The chieftain of the scout-birds circled over Selu\u2019s head, black wings glinting in the sun.\u00a0 She turned and dove, passing over him so close he could touch her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s here!\u00a0 He\u2019s here!\u201d\u00a0 Her beak, yellow and bright as the petals of a shade stone flower jabbed toward a point behind him.<\/p>\n
Selu ran on, his feet sinking ankle-deep into the mud.\u00a0 He reached into the hut-bird nest tied around his chest and drew out the one thick wriggling grub that he carried within.\u00a0 He stopped and knelt.\u00a0 Sweat, from both exertion and fear, dripped down his brow as he placed the thumb-sized bug on a flat stone.<\/p>\n
He stood and the chieftain of the scout-birds dropped from the sky with a happy cry of \u201cThank you!\u00a0 Thank you!\u201d\u00a0 Then she pecked up the grub and flew away.<\/p>\n
One gave offerings to one\u2019s allies in the spirit world, and besides, the neck-breaker was smart enough not to get too close, not if the scout-bird was about.<\/p>\n
The shaman took a moment to look behind him:\u00a0 knee-high grass and a scattering of trees.\u00a0 The great cat was surely there, but it was patient and skilled.\u00a0 He could see claw-marks on some trees, proof of the neck-breaker\u2019s presence, others were stripped of bark, signs of elephants.\u00a0 There was a hollow stump, the mud and earth clumsily torn from its roots- a marsh-elephant making a basket.\u00a0 The sky above was bright and cloudless, but night\u2019s spine stretched across it.\u00a0 He could see the amber wanderer in the heavens as well\u2014always a good sign.<\/p>\n
Such sights as these, the stars in the day-blue sky, were not rare here.\u00a0 Signs and omens abounded in the spirit world, like tracks and spore did in the lands of flesh.\u00a0 But he was not here for signs, he was after something bigger.<\/p>\n
Selu pressed on through the mud, and the neck-breaker surely followed on silent pads.\u00a0 Selu\u2019s steps, wet and flapping, were sure, driving him toward a slow wide creek.\u00a0\u00a0 He could hear, barely, the occasional slosh of the neck-breaker\u2019s paws in the mud behind him and the swish of its passing through the sparse underbrush.<\/p>\n
His steps turned to a jog, and he darted toward the bank of the creek.\u00a0 He turned back to look and saw the neck-breaker step from the grass.\u00a0 In the way of the spirit world, the neck-breaker was bigger than in the waking life, and in waking life he was big enough\u2014here he was the size of a forest elephant, his fur a light brown spotted black.\u00a0 He shook the mud from a paw, then crouched to spring, yes, even across this great distance.<\/p>\n
To look into the eyes of the neck-breaker was to look into a yellow flame against the blue of the sky; to look was to become trapped as surely as hooked by her claws or pierced by her fangs.\u00a0 Selu was a great shaman and he looked and was not trapped.\u00a0 He turned his back and ran, ran and slid behind a great tree.\u00a0\u00a0 The neck-breaker leapt, covering the distance easily, but by then Selu had picked up a stone and summoning the sorcery of men he threw it far to the side.\u00a0 As it crashed through the leaves and branches the neck-breaker leapt after it, and Selu ran the other way to the flowing creek.<\/p>\n
\u201cTreachery!\u201d the neck-breaker roared, wheeling about.\u00a0 \u201cTricks and deception!\u201d<\/p>\n
All the marsh served to help the neck-breaker, the sucking mud would slow a man; the tangled vines would catch a man; the scattered trees would hold a man; all so that neck-breaker could catch and devour him.\u00a0 Selu was a shaman, powerful, wise and determined, and he was not stuck in the mud; not caught in the vines; not slowed by the trees.<\/p>\n
The mud grew deeper and Selu put his foot on a fallen tree trunk to cross the little stream. Behind him he heard the neck-breaker tear through the vines, slosh through the mud.<\/p>\n
The fallen tree was rotted and squelched with each step.\u00a0 It crossed from the mud over the languid flowing creek, with only a tangled mat of broken limbs and branches reaching the other side.\u00a0 Selu ran across the trembling trunk and into the spongy mat; here his feet slipped, sinking down through the soft branches as he churned his way up the bank, clawing forward with his hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d whispered the neck-breaker behind, stepping around the splayed roots of the fallen tree.\u00a0 \u201cYou are caught, little one.\u00a0 I fear no spit of water.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Selu\u2019s hands and feet sank into soft mud and he turned to see the great cat was crouching, claws digging into the tree-trunk before it exploded forward.\u00a0 He could not watch!\u00a0 He must not watch!\u00a0 Selu clawed and kicked his way through breaking branches and sucking mire and behind him he heard the neck-breaker land and then\u2014as he had planned!\u2014the soft tree trunk cracked beneath its weight.\u00a0 With a great sodden splash the huge cat sank into the mud.