
known.  It is a rare gift, great enough to create life, to gentle the
days and bring joy to all the nights that otherwise must be endured
alone."

Lonit was deeply moved.  "It might yet be for you."

"No," said Sondahr, "it is ending for me now.  I have seen it in the
mists.  There will be few tomorrows for Sondahr, and so I have called
Lonit here to warn her."

"Of what?"

"Of her own stupidity!  Lonit must stop doubting herself!  Lonit must
stop hiding in the shadows.  Lonit must stand tall and confident beside
her man and know that there is no other woman in the world for him." She
paused, and her eyes narrowed speculatively.  "Can Lonit say the same
now that Navahk walks within this camp?"  Lonit gasped.  Sobered,
amazed, and ashamed, she hung her head, not wanting Sondahr to see the
truth in her eyes.  Once again the magic woman had seen into her
thoughts.  Once again she had spoken words drawn from her own heart, and
those words frightened her, because Sondahr spoke them with such intense
urgency that Lonit knew they would forever be seared into her soul.

"Look at me."  Sondahr's hand reached to lay long, gentle fingers
beneath Lonit's chin and turn her face up.  "You must heed me, Lonit,
daughter of Kiuk, child of a people who are no more.  Look not to
Navahk.  His beauty is deceptive.  He is a man of flesh, not of spirit.
He is a magic man, not a shaman.  Navahk walks in the skin of wanawut,
but look beneath the
skin of that beast, for the man who has slain it is infinitely more
dangerous.  I know--I have seen into his soul and have turned away, as
you must turn away, or he will devour you as he has devoured his brother
and will devour Karana if he can.  And when he has sucked your spirit
dry of life, he will throw you away to walk upon the wind forever, and
he will smile and grow stronger by your death.

"Heed me now, Lonit, for in the days to come you must be a guide to
Karana.  He is wise and his gift is great, but he is as wild as a north
wind and his moods are as dangerous.  He has much to learn, but I cannot
teach him.  He might have been the one for me, but time will not allow
it.  He is of the world to come, and Sondahr is of the past. Lonit is
the future.  Lonit must be strong--for Torka, for Karana, and for the
children of Man Who Walks With Dogs.  Lonit must become all that Sondahr
would have been in a new world, beneath a new sky, beneath a new sun.
First woman to first man.  Mother.  Sister.  Friend.  A new Creation."

Torka jogged alone across the land.  He did not know when the day ended.
He did not know when the night began.  He knew only that he trailed
Karana and that it was good to run alone, away from the scene of the
mammoth killing--one man carrying one spear and trying to forget that
the other lay embedded in the body of his totem.

Yet he was unable to forget.  And this, too, was good, for the memory
was cleansing, clarifying, and it enabled him to look back over his past
to see the fault in it.

To have led his little band out of the lonely country in the hope that
they might seek shelter within a larger band, that had been a good
thing; but to compromise all that he believed in, all that he held
sacred, that was an offense to the spirits of Creation, an offense to
the great mammoth Thunder Speaker .. . Life Giver .. . who had brought
him and his people into a new and better world.  And an offense to
himself.

The terrain, open grassland devoid of tussocks, allowed a good pace. In
the thin, fading light of dusk, he saw Karana trotting ahead of him. The
youth had made no attempt to conceal his trail.  As Karana ran, his legs
cut deep depressions through the grasses, which made Torka's way easier.

He lengthened his stride.  Soon they were running together, side by
side.  Neither spoke.  They ran until the dark came down and they could
run no farther.

They rested together, ignoring, hunger, watching the night thicken and
the stars prick its surface like embers from a crackling fire.  Far off
across the tundra the sounds of the still-distant Great Gathering
reached them: The women were singing, the elders beating drums.  The
single lonely whistle of a flute rode across the night.  In the opposite
direction,
from the dark, tangled foothills in which the mammoths had been
entrapped and killed, the voices of hunters rose in a song of their
own--a praise song, a song of life for men, a song of death for
mammoths.

The darkness seemed suddenly heavy, palpable, as though some great,
black creature were moving invisibly across the sky, pressing down upon
them, watching them from above.  Torka looked up, half expecting to see
ghostly cloud shapes above him in the dark.  But the sky was clear; the
feeling of heaviness and foreboding was within himself.  He looked at
Karana, wondering if he had also felt a presence within the night.  But
the youth stared off, his handsome features set as he balanced himself
beside Torka, forearms resting lightly across his thighs, his spears
held loosely in one hand, buttocks tucked to heels, weight held forward,
balanced upon the balls of his feet.  They had both assumed this half
crouch, half squat.  It was a comfortable position in which to rest and
doze; if danger threatened, it would allow instant action as their limbs
uncoiled and they sprinted forward.

Moments passed.  Torka listened to the distant singing and became aware
of smaller sounds as well--little sounds, stirrings and scurryings,
soft, silken whisperings in the grasses as creatures all around slipped
between them unseen.  His hand tightened around the haft of his spear.
His eyes scanned the benighted land, then moved to rest upon the youth.
But he found a man instead--a man who so resembled Navahk that Torka
actually winced.  Again the night felt heavy.  He wished to lighten it.

"So.  Once again Torka pursues Karana and finds him alone within the
dark.  You are still easy to track."

"Only because I hoped that you would follow."  Karana's lips tensed
visibly against his teeth as his head turned slightly.  There was
weariness and sadness within his eyes.  "Either your step has slowed
with the years, Torka, or you did not leave the killing site at once. I
see but one spear in your hand.  Did you hunt?  Did you take the life of
that which is totem to us?  Did you wet your spear in the blood of
mammoth?"  Karana's questions were soft, tentatively spoken, as though
he were not certain of wanting answers.

"I killed.  And in the killing, deprived Navahk of his kill.  Before, he
was not a friend.  Now, he is an enemy."

"He has always been your enemy, Torka.  And mine.  Until he is dead, it
will be so."  The youth's expression changed

from weariness to absolute intensity.  "I have listened to the wind,
Torka, and now you must listen to me.  I have let the wind pour through
my spirit as a river pours across a rocky river bottom, and I have drunk
deeply of the wind--the spirit wind--and it has told Karana that he and
Torka cannot share the same world with Navahk."

"I do not know of another," "Think back.  The answer will come to you.
You have warned me not to speak the words again.  I will honor your wish
and my promise.  But I will not stay in the encampment of the Great
Gathering.  I will take Aar and go from the world of men.  It is not a
good world."

Torka nodded, taking measure of the youth and of the validity of his
words.  "To live among others is demanding; compromises must be made.
Perhaps I have made more than I should have, but we live among many
diverse peoples in this camp."

"And when the headman is wrong?  Must all follow him then?"

"If others see no cause to challenge, yes."

"Because it has always been so from time beyond beginning?"

Karana had thrown his own oft-asked question back in his face.  It was
an answer that was not an answer, yet he could think of no better one.
"Someone must lead," he said at last.  "And the old ways are proven
ways."

"If Torka believed that, he would never have made a spear hurler or
created a new type of spearhead.  If all men believed that, then things
would always stay the same, never getting better, never getting worse,
but always staying the same.  And from what Karana's eyes have seen,
nothing in the world stays the same forever: Rivers that are frozen
solid in the dark times melt and flow in the days of sun and sometimes
rise to flood their banks and cut new courses.  The earth moves.  The
white mountains walk.  Peaks of stone give birth to clouds that rain
fire.  As old Umak taught me, in new times men must learn new ways or
die.  In this camp, if the mammoths had not come, Lorak would have kept
his people fasting and praying until they starved to death, even though
there was bison meat for the taking.  And in order to be accepted by the
people of this camp, Torka has become another man entirely!"

"No, Karana.  But I am not headman here except within my own pit hut. As
you have yet to learn, when a man is responsible for the lives of his
women and children, he has more than his own pride to care for. This has
been a good camp for us.  The men in this part of the world are good
men.  Their fellowship has been welcome. They have named you Lion
Killer, and you have become a man among them. Many a young girl looks at
you with hopeful eyes.  Many a grown man envies what is between you and
Sondahr.  Many a youth names you friend. Would you not miss these
things, Karana, if you were alone, one man in a world without people,
with only the wind to speak to your spirit? All of your decisions are
easy because you have only your own life to care for."

"You will stay, then?"

"Until the time of the long dark has come and gone, yes.  I will not put
my family at risk by a confrontation with Navahk."

"He has shamed you.  In Supnah's camp, and now at the Great Gathering.
He will try to take Lonit from you.  He has forced you to take the life
of your totem.  He is--"

"--a man who will not shame me again.  I do not fear him or his magic."

Karana was silent.  Then: "It is because of me that he hates you."  The
words were very soft.

"No.  He and I see each other for what we are.  He hates me because he
knows that I see through him--not because I saved the life of one small
boy whose life he threw away upon the wind."  "He wanted me dead.  He
still wants it.  My presence reminds others that he is not infallible.
He hates me for that."

"Then, by all means, you must run off alone and give him what he wants!"

"I am his son."  The admission came as though from an open wound.

Torka nodded.  Yes.  Somehow he had known it all along, yet his head
moved in slow negation.  "No," he said.  "I have made you mine."

Karana's love for Torka was so great at this moment that it nearly
choked him.  Nevertheless, words could not undo the truth.  "You are the
father of my heart, but I have called the game and I have called the
mammoths to die upon the spears of men.  And if the spirits have turned
against us, it is because of me, because I am of his blood, because I
share his powers and do not know how to use them!"

Again Torka nodded, only this time he smiled and swung
an arm around Karana's shoulders, drawing him close.  "Then you must
learn, Lion Killer.  For the good of us all, you must learn.  As you
have said, in new times men must learn new ways.  You are a man now. It
is time to stop running.  It is time to face Navahk.  Like it or not, we
must share the world with him."

They returned to the main encampment.  By dawn they were within the wall
of bones and tusks, with the dogs yapping and crowding around to offer
greetings and complaints about having been left behind when there was
hunting to be done.  The old and sickly and the women and children
gathered to hear of the killing of the mammoths.  Torka eloquently told
them what they wanted to hear and kept his opinions to himself.  These
were mammoth eaters, and so he told them of the killing site, the
courage of the men facing certain danger, the way they readied
themselves for the kill, how their spears flew to take their prey, and
of the size of the mammoths that lay dead in the lake, awaiting the
skilled hands of the women who would now go out to butcher them and
honor their life spirits by turning them into meat and hides and useful
tools for the people.

The people cheered while Torka tried not to think of the piteous sight
of the little calf slipping beneath the surface of the water, its body
riddled with spears, its last little bleats of life rising unheard
except for the bloodied bubbles that told of its death, as a snarling
Navahk crouched upon the body of the dying cow and grew strong upon the
pleasure that he took in the agony of her death.

Karana turned away, wanting no part of their adulation.

"Karana!  Your woman Pomm, she has been proudly waiting!"

He rolled his eyes with exasperation as Pomm elbowed her way tenaciously
through the throng like a small, fat, hornless rhino charging through
the crowd.  But this rhinoceros had ribbons of white goose feathers
streaming from the top of her head.  He could not remember ever having
seen a more ludicrous sight as, before he could backhand her away, her
strong, fat fingers latched onto his arm at his elbow and she pressed
close to him, fawning like a young girl.

"Pomm has prepared a soft pallet for the returning hunter!"  she
simpered.  "Within Pomm's hut sweet balls of fat and berries await the
returning hunter to restore strength to one who has--"

"I have not hunted.  Karana's spears have not tasted the blood of
mammoths, nor will he eat of their meat with Pomm or with anyone else!
Leave me alone, woman!  Let go of my sleeve and find a man your own age
to fuss over!"

With Aar at his side he twisted violently to the left, freeing himself
of Pomm's grasp to leave her standing ashamed and bewildered with a
handful of his torn, stone-beaded fringes laced through her fingers.

Her face turned as red as if he had scorched her.  "Sorry will you be,
son of Man Who Walks With Dogs!  Pomm does not forget or forgive those
who spurn her magic!  And Zinkh will make you pay for refusing to wear
his hat and for turning your back upon his one great wonderful gift to
you of me!"

He heard her shriek after him, but in the noisy crowd it was easy to
ignore words that he had no wish to hear.  A few elderly men teased him
as he passed, and one of them, a skinny fellow, asked if he might have
what the young hunter obviously did not desire.

"Take her and know that Karana will forever thank the spirits for your
favor to me!"  he snapped, and heard the happy hoot of the man and the
laughter of others as he strode off across the camp, past Grek's family,
and a small, pretty young girl who resembled their daughter, Mahnie. She
was staring at him with the expression of one who longs to speak to
another yet cannot quite find the right words.  Yes.  It was Mahnie. She
still had the look of a cloth doll in her lightweight buckskin tunic and
trousers, with her thick black hair loose and shining about her
shoulders.  So she was still a girl; the women of his band wore their
hair plaited and piled into topknots upon their heads as a sign of
maturity.

Wallah nodded to him as he passed, and he felt obliged to nod back; he
had always liked Grek and his woman.  Wallah was brusque and outspoken,
but as kind and steady as her man.  Beside her Naiapi stood watching him
in silence.  She was still a handsome woman, and from the imperious set
of her chin and mouth, she was still as hard and unforgiving as he
remembered her.  From the corner of his eye he looked for Pet.  Now she
was a girl who must have grown into a beautiful woman by now; but if she
had come across the land with Navahk and his people, he saw no sign of
her.

The girl Mahnie finally found her tongue and called after him softly as
he walked by her.

"Karana ..."  she stammered.  "I knew you would still be alive.  I am
glad to find you in this camp."

He said nothing to her.  Her words annoyed him, for although she was
glad, he was not.  He wished he were away from here, back within the
Valley of Songs, hunting antelope within the river of grass, in the
forbidden land where men did not hunt mammoths and where Torka deferred
to nothing but the spirits and the weather and the land.

Lonit stood with Sondahr upon the Hill of Dreams.  With a gesture of
infinite grace the magic woman summoned Torka.  Puzzled to see his woman
with Sondahr, he left the elderly and the children.  He assumed that the
women needed his assistance to prepare for the trek to the butchering
site.

"I must join the others on their trek.  They will need me to invoke the
spirits on their behalf," Sondahr said when Torka had joined her and
Lonit on the high ground of the shamans.  "Torka and Lonit, you will
stay here in my absence.  It will be good for you to talk alone, without
anyone to distract you."  Granting him no time to reply, she moved past
him, her feather cloak flowing behind her, her head high.

Torka felt a sudden sense of foreboding.  "Has Aliga died?  Are the
children all right?"

"They are all well, even Aliga.  Since Navahk has come to this camp, she
feels so much stronger.  She is awake all the time and preening like a
young girl.  That is why Sondahr has asked you to come here ... so that
we might-So that I might--" She was looking down, breathing shallowly,
fighting for every word.

His puzzlement grew.  He reached out and turned her face up to his.
"What are you trying to say?"

Her face was ashen.  "Only that Sondahr has made me see that I have been
a foolish woman.  I have seen things that have not existed .. . and
refused to see that which is true and real."

He shook his head.  "I do not know what you are talking about."

She bit her lip and shook her head defiantly, as though she dared some
inner part of herself to try to stop her from saying: "In this camp or
any other, in the land of mammoth eaters or in the Corridor of Storms,
in this world or the next, whatever Torka does, Lonit will accept
without question.  And wherever Torka goes, Lonit will be at Torka's
side.  And

when Torka's spirit walks the wind, Lonit's spirit will walk with Torka,
always and forever--t/this is what Torka wants."

"If?"  Her proclamation was so unexpected that he was struck dumb by it.
She was staring at him boldly, with her beautiful head held high and her
eyes steady, yet there were tears in her eyes and she trembled. Suddenly
he understood, drew her close, and held her tightly as he realized that
it was he who had been the fool.  How could he not have realized how
deeply she had misunderstood him and how desperately she needed
assurance of his love?  "Forgive me," he said, kissing her gently and
closing her eyes with his lips.  Breathing the breath of his life into
her nostrils and mouth until, at last, he felt her body meld to his,
then lifting her into his arms, he carried her into the hut of Sondahr
high on the Hill of Dreams.

The tallow lamp still burned.  The room was aglow with sunrise and
shadows.  He lay Lonit onto a sleeping pallet, and casting his spear
aside, he undressed and lay down beside her.  "Torka would never want
your death, Only Woman In The World.  Never.  For you are that to
me--the only woman I will ever love or desire.  And someday, if the
spirits grant that we grow old together--so old that our own spirits
yearn to be released from our bodies to seek life and youth anew-then we
shall walk the wind together, one and unafraid.  But now we are young,
and Torka has only one request of Lonit.  I ask only for her love, one
with mine, always and forever."

With a sob she threw her arms about him and held him as though she
feared that the forces of Creation would sweep down and rip him from her
life.

Afterward, as they lay naked within the hut of Sondahr upon the Hill of
Dreams, entwined from their lovemaking, Lonit slept and murmured against
troubled dreams while Torka held her close, watching the shadows change
as the sun claimed the height of noon, then began to ease slowly across
the sky on its inexorable passage toward dusk and dark.  He slept, and
awoke, and stared at the room in which he lay: mammoth tusks above him.
Mammoth hide and bones and hair all around and beneath him.

Visions of the hunt filled him, choking him--memories of the baby
mammoth, of the screams of the entrapped dying animals, of Navahk's
savage and sadistic butchery of a living animal, and of his own killing
of that animal.

You have kit ted that which is totem to you!

He sat up, so filled with distress that he could barely breathe.  The
warm, fragrant confines of the little hut were suddenly suffocating.

Lonit stirred sleepily beside him, reached for him.  "What is it?"

He took her hands, drew her up, kissed her, and said imperatively: "We
must go from this hut.  It is not good for us to be here.  And no matter
what may be said to you by others, you will not join the other women at
the killing site."

She blinked, startled and alarmed by his intensity.  "I will do whatever
Torka tells me to do."

He kissed her quickly.  "Dress then.  Go back to our own hut and our
children."

But Torka did not join her.  He dressed, took up his spear, and stalked
across the encampment, through the opening in the wall of bones, and did
not stop walking until he had reached the shores of the nearby lake.
Fully clothed, spear in hand, he plunged into the shallows, seeking to
cleanse himself and his weapon and garments of mammoth blood.  But
although he swam and splashed until he was exhausted, it was not enough;
he felt unclean, as though the blood of his killing would never be
washed away.

For all that day and into the night, the shamans sang magic songs and
danced magic dances while the women who had come to assist the hunters
with the butchering worked side by side with their men atop the bodies
of the fallen mammoths.  The women had spoken not a word to Sondahr on
the long trek out from the encampment to the killing sight, unless they
had a special "spirit request," and when they arrived, they refused to
allow her to assist them at their work.  She stood at the edge of the
lake of death, appraising the slaughter scene; then she ascended the
promontory from which Navahk and Torka had made their kills.

The sky clouded, and a thin, sleeting rain began to fall.  Nevertheless
Sondahr stood unmoving upon the promontory, her arms extended and head
back, chanting praise to the spirits of the slain beasts until her voice
was gone.  And still she stood silently invoking the mammoth spirits to
grant their strength and wisdom to the women of the Great Gathering,
until at last the day thickened into dusk.  Exhausted and shivering
against the cold, she climbed down from the stony heights to be
confronted by Lorak, who held a steaming cup made of hollowed tusk out
to her.

"To Sondahr, who speaks to the spirits for the females of the assembled
bands, Lorak offers the blood of that which is sacred to us: the blood
of life, of strength, of power.  Of the great, tusked ones.  Of mammoth
... at last!"

She took the cup.  She drank deeply, gratefully.

Everyone saw the old man's eyes shine and his organ rise with lust
beneath his bloodied, loose-fitting tunic, straining the skins as he
took back the tusk.  "Too long have we fasted, Sondahr.  Too long have
you stood alone in the icy rain.

Come!  Rest, eat.  There is much man meat at the place where Lorak has
spread his sleeping skins."

Navahk had come to stand beside him.  The eyes of Sondahr moved slowly,
from Lorak to Navahk, where they measured, then dismissed the man. They
moved back to Lorak.  If she noticed the expression that her dismissal
has caused to move upon Navahk's face, she gave no sign of it.  Making
no comment to either man, she turned and walked to the closest of one of
several small, communal fires that the women had made and shielded from
the rain with broad tarpaulins of staked hide. Without a word to anyone,
she bent, took a slender bone of spitted meat from where it roasted
upright over the flames, rose, and strode into the thickening shadows of
dusk, where she seated herself and began to eat alone, shivering within
her sodden robe of feathers.

From where Mahnie sat beside Wallah, she could see the magic woman
clearly and thought how beautiful Sondahr was, even when she was wet. A
pang of jealousy stabbed her as she recalled the way the woman had come
to stand at Karana's side on the Hill of Dreams.  Rumors about them had
been the talk of the women and girls as they had hurried to prepare for
the trek to the butchering camp; and on the long walk across the tundra,
everyone seemed to avoid Sondahr.  Mahnie had not failed to notice the
glaring, murderous looks that Naiapi was giving the magic woman, and she
had asked Wallah why everyone seemed so hostile toward Sondahr.  Her
mother answered in a hushed voice that because everyone feared the
powers of the great Sondahr, no one really knew quite how to address or
approach her.  She had been Navahk's teacher and lover, long ago, when
he had been little more than a child. Supnah had worn her feather, sign
of a great favor.  One could not blame Naiapi for resenting her.  And
mere females could not assume friendship with such a legendary seeress
and healer.  Sondahr was one who called the spirits.  Sondahr was one
apart.

Mahnie frowned.  It was true that she did not like the magic woman;
after all, she had seen Sondahr with Karana upon the Hill of Dreams. But
Sondahr had spent an entire day standing in an icy rain while she
invoked the forces of Creation on behalf of the females of the various
bands, and it did not seem right that not one of them had so much as
offered the magic woman a dry skin in which to shiver herself

warm.  With a little sigh of resolve, Mahnie reached for her traveling
bag and began to rummage through it for the extra, lightweight cloak
that she had brought along in case the nights at the killing site turned
unduly cold.

Wallah stayed her hand.  "What are you doing?"  she whispered, her voice
barely audible, her expression strained with disbelief and fear.

"Getting my cloak for the magic woman."

"Stay out of this!"

Again Mahnie frowned.  She had not thought it possible for someone to
whisper and shout at the same time, but Wallah had done just that. Why?
What danger could threaten her in a butchering camp?  The prey was
slain.  The people were tired and well fed and looking forward to a good
night's sleep before trekking back to the main camp under their heavy
load.

Mahnie felt a poke at her side and saw her mother indicate with a snap
of her head that she should direct her attention elsewhere.

Bewildered, Mahnie followed her mother's glance to where the magic men
had gathered behind Lorak.  The supreme elder's face had grown purple.
It was as engorged with anger as his penis had been with man-need only
moments before.  But now his organ was deflated, and his only visible
erection-other than the sizable protuberance of his nose--was the
twisted, bony finger he was pointing at the magic woman.

"Beware, Sondahr.  That which is female is of Mother Below, that which
is male is of Father Above, and what is below can easily be crushed by
the powers above.  Lightning rends earth, remember that!"

She looked at him, observed that his "power" had wilted, and nodded.
"Where is your bolt, Lorak?  And if you rend Sondahr, who then will
speak to the spirits for the women of this camp?  Who will share woman
wisdom with them, deliver their babies, and call forth the pain and
fever spirits from their little ones, if not Sondahr?"

Suddenly, from all around, birds flew skyward, shrieking, wheeling, and
forming winged clouds that shadowed the dying day.  And from beneath
clumps of grass and burrows in the earth, rodents scurried and ran in
frenzied circles.

Everyone was standing, staring, waiting for the earth to move.  Far away
to the east a terrible roaring rent the sky.  No
one could have said exactly where it had come from, except that it came
from the forbidden land where the world ended, somewhere beyond the Sea of
Storms.

And then the earth did shake.  It rolled once, like a single wave
surging across the surface of a wind-tossed lake.  It lifted them and
dropped them, so gently that no one was knocked from his feet before the
wind reached them, a wind that stank of sulfur and smoke and the innards
of a distant mountain that rained fire.  They could feel its heat.  They
could smell its breath.  And they were afraid.

Even when the wind had passed and the world was still again, they stood
in stunned silence, listening and waiting for the end of the world.

The world did not end.  It grew quiet instead--so quiet that the lack of
sound pressed against their ears.  Where had the birds flown?  Only
moments before, the sky had been filled with them.  Where had the little
ground-dwelling animals scampered off to?  It was as though they had
disappeared.  Even the ever-present wind, which moved across the sky as
blood flowed in the veins of men--constantly until death-had stopped.
They held their breath, lest breathing offend the spirits as they
watched the sky and listened for the pulse of the earth, wondering if
Mother Below and Father Above had died.

But clouds moved across the sky, and rain continued to fall.  Black
rain.  Their eyes turned up.  Their faces were darkened by it.  Father
Above made the rain.  It was his tears--or his urine, depending upon the
mood of the diviners of such things.  It must be very bad for them if
Father Above wept black tears or voided black urine.

Slowly, like a lioness coming up out of sleep, Mother Below stretched
and moved .. . not enough to shake the earth, but enough to cause the
skin of the permafrost to tremble, enough to cause the surface of the
lake to stir.  Then she was still again, and from deep within the flesh
of the world, a sigh was heard, as though Mother Below were yawning and
returning to sleep--for now.

No one moved.  No one spoke or looked at anyone else.  The lake sloshed
back and forth, slopping softly against the dismembered carcasses of the
mammoths that lay stripped to the bone within it.  Creatures began to
scuttle and make welcome little sounds from the grasses and shrubs,
assuring the people that the order of their world slowly was returning.

But then Navahk leaned close to Lorak and, smiling at Sondahr, whispered
slowly, almost sensually to the old man.

Lorak bristled like a spear-stung tera torn as he once again pointed a
finger at Sondahr.  This time he did not threaten; he accused.  "Yes!
Navahk is right!  The mammoths have returned, but the signs and omens
are bad!  Mother Below and Father Above have spoken together!  This is a
rare thing!  Sondahr has offended them by defying Lorak and taking sides
against this man and with the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs. With
Torka and Lion Killer--who has run from this killing site--Sondahr has
called down the dark spirits of Creation in the form of trembling earth
and stinking wind and clouds that bleed black rain."

A trip that had taken only a day now required twice that and more when
the meat was being transported.  And all the long way, the black rain
fell, and Grek mumbled and ground his teeth until Wallah warned him to
stop lest his molars split and he would be unable to chew that which he
carried.

"The wanawut cried in the hills last night .. . close, very close.  Did
you hear it?"

"I heard," she replied in the resentful tone of one who does not
appreciate having her memory jogged.  They were bent nearly double under
the weight of their pack frames, and between them they dragged a meat-
and skin-laden sledge.  Leaning into her own load, her head pressing
outward against her brow band, Wallah stared straight ahead and plodded
onward, her mouth set and scowling.

The sodden tundra made travel slow and difficult.  At dusk, while a few
solitary hunters went on ahead, others encamped again, although they
were only a few miles from the main gathering.  The rain continued.
Mahnie was glad that Grek had chosen to rest, eat, and sleep before
going on.

The magic men walked on, led by Navahk, with Stam, Zinkh, and several
other hunters as protective spearmen.  Sondahr had left long before. No
one had seen her go.  Mahnie thought about her as she watched the magic
men disappear into the rainy distance.  She felt better when she could
see them no longer.  She was tired; more so now that her pack frame was
off and her body could relax.

Wallah and the other women were too tired to bother with fire making,
and since none of their men wanted to wait for food, they quickly put up
individual family shelters that
shielded them from the direct fall of the misty rain.  Clustered close
beneath the support poles of bones, they ate raw strips of mammoth meat,
wrapped in packets of intestine, which they had carried under their pack
frames.  The meat had been tenderized and "cooked" by the heat and
motion of their bodies as they had moved and chafed against their heavy
loads.

Mahnie did not like the taste of the strong and fibrous meat.  She
looked up at her parents.  Neither of them seemed to be eating with much
enjoyment.

"They say that the man Torka has brought much bison meat into the camp
of the Great Gathering.  When we return to the main camp, perhaps he
might share some with us," said Grek thoughtfully.

Mahnie felt instantly revived.  "Do you think he would?  Could we ask
him?"

From where she sat next to Wallah, Naiapi nastily mimicked Mahnie.  "
"Do you think he would?  Could we ask him?"  " Naiapi sneered.  "We know
who you really want to ask!  The youth!  The one called Karana!"

Mahnie's face flamed.  How she loathed Naiapi!  How she regretted the
day that Navahk had given the woman to Grek.  She was mean and
vindictive and made Mahnie feel unhappy in her own family circle.

"He looks so much like Navahk," Wallah remarked with distaste, ignoring
her daughter's hurt and lovesick expression.  "And they say that he has
refused to hunt the mammoth.  Also do they say that Man Who Walks With
Dogs is not in favor with the elders of this camp.  This woman has seen
the other hunters look at Grek with admiration and respect.  Let us keep
it that way.  The winter will be long.  Perhaps it would be best,
Mahnie, if your eyes found some other young man to look at."

"And what if she does not!"  snapped Grek, seeing his daughter's
horrified expression and coming to her defense.  "Karana is strong! They
call him Lion Killer in this camp.  He wears the fangs of the great
leaping cat around his neck.  They say that he has hunted rhino, and he
has saved the life of the supreme elder himself!  Mahnie would be no
daughter of mine if she did not look at such a youth with interest."

"He will not look at her."  Naiapi smiled like a well-fed wolverine,
practically licking her chops as she added with cloying sweetness and
highly arching brows, "He would not
even talk to her when she spoke to him.  All the young girls talk about
him.  They say that he already has a woman, a magic woman from the band
of Zinkh.  Pomm.  The old fat one he shouted at in front of everyone
when he returned from the hunt.  She boasts about him constantly, and he
openly shames her by calling her old and coupling with Sondahr."

Wallah saw the heartsick look on Mahnie's face and grew angry with
Naiapi.  It did not take much for her to turn against the nastiness of
the other woman.  "Grek is right.  Karana is strong.  Karana is bold. It
is good for a young man to have his first experience with older women
before he at last chooses the woman to keep a fire.  You should know,
Naiapi: You have been trying to teach Navahk more than a few things ever
since Supnah took you to be his woman.  With memories of Sondahr as his
teacher, it is no wonder that he has never desired you and has given you
away to Grek, who does not want you either!"

"Navahk does want me!  He does desire me!  He has said so!  Only for the
sake of his powers has he put me aside and sacrificed himself by
allowing me to come to Grek's miserable, grieving fire."  Naiapi was so
insulted and upset that she nearly snapped to her feet and brought the
entire little lean-to down upon them, but Grek took hold of her wrist
and yanked her down.

"Enough!"  he warned sharply.  "What has been done has been done.  What
will be will be.  No one at this fire can truly know Navahk's heart.
Naiapi has been put into the light of this man's fire, and as long as
she is here, she had best remember her place, because this man still
grieves over one whom Navahk killed unnecessarily.  In the coming days
of the long dark, if indeed this fire is miserable and wanting, Naiapi
will be the first to leave it so others will not starve for her sake."
He let the threat settle, then turned to Mahnie: "Your mother is right.
A man must know many women in his life.  If he is lucky, he will find
one good woman to warm him in the night and keep his fire and cook his
meat as--"

Naiapi hissed like a jealous, threatened goose, lowering her head,
spitting at Mahnie with her eyes.  "You would like to cook Karana's
meat, eh?"

Her double meaning did not pass Grek, who nearly struck her.  "Watch
your tongue, Naiapi.  This man might yet cut it from your mouth and make
you eat it!"

Silence settled, along with the threat.  The sounds of the
temporary night camp were all around them: man talk, woman chatter,
yawns, sighs, snores.  The sound of the mist like rain falling ever so
softly upon the hide tarpaulins of many small lean-tos.

Dusk had yielded to dark as Grek and his women had talked.  The night
was young, the rolling contours of the barren land silhouetted against
it.  Mahnie had no appetite.  She gave the last of her mammoth meat to
Wallah, who grimaced as she ate it.  Mahnie smiled.  She loved Wallah.
She snuggled down between her and Grek, closing her eyes, pretending
that Naiapi was not with them tonight, not a part of their family at
all.  Perhaps Navahk would take her back one day.  She would ask the
spirits for that.  And for Karana.

She slept without dreams of spirits or handsome youths to disturb her.

The rain stopped.  Low clouds veneered the night.  A day had passed
since the last of the hunters had returned from the killing site.
Despite the huge communal fire of bones and turf that had been built
within the center of the great encampment, the air was cold and damp.
Smells of roasting meat and fat steamed and dripped, but the enormous
blaze reeked of the sulfurous ash that had fallen with the rain.
Accompanied by a beating drum, Lorak, Sondahr, Navahk, and the rest of
the magic men, all in ceremonial attire, came down from the Hill of
Dreams to join the assembled people.  The climax to a night of feasting
was about to commence.  The shouting stopped, and the storytelling was
about to begin.

Sondahr, regal and beautiful--albeit very pale in her shaggy,
mammoth-hide dress, feather robe, and circlet of down--took her place
amid the magic men.  Navahk, in the skin of the wanawut, stood behind
her.

Sondahr stared straight ahead as the women of the various headmen
hurried forward to bring bone plates piled high with meat and fat to her
and the others of her rank.  Her mouth was dry and her skin hot. She had
been chilled by the rain during her invocations at the scene of the
kill, and fasting had weakened her.  She licked her lips.  She could not
remember ever having been made ill by an extended exposure to the
weather, but she was a mammoth eater, and it had been too long since she
had tasted of the flesh that gave her strength and power. The blood and
meat that she tasted at the killing site had restored much of her
flagging strength.  Her vision was returning, along with a sharpened
insight.

Lonit was not with the others who came forward; no doubt Torka had not
allowed her to take part in the butchering, and what Lonit had not
prepared with her own hands, she could not bring as an offering to the
shamans.  Sondahr hoped that there would be no trouble over it; yet she
knew there would be.  Lorak was too envious of Karana to overlook the
slightest infraction on his part or on the part of his people.

Her attention was drawn to the generous offerings of two women who
brought meat to her from the fire of a man they called Grek.  She had
noticed him on the hunt and remembered him instantly.  A member of
Navahk's band, he was past his prime, yet he was as strong and steady as
he had been as a youth, and was an exceptionally good man with a spear.

The first woman came very close, as though she feared being overheard as
she whispered a request that was not unusual.  "For Mahnie, daughter of
Grek, Wallah asks Sondahr to speak to the spirits that bring a woman's
first blood, so that Wallah's child may become a woman in this good
camp, with Sondahr to share the secrets of woman wisdom with her and
oversee the ritual of first blood."

"Sondahr would be honored," she replied.

The other woman took the place of the first and spoke her request softly
but forthrightly.  "Across the world of men, Sondahr's name is known.
Praise the spirits in the name of Naiapi, Magic Woman, so that she might
come to share the meat and keep the fire of the man she would have."

The woman named Wallah looked at Naiapi with an expression of disgust.
Sondahr accepted the offering but not as graciously as she had accepted
the generously piled plates of others.  There was something about Naiapi
that put her on guard as the eyes of the woman strayed past her to
Navahk, who stood at her back.  Women always looked at Navahk, but she
could not blame them, even though now, in the skin of the wanawut, he
wore upon his back the physical manifestation of his inner ugliness for
all to see.