<\/p>\n Selu struggled to his feet.\u00a0 He could reach out and touch the neck-breaker with his hand.\u00a0 For a moment the spirit\u2019s eye\u2019s betrayed its shock as it sank, almost to the shoulder; betrayed its hesitation about killing him, or fighting its way out of the muck.\u00a0 Then the neck-breaker yowled and began flailing and clawing, flinging broken branches and mud; a storm upon the plains contained in a body.<\/p>\n Only three items can be taken into the spirit world, and only a few words can be said there, and with the will of a man forcing his hand into a fire Selu spoke.\u00a0 \u201cThe horror of the forest, flopping in mud\u2014I will tell it in the waking world and children will laugh!\u00a0 We will make a song of it and not even toothless babes will fear you!\u201d<\/p>\n The chieftain of the neck-breakers stopped in her struggles and bent her will back to killing, as Selu knew she would.\u00a0 Slinging mud and water, a great paw lashed at him, catching him along the shin, the claws tearing though the flesh, kissing the bone, and then sliding off.<\/p>\n \u201cTell that to your children!\u201d\u00a0 roared the cat.<\/p>\n Pain, even in the spirit world, can drive all thoughts from a man\u2019s head, but Selu was a great Shaman, old and strong, and did not let the wound on his leg confuse him.\u00a0 He dug his hand into the muck, and using the true sorcery of man he threw a handful of it into the blazing eye of the neck-breaker.\u00a0 The great cat lurched back.<\/p>\n \u201cKill me,\u201d Selu shouted, \u201cand live forever without your eye!\u201d \u00a0He reached into the hut-bird nest at his chest and pulled out the second item he had taken into the spirit world:\u00a0 a piece of elephant tusk, smoothed and round and gleaming white, painted in yellow and blue to look like the very eye of the neck-breaker itself.<\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d shouted the cat.\u00a0 \u201cGive it back!\u201d\u00a0 Still she struggled forward, but hesitant now, fearful.<\/p>\n \u201cGrant me a gift!\u201d shouted Selu, struggling backward across limbs and mud. \u201cA gift for your eye!\u201d<\/p>\n The neck-breaker growled, found better footing.<\/p>\n \u201cA great gift!\u201d shouted Selu.\u00a0 \u201cGreat as chipping stone!\u00a0 Great as summoning fire!\u00a0 Great that the name of Selu will be whispered in awe the same as the name of the neck-breaker!\u201d\u00a0 He cocked his arm back, ready to throw the eye away using the true sorcery of man.<\/p>\n The neck-breaker thought, her tongue licked the mud from her muzzle; the mud from her eye trickled away.\u00a0 Selu\u2019s deception would not last long.<\/p>\n \u201cHurry!\u201d shouted the shaman, using the true sorcery of man to toss the eye from one hand to another.<\/p>\n \u201cYes!\u201d shouted the spirit.\u00a0 \u201cCan you not smell it?\u00a0 Have you not heard it?\u00a0 There is a man who is not a man!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLies!\u201d Selu said.\u00a0 \u201cYou think to trick me!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is true!\u201d\u00a0 the spirit wailed, more a frightened child than a killer of men.\u00a0 \u201cTo sun-up, among the seer-folk!\u00a0 I swear it!\u201d<\/p>\n The spirit turned stretched its mouth wide, wide enough to catch a man\u2019s skull\u2014which is exactly what they did in the waking world.\u00a0 Then it bit into the soft earth, turned and drooled out the mud and roots and began digging through the mess with paw.\u00a0 Then it daintily picked out a thick roundish root with its great fangs.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you see?\u201d\u00a0 It slurred through the side of its mouth, \u201cDo you not see?\u201d<\/p>\n The root, fist-of-nothing, Selu knew, was of no use to anyone.\u00a0 You could not eat it, you could not eat any part of it, nor could you cook any part of it to eat, nor did anything worth eating desire any part of it.\u00a0\u00a0 He tightened his grip on the cool ivory orb and looked into the eye\u2014the good eye\u2014of the spirit.\u00a0 He found no treachery there, only the desperate, disparate logic of the spirit world.\u00a0 If fist-of-nothing could be made valuable in any way it would be a great gift.\u00a0 But what of the man who was not a man?\u00a0 What did that mean?<\/p>\n Selu thirsted to ask, needed to know more!\u00a0 But the spirit world had its rules, it\u2019s order.\u00a0 And he had little time, the neck-breaker would know soon, surely, that she still had both eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have told me a great secret and given me a great gift.\u201d\u00a0 He dipped the ivory ball into the murky water, made a show of washing it.\u00a0 \u201cSee! \u00a0I return your eye to its empty socket.\u201d\u00a0 He stood, limped forward on his torn leg and reached out with both hands, slipping the palmful of water in front of the great ivory orb as one would fool a child.<\/p>\n To touch a spirit, to touch a great spirit like neck-breaker, was to stand naked in the storm, to hear the great ancient tree fall, and he savored its strange flavor before roughly rubbing the filthy water into the thick mud still caked on the face of the spirit.\u00a0 He dropped the ivory eye and set his foot upon it, sinking it into the mire.<\/p>\n He leaned forward, almost embracing the great head, the dripping whiskers sliding across his face and he whispered into the wide triangular ear.\u00a0 \u201cBehold.\u00a0 Close your good eye and look about and see that I have kept my word.\u201d<\/p>\n The neck-breaker edged back, and then snapped her clean eye shut.\u00a0 She stretched wide the lids of her muddy eye and gazed about, then her lips turned up and he ran a great long lick across Selu\u2019s chest and face.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you!\u00a0 Thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n Faster than could be believed, the neck-breaker turned and leapt back across the creek and slunk away into the underbrush.<\/p>\n Selu began to laugh, laugh as only a shaman who had tricked a spirit could; laughed as only an old man who had tricked a young man could; laughed such that it drowned out all the other sounds of the mire; laughed such that neck-breaker and a hundred other spirits heard and shuddered.<\/p>\n He looked down, somehow the great ivory eye had come back to the surface and gazed at him, and next to it was the fist-of-nothing, a cone of useless root, from which spring three sad crumpled leaves and a wilted flow-stalk.\u00a0 And suddenly, in the disparate way of the dream world, nothing was funny, nothing was funny at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 A Shaman With Little Time Left in the Waking World<\/strong><\/p>\n Selu came out of the trance suddenly, his dying laughter echoing in his tent.\u00a0 It was dark. \u00a0He was hungry and thirsty.\u00a0 He dropped the neck-breaker tooth that he had held, that had led him to the chieftain spirit and clapped his hands.\u00a0 Kimaiya opened the hide door, daylight lancing around him, and bearing a gourd of water and handful of nuts.<\/p>\n The young man\u2019s face split into a grin as the old man struggled to sit up.\u00a0 \u201cI heard you laughing, did you finally outsmart the spirits?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKimaiya,\u201d he said between deep breaths.\u00a0 \u201cI went far into the realm of the spirits, I confronted the neck-breaker herself, and I tricked her. \u201c<\/p>\n Selu took the gourd, surprised at the weight of it.\u00a0 He took a long drink.\u00a0 \u201cShe has given me a great gift, but also a great riddle.\u201d<\/p>\n He took another drink, chewed and swallowed the nuts.<\/p>\n \u201cHow long was I in the trance?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThree nights.\u201d<\/p>\n Selu struggled to his feet.\u00a0 In the spirit world he had been young!\u00a0\u00a0 Three hands and a finger of summers and no injuries.\u00a0 But no, he was old, two hands of hands and three fingers\u2014or was it four?\u00a0 He didn\u2019t remember.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 What mattered was that toward sunrise, in a camp of the Seer Folk, was a man who was not a man, and who could tell him how to make fist-of-nothing into something useful.<\/p>\n In his younger days he would have packed immediately and left. \u00a0But an old man who lays down for three days will take at least five days to recover from it.\u00a0 And an old man who faced a long trek needed a young man to help, and the Ridge of Dreams would be crowded with those soon enough.\u00a0 He would be patient like the neck-breaker herself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 A Hunter Displays His Trophies<\/strong><\/p>\n Kiptum the hunter leaned against his spear, the summer sun laughing above him and the rest of the supplicants that stood facing the Ridge of Dreams.\u00a0 The cliff, higher than he could throw a spear, loomed over them, its face tilting gently outward as it approached the ground, and then suddenly dipping in.\u00a0 That overhang, in which the shamans kept so many secrets, was covered by hide and bark walls, some rounded, some flat.<\/p>\n Here the First Tribe had made shelter and here Lafula had heard the voice of the earth and she became the first shaman.\u00a0 Here the hunters of all the other tribes brought dried game and sought wisdom and renown.<\/p>\n Those bulging shelters, be they of skin or bark, flat or round, so impressive at first, after five days of waiting, now looked to Kiptum like ticks crowded into a seam of skin.<\/p>\n Today, though, was the day of the new moon, when darkness and ignorance sat in full strength.\u00a0 The day of judgements and appeals.\u00a0 The two hands of elders and Shamans sat upon their semi-circle of stone in the shadow of the ridge, along with the tamed scout-birds of the First Tribe and the various supplicants.\u00a0 Even the birds knew enough not to sit in the sun!<\/p>\n One of the elders stood and motioned at him to come forward.<\/p>\n \u201cI am Kiptum, of the Red Wasp clan,\u201d he held up his trophy necklace, \u201ceach red incisor is a hand of spiral-horns hunted and butchered, each flat disk of buffalo ear is a hand of buffalo, the sharp hooked toe is five ostriches.