She had told him that just before leaving the Hill of Dreams to join the
others at the feast fire.  He had come alone from the council house of
bones to block her exit from her own hut..  ..

The moon had stood behind his back, cauled within the clouds, shadowing
him, making the moment as cold as the eyes of the man who stood before
her.

"We meet again, Sondahr," he had said.  "Only this time it is Navahk who
walks into your world.  This time it is Navahk who will be Sondahr's
teacher.  Behold.  Navahk is headman of his band, and shaman. Navahk
will be supreme elder of the Great Gathering soon.  Yes, perhaps Navahk
will yet wear the feather of Sondahr, for while Sondahr wastes her time
with one who is nothing--nothing--Navahk will make her see that he is
all that she believed he could never be."

"No, Navahk," she had told him quietly.  "You may lead your people, but
you are not headman--not by right.  A headman leads his band for the
good of all, not only to serve his own needs.  And you will never be a
shaman.  Never.  You are a magic man, a man of the smokes, a trickster
and a liar.  A manipulator and, yes, a man who has taken the life of
others.  You are everything that I knew you must be.  You will never
wear the feather of Sondahr...."

The memory was one she would like to forget, but the presence of the man
was still a shadow over her.  She could see his face reflected in the
eyes of the woman who called herself Naiapi as she set the woman's
offering with the others before her.  When she straightened, she felt
restless and irritable.  The brew of willow leaves and mammoth's blood
that she had made for herself earlier in the day had yet to lessen her
fever.  She wished that the night were over so she could retire to the
privacy of her hut and rest, as any other woman would be able to do if
she felt weak with illness.  But she was not any other woman.  She was
Sondahr.  And the night was young.

"Look at me when you speak to me, Naiapi, woman of Grek.  Sondahr's
power lies only in Seeing and in her knowledge of the ways of healing.
Sondahr will praise the spirits in Naiapi's name, but in truth, Naiapi
must know that they have already smiled upon her if Naiapi is the woman
of Grek."

But Naiapi would not look at her.  She ducked away and, with Wallah,
joined the others at the women's side of her circle.

Sitting with the other women, with a restless Summer Moon on her lap,
Lonit thought that the giving of meat to the magic men and to Sondahr
was going to last forever.  It seemed that nearly everyone had special
requests for those
men and the one woman who they believed could commune with the spirits
on their behalf.

As the last man and woman returned to the main body of the assemblage,
Lonit was shocked to see a thoroughly intoxicated Pomm, still in her
flowing headdress of feathers, teetering on her feet.  She brought no
gift of meat to the magic woman as she paused before her and announced
belligerently: "Sondahr is magic woman, but so, too, is Pomm of Zinkh's
band magic woman.  Pomm should not sit with other women.  Pomm will take
her place here.  She is not like other women who come and go as their
men say.  Pomm will not be given away to old men by young boys! Pomm
will sit here with magic-making people!"  And this she did, huffing as
she seated herself so abruptly that it appeared as though someone had
knocked her down.  Her legs folded under her, her arms crossed, and her
enormous belly, hips, and bottom expanded around her. "Who will say no
to Pomm?"

Lonit saw Lorak's face collapse about his nose in shock as he wheeled
and pointed at Zinkh.  "This woman is of your band?"

Zinkh wilted under his censorious glare.  He nodded.  Words refused to
leave his mouth.

"She is a magic woman?"  Lorak demanded an answer.

Pomm responded before Zinkh could find his tongue.  "No woman in the
world be such a wonderful magic woman as Pomm!  If the sick woman of
Torka be left to me, long ago would she be better, and the baby in belly
would be in belly no more, but would be loud and noisy and making good,
stinking baby messes in its swaddling moss!"

Lonit stared, aghast, knowing that the fat woman had been sipping at her
berry brew again.  As on the night of the plaku, it had loosened her
tongue.  But this time it had not weakened her self-confidence, and now
Pomm's arrogance had put her life in jeopardy.  All around her, eyes had
gone suddenly wide.  Mouths gaped.  A murmuring went through the
assembly.  Lonit wished that Torka had not insisted that she attend the
celebrations of the mammoth eaters.  She felt frustrated by her
inability to help Pomm, and worse than that, it was all she could do to
keep her eyes averted from Navahk.

Navahk.  There he stood, behind Sondahr, as though deliberately
overshadowing her.  Lonit felt sick.  Even in the hideous skin of the
wind spirit, he set her heart racing--a heart sworn to Torka, to the one
man whom she would ever love

..  . but not the only man she desired.  Shame filled her.  All that she
feared was coming true.  If her eyes met Navahk's, if he came to her and
held out his hand to her .. .

She looked at Pomm again, and her heart went out to the fat woman.  To
love and not to be loved in return--who else could understand the pain
that Pomm was enduring if not Lonit?  If only Karana had not insulted
her!  There he sat, glowering beside Torka.  He must know that his
thoughtless dismissal of her was the talk of the encampment.  He had
actually given her away to another man!  In front of others he had made
it clear that he was glad to be rid of her.  Surely the youth had not
meant to hurt her, only to put her in her place; he was too immature to
understand that this was the one place that Pomm could never bear to be.

To Lonit's left, Wallah shook her head as a flustered Zinkh rose and
stepped forward to stand directly before Lorak and admit that, among his
people, Pomm was considered a magic woman.

"It has been so for a long time, yes.  Pomm will be first always to tell
everyone that she knows everything!  Especially when she has been
sucking at a bladder of her special berry juice .. . and this she does
much too often these days--but it is very good juice, yes!"  He
tittered, cocking his head to one side in obsequious deference to the
supreme elder.  "Perhaps if Pomm she gives her bladder flask of juice to
Lorak, he would drink and know that it has made a usually pretty good
woman silly enough to assume that she might join those upon the Hill of
Dreams and--"

Pomm cut him off with a wave of her hand and a snowstorm of goose
feathers.  "Silly?  Bah!  If one magic woman sits among men, so, too,
will Pomm sit.  Sondahr, you move over now and make room for Pomm. This
woman will be afraid no more of you!"

Lonit could not believe her eyes as the fat woman forcibly unseated
Sondahr with a wide sideways swing of her hip.  Rather than be knocked
off the piled skins that had been arranged for the magic men and magic
woman, Sondahr rose just as Zinkh and a skinny, terribly flustered
little elder hurried forward.  Magic men stepped aside to make way for
them.  They gripped Pomm by her elbows, hoping to carry the offending
fat woman away.  They might as well have tried to heft a mammoth.
Grunting, they staggered against the weight of her rigid form as she
told them, through gritted
teeth, that if they did not put her down at once, later in the night
they would find their crotches as flat as a woman's.

It was Navahk who laughed and broke the stunned silence of the
onlookers.  "Wait.  Perhaps Lorak will agree when Navahk says that any
woman brave enough to seek so blatantly her place among the shamans must
indeed be worthy of her own recommendation?"

From where Lonit sat, Pomm looked more surprised than anyone else.  She
blinked and pursed her tiny lips, looking at Navahk suspiciously out of
bleary, drink-reddened little eyes.

He smiled back at her, so sweetly that she sagged, overwhelmed by his
beauty.

Lorak's face was still a bundle of wrinkles.  He made an effort to focus
on Navahk as that magic man's words brought a smile to his time-ruined
mouth and a terrible feeling of dread to Lonit.

"Perhaps it is time that Sondahr was not the only woman to dwell upon
the Hill of Dreams," suggested Navahk.  "Perhaps this--Pomm is it?--is
more worthy of a place among us.  Later, when Lorak has told us the
mighty tales of his people, when the feasting is over and the last song
of the hunters has been sung, we will see who should be magic woman
among the mammoth hunters: Sondahr, Pomm, or perhaps neither of them?"

Torka observed as Lorak, no longer dressed in bird skins but clad
entirely in shaggy mammoth hide, lifted his drum and struck it hard with
the time-smoothed beater of thong wrapped tusk.

"Now is the time for story chanting!  Now is the time to sing the songs
of mammoths and mammoth eaters!  Now is the time to remember the way of
our people, to ask the angry spirits to look past those who have
offended them in this camp, and to remember always those among us who
have praised them!"  Again he struck the drum.

Torka flinched.  He sat between Karana and Grek, cross legged with the
other hunters on the men's side of the circle.  The incident with old
Pomm had been unsettling.  And now the supreme elder stared at him, and
it was as though the strike of the tusk had been not against the drum
but against Torka.  His head went up defensively.

Lorak's drum was very large, round, and flat.  Its inflexible frame of
bone had been softened with water, then bent into a
hoop nearly as broad as Pomm's midsection.  Held upright before the fire
in the old man's hand, its tough skin was nearly transparent. Lorak was
obviously feeling strong after hours of gorging himself upon mammoth
meat within the council house.  When he struck the drum again, he hit it
so hard, it seemed that the blunted tip of the time-yellowed tusk would
pierce the skin.  It did not, but Lorak's eyes pierced Torka, then moved
to where Karana sat beside him and pierced the young man as well.

The youth glowered as Lorak whirled away around the feast fire.  "I told
you that I should have stayed away," he hissed out of the side of his
mouth to Torka.

Torka whispered back, "You were commanded to attend.  If you had
refused, there would have been trouble."

"There is trouble anyway, and there will be more before this night is
done."

"Maybe.  Maybe not."

"Hrrmph!"  exhaled Karana with disgust, as though he and not Torka were
the adult attempting to reason with a stubborn youth.

Lorak was dancing vigorously now, striking the beater against the drum
skin repeatedly, rousing a loud, flat vibration that resonated across
the minds of all of the magic men and the assembled people.  They
watched in anticipation as he danced on one foot, then on the other. He
intended grace, but what he achieved was the hopping movements of an
inebriated, flightless bird trying to leap over hot coals.  The men of
the assembly clapped their hands against their thighs and exhaled loud,
guttural shouts that matched the cadence of the drum.

From where he sat, Torka had an excellent view of the section reserved
for the magic men.  In the hideous skin of the wanawut, Navahk was easy
to recognize.  Torka saw him smile.  It was an illusory expression, a
mere tightening of his jawline.  Torka knew that there was contempt in
Navahk's eyes for what he must surely perceive as the pathetic
performance of the old man.  Long ago, in the firelight of Supnah's
fire, Torka had seen Navahk dance.  He doubted if any magic man or
shaman could equal that display.

The old man strutted before them, beating the drum, his voice as harsh
and atonal as the "music" that he made.  He chanted praises to the life
spirits of the mammoths that had died in the bog.  He told the story of
how his people had become mammoth hunters, how they had been favored
above
all men by the forces of Creation when Father Above personally spoke to
their forefathers and told them the secret route along which the
mammoths traveled to their far and forbidden winter grazing grounds
within the face of the rising sun.  He told of the construction of the
wall of bones in the time beyond beginning, when men first hunted
mammoths together and joined at the Great Gathering along the migration
route.  He told how the herds walked across the world in the last of the
days of light and vanished into the sun itself, disappearing over the
edge of the world into a land where no men might follow.

Torka frowned.  He had followed the game over the edge of the world and
had returned to tell of it.  Lorak knew this.  Was the supreme elder
hoping to instigate him by deliberately calling him a liar?  Beside him
Karana drew in a low breath as though about to speak.  A well-placed
elbow told him to keep silent as Lorak's tale continued.

The supreme elder looked at Torka as he spoke of how only fearful men
chose to hunt bison and caribou, moose and elk, camel, yak, and musk
oxen.  Torka and Karana were not the only men to scowl as he turned to
his own hunters and proclaimed that only the bravest men chose to hunt
mammoths.  The hunters who found themselves in this category-and they
were the majority by far--nodded vigorously, pleased at the expense of
others as Lorak sonorously chanted on about the many ways men found to
kill the great mammoths: of bog traps and blinds and ravines staked with
sharpened bones onto which panicked beasts were driven.  He told how his
people often drove the mammoths ahead of lightning sparked fires.  His
face shone as he told of how the summer tundra sometimes burned at the
command of Father Above and how the great tusked ones screamed and ran
before the flames, only to be killed by men.

"Gifts are they to men from Father Above, from male to male, not from
Mother Below to females, who feed only when their men say "Eat!"  " He
hurled the words as an accusation against Sondahr, and nearly everyone
gasped in surprise at his obvious hostility toward her as he beat his
drum in her direction, waiting for her to rise to his baiting.

She refused to oblige him.

He made a rude noise and danced on.  His chant began to ramble as he
spoke of his youth.  He named the names of hunters long dead.  He spoke
the names of the more memorable mammoths that he and they had killed in
days so lost in the past that only he was left alive to remember; but
all men knew the names.

He spoke until his tales were finished, and this was for a very long
time.  And all the while, the people ate, and the smell of roasting meat
and dripping fat and sulfur filled the night, and the magic men from the
various bands responded by adding to the litany of names of mammoths to
be remembered: Big One Tusk.  Charger Who Is Unafraid of Men.  Bald
Tail.  Two-Calf Maker.  Mud Roller.  Bull Who Walks With Females.  Curl
Tooth.

Thunder Speaker.

Torka's head went up.  Although he had not partaken of either meat, fat,
or the rich drink made of blood and water and a mash of fermented
berries, Lorak had demanded that he and his people join the others at
the feast that the mammoth hunters had so long awaited.  Torka had not
demurred; this was their camp, and he and his people were guests.  They
would keep their own traditions; but they would not demean the customs
of others.

He could see Lonit, lana, and the children sitting together at the
women's side of the fire circle, refusing meat but singing with the
others when it was their turn to chant.  Lonit looked strained.  Summer
Moon seemed to be having a wonderful time, clapping her little hands and
captivated by Lorak's tales of adventure and daring.  Even lana seemed
to be entertained and actually smiled, albeit wanly, when Wallah and her
daughter, Mahnie, now and then spoke to her.  The woman of Grek had
brought a gift for Summer Moon, a little doll of buckskin.  Torka could
just see that it had real hair, probably snipped from the ends of
Wallah's braids, a face of stone beads, and a dress pieced of remnant
fur.  Torka had not missed Lonit's pleased expression or the way his
little girl had embraced the doll when Lonit allowed her to accept it.
It sat on his daughter's plump little lap, as Demmi sat upon lana's.

And now he was suddenly distracted by the moon-eyed way that Wallah's
daughter was staring across the fire circle at Karana.

Karana spoke loudly, startling him, not in the tone of a boy but of a
man who is not afraid to challenge other men.

"Thunder Speaker lives.  No man in this camp has killed that mammoth.
And any man who says otherwise is a liar!"

He felt the eyes of several youths upon him: Mano, Yanehva, Tlap, and
Ank.  He was no longer a child; he was a man who had been accepted by
other men, who hunted with them and brought meat into their camp--not
mammoth, perhaps, but meat nonetheless, and he had helped to save the
life of Zinkh and also of the supreme elder.  This gave him the right to
speak his opinion to the others.

"The great one walks far away, in a land beyond the far mountains,
within the Corridor of Storms.  Karana knows this.  Karana has dared to
touch the twisted tusks that have killed lesser and greater men than he.
Karana has breathed its breath into his nostrils; Karana has looked into
its eyes and has not been afraid.  In the firelight of this night,
Karana listens to other men talk of their brave deeds and the mammoths
they have killed, but what man--other than Torka and Karana--has dared
to venture into that forbidden country to hunt in that game-rich land
beneath the living shadow of Thunder Speaker, the great mammoth called
Life Giver by the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs?"

He was suddenly and painfully aware of how cold the night wind had
become.  It was almost as cold as the resentful eyes of the people of
the Great Gathering.  From his position in the men's side of the circle,
he could see across the fire to where Lonit, clearly distressed, sat
with Grek's women.  Mahnie, the young daughter of Grek and Wallah,
looked as though she were about to cry.  Beside her, Wallah's lower jaw
hung open in surprise, and Naiapi's chin was turned so high that she
stared at him as though from a height.

Beside him Torka reached to touch him imperatively with a warning hand.
He ignored it; in truth, he barely felt it.  His eyes had moved to Pomm
and Sondahr and the magic men.  Sondahr's exquisite face was immobile in
the firelight, but from the arch of her brows he knew that she was
troubled.  Just to her right, in his hideous skin, Navahk was leering at
him, smiling like a great, raptorial bird, its eyes wide and unblinking,
its mouth twisted cruelly as it fixes its gaze upon small, land-bound
prey that it is about to tear to pieces.

"No man has claimed to kill the great mammoth that you say is totem to
you," Navahk pointed out as he slowly came through the ranks of the
other magic men to stand beside Lorak, who was sagging with weariness.
"We have sung praises to its power--the power of bone and muscle and
tusk,

and the power that brave men reach to own when they set themselves to
kill the great mammoths.  But where is the spear that Karana has
reddened in their blood?  Has Karana, who boasts of such mighty and
fearless deeds in a far land that no man here has ever seen, sought such
power?"

Lorak made a low grumble of approval and nodded his head in vigorous
agreement.  "Karana has not killed.  Karana has put himself outside the
circle of the people.  And yet we allow him in.  The wise Navahk has
suggested to Lorak within the council house that Karana, with Sondahr
and Torka and the People Who Walk With Dogs, has called down dark
spirits in the form of birds that rise to cover the sun and trembling
earth.  Perhaps from the first, Man Who Walks With Dogs and his son,
Karana, have brought bad luck into this camp?"

"Bad luck?"  Karana nearly choked on his anger.  "Until Torka came to
the Great Gathering, you and your people were going hungry!  And until
Navahk came, you had nothing but good to say of Man Who Walks With Dogs
and his magic spear hurlers, which he used to bring meat into your
camp-even if you were too stubborn to eat it!"

"Bison is not meat!  Mammoth is meat!"  Lorak roared, shocked by the
youth's willingness to challenge him in front of the entire assembly.
"Navahk brought the mammoths to the camp of the mammoth eaters! Navahk!
Spirit Killer!  Man who walks not with dogs but in the skin of the
wanawut!  Navahk is magic man!  Navahk will stand beside Lorak as his
brother shaman!  Torka is nothing in this camp.  His magic is as weak
as--that of a woman who claims to be a shaman but cannot bring a baby to
be born out of its mother!"

"A baby!"  Sondahr's voice was cool, but the fever in her eyes was not.
"At the births of how many children has this woman assisted?  Speak,
women of the Great Gathering!  You and you and, yes, you!  Over how many
years has Sondahr brought life out of your bellies!"

"Too many years."  Pomm was not about to be left out of this chance at
Sondahr.  Her little eyes were on Karana, but her words were aimed at
the magic woman like invisible little spears tipped with venom. "Sondahr
grows old!  Her magic grows weak, not like the magic of Pomm! Let this
magic woman of Zinkh's band put her wisdom to work on the baby in the
belly of Torka's woman, and out it will come quick, yes!"

"Torka's woman?"  Navahk's query was as thick and sweet as the brew of
half-clotted mammoth's blood that he had been drinking.  He looked to
Torka, then to Lonit.  Hunger for her rearranged his features, and when
she looked away as though in fear of him, his smile widened.

Karana knew what was in Navahk's heart and hated him.

Sondahr spoke.  "It is Aliga who lies within the shelter of Torka,
unable to be free of her child, not Lonit."  Her brows came together.
The corners of her mouth moved with disdain.  "Where is your Sight,
"Shaman'?  If it is as clear as Lorak seems to think it is, then show
him!  Show us all!  Bring forth the woman Aliga into the fire circle.
Let the great Navahk heal her and bring forth her child!  Let him prove
his magic and send away the bad luck that he believes Torka and Karana
have brought with them to this camp!"

The sounds of the encampment were very loud now.  Drum beating.
Ferocious chanting.  Aar began to salivate with the need to lunge and
kill.

"Here, come, dogs.  Stam and Het, we bring you meat.  Yes, that is good.
Come, eat!  All of you!  You, too, Brother Dog--Aar.  Is that not what
the whelp Karana calls you?"  It was the one called Stam who cajoled.
"Come, eat from the hand of Stam and die.  It is not a good thing for
dogs to live in the camps of men, and, once again, Navahk has need of
the guts and liver and heart of one of you."

Not one of the pups barked.  Stam tossed the meat, and they fell upon
it.  All except Aar.  He was standing now, head out, tail tucked, ears
back.  The hair on his back and shoulders was raised.  He could not
understand the words of the man, but instinct told him that the meat was
bad and that his pups would die if they ate it.

"Beware of the big dog, Stam.  I don't like the look in his eyes."  Het
was gripping his spear nervously as Stam crouched, holding a thick,
gristly hunk of raw meat to Aar.  "What's the matter, Het?  You still
believe the dogs are magic?"

"They are not like other dogs."

Stam snorted derisively.  "They're dogs, all right--just dogs, no more,
no less.  And soon they'll all be dead dogs.  Look at them gorging
themselves on the meat.  Stupid beasts.  When they start yelping, drive
your spear as fast and true as you
can.  We don't want to damage the pelts.  Navahk said we could have them
when the excitement dies down.  Your women will like that. They're prime
pelts.  And if anyone comes near, remember the dogs attacked us."

"I don't like it...."

"You will when Navahk rewards you with his spirit powers.  You'll hunt
as never before."

"But if Man Who Walks With Dogs finds out that Navahk has sent us here
to--"
"Stop being such an old woman.  After tonight no one will listen to him.
If I know Navahk, Torka will soon be as dead as his dogs!"

The words of the men were low, like insects droning on a warm, muggy
summer day.  The dog scented the apprehension of Het and perceived the
threat in Stam as the man balanced himself on his heels and gestured the
dog forward with his free hand.  "Look at all of your fine, big
children, Aar.  You have been busy since we last camped together.  Have
you missed the pup I took from you then?  No matter.  Soon you will have
no pups at all.  Come.  Eat from the hand of Stam, and then you will
never have to eat again."

Somehow Aar understood the intent of the man.  He growled and showed his
teeth, warning the man back.  But Stam kept smirking, reaching out with
the meat, flapping it, waving it in Aar's face.

"Come ..."

To his shock and terror, Aar obliged him.  The great dog leaped forward
with such force that the stake to which he was tethered tore loose from
the permafrost as he hurled himself straight up and out, knocking the
man completely off balance.  With one bold, tearing thrust, Aar turned
his head sideways and ripped out Stam's throat .. . but never saw the
brutal sideward swing of Het's spear that sent him hurtling into
oblivion.

Het was trembling.  Stam was dead.  He was still twitching, but he was
dead.  How could he be otherwise?  The man lay in a pool of so much
blood that, had it not been for the hideous, gaping wound where his
throat had been, anyone looking at him might have assumed that he had
drowned in his own life fluids.

Het was shaking violently now as the dogs started to show signs of
pain--all except the big dog that Stam had called
Aar.  It lay so still that Het was certain that his blow had killed it.
He was glad for that.  Stam had been wrong about it.  Only a dog with
magical powers could have pulled free of its stake and killed a man so
effortlessly--as Het now killed the others, one by one.  The kills were
easy, although the dogs made more noise than he would have preferred.
They cowered or lunged at him, according to their natures, but the
stakes that held their tethers kept them from escaping his intentions
for them.  His spearhead bit deep again and again, and soon fourteen
dogs lay dead and silent, and he was thinking that now he would have all
of the pelts for himself.  Prime pelts.  His women would be pleased.

He stood a moment, drawing his splaying knife, walking from one dog to
another, cutting the tethers that had held them fast, so that those who
discovered the animals would believe that he had been forced to kill
them when they had broken loose and attacked him.

The job done, he thought about which dog he would gut.  The big dog, he
thought, the one called Aar.  It would have the largest heart, with the
most power in it, and Navahk had said that he needed a large organ, the
larger the better.  But as Het looked at the motionless form of Aar, he
hesitated.  The dog was dead, but it still frightened him; he did not
have the courage to disturb its spirit, else it come back to haunt him.
So he turned to the largest of the other dogs, a big male that resembled
its sire.  He drew a length of thong and an oiled intestine from where
he had folded them over his belt.  He knelt and set to his purpose,
working quickly to slit the underside of the dog from throat to crotch,
to open the muscle tissue just below the rib cavity, to reach into the
animal's breast to free the heart andA great, snarling weight struck him
from behind.  He was too stunned to cry out.  In the darkness, with the
stench of hot blood in his nostrils, Het knew that it was the magic dog
Aar that had leaped upon him.

But the dog, weakened and disoriented by his earlier blow to its head,
tore into his shoulder, not his neck.  Fighting for his life, Het lunged
forward with Aar riding his back.  In desperation he grasped for his
spear, which lay just out of reach, next to the dog he had been
butchering.  Gasping, sobbing, he stretched his body out .. . out .. .
feeling the teeth of the dog tearing flesh.  With all of his strength,
Het's fingertips grasped the butt end of the spear and levered it
toward him.  It took every ounce of his strength and will to twist his
body hard to the right, rolling the dog off, allowing him to jam the
butt end of the spear into the animal's side.  He heard it woof with
pain as it went down.  Or was that his own exhalation of pain?  He was
not sure; he would never be sure.  He only knew that the dog lay
unmoving in the dark.  The magic dog, the dog that would not die .. .
but it was dead now, its eyes glazing and its tongue lolling and blood
darkening the gray fur at the back of its ear.

The sounds of the feast fire reached him, moved him to action. Fighting
against pain, he rose and tore the heart from the other animal.

Navahk was waiting.

The dogs had been making great commotion as, at Navahk's command, a
small group of women hurried to Torka's pit hut to fetch the woman
Aliga.  No one was concerned--the dogs often barked and made a nuisance
of themselves over trespassing rodents that wandered into the
encampment.  But Torka's pit hut was far from the central fire, and the
noise of the increasingly inebriated celebrants was so loud that the
noise of the dogs was barely noticeable.

Aliga's voice was very weak.  "Why do you take me from my sleep?"

Lonit felt great concern for her and a terrible trepidation.  What if
Navahk actually could heal her and bring her baby forth after Sondahr
had failed?  That would be good for Aliga, but not good for Sondahr or
anyone else of Torka's band, for if Navahk eclipsed the legendary
Sondahr, he would hold great power.

"I am not feeling at all well today," she protested.  She had been
prostrate all day and had barely opened her eyes when the women had
hefted her in her sleeping skins and carried her out into the night. The
dogs were all quiet now.  "Oh, it is night.  There is a fire.  A feast
fire?  What do you celebrate?"

"Surely you must remember, Aliga," Lonit reminded gently.  "I have told
you.  The men have hunted mammoths, and they celebrate the kill! Sondahr
will be strong now.  She has eaten the flesh of the animal that gives
her great healing powers.  Think of it!  Soon you will be well!"

The women who had accompanied Lonit to Torka's hut to bring Aliga into
the gathering exchanged knowing looks.  They walked on either side of
the woman's reclined form, supporting her weight by holding tight the
broad bison-skin mattress upon which she had taken what seemed to be
permanent residence.

"Sondahr has challenged Navahk to heal you," informed Wallah.

Oga sighed and patted Aliga upon the shoulder.  "Imagine it!  Most magic
men will not consent to touch a woman.  But Navahk will touch Aliga and
make chants and magic and dances!  Oh, I would almost be willing to be
sick if I could have that man tend me!"

"Navahk?  Has asked to heal me?"  Aliga's eyes blinked and actually
cleared.  "Then I am healed already, for his are the greatest powers of
all!"

"He is only a man," Lonit said quietly.

"He is a magic man!"  snapped Oga.  "Since he has walked within the skin
of the wanawut, he has great powers," said Wallah, frowning
meditatively, as though trying to decide if she should say more.

"He is the most beautiful man in all the world," sighed Aliga
euphorically, too weary to make any attempt to hide her infatuation. "If
Navahk says that he can heal me, then it will be so.  I know it.  I feel
it."

It was growing very cold as Aliga was placed on a raised dais of piled
furs laid over the grinding teeth of mammoths.  Women added fresh
kindling to the ceremonial fire: dried mosses and grasses, lichens and
sods cut and cherished until they were crisp and ripe for burning, bones
gleaned from meals and scraped free of marrow, dung gathered upon the
open tundra as the people followed the herd animals from hunting camp to
hunting camp, and stones to absorb the heat of the fire and radiate it
back to the people long after the flames had died.

But now the flames leaped high.

Navahk stood at the periphery of the circle, head high, arms folded
across his chest, the arms of the wanawut moving slightly in the rising
wind as though the skin of the beast still possessed a life of its own.
From the shadows behind him a haggard, blood-spattered Het came close,
making certain no one saw him.  He whispered something.  Navahk's head
rose a little higher; other than this he did not move.  A small,
intestine-wrapped package was passed from the hunter to the
magic man, then Het slipped back into the shadows as though he had never
been there at all.

For Torka it was like being trapped within a nightmare that propelled
him backward into time, as if three years had not passed and he was back
within Supnah's band again, before the feast fire, watching Navahk
dance.

The only things that were different were the skin that the magic man
wore upon his back, the taloned necklace of feathers that had once been
Supnah's, and the desiccated head balanced atop his own as he whirled
and postured in ever diminishing circles around the pallet of the sick
woman.

"In the beginning, when the land was one land, when the People were one
people ..."

The words and the cadence were the same, flowing into the night, into
the cold, growing wind that had trespassed through the wall of bones to
lick the perimeters of the communal fire.

"Before Father Above made the darkness that ate the sun, before Mother
Below gave birth to the ice spirits that grew to cover the mountains,
the wanawut was born to hunt the children of First Man and First
Woman--to follow them as they followed the great herds, to feed upon the
People even as the People fed upon the meat and blood of mammoth and
caribou and bison.  For this alone was wanawut born: to teach the People
the meaning of the word fear."  He stopped and flung up his arms, and
with the arms of the beast laced to his own sleeves, it seemed as though
two pairs of hands rose in adoration of the night. "But I, Navahk, have
eaten its heart and drunk of its blood.  I, Navahk, have killed the
wanawut!  Behold ... I wear its skin and know fear of no man, of no
spirit, and so I call upon Father Above and Mother Below to witness this
dance, to hear the song of Spirit Killer, who alone is worthy to demand
that they bring forth the child of the woman known as Aliga!"  Torka sat
straight and unmoving in his black-maned, tawny outer coat of lion skin,
his face impassive, his heart pounding.  The man was a magic man.  The
man was an enchanter. The people sat spellbound around him as he danced
close to the flames, gesturing, circling, and the flames leaping high,
as though at his command.

Torka looked at the magic woman.  She sat unmoving, reserved, and calm,
her face devoid of expression, her hands folded gracefully in her lap.
His eyes moved to Karana.  He
was sitting rigidly, as though carved of stone.  Only his eyes moved,
watching, hating, resenting, seeing ugliness where others saw only
beauty.

The firelight colored Navahk red and black as he danced in the skin of
the wanawut.  A man of two dimensions ... or not a man at all?  Perhaps
something in between: half human and half animal, half beauty and half
ugliness, half light, half shadow .. .

Torka leaned forward.  The man had become the wanawut by embodying the
fears of men, of all that was wild and threatening and savage in the
world.  It was as though the wanawut itself stood before them--fanged,
powerful, the undisputed master of the night.  He danced as gracefully
as a hawk, with wings spread wide upon the wind, soaring, then plunging,
mimicking the piercing, stabbing moment of a kill.  He sang the high,
wild, wordless song of wolves and wild dogs, of stallions driving mares
before them upon the vast, open grasslands of the summer tundra.  He
raced, he reared, he vaulted.  Then he hunched into a bestial crouch,
rocked on his heels and wailed and hissed, then leaped and prowled, no
longer flesh but spirit, no longer man but beast.  He was the thing
whose skin he wore.  He was the wanawut.  He was fear.

Torka was enthralled but not beguiled as Navahk paused before him and
raised the skin-beribboned staff of office with which he had been
dancing.  It, too, was a thing out of memory, and as he had done on that
night so long ago in Supnah's camp, Navahk raised the fire-hardened
thigh bone of a camel atop which was affixed the horned, oiled skull of
an antelope.  He shook the staff viciously, and all the claws and talons
and beaks sewn onto the streaming ribbons of skin rattled and clicked.
"Does Torka not fear the wanawut now that he sees its spirit dancing
within the skin of Navahk?"  Torka did not move. The question, like the
dance and the song and the chanting, was of the past, as was his reply.
"Torka is wary of all things he does not understand."

The magic man glared at him rapaciously.  "Not wary enough."  He sighed
the words as, beneath the fanged skull of the wanawut, he smiled,
showing his white, serrated teeth as an animal does when it warns
another that it is ready to attack.  Then, suddenly, he leaped straight
into the air and turned, dancing again, chanting again, this time
without words.  The sounds he made were the wanawut's.  The hands of the
beast dangled over his own hands.  He circled the fire once, twice. On
the third time he stopped before Aliga's pallet, swooping down upon her
with arms outstretched.

She screamed.

He straightened, threw back his arms, holding up a clotted mass of
fatty, bloody tissue for all to see.

A startled gasp of incredulity rose from the mouths of everyone at the
assembly except Torka, Karana, and Sondahr.  Several little children
began to cry.  Summer Moon buried her head in Lonit's lap.

In a feigned trance, Navahk whirled and wheeled away from the staring
Aliga, arms still upright, tissue dripping blood.  "Behold the spirit of
the woman Aliga's pain!"

On her pallet Aliga wept with joy and covered her face with her hands.
"I am healed!"  she cried.  "I am well and without pain at last!  Soon
my baby will be born and--"

"No!"  Navahk screamed the word.  Again he leaped straight into the air,
twisting violently so that when he landed, he stood on both feet, poised
before a gaping, awe struck Lorak, who sat with the other equally
hang-jawed magic men.

Never had any of them seen a performance to equal the magnificent
display of sorcery that Navahk, Spirit Killer, had just completed. From
beneath the skull of the beast, his magnificent face shone with sweat.
His eyes pierced them until they were forced to turn away lest he suck
the life spirits from their bodies and draw what little power they had
into himself.

His smile broadened.  His teeth glistened.  "No baby will come forth out
of that woman .. . not as long as Torka is allowed to live in this camp
.. . not as long as the youth Karana continues to offend the spirits." A
laugh bubbled at the back of his throat.  He held it captive, then threw
back his head and howled like a beast at the gathering storm clouds.

From beyond the wall of bones, from somewhere within the nearby
grass-choked lakeshore, a terrible howl answered that of the magic man.
It was like the high shriek of a woman in pain; and yet no woman had
ever made a cry like that, for it was the cry of a beast .. . the cry of
a wanawut.

For an instant Navahk stiffened.  Torka felt Karana's hand reach to
close upon his forearm.  The youth had seen it too: The magic man was
afraid.

But only for an instant.  He immediately threw back his arms again. "Do
you hear?  The wanawut answers the call of
the man!  It is close!  It comes at my command!  It is hungry now.  It
feeds from my hand.  It will feed upon the people of this camp, one by
one, unless Torka and Karana leave this camp--alone."

"No!"  Now it was Sondahr who nearly screamed the word.  She was on her
feet, shadowing a bewildered Pomm.  "Your guile and trickery have not
fooled this woman!"

"Guile?  Trickery?"  He hurled the bloodied mass of flesh at her feet.
"Here is the substance of my claims!  Where is yours, woman?  I have
driven the pain of Aliga out of her body and into my own hands!  What
have you done for her?  What have you done for anyone in this camp
except to keep the mammoths away?  It is Sondahr who has practiced guile
and trickery, welcoming within your bed skins a youth who has been bad
luck in every camp that has been foolish enough to take him in!"

Torka rose.  The wind was cold, but somehow the night was hot.  The
light that burns behind a man's eyes when death is near was blinding
him.  He started to speak, but again, from beyond the wall of bones, the
cry of the wanawut pierced the night.  Beside him Karana was on his
feet, and from where he stood before the other magic men, Navahk turned
and malevolently pointed with his skull-topped staff.

"If the skies are to clear and the mammoths are to continue to come to
the people of the Great Gathering for future generations, Karana and
Torka must go from this camp.  If they will not go, they must be driven.
If they will not be driven, they must be killed.  The wanawut cries for
their flesh.  Across the long distances it has followed the people of
Navahk because it has known that this man would lead it to them."

Torka was shaking with suppressed rage.  His right hand flexed, longing
for a spear.  "By the forces of Creation, Navahk, I will not stand here
and listen to this!"

"No, you will not!  Het.  Mond.  Stam.  Take him!"

Torka felt shadows moving at his back and turned, eyeing the men away
with deadly intent.

"Stam is dead.  He cannot answer the summons of Navahk!"  Het's
proclamation stunned the assembly as he came forward through the shadows
where he had been skulking, parting his way through the throng, his
garments torn and bloodied as he waded through the men's side of the
circle to stand beside Navahk.  "Because of Torka and Karana, Stam's
throat has
been torn by an unprovoked attack!  The dog that usually walks at the
side of Lion Killer tore out his throat.  I, Het, could not save Stam,
but bravely did this man kill the dogs when they broke loose from their
tethers to attack me."

"Liar!"  The accusation was hurled across the night at Stam by Karana.
Torka was as stunned as the youth.  The dogs dead?  All of them?  Aar
too?  Surely it could not be!

Het glanced nervously at Navahk, was bolstered by an encouraging smile
from the magic man, then gulped audibly before saying in a voice that
sounded well rehearsed, "Has Navahk not said that it is not good for men
and beasts to walk together?  Has Navahk not said that it is not good
for Man Who Walks With Dogs and Lion Killer to share this camp? Yes!  It
was their presence here that has kept the mammoths away from this camp.
And this night Stam is dead because the spirits frown on all men who
walk within the shadow of Man Who Walks With Dogs!"

Torka's rage broke loose within him.  "I'll give you a shadow to walk
within!"  He would have gone for the man's throat, but he was suddenly
grabbed from behind by Mond and another man.

"Let him go!"  Karana leaped to his defense, only to find his own arms
pinioned behind his back.  He fought, twisting and snarling at Navahk
and glaring at Het with loathing.  "That skinny little vole could not
have killed my brothers!"

"Brothers?"  Navahk turned his question with sweet malevolence.  "You
see?  Out of the boy's own mouth he admits that he runs with dogs--with
wild beasts--and names them kindred.  How can Lorak have allowed such
men as these to take shelter among the people of this Great Gathering?
Navahk says now to Lorak that he must let beasts live with beasts, not
with men!  Send Karana and Torka from this camp!  Their presence among
us offends the spirits.  Father Above and Mother Below will not smile
upon this encampment as long as such violators of tradition are allowed
to live within it!"

Torka strained against those who held him as, at the women's side of the
circle, Lonit snapped to her feet.  Never had she looked so bold and
beautiful and recklessly defiant.  "Navahk is a liar!  It is he who
wants Torka and Karana out of this camp, not the spirits!  He has wanted
them dead before.  He--"

"Silence, woman!"  Navahk's command cut the night like a blade.

"This woman will not be silent!  This woman will--"

Her words were cut short as Oga took a step forward and slapped her so
hard that she nearly fell.  All of Oga's long but ill-contained jealousy
of Lonit flared to disfigure her face with hatred.  "No woman speaks so
to a magic man!  Many a woman in this camp will be glad to see Lonit go
with Torka and Karana!  This camp will be well rid of the People Who
Walk With Dogs!"

Torka's anger was blinding as, to no avail, he twisted violently to be
free of those who held him.  A knee drove hard into his groin as, beside
him, Karana bucked and lunged helplessly against those who bent his arms
up across his back.

"And we will be glad to be free of the fools who dwell within this
camp!"  retorted the youth.

Sondahr's voice was low with warning as she said, "Beware of what you do
in the name of the forces of Creation, Navahk.  Father Above and Mother
Below may be listening and may not approve of what you do in their
name."

Torka saw Navahk's eyes narrow as they fixed her with cold and venomous
resentment.  Then, slowly, the magic man's gaze moved from Sondahr to
Lonit and then to Torka.  His smile changed, broadened, to become
thoughtful and so full of virulent malice that Torka recoiled, somehow
knowing what his words would be.

Navahk's head swung in slow negation.  "I am Navahk, Spirit Killer.  I
walk in the skin of the wanawut, and I bring forth the living flesh of
pain from those who believe in me.  In my dream times I leave my body to
walk the wind from this world of men and into the world of spirits.
Mother Below and Father Above speak through my mouth, and so I, Navahk,
speak without fear in their name: Torka and Karana must go from the
Great Gathering.  But the woman of Torka, she is for Navahk!  Since time
beyond beginning her spirit has belonged to this man.  Torka has stolen
her from me."

Torka's anger was so great that he could not speak.  He hurled himself
at Navahk with such force that he broke the hold of those who tried to
keep him in his place.  He was across the center of the great circle,
with several men at his back, and he would have been at the magic man's
throat had they not tackled him and brought him down, flailing into the
fire.  He rolled savagely to be free of the flames and the heat,

kicking out at those who grappled with him until the butt end of a spear
found the side of his brow and the world exploded into light and pain
and he fell alone into darkness.

"Torka!"  Lonit shrieked the name of her beloved and, hefting little
Summer Moon in her arms, ran toward her man, telling lana to follow with
the baby.  Lorak had begun to beat upon his drum again, ferociously. She
looked toward the old shaman but could not see him or Sondahr or any of
the magic men.  A crowd of women had gathered around her, shouting,
punching, and shoving with unrestrained hostility as she tried to sweep
past them.  Summer Moon began to scream in terror. Confusion and rage
swarmed within Lonit as she tried to understand what she had done to
make them all so angry.  Only moments ago most would have smiled at her,
and many of them would have named her friend.

But that was before Navahk had claimed her for himself.  Navahk!  So
many of them wanted him.  Even in the hideous skin of the wanawut, he
was more handsome than she remembered, but there was no doubt in her
mind that she hated him now.  Men were chanting, making new sounds
inspired by Navahk's exhortations to drive Torka and Karana from the
encampment.  No matter what he said, she would not stay with him.  Just
let him try to stop her from going with Torka!

But many men surrounded Torka and Karana, and she could not see them.
Panic filled her.  Someone had carried Aliga off into the crowd, and she
could not see lana or Demmi when she turned back to see if they were
following.

Oga was behind her, with several others whose faces were contorted with
grim little smiles and leers of hatred.  Suddenly, accosted by a sharp,
painful push to her shoulder, she was stopped in her tracks by Naiapi.

The woman's face was engorged with jealous loathing.  "Navahk has told
me to escort you to his hut on the Hill of Dreams."

"You go!"  Lonit hissed hotly, her shoulder stinging from contact with
the heel of the woman's hand.  "You've always wanted him, even when
Supnah was alive!"

Naiapi's features tightened, and her head went up.  Then, as Oga pushed
Lonit, distracting her so that she could not duck away in time, Naiapi's
hand came out and slapped Lonit hard across the face.  "If I had my way,
there would not be enough left of you for any man to desire!"

Lonit reeled, staggered by the blow.  Her face stung and her ears rang
as several women maliciously echoed Naiapi's sentiment.  Several more
shoved her from behind.  She nearly fell.  Summer Moon was gasping and
wailing hysterically in her arms as blood spurted from her nose and ran
warmly in her mouth.

Then, to one side, the woman Wallah spoke up for her.  "Leave her alone!
Can't you see you're terrifying her child?"

Lonit would have thanked her, but Wallah was shouted down and shoved
away, with her frightened little daughter, Mahnie, holding onto her arm.

"What do we care for the child of Man Who Walks With Dogs?  No doubt
she's as unlucky as her parents.  We ought to do ourselves a favor and
smash her little head in!"  snapped Oga, grabbing for the little one,
who shrieked and wrapped her arms about Lonit's neck.

Lonit screamed in outrage as her child was ripped from her arms by Oga
and Naiapi.  She managed to land a solid kick into Oga's belly and to
rake her fingernails deeply into Naiapi's cheeks.  She knew that she
drew blood.  The woman screamed in anger, and both Naiapi and Oga
retaliated by kicking Lonit so hard across the shins that she nearly
fainted.  She did not see an enraged and protective Wallah pounce upon
Oga and wrest the little girl from her grasping arms, nor did she hear
Mahnie cry out with despair as several women backhanded Wallah out of
the way and descended upon Lonit to pummel her with blows, knock her
down, and kick her brutally.

Lonit curled into a protective tuck, wrapping her arms about her head,
wondering why Sondahr did not come to help her.  She wanted to scream
curses at those who were abusing her, but she could barely breathe. The
booted toes of one woman after another found her side and legs and arms.

"Stop!  He'll be angry if we kill her."  It was Oga's voice, pinched
with frustration.  "Don't, Naiapi.  If you ruin her face, he'll set the
forces of Creation upon us to blight us all!"

The kicking stopped.

Lonit felt herself being lifted and carried.  She heard Wallah
imperatively calling for Mahnie above the din of the encampment.

And then she felt and heard nothing.

Torka awoke in a haze, surrounded by a whirlwind of shouting, angry men
who were dragging him across the tundra, holding torches high to light
their way.

Stunned and disoriented, he did not know where he was.  Then he heard
Karana curse and, through a pounding headache, saw the youth being
driven forward, his brow bloodied, his lips drawn back, his arms bound
behind his back.

"What--?"  He paused; his mouth hurt so badly that he reached to touch
his lips, only to find that his own hands were tethered at the wrist
behind his back.  He explored his mouth with his tongue.  His lower lip
was split and swollen.  His mouth tasted of blood.

Someone pushed him forward hard.  He nearly fell, but strong hands
hefted him from behind and shoved him on.  When he hesitated, a hand
closed on his right wrist and jerked his arms up across his back, half
breaking his right arm.

He gasped and blundered on.  Although the torches lighted the way, he
could not see where they were headed; too many men crowded ahead of him
and on all sides, moving at a rapid pace.  His breath came hard from
bruised lungs.  He looked up, his vision clearing.  Above him the
torches bobbed up and down with the movements of the men.  Fashioned in
a hurry from the long leg bones of bison, they were sloppily packed wads
of oil-soaked grass and moss bound to the tips of the femurs with thong.
They stank, and their light was hot and tremulous.  Fragments of burning
grass broke off in the wind and rained cinders down upon those who
carried them and upon Torka, burning his skin where his loosened hair
did not cover his scalp and battered face.  When he shook them away,
pain broke loose behind his eyes, so intense that it nearly dropped him.

Still dazed, in confusion and pain, he felt himself supported and
pummeled and heard himself mocked as he caught a glimpse of Zinkh's face
in the fire lit crowd to his left.  The little man looked lost. Simu and
Cheanah were at Zinkh's back.  Torka looked at them imploringly for
answers, for help.  They both looked back, grim and angry--at him or at
his tormentors, he could not tell, but neither man moved to aid him.
They slowed their steps and fell back into the crowd.  In a moment Torka
could not see them anymore.  He looked back, straining to be free of
those who held him, panic and anger rising in him as he recalled the
feast fire--Navahk's dance, and his words.

The wanawut will feed upon the people of this camp unless Torka and
Karana leave--alone.  The woman of Torka, she is for Navahk!

"Lonit!"  he screamed.  The thought of her and his children with Navahk
infuriated him.  He fought madly against those who held him.  Bending,
bucking, oblivious to his pain, he used his head and shoulders to gouge
his way to freedom, ramming forward, kicking sideways at shins and
knees, which buckled under his onslaught.  He heard the startled grunts
of pain from those who stood in the way of his fury until the butt end
of a spear jabbed him so hard in the spine that he stumbled, and his
head swimming, he cried out in agony and rage as he was caught beneath
the armpits by two men who closed ranks on either side of him.

"There's no use fighting," sneered one, striking Torka across the face.
"You will pay for what your dogs have done.  The magic man was right
about you and your son.  Bringers of bad luck, that's what you are.  We
should have known it from the start!"

The man was not well-known to Torka; he could not recall his name or his
band.  Nevertheless he was one of those who had left the encampment to
hunt bison with him.  He was a man who had shared meat and danger with
him, and one whom Torka had assumed to be a friend.

Beside him Karana was also unsuccessfully twisting violently to be free
of the two who held him.  The youth was sobbing, but not with despair.
He was half choking upon his own rage.  "The dogs have done nothing but
tear out the throat of Stam.  He must have fed them poisoned meat!  I
saw
the dogs in the torchlight as they dragged us out of the encampment. All
bloated and dead.  At least one of them gutted.  And Aar, our brother,
with them!  Navahk must have--" One of the two who held him drove a fist
hard into his face.  His head went limp for a moment, then rose as he
was carried forward, his mouth swelling, his nose gushing blood.

Anger struck Torka harder than the butt of the spear had done.  He could
not help Karana.  He could not help Lonit or himself.  He felt as though
he were caught in the turbulent rapids of a river at spring flood.  Aar
dead?  It could not be.  Yet it must be, or Karana would not have said
it.  The thought of the bold, brave dog lying lifeless was numbing.  His
step lagged.  His head was pounding again mercilessly. He was certain
that he was going to be sick.

The butt of the spear found the small of his back again.

"Hurry on.  We don't want to be out of the encampment once the torches
have all been burned out!"

Again someone clouted him from behind, and for a span of time that could
have been moments or hours, he ceased to exist except in his dreams .. .
dreams of fire and pain and blood.

The dog whined softly.  The rest were still--one gutted, the others
stiffening in the twisted, unnatural positions created by terrible
paroxysms of pain.  All had been pierced at least once by a spear.

Mahnie crept from dog to dog in the freezing dark.  She touched each
animal on the side, pressing for the feeblest tremor of heartbeat. There
were none, except within the great dog Aar.

Mahnie crouched before him.  He did not look great now.  He alone among
the dogs had not been pierced.  She could find no wound except a bloody
gash below his right ear, where someone had struck what he had intended
to be a killing blow.  But the blow had struck low, hard enough to open
his flesh, but stunning instead of killing.  The dog looked dazed,
vulnerable, confused, and in pain ... as Karana and Torka had looked
after they had been beaten and carried from the encampment and into the
night.

Her heart was pounding.  She felt weak with fear for them and yet very
angry--angry enough to have defied Wallah by refusing to help the other
women carry Lonit to Navahk's hut or to go with her mother when Pomm had
called several
women to Sondahr's shelter upon the Hill of Dreams when the magic woman
had suddenly taken ill.  Instead Mahnie had followed Grek and the other
men and youths.  Hiding within the shadows, she had watched them sweep
Torka and Karana along with them in a great avalanche of shouting and
cursing and--yes, laughter!  Some of them had actually laughed! Only
hours ago they had numbered themselves among the friends of Torka and
Karana.  Now they were like wolves and wild dogs, turning on those among
them who were chosen by the master of the pack to be expelled. She was
heartsick as she recalled how the men had turned on Torka and Karana
when Navahk had declared what their fate must be.

As they had channeled through the wall of bones, Grek had seen her and
warned her back.  She had no choice but to obey as, sobbing over
Karana's fate--a fate that forever ended her dream of someday being his
woman--she had hurried back to the dogs, hoping against hope that some
might still be alive.  They were Karana's brothers, these dogs!
Especially the big animal with the black fur around its pale blue eyes,
making it seem as though he were wearing a mask.  How she had loved
watching Karana and Torka hunt with their dogs in the days when they had
traveled with her band.  The animals came at their command and worked
with them to drive the game as though they did indeed possess the
spirits of men instead of beasts.

Kneeling beside the prone, erratically breathing form of Aar, Mahnie
sighed restlessly, then rose to examine the tethers.  All had been cut.
Sister Dog had dragged herself to die by her mate.  A question formed;
she pursued it.  Bending over the dog that had been gutted, she found
the answer and caught her breath.  The heart was missing!  Might a heart
not have been the bloody mass of tissue that Navahk had thrown at
Sondahr's feet, declaring that it was the flesh of the pain he had drawn
from the woman Aliga?  And years ago, when Navahk had drawn the pain
from the poor old woman Hetchem, was a pup of the great dog and its mate
not missing soon after?  Mahnie blanched, realizing that all the times
in the intervening years when Navahk had drawn the visible substance of
pain from those who were ill, it was always after a hunt, when there was
fresh gut and blood meat at hand.  Yes/ And so it was tonight!  A trick,
not magic!  A trick worked at Navahk's command by Stam and Met at the
expense of Karana's dogs!  Kill the dogs by poison. Gut one.

Take the heart to Navahk.  Spear the rest and claim that they attacked
viciously and without provocation.  Then lay the blame on Torka to
affirm Navahk's claims against him.  But the dogs had turned, Stam was
killed, and in the end Navahk's lies against Torka and Karana were
better served by Stam's death than by his life!

She felt sick.  Who would believe her?

Sondahr.  Yes.  The magic woman might listen.  She had accused Navahk of
practicing guile and deception.  But she had taken ill so suddenly, and
Naiapi was among the women who were with her on the Hill of Dreams.
Mahnie had seen Naiapi's treatment of Lonit and the way she looked at
Navahk with longing.  Mahnie would not ask Sondahr questions about Stam
and Het before Naiapi, lest she use them against her with Navahk.

The dog stirred beneath her hand, whined softly, and lifted his head to
lick her fingers as though in gratitude for her solicitude.  "Stam
should not have come hunting you, Brother Dog.  Karana said that you
were not like other animals.  Stam should have listened.  He has killed
your band, but he has not killed you.  Now he is dead.  Tomorrow his
body will be put out to look upon the sky forever, and Mahnie is glad."

Within the hut of Sondahr, Wallah crumbled dried willow leaves between
her palms.  She let them sift through her fingers into the waiting cup
that she held steady between her knees.  The cup belonged to the magic
woman and was made of the hollowed tip of a mammoth tusk.  The little
fragments of faded leaves filtered down through a steaming brew of
watered mammoth blood: blood for the giving of strength, willow for the
killing of pain.

But this would be the second cup, and Sondahr was not stronger.  If
anything the crippling pain that had come upon her so suddenly at the
climax to the events at the fire feast seemed to be growing worse.

Wallah was sorry that she had been drawn by Pomm's command onto the Hill
of Dreams with the other women, and sorrier still that Sondahr had
selected her.  She did not want to be here.  She knew the basic way to
alleviate minor pain, to stitch wounds, to salve burns, and to lessen
fever; any woman worth a man's keeping knew them.  But she was no
healer, not in the true sense of the word.  There was no magic in her
skills.

The confines of the overcrowded room were stiff ling  Wallah felt
trapped, even though she sat apart from the other women, listening to
their singing and spirit calling as her carefully heated brew cooled in
its ivory serving cup.  She thought about her daughter and wished that
she had immediately gone after Mahnie when the impetuous girl had run
off, deliberately ignoring Pomm's command to stay.  Where was the child
now?  Her limbs twitched to be up and after her.  She would be in
serious trouble if, as Wallah feared, she had dared to follow the men
out of the encampment.

But when Sondahr had put the cup into her hands and had specifically
requested that she prepare the brew of healing while Pomm led the other
women in the traditional chants designed to drive away pain, how could
Wallah refuse?  She had told the magic woman that she was no healer, but
Sondahr would have no other, even when Naiapi offered to ready the cup
instead.

"Have you not done enough already for Sondahr, Naiapi, woman of Grek?"

Although the crowded interior was lighted by only a single oil lamp,
Wallah had seen Naiapi flush, and as she had stammered that she did not
know what Sondahr meant, her handsome features had twisted with an
expression that had filled Wallah with suspicion.

As the last of the brittle willow leaf fragments settled into the
cooling brew within the cup, the eyes of Wallah, first woman of Grek,
found Naiapi in the gloom.  She was sitting with the others now, in a
circle around the raised sleeping platform where Sondahr lay thrashing.
Wallah frowned.  Naiapi was smiling a tight, smug little expression of
contentment inspired by Sondahr's ever-increasing pain.

The first woman of Grek rose, suddenly sick and wary and uncomprehending
of the befuddling and savage events of this night.  She wished the sun
would rise so she could look out upon a new day that mocked all that had
transpired!  Mahnie would be back where she belonged; Sondahr would be
well; Torka and Karana would be asleep with their women and children
within their pit hut.  And Navahk would have vanished into yesterday,
along with the smokes of last night's feast fire--and Grek would be
headman in his place!

She sighed.  Such things could not be.  Life moved forward, never back.
And the cup was growing much too cool within
her palms.  Sondahr had need of more of the strengthening, painkilling
brew of blood and willow.  Now.

The magic woman cried out against her pain.

"Drink this," soothed Wallah.  "It will ease your pain.

The magic woman sat up, eagerly grasping Wallah's hands, drawing them
close as she drank greedily from the cup.  Wallah tipped it, assisting
her, heartsick as she saw the agony in the woman's eyes and felt the
clammy texture of her fevered skin.

Sondahr shuddered, and although the cup was drained, she continued to
hold Wallah's hands.  "This pain will not end until my life has ended
with it, for I have eaten death.  Is it not so, Naiapi?"

Wallah saw the smile slip from Naiapi's mouth.

"You should not have challenged Navahk, Sondahr," Naiapi replied with a
scowl of vindictive wrath.  "If death eats at your gut, it is your own
doing.  You have invited the punishment of one whose magic is much
greater than your own.  You were once his teacher, his lover.  But
Navahk loves Naiapi now.  He cares not for Sondahr.  Before the sun
rises, Navahk will teach you that no one has power over him--not you,
not Lorak, and certainly not Torka or Karana, for Navahk is more than a
man.  His will shall triumph, and your spirit will walk the wind
forever, along with the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs!"

Wallah was so stunned by the wide-eyed, slavering madness that distorted
Naiapi's face that she did not hear Pomm's sigh of distress.

But there was no missing Pomm's hissing admonition to Sondahr: "What has
happened to Karana is the fault of Sondahr--all of it!  He wanted you
instead of Pomm because of your black powers of enchantment.  If he and
his people have fallen out of favor in this camp, if they have become
bringers of bad luck, if Karana dies instead of lives to pleasure this
woman, it is the fault of Sondahr ... all of it, the fault of Sondahr!"

The room was hot from the combined body heat of the crowded women, but
Wallah went cold as the smile that had vanished from Naiapi's mouth now
reappeared upon Sondahr's lips.  The magic woman's eyes moved to Pomm.
"Woman Who Knows Everything .. . when Sondahr is no more, when you dwell
as a woman alone upon the Hill of Dreams, upon whom shall you heap your
blame and excuses for failure when
all of the bands of the Great Gathering see what you can and cannot do?"
A wave of pain stopped her words.  She went rigid, and her hands closed
so tightly about Wallah's that Wallah winced and gasped in pain.

"Go!"  Sondahr issued the command through clenched teeth.  "Go, all of
you, and leave me with this woman Pomm, who brags before all that she
can fill the space of my shadow!  Go!"

Still holding the cup, Wallah got to her feet and, with the others,
backed out of the hut in silence.  She was the last to leave.  As she
bent and stepped backward through the entryway, she put the cup down
upon the floor skin of mammoth hide just as a thoroughly flustered Pomm
rose to stand angrily before Sondahr.

"I am Pomm!  I am magic woman!  My powers are great!  But woman am I,
and before the powers of Navahk, not even Mother Below could--"

"You are where you have chosen to be.  You have dared to boast before
all that your powers are greater than the powers of Sondahr, so offer no
more excuses to me, fat woman!  Cast off your feathers and heal me--if
you can!"

Torka stared up through thinning, pain-filled shadows.  A wall of
hostile faces glared down at him, the features red and black in the
torchlight.  He saw Grek, grim, scowling, his thoughts impossible to
read.  When their eyes met, the older hunter exhaled through his teeth
and turned away, to be absorbed by the darkness of the heavily clouded
night.  Dimly-from somewhere beyond the edge of the world, it
seemed-Torka heard the lapping of water and the hiss of the wind.  The
wind was cold, well below freezing, but Torka was in so much pain that
his shivering brought flames of heat rippling through him.

Lorak stood over him imperiously.  The slag heap of his time-ruined,
raptorial face twisted with pleasure as he poked Torka with his
feathered staff and watched the younger man flinch from pain.  "Now does
Lorak speak these words to Torka!"  He shouted so that all of those who
stood behind him might hear and be impressed.  "Lorak says, go from this
land--you and Karana-and return to the far and forbidden land out of
which you have come.  Look no more to the country of the mammoth
hunters, for if you return to this land or to the encampment of the
Great Gathering, you will die as your dogs have

died--but not before you see the deaths of your women and children."

From deep within some inner well of reserve, Torka glowered
contemptuously up at the old man.  "Lorak does not speak .. . Torka
hears his voice, but it is only a puny echo of Navahk's voice.  Where is
Spirit Killer?  Has he decided to step aside for a little while in order
to allow Lorak a continuing delusion of authority?"

"Navahk is with Torka's woman."  Lorak's reply was sinuous with hatred,
a sharpened awl probing for pain he knew must come.  "But she is
Navahk's woman now, isn't she?  And she must be mated with him by now.
In the light of Navahk's fire she will forget that she ever had another
man."

"She will remember.  And Torka will come back for his Lonit ... for all
his women and his children, and when he does, Navahk had best look to
his throat.  For like Aar, who has ripped the throat of Stam, Torka will
rip the throat of Navahk wide, and when he is done and Navahk's spirit
has bled out of his body, Lorak had best look to his own neck, because
as long as Torka lives, you will not be safe in your bed skins, old
man!"

The old man's booted foot swung out fast and hard, striking Torka in the
belly.  The second kick cracked two ribs.  "Then this 'old man' will see
to it that Torka will not live long enough to carry out his threat!" His
promise was a curse.  "Let the mammoth hunters see what Man Who Walks
With Dogs can do without his dogs, without his spears, without his
flying sticks.  He and his son are alone upon the tundra, alone in the
night and the coming storm, alone with the wanawut-with their hands tied
behind their backs!"

The vibrations of Aar's low growling awoke Mahnie.  Startled, she opened
her eyes to find herself slumped against Aar, her arms embracing him.
His fur was soft and silken against her face.  His body was warm against
her own.

With a start she looked up, surprised that she had been asleep.  It was
snowing hard now, and the wind was whistling.  A good distance away men
and youths were filing back into the encampment.  Led by Lorak, they
walked as though in need of rest and broke ranks the moment they came
through the wall of bones, scattering to their individual campsites. She
watched them, stroking the dog, whispering into his fur to shush him
until all the men and youths had gone and she
was alone in the snowy dark with the dog.  Suddenly Grek was standing
close, hesitant to come too close to the animal.

"Come away, girl," he whispered imperatively.  "Only the forces of
Creation know how the others passed by without seeing you!  Come
quickly, before the bad luck of Man Who Walks With Dogs contaminates you
too!"

"Are he and Karana--" She dared not complete the question lest speaking
of their deaths make them a reality.

"No.  And they may yet survive.  I fell behind the others coming back in
the dark, slipped back to cut the thongs that bound Torka and Karana,
and left them with a spear and dagger and my wind coat and surplice."

Her eyes widened.  Could he have done such a wonderful thing?  Her
ever-cautious father?  Yes!  It must be so!  He was without those warm
layers of clothing!

"Hurry now before someone guesses what I've been up to!"

She jumped up, ran to him, and would have thrown her arms around his
neck to kiss him, but he waved her display of affection away just as
frantic Wallah appeared out of the dark to cry out with relief at the
sight of her daughter.

"I have been searching for you everywhere!"  She was so distraught, she
did not notice the absence of her man's outer clothes.  "I should have
known!"  "No time for that now!"  Grek silenced her as he took Mahnie
firmly by the hand and began to pull her in the direction of their own
fire circle.

She balked.  For the first time Mahnie felt how cold the wind had grown.
Snow stung against her cheeks and caused her eyes to tear as she looked
up at her father.  "But Karana's brother Aar lives.  They'll kill him if
they find him and--"

"He is but a dog, girl!  Forget him!"  Grek jerked her onward angrily.
Wallah walked beside her, bending close.  "Bad spirits walk this night
for all of us, Daughter!  The wanawut has been heard close by, much too
close to this encampment!  And Sondahr lies in terrible pain.  The woman
Pomm, who calls herself a healer, is unable to help her, nor have any of
the magic men been able to drive her pain away.  Some say that it looks
as though she will be dead by dawn..  .. Naiapi says that it is Navahk's
magic--punishment for Sondahr's daring to challenge his powers.  And
Navahk, he has gone to his hut to take Torka's woman while her little
daughters weep and cannot be consoled!"

Through a veil of formless dreams and shadows, Lonit slowly became aware
of pain and darkness, and of sweet, liquid fire burning at the back of
her throat.  She swallowed.  The fire entered her, expanding deliciously
within her body, warming and soothing her pain.  She sighed and drifted
in darkness, unable or unwilling to rise through it.

Someone was holding her, soothing her with gentle strokings .  someone
.. .

Torka!  Her lids flickered.  Shadows seeped into her eyes.  Black on
deeper black.  An arching vault of night curved above her, defining the
confines of a space without moons or stars .. . the interior of a pit
hut.  There was danger here.  But unable to understand what its nature
was, she closed her eyes and lay motionless and hurting upon soft,
enveloping furs that covered her, warmed her, allowed her to drift in
and out of unconsciousness, mixing with the warmth of the intoxication
that had entered through her lips.

She could hear the wind now, long and strong.  It was hissing beyond the
pit hut, prowling in the darkness-dangerous, fanged, a watching, waiting
wind with the cold compassionlessness of a beast.  The danger lay there,
in the eyes of the beast.  She shivered.  Even that slight movement
roused pain, and she moaned softly.  Someone whispered her name, and his
voice was the voice of the wind.

"Drink now again.  This will take away your pain," the wind urged.

A flask was pressed gently to her lips.  She drank greedily of the
sweet, painkilling fire that lay within.  It was good, so good.  Her
eyelids flickered.  In the darkness a shadow sat beside her, bent over
her, stroking her, soothing her with low, sinuous exhalations of her
name.  The shadow of a man.  A man who was not Torka.

"Navahk?"  Panic and recollection exploded within her with white-hot
intensity, sending her mind swimming back down through darkness, away
from a stark reality that she could not bear to face.  Not yet.  No. Not
yet.

She willed herself into oblivion, away from her pain.  She swam downward
through the core of herself, deeper and deeper, through layers of her
life.  But pain was there also--in childhood days and nights of
brutalization at the hands of her father and his women, in a girlhood of
hopelessness and endless abuse, until at last, within the darkness, she
walked
alone across a storm-driven world with Umak and Torka, in the wake of a
killer mammoth that had made her Only Woman In The World.  She raced
across the broad, golden river of grass, hunting at Torka's side,
laughing and loving and living with him and their children within the
Valley of Songs, boldly lying naked with him beneath the benevolent eye
of the watching sun and the towering blue shadows of the Mountains That
Walk.

Lonit sighed, content within the caul of her dreams.  Within her body
the world was blue, expanding, as soft and warm as the sweet summer
skies of the forbidden country.  An equally warm, soft wind was blowing
moistly against her face, downward over her throat and breasts and
belly, licking tentatively between her bruised and slightly parted
thighs.  Again she sighed, relaxing in the arms of her man, opening
herself to the trespass of the sweet and gentle wind that, as though by
magic, transposed pain to pleasure.  It entered her, probed languorously
until her loins caught fire, then withdrew as the hands of Torka began
to salve her body with some sort of balm that was fire and ice against
her skin.  As he followed the course of the wind, she trembled and
reached to draw the heat of his naked body closer to hers.

"Torka ..."  She whispered his name with longing, and as she flung her
arms about his neck and arched to accept him, his entry startled her
from her dreams.  He stabbed deep, deliberately rousing pain.

Stunned, she opened her eyes.  She felt hot and disoriented, as she had
felt after drinking too much of Pomm's mind-numbing berry brew.  Her
mind was a blank, which was slowly filling with confusion.  Her arms and
back and limbs ached from the beating, and even in the darkly shadowed
interior of the pit hut, with dreams and reality still half fused, she
knew that the man who was joined to her, poised over her, and balanced
upon his splayed hands was not Torka.

"Forget him."  Navahk's voice was that of the slow, warm wind that moved
upon and within her body.  "Do not speak his name in longing when you
lie with me.  I have wanted you, Lonit, across great distances, across
the long seasons, and there have not been many women whom Navahk has
desired.  But Lonit has been one of them.  Beautiful Lonit, move now for
Navahk, as I have dreamed of you moving beneath me.

He gave her no chance to reply.  He bent his head and kissed her slowly.
He probed hungrily with his tongue.

The kiss put the fire into her loins again, but she was free of her
dreams now.  She bit him fiercely.

He knelt back and pulled out of her, backhanding his mouth, observing
his blood and smiling as though he enjoyed the pain.

"This woman is Torka's always and forever!"  She spat the words at him.

His smile lengthened across his face.  Even in the dark she could see
his teeth, small and white and serrated, like the teeth of a hunting
animal.  "We will see," he intoned, and bent to her breasts.

She tried to twist away from him, but a bare, hard knee rammed between
her closing thighs, forcefully holding them open as his hands clasped
her wrists and held her fast to the bed furs as he slowly suckled her
breasts, drawing throbbing fire upward from her loins.  She sobbed,
enraged by her own body's betrayal.  His tongue was tracing a line of
moist fire downward from her breasts, across her belly, to become a
probe as it entered her.  She gasped, desperately wanting to flail free
of him, yet he was a magic man.  He had broken her will to resist him.
She yielded, opened herself to him as he moved to mount her,
penetrating, deep, moving with slow, controlled, and rhythmic thrusts.
She heard him exhale through his teeth with excitement and triumph as he
felt the change in her.

She hated him--but no more than she wanted him now.

Until, from beyond the little pit hut and the darkness that encapsulated
it, the cry of Sondahr rent the night.  It was a high, wild cry, like
that of an animal at the moment of its death, and as it faded, it formed
into words that struck Lonit to the heart.

"Woman of Torka ... re ... them .. . her me...."

Lonit went cold.

Navahk stiffened.  He raised his head, listening, waiting.  His face
contorted with hatred, and when the cry did not sound again, he sighed
with infinite satisfaction and pleasure.  "Sondahr is dead."

"No," she said coldly to Navahk.  "Sondahr is not dead.  Her spirit will
live within this woman forever."

"That will not be long if you do not dance for me."

"I will not dance for you."

"You will, or I shall find my pleasure in your death, and your children
will die as surely as Torka."

"I am his woman, always and forever.  When he dies, my spirit will die
with him.  And you will kill my children whether I dance for you or
not--I see it in your eyes, as I have seen through your 'magic' into
your spirit, Navahk.  You are ugly and twisted and more repulsive to me
than the skin of the wanawut in whose skin you dance.