\u00a0 Thus have I proved myself as a man, and so I have come to Ridge of Dreams to seek wisdom and memory.\u00a0\u00a0 It was known in my father\u2019s time that a man could reach into the slow river and pull out a fish as long as his arm.\u00a0 But that knowledge has been lost, and I have asked all the other elders, even among the Eagle clan, and the Digger folk, and none remember the skill.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiptum stepped back among the rest of the supplicants.<\/p>\n One of the shamans struggled to his feet and limped out among them.\u00a0 The old man was no taller than Kiptum, but seemed to be all limbs, all elbows and knees.\u00a0 Beneath his headband of twisted ulsa bark his face was round, as were the nostrils of his wide nose.<\/p>\n \u201cEach of you have come and each of you will have your questions answered,\u201d the old man said.\u00a0 \u201cBut we have our own hunts to conduct.\u00a0 Hunts that cross the face of this world and the world of dreams, hunts into the day before the sun rises and the day after the sun sets.\u201d<\/p>\n This shaman paced a moment.\u00a0 \u201cI am in need of a companion to accompany me on a great journey.\u00a0 He who comes with me, he will return to his folk and his name will live among them long after he himself is dust.\u00a0\u00a0 Beyond the answers you have come here to seek, do any of you crave such fame?\u00a0 Crave it like water in the grass sea?\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps it was all the time spent standing in the sun, but Kiptum could not deny that he had such a thirst.\u00a0 He had proven himself against all creatures of the world, almost all.\u00a0 But many men had done so, even some women.\u00a0\u00a0 Hunting down the lost secret of grabbing fish, that was a prey that would lead to more prey, which would lead to fat bellies and smiling faces; reward enough for a hunter. \u00a0But to gain fame among the elders at the Ridge of Dreams?\u00a0 That was a track he would follow.<\/p>\n He stepped forward, as did the tall hunter of the Cheetah Folk, and the solid middle-aged man of the Leaf-Spider clan.<\/p>\n The old shaman looked over them, as an elephant might while it decided to leave you or crush you.\u00a0 \u201cWho among you have ever traveled among the Seer Folk?\u201d<\/p>\n Kiptum and the tall Cheetah Folk walked forward another step.<\/p>\n Kiptum disliked the Seer Folk.\u00a0 They made the best flint, though, it could not be denied.\u00a0 If you brought them the core of an elephant tusk they could give you a spear tip made of black glass that was magic.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why he didn\u2019t like them, the tusk was the only useless part of an elephant, what could they want with it?<\/p>\n The old shaman spoke, \u201cOnly one may come, and I must decide.\u201d\u00a0 He limped past Kiptum and tapped the tall Cheeta-Folk hunter on the chest and pulled at his trophy necklace.\u00a0 \u201cYou have many teeth and claws of the creatures who hunt men.\u201d<\/p>\n The tall hunter held up a long curving tooth.\u00a0 \u201cA neck-breaker had stalked our people, killing my nephew and stealing the game we caught.\u00a0 I swore to put an end to it, and I did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA neck-breaker?\u201d\u00a0 the old shaman held the long tooth, squinting and tracing a lean finger along it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you,\u201d he said to Kiptum, barely turning.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWhy do you not have a string of predator teeth?\u201d<\/p>\n What a foolish question!\u00a0 Best to answer honestly.\u00a0 \u201cThe Red Wasp clan is wise, our elders do not let children wander untended. And our children are born wise and would not wander untended even if they could.\u00a0 In my three hands and one years, I\u2019ve never had to spill the blood of a predator.\u00a0 I have been fast, I have stood tall and frightened them with shouts, with thrown stones, and with the unblinking gaze.\u201d<\/p>\n The old shaman gently placed the great tooth back on the hunter\u2019s chest.\u00a0 He took two limping steps, and pressed his hand against Kiptum\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n \u201cYou.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 A Woman of the Seer-Folk Gambles on the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n Clauviku shared her brother-in-law\u2019s dislike of the men of the Red Wasp Clan, and his distrust of the shamans of the First Tribe.\u00a0 Her brother-in-law, Wafulu, especially did not like these two, who had travelled for three days across the wide grassland to talk to him about his missing wife.\u00a0 But their same act had gained them favor in Clauviku\u2019s eyes, as his missing wife was her sister.<\/p>\n Still, the old witch-man looked like a long-legged leaf-spider; the kind that tangled one\u2019s hand in a web.\u00a0 The younger was more compact, the kind of spider who would leap suddenly onto you.