Her words enraged him.  He forced entry, brutally, jamming himself deep,
watching her, waiting for her to cry out in pain or fear.  She did
neither.  She lay passively beneath him, daring to look directly into
his eyes as he moved on her--not as a man but an animal, riding her as a
stallion rides a mare, gripping, pumping in hard thrusts.  But unlike
the wild, savage stallions of the open steppes, his release did not come
quickly.  He worked at her hard, deliberately hurting her, purposely
prolonging what he knew she loathed him for, and all the while she
smiled her contempt at him, until, at the moment of climax, she laughed,
ruining his release.  He roared with anger and struck her so hard across
the face that he rendered her unconscious.

And still he rode her, a limp and useless doll, but it was no good for
him.  His power over her lay in her fear of him, and Lonit did not fear
him anymore.

Unless .. .

He smiled again.  With Torka gone, her children were alone with a mute
woman and a dying one.  He rose and reached for his clothes.  He would
make Lonit fear him yet!

Grek lay close to Wallah, shivering himself warm, bundling together with
his woman as the two of them drifted into troubled sleep.  Mahnie
watched them from her own sleeping skins, adoring them both, so proud of
Grek that tears of love welled beneath her lids when she thought of
leaving him.

But she must leave.  Her time of blood was at hand.  There was no use
denying it; she had seen the signs.  Her eyes scanned the shadows, moved
to the closed door skin, half expecting Naiapi to come in from the
rising storm.  Where was she?  Not that the girl cared; she was glad
Naiapi was not in the hut.  What Mahnie intended needed privacy and
secrecy, even from Grek and Wallah and especially from Naiapi.

In stealth, moving as silently as a night creature that fears itself
watched by predators, she moved from her own bed

skins to rummage through Wallah's personal supplies of soft, absorbent
hare skins.  Her mother had prepared extras, anticipating the day when
Mahnie would need them.  She kept them in a special sack made from the
skin of a female mountain sheep.  Now the girl took half of them and,
scooting back to her sleeping place, donned one where need demanded and
placed the others on her top bed fur.

Kneeling back on her heels, she peered through the darkness at the
closed door skin.  It was moving in and out, straining the thong ties
that held it in place.  For a moment she feared that Naiapi was about to
come barging in, but it was only the rising wind pressing against the
hide flap.  Mahnie breathed a sigh of relief.  Naiapi was not coming.
Wherever she was, she would probably not return until well after dawn.
By then Mahnie would be gone.

Hurrying now but working in absolute silence, she began to assemble her
belongings: sewing supplies, her all-important awl, her bone needles in
their carrying cylinder made of the hollow shaft of a feather, a new
roll of freshly prepared sinew, her knife and scrapers and pounders
and--still biting her lip-Wallah's bow drill, and most of her emergency
supplies of moss wicks and dried grass for kindling.  She would need
these things more than her mother would.  Wallah would have time to
gather more grass and make new wicks, as well as a new bow drill; Mahnie
would not.  She would have two broken, beaten men to care for, and with
a storm coming on, fire would mean the difference between life and
death--fire and warm clothes.

Grek had left his surplice and wind coat of opaque, meticulously
stitched and oiled antelope intestines with the injured men, but Karana
and Torka would need warmer clothes than that, and winter boots if the
weather turned cold.  From the howl of the wind outside the pit hut, it
sounded as though the weather was already turning.  If they were as
badly beaten as Grek said, they would not be able to hunt.  If they
could not hunt, they would have to rely upon her to provide meat.  Her
skills and gender would bring only small animals to their fire; and from
small animals there would not be enough hides out of which to make
decent clothes.  Again she bit her lip, momentarily paralyzed with
indecision.  If Karana and Torka were to live--and they must live if she
were to have any chance of survival--then the time for indecisiveness
was over.  She moved quickly and quietly, and in a moment Grek's new
winter boots, as well as his old ones, were on her bed fur and she was
rationalizing her theft to herself.  If Wallah could make new wicks and
a new bow drill, she could make new boots.

Mahnie nodded.  Yes.  It must be so.

She took food now from the shadowed niche where Wallah kept her cooking
supplies and extra stores: dried meat, wedges of fat, and a few cakes of
berry mash and tubers.  Not much, but enough to last through the storm
until she could brain a few ptarmigan with well-placed stones or could
catch a few fish.  Fish!  She had almost forgotten her lures and hooks
and nets.  She had spent hours tying those nets, knotting every sinew
filament.

She reached under her bed skins where they lay stretched flat and pulled
them out .. . along with her little doll.

Memories flashed, and tears welled.  The time that Wallah had spent
making dolls for her and the other little girls of the band!  Hours and
hours of cutting and sewing and piecing.  Dolls for Ketti, dolls for
Pet!

Oh, Pet.  How this girl misses you!  Oh, Wallah, you will never know how
sorry this girl is to leave her mother!

With yet another sigh, she took the doll and the net and placed them
onto the bed fur along with her assembled things.  Hastily and with deft
hands, she rolled her bed furs into a carrying pack, then took up her
winter coat from where it lay next to her sleeping place, put it on,
checked to make certain that her gloves were still folded within the
storm flap, jammed her feet into her winter boots, picked up her pack,
and slipped out, letting in as little cold air as possible.

Snow continued to fall.  Although the encampment was hushed with sleep
and whiteness, there was an underlying tension about the place.  She
sensed that many would be plagued by troubled dreams this night.  Her
eyes strayed toward the Hill of Dreams.  It was shrouded in clouds of
wind-driven snow.  A figure emerged from one of the huts.

Her belly tightened.

"Navahk ..."  She whispered his name as an invocation.  Keep him there.
Away from me.  She thought of Lonit, Torka's woman, and she wondered if
she was still alive.  She wondered if Torka and Karana would be willing
to turn their backs upon her and her children.  It did not matter.  If
they were still alive, she would walk with them, regardless of what they
decided to do.  She picked up her pack frame of caribou
antler from where it rested with those of Grek, Wallah, and Naiapi
against the leeward wall of the hut.  She slung it on, hefted her pack,
secured it, and hurried on, surprised that the weight of the pack was
much less than she had imagined.

Her step was light, as quick as a vole darting across open land where
owls and hawks were known to fly.  She took the shortest route to the
opening in the wall of bones, then paused.  The snowfall was so heavy.
The wind was so strong.  She knew she must hurry.  Yet she turned back,
sought out the place where the dogs lay dead, white now, their fur thick
with snow.  By morning they would be buried, frozen stiff-even the great
dog Aar.  She went to him, bent, and brushed the snow away with her
palm, pressing lightly, surprised to feel the animal's heart beating
strongly.  The dog raised its head, weakly licked her bare hand, and
whimpered softly.

Carefully, still a little afraid of him, she nudged him gently, hoping
that he would rise and follow her.  He seemed to understand what she was
trying to do, but try as he might, he could not do more than lift his
head.

But though Mahnie was small and burdened with a pack frame, she knew she
could not abandon the dog.  She stole a sledge, used to haul meat, from
where it leaned against Torka's pit hut, and hefted the dog onto it.
"Come, Brother Dog," she said, dragging the wounded animal out of the
encampment and into the snow-driven night.  "This girl goes to Karana,
and he would not want me to leave you behind."

"Navahk ..."

He stopped and turned, annoyed to have been called from his purpose.
Naiapi stood behind him in the wind-whipped snow.  Her voice had struck
him with an imperative ring.  He waited as she walked to him from the
crest of the Hill of Dreams.  She strode proudly, wrapped against the
weather in a heavy shawl of mammoth hair.  It was deep red and shaggy
beneath a quickly thickening coat of snow that would soon make its color
and texture invisible.  "I come from the house of the magic woman
Sondahr.  She is dead."

His brows met over the bridge of his nose.  "Sondahr does not concern me
now," he said, making no attempt to conceal his irritation.  He would
have continued on his way down from the hill to the fire circle of
Torka's family, but her hand shot out and grasped his wrist.

"Navahk did not come to tend Sondahr when he heard her screams."

He jerked his arm free.  "No."  "It was not wise of her to challenge
you."

There was an odd, anxious tone to her voice that set him on edge.  "Get
out of my way, Naiapi."

"Lorak is very angry.  He curses your name.  But do not be concerned. I
will kill him, as I have killed Sondahr.  For you.  To make her pay. No
one may insult Navahk and not suffer Naiapi's are."

He froze, startled.  "You .. . killed Sondahr?"

"With this!"  she boasted, holding out her palm so that he might see the
tiny skewers of bone that had been soaked in water until they were
pliable, then bent into tight circles and allowed to dry.  "I put them
in her meat, just so, so they would not take long to open, like this."
Her hand closed into a fist, then opened sharply.  "Her belly was
pierced in many places.  Her pain was great.  She asked to die.  Pomm is
magic woman in this camp now, at Sondahr's request.  And also at
Sondahr's request, it was Pomm who took her life, quickly, as though she
could not wait to do it, with a blade carved of mammoth tusk provided by
Sondahr herself.  But it is Naiapi who killed her, in the way my father
taught me long ago to kill wolves and leaping cats so that their skins
may be taken whole and without blemish.  The woman of Torka would not do
this for you.  She could not please you as Naiapi would if--"

He heard the longing in her voice.  "She pleases me," he interrupted
coldly, and smiled when he saw the misery in her eyes.  "And soon she
will please me more."

lana sat in Torka's pit hut with Summer Moon in her arms.  The baby,
Demmi, suckled fretfully at her breast.  It had taken her hours to quiet
Summer Moon, and even then lana had been unable to lull her to sleep
until she had allowed the child to hold Lonit's bola.  lana's own
thoughts had been so troubled that she had lain awake, her mind
drifting, as it so often did, through broken fragments of the past,
lingering over memories of her murdered husband and children,
remembering all the gentleness and kindness that she had found in
Torka's camp.

The happenings at the feast fire had so shocked and appalled her, she
had willed herself not to see them, not to
acknowledge them as reality.  Torka and Karana had not been beaten and
driven from the camp.  No.  They were only hunting and would come back
soon, as would Lonit.  They would come back and, if the day were warm
and the wind strong enough to keep the blackflies from settling, she
would take the children out into the sun, and together with Torka,
Lonit, and Karana, she would bathe with them in the sweet waters of the
warm springs and Who was the man standing in the entrance to the pit
hut?  He had drawn the door skin aside as though it were his right to do
so.  Snow and wind blew in as he stood in the opening.  She could see
the light of dawn behind him.  It was snowing outside.  Where was the
sun?  The wind was very strong, but even if it were not, blackflies
would not be pests in the snow, and the springs were warm, so warm.. ..

Confused, she closed her eyes.  Behind her Aliga stirred upon her own
pallet and moaned softly as she readjusted her weight beneath her
sleeping furs.

"I have come for one of the children, woman.  Which one you yield is up
to you," informed the intruder.

lana did not like the sound of his voice.  It purred deep at the back of
his throat, like a lion threatening.  She drew the children closer. She
remembered him now.  She feared him now.

He was advancing toward her, smiling, showing sharp white, pointed
teeth.  What did he want with her children?  lana looked into his eyes
and knew the answer.

She sat up, pulling Summer Moon up with her, drawing the bed skins
around them both.  The child made soft noises in her sleep.  And
suddenly, for the first time in many years, lana's thoughts focused with
exquisite and brutal clarity.  She knew exactly where she was and what
had happened to set her alone in the pit hut with Aliga and the
children.  The man who was coming toward her had ordered the banishment
of Torka and Karana, and what must surely be their deaths.  He had taken
Lonit to be his woman, but not before he had allowed the other women to
abuse her and had caused the children to scream.

Her arms tightened protectively around Summer Moon and Demmi.  She would
not allow him to make her babies scream again.  He would have to kill
her first.  But if she died, she would never see the little ones again,
unless he killed them, too, and their tiny spirits followed her to walk
the wind forever.

"No!"  her statement was emphatic.  It had been so long since she had
spoken except to croon or whisper soft words and baby stories to the
children, that her voice sounded as though it had come from the throat
of a stranger.  And in a way it had, for the sad, dull, vacant look was
gone from lana's eyes.

"You will not hurt my children .. . not as long as I live," she warned
him.

"Then you will not live long, Madwoman," he promised.

Shame filled her.  Is this what he thought of her--what they all must
think of her--that she was mad?  Mindless?  Is this what she had been
all of these long years--useless except as a dull-eyed caretaker for
another woman's babies, and in the end not even good for that because
when danger threatened, she retreated into herself, aware of nothing but
her desperate need to avoid confrontation with the realities of her
life?

In the darkness Navahk failed to see the change in her.  He dared to
come closer, snarling at her, wanting her to see the intent in his eyes
to maim or murder the children, taking pleasure in her fear.

But she was not afraid.  She moved so quickly that he had only a second
to react as she leaned back and with a grace, power, and dexterity that
she had forgotten she possessed, gripped the braided leather thong in
her right hand.  As she had seen Lonit do a thousand times, she gathered
the ends of the four long, shell-weighted thongs in the other, stressed
the cords taut, then swung them high.  She whirled the bola until the
thongs sang and whirred, and the shells flew round and round as she
released them in a deadly, spiraling arc.

Navahk jumped to evade the weapon but not fast enough.  He went down
flat on his face, unconscious before he could utter a cry, with one
shell embedded in his eye, the thongs of the bola looped about his neck,
his right eardrum bleeding.

Grek awoke to the sound of wind and the sting of snow hitting the
exterior walls of his pit hut.  He could not hear anyone stirring within
the encampment.  He sensed the rising dawn but lay still for a moment,
knowing that people would be staying within their shelters today,
sleeping off the results of the previous night's drink and talking low
about the happenings at the feast fire.  The memories disturbed him. Not
even the good feeling of Wallah lying warm against him could soften his
misgivings.

Carefully, not wishing to disturb his woman, he rose and reached for his
winter boots.  They were gone--both pair.  Startled, he squinted into
the shadows, noted that Naiapi was not there, and knew that Mahnie was
gone before he saw that her bed furs were missing.  He cursed quietly;
he knew where the girl had gone--and with his winter clothes!

Wallah stirred.  "What is it?"  He told her.

She looked around, her mind groping against panic.  "Naiapi did not come
home last night.  Many of the women spent the night with Sondahr,
chanting with Pomm to strengthen her healing powers.  Even some of the
girls were invited to go.  Mahnie must have followed Naiapi onto the
Hill of Dreams after we were asleep.  You know how curious and willful
the girl is, and--"

"You know better than that.  Mahnie wouldn't follow Naiapi anywhere.
She's gone off after Karana.  Name me Fool for telling the child where
the others had left him!  But why would she take such a risk, and in
weather like this?  I know she's moon-eyed for the youth, but he's so
much older and has never said more than 'go away' to the child in all
the years of my remembering!"

Wallah was sick with apprehension.  She noticed her misarranged
belongings.  Insight struck her deeply as she saw the opened flap of the
sheepskin sack in which she kept the supplies of skins that every woman
kept for her bleeding times.  She folded her sleeping furs aside and
went to check the sack.  It was as she expected.  "She is no longer a
child."

He growled, understanding and yet not understanding at all.  "Only a
child would do such a foolish thing in this weather!"

Wallah looked at him.  "This is a bad camp."

Grek nodded a silent assent as he pulled on his summer boots and both
his lightweight summer tunics, grumbling with annoyance because Mahnie
had taken his favorite winter coat as well.

He had just stepped from his pit hut when he saw Lonit stumbling down
from the Hill of Dreams.  He could barely discern her form.  The wind
was blowing hard, driving snow in thick, oblique sheets of white.  If it
snowed any harder, he would be unable to find the lake, much less follow
his daughter.  Her tracks must have been buried long before now.  He
turned, took up two of his spears, and would have jogged on toward the
break in the wall of bones and out across the stormy tundra in pursuit
of his child had Lonit not staggered and fallen.

As she got to her feet, the heavy drape of dark fur in which she had
been wrapped against the cold fell away.  She seemed not to notice as,
with her black hair whipping in the wind, she staggered on, naked,
hurrying toward her pit hut, an unlighted torch held as a weapon in her
hand, her steps betraying her pain and the urgency of her errand.  Grek
squinted in amazement.

He was no magic man, but he knew that something was wrong.  Why was
Navahk not pursuing the naked woman?  And why was she carrying the torch
as though she intended to kill somebody with it?  Grek was a big man,
and his stride was long if not graceful.  Instinct set him to the chase,
but although Lonit was running stiff with cold, half stumbling toward
her destination, she was nearly to her pit hut before he caught up with
her.

"Woman of Torka, what--"

She wheeled, straining against the broad, strong hand that curled around
her upper arm.  "Navahk is going to kill my children!  He is--"

He was shocked to see her swollen mouth, blackened eye, and bloodied
nose.  And he had not known that a female could be so strong, for before
her statement was complete, she had broken away from him and entered the
hut.

Grek would have pulled her back by her hair, but his ungloved fingers
were stiff with cold, and the long strands slipped through them before
he could manage a grip.  Then the anger was back.  What was he doing? If
Navahk was going to kill the children of Torka, was Grek going to stand
back and once again allow the magic man his way?  Would he stop the
mother and thus sanction the murder?  No!  With his spears at ready, he
entered the hut, ready to kill the man who had plagued him for so long.

But Navahk lay sprawled and bleeding from a head wound that had stained
the clean expanse of furs that covered the hide floor of Torka's domain.
The thongs of Lonit's bola were wound about his head.  Blood and eye
fluid darkened the fine pelage of the furs, and dark veins of blood ran
from his ear.

Lonit stopped abruptly in front of Grek.  He nearly knocked her down
trying to arrest his own forward momentum.  No lamp or fire burned to
light the deeply shadowed interior, but Grek and Lonit clearly saw the
prone and motionless figure of the magic man, with the madwoman, lana,
sitting before him with Lonit's children in her arms.

"lana?"

Grek heard Lonit's tremulous, whispering query, and to his amazement,
the madwoman smiled.  Even in the dark he could see the change in her.
She sat erect.  Her eyes were bright, her face radiant.

"He came to kill our babies.  This woman could not let him do that. lana
hopes that Lonit will not be angry that lana used her bola and set its
spirit free to hunt ... a different kind of bird."

"Is he ... dead?"  breathed Grek.

Lonit did not hear him.  She stepped around the motionless Navahk and,
with a sob, embraced lana and her children.

"Oh, lana, if Navahk has brought your spirit to live again within your
heart, to speak again as a woman to another woman, then in his life he
has done at least one good thing!"

"I will kill him now and have done with it," said Grek.

Lonit whirled, her battered face intense.  "One man may not take the
life spirit of another!  That is the way of Navahk, not of Torka's
people!"

"I am not of Torka's people.  And if that man awakes with a memory of
what has happened here, not one of Torka's people will be left alive."
He saw fear in the women's eyes and in the face of the child whose name
was Summer Moon.  Then, as clearly as if the wind had just blown the sky
free of storm, he saw the way that he must follow.  He actually smiled,
he liked the route so much.  "All right.  So be it, then.  Let him lie.
Dress yourself and your children, women of Torka.  Gather up your
warmest furs and whatever you must carry from this camp to maintain
another--but nothing too heavy, nothing that will slow our steps.  We
will go from this place together.  Grek will see you safely to your man
and to the boy Karana.  They were alive when I left them. If we hurry,
you and I--with Wallah and Mahnie--we will see to it that they stay
alive.  This man will be of Torka's band.  Together we will go far from
this camp, and let others follow the way of Navahk and live with fear
forever!"

PART VI.

THE CORRIDOR OF STORMS

The child hunched within the tall, sheltering grasses of the lakeshore.
Its fur was thick now, its undercoat so downy that the wind could not
have penetrated it, even if the child had risen and walked out into the
savage beat of the rising storm.

The world beyond the grasses was white: white sky, white land.  But
within the windbreak of the grasses the world was still gold and russet
with the bent, dry stalks of autumn, although upon the ground little
frozen rivers of granulated snow intruded here and there wherever the
breath of the wind managed to find a break in the grass.

The long, clawed index finger of the child disturbed the delicate, lace
like patterns of the fine, dry snow as it remembered another snowfall,
another nest of grass, within a distant willow grove where Mother Killer
had first come to leave it meat.  That all seemed so long ago, so far
away.

Frowning, the child stared at the unconscious young beast it had dragged
to shelter within the grasses.  It leaned close to his face, sniffed at
his nostrils.

Yes.  Like the other larger, older beast it had left undisturbed by the
lakeshore, he was still breathing.  The child's head cocked to one side.
Its finger slowly traced the hideous, bloodied features of the creature.
He looked so much like Mother Killer, yet the child perceived that he
was different.  He had the face of youth, not of maturity.  His body,
when erect, would be taller, more muscular.  The tattered, bloodied
skins that covered the beast were not white, but his face was somehow
the same face as Mother Killer.  So the child had dragged him off, to
kill him ... to feed upon him ... to tear off his underskin and dance
within it.

The child was not particularly hungry, however, and this
wounded, murmuring beast was not Mother Killer.  Moreover, there was
something disturbingly familiar about him, something that robbed the
child of its desire to kill him.  Now and again he opened his eyes and
stared up sightlessly out of troubled dreams.  His eyes were glazed,
dull, and unfocused.  The child watched him, remembering..  ..

Only a few hours before, the child had been eating a still-twitching
ptarmigan within a grove of stunted trees, close to the massive circle
of piled bones in which the beasts encamped.  It had been spitting
feathers and sucking blood, scenting the dangerous smell of the beasts'
fire.  Its broad, infinitely sensitive nostrils had picked up vague
inferences of the smell of Mother Killer, but there were other odors,
foul and repugnant, of Man and the dried skins of dead animals, of
cooked meat and congealed blood, of burned fat and ashes, and overriding
all, the smell of the accumulation of mammoth bones and tusks, ancient
and new.  It was a place that reeked of death.

The child had listened to their strange hangings and clappings and
whistlings, and to the even stranger howling of their voices.  A little
while later, with all but the head and feet of the ptarmigan consumed,
the child left its hiding place to follow a fire lit procession of
beasts who seemed to be driving Mother Killer before them.

As the child had trailed them, its fears of the beasts had been
confirmed: The one it had thought to be Mother Killer and another
taller, older beast that covered itself in the maned skin of a lion were
beaten, pummeled, shouted at, and forced to their knees.  The child had
smelled their blood and their anger and their fear as it saw the ugliest
beast that it had ever seen posture over them in the feathers of a bird,
then kick them until they collapsed into two silent, bloodied heaps.
Terrified of being discovered, the child had remained hidden until the
last of the beasts had walked away, leaving a sharp man stone and flying
stick behind.  If they savaged one another, what would they do to one
who was not of their own kind?

So the child had stayed under cover of the grasses for a long time,
recalling the death of its mother, longing for her as it remembered what
it had seen the beasts do to the great tusked ones that had been driven
into the bog of the distant lake within the far hills.  The beasts,
especially Mother Killer, had killed not only for meat, but for the
obvious pleasure

they took in the killing.  Later the child had fed upon the bones and
remnant flesh of the mammoths that the beasts had not carried away,
sating itself before leaving the killing site to pursue Mother Killer,
certain that Mother Killer had intentionally left enough meat on the
dismembered bones of the dead mammoths for it to feed upon.

Its strength restored by meat and blood, the child had moved quickly in
the depth of night, to shelter within the grasses and scrub growth that
surrounded the lakeshore where it hunkered now.  It had rested and
slept, dreaming of far lands where it had once lived with those of its
own kind, carried in the arms of its mother beneath the vast black skin
of the night.  Although it was a mere babe at that time, the child
clearly recalled seeing soft, frightened eyes staring up out of the
shadowed shrubbery, eyes filled with starlight, afire with wonder .. . .
exactly like the eyes of the beast staring up at it now.

Eyes that were clear of dreams, eyes that focused upon the face of the
child and filled with terror.

It smelled the rank, sudden rush of the beast's fear.  As it grimaced in
revulsion, its broad, nearly seamless lips pulled back, revealing broad
teeth and massive, stabbing canines.

The beast's face twisted in horror.  His mouth pulled back, showing his
own small, even, useless teeth as he bolted upright, screaming: "Torka!"

Startled by the strange, unexpected cry of panic, the child jumped aside
as the beast ran past, frantically elbowing its way through the grasses
and into the snow-driven world beyond.

Karana ran straight into Mahnie.  Looking back over his shoulder, he did
not see the girl plodding toward the lake, foundering now and then where
the snow was forming drifts on the lee side of the tussocks.  He went
down on top of her, and neither knew which was the more startled as they
looked into one another's eyes.

It was Aar's yip that broke the silence.  Karana knelt back, grimacing
against the excruciating pain of his bruises, then forgetting all about
them as he saw Brother Dog lying on the sledge.

"He is all that is left of your pack of dog brothers, I am afraid," said
Mahnie, sitting up, watching as Karana embraced the dog, earnestly
checking the extent of its injuries as the animal whimpered happily and
licked his face and hands with joyous recognition.  "He will be better
now, being with you.  He was the only one not speared by Het."

"You dragged him by yourself?  All the long way from the camp?  A little
girl like you?"

"If I had not taken him from the camp, someone was sure to kill him once
they saw that he was still alive.  And I am not so little.  I am a
woman."

She did not look like a woman as she sat there in the wind and falling
snow, amid the spilled contents of her pack, looking much fatter than he
remembered her, as though she had dressed herself in every garment that
she owned.

"I knew you would be alive, Karana.  I was sure of it.  It was Grek who
left you his spear and knife.  And I have brought food and boots and
warm clothes and--"

That explained her extraordinary plumpness!  She was wearing her entire
wardrobe, and some of her father's too!  He recognized Grek's winter
parka and his boots where they lay upon the snow beside her.  Then his
mind went blank.

"Spear?  Knife?"  He felt suddenly sick.  What was he doing here in the
snow with Mahnie and Aar when Torka lay back along the shore?  Had he
truly seen the wanawut, or had he been dreaming?  He had to be certain.

She saw the expression on his battered face and was struck with
foreboding.  "Where is Torka?"  Her voice was tremulous.  "Does he live?
"

"I don't know!"  His reply was a cry ripped from his heart.  "Stay here
with the dog.  Keep a weapon handy.  And do not go near the lake or the
grasses until I call."

With a skinning knife hastily given to him by a wide-eyed Mahnie, he
ignored his injuries to race through wind and snow, not slowing his
steps until he entered the grasses and areas of shrub along the shore.
The way was clear to him; led by Lorak, the men of the Great Gathering
had flattened a broad pathway to where he and Torka had been beaten and
left to die.

And there, before the motionless body of Torka, Karana collapsed onto
his knees.  The bold, brave hunter who had named him son lay with his
back to him.  He was so still.  There was no sign of breath in him.  He
saw the knife that Grek had left.  Mahnie must have been mistaken about
his
leaving a spear.  Grek .. . kind, steady, trustworthy Grek.  If only he
had been named headman instead of Navahk, Torka would be alive and
Suddenly Karana knew that Mahnie had not been mistaken about the spear,
because the point of it was leveled at his throat as, in one whirling
motion, Torka had rolled away and around and up on one knee, holding the
weapon out and ready.  His face was horribly swollen and bloodied, and
he was snarling until he saw who it was who had come up behind him.
Lowering the spear, he shrugged apologetically and winced with pain.

"I thought you might be Navahk, coming out to make sure his work had
been done properly by Lorak and the others."

Karana nearly collapsed with relief.  "I thought you were dead.  I
thought the wanawut had killed you."

"The wanawut?  We've faced worse terrors than that, you and I."

"It was here, in the grasses of the lakeshore, in the snow and the wind.
I saw it."

Torka nodded.  "And in the night, in the light of blazing torches, I saw
it too--in the eyes of Navahk."

"My father ..."  Karana bowed his head and spoke the acknowledgment with
infinite despair.

"No, my son, the night and the fire and the distances we have walked
together have made us one--two men, one heart, one spirit.  Navahk has
neither.  He is father of no one but himself."

The youth did not understand and said so.

Torka climbed slowly to his feet now, leaning on the spear as though it
were a crutch, one hand open against his torso, gentling the pain of two
cracked ribs.  He looked at Karana's bleeding, swollen face.  "You look
terrible."

"So do you.

"We are alive."

Karana's expression contorted with loathing.  "Navahk will not be able
to say the same for long.

"It would not be a good thing for a son to kill his natural father,
Karana."

"You have said it, not I. Karana is son of Torka.  And together, for the
sake of Lonit, lana, and the children, we will make the magic man pay
with his life for what he has done."

"That will not be necessary!"  Grek said with an authority that
surprised them.

Torka and Karana stared as the others came through the grasses.  They
had run all the way, abandoning their packs when Mahnie told them of how
Karana had run off in search of Torka.

"Lonit, lana, and the children are here!"  It was lana who spoke,
breathless from her run.  Demmi peeked over her shoulder from out of her
furry-hooded back sling.

Torka stared at her, disbelieving and delighted.  The woman positively
glowed with pride in her newfound tongue and assertiveness.

Wallah held Summer Moon, who cried out her father's name and reached out
to him with little mittened hands, but it was Lonit who ran to Torka.
They stood together in each other's arms for a long time, and no one
spoke.  Wallah sniffled sentimental tears as Torka touched his beloved's
bruised face, and she touched his.

"Always and forever?"  he whispered.

"Always and forever!"  she affirmed.

The backs of his fingers lingered over her swollen, darkening eye.
"Navahk has done this to you?"

She saw the murderous hatred in his eyes and felt fear for him and for
them all.  "It does not matter.  It is the past.  Navahk is there,
behind us.  Lonit is here, with Torka.  Surely you are not thinking of
going back?"

He looked back across the snow-driven land, squinting against the wind,
his mouth set, his eyes hard.

"You are one man, Torka.  Navahk is the manipulator of many," reminded
lana.  "And whenever this woman remembers Navahk, she will thank him for
forcing this woman to find her voice and clear her eyes to look upon the
world as it is without fear."

Grek grunted to himself and shook his head.  "We must always fear the
world, woman.  But not so much that it makes us cower before those
fears.  And so this man says now to Torka that he will not take his
women back into a camp where Navahk dwells.  That man is worse than the
beast in whose skin he walks, and we have no need of such as those who
follow him.  We are a band as we stand.  Look: I see three hunters here:
Grek, Karana, and Torka.  Even though your woman Aliga was too ill to
travel and refused even when this man offered to put her on a sledge and
carry her, we nevertheless have the hands and backs of three strong
women to help carry loads and butcher meat and--"

"Four women," injected Mahnie shyly.

"I knew it!"  Wallah moved to her daughter and hugged her hard.
"Sondahr's powers were great!  My hopes were answered through her magic!
Poor woman.  To die such a death, to suffer so after doing only good for
others all of her days!"

Mahnie saw the look of grief that swept over Karana's face.  Her joy in
the moment was gone.

"Sondahr .. . dead?  How?"

Wallah's sadness and regret showed in her expression.  "Naiapi said that
it was Navahk's enchantment on her for daring to challenge him. But
Sondahr's symptoms were those of a poisoning, and I wouldn't doubt for a
moment that Naiapi was responsible.  She took such time preparing the
meat that she brought to the magic woman and wouldn't let me help with
it or see what she was doing."

Lonit was cold despite the warmth of her traveling clothes.  Sondahr, I
will remember you always.  She looked from Karana's tortured face to
Torka's embittered one.  He will go back.  He will seek vengeance
against Navahk.  And he will die.  Unless I stop him now.  "Sondahr
foresaw her own death," she told him, and in the telling, spoke firmly
and loudly so that all might know her heart.  "She foresaw what would
happen on the night of feast fire and told this woman that when it
happened, Lonit must go forward with her people, beneath a new sky and a
new sun.  We cannot go back, Torka.  And why should we?  Grek is right:
Let those who choose to walk with Spirit Killer walk with him. When this
storm is over, we must go forward into the face of the rising sun, with
Torka as our headman and Grek his strong and steady right arm.  Karana
will be our spirit master, for like Sondahr, the gift of Seeing is his.
His warnings have all come to pass.  The world to the west is not a
world for us."

Torka was amazed by her bold assurance.  It was as though Sondahr had
spoken through her mouth.  Her face was as battered as his and Karana's,
but as he looked at her now, he knew that she would never seem more
beautiful to him.  He actually smiled as he nodded his agreement,
looking northwestward, back toward the encampment of the Great
Gathering, into the wind and the still-rising storm.

"Woman of Torka," he said, "you speak with the wisdom of Sondahr.  But
we will not linger in this land until the storm is
over.  We are all weary, but there is no safe resting place for us in
the country of the mammoth eaters.  We will walk eastward now, into the
storm.  It will cover our tracks as we return to the forbidden country,
back to the Corridor of Storms, where the Valley of Songs awaits us. And
Torka will say this once to Karana before all, so that his son will know
that Torka is a man who knows how to admit when he has been wrong. This
has been a bad camp for us, and Karana has been right about the magic
man.  He is bad.  Perhaps someday someone will kill him.  But it will
not be one of us."

Lonit embraced him.  But, to Torka's surprise, Karana was not pleased by
his long-owed admission.  A black, unforgiving hatred had congealed
within the youth's eyes.  "Navahk is not a man," said Karana.  "He is a
spirit--a dark and crooked spirit--and not one of us will live in peace,
here or in the far country, as long as he is left alive."

The wind rose sharply and blew the words away, but not before they were
heard by all.  Torka felt the wind of warning rise within him.  Once
again Karana had broken the ancient taboo by speaking Navahk's name and,
in his hatred, thereby imputing terrifying powers to it.

Navahk, magic man, spirit killer, and now, thanks to Karana, a crooked
spirit--half flesh, half phantom, a creature more malevolent than the
man himself, more powerful and dangerous than the wanawut, more savage
and less forgiving than the most brutal storm--would follow.  Only
Father Above and Mother Below could stop him now.

"Lie still, Spirit Killer.  Lie still and it will soon be as well with
you as Pomm can make it."

The trembling voice of the fat woman brought Navahk to his senses.  He
sat upright, momentarily disoriented.  Where was he?  Where had the
night gone?  In the dull, vague luminescence of a full-blown snowstorm
he heard a high, shrieking wind batter the exterior walls of a pit hut
that was not his own.  Another wind shrieked within his right ear,
scratching like a captive animal trying to claw its way through bone and
flesh.  The entire right side of his face was an agony.

He stared at the feathered fat woman, wondering why she was looking at
him with such revulsion and .. . pity?  In all of his life no one had
ever looked at him with pity!  He was Navahk!  His physical perfection
was legendary.  He could feel that his face was thick with caked blood,
but if this fat old bag was a healer, she should be used to that.  He
would have frowned, but it hurt too much; and then, suddenly, he
realized that he was in Torka's pit hut and looking at the woman out of
only one eye--his left eye.  The other was-He reached to touch it with
questing fingers and sucked in a gasp of incredulity and horror.  The
socket was concave--a well of pain, of congealed blood and fluid, with
one of the shells of Lonit's bola still buried within the collapsed and
ruined eyeball.  He needed no one to tell him that the weapon had done
its worst.  He would be half-blind and half-deaf from this day on.

"Here .. . from her own hut in the camp of Zinkh, Pomm has brought a
good drink that will make the pain less when the shell is withdrawn from
the eye and--"

He backhanded the bladder flask from her with such power
that she was knocked off balance and the container went flying,
splattering dark, sweet liquor all over Aliga, who lay on her side upon
her bed furs, her tattooed head propped on her bent arm.

"Where is the woman who has done this to me?"  Navahk raged, on his feet
now and ripping the offending shell from his face, the resulting pain
nearly dropping him where he stood.

Pomm had landed on her side and was now huffing against the strain of
her own weight, unable to speak as her palms pushed against the floor
skin in a vain attempt at leverage.  Thus it was Aliga who answered.

"lana has run away into the storm with Grek and Lonit and the children
of Torka.  But this woman has stayed.  Even when her child comes forth,
she will always stay at the side of the one who has healed her."

He stood as still as though carved of stone; her obvious adoration of
him was not appreciated.  "Lonit has run away?"

"Many hours ago," Pomm affirmed belligerently, not at all happy with the
rough and undeserved treatment she had suffered at his hands.  She was
sitting upright now, rearranging her bedraggled feathers, still trying
to catch her breath.  The morning was not yet over, and already the day
was growing bleaker by the moment; if events did not start righting
themselves soon, the coming night would be as disconcertingly
troublesome as the one before it.  Karana was gone from her life.  She
had failed to heal Sondahr.  Although she was glad about this--for now
she was magic woman in Sondahr's place-she had truly done her best for
the magic woman, not out of compassion for Sondahr but in consideration
for her own reputation.

"Navahk must forget Lonit," Aliga urged softly, jarring the fat woman's
thoughts out of reverie.

Pomm's little mouth twitched.  She sat with her back to the loosely
secured door skin, and a cold wind was seeping into the pit hut.  She
shivered as she looked from Aliga to Navahk.  The tattooed woman was
trying to ease Navahk's mood.  He stood like a spear poised in an
invisible hand, and it would not take much to send him flying into rage
again.

In the strangely diffused storm light, Aliga was still looking at him
with adoration, seeing past his ruined eye and bloodied face to the man
whom she had long dreamed of having at her side.  "Lonit will never look
upon another man but Torka.

Everyone knows that.  She will be loyal until she dies, even as Aliga
will be to Navahk, the finest and handsomest man of all.  I knew you
would heal me.  Time and again I told Torka that it would be so.  And
when this woman's baby is born, she will name its spirit in honor of
someone of Navahk's line, someone whose life spirit now walks the wind,
someone whom you have loved and would have at your side again--perhaps
Supnah, if it is a boy."  She paused, shrinking back, sensing something
within him that had heretofore eluded her-something sinister and
threatening.

"Would another of Torka's women dare to mock Navahk?"  Through rage and
pain and torment at his disfigurement, he saw Aliga as Torka's
woman--like lana, who had maimed him; like Lonit, who had spurned him.

From where she sat petulantly upon the floor skins, Pomm saw the change
in Navahk and instinctively scooted back when he looked at her, until
her body was against the door skin.  The wind that blew beyond the hut
was cold, but somehow the confines of the shelter had grown much colder.

"Gone for hours, you say?  And you lay here like a great, swollen
tundral sod and sent no one after her?  You let me lie unconscious in my
own blood and pain while Lonit escaped me?"

Aliga was frightened.  Suddenly Navahk's transcendent beauty was
bleeding from his face, transforming him.  A bloody-eyed monster was
glaring down at her, loathing and blaming her for letting Lonit escape.
As though she could have stopped her!

She stared at him, trying not to cower as she saw his hands working the
blood-blackened thong of the bola that he had ripped from his eye.  The
sharp-tipped, shell-weighted end dangled from his hand, its lovely,
elongated configurations hidden beneath dark gore and fragments of
tissue.

"I did try to wake you, Navahk," she told him, wondering for the first
time if she had made the right choice by electing to stay.  Grek had
offered to carry her, and Lonit had implored her to come, warning her of
Navahk.  But she had not listened.  She was so near to giving birth. So
near.  The child that she had so long despaired of ever bearing could
not be risked--not when Navahk had sworn at the feast fire that it would
be born as soon as the forces that impelled it to remain within its
mother's womb were banished from the encampment.

His words had struck her to her heart, but because the
need to bear this child was greater than all other needs, more important
than anything or anyone, she had rationalized his demands. Torka and
Karana had behaved in an unprecedented manner, as had Lonit. They had
brought their punishment upon their own heads.  And she truly believed
that Navahk's magic had healed her, although in the ensuing hours the
weakness had returned, along with the deep, nagging pain in the small of
her back.  But she was convinced that when he was himself again, he
would work the magic again, she would be well, and her baby would be
born.  Yes!  And surely Navahk's anger would disappear when he
understood why she had not sent anyone after Lonit and Grek.

"This woman did call out to others to bring help for you," she assured
him, wishing that the strained, bestial look would leave his face, that
his hands would stop stressing the thong.  "And so Pomm is here to heal
you ... to ... to ... but surely Navahk must understand that not even a
magic woman such as Pomm would dare to wake the great spirit killer! And
Lonit is the sister of Aliga's heart, and Torka was my man.  If they
must die, that is the will of the elders and Lorak and the forces of
Creation.  But Aliga thought that it would do no harm to allow my sister
time to run away into the storm.  What does the great Navahk care for a
handful of women and children, an aging hunter, and two men who seem to
make trouble everywhere they go?  It was Lorak who drove them into the
storm.  He will die soon, then Navahk will become supreme elder of the
Great Gathering!  Torka, Lonit, Grek, lana, Wallah, Karana, and the
children are nothing in the shadow of the great Navahk! So Aliga thought
that it was best if Navahk rested and regained his strength for what is
to come--and for the child that Aliga will offer to him as his own."

"Child?"  He smiled.  "Would the woman of Torka like to see her child?"

When Pomm saw his smile, she was stunned by terror and could not move.

Nor could Aliga escape him as he fell upon her, using the shell that had
struck out his eye to rip open her belly as his free hand quested deep
and pulled out a handful of truth--a hideous mass of formless,
malodorous, and malignant tissue.

"Here is your child, woman of Torka.  Look upon your child.  Suckle it
as you die!  As Lonit's children will die.  As all
those who walk with Torka will die for what they have done to me!"

Pomm backed out of the pit hut on all fours.  It had been years since
she had moved so quickly or had snapped to her feet without conscious
effort or had accelerated her girth into an actual run.  It did her no
good; Navahk was after her, a lion pouncing upon an aging, hornless
rhino.  She went down with a gasp and stared blindly into wind and snow
as he dragged her back into Torka's pit hut by one of her ankles.  She
screamed for help; but the wind carried her voice away into the storm,
and no one heard her.  She screamed as he closed the door skin behind
her.  Sprawled on her belly, she was unable to right herself until he
jerked her upright by one of her stubby arms, half-dislocating it as he
did so.

"Do not dare run from me!"

Her chin wobbled in terror.  Her bright little eyes bulged as she saw
the lifeless form of Aliga sprawled upon her bloodstained bed furs, her
throat as well as her belly cut.

"Do not look so appalled, fat woman!  Was it not your knife that opened
the veins of Sondahr and hastened the departure of her life spirit so
that your flat little feet might tread in the tracks that she had made
in the hearts of men?"

"At her request was the cutting done!  And with her own knife and--"

"Stop squealing!  Are you not what you have lusted to be--magic woman of
the Great Gathering?"

She blinked, confused, frightened, anticipating where his words were
leading.  "For h-how long?"  she whimpered.

"That is up to you.  Help me to eclipse Lorak, and you will live.  But
run away from me with a loose tongue and an accusing voice, and I will
turn you out from this camp and slaver your naked flesh with blood after
I have bound you fast by your own innards to a tree.  Then the
carnivores will come to devour you.  This I swear by the forces of
Creation."

She could not still the hammering of her heart, and that frightened her
almost as much as the man who loomed over her, for it leaped and fell
wildly within her breast, leaving her dizzy and breathless.

He crouched before her, smiling.  One hand lay over his ruined eye. The
other found her face.  His index finger traced her brow slowly,
sensuously.  "What Pomm has witnessed has
not been the work of Navahk.  You must tell the people that the wanawut
killed the tattooed woman, and it will kill all who oppose Navahk in the
days to follow."

Her heartbeat quieted.  With his one hand held over his mutilated eye,
and the other fingering her features as a lover might, his beauty was as
before--perfection, a maturer Karana, so intense and compelling that she
found herself a captive of his one dark eye, nodding mutely as his smile
deepened.

"Yes, Pomm, we know what you desire, do we not?  Perhaps I can give it
to you.  Or perhaps, when I find Karana, I will make a present of him to
you upon the Hill of Dreams.  His body yours to command.  You would like
that, would you not?"

"I would have these things .. . and more."

He heard the pitiful desperation in her voice and knew that he had not
misread her; she wanted him.  "Pomm will have more," he purred, thinking
of the pleasure that wringing her neck would give him.  "But first Pomm
must speak for Navahk and affirm all that he will say to the assembled
bands from the Hill of Dreams."

Slowly her hand rose to his, pressed softly, questingly.  "Your eye .. .
does it bring much pain?"

"I feed on pain, woman.  It gives me strength.  As meat nourishes other
men, so does pain nourish me."  He moved his hand from beneath hers and
rose.  The words had been easy to say, but the wound was stressing him.
There were poultices in his hut that would ease his pain, but only a
little.  The wound must be cleansed, but he would allow no one to tend
him, lest someone bear witness to any sign of weakness.  He must have
time alone.

He stood above Pomm, fighting back the impulse to kick her.  "I will go
to the Hill of Dreams to commune with the forces of Creation.  Stay here
with the corpse of the tattooed woman.  When the day yields to dusk, you
must burst from the hut crying to all that the wanawut has slain the
tattooed woman."

She looked uncertain.  "But how will they believe that this woman Pomm
has escaped unharmed?"

"Tell them that by Navahk's power were you spared .. . that the beast
comes and goes at my command.  And when you have said this, I will
affirm before all that because of your magic ways with the soothing of
my injury, no harm could
possibly come to you from the wanawut unless--or until I say so."

"Get in out of the storm, woman.  What are you still doing huddled here
upon the Hill of Dreams?  This is no place for you!"

Naiapi looked up through blowing snow to see the fur blanketed figure of
Lorak standing over her--a dark blur, like a mud stain on snow.
Disappointment flooded her; she had been waiting for Navahk for hours.
"To whose hut should this woman go, then?  I am the woman of Grek.  My
man has abandoned me and taken with him everything but this bedroll and
my few belongings.  I am shamed before all.  No man of my band will take
me in.  So I wait here for Navahk, headman of my people and brother to
one who was my first man.  Navahk will tell me what to do. And he has
said that I would be his woman someday."

She looked so lost, so cold sitting there in the snow in her shaggy
robe.  Sondahr's robe?  He could not be sure--there was too much snow on
it.  Her face was handsome, well defined even through the gauze of snow.
Beneath the shaggy, frozen robe, her body would be handsome too; he had
no doubt of that if Navahk had spoken for her.

Lorak's face collapsed about his nose.  He was annoyed with Navahk.  He
was happy to think of him minus an eye.  That would ruin his looks and
wilt his arrogance!  The man had virtually taken over at the feast-fire
celebrations before Lorak realized what he was doing.  True enough, he
had been delighted to drive Torka and his undisciplined whelp from the
encampment, but Lorak had wanted to instigate the action.  He had not
liked the way Navahk had willed evil spirits into Sondahr without his
approval.  Now the magic woman was dead, and Navahk had enjoyed Torka's
antelope-eyed woman.  But Lorak would never have the pleasure of easing
his lust upon Sondahr--a lust that Navahk must have sated years before.

Frustration and jealousy pricked the old man.  He would fix Navahk and
teach him not to trifle with his elders.  He put out his hand to Naiapi.
"So Navahk has spoken for you.  Well, he is a one-eyed man who will be
long recuperating under the care of Pomm.  Lorak is supreme elder in
this encampment, and Lorak now speaks for Naiapi.  Come, woman.  Grek
has abandoned you, and the storm grows worse.  This man has
no woman to warm his bed skins.  I would wager you know a few tricks to
warm a hungry old man, eh?"

She accepted his hand with only momentary hesitation.  "I know many
tricks, Lorak, especially if you are truly hungry.  Many would be amazed
at the magic that Naiapi has been able to work with meat."

They went out across the land together.  Although they heard the howling
of wolves and the wanawut, they did not look back.  Falling snow covered
their tracks.  Torka, Karana, and Lonit were battered and bruised, but
they walked boldly, with Grek, lana, Wallah, Mahnie, and the children
following.

They dragged two sledges now: Aar rode upon the one that Mahnie had
taken, along with her well-chosen supplies; the other, quickly
constructed of caribou antlers by Grek before he had left to join Torka
and Karana, had two mammoth-rib runners.  These would double as roof
supports when they encamped.  In the cold, driving wind, Grek had iced
them with his own urine so that they would glide atop the snow as the
group fled across the land.

Grek marveled at the luck that had intensified the storm and kept the
people of the Great Gathering inside their pit huts, then at his own
good fortune, having such a one as Wallah for his woman.  He looked back
at her now as she trudged with head bent forward against her brow band.
She had not hesitated for a moment when he had whispered his intentions
of following Torka; she wanted to leave the encampment as much as he
did, not only to find Mahnie but to be away from what she believed to be
a place of very bad spirits.

With lana and Lonit at her side working hurriedly and efficiently, she
had broken down their pit hut in record time.  In silence the women had
prepared carrying packs and stacked upon the sledge the remaining rib
bones, hide coverings, dried meat, packets of fat, and the few
belongings that Lonit had brought from Torka's pit hut--including his
spears,

bludgeon, and spear hurler--plus all those things of Grek's that would
mean life to them on the long trek.

At last they were committed to their course.  As he walked beside Torka
into the rising storm, wolves howling in the distance and the wanawut
shrieking closer at his back, Grek walked confidently, without fear, for
the first time in more years than he cared to remember.

The child watched them go.

Through cold, white wind and snow, the eyes of the child saw them--warm,
brown, furs, and flesh.

The child's wide, splayed nostrils quivered.  These were the sweet
smells of life--creatures moving in unison.  A pack.  Young.  Old. Many
equaling one.  One stronger because of many.  Many stronger because
there was one among them who was not afraid to lead.

The child shivered and tasted bitterness at the back of its throat.
Loneliness always tasted bitter.  Loneliness was a muddy color in the
child's mind, blue around the edges, like a bruise that would not heal,
cold at the thick, dark center that fell away to nothing--empty, like
the eyes of Mother Killer.

Mother!

Leaning forward, staring through the ice-rimed, wind-broken grasses, the
child mewed softly..  The beasts were well away now.  The one who looked
like Mother Killer walked with them.  But he was not Mother Killer.  He
was Star Eyes, a gentle beast--a memory from long ago.  The child
thought of Mother and pack, of times long gone by, of warm arms and
soothing sounds, of breast milk as warm and sweet as blood.

Its mewing increased.  The air was cold here by the lake in the white
world, with the wind whipping at the child's fur and no hole in the sky
to send sweet warmth to the earth below, and no Mother--or even Mother
Killer--to offer comfort in the storm.

The child took a step forward through the grasses, heard ice crack along
the stems and smelled the slightly acrid, dusty scent of the dried
stalks.  It wanted to go forward, to follow the beasts into the storm,
but only moments ago it had heard Mother Killer howling with pain from
within the circle of piled bones.  He was hurt.  Perhaps he would never
bring meat again.  Perhaps his breath would leave his body, and one of
his own kind would gut him and skin him and dance in his flesh, as he
had danced in the flesh of Mother.

A cramp bit deep within the child's belly.  It hunkered down, still
mewing to itself, confused by its own pain and the smell of its own
blood.  A massive, hirsute hand moved to explore the source of the
scent.  The child fingered warm redness against its inner thighs.  The
blood was scabbing there, en crusting within the thick, gray, downy fur.
The child uttered a series of low, confused little hoots.  Mother had
bled, too, and not just at the time she had ceased to breathe. Mother
howled and mewed at these times of occasional blood, as the child howled
and mewed now.

Confused by the blood that came from no wound, the child ran its
bloodied hand back and forth across the snow-carpeted floor of grass. It
cried out.  Something sharp had sliced its finger.  The child sucked at
it, tasting and smelling wound blood now.  The cut was small but deep.
The child kept on sucking, easing pain as it flailed its free fist
angrily into the snow.  Something hard bruised the heel of its hand.

Curious, the child huffed and circled, still crouching, bending close,
blowing snow away, extending the index finger of its uncut hand to touch
the offending object, shaped like an elongated willow leaf.

The child recognized it at once.  The object was the lanceolate,
meticulously carved dagger of obsidian, left behind, along with a flying
stick, by one of the beasts that had come out from the piled bones
carrying fire.  Evidently when the child had dragged Star Eyes, the
wounded beast that looked like Mother Killer, into the circle of grass,
the oddly shaped stone must have been dragged along with him, tangled in
the fringes of his garments.  The child carefully lifted the stone,
smelled it, and licked it.  There was no doubt that it was a thing of
earth formed by the hands of man to a new purpose.

The child cocked its head.  It lay the edge of the dagger alongside its
wound, measuring, defining the dagger's potential, understanding just
how and by what its hand had been cut.

It grunted now in satisfaction, gripping the sinew-wrapped end of the
dagger, remembering another such man stone .. . buried in the breast of
its mother.

Torka led his people on through a world where sky and land were one,
where snow and wind were the one wailing reality.  At last he was forced
to stop lest he become guilty of leading them in circles.

They erected a crude shelter against the storm, a mere lean-to that
broke the back of the wind and allowed them to sleep huddled together
until, at last, the wind veered and dropped.  Torka awoke, with Lonit
still dreaming in the curl of one arm and Summer Moon asleep in the
other.  lana was a Demmi-protecting mound with a fur-clad arm and
mittened hand.  He could hear the pull of Grek's breathing, the light
exhalations and inhalations of Mahnie, and the rather profound snores of
Wallah.

He saw Karana standing alone in the white, silent world.  Snow was still
falling.  Aar was at his side.  Relief flooded Torka.  The animal would
live!  He had feared that it would not.

Wincing against the pain of his tightly bound ribs and many bruises and
moving carefully so that he would not awaken the others, Torka climbed
to his feet and went out to Karana.

The youth did not acknowledge his presence.  Torka put up his hood and
adjusted his ruff so that snow did not fall into his face.  For a long
while he and Karana stood in silence.

"They will follow.  If they find us--"

"They will not."  Torka interrupted Karana before, once again, he
inadvertently gave voice to words that might cause terrible things to
happen.

Ahead of them, through the snow mist, the faintest diffusion of golden
light glowed far to the east.

"The sun rises," Karana observed.

Torka nodded.  "I will tell the others.  We must go on."

All that day the snow fell.  The voice of the wanawut was heard, and the
wind blew in intermittent, vicious squalls into which no man at the
Great Gathering wished to venture.

Within the council house of bones, the supreme elder was not feeling
well.  He looked gray and pinched and made no attempt to hide the fact
that his belly ached.  He adamantly refused Navahk's request to lead
hunters in pursuit of the woman who had maimed him.

"The people of Man Who Walks With Dogs must be dead by now," Lorak
wheezed.  "Forget them.  The wanawut has invaded this encampment to take
the life of one who dwelled among us.  The bodies of Stam and Aliga and
Sondahr have been put to look upon the sky forever.  Now wolves and
lions or owl close to the walls.  Bad spirits walk the world, Navahk.

Lorak says that it is good that the people remain within the wall of
bones."

All the hunters and elders who had gathered to counsel within the great,
smoke-filled room murmured in agreement.

From beneath the skin of the wanawut Navahk fixed the supreme elder
contemptuously with his one good eye; the other was hidden beneath a
wide band of white caribou skin cut from the inside seam of his
surplice.  His head ached.  His ruined eye was a bottomless pit of pain;
but he had rested and cleansed the wound and packed it with painkilling
poultices of fat saturated with willow oil, and he was in control of it
now.

He was surprised when the old man was not visibly intimidated by his
glare.  Anger and frustration showed on Navahk's face because he had
been certain that the credulous elder and equally gullible magic men and
hunters would have been his to command once Pomm screeched her story
about the attack of the wanawut.  But although they had been sobered,
they had not been without questions, and he was in no mood to hear them.
"Unlike Lorak, Navahk does not walk with fear.  This man has brought
mammoths to the hunters of this camp.  This man walks in the skin of the
wanawut.  It will hurt no man who hunts with me."

From where he sat among the men of his own band, a scowling, thoughtful
Zinkh spoke out: "Zinkh says that if Navahk wishes to hunt the
eye-taking woman, that right be his right, yes!  But with Navahk has
come more than mammoths.  With Navahk has come the thing we fear--the
wind spirit wanawut.  This man Zinkh does not hunt in the land of wind
spirits.  And this man Zinkh does not hunt women.  If, as Navahk says,
Lonit struck out his eye in order to escape, this man says that perhaps
the spirits have punished her already.  The storm is bad.  The cold is
worse.  Lonit is only a woman, and Torka must be dead by now.  A female
must always do as she is told, so for her disobedience the spirits will
punish Torka's woman.  If Lonit was willing to risk walking the wind to
be with her man, this man would not risk his life in the storm to stop
her.  And the man Grek has but one aging female and one girl child. What
loss to his band is such a hunter?"

"Bravely and generously spoken.  I wonder if Zinkh would be so forgiving
if it was his eye that had been taken."  Navahk's one eye narrowed. They
had all accepted the lie that Lonit
had maimed him.  They had all been outraged by Grek's unprecedented
behavior.  But Navahk had been unable to infect them with his own need
for vengeance.  Zinkh was a particular annoyance to him, in the
elaborate, grotesquely moldering headdress crowned by a mutilated,
headless fox.  Beside him several hunters, both young and old, looked at
Navahk out of fixed and wary eyes.  Zinkh's band was small, but his men
were loyal to their headman.  Not one had participated in the violence
against Torka and Karana with any enthusiasm.  They had hung back,
hesitating when Lorak had commanded them to follow him into the night by
torchlight.  Alone of all of the hunters, the banishment and beatings
had set Zinkh's men on edge.

"Zinkh grows bold since he has reclaimed the 'lucky' headdress that
Karana spurned and left behind in Torka's pit hut!"  Lorak had only
impatience and disdain for the little headman.

Navahk was pleased.

Zinkh glowered petulantly at the supreme elder.  "Perhaps Karana's luck
would not have run out if he still wore it!"

"And perhaps Zinkh has other reasons for fearing to venture from this
camp?"  Navahk accused, sensing that the man was strengthening Lorak's
position and weakening his own.

"No man hunts in weather like this!"  Zinkh responded hotly.

Navahk's eye never blinked; his smile never wavered.  "The storm will
not last forever."

"Storm or no storm, it is no good thing for men to hunt women or take
the lives of other men as though they be game.  Zinkh says enough has
been done to the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs.  Let the storm
spirits, not men, decide whether to take them to walk the wind forever."

"Navahk has been told that Zinkh walked into the Great Gathering with
Torka," said the magic man.  "Perhaps there is a bond between you? When
Torka was put out of this camp, should Zinkh have been put out of it as
well?"

Zinkh wilted visibly, but beside him the young hunter Simu snapped
angrily to his feet, having had enough of insults and threats to his
headman.  "Navahk is not supreme elder of this encampment!  Navahk is
not even an elder.  This man does not know Navahk from past camps!
Navahk dances an impressive dance and chants an impressive chant.
Navahk's band has driven mammoths before it, but trouble has walked into
the Great Gathering at Navahk's side!  People have died

since Navahk has come to dwell among us!  By what right does he
challenge Lorak and threaten the headman of my band, who is known to all
assembled here as a brave hunter and one who has brought harm to no man
or woman in his lifetime!"

Navahk's head went up.  Pain flared within his ruined eye-caused by lana
in defense of Torka's children, intensified by Lonit's shaming of him.
He snarled at the bold and impetuous young hunter who had dared to
challenge him.  "By the right of the wanawut does Navahk speak!  Be
cautious when you address me, Simu, for your woman is great with child,
and the wanawut prowls the storm, with its belly full of the unborn
child of Aliga.  Perhaps the wanawut feels a growing hunger for more of
the same kind of meat."

Simu, his face ashen, seated himself as though he had been knocked down.
There was not a man in the room who did not suffer an identical
reaction.

For a moment Navahk wondered if he had gone too far, but fear had always
been his ally.  Men who feared could be led.  And he could not expect to
kill Karana and Torka's people alone.

He smiled at Simu kindly, benevolently, as a loving brother.  "Only
Navahk can keep the wanawut beyond the walls of this camp, and only
Navahk understands that as long as a single member of Torka's band
remains alive, the wanawut will hunger for human flesh.  This man shares
the heart and soul of the wanawut.  The spirit of the wanawut bleeds as
this man has bled.  It is filled with pain as this man is filled with
pain.  It hungers to destroy the source of the pain ... in blood.  Will
Simu and the brave hunters of the Great Gathering not be willing to cut
boldly from the hide of the world those whose lives enrage the wanawut
and endanger their loved ones .. . their women .. . their unborn sons?"

Lorak frowned, sensing deception.  One of his old gnarled hands was
pressed wide against his gut.  "If the wanawut would feed upon blood,
let it ride the back of the storm to seek out the ones who have maimed
you, for it will find none of them here."

Navahk's smile was radiant.  From the moment that he had entered the
encampment, he had wished that Lorak would sicken and die.  The old fool
was apparently so sick that he was distracted and weary and anxious to
return to his bed skins, where Naiapi awaited him.  Navahk could smell
the
strong, rich smells of roasting meat emanating deliriously from the
supreme elder's private shelter.  Navahk was not surprised that now that
Sondahr was dead, the old man had taken a woman to ease his days and
pleasure him in the night; nor was he particularly surprised to find
that he had chosen Naiapi.  She was still a handsome woman, and she had
a fawning, sexually avaricious way that would be appreciated by an old
man whose male pride needed oiling.

He would oil that pride now.  "If the wanawut goes with the storm
spirits when they leave the sky, Navahk will speak no more of this."

The storm cleared slowly from the east, but for two long days and
nights, as Torka and his people traveled under clear, albeit cold and
windy skies, they looked back into the western world of men and saw snow
clouds still bulked upon the horizon.  The storm lingered there, howling
and striking the land with gale-force winds.  In spite of their injuries
and stiffness, Torka urged the others on, grateful to the weather, for
he doubted that any men would leave a safe encampment in such a storm.

"Navahk would travel in any weather," Karana said.  "In spite of the
storm, his eyes will see the route."

"He has one eye now," reminded lana.

"But Navahk has an inner eye lighting the way for his other senses.
Sondahr called it the gift of Seeing, although his sight is not as clear
as hers or mine."  Karana paused, not wanting to sound like a braggart,
but the Seeing gift was his; there was no use denying it. "But he can
see into the hearts of men and know their thoughts, anticipate their
actions, and more importantly, their reactions.  With this gift he can
twist their wills to serve his own.  Mark me well: Navahk is not a man
to forgive or forget.  As soon as the storm is over, he will follow. And
he will not come alone."

"This woman is not afraid!"  insisted lana, and with her head held high,
she smiled a strong little smile because she knew that her boast was the
truth.  "Good spirits guided the stone of Lonit's bola, and their
strength was in this woman's arm."  "I am afraid of him," Mahnie
confessed, refusing to speak Navahk's name as she knelt beside Aar,
checking the wound on the side of the dog's head.  Karana had sutured
it.  It was clean and scabbed, and in the severe cold there was little
chance of infection.  Still, the girl was concerned, and only after
looking close and flicking away a fragment of dried suture did she turn
her face to the others.  "My father has taught me that fear is a good
thing.  It gives strength and makes us alert for danger.  Never will
this girl--uh, woman-slow her step when she thinks that there is even
the smallest chance that Spirit Killer might be following!"

She rose then, and Karana saw that Aar nuzzled her mittened hand as he
stood ready to proceed at her side.  The dog had walked since the end of
their first day of traveling.  At night he whimpered and circled a long
time before settling down, posting himself to look back along the route,
as though expecting Sister Dog and the pups to be following.  He howled
often, seemingly without reason, but the girl had told Karana that she
was certain that he was calling to his lost family, hoping they would
hear and follow.  Karana knew that she was right, and as they walked
together, he could understand why Aar had taken a strong liking to the
daughter of Grek.  She was a pretty, strong-willed little thing, but he
wished that she would stop looking at him every time she declared her
womanhood.  He had no doubt about her word; if she said that she was a
woman, it must be so.  But after Sondahr, whose loveliness and
womanliness no other woman could equal, Mahnie would always seem a child
to him.

"We will go on, then, if Torka and Grek agree?"  Wallah sighed, weary
but ready to continue.

"Torka leads, Grek follows," assured Grek, helping Wallah to her feet.
"And if Torka should grow weary, he has only to point the way and Grek
will lead.  Together with Karana we will make a strong band in the new
and game-rich country!"

"It is far, this forbidden land."  Wallah sighed again, adjusting her
brow band so that it would not cut so deeply into her forehead.

"It is far," conceded Torka, wishing that he could tell the sturdy,
patient, and almost uncomplaining woman otherwise.  "We must reach it
before the time of the long dark.  Otherwise I fear that we will be
forced to encamp within the Corridor of Storms itself."

"Is it as savage a land as they say?"  pressed Grek, worry thickening
his features a little; like lana, he, too, had been reborn and would not
allow fear to cripple him.

Torka nodded.  "It is a land of endless wind and cruel winters.  There
is little snow, but the cold is so bitter that the
skin of Mother Below freezes solid to its heart and the stars crack into
uncountable pieces as they fall to cloud the earth with a killing mist
no men may dare to breathe lest they die.  But to this man the far and
forbidden land seems no more savage than the land of men to the west,
and within the corridor there is a valley that will protect us. By its
warm pools we will encamp, feeding on the caches of food that we left
behind.  Game is plentiful and will feed us through the dark days that
will soon be upon us.  If the forces of Creation allow it, life will be
good for us there."

"Then let us get on with our journey," encouraged Grek, "for by Mother
Below and Father Above, life here is not!"

It snowed for three more days in the country of the mammoth eaters. The
wind blew hard from the high barrens of the polar north, so the snow
could not settle.  It blew southward in a howling white tide, across the
Arctic Ocean and over the rolling, tundral steppe land which was an
exposed seabed that stretched for thousands of miles to the shrunken
shores of a vast ocean that would someday be misnamed Pacific.

On the fourth day Navahk awoke to silence within the encircling wall of
the encampment of the Great Gathering.  He lay awake for a long time,
waiting to hear the sound of snow stinging the walls of his pit hut. But
there was only silence.  In the pale light of dawn he dressed and went
out.

Snow was still falling, but thinly now, straight to the ground--soft and
so fine that it made no sound falling upon the land and huts and face of
the magic man as he looked up.  It would not last.  He closed his eye
and let it melt upon his lid.  His one lid.  He scowled and wiped the
moisture away.  He would need to see clearly now, before the others
awoke.

Now that the blizzard had abated, there was something he must do.  For
two long days the voice of the wanawut had not been heard.  The people
of the many bands rejoiced, and Lorak, sick though he was, had continued
to tell them that the beast had gone off into the storm in pursuit of
Torka and his band.  Safe and warm within their shelters, their bellies
full of mammoth meat and their women hot and willing against them
beneath their sleeping furs, the hunters had no desire to abandon their
leisure to pursue the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs, no matter what
one of his women had done to Navahk.  Things were good in the camp.  No
one
had died since Torka had been driven out.  True, Lorak was not well; but
he was old, and old men were often sickly.

Navahk's scowl stretched his lips over his teeth until the tips of his
canines showed.  If it had followed to prey upon Torka and his people,
he would be denied the pleasure of his vengeance against them--unless
they killed it, destroying the magnificence of its power forever.  The
thought appalled him almost as much as if he had contemplated his own
death.  He wanted the wanawut alive.  Its living close to him, feeding
from his hand, looking at him out of its strange, wondrously beautiful
eyes excited and strengthened him.  But what if it had died?  The storm
had been so vicious and unrelenting.  Twice he had secretly risked
venturing out to the lake to leave meat for the beast, but he had seen
no sign of it in the raging wind and blinding snow.  On his second trip
the meat he had left was still where he had placed it, untouched and
frozen.  But then, that was not the only meat that had been brought out
into the storm from the encampment.  Bodies had been put to look upon
the sky forever.  The wanawut might be feeding off them.

He knew he must find it and make it howl again.  Or, if it was dead or
gone from this country, he must howl in its place, to terrify the people
and convince them to follow his will---and he must do it soon, for each
day spent in camp put Torka and his people farther away.  If they
reached the Corridor of Storms, it would take the forces of Creation to
convince any of the mammoth hunters to follow them into that forbidden
land.

The child saw him coming through the white, silent mists of snow.  She
ran from him.  In her panic she clutched the willow-leaf-shaped man
stone to her breast as she fled back to her nest near the lakeshore,
leaving the corpses where they lay, one half-eaten now, their flesh
hard, their faces covered with grass.

The child did not like their ugly, staring faces, their beast eyes blank
and glazed in death.  She had covered them with grass lest she be
revolted as she ate.  And yet as she had hunkered over the bodies,
delighted to discover the usefulness of the man stone in cutting away
the freezing flesh beneath layers of skins and furs, she was
nevertheless disturbed by the vague similarities between the beasts and
her own kind: The shape of their torsos and their arms and limbs

were weak and tendonous, yet they were somehow the same.  And one had
breasts not unlike her own.  The child could not bring herself to eat
that one, although she had sucked the blood; curious, she suckled the
breasts for milk and was disappointed--but not surprised--when she found
none.

Man meat was the best meat.  Mother had taught her that.  But the bodies
were stiff with cold, and the flavor of the one she ate of was gone now
that she had sucked the blood from it.  The blood tasted identical to
the blood that she had sucked from her own body whenever she cut
herself.  And there was something in the shape of the skull. So fragile!
Such delicate eye sockets and weak, narrow snout.  Such tiny, useless
teeth.

When the other beasts had carried them out from the wall of bones and
left them to lie upon the earth, the child had watched the bodies for a
long time before daring to venture near.  At last hunger made her bold.
Despite the cold and snow, the stink of death was bad in one of them.
The child had dragged it away from the other two and had not eaten of
its black-swirled flesh.  When wolves and a lioness had come near, the
child had let them have that corpse; it had been nearly dry of blood
anyway.

But the wolves and lioness had wanted no part of such foul meat, and the
child had fought them for possession of the other two, marveling how
lions and wolves seemed so much smaller and more timid to her now. One
lunge and stabbing feint had driven back all but a single wolf, and that
animal had been dispatched with a single blow of the child's fist. The
other wolves had run away then.  The lioness had dragged off the wolf,
preferring its meat to' that of the stinking corpse.  And until now no
predators had come to bother the child again.

She exhaled low, quick grunts of frustration as she ran, looking back
over her shoulder at the figure slowly advancing through the falling
snow.  A beast.  The one in white?  Mother Killer?  She could not tell.
She only knew that an inner sense warned her to run.  She had eaten of
the flesh of man, and man would be angry.