<\/p>\n But they had brought a small black-stripe deer and eight pebble-turner birds as was proper for guests and travelers, and so Mosi, the head man, had insisted hospitality be observed.\u00a0 And here they were, the four of them sitting in the sparse shade with a skin of barely warm spice-root between them.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife took sick,\u201d Wafulu explained.\u00a0 \u201cThrashed around in her sleep like she was on an anthill, then lay still for two nights.\u201d<\/p>\n The two strangers just looked at him.\u00a0 That was one of the things she didn\u2019t like about their kind; they stared like they were children and her brother-in-law was telling a story, or maybe like they were adults and he was a child trying to tell them a falsehood.<\/p>\n The older man broke eye contact just long enough to dip his hand into the skin and pull out a small ball of spice-root and delicately put it in his mouth.\u00a0 He chewed and said nothing.\u00a0 His scout-bird glided from the tree and perched on his shoulder a moment, then flitted back up into the branches.<\/p>\n Mosi, the Seer-Folk head man, broke the silence.\u00a0 \u201cWe are strong, with many clever women and many fine hunters, and we took care of Mukali until she awoke.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut she was like a newborn,\u201d Wafulu said.\u00a0 \u201cShe could not stand or speak, her hands were clumsy, like someone struck by a stone.\u201d<\/p>\n For the first time that day, the younger stranger spoke.\u00a0 \u201cDid you leave her out in the sun?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo not be a fool!\u201d\u00a0 Wafulu snapped.<\/p>\n Clauviku had to agree.\u00a0 Why would the stranger, why would anyone, think that?<\/p>\n It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Wafulu disliked talking about it.\u00a0 He had lost a wife, and whether she was stolen or simply left hm, it was the same\u2014a loss of face and status.\u00a0 It was also obvious that Mosi the head-man only had eyes for trying to wheedle the shaman into figuring out if this was a new sickness sent to fret at the Seer folk.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are strong,\u201d Mosi said, \u201cand we took care of her even then, and we helped her to walk, and we taught her to use her hands and even to speak.\u201d\u00a0 He pointed with his lion-mane-tufted stick at her.\u00a0 \u201cShe did much of it, and Wafulu Six-Antelope the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe did not know how to talk?\u201d the old shaman said.\u00a0 He settled his gaze on her.<\/p>\n Clauviku answered. \u201cShe did not, and she had always been good at language.\u00a0 My sister knew all the tongues of each tribe and clan.\u00a0 A wonder and a pride of the Seer Folk.\u00a0 But she lost that skill, and could not speak for many days, and\u2026 and,\u201d she hesitated.\u00a0 \u201cShe learned quickly, as she always did.\u00a0 But even faster.\u201d<\/p>\n The two strangers looked at each other.\u00a0 Finally, the hunter reached into the hide pot, took a tiny bite of the spice-root, and flicked his fingers, scattering what didn\u2019t get into his mouth.\u00a0 In moments three beggar-birds descended from the tree and began pecking them up. In another moment his scout-bird flew down to join them.<\/p>\n Her brother-in law, Wafulu, dipped his hand into the pot, took a bite, a big one\u2014and that meant he was even more annoyed.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was not Mukali, not my wife,\u201d he said at last.<\/p>\n Clauviku nodded.\u00a0 It was still painful to say.\u00a0 \u201cShe was not Mukali, not my sister.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe was not Mukali,\u201d Mosi the head man said, \u201cnot the girl I have known half my life.\u201d<\/p>\n The head-man reached in, scrapped the bottom of the hide and brought his fingers to his mouth.\u00a0 \u201cTell me,\u201d he said to the older man.\u00a0 \u201cYou are a witch-doctor, you go to the valley of dreams.\u00a0 Is it true what is said, that something from the valley of dreams come into a person?\u201d<\/p>\n The old man looked almost childishly surprised by the question.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 The spirits may cling to a shaman as he comes out of the valley of dreams, but they cannot do what you say.\u00a0 And if one untrained in the ways, or eats guadro root or dream sap they may find themselves in the valley of dreams-\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOr if a man is out in the sun too long,\u201d the young hunter volunteered.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t leave her in the sun!\u201d both she and Wafulu shouted.<\/p>\n \u201cDid she eat fist-of-none?\u201d the old man asked.<\/p>\n It was such an odd thing to ask that for a long moment nobody said anything at all.\u00a0 Finally, Mosi, with the odd skill that a head-man has to have, said:\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNobody does anything with fist-of-none.