Navahk pursued the creature through the grasses until he reached the
place where the beast had been feeding.  He slowed his step and saw what
was left of Stam.  There was no sign of Aliga.  He was unconcerned and
untouched by what he
saw; he had seen kills before, what was left of game when large
carnivores had been driven off after feeding awhile.

Then, for one sharp, stabbing instant, Navahk looked upon the body of
Sondahr.  The imperious, magnificent Sondahr.  He stared down at the
dead woman as he toed away the mounded stack of snow-covered grass that
covered her face.

He gasped in horror as he took an inadvertent step back.  Sondahr's face
was intact.  Iced and colorless, it appeared to float like a flawless
moon on the black sea of her hair.  Her eyes were wide and
staring--seeing him.  Her mouth was slightly open, up curled--smiling at
him, as though her spirit remained alive within the shell of her
unmarred and exquisite skull ... to name him trickster and man of flesh,
not of spirit to mock him and name him unworthy of her love or
affection, even now;, when she was a corpse and he was a living man.

With a brutal kick that half decapitated her, he wheeled and continued
his pursuit of the beast, glad that it had not desecrated Sondahr's body
and yet hating it for that .. . loathing it for that .. . wanting to
kill it for allowing Sondahr to remain so beautiful, someone who had
never been, could never be his.

Breathless with fear and from the exertion of her run, the child hurled
herself into the high sheltering grasses within which she had made her
nest.  Snow was barely falling, and it was quiet within the windbreak.
The child crouched silently, listening to the pounding of her heart and
the rasp of her breath as she wrapped her long, hairy arms across her
chest, rocking herself, shivering so violently against her fear that the
man stone sliced into her palm.  Instinctively knowing that she was
being hunted, she made no sound against the pain as, with a purely
reflexive outward flick of her fingers, she released the dagger and
raised her hand to suck her wound.

The child listened.  The man was close.  She could hear his steps--slow,
cautious, and measured, like a great white lion stalking game in the
protective undercover of thick brush.  The child could see him now.  It
was Mother Killer.  The child relaxed.  All in white, he was not wearing
her mother's skin.  Even one eye was banded in white, and as he moved
forward, the child could see that snowflakes starred his night black
hair.  Although he carried a flying stick and walked in the way of an
animal that is wary and watchful and afraid, the
child sensed no threat in him until he paused and parted the grasses
with the sharp, stone-headed tip of his stick.

The child looked into his face and was terrified of the savagery that
she saw there.  Leering, showing his teeth, his black eye was full of
something that the child had never seen before--something dangerous, as
dark and treacherous as a pitch pool.  It was more than the focused,
direct expression an animal shows when it is about to leap to the kill.
This was an expression unique to the emotions of the beast man: It was a
look of cruelty and hatred, and the child was wise to fear it.

She was not quick enough to escape the forward thrust of the spear that
struck out and pressed against her thigh, not piercing her flesh but
pinning her to the nest.

The child screamed in outrage, confusion, and terror, a roaring scream
that usually sent predators fleeing for their lives, a scream that rent
the still air of morning as only the scream of the wanawut could do.

But the scream did not frighten the beast in white.  The scream made
Mother Killer smile.

Navahk froze, feeling the power of the beast through the spear in his
hands.  The fire-hardened bone shaft was close to snapping, but the
creature held position and did not fully stress the spear.  It could
have leaped at him.  But it did not, nor did it try to run.  He was
speaking to it now, whispering, his eyes devouring not only its power,
which could have been hurled against him if it chose, but encompassing
an even more amazing and intriguing truth.

He had been close to the beast before, but never this close.  Always
shrubs or grasses stood between them, revealing only suggestions of its
hairy form.  Now Navahk saw it clearly for the first time.  It was
hideous and loathsome, half human, half animal, and completely female.

She had matured at an astounding rate.  He could see her breasts and
smell her sex.  And slowly, as he met the wide, lustrous gray eyes of
the thing, he realized with growing wonder that she feared him as much,
if not more, than he feared her.

"Wah nah wut ..."  he whispered, moving the spear relaxing its pressure
on her thigh, slowly withdrawing the shaft.  The creature blinked.  She
looked to the spear, then to the
man.  Her grotesque head tilted to one side.  "Wah .. . nah?"

She copied his sound, questioning with it.

Navahk felt smug and victorious over the stupid thing.  "Wah nah?"  he
echoed, his eyes moving over the animal, taking in the incredible power
of her musculature, the size of her hands and arms and massive jaws, her
bent and foreshortened lower limbs, and the hairy, barrel-chested torso
out of which two bare, fully human breasts flared tender and pale like
the budding breasts of a nubile young girl.  He was stirred by them.
Carefully, slowly, his free hand reached forward; his single fingertip
traced a large taut nipple that crested and hardened at his touch.

He laughed, at once amused and disgusted but more deeply stirred than
ever before.  He resented his reaction; it revolted him.  This thing was
not a woman, not a girl.  She was not even human!  This beast nourished
herself on the blood of man.  Sondahr's blood had been sucked dry by the
creature; Sondahr's blood gave her strength.

"Sondahr!"  His exhalation of the dead woman's name surprised him.  He
had not intended to speak, and certainly not with such longing.

The beast frowned.  Her head tilted in the opposite direction.  "Suh ..
. dahh ..."

Navahk was stunned.  The beast had done more than imitate his voice. She
had captured the tone of desire that had seemed to bleed from his spirit
when he had spoken.  The tone had created a response in the animal.
Again she cocked her head, looking at him, studying him with her
impossibly human and beautiful eyes .. . reaching out to touch his
breast, as he had touched hers, with a gently questing finger.

He did not move.  He allowed the touch.  The thing's hand drifted to his
face, explored, lingered so gently, so tenderly that he could barely
feel her touch.  His own hand rose, hesitated, then slowly reached to
touch the face of the beast.  The animal made no move to resist him. She
moved closer, closing her eyes and quivering with pleasure at his touch.
A surge of power swelled in him like flame rising to explode outward. No
man has done this!  he thought.  No man has touched the wanawut and
lived.  No man!

His hand moved, caressed the beast.  Her eyes opened.  He saw fear,
confusion, and need in her face.  Fear of the stranger.

Confusion in this new and astounding situation.  Need to be comforted,
to be touched ... to be loved?  Even by a man?

It was then that the madness took him.  He knew it for what it was and
did not care, for the need was suddenly as great in him as it was in the
beast.  He trembled at the thought of what he was about to do.  No
female was his equal.  None had satisfied him.  The beast was young. For
the rising of many moons she had been alone, with only him daring to
come to her, to feed her, to mouth utterances of her own sounds to her.
She would not understand what he was doing now until his intent was
accomplished, and even then she would not grasp that she had been mated.

Beast to man, flesh to spirit, Navahk to the wanawut--to power, to the
very physical manifestation of all that men feared.

He lay the spear aside.  He was afraid, but fear was sweet and
stimulating as he cautiously moved into the nest with her.  She did not
stop him.  He saw his image reflected in the eyes of the animal.  Even
with his ruined eye, he was as beautiful as the beast was ugly.  No man
in the world could equal him now--not Torka on a hunt, not Lorak at
magic making, and not even Karana when it came to calling the spirits.
For the power of the wanawut was in him; he could feel it pumping in his
heart, surging in his arms and limbs, and rising in his loins.  He had
slain a wind spirit and danced in its skin, and now he would master the
beast and teach her to respond to his command.

His smile became a carnivorous leer.  "Come .. he invited, cautiously
touching her, beginning to lead her, wondering if Sondahr also felt his
touch, for within the flesh of the animal was the blood of the woman.

Not understanding, the wanawut leered back at him.  "Kuh .  mmm ..." she
repeated, and as he stroked her, her skin quivered again, the skin of an
animal responding to the stroking of her own kind.

"It is early for such a hard freeze," observed Grek when they reached
the Big Milk River.  "This big river usually roars longer than most."

"The spirits are with us," said Karana.

"It seems so," agreed Torka, and he led them across the river.

They rested on its banks that night.  They made no fire lest others see
it or smell its smoke and thereby fix their position.  Ahead of them lay
the broad Plain of Many Waters.  Under a clear, brutally cold sky, they
ate dry traveling rations and observed the treacherous expanse of ice
that lay between them and the country to the east.

"We dare not cross," said a weary Wallah.  "Perhaps it is just as well.
We could all do with a rest.  Such an early cold cannot last much
longer.  Soon the ice will melt and--"

"Navahk will close the distance between us with ease," interrupted
Karana, his tone stern with warning.

"But once the river thaws, they will have to journey far to the south to
cross it," reminded Grek.  "Besides, we have seen no sign of anyone.
Perhaps no one pursues us after all."

"Perhaps," agreed Torka without enthusiasm, "but we will not stay to
find out.  Tomorrow we will go on, and the ice will be no hindrance to
us."

He gestured to Lonit, who went to her traveling pack and brought out a
pair of stone-studded leather nets.  Before long Lonit had showed Wallah
and the other women how to fashion their own special thong-webbed soles
for their boots; studded with sharp bits of antler broken off from
Grek's stalking cloak and bound securely across their insteps, these
cram pons allowed excellent traction on the ice.

The next day they crossed the broken, treacherous terrain of the Plain
of Many Waters, glad for the frozen ground, and Demmi, riding with Aar
on one of the two sledges, cried and pointed in frustration, wanting to
join Summer Moon, who proudly high-stepped between Lonit and lana in her
own pair of ice walkers.

Straining to maintain her balance as she tried hard to keep up with
Karana, Mahnie smiled to see the pride and joy in the little girl. "This
morning Summer Moon told me that she is glad to be going home. Tell me
about the forbidden land, Karana."

"It is far," he replied obliquely, looking over his shoulder as he often
did, his handsome face grim with concern.

Her feelings were hurt.  Again and again she tried to be a friend to
him.  He was never rude to her but merely preoccupied, except when she
had mentioned her fear of Navahk after the way he had killed Pet.  He
had looked at her as though she had struck him, and for many hours he
had spoken to no one but had walked on ahead, brooding and alone.  She
sighed.  The bone barbs of her ice walkers snagged on a rough
outcropping of muddy ice.  She nearly fell.  He caught and held her, but
with less interest than he would have shown to his dog.  She looked up
at him, her feelings hurt until she saw the depth of his fear in his
eyes.  Now, for the first time, her confidence in her elders flagged.
Memories swam within her.  "Do you really think he will follow us? Grek
says that the storm must surely have given us time to gain many miles on
him."

"No storm will stop him.  And if he finds us--" He stopped before he
spoke words that he had no wish to conjure into reality.  "You ask a lot
of questions for a girl."

"I am not a girl!"  she told him emphatically.  "I am a woman!"

He looked her up and down.  "If you say so."

"I do!"  she declared, and in a huff pushed him so hard that his ice
walkers went out from under him, and he fell down.

Lorak was dead.

Navahk danced in the firelight, in the skin of the wanawut, with all the
assembled bands looking on.  He danced as he had never danced before,
whirling, leaping, the power of the beast in him.  All who watched him
were amazed.

Navahk smiled at the women, children, and elders.  As the
hunters listened, he sang to the women of their brave men, of past hunts
and good winters, of full bellies and fires burning warm in the winter
dark.

And then, with his staff in one hand and spear in the other, Navahk
circled the feast fire and chanted of Lorak, whose body had been put out
to look upon the sky forever.

"Great was Lorak!  Proud will be the hunter whose woman next bears a son
into whose body the spirit of Lorak will come!  Who will this woman be
whose man will name their child for Lorak?"

The women looked meaningfully from one to the other, and among the women
of Zinkh's band, all eyes went to Simu's young, pretty woman, for her
time was fast approaching.  Her face turned down.  Her eyes stared with
embarrassment into her lap.

Across from her, seated with the men on their side of the circle, Simu
was proud and troubled all at once.  He wished that Zinkh had never
brought his people to the Great Gathering.  Things had been bad in the
encampment since the banishment of the People Who Walk With Dogs.  He
had been shaken by that; never in his life had he seen men brutalized in
the way that Torka and Karana had been.  He had liked and respected
Torka and had learned more about the hunt on one day's trek onto the
tundra with him than he had in a lifetime of hunting with Zinkh and the
men of his own band.  He was glad that Torka's women had run away to be
with him.  Simu hoped that his own Eneela would do the same for him. He
admired the strong old hunter Grek for daring to risk his own family in
order to help them, and he wondered if he would be as brave as Grek had
been--or as unflinching before pain and certain death as Torka, or even
the youth Karana.

He watched the dance of the magic man and sensed a falseness in him. But
these shamans were all that way--aloof, disdainful, overbearing, all
show and sparkling fires and strangely scented smokes.  Having grown up
in a band with Pomm as magic woman, he believed with a certainty that
her healing ways were clever diversions.

Nevertheless, he wondered why old Pomm looked so nervous as she sat in
the position of supreme rank in the center of the women's half of the
circle, next to Naiapi, who had become old Lorak's woman during his last
days.  Pomm had never made a secret of her longing to sit someday in
that
spot, to outshine the legendary Sondahr.  Now that Sondahr had died and
Navahk had proclaimed the great powers of Pomm, Simu would have expected
her to look smug.  But instead her pudgy little hands plucked at her
headdress of feathers in the way men and women pluck at the air when
they fear that death is near.  There was fear in her eyes as she
observed the dance of Navahk.

Beside him Zinkh made a low guttural sound as he crossed his arms over
his meager chest and shook his head.  Simu saw his scowl and knew that
he was not the only man feeling unenthusiastic about Navahk's display.
True, there was not a band that would not covet such a shaman as Navahk;
nor was there a man or woman who would dispute his right to become
supreme elder in Lorak's place.  But something set Simu on edge when he
looked at him.  He had not forgotten the way the man had threatened him.
More, Navahk had blamed the death of Stam on Torka and his dogs.  Yet
Torka was long gone, and now Het was dead as a result of a freak
accident in which he had tripped over air, it seemed, and fallen into
Navahk's fire circle.  The man had been so dirty, his clothes and hair
so greasy, he had caught fire instantly and run through the camp.  By
the time anyone had been able to tackle him and try to smother the
flames, it was too late.

Simu's mouth tensed.  That was no fit death for a man.  Yet others had
died worse deaths since then: three old men and two old women among whom
Navahk had generously portioned the meat of Torka's slain dogs. They had
died screaming, like Sondahr.  The magic men had not been able to heal
them.  In the end Navahk had commanded Pomm to end their misery, and
after many hours spent in a trance, he had announced that bad spirits
would walk the camp until Torka and his people were found and slain.

And now, suddenly, Navahk's dance changed.  No longer chanting to honor
the memory of Lorak, he set to loose fear within the hearts of the
People, and when the bladder flask the men had been passing around came
to Simu, he passed it on without drinking.  Somehow, he sensed that to
be drunk on this night would not be a good thing.

Yet the others drank as Navahk sang a dark song of bad spirits and an
encampment that must be purged.  His potent song caught fire in his
listeners, and before Simu could fully grasp what was happening, the
circle of watchers broke wide around him.  Men, women, and children,
urged on by Navahk's
maniacal song, scurried to fetch their precious stores of bison and
mammoth meat, to hurl their hard-won winter food supply into the
communal fire.

"Torka has hunted this meat," cried the magic man, encouraging their
madness.  "It is bad meat, cursed by his bad spirit.  All who eat it
will die!"

Aghast at the appalling waste, Simu stood beside an equally incredulous
Zinkh.  How could the people believe what the magic man was saying?
Sondahr had supposedly died of Navahk's own curse!  Lorak had most
likely succumbed to the infirmities of old age.  Het had stumbled into a
fire pit, and for days people had been eating bison and mammoth meat
with no ill effects.  Only those who had eaten of the flesh of the dogs
had been .. . poisoned?

A coldness pricked at the back of Simu's shoulders as the young man
understood.  The flames, fed with fat and bone and dried flesh, grew
high, giving birth to smoke that smelled rich and sweet with the aroma
of roasting meat that would feed no one during the time of the long dark
that was nearly upon them.  In the wake of the storm, the land
surrounding the encampment would yield little nourishment.

And still Navahk danced.  At last he had the excuse to pursue Torka's
people into the Corridor of Storms, where no doubt he would seduce
others into helping him to kill them all.

The short, clouded days grew suddenly warm.  Near the well-remembered
River of Caribou Spring Crossing it rained hard, just as it had rained
before.  They passed old fire circles and the depressions of
long-abandoned pit huts, and although there were no signs of recent
camps, it seemed to Karana that they were being watched from the silent,
bleak land.  The tracks of many bands overlay each other, bleeding away
into mud so that neither Torka, Grek, nor Karana could determine when
they had been laid.  Among them Torka found the footprints of two adults
and a child heading east; and not far away, headed in the opposite
direction, he saw the fresher prints of one of the same two adults, a
male burdened with a heavy pack frame, if Torka was judging correctly by
length of the stride and the depth of tracks. But even as he knelt to
examine them, recalling the despicable Tomo and Jub and the pitiable
little slave boy whom they had jerked along in their wake, the rain
flooded the prints and pounded at them until they disappeared.

Torka rose, disturbed by his memories of the two slavers and the frail,
beaten-looking little boy.  What had happened to them?  He looked around
through rain and the gray, brooding cloud cover.  This was bad country.
Like Karana, he felt himself being watched.  But by whom?  The ghosts of
Hetchem and her malformed infant?  He urged the others to move on, and
they walked quietly across it, not wishing to linger lest they
inadverently offend the restless spirits of the dead.

For two days it rained lightly.  Torka led relentlessly on through the
mist, avoiding the tundra barrens, which would be a vast mud wallow now.

"The sky spirits behave as though they cannot make up their minds
whether it is spring or winter," commented Lonit, eyeing the sky.

Walking beside her, Torka noted that despite their grueling journey, her
step was sure.  Indeed, it seemed that the farther they went from the
land of men and the closer they came to the Corridor of Storms, the
stronger she became.  Her bruises were healing.  He looked at her with
love and pride, until Karana darkened his mood.

"It will be winter soon enough," said Karana grimly.  "And if Navahk
catches us, for this band it will be winter forever!"

They took to the misted hills that climbed gradually through scrub
country and the thick, miniature forests of the Land of Little Sticks.
Here they rested as they looked back across the land for any signs of
followers.

Nothing.

"This would be a good place to camp," Grek suggested.  "For the sake of
our women and the little ones, we must take time to rest.  And in these
woods and clouds we could risk a fire."

"We cannot rest until we reach the Corridor of Storms.  Not even Navahk
will be able to convince others to follow us there!"  insisted Karana.

Torka saw exhaustion on the loyal, uncomplaining faces.  His own
weariness was heavy in him.  Once again he took note of the vast, empty
land that lay behind them.  "We will rest," he decided.  "For a little
while."

They raised a shelter against the rain and judiciously built a nearly
smokeless little fire beneath it, huddling close to eat their first hot
food in days.  The women and children slept, and Torka, Karana, and Grek
took turns keeping watch over
the western land from the high hills.  They saw no sign of life--not
even of game.

"He is coming," said Karana, brooding and restless and unable to sleep
except in spurts.

Torka nodded.  "Yes, I feel it too.  We will not stay long."

For two days they camped within the Land of Little Sticks, fishing,
setting snares, hunting small game, replenishing their stores of meat
and kindling moss, and gathering rare, precious wood and bark for the
thousand tool-making purposes in which bone, less malleable than wood,
was inappropriate.

Late on the morning of the third day, beneath clear skies at last,
Summer Moon pointed toward what looked like a herd of large animals
moving on the horizon far to the west.

From where he had been dozing at his lookout post, Torka awakened
instantly and came to her.  He stood watching in stoic silence, taking
measure across the distance.  Then he sighed with a grim resolve as he
picked up his daughter, kissed her chubby cheek, and alerted the others.
"Will we hunt?"  Mahnie asked, thinking that it would be wonderful to
taste the good, rich flavor of bison or caribou.

"Look closer, daughter of Grek.  It is we who are being hunted.  Game
animals do not walk upright on two legs."

It was the promise of meat that drove them.
Meat and the bold assurances of Jub that ahead of them, within the
Corridor of Storms, all that Torka had claimed was true: There was
game--so much that a hunter stood back from it in amazement.  Wherever
he threw his spear, Jub had reported, there was food--meat on the hoof
in such numbers that women might never fear starvation for their
children, and even in the dreams of men, such herds could not be
conjured.

Jub had strode into Navahk's encampment on the western bank of the Big
Milk River, his pack frame loaded with meat and prime skins.  His eyes
shifted from one headman to another, then settled finally on Zinkh
because the little man was glaring at him with such open and obvious
hostility.

"You in the funny hat--I remember you.  You are still glowering like an
old woman at a killing site with no teeth left to chew her meat.  Look
at someone else with doubt and dislike in your eyes!"

Zinkh did not appreciate the rebuke.  "Where is your boy using brother,
slaver?  And the little one who walked with you?  Have you traded him
to--"

Jub's dirt-crusted face wrinkled with indignation.  "The little one was
weak.  Sickly.  He cried too much.  He was trouble to me.  His spirit
walks the wind.  And I am one man since my brother Tomo died--spitted in
a pit trap at the neck of a great and wonderful valley.  Torka's valley,
no doubt, the one he boasted of.  And Torka's trap--the one he neglected
to mention.  Torka is to blame for poor Tomo's end, a bad end too.  I
would kill Torka for that.  But one man alone was too dangerous."

Navahk stepped forward through the press of curious men, plus the women
and children they had insisted upon dragging along.  He eyed the dirty
traveler with interest.  "The Great Gathering has disbanded.  Bad
spirits walk the encampment of the mammoth eaters, so we seek a new
place to encamp for the winter.  It was the power of Navahk that called
you here, for in the rain we have lost the trail of Man Who Walks With
Dogs and know not the way to follow him."

Jub raised an eyebrow.  "I heard no one calling me."

"No man hears the voice of Navahk.  It is the power of my will that has
drawn your spirit to this place, for we are of one purpose--to end the
curse of the Man Who Walks With Dogs.  You have seen him?"

"Yes.  He was well on his way to the Corridor of Storms.  I can lead you
to his valley.  For a price."

"Name it!"  "The pleasure of killing him .. . and possession of his
woman!  The one with the antelope eyes."

"Torka will die slowly by my hand after he sees his people die.  But you
can assist.  Lonit is mine."

Jub accepted, then reconsidered.  "He has a little girl--not the infant,
the child.  I would have the little girl to use if I cannot have the
mother."

"Agreed," said Navahk enthusiastically.

Behind him the people of the various bands were silent, but their eyes
showed disapproval.  They were hungry and tired and afraid.  Half the
bands that had set out with them had turned back.  The magic man had
sworn that he would lead them to a better camp, but all he had done was
lead them across the icy land to a great river, where they had encamped
in a downpour while he retired into his tent to chant and make stinking
smokes.  They had seen no game, but some said they had seen the wanawut
following in the rain mists.  Everyone heard it crying in the night, and
young Tlap claimed to have seen Navahk disappear with it into the
clouds.  But now it seemed that the magic man's smokes had conjured
something, or someone, after all.  Although they liked the talk of good
hunting grounds, they did not like the talk of the infamous Corridor of
Storms or of giving away children to such men as Jub.

The magic man sensed their reaction and turned to face them, his face
radiant.  "What is one girl child to the people of Navahk?  The women
who walk with me shall bear many
sons!  They shall walk proud and unafraid beside Spirit Killer into the
Corridor of Storms.  And when the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs are
no more, we shall feast at a fire of celebration, for the forces of
Creation shall smile upon us once more!"

And so they moved on.  Although the meat in Jub's pack was not enough to
feed them all, they were inspired by it.

That night Simu drew Zinkh aside.  "I do not like it," he said
emphatically, his face set and hard.  "All my life I have been proud to
walk with Zinkh.  Always has Zinkh chosen wisely for his people.  But
now my woman weeps in the night and asks me how can I follow you.  So I
must ask my headman: How can you follow Navahk?  Do you truly wish to
see Torka dead?  Or our people under such a man as Spirit Killer?  When
he commanded Pomm to stay behind, did you see how the poor old woman
wept?  My woman weeps at the thought of the forbidden Corridor of
Storms.  All your women are afraid."

"Pomm has wanted to be magic woman of the Great Gathering.  Now she has
her wish and must live with it.  I say now to Simu that he is a man of
little vision!"

"Simu will leave vision to such as Navahk.  Simu will take Eneela and go
back to the camp of the Great Gathering and--"

"Think!"

The younger man frowned.  "I am thinking.  That is why I have come to
you this night.  To try to convince you to lead our people back to--"

"To what?  The encampment has no meat now.  It was a place of death.
This man will not live with such people!"

"Then how can Zinkh follow Navahk?"  "Because he will lead us to Torka,
to whom this man Zinkh owes a great apology!  If that man will look into
the face of Zinkh again and call him friend, this man will walk with him
off the edge of the world and be unafraid.  Will you stand with me,
Simu, as I will stand at his side against those who would destroy him
and his good people?  Do you understand now?  Will you stop talking of
weeping women and let this man get some sleep?"

At last the eastern wall of the Mountains That Walk loomed directly
ahead of them beyond low, deeply cleft hill country.  Grek paused.
Wallah, at his side, slipped an arm through his.

"This man has not been so close to the white mountains in many years,"
he said, trying not to sound intimidated as his eyes took in the vast
range of ice that stretched beyond the eastern horizon in glistening,
tumultuous, glacial massifs two miles high.

"This woman had forgotten that they are such big mountains," added
Wallah in a small voice.

"They are beautiful!"  exclaimed Mahnie.  "Are they so tall all along
the Corridor of Storms?"

Torka noted that, like most of her queries, this one had been addressed
to Karana.  He smiled to himself.  He liked the bright, sometimes brash
young girl, perhaps because she was much like the bright, often brash
Karana.  They would make a pair, the two of them, when Karana's mourning
for Sondahr was spent and he at last realized that though Mahnie was
small for her years and possessed the curiosity and enthusiasm of
childhood, she was a woman--and a very pretty and delightful one at
that.

"Go ahead, Karana.  Tell her what our world is like.  We will all
listen, and your words will pass the time and make our steps more
eager."

And it was so.  They went on into the hill country that had once been
the land of the murderous Ghost Band.  They bent into their heavy packs,
dragging their sledges under clear skies, with Aar bounding ahead of
them, marking the slowly ascending route that they must follow.

Karana was not certain when his words eased into a chanting cadence, but
as the miles slipped away, his song seemed to bear him up.  Time ceased
to exist as he bore himself and his listeners onward--into the future
where he longed to be, leading them forward through the past, through
the years that had eventually brought them to this day, to this place,
to this song.

He spoke of yesterdays long gone but well remembered, of adventures
shared with Torka, Lonit, and old Umak; he spoke of the distant Mountain
of Power, where he had lived as an animal until Torka had found him and
taught him how to live as a boy again; he spoke of Manaak, lana's brave
husband, and her face glowed with pride, which, at last, overrode her
sadness at her loss of that good and daring man.

He spoke of joining forces with Supnah's people to emerge victorious
over the Ghost Men who had kidnapped him and Lonit after murdering Umak,
Manaak, and Umak's old, brave

woman, Naknaktup; he spoke of pursuing the last of the Ghost Men into a
canyon toward which they now walked and of facing the great mammoth
Thunder Speaker where the canyon opened into the river of grass, which
ran ever eastward into the face of the rising sun between the Mountains
That Walk.  When at last his song was done, he was surprised to see that
the day was also done.

That night, although frigid winds swept down from the icy mountains, and
the group made no fire in the bare, mounding hills lest those who
pursued them see it and know their route, Karana was warmed by the
closeness of his people and by the words of Lonit.  She came to kneel
beside him and embraced him as though she were a proud and loving
mother.

"Sondahr was right about you, Karana.  The spirits have given you a
great gift.  Through your speaking of their names, Umak, Manaak, and
Naknaktup are with us now, walking with their people to a good land
where they will live forever in the children who will be born to us and
given their names in a new world .. . beneath a new sky .. . beneath a
new sun!"  She kissed him hard on the brow, then turned quickly away
lest he see the tears of love that had welled within her eyes.

He saw them anyway and felt their warmth upon his cheek as he lay back,
bundled in his sleeping skins.  He wrapped an arm about Aar and gave
himself to his dreams--troubled dreams, of a golden land that trembled
beneath the shadow of a mountain that rained fire ... of a white,
one-eyed stallion racing upon a burning wind, screaming its deadly rage
across the world while the wanawut howled and the white mountains fell
and the sky bled and drowned the golden land in blood.

Navahk sat beneath his lean-to.  He had not slept for days.  He stared
out through the mist as Naiapi came toward him, walking in the shaggy
weatherproof robe of mammoth skin that he knew she had taken from the
hut of Sondahr.

Sondahr.  She would have known what lay ahead.  She could have told him
where Torka was now.

"Navahk, this woman would speak to you."

He grimaced.  "Go away, Naiapi."

She knelt close, frowning.  "You must heed my warning, Navahk.  Those
who walk with you grow weak with hunger.  They are weary of the chase.
The man Jub will lead us to the
valley of Man Who Walks With Dogs, and Torka and his people will be
slain.  What difference can a day make?"

The mists seemed to be roiling and settling within him.  He looked up at
Naiapi and smiled as he saw her recoil.  What did she see that had
caused her to draw back?  What did they all see these past many days
since he and the wanawut were one?

The power of the beast.  That was it!  It was in him now.  He knew it.
He felt it.  For many nights he had gone out to the beast with food from
his own meager rations and fed it as it fed him, then stroked it and
joined with it and poured himself into it until it was his high, bestial
howling of release that his people heard in the night--not that of the
wanawut.  The howling of the beast Navahk!

He laughed low and deep to think of it.  Like thunder in distant hills,
Naiapi heard the threat in it and started to withdraw, but he caught her
hand.  "It is good that you fear me; it is good that they all fear me.
But tomorrow I will allow them to rest and hunt.  But for my purpose,
not their pleasure."

She saw the madness in his eye.

"You should not have killed Sondahr, Naiapi."

"I thought it would please Navahk."

"It did not please me.  It pleased you to see her die .. . one who was
to me what you could never be."

Her heart was cold, beating fast.  "I would be your woman, Navahk.  I
would serve you, please you in all things."

"We will see.  We will see."  He laughed at her as he shoved her back
into the mist and the night.

The next day they hunted.  There was little meat in the rain-saturated
barren lands into which Jub had led them, but the men took several
steppe antelope and ptarmigan, and that night the people ate until the
bones were stripped and cracked, and only the hair and horns, feathers
and beaks were left of their kill.  Navahk watched them, not sharing
their feast.  Instead, when all had returned to their sleeping skins, he
stood alone, arms raised to the star-strewn sky, imploring the bad
spirits of Torka to remain gone from the people of this camp forever.

With Eneela asleep and the baby drowsing at her breast, Simu rose to
observe the magic man in silence.  Zinkh came with him, and they stood
together while the song of Navahk rose to fill the night.

"Your woman has eaten well?"  asked the little headman quietly.

"For the first time in days, yes, and the baby sleeps contented.  It is
a good thing; I was ready to go off and hunt, even if he forbade it. But
he has seen our need.  There was no need to challenge him."

"Do not count on it.  Walk carefully in the days to follow.  And keep
your spear at ready."

The next day they rested.  By the following dawn they were traveling
again, into deeply cleft hill country, the Mountains That Walk standing
like clouds upon the eastern horizon.

Jub pointed.  "Torka will be where the shadows lie.  There's a deep
canyon there.  Beyond it the Corridor of Storms lies between the
mountains, and five risings of the sun beyond that, the valley where
Tomo was killed.  Mark me, it is the finest hunting ground I have ever
seen.  Torka will be there."

Navahk urged them on, his pace ferocious, and for the rest of that day,
although they walked with only brief breaks for rest, the mountains
seemed no closer.  It was nearly dusk when a small herd of camels was
sighted.  Many cheered Navahk, believing that his chanting of the
previous night had put this game in the world for them.

He chafed against their words and told them that their destination was
in sight, but the hunters reminded him that it was late in the day, time
to make camp.  In the meantime their appetite for the kill had been
whetted.  Seeing their eagerness, he told them that they might hunt.

The camels scattered when the first, a big male, was struck.  It went
down onto its front knees while howling hunters surrounded it for the
kill.  Several men took off after the other beasts, while two youths,
Tlap and Yanehva, went after a young cow that disappeared into the deep,
scrub-choked shadows that laked within the depressions of the convoluted
hills.  Several women expressed concern--the youths were not boys, but
they were inexperienced hunters--and Navahk took up his spear and
followed.  The boys' mothers thanked him.

It was not particularly cold, but night was coming on fast, and the
temperature was dropping.  Navahk trotted into the clear, sharp air,
smiling.

The camel had gone fast and far, and the youths were hot on her trail.
Navahk had no difficulty following them.  They
were running close together for at least three miles over rolling,
broken terrain, until the camel began to tire.  Using sound strategy,
the youths had separated, intending to come together from both sides of
the animal and take it by surprise.

His smile deepened.  This was perfect.  Lengthening his stride, he
trailed Tlap--the smaller, from the size of his footprints.  Navahk
would have to catch up with him soon if his plan was to work; he ran on,
smiling, closing on his prey, moving as a shadow across the dusky,
shadowed world.

Hearing movement behind him, Tlap turned and, a spear at ready, braced
himself to take on whatever predator was following.  But he saw no
danger in the familiar, smiling form trotting behind him.  He smiled
back, flattered that the magic man would have wished to join him but
irritated, too, because he needed no help to make his kill.  Tlap
shrugged and gestured Navahk forward, then ran on, into a deep shrubby
depression, hoping to find the camel first so that his throw would kill
their prey.

He made a small, gurgling cry of dismay and shock as Navahk's spear went
through his back, pierced his lung, and propelled him forward onto his
face.  He could not breathe as he slapped his hands up and down against
the ground; nor could he scream, for Navahk's foot slammed down onto the
back of his neck, snapping it as he withdrew his spear, then plunging it
deep again, straight through the youth's frantically beating heart.

He knelt then, listening.  Far ahead he could hear the camel pounding on
and the youth Yanehva crashing through the shrubbery after it.  He put
back his head and howled.

"Wah nah wah .. . wah nah wut!"

There was no sound from Yanehva now; he had probably stopped, no doubt
in terror.  Navahk howled again, and from within the dark and twisted
hills the wanawut answered him.  It would come now.

"Tlap?"

The call of Yanehva was the cracked pipe not of a young man but of a
frightened boy.

"Tlap .. . where are you?  We'd better get back.  Did you hear it?"

Navahk was amused as he rose, walked a few paces, and called, "Run, boy!
The wanawut walks these hills behind you.  Go!  Quickly!  Do not wait
for me.  I will find Tlap!"

Silence answered him until he howled again, a high ululation that
terrified Yanehva.  Navahk heard the boy galloping away back toward the
encampment as he stood hidden within the shadows, waiting for what he
knew would come to him now.

That night the moon showed horns as the child moved with caution beneath
its pale, silver light toward the man who had called to her. She came
forward hesitantly because she smelled the rank odor of fear as well as
blood and meat from the sprawled corpse.  The child made a face.  Had he
killed it himself, one of his own?  For her?  She did not want to eat
such meat!

The man was smiling in the moonlight, waving her forward, murmuring to
her in the low, soothing way that he did when his hands promised
stroking and his body promised pleasure.

Mother Killer.