\u00a0 You can\u2019t eat it, you can\u2019t sear it and eat it, you can\u2019t use it to attract anything that you would want to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid she make a paint out of it?\u201d the old man asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t make paint out of fist-of-none,\u201d Clauviku, who knew of paints and dyes because that is how the Seer Folk, and all decent folk, did things.<\/p>\n The two strangers looked at each other for a moment.<\/p>\n \u201cHow long ago did you leave her behind?\u201d the old man asked.<\/p>\n \u201cShe left us!\u201d Clauviku said, finally growing as annoyed as Wafulu with the accusation.\u00a0 \u201cWe leave none behind!\u00a0 We are strong and will carry an injured person for a hand of hands, and Mukali was learning again all the things that a child knows, yet we would not have left her.\u00a0 It is she who departed from us!\u201d<\/p>\n Unfazed by their anger, the old man asked, \u201cWhat band did she join up with?\u201d<\/p>\n The three Seer Folk were very quiet.\u00a0 Finally, Clauviku said, \u201cNone.\u201d<\/p>\n It was clear that the First Tribe shaman and the Red Waste hunter did not believe her, and with good reason.\u00a0 For all the gifts of man, the world was hard and tricky and full of danger enough for a mobile tribe, much less a lone woman.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d the young hunter said, as if he had caught them in a lie.\u00a0 \u201cNo one would do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe did!\u201d Wafulu said.\u00a0 \u201cShe got up with the sun, rolled up her bag of tools, took two spears and began walking to sunrise.\u00a0 Alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Clauviku knew there was something else, something else that Wafulu had not said, perhaps they had fought?\u00a0 It was unlikely, in a troupe of six hands of people someone would have heard, someone would have known.<\/p>\n For a long time, they all sat quite under the tree while the beggar-birds pecked and bobbed in the grass.\u00a0 The young hunter\u2019s scout-bird flew back up to sit at his shoulder.<\/p>\n Wafulu said, \u201cShe rolled up her bag of tools, took two spears and\u2026\u201d he turned to her with an unreadable expression, then to Mosi, and then to the two strangers.\u00a0 \u201cAnd\u2026 she had another face.\u201d<\/p>\n He put his open hand on the back of his head, \u201cAnother face, here!\u00a0 She walked away to sunrise and she\u2026 she watched me with her other face.\u201d<\/p>\n Wafulu turned to her suddenly, \u201cClauviku, I swear by my mother that bore me and the red hunter\u2019s star, Mukali is gone, whatever\u2026 whatever walks in your sister\u2019s skin is\u2026 is\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n He surged to his feet, startling the beggar-birds back into the air. \u201cMaybe we should have left her in the sun!\u201d he shouted, then turned and stalked away.<\/p>\n Silence reigned until the beggar-birds flapped back down and the old man asked:\u00a0 \u201cDid anyone follow her?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did,\u201d Clauviku said.\u00a0 \u201cAfter I heard of it.\u00a0 For perhaps half a day\u2026 then I grew frightened and came back.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t entirely true.\u00a0 She had been almost glad that her not-sister had gone.\u00a0 Deep inside she knew that what Wafulu had said had been true.\u00a0 Something else walked in her sister\u2019s skin.\u00a0 Like a stranger living in her tent.<\/p>\n But still, the moon had made almost two journeys since Mukali had left, Clauviku had wondered if she could not have done more.\u00a0 Watched over the tent until her sister came back.<\/p>\n The old witch-doctor nodded.\u00a0 \u201cThe spirits guided me here to find a man who is not a man.\u00a0 We have set ourselves to this goal.\u00a0 Tomorrow I will set Kiptum on the trail and we will find her, if she still lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Clauviku did not like the First Tribe, but everything they had said was true.\u00a0 The question came out of her mouth before she could fully think I through.\u00a0 \u201cCan you drive this thing out of my sister\u2019s skin so that she can return?\u201d<\/p>\n The old man looked surprised, as if it had not occurred to him.\u00a0 \u201cLet us find her first and from there we will see.\u201d<\/p>\n She thought about the next thing she said, decided to say it.\u00a0 \u201cIf I go, if I set up your tent and make your fire, will you swear to do what you can to help her?\u201d<\/p>\n The old man thought, his fingers strumming against the hut-bird nest tied around his chest.<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 A Shaman Limps To A Mystery<\/strong><\/p>\n Selu\u2019s leg hurt, where the neck-breaker had caught him in the spirit world.\u00a0\u00a0 He had hoped if he just walked it would go away.\u00a0 But from the Ridge of Dreams to the camp of the Seer Folk, three nights of travel, it had not gotten better; it had gotten worse.\u00a0 Leaning on his spear helped at first.