Hatred was alien to her kind, and she found it hard to hate him now. But
she did, in a small, scabbed nubbin of her heart that, in her need for
companionship and affection, she was able to ignore.  He was her mate
now, as her mother had once had a mate, long ago, in a far land. It was
good to be mated, to be stroked, to be held close and joined to the man,
even though he was not of her kind and sometimes the savagery of their
joining frightened her.  The ugliness of the howling man sometimes
disgusted her, so she howled back to override the sound he made and
closed her eyes, pretending that he was one of her own kind.

Kneeling, leaning on his spear, Navahk offered meat.

She crouched before him, watching him out of her mist colored eyes, her
gray, furred body silver in the moonlight.  Why did she hesitate?  Why
did she not eat?  She must eat!  The body of the youth must bear the
marks of her claws and fangs if it was to terrorize the people.  Once
they saw what the wanawut had done, they would not wish to linger in the
country of wind spirits; they would hurry forward to the Mountains That
Walk, into the Corridor of Storms, and rush to kill Torka, whose bad
magic had turned the wanawut loose upon them to slay one of their own
living sons.

He smiled and spoke to the beast gently, cajolingly.  "Navahk has
brought this for you!  Eat!  Tear the body apart.  Gorge yourself.  And
while you are not looking at me out of those all-too-human eyes, Navahk
will thrust his spear into your
heart.  He does not need you anymore: I have mastered your power and
made it my own.  I will fear nothing in the world ever again.  You are a
hideous, repulsive thing, and it will be good to bring your body back to
my people, gutted and on my back, as I wear the skin of your mother.
Then they will know that I am a man whose power they will never question
again!"

Her massive, bearlike head eased to one side.  She was listening, trying
to understand.

Impatient, he pushed the body of the dead youth toward her.  "Eat!"

She knew the word.  He used it often, each time he brought meat for her.
Yet there was something in his eye and smile and the eager way he thrust
the meat at her that caused her to back away, then hunker down, trying
to understand.

He was angry.  With his bare hands he ripped open the youth's surplice,
and with his spearhead he stabbed deep, opening the upper belly,
reaching in, drawing out innards, holding them out.

"Eat!"  he demanded.  She made a soft, questioning sound and, to his
shock, uncurled the long, massive fingers of her right hand to reveal a
dagger.  With it, she imitated him, driving the dagger deep, in and out,
looking up at him now and again, repeating the soft questioning sound as
though she wished approval from him.

"No!  Like a beast, not like a man!"  Suddenly enraged with her, he
struck the weapon from her hand.

As it flew from her palm, she cried out, startled, and jumped back,
holding her hand, rocking herself, making cooing, confused sounds as she
frantically rummaged through the undergrowth to retrieve the blade. She
snatched it up, clutched it to her heart, and stared at him, breathing
hard.

He righted his spear and held it out toward her defensively, knowing
that even with his spear he had little defense against the beast if she
chose to hurl herself at him.  She was simply too big, too powerful. And
in this moment, despite his bold talk, he knew that he was a man of
fragile flesh and a heart full of fear.  He had seduced the beast and
mated with her.  He had gentled her spirit.  But he had not mastered her
or understood her nature any more than he had been able to master or
understand any other female in his life--except through pain and fear.
But now he was afraid as he dipped

the spearhead and prodded outward with the shaft, snarling at the beast,
warning her away, hoping that his bluff would work as he advanced toward
her.

She mewed, shocked and frightened and confused by his behavior, and
suddenly hooting like a deranged owl, she whirled and fled into the
night, leaving Navahk alone in the dark with the corpse that he had
made.

No one dared to walk into the night in search of him.  They built a
smoky fire--there was little to burn in the soggy land--and cooked camel
but had little heart to eat it.  They called his name, and that of the
youth Tlap, while Yanehva brooded, deliberately staring into the smoke
so that his eyes would burn and he would suffer pain for having been so
frightened that he had not stayed to look for his friend or to help the
magic man fight the wanawut.  He was sure that it had come to that, for
otherwise Navahk and Tlap would have been back long before now.

At last they appeared, the magic man carrying the body of the dead
youth.  Tlap's mother threw herself to the ground and keened, and
Yanehva felt sick with shame while the people listened solemnly as
Navahk told them of how he had been unable to save the youth from the
wanawut.

"We must not linger.  Crooked spirits follow us, and not one man, woman,
or child will walk in safety until we have killed the people of Man Who
Walks With Dogs and claimed his valley as our own!"

But as the hunter Ekoh took the body of his son, his were not the only
eyes to wonder at the shape of the wounds that had killed him.  He
looked at Navahk.  "The wanawut did this?"

"What else?"  queried the magic man, daring the man to challenge him.
"With teeth and claws like daggers did the wanawut slay your son!"

The Mountain That Smokes lay ahead.  In days that seemed like mere
breaths of light, Torka and his people hurried forward, deep into the
Corridor of Storms, anxious to reach the Valley of Songs before the time
of the long dark was upon them.

They had covered their tracks well, deliberately leaving false trails,
walking across talus slopes wherever possible-even though this meant
taking the longer, more difficult route--carrying the sledges when the
ground was soft and certain to carry the scars of their passing,
step-hopping across tussocks, building no fires, and leaving no
discernible refuse.  Still they were followed.  Karana knew it, even
though Torka was beginning to have his doubts.

It had been many days since they had paused at the entrance to the
Corridor of Storms and looked westward across the night to see the fire
burning miles away in the country of twisted hills, and Lonit had
wondered aloud if those who followed had not given up and were turning
back.  Why else would they build so great a fire unless they no longer
found the need to conceal themselves from those whom they hunted?

Karana had no answer for that, but he knew Navahk well enough to know
that even if everyone who walked with him abandoned him, he would come
on alone.

Torka and his people walked under clouded skies.  It rained again, but
it was warm rain for this time of year, and when at last it stopped, the
clouds remained and the temperature stayed well above freezing.

As they proceeded onward under the shadow of the Mountain That Smokes,
the peak made low rumbling sounds that
kept them from sleeping well during the night, and Mother Below was
restless beneath them.  By day the entire face of the land was different
from how they remembered it.  It was as though huge sheets of molten
rock had poured out of the smoking mountain and across the earth,
solidifying to form dark, steaming, brittle barriers that were hundreds
of feet high in places.  They tried climbing over the lower expanses of
the strange rock, but the stone cut into the soles of their boots and
bruised their feet.  Soon they were all limping, even Aar. The women
were forced to spend an entire day contriving new boots for them all out
of the skins that formed their bedrolls.

"This will not do," said Torka.  "If we continue over the flows of
stone, we will measure the distance in the number of boots we wear out."

"We have not enough skins for the making of so many boots," Lonit told
him, rubbing her feet.

"Perhaps the land is telling us that we are not welcome?"  Wallah's
suggestion was spoken softly.  And ignored.

"We will walk around the flows," Torka decided.  "The Valley of Songs is
not far now."

They moved on, closer to the towering white massifs of the Mountains
That Walk than they preferred to go.  The mountains soared so high that
they seemed to block off the clouded sky.  They seemed to talk and
grumble both day and night, and now and then avalanche mists rose from
deep within dark blue canyons to cloud the ridges.  Torka's people
walked quickly, in silence and fear, looking up, half expecting the
great peaks to fall upon them It was with great relief when at last they
put the lava country behind them and could stride out across the
unbroken sea of grass again, with the Mountains That Walk miles away on
either side of them.

Game was plentiful.  They hunted and rested and ate over a small fire
built within the sheltering windbreak of a grove of willows.  There was
fresh, sweet water in a spring that bubbled nearby.  And as night came
down, Torka looked back across the way that they had come and allowed
himself a small smile of satisfaction.

"I do not think that Navahk will bring those who follow us beyond the
flows."

They slept well that night, and although the dark was much longer than
the day, they were in no hurry for the dawn as
they lay bundled gratefully beneath their furs, dreaming untroubled
dreams for the first time in many days.

Yet when Torka awoke at last, it was to see Karana crouching on his
heels, staring across the miles, his traveling pack rolled and ready at
his side.

"He will come," he said, without turning to look at Torka.  "In the
Valley of Songs we can stand against him.  Here in open country, we will
be few against many.  We must go on."

For two days and nights the child sat within the scrub lands of the
twisted hills, holding the man stone close, rocking herself, sleeping
erratically, trying to understand why Mother Killer had turned against
her.

There was no understanding; there was only loneliness and the terrible,
aching need to be close to another of her own kind.

But in all the world there were no others.

There was only the beast.  Perhaps if she followed him, if she called to
him and presented herself to him, if she turned up her throat and
allowed him to see that she was passive before him, he would stroke her
again and join with her again .. . and then the loneliness would go away
.. . and the hunger.

She was ravenous.  She moved out of the scrub, back to where the beast
had left the corpse he had killed of his own kind, willing to eat it
now.  But he had carried it off.  She followed the mixed scent of man
and meat, sniffing the trail, following day and night and another day
until those scents and the stench of rotting flesh led her through a
dark, black walled canyon.

A lynx lay stinking and bloated in the shadows.  A chunk of disgorged
meat lay within its gaping jaws.

The child hunkered near to finger the dead animal, to peer close at the
tiny skewers of sharp bone protruding through the vomited piece of meat.

Bad and bony meat.  The child made a face.  The lynx must have been
starving to eat so greedily of such bony meat.  Her mother had taught
her long ago to eat only of soft flesh and innards, to crack bones and
grind them thoroughly before devouring them--as she now devoured the
lynx, opening its skin with the man stone, eating only of the soft
haunch, avoiding the belly and gut, which must surely be full of bad
meat.  She slept then, on her feet, and when she awoke, dawn
was coloring the distant river of grass between white mountains that
reached into the clouded sky.

And then she howled a long, high, pitiable wail.  She could see the pack
of Mother Killer far below in the distance.  Clutching the man stone to
her breast, she followed.

It was the cry of the wanawut that caused the people to follow Navahk.
They had reached the lava flows and had paused, discouraged by Jub's
announcement that the valley of Man Who Walks With Dogs lay far beyond
it.

"This man will take his family and go back!"  Cheanah said, and his
woman sighed with relief.  Then the cry of the wanawut had her on her
feet, drawing her littlest boy to her side.

"You said it would not follow us into this good land," Zinkh prodded
Navahk, and Simu, Cheanah, and all the hunters muttered in agreement.

The magic man looked at the woman Naiapi as though the cry of the beast
wanawut was somehow her fault.  She shrank from him, her face white,
until a slow smile of benevolent understanding came to the face of
Navahk.

"Go back into the world of the wanawut if that is your will, Cheanah.
And you, Zinkh, take your people with him.  Navahk has not forgotten the
death of poor Tlap.  He would not lead his people to that.  No, Navahk
will go on to the valley of Man Who Walks With Dogs, where the wanawut
will not follow."  "You said that it would not follow us here," reminded
Simu.

Navahk looked the young man up and down with contempt.  "Man Who Walks
With Dogs summons the wanawut so that it will feed upon his enemies.
When Torka is dead, Navahk will kill the beast ... as I have killed its
kind before.  What man among you has done that?  I, Navahk, walk now
into this new land unafraid!"

And so he did, and they followed to a man, as he knew they would, for he
was certain that the unknown country that lay ahead was less threatening
to them than the land of the wanawut, which lay behind. But as they
strode out, Cheanah joined the hunters of Zinkh's band, and as the
little gap toothed man in the incongruous hat spoke softly, Cheanah
nodded and gestured to his sons and his woman to walk beside him.

As they walked on into the dark edge of day, it seemed the Mountains
That Walk had done just that, for they were much closer than Torka
remembered their being, towering on either side of the low hills that
led into the Valley of Songs.  Great rubble mounds of snow, ice, and
boulders so obscured the entrance to their beloved valley that, had they
not found the half-buried pit trap and the bones of the man within it,
they would have turned back, believing they had come the wrong way.

"Tomo ..."  Karana spoke the name of the corpse.

Torka knew that he must have recognized it through his gift of Seeing,
because carrion-eating birds had stripped the bones of flesh.

Lonit's hands flew to her face to stifle her cry at what lay ahead, and
Torka stared, stunned, at the fouled leavings of the twosome who had
encamped and hunted in this sweet place of memories and dreams that he
had found and made his own.

It was not his own anymore.  Bones of slaughtered animals were
everywhere.  The trees had been cut down and used as firewood.  The
pools were stinking quagmires filled with the refuse of the men's kills
and body wastes, and with the bones of a child who had been drowned
before its abandonment.

"We cannot stay in this place."  Karana's voice was transformed by
unspeakable anger and hurt.

Torka stood in stunned silence.  A storm wind was rising beyond the
ruined little valley and within the man.  "Nor can we leave it ... until
the storm is over."

That night a sulfurous wind blew hard from the north.  Navahk cursed the
storm and his people.  For days he had driven them; their fear of the
wanawut was his prod.  But now it was cold and snowing, and the
foul-smelling wind was making them irritable.  An equally exhausted Jub
assured them that the way to the valley lay only a day ahead, but they
moaned and dropped their packs, and not even Navahk's threat of the
wanawut was enough to force them on.

All slept except Navahk.

He stalked the camp, bent into the wind, and circled like a lion trapped
within a dead-end canyon.  Of all who followed him, Zinkh alone lay
awake in his sleeping skins, watching, waiting patiently for Navahk to
do what he did every night-leave the camp to test the route along which
he would lead

his people the next day.  It was uncanny the way the man could see in
the dark with his one eye; like a nocturnal predator, Navahk needed no
torches to light his way, nor was he afraid to be alone with the
wanawut.  Sometimes he would not return before dawn.

Zinkh hoped that tonight would be such a night as, rising to poke Simu
into wakefulness, he crept in absolute silence to rouse Cheanah and his
sons.

"Hurry.  The time we have been waiting for has come," whispered Zinkh.
"Jub has detailed the way that lies ahead.  We must go now, before
Navahk returns, or we will be too late to warn Torka.  I will wake the
others of this man's band.  Wake your women.  Gag your babies if you
must!  We go to join the Man Who Walks With Dogs!"

Torka and his people huddled close within their lean-tos, listening to
the distant wind howling far beyond the valley.  Above them the sky
stirred restlessly and a dry snow fell, but there was little wind within
the valley itself.  Distant roarings rent the world beyond, and Mother
Below shifted restlessly far beneath them.  Through storm and wind and
driving snow, they heard animals on the sea of grass crying, neighing,
and trumpeting.  Summer Moon buried her head in Lonit's bosom, as lana
held Demmi, and Mahnie comforted Wallah as though she were the mother.
The men sat upright with their spears at ready, wondering what good
their meager weapons of stone and bone would do against the forces of
Creation.

At dawn they peered from beneath their snow-laden lean tos.  The world
was unnaturally quiet and dark.  It smelled of smoke and sodden,
sulfurous ash.  The snow that lay upon the land was black, as were the
fine particles of ash drifting from the sky.  Slowly they clambered out
to look beyond the hills to the west, in the direction of the Mountain
That Smokes, where roiling black and red clouds filled the sky and
rained fire on the world.  And, climbing over the tumbled glacial lobes
of the Mountains That Walk, a group of disheveled, frightened people,
covered with black ash, were coming toward them, led by the bandy-legged
man in a huge and moldering hat.

"This man comes to name himself as friend of Torka!"  proclaimed Zinkh,
striding ahead of the others.  He took a
moment to catch his breath as Torka, Karana, and Grek gripped their
spears defensively and eyed him warily.

"Put spears away.  Put away, away!"  demanded Zinkh, puffing out his
meager chest as he looked proudly at Torka and his people.  "Far has
Zinkh brought people to stand with Torka against Navahk!  Zinkh made big
mistake to take up with that bad man.  Many miles have we come ahead of
a black and stinking wind to be away from him and the wanawut that
follows him!  Man Who Walks With Dogs will have need of men with spear
hurlers to stand against Navahk and his many hunters!  Zinkh's hunters
and Cheanah thought we would be those men!  Our people would be Torka's
people, if Torka will forgive Zinkh for being less than a man in the
face of his enemies."

Torka was amazed, grateful, and amused by the blustering apology.  He
could find no words except: "Yes, Torka will let it be so.  Yes."

"Good thing!"  proclaimed Zinkh, clearing his throat.  He breathed
deeply, decisively, and turned his gaze to Karana.  "You.  Lion Killer
Karana.  Zinkh brings to you something that you have left behind. Here:
This man thinks that you have not been lucky these past days. Perhaps
now you will believe Zinkh and wear this hat, and as brothers of one
band, it will bring luck to us all!"

Karana met the eyes of the brave and stubborn little headman and
understood for the first time that a man's size was best measured in the
depth of his loyalty and the amount of his courage, not in the height of
his head above the ground.

"I will wear the hat of Zinkh with pride," he said, and bent to allow
Zinkh to set the hat upon his head.

The little headman looked around, eyeing the valley and the precipitous,
ominously overhanging walls of ice.  The way the earth had been
shifting, those walls could jar loose and crash down to kill them all.
"This is not such a good place for people to stay for one long time, I
think."

"No," Torka agreed.  "We cannot stay here.  We must go on."

Navahk awoke.  Buried within his sleeping skins, smothering in furs and
hides, he fought for air, until at last, his face was free of them.  He
lay on his back, gasping in a world of suffocating black mist.  Each
breath was a burning agony as he
slowly became aware of a low, constant, earth-shaking rumbling far to
the west.

He sat upright, clutching at his burning throat and looking at the
huddled forms of sleeping people around him.  Suddenly he realized that
most of them were not sleeping; they were dead.  There was something
deadly in the mist that had been loosed in the trembling night to sear
the lungs and lull the brain into a lethargy that shrank the spirit
until it was no more.

He had felt it the previous night but had not been aware of its
incipient danger.  As always, he had walked the dark tundra alone,
unable to sleep, thinking of how it would be when at last he brought
death to Torka and his people, wishing that the wanawut would come close
so he could kill her and flaunt her skin before those who had begun to
doubt him.  At last fatigue drove him back to camp for fitful slumber;
but last night he had returned early with a pounding headache and an
uncharacteristic desire simply to lie down, close his eyes, and sleep ..
. sleep.  As he had slept, he dreamed that the world beneath him shook
and roared, until now, fighting for every breath, he realized that he
had not been dreaming.

He staggered to his feet, shaking his aching head to clear it of a
thick, unnatural dizziness.  His eye teared as though someone had tossed
hot ashes into it.  He looked around.  Ashes were falling from the sky.
He looked to the east.  The sky was gray, as livid as a yellowing
bruise, unlike any sky that he had ever seen.

It was not until he turned and looked west that panic bit deep within
his gut and caused him to cry out.  Above and beyond the soaring walls
of the Mountains That Walk, the sky was black, and against it, the
Mountain That Smokes was haloed in fire.  From gaping rifts in its sides
oozing rivers of molten mud poured out across the sea of grass, sending
columns of steam high.  The mud buried the snowy tundra, blocking the
way back into the world of men.

Navahk's eye grew wide with incredulity.  From the broken summit of the
volcano an enormous cloud boiled upward for miles, its top torn by high
winds that were dispersing its substance across the western sky, while
lower winds skeined portions from its belly southeastward in long, thin
strands of--Navahk's hand covered his mouth and nostrils as
understanding dawned--poisoned air.

He stared, unable to move.  Never had he seen anything like it.  It was
from the heart of the mountain that the rumbling came.  And from the
cloud, fragments of fire rained upon the land while bits of rock
exploded upward.  Although small when observed from this distance, the
debris were the size of boulders as they hurtled upward into the cloud
and then fell great distances--to hit the earth and the Mountains That
Walk with devastating force.  The magic man calculated.  Fourteen times
had the sun risen since he had walked beneath the shadow of that
mountain, but even at this distance he felt the impact of the boulders'
landings shake the permafrost beneath him.

He watched in horror as entire mountains of ice collapsed and swept
outward onto the tundra in roaring waves of white spume.  Desperately he
tried to gather his thoughts.  He must get away, far from the Mountain
That Smokes!  Quickly!  To the east, where the sky was clearer of the
deadly exhalations of the volcano.  Then, without warning, the earth
rolled sharply beneath Navahk's feet.  He fell.  To his relief, several
of those whom he had believed dead now awoke and sat up, gasping,
choking, holding their throats, grimacing against pain.

Suddenly the earth was still.

The few people who had survived the night of silent death gradually
began to understand the extent of the devastating calamity.  They could
not rouse the others.  All who had not slept with their heads fully
buried under their skins were dead--women and children, young and old.
The killing breath of the distant mountain had been impersonal and
without compassion.

Again the earth rolled.  The survivors--five men, including Jub, and
only one woman, Naiapi--stared at Navahk, their eyes wild with fear as
they clutched their skins and furs to their nose and mouth.

Panic bit his gut more deeply, but he tried to stand tall and bold. "Do
not look at me!  I did not bring this!  Did this man not urge you to
hurry?"

One of the men, an elder named Earak, dropped to his knees, threw back
his head, and keened like a woman.  "All are dead!  My women!  My sons!
Where is the magic of Spirit Killer?  Why did he not protect us from
this?"

To the west the mountain continued to roar.  A deadly silence settled
as, for the first time, the absence of Zinkh, Cheanah, Ekoh, Simu, and
the others was noticed.

Oga's man, a hunter named Rak, sank to his knees beside the corpses of
his women and children.  "Zinkh and his men have abandoned us!  They
have gone back.  We should never have followed Navahk this far."

Naiapi was calm now.  Her eyes flashing, she cut the hysterical words of
the hunter.  "The man Jub has brought us across this land, assuring
Navahk that the way was good.  If you would wail like a woman and fix
blame for what has happened, do not blame Navahk, who has warned you all
along of what must happen if you did not do as he commanded.  Blame
Torka for this black killing magic, and blame Jub.  He is the one who
has told us all that this was a good land!"

Jub stepped away from the others, his expression that of a cornered
animal.  He met the glares of those who faced him.  "This was a good
land when I left it.  Do you think I would have come with you if I
thought that this-No!  You will not lay the blame for this on me, woman!
It is Navahk who has brought us to this, with his talk of the wanawut!
His need to kill the people of Torka!"

Jub saw his death in the faces of the others and would not stand still
for it.  He backed away, keeping them all in sight as he bent, picked up
his spears, and slung his bedding over his shoulder.  "I'm going back
into the world of men!  After Zinkh's people and Cheanah.  Anyone who
wants to follow, they can please themselves."

"The sky is poison, and the land burns ahead of you.  Fire rains from
the clouds, and the mountains fall.  You cannot go back!"  Navahk
thundered.  "Nor will I continue on into the forbidden land!"  Jub
shouted, wheeling away and breaking into a run.

The others watched him go, then looked at their dead.  In silence,
drained by their grief, they went to their loved ones, made their final
good-byes, and laid them to look at the sky.

"We will go on to the east."  Navahk spurred them with the insistence of
his tone.  "Look: The sky is clearer there.  We will find the people of
Man Who Walks With Dogs, and we shall kill them all for what they have
done this day!"

Rak looked at him with tired eyes.  "No, Navahk.  This man will walk
with you no more."

His statement inspired the other hunters.  To a man they proclaimed that
they would walk west with Rak.

"The wanawut is waiting to feed upon those who challenge Spirit Killer!"
Navahk threatened them.

Rak slowly shook his head.  "What is the wanawut to us now?  We have
lost women, children, brothers, and fathers in this camp.  How could it
hurt us more than this?"

"It can kill you!"

"Then we will die--but not in this land.  We will die on our way back to
the land of our people.  This land is not for men; it is for spirits ..
. bad spirits.  Come with us, Navahk.  Let Man Who Walks With Dogs go
his way.  He is welcome to this land."

"I will see him dead."

"Then you will see him dead alone.  Unless the woman stays with you."

Naiapi's head went up.  "I am Navahk's woman!  I walk at his side
unafraid!"

Rak shrugged.  "The choice is yours.  But this man goes now."  As one,
the others muttered agreement and, without another word, took up their
packs and spears and headed west.

"You will die!  You will all die!"  Navahk raged after them.  "And this
time it is the power of Navahk that shall take your spirits.  Such weak
and cowardly men are not fit to live!"

Shaking, he stood awash in a torrent of anger as he watched them hurry
after Jub.  They caught up with him.  Without looking back, they strode
westward.

Navahk's heart was afire, and his mind went round and round aimlessly,
like a wolf biting after its own tail.  The power of his life's purpose
was ebbing in him.  They had ignored his threats!  They no longer
believed in his power!  They no longer feared him!  If, by some small
chance, they should make it back to the country of other men, they would
tell how Navahk had lost his magic in pursuit of one whose powers were
greater than his had ever been.

"They will not speak so of me," he snarled, then stalked to his sleeping
skins and snatched up his spears and spear hurler.  "I will kill them
all before I allow them to speak so of me!"

Naiapi tried to clutch at him.  "Navahk, come.  We must go!  Forget
them!  Look!  The cloud from the west thickens, and we must go on ahead
of it!"

He barely heard Naiapi's pleas.  He shook her free, was loping out
across the land, taking aim as he ran, until a
wondrous feeling of calm slowly began to soothe his overwhelming sense
of loss and betrayal.  He stopped, stared ahead, and smiled.  The power
was still his.

Jub had led the others into the leading edge of the cloud.  He could
barely see them, but what he could see was enough to make him shout with
delight.  One by one, starting with Jub, the hunters were slowing their
steps and dropping to the ground, clutching their throats, and dying!

He laughed aloud, and even though his throat still burned, he felt no
pain.  "I have killed them!  Who will doubt the power of Navahk now?"

Naiapi stared at him as he walked toward her.  For the first time she
saw the utter madness in his eye.  But it was too late to turn away from
him.  She was his woman now.  And for the first time since she had set
eyes upon him, she wanted no part of him.

Before leaving the Valley of Songs, they took the bones of the child
from the fouled pool, and the women arranged them as best they could.
All gathered near to say gently words to the spirit of the little boy
who had known no kindness in his life.

But the bones of the man, Tomo, were half buried in over thirty feet of
glacial rubble that was an advancing frontal lobe of the white Mountains
That Walk.  There was no way they could have retrieved the body, even if
they had wanted to.

"It was either Tomo or Jub that smashed the little lame one's head and
then discarded him in the pool," Torka said grimly.  "If the spirits of
the white mountains want the bones of either of those two, this man will
not stand in their way."

They hefted their packs, the load lighter because it was distributed
among many.  As they left the valley, Lonit lingered, falling behind the
others for one last look at the sweet, sheltering land that she had
loved so much.

"In my dreams I never imagined this."

She was startled to find that Karana had come to stand beside her.  He
looked so grave, so much older, so sad.  She longed to touch his face
with motherly empathy, but he was a man now, and with Zinkh and Cheanah
and the others looking on, such a gesture would not be fitting. "Perhaps
because you have not dared to see?"

He frowned, recalling too many unwelcome dreams.  Ice .  fire .. . the
white stallion ripping the skin of the sky to make it bleed .. . Yes,
perhaps he had seen this, after all, but had not understood.  "It was
good for us in this place.  We should never have left it."

Lonit could see the assembled people waiting at the ice choked neck of
the valley: Mahnie standing close to lana,

holding the hand of Summer Moon like a little mother and looking
moon-eyed at Karana.  A sweet realization, a deep sense of lightness
filled Lonit.  Mahnie would be Karana's woman someday.  She did not need
the gift of Seeing to know that.

They had done the right thing.  Life had been hard and cruel to them,
but if they had never left the beloved valley, Mahnie would not be here,
and Torka's band would still be small and vulnerable before the forces
of Creation.  Now, in Grek, Simu, and Ekoh, in Cheanah and his sons, and
even in bold, arrogant, preposterously vain little Zinkh, and the other
hunters of his band, Torka had strong men to hunt beside him.

If they had never left the valley, lana would still be a mournful mute.
Now she walked with a new joy in life, a willingness to face whatever
came.  Her beauty shone once more, and all who looked at her were warmed
by her bright smile.

If they had never left the valley, Lonit would never have found a friend
in Wallah, nor would she ever have been fully assured of her own sense
of worth.  That had been a gift of the wondrous and wise Sondahr.

"We should go on now, Lonit," urged Karana, eyeing the soaring walls of
ice that crouched upon the once soft and lovely hills.  "It is not safe
to linger here."

She lay her hand upon his forearm.  "I must speak to you before we
rejoin the others.  You must not fear your dreams, Karana.  You must
face them.  You must learn to use the gift of Seeing.  It has always
been a channel that allows the spirits to enter you, and through you, to
speak to us all."

He shook his head.  "The channel is forked and twisted in many places.
It is too hard to see.  Mists of blood and ice are everywhere beneath a
sky that rains fire.  It is not something that I want to see."  Her hand
tightened on his arm.  "Sondahr told me--a lifetime ago it seems to me
now--that I must be a guide to you, Karana.  But I know nothing of the
way of dreams or of the Seeing gift.  I only know my heart--my own
feelings and my love for you, as though you were brother or son to me. I
have seen the Seeing gift growing in you.  Even when you were a small
boy living by your wits on a distant mountain, you knew when the storms
of life would come to us, and had we believed you, many of our trials
might not have befallen

us.  Even this woman who has no Seeing gift has learned that many things
are not what they seem and that those who look beyond the obvious--in
life or in dreams--will find the truth if they really wish to see it."

Solemnly he confessed his fears.  "The truth that underlies my dreams is
not something that I want to see, Lonit, because when the dreams come to
me, I am not a man but that same little boy living by his wits in a
mountain cave, howling in loneliness at the moon, in fear of a world
that is much too big and frightening for him."

She forgot that they were not alone and reached to hug him hard.  "The
time of the long dark will be upon us soon, Karana, even if we do not
dream of it.  Then the sun will rise, and the days of light will come.
But only by dealing with the dark may we endure it to live to see those
days of sun again."  She drew away and, with both hands on his
shoulders, looked at him squarely, wanting him to see her spirit, hoping
that her newfound strength would also be his in the days to come.
"Sondahr and Umak are dead, Karana.  They have been your teachers.  But
they cannot walk with you now.  For them and for us, you must be all
that they believed you could be--Karana, spirit master, a shaman such as
your father could never have been!"

The words jarred him, struck him as though a lightning bolt had scorched
him where her hands lay.  He stepped back, shook his head wonderingly.
She had looked to the west and believed that Navahk and all of those who
had followed with him must be dead.  All morning Zinkh and his people
had been saying as much.  The clouds, the smoke, and the foul, fetid
wind--it did not seem as though any man or animal could live in such a
tortured world.  Karana's main concern had been not for the life of his
hated father, but the life of the great mammoth--Thunder Speaker, Life
Giver-who had first led them to this land and who had raised his
massively tusked head, lifted his trunk, and trumpeted in what had
seemed a sad farewell, as though begging them to stay.  Since entering
the Corridor of Storms they had seen no mammoth sign at all, not even
close to the dark, fragrant spruce forests where the herds were always
found before.

Suddenly, within Karana, there was no thought of mammoth.  The channel
of Seeing abruptly opened wide for him, running beneath black mists and
burning mountains, through narrow corridors of ice that pierced the sky.
Under the sky

the fanged, white stallion ran, with a woman on his back, a beast
howling in his shadow, and his one eye spurting blood as he pawed the
air with daggered hooves.  Two black swans fell to earth, their bloodied
wings entwined.  Lost beneath the black mist and the burning mountains,
they were Torka and Lonit, always and forever.

Karana gasped.  "No!"  he shouted.

Lonit was frightened by his sudden pallor.  "What is it?  What have I
said?"

He drew near and held her close, uncaring that others witnessed his
affection for her.  "Navahk lives.  He follows.  We must go.  Now!"

The child stumbled on.  She whimpered, confused and frightened, as she
forced herself across the broken, trembling land.  Her nasal passages
burned; it hurt to breathe.  For the last few days nausea had prowled in
her belly, causing a lingering illness that had brought her to rest in a
little cave she had discovered beneath the crest of a low, tundral
hummock.  Here she had lain in a hastily made but warm nest of grasses
and lichens, sleeping, dreaming troubled dreams of man and Mother,
holding the man stone close as though it were a talisman of life, a
thing made by those like Mother Killer, to take and give breath, to cut
meat, and to gentle her spirit as she longed for summer to come again,
for the hole in the sky to bathe the world in yellow sweetness.

When the shivering earth and rumbling sky had drawn her from her
shelter, she had howled in terror; not in all the days since the breath
had refused to return to her mother had she felt such loneliness.

Now the cave lay far behind.  Ambling forward, scenting the troubled
earth for signs of Mother Killer, she followed him .. . and the female
that walked with him, across the land.

The air grew cleaner and colder the farther they walked from the western
lands.  Although he kept his thoughts to himself, Torka was deeply
worried as he led his people eastward into the Corridor of Storms.  The
sea of grass had changed radically.  The wide grasslands still rolled on
endlessly toward the eastern horizon between the soaring Mountains That
Walk, but the mountains appeared so much closer than he remembered them.
In some places the changes were

subtle, barely noticeable--a now dry stream bed, its course diverted and
the stream running elsewhere; a familiar peninsular arm of a mountainous
glacier extruding farther onto the plain than before; a grove of scrub
spruce that had once offered shelter from the icy winds now half buried
under glacial debris.

"Have the trees walked to the mountain snow, my father?"  asked Summer
Moon.

"No, the mountain snow has walked to the trees, little one."

She thought about this.  "I do not like this land of walking mountains
and fiery skies and black winds that stink.  I want to go home to the
valley."

"We have been there, little one.  The spirits no longer smile for us
there.  We must find another valley, another home."

He led his people on, and although the land grew increasingly strange
and potentially hostile, he knew that it was the only path for them now.
Lava flows blocked the way to the west, and death lay in the poisoned
clouds from the Mountain That Smokes.  They could not go to the north or
south, for the Mountains That Walk walled off whatever worlds lay there.
There was only one world for them, and that lay ahead, into the face of
the rising sun.

In the days that followed, they found no suitable place to set up a
winter camp.  Day was little more than a pale blush of morning now.
Hunting was poor, and the wind constant, growing increasingly colder.
The deeper they went into the unknown reaches of the Corridor of Storms,
the closer they walked to the mountains.  In some places the sea of
grass was less than a mile wide between the towering massifs of restless
ice.  At night the world was alive with the sound of their movement, and
by day, everywhere they walked, there was evidence of ice falls and
avalanches, as though the frontal flanks of the mountains were
collapsing in slow and inexorable tumult, advancing toward one another,
rising up and over the hills, burying them, extending long, peninsular
fingers out across the land.

Torka and those who followed walked on in silence.  He wondered if the
world of trembling earth and fire-breathing mountains behind them was
worse than the country into which he led his people.

"We could not have gone back into the world of men," said Lonit, wishing
to ease his worry.  "Surely the corridor must widen ahead of us!  We
will find a good place to camp soon.  Game sign is everywhere! Soon we
will find much meat!"

Torka appreciated her attempt to cheer him, but he was not cheered. The
game sign--the tracks and burnable dung-was not fresh.  No doubt the
trembling earth had driven the animals on in the direction of the rising
sun.  But what lay there?  Perhaps it was as the old men said, the end
of the world, a great cold cliff of ice dropping into an endless dark,
where he and his people would fall forever.