\u00a0 He knew it was slowing them down, but neither Kiptum nor Clauviku said anything about it.<\/p>\n Clauviku, for being a Seer Folk was a strong walker, she could build a fire quickly, and had a keen eye for leaves and roots that they could eat.\u00a0 She did spend a lot of time painting herself\u2014her face mostly. \u00a0A practice that he and Kiptum found very odd.\u00a0 Today she had three blue stripes running up the right side of her face.<\/p>\n Like most Seer Folk, she was tall, and had a large forehead and a strong curving jawline.\u00a0 Clauviku had a slight overbite and her top teeth pointed outward just a bit.<\/p>\n She also had a huge basket, not a hut-bird nest like he and Kiptum.\u00a0 This was a great-tear-drop of woven bark that she wore against her back.\u00a0 What an odd people the Seer Folk were!\u00a0 For all their talk of strength and cleverness they made baskets with their own hands as if they were too poor or stupid to get the birds to do it for them.<\/p>\n Kiptum\u2019s legs devoured the distance, and Selu was glad to see that, for a hunter who was not actively hunting, the young man had not become angry or bitter about it.\u00a0 Tracking the Seer Folk had been easy, so easy even Selu himself could have done it.\u00a0 Perhaps the young man found tracking the missing woman Mukali to be a harder task, one that was a proper challenge.<\/p>\n Over the past three nights Kiptum had led them unerringly, passing by the small charred fire rings Mukali had built, pointing out the trees that she had climbed and slept in, places where she had emptied her bowels.<\/p>\n This morning Kiptum\u2019s scout-bird was gone.\u00a0 Not a good sign.\u00a0 Selu\u2019s own scout-bird was still gliding over them, for now.<\/p>\n Kiptum led them toward a second bad sign:\u00a0 a great swirling flock of hooded vultures.\u00a0\u00a0 Where hooded vultures circled that meant that the bigger white-back vultures were beneath them, feasting.\u00a0 But as they crossed the high grass, they could see the white-back vultures were not clustering around Mukali\u2019s corpse, they were feasting on a lion.\u00a0 It was a male, one of the wandering bachelors, and from the way it had been spread out and torn by the vultures, and by the types of flies about it, it had been dead a hand and four days.<\/p>\n \u201cWas it Mukali?\u201d Clauviku asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no way to tell,\u201d Kiptum answered her.\u00a0 \u201cI see no spears sticking out of the hide.\u201d\u00a0 He reached into the hut-bird nest tied about his chest, pulled out a run-for-a-day- leaf, chewed on it, and said what they were all thinking.\u00a0 \u201cA lone walker might kill a lion, but\u2026 It would not be easy.\u00a0 And she would likely have been killed in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n The young hunter frowned.\u00a0 \u201cShe had come this way, though.\u00a0 See the tracks?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d both Selu and Clauviku said.<\/p>\n Kiptum signed like a man who had been left in camp to take care of all the children.\u00a0 \u201cThey are here, and they go that way.\u201d<\/p>\n The lion\u2019s carcass on their minds, they followed Kiptum, who followed Mukali into the thickening woods and into the realm of the neck-breaker.<\/p>\n There was a certain quality to the deeper woods, it was quiet, unlike the plains.\u00a0 And Selu strained his ears to listen for the alarming squawk of his scout-bird.<\/p>\n Before sunset Kiptum had led them to another gang of hooded vultures, and beneath them they found the white-backed vultures luxuriating in the carcass of a neck-breaker.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Its condition was even worse:\u00a0 a nation of ants flowed out of its smashed skull, which itself was torn from the spine, which was separate from the back legs.<\/p>\n \u201cNo person could do this,\u201d Clauviku said, as they skirted around the mad scene.<\/p>\n \u201cA person didn\u2019t,\u201d Kiptum said, \u201ca marsh-elephant did.\u201d<\/p>\n The hunter knelt by a small hollow in the earth, \u201csee here, a print.\u201d\u00a0 He pointed, \u201cSee there?\u00a0 Where the marsh elephant came through the forest.\u00a0 And this,\u201d he pointed to a tree limb stripped bare of leaves and limbs, \u201cWhere it pulled the limbs off.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Selu\u2019s heart beat hard; something was not right.\u00a0\u00a0 Why did it kill the great cat?\u00a0 Why tear it to pieces?\u00a0 \u201cMarsh-elephants have no fear of a neck-breaker.\u201d<\/p>\n Clauviku shrugged, \u201cPerhaps it got too close to a calf?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKiptum, do you see any tracks of a calf?\u201d<\/p>\n The hunter stood back up, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n Marsh-elephants were a sacred creature to all the tribes of men, for they could carry things in a basket like men could.\u00a0 Usually a bird\u2019s nest, and it was not lost on the shaman that they often used the nests of vultures.\u00a0 Once, when he was an apprentice he had seen a marsh-elephant carry a hollowed tree stump.