But no!  For years the great herds moved east at the ending of the time
of light.  And for years, although the sun disappeared at the beginning
of the time of the long dark, it always returned, and with it came the
first of the herds.  Where had they wintered?  Wherever it was, they had
survived!  As he and his people would survive!

"It is as though the mountains would join, as lovers join, to become
one."  Lonit's voice was tremulous as she walked beside him.  She looked
back, making certain that Summer Moon was with lana and Mahnie, and not
within hearing distance.  "If the mountains join, will they not bury the
land .  and us with it?"

It was not like Lonit to ask such questions.  During the past many days
she had encouraged the hopefulness of the others.  But time and distance
were wearing on her.  He reached for her hand and held it tight.  "Soon
we will be beyond the narrow land.  Remember how it was for us, long
ago, alone in the winter dark, a wounded hunter, a young girl, an old
man, and a wild dog?  The spirits were with us then; they are with us
now.  We are together, always and forever, and as long as we can say
that, there is nothing for us to fear!"

g

The land widened, and they all breathed more easily as they put the
worst of the narrow country behind them and made camp in a little hollow
between low hills bordered by higher, ice-free promontories of mixed
rock and broken talus.  On the highest of these Karana, wrapped in his
robe, sat upon his sleeping skins and looked back.  For days he had
known what he must do.  And for as many days he had pretended not to
know because he was afraid.

It was early evening, but it had been night since noon.  A red aurora
colored the sky, granting light by which Torka had led his people until
their weariness had dictated when they should stop and rest.

They were eating now, rations carried from yesterday's take of ptarmigan
and squirrel.  They would hunt soon, and the women would set their
snares.  Like owls, they sought the little movers in the night. And soon
Karana must move, too, to hunt prey of his own.

He could not have said just when he realized that the fate of his people
rested in his hands.  Perhaps from the moment that he had drunk the
blood of mammoth--his totem--within the hut of Sondahr, he had known
that some act of penance would be required of him by the forces of
Creation.

Karana stared westward, back across the long, tortured miles, his face
awash in its glow, his heart burning with its cold fire.

Navahk was out there somewhere, following, driving the game ahead of
Torka's people, sapping the powers of his son.  Navahk was a man.  He
was a youth.  As long as Navahk lived, he would be a shadow of death
upon the people of Torka.  Now, at last, Karana knew what he must do if
the spirits of

Creation were to forgive his transgression against them and his totem.

"Karana, it has been too long since you have eaten.  Torka told me to
bring you this."

As though in a trance, he turned to see Mahnie clambering up the rocks
toward him, a horn of some sort of brew dangling by a thong from her
teeth.  Aar stood below her, barking.

I will soon go from this place, thought Karana.  I will walk into
danger, and I may not return.  You may not come with me, Brother Dog,
else you would die at my side.  This time, old friend, I must face my
enemy alone.

"Here," said Mahnie, nearly breathless.  "It isn't much.  A horn of
marrow broth and a few ptarmigan wings, but it will give you strength. I
hope I haven't spilled it all!"

She seated herself beside him, expecting him to refuse the horn, smiling
with gladness when he did not.  She watched him drink and eat and told
him that she knew that he was trying his best to make good magic for
them and that it was not his fault that the forces of Creation were not
listening.

"Do not be sad, Karana.  Things will be better soon.  You will see!"

She looked beautiful in the red glow of the sky.  Young and eager to
please him, her eyes shining, her mouth curled into a smile.  He did not
intend to kiss her, but he did.  And when she threw her arms around him
and kissed him back, he was amazed to find that he had no wish to end
the kiss.  He held her close and knew, in that moment, a strength and
ferocity of resolve that he had not known he possessed until now.

I will come back!  he promised.  And when I do, the dark magic of Navahk
will be a thing of the past, and I, Karana, will be a spirit master at
last!

But the night was young and so was he, and the warm form in his arms was
a woman.  She trembled against him, and as he drew his robe around her,
Mahnie yielded all of her love to him, while below the promontory,
gathered with the others around the fire, Torka smiled, and Wallah and
Grek put their arms about each other and were glad.

Long before dawn, in the shimmering, bloodred glow of the aurora, Karana
climbed down from the promontory and, carrying his spears, headed west,
leaving Mahnie and Torka's camp behind.

He went so quietly that not even Aar, asleep at the base of the talus
slope, sensed his departure, nor was he missed for several hours, for
when the girl awoke, she gave no alarm.  Karana was always off somewhere
alone.  It was not until the camp was broken and the travelers were
assembled and ready to move on that anyone even thought to call his
name.

By then he was miles away.  With no traveling provisions save for his
spears and his wits, he was walking along a high narrow ridge of ice
that granted him a broad overview to the west.

Now he stood dead still, a spear in his hurler, Zinkh's bison-skin
helmet firmly atop his head, watching out of cold, steady eyes as Navahk
and Naiapi made their way through the gorge below.

Navahk seemed barely aware of her presence these last many days. Naiapi
had lied for him and killed for him, but he had found no need either to
lie with her or hunt for her, since his own body had no appetite for
mating and only occasional need of food.  The driving force of his life
was to move on, chanting to the spirits as he walked, until his voice
was gone and exhaustion dropped him to his knees.  Then he slept in
brief, restless snatches while she lived on voles when she could catch
them or scraped lichens and mosses from the rocks, boiled in a skin bag
when Navahk unintentionally allowed her the time to build a fire.

Only once could he have been credited with having provided food for her,
or for himself.  A young, sickly sheep had skittered out of a stony,
ice-clad canyon directly into their path, and Navahk had downed it with
a single spear throw.  He had eaten it raw, not taking the time to skin
or kill it before he set to devouring it.  She had watched him, waiting
for her share, excited by his bestial manner, fascinated by the way he
was able to keep the little animal twitching and making sounds of
distress long after most of its flesh was gone, its body cavity emptied.
At last it died.  Navahk ate the heart and left her whatever she could
pick from the bones.

He had slept soundly then, as sated by food and death as most men were
by mating.  She had gone to him and lain beside him, pressing her body
to his, moving, wanting--only to be backhanded so hard that her nose had
broken and bled.  Uncaring, he had arisen, taken up his things, and
stalked on without a word, even though it was the depth of night.

Terrified of being left behind, she had followed with barely enough time
to grab a handful of rib bones, which he later took away from her. On
these he had lived these past many days, breaking them, scraping them
free of marrow, discarding them when all the nourishment had been sucked
from them, deliberately leaving her nothing .. . except resentment that
had easily fermented into hatred.

Somewhere along the way into nowhere, in the cold, wind driven days and
colder, wind-driven nights, Naiapi realized that the man with whom she
walked was not the man she had loved and longed for all these many
years.  Somehow, perhaps with the loss of his eye and his beauty, the
spirit of the magic man had fled away into the wind, leaving her alone
in the Corridor of Storms with a madman who did not care if she lived or
died.

Exhausted, her body aching and her heart pounding, Naiapi looked up into
the red sky, at a flame-red man.  Not since she had been a bride brought
by Supnah into his encampment to look for the first time at the glory
that was Navahk had she been so stunned by physical perfection.

It was Navahk.  Half a lifetime of years dissolved as Naiapi,
disoriented by hunger, hardship, and fatigue, looked up out of the
shadowed depths of the gorge to see Yesterday standing above her as
imperious and intent as the summer sun.  And as beautiful.  She was
suddenly young again, no longer a middle-aged matron trudging behind the
one-eyed magic man.

In Naiapi's fatigued mind the Navahk she used to know stood above her on
the ridge .. . young, resplendent in the day lit glow of the red aurora,
his spear poised and ready, aimed at the man who stood ahead of her.

On the ridge the young Navahk stared, his eyes locked to the eye of the
magic man below as he hesitated as though unable to throw his weapon at
... himself?  Naiapi was confused.  Why did he wait?  Could he not see
that the magic man had taken the backward step and was poised to spring
forward, to hurl his own weapon in an arc of death?

Karana saw.  Karana stood ready.  Yet he paused, aware that the man who
stood below him was more than his hated enemy; Navahk was his natural
father.  Perhaps this was why the magic man held himself in check?

"Navahk!"  he yelled down.  "Return into the country from
which you have come, or I swear by the powers of Creation, I will spear
you where you stand."  His command allowed no arguments.  It was spoken
in the voice of a man; the sound did not surprise him.  He had left
youth and indecisiveness behind him.  Now the moment of confrontation
was at hand.

Yet as Navahk looked up at him, Karana's eyes were caught in the
raptorial stare of the magic man, and he was suddenly stunned and
unmanned.  His spirit was drowning, growing small and young and
vulnerable as the magic man smiled, exulting in his power.

It was the smile of a thousand dreams and bloody nightmares.  It was the
white stallion with bloodstained fangs.  It was deadly.  And it was a
mistake.  It reawakened the hunting instinct within Karana.

Memories of the past strengthened his resolve: a youth, driven out of
the encampment of the Great Gathering by torchlight and left to die; a
child, cautioned by his mother to be wary of the smiles and winning ways
of one who would kill him if he could; a boy, abandoned to death by
Navahk's command.  He saw the faces of those younger and less strong
than he--frightened and confused.  One by one he had watched them die.
Karana understood why.  The reason was below him now.

Navahk stood tall, smiling contemptuously, as the wind whipped down from
the heights 'on which Karana stood.  Karana hated him, seeing him for
what he was.  And with the Seeing, the fears of a lifetime fell away.
Now it was Navahk who looked small and vulnerable.  "Do not waste your
smile on me, Navahk.  I am not afraid of you anymore.  I am your son.  I
share your powers.  And I can see into your spirit more clearly than you
see into mine.  Be grateful that for the sake of our common ancestors I
do not kill you now.  So go!  Go now!  Karana gives to Navahk, his
father, the gift of life.  Remember that, and do not look back, or it
will be into the eyes of your own death, I swear it!"

But Navahk did not go back, nor did his eye leave the face of his son as
his smile reversed itself into a snarl of rage that set panic loose
within Naiapi.

"Navahk!"  She screamed to warn youth and beauty just as both men loosed
their weapons, but the magic man's spear was released first, and the
youth on the ridge was struck.  He cried out, whirled around, grabbed
for his arm, and then fell

back, back, and was gone.  "No!"  she shrieked.  The youth's spear had
been released a second before he had been hit.  It came hurtling down
and would have killed the magic man had he not moved in time.

But he was struck nonetheless, propelled back and down by the force. He
lay stunned and staring for a moment, then struggled to sit, his right
hand grasping the shaft of the youth's spear, which protruded from the
flesh just above his left armpit.  His eye was wide with shock and
incredulity.

The brow band that hid his disfigurement had slipped down around his
neck.  Naiapi stared at the scarred and empty socket.  It was not the
first time she had seen it.  Sometimes, when he slept, it lay bare, as
ugly as the spirit of the man beneath the otherwise unmarred mask of
perfect beauty.

Now that mask cracked into a snarl as Navahk glared at her out of his
one remaining eye.  "You spoke my name, but it was Karana you called!"

She stepped back from him as she tried to gather her befuddled thoughts.
Who had fallen from the ridge?  Who lay wounded upon the ground?  Why
did he speak of Karana?  Karana was a boy who had run away to be with
Torka.

He saw the madness in her face and could not have imagined that as she
looked at him, she saw the same in his.  "You two-faced, mindless,
sag-tea ted sow.  I should have known better than to let you walk in my
shadow."  He was grappling with the spear, grimacing, paling as he
forced the head of the weapon from his wound.  Staggering against
momentary weakness, he climbed to his feet and, levering the spear with
his left arm, advanced toward Naiapi with murderous intent.

Clarity returned to her in that moment as her instinct for survival
flared.  She ran from him, but it was too late.  He was weak but well
within striking distance.  It took no special effort to hurl a killing
blow through her back.

Karana fell.  The spear had pierced his clothing but not his flesh. Its
force had been enough to take him off balance, causing him to stagger
back.  The ridge dropped away behind him.  He fell, struck snow, and
tumbled head over heels in the thin, cold air.  He curled into a tuck,
then slid on ice, gaining momentum, instinctively cushioning his head
with his tightly folded arms, rolling down, down, into the mountain, it
seemed, through the ice, inside of it somehow, sliding, whirling, so
dizzy that he would have been sick except that, even with his hands
gripping his head, something struck him--or perhaps he struck it, and he
fell again, suddenly realizing that he had lost the lucky hat of Zinkh,
feeling lost and vulnerable without it, and then he felt nothing as his
fall took him into darkness.

Brother Dog was on his scent before they picked up his tracks.  Cheanah
and the majority of the bandsmen and youths had stayed behind with the
women and children while Torka, Zinkh, and Grek went west in search of
Karana.  Well-armed but unencumbered by packs or sledges, they moved
quickly and quietly, with Aar sniffing the trail and snowing them the
way.

"Why would he have left us?"  Grek asked, unable to comprehend the
motives of one whom he had expected to come to him that morning to ask
for Mahnie.

"Always that one Karana has funny ideas in his head," said Zinkh.  "But
he took the lucky hat of this one man.  All right will he be."

Torka was not so sure; before he had led the others off, Lonit had drawn
him aside.  Nearly beside herself with worry, she had confided: "I fear
that it must have been something I said to him about his Seeing gift,
about facing his dreams.  We all know that he dreams of Navahk following
us, dreams so troubling that he will not speak of them except to say
that we must go on.  Can it be that he has gone to find Navahk, to stop
him, to--"

"Kill him."  He had finished her sentence, as he finished it again now,
in silence, walking ahead of the others, following the dog.

His left hand tightened about the hafts of his spears.  His right sought
the bludgeon of fossilized whalebone at his side.  The weight of the
weapon was comforting.  How many times had the bludgeon saved his life?
Memories surged through him of that vast, bewildering, salt-smelling
land across which he had come with Umak and Lonit, while a frightened
little boy named Karana had watched them from a cave. That cave was high
on a mountain that had groaned and shifted.

Torka stopped dead.

That mountain's ice pack had fallen.  It had broken loose and come
crashing down, taking half of the mountaintop with
it, burying the entire eastern flank of the peak, including the cave and
those who had taken it from Torka for their own.

Now his eyes swept the mountains of ice that rose in high, jumbled
disarray on either side of him.

"What is it, Torka?"  pressed Grek, frowning.  "You look as though you
have seen a spirit."  "I have," replied Torka.  "A spirit of the past
... a spirit of warning .. . we must walk quietly and find Karana as
quickly as we can.  We must not linger here."

They hurried on through the extremely narrow land that had troubled them
days before.  Less than a mile wide, the tundra was frozen through, from
the uppermost edge of the permafrost to the top of its matted, tenuously
rooted skin of mosses and lichens.  With the mountains murmuring around
them, they lost the trail and stood together as Aar circled intently,
tail up and curled over his flank, nose to the ground, sniffing.

Not one of them saw the spear that struck Zinkh until he pitched
forward, its shaft protruding through his neck and its head buried in
the permafrost with most of his larynx.  His spine severed, suffocating
on his own blood, the sounds he made were those that no man who called
him friend wanted to hear, and although Grek and Torka wanted to run to
his side, both men knew that it was too late to help him.

Instinct propelled them back and away from the dying man.  Torka grabbed
the ferociously barking Aar by the scruff of his neck and dragged him
into the protecting walls of the nearest icefall, where neither dog nor
men would be vulnerable to attack from above.

Torka cursed himself.  He should have expected this.  He had come armed
and ready to stand against predators such as bears and lions, but he had
been so certain that Navahk and his followers were nowhere near, that he
had allowed himself to be lulled into carelessness.

Yet as he stood beside Grek within one of many deep, narrow, vertically
aligned fissures in the icefall, holding Aar in check beneath an
overhanging cornice of blue ice, Torka looked back across the narrows to
where Navahk stood high above them atop the opposite icefall and knew
that he was looking at an animal.

His heart went cold as the magic man threw back his head and howled.
Silhouetted against the towering glacial massifs that soared behind him,
Navahk's high shriek of defiance was
more like the cry of a wild and vicious animal than a man.  It went out
through the glacial canyons, and as it echoed across the miles, he
delighted in its sound.  He howled again, louder, more defiantly,
hunkering down, then leaping high as he began to dance.  The raw, savage
power of the beast was in him.  Beneath the dangling left arm of the
dead wanawut, his own left arm hung useless at his side as he whirled
and whooped and, with his good right arm, shook his staff at the sky as
his howls continued to echo like thunder reverberating in the
surrounding ranges of ice.

"He is alone," observed Grek in a whisper.

"And wounded," added Torka in an even lower tone.

"And as mad as a north wind sweeping down upon the tundra from the top
of the world.  Look: He holds only his staff.  No spears.  Do you think
he's used them all?"

Aar strained to be free.  Torka knelt, put a strong restraining arm
around the dog's chest, and stroked him reassuringly with the other,
wishing he could convey the same sense of calm to himself that he was
trying to give the dog.  Dread was growing in him as he looked at Navahk
and his lack of spears.  Against what had he used the spears? Or whom?

"Karana!"  Navahk hurled the name as he would a spear.

It struck Torka to the heart.  He could not breathe.  The man had read
his mind.  The man had sensed his dread.  The man had killed his son!
Grek's strong body blocked Torka's forward movement.

"You search for one you will never find!  Torka!  Man Who Walks With
Dogs!  I have killed the one you seek, just as I have killed the dogs
who once ran at your side!  Just as I will kill your women and your
children and all who are foolish enough to walk within your shadow!
Come, Torka!  Do not hide from Navahk!  I have one spear left for you!"
He threw down his staff, bent, and in one graceful, sweeping motion,
turned, and retrieved a spear from where it lay behind him.  "Come!  Or
are you afraid?  You should be afraid!  Now is the time of your death!"

"Hold, Torka!  You cannot hope to win against him now.  He holds the
high ground.  He will kill you if you do!  You--" Grek's imperative
warning stopped.

Deep within the permafrost the earth shook violently.  Torka and Grek
heard the icefall groan and crack around them as, from out of the
mountains of ice, a roaring rose as though in
answer to the howling of the man.  Beneath Torka's hand every hair on
Aar's back bristled as the dog went rigid.

Behind Navahk the mountains shook.  One great tremor.  And then, as
Torka and Grek and Aar stared in horror, the icefall around Navahk
shifted once more.  Navahk was dropped to his knees, and a wordless cry
of disbelief and despair escaped from his lips.

As they watched in macabre fascination, the magic man clung desperately
to the wall of ice and struggled to his feet.  He backed into a narrow
vertical fissure and braced himself with rigid arms and legs.  The
moment had passed.  All was quiet.  The magic man relaxed and smiled.
"Torka!  Now, Torka!  I would kill you--"

With a crack that pained their ears, the icefall collapsed as the
leading edges of the Mountains That Walk began to fall.

They ran.  They had no choice.  The Corridor of Storms was collapsing
behind them.  Navahk was gone, buried in the rubble, still howling like
the wanawut, still brandishing his spear toward the sky as he had
disappeared into boiling ground snow and falling ice.

They ran, Torka and Grek together, sobbing against terror and the agony
of leaving Zinkh and Karana behind.

On and on they ran out of the narrow land, with hearts pounding, lungs
near to bursting, and muscles burning with over exertion while the dog
raced ahead of them.  Behind them and on either side ice falls and cliff
faces were tumbling, pouring across the tundra in clouds of white mist
and falling glacial debris, forever closing off the western land.

At last the tundra widened ahead of them, opened into the bleak area of
broad rolling hills and promontories of talus in which they had last
encamped.  But on either side of the low hills the Mountains That Walk
were lost in spuming mists that were rising from uncountable avalanches.
The sound of their tumultuous movement was nearly deafening, and as
Torka raced forward, Cheanah had the band on their feet, pack frames on,
and ready to move.

In spite of the pain in their limbs, Torka and Grek raced on beside
their women, heads down, bent forward, gasping as Aar ran beside
Mahnie's booted limbs and panted.

"Karana?"  The unformed question came from Lonit and Mahnie at once.

Torka and Grek shook their heads, despair in their faces.  Lonit and
Mahnie came to a stop and embraced, sobbing.  Lonit closed her eyes
tight and held Mahnie close, wanting to comfort her; but there was no
comfort in such a loss.  Lonit
felt as though her heart had broken.  Karana's death would be a scar
upon it forever.

Karana awoke to darkness and to sound, to a pounding headache and
innumerable bruises.  He lay on his side, a freezing little ball.  He
was so cold that he could not feel his fingers or toes.  His hand
drifted absently across his face and encountered a lump of ice that was
on his nose.  In the pitch blackness of the interior of the glacier, he
sat up and rubbed his extremities until life came back to them.

Then he sat still, listening to the underground river rushing past him
in the dark, while somewhere far above, the sound of distant roaring
reached his ears.

It occurred to him that he might be dead.  But then, as his fingers and
toes and nose began to ache with life, he knew that he was still among
the living.  He hurt too much to be dead.  His fingers explored the
large lump on his head.  He thought of Zinkh's hat, and memories
returned in a rush.

Suddenly he was crying hot tears and choking sobs of anguish.  He had
not been able to kill Navahk.  For a lifetime he had wished Navahk dead,
and yet when he stood above him and-could have thrust a killing blow
into him, he had hesitated.  He had sought the eye of the man who had
tried to kill him so many times, the eye of the man from whose loins had
poured the gift of his life, and had seen his own face looking back at
him.

Father.  Within his heart there had been a longing to call out that
name, to forget the past, to heal the wounds that lay open between them.
But then Navahk had thrown his spear, and Karana had loosed his.

Now, rubbing the lump on his head, he knew Zinkh's ridiculous hat had
absorbed the brunt of his fall and probably saved his life, but it had
fallen off after his initial impact, and it was gone now, into the dark
womb of the world.

He drew a deep breath, held it, drew nourishment from it.  He looked
around and realized that never in his life had he seen such blackness.
Straining in vain to see made his eyes throb.  He closed them tight.

Now, within the cold and dark, he listened to the sound of water rushing
away to his left.  A river, shallow from the sound of it, but very fast.
Where was it going in such a hurry?  To the light?

He gasped again, short of breath, suffocating in the confining darkness.
He rose too quickly.  His head came up hard against a low ceiling of
icicles that punctured his scalp as they shattered. They made light,
crackling sounds as they rained down around him.  He barely heard them
as, stunned, dizzied, and disoriented, he staggered forward, tripped
over he knew not what, and went sprawling forward into the river.

He screamed as he went down with a great splash and was swept away,
away, through the blackness, choking, gasping, swimming even though he
did not know how to swim, fighting every inch of the way, calling upon
the spirits of Creation, upon the powers of his totem, Life Giver, to be
with him, to hold him up, to strengthen and carry him away to life--to
life--not to a lonely death in darkness beneath the ice where his spirit
would be trapped forever, never to be reborn into the world of men!

"Thunder Speaker!  Hear me!"  he screamed, but as he did, water filled
his mouth and ears and took him down, down, filling his nostrils,
searing his sinuses.  He could not tell if his cry had rushed on ahead
of him above the water or if it was going down with him, drowning with
him in the terrible roaring dark.  "No!"

Holding his breath, he fought the river with all of his strength, found
buoyancy, and forced himself up for air.  Gasping, spluttering, he
floated on his back, gave himself to the current, and felt his body
rushing on, on, on through the endless dark.  He could see the ceiling
of the underground riverbed, fanged with ice, black and blue, slipping
past him so quickly that he could not completely focus, and Light

If there was light, it must be coming from the world of men!  The forces
of Creation had heard his plea!  He actually laughed, until, for the
first time, he felt the cold seeping through his now-saturated clothes.

He could fight the dark.  He could fight the river.  But he could not
fight the cold.  He tried, but it was an insidious and insistent
predator.  When at last the river came roaring out from beneath the
glacier and deposited him at the edge of a broad, stony flood plain
under the pungent shadows of a thick grove of spruce, he was barely
conscious, so cold that he could not move, so cold that his heartbeat
was a slow, unsteady murmuring in his chest, not strong enough to
motivate his lungs to breathe.

Unable to move more than an eyelid, he stared at Death as
it approached, red, shaggy, a moving mountain of a mammoth.  It would
crush him and be a fitting death for one who had betrayed his totem, for
one who had drunk the blood of a beast that he had named.

"Life Giver?"

He saw the scar on the animal's shoulder, the fragmented stalk that was
all that was left of the shafted end of the projectile point.  Torka's
spearhead!

It was Life Giver!

He closed his eyes to the most impossible dream that he had ever dreamed
and waited to die.

The mammoth came forward to stand over him.  Its great body broke the
back of the cold wind as Life Giver breathed the life-giving warmth of
its breath through its trunk and onto the figure of a youth who had once
stood before him and bravely named him Brother.

Exhausted, Navahk lay on his back in a rubble of snow and ice, his left
leg still buried up to the hip in the debris of the icefall.  For hours
he had dug and worked himself up and out of what at first he had been
certain would be the end of him.  But there had been pockets of air
trapped within the collapsed icefall, and the mountain snow that had
fallen over this had fallen as powder, in oddly shaped blocks that might
have crushed him had they fallen directly upon him.  As it was, the
icefall had sustained the weight of their impact, allowing him space to
maneuver up through cracks and spaces, twisting his body in contortions
that half dislocated his joints, squeezing himself through fissures that
would have wedged in a mouse.  But he was Navahk, and the power of his
will was extraordinary.  He had dug his way to life, scraping with his
fingers until the nails were split and the tips worn raw to the bone.
What was a little blood and pain compared to slow and certain
suffocation?  He had worked consistently, losing all track of time, and
now, at last, he lay exhausted and too weak to try to remove the last
blocks of ice from his leg.

Later.  He would do it later.  There was plenty of time.  Now he must
rest, sleep.  He succeeded for a few moments, but the wound in his
shoulder was aching.  He had forgotten all about it, his last gift from
his son.

Karana.  He sneered at the thought of the name, then smiled and stared
at the sweet, living sky of night.  It was red with bold, auroral rivers
of light.  How beautiful they were to

him now, when he knew how close he had come to never seeing them again.
His smile became a leer of satisfaction.  Karana would never see them
again; he had seen to that.  At last!  Karana was dead, and he had
killed him!  And soon, when he had freed his leg and recovered from his
ordeal, he would follow Torka and Lonit, and he would kill them, too,
and their children.  Yes.  First the children.

The child saw him and hurried forward.  For hours she, too, had been
digging herself from potential death within the suffocating masses of
snow.  She was glad she had paused to feed off the female that Mother
Killer had left behind to be meat for her.  The meat had given her the
strength to free herself, and the man stone had allowed her work to go
quickly.  Now she held it, curled in her fist, close to her breast. She
had not slept but had hurried on the moment she had freed herself. Her
thoughts were focused entirely upon the beast as she mewed and cried
softly to herself.  If he were dead, she would be alone.

Alone.  The thought was more terrifying than the premise of her own
death, more terrifying than the world around her that had suddenly
shaken itself, then had collapsed in roaring, tumultuous fury.

But there was Mother Killer, lying in the snow.  Her heart beat faster
at the sight of him.  He would hold her.  He would stroke her.  He would
take away her fear.

He did not move as she came to kneel in the snow beside him.  He was so
still.  So very, very still.

Beneath her sloping, bony brow, her prominent lids narrowed over her
gray eyes.  Fear and perplexity moved in the grayness.  Why did he lie
motionless like that in the snow?  Men did not sleep buried in the snow.
Men slept under the skins of the animals they killed.

Troubling memories rose within her.  Painful memories.  She whimpered
softly, remembering her mother ... so still so very, very still, and
then not breathing, not moving, not living!  She leaned over Mother
Killer, sniffed his face, and hunkered back, relieved and yet still
troubled.  He was alive!  He was breathing, but so shallowly that she
feared that any moment he would stop, and then he would never move
again.  He would never come to her to speak to her, to stroke her, to
take away her loneliness.

She frowned, noticing for the first time that there was
blood in the snow just above his shoulder.  She leaned close again,
sniffed it, and drew back.  It was his blood.  The long, powerful,
hairy-backed fingers of her right hand flexed about the man stone while
her other hand reached to flick the bloody snow away from him.  She did
not have to lean close to see that, beneath the snow, there was a wound
below his shoulder.  She had seen its kind before, in her mother's
breast.  A wound made by a man stone.

Thoughtfully she uncurled her fist and appraised the lanceolate stone.
Stones took away the breath from beasts and from mothers.  Perhaps they
could give back what they took.  It had not been so with her mother, but
her mother's wound had been much worse than that of Mother Killer. His
was only a little wound.  If she used her stone deftly and surely,
perhaps she could put the strong breath of a healthy beast back into his
body, and he would rise and stroke her andNavahk screamed and awoke in
horror to see the child straddling him, stabbing him again and again,
driving a dagger into his wound at an oblique angle that took it deep
into his chest cavity and toward his heart.  She was looking at him out
of her guileless eyes, making cooing sounds to him, softly and gently,
as though loving him at the very moment' that she was killing him.  He
felt his heart leap madly as it was pierced, and he screamed again and
tried to pull away, but his leg was held fast and he could not move as
an amazing, awesome lightness filled him.  He fell back, staring,
witnessing his own death reflected in the eyes of the beast.

She drew back, puzzled and frightened, cocking her head as he fell back.
She stared.  She went close and sniffed his nostrils and gaping mouth.
This time there was no breath.  No breath at all!  She breathed into
him.  She stabbed him again, more insistently now, trying to revive him,
but the man stone that had served her so well at cutting and skinning
meat refused to serve her now.  In her frenzied attempts to revive the
beast, she cut herself, drawing blood and pain, and howled in
frustration as she threw the stone away, then crouched and howled and
sucked her wound.

Although she stayed with him for hours, all through the long, cold night
and into the brief, cold, sunlit dawn, Mother Killer did not awake to
breathe or speak sounds to her or stroke her or join his body to hers.
She held him in her arms

and lifted his hands and tried to make him stroke her, but he would not.
She grew lonely and slept at last, still holding him, hoping that when
she awoke, he would be breathing again, and she would not be alone.

Sunset came before noon.  Mother Killer did not move.  His one eye was
glazed.  She put him down and went to search the tumbled snowdrifts for
her stone.  She found it and held it, then stood looking toward the
east, where the other beasts had gone, into the face of the rising hole
in the sky.  She would go there.  Perhaps one among them would hear her
howls and know that she was lonely.  But now Mother Killer was dead. It
was time to dance in his skin.

They walked for many days across the eastern land, beneath the red sky,
beneath the rising of the winter moon.  Swans flying high against the
brief glow of dawn led them to a valley where great herds grazed upon
the rich, snow-dusted tundral grasses, and the trumpeting call of
mammoths brought them across the broad flood plain to where Karana
waited, wearing the hat of Zinkh that he had found along the bank as the
great mammoth Thunder Speaker had found him and given to him once more
the gift of life.

He raised his hand in welcome as Torka's people ran toward him.  Lonit
wept, and Aar leaped in joy to see him, but it was Mahnie who embraced
him as he looked at Torka and said: "What has taken you so long? Karana
has been waiting many days and nights in this good land to greet his
father."

Author's Note

It has long been the belief of the author that fiction is most absorbing
when it is rooted in fact, because fact is, as the old cliche contends,
more astounding than fiction.  And no period of human endeavor is more
astounding than that of the Age of Ice, in which our ancestors struggled
to survive and, against all odds, succeeded.

Ongoing geological studies confirm that the Age of Ice was not one but
several long protracted periods of cold.  At least four times during the
last two million years the climate of the world has cooled, allowing the
growth of great continental ice sheets, which, during the coldest times,
formed one vast, earth-crushing wall across North America--a wall two
miles thick, over a thousand miles wide, and spanning the continent from
coast to coast.

This mass of ice reshaped North America, drew into itself two-thirds of
the moisture of all of the world's oceans, and lay seabeds bare,
allowing Man to walk out of Asia and into North America across the
exposed floor of the Bering Strait.  In Beyond the Sea of Ice, Volume
One of the First Americans Series, it was across this now drowned
land--which once stretched for a thousand miles from the Arctic Ocean,
across the Chukchi Sea, then to the Pacific Ocean--that Torka led his
people out of the old world and into the new to become the first
Americans.  They would have remained upon the rolling,
thousand-mile-wide tundra!  grasslands of Beringia, however, had they
not been big-game hunters following the great herds of the Pleistocene
as they migrated ever eastward.

But where did these first Americans go?  How could they proceed into
that frozen and inhospitable world if it lay buried under ice two miles
thick?  They walked through the
Corridor of Storms--a real place, not a figment of the author's
imagination.

Throughout all but the coldest periods of the Ages of Ice, the
continental ice sheets that blanketed the northern latitudes was not one
mass, but two.  During the most recent glaciation, these glaciers were
known as the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, and where they met,
along the eastern spine of the Rocky Mountains, a corridor lay open into
the heartland of the Americas.  During each epoch of ice the Corridor of
Storms was there, a place of rich summer grassland and savage winter
storms.

In Torka's time, over forty thousand years ago, the corridor may have
extended farther north and west than during the last glaciation.  At its
broadest this ice-free tundral range land was never more than a hundred
miles wide between the soaring, two-mile-high frontal flanks of the ice
sheets.  During those periods when the ice sheets were merging, it takes
little imagination to visualize what it must have been like for those
men and women who dared to follow the game between the Mountains That
Walk into the Corridor of Storms from which this novel has taken its
title.

Over six thousand years ago, when hordes of conquering Asian nomads
swept out of the taiga to force the peaceful proto-Eskimo reindeer
hunters of the Siberian steppes farther east--eventually to people the
Aleutian Islands, venture across the shallow Bering Strait, and continue
into the vast, rolling tundral barrens of northern Alaska--Paleo-Indians
of various tribes, the descendants of earlier immigrants, were there to
greet them.  The Paleo-Indians' ancestors had dwelled in the "new" land
for countless millennia and had established a "new" race and "new"
cultural and linguistic groups from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego--because,
in a time beyond remembering, a handful of men and women followed the
vast herds of the Pleistocene out of Siberia, across a thousand
mile-wide bridge of steppe land and into the high barrens between the
Brooks Range of Alaska.  Onward they trekked, through the Yukon River
valley, into the broad delta of the Mackenzie River, along a
wind-scoured, ice-free corridor that lay open between the ice sheets
beneath which most of North America lay entombed.  It has been the hope
of the author not only to entertain the reader through the fictitious
adventures and travels of Torka's people, these first Americans, but to
offer a journey back into
time--that most elusive of corridors--a journey upon which an epoch
might be seen and experienced with as few diversions from known
historical fact as possible.

For those who may be curious as to whether the "child" in this novel is
fact or fiction, the author will only say that myths of half-human,
half-spirit creatures abound in the Americas.  Although the bones of
Neanderthal Man have yet to be unearthed in the New World, the wanawut
is drawn from various native American legends that strongly hint of the
possible presence of such a being inhabiting the continent in ancient
days; its name is taken from the Chumash Indians of southern California,
who recounted that in ancient days their people came from the far north,
from the land of the wanawut, where "fear was born."

Once again the author must credit the staff of Book Creations, Inc." for
invaluable and timesaving assistance with the editing and often
painstaking research that was necessary to complete the construction of
this novel.  In particular, thanks to Betty Szeberenyi, Librarian, and
to Laurie Rosin, not only because she is an incomparably patient Senior
Editor, but because she has been an interested and involved sleuth on my
behalf as well!

Fawnskin, California