\u00a0 But still, why would one of them do this to a neck-breaker?<\/p>\n They walked away from the unnerving scene, and Kitum led them through the woods over the later half of the day.\u00a0 Disconcerting to Selu, even more than the odd omens of the lion or the neck-breaker, was the fact they were moving toward one of the rivers.\u00a0 It struck him as being far too much like his last trip into the dreamworld.\u00a0 But not a small creek like in the dreamworld, but a large one, the Ollissim river.<\/p>\n \u201cStay together,\u201d Selu warned, \u201cthe chiefs of the riverbank can scoop up a man.\u201d\u00a0 Selu may still have had a scout bird, which while good at warning of things that stalked upon the land, but it did not seem to know or care about the crocodiles.<\/p>\n The woods thinned, then opened into a fire-cleared clearing.\u00a0 Right next to the slow river stood a thing beyond experience, something he had never even seen in the spirit world\u2014a great sweeping circle of broken trees\u2014and within, another clearing.\u00a0 From the inner clearing rose a thing even stranger.\u00a0 It was not a tree, but like a tree it shot up into the sky, four legs like a giraffe, and atop it a tent.\u00a0 But worst of all, within the tangled mass of the barrier were faces, dozens of them, hundreds of them, brown with unblinking white eyes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 A Hunter Wishes He Had Lost the Trail<\/strong><\/p>\n Kiptum stood stock-still, starring into the unblinking eye of the faces in the barrier of tangled limbs.\u00a0 He was a bold man, a strong hunter, who feared no beast, not even the other neck-breaker padding after them.\u00a0 He had two companions, and no beast could match them.<\/p>\n But this, this was beyond anything he had ever seen or heard of.\u00a0 He did not know what to do and so he did nothing, struck dumb by the uncanniness of it all.<\/p>\n Clauviku of the Seer Folk walked forward.\u00a0 Kiptum tightened his grip on the spear, falling into the habits he knew:\u00a0 look ahead to the river for the crocodile, listen behind for the neck-breaker, always keep an eye out for snakes.<\/p>\n Next to him Selu did the same, breathing slow and shifting back and forth off his bad leg.<\/p>\n Clauviku prodded on of the faces with the butt of her spear.\u00a0 Then reached out and touched it with a hand.\u00a0 \u201cIt is tied to the tree,\u201d she called back.<\/p>\n Some quiet instinct pricked at Kiptum\u2019s mind and he looked up in time to see a flap of the sky-tent open and saw a person\u2014of all things!\u2014look out then dip back inside.<\/p>\n \u201cI see you!\u201d he bellowed, just like he would with a lioness.<\/p>\n \u201cMukali!\u201d\u00a0 Clauviku shouted.\u00a0 \u201cCan you hear me, sister?\u201d<\/p>\n Out of the dark opening of the sky-hut the odd quarry that he had tracked for two hands of days, Mukali came out.\u00a0 For a moment she looked like she was going to jump, but then she hooked a hand around the lip of the platform and climbed down the giraffe-leg of the improbable structure.<\/p>\n Mukali reached the ground and walked toward the tangle of limbs and pulled on a small rope that wound in among the branches, and two of the massive tree limbs lifted as if hauled by a team of men.\u00a0 She tied off the end of the rope and then walked out.<\/p>\n \u201cHello my sister,\u201d Mukali said.\u00a0 \u201cYou should come inside; it is dangerous out there.\u00a0 There is a neck-breaker roaming the forest, trying to get in.\u00a0 And the marsh-elephants like this place for a watering hole.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about the chief of the riverbank?\u201d\u00a0 Selu asked before Kiptum could.<\/p>\n She looked at them for a moment, stared at them like a child who was trying to please both a mother and an aunt.\u00a0 \u201cThe king of the river is easy to frighten.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is a \u2018king\u2019, sister?\u201d Clauviku asked, before Kiptun could.<\/p>\n Mukali licked her lips, looking angry for a moment.\u00a0 \u201cA king is a chieftain of other chieftains.\u00a0 I will show you.\u201d<\/p>\n She turned and led them back in.\u00a0 And since Clauviku, a woman of Seer Folk, and Selu, an old shaman of the First Tribe had the courage to step through that tangled archway, Kiptum the hunter disobeyed his every instinct and followed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7.\u00a0 A Seer and A Piece of the Dreamworld Broken Away to Walk Free<\/strong><\/p>\n In Mukali\u2019s camp there was an outlandish order that Selu had only experienced in the spirit world; the meanings escaped him, but there were meanings none-the-less.\u00a0 She had several fire-pits and there were things\u2026 not baskets, but like baskets, not weaved but solid, like they had been chipped from stone.\u00a0 But they were smooth, almost like they were giant eggshells.<\/p>\n She actually did have some baskets, some basket-like things.\u00a0 Four of them that hung among the branches of one of the downed trees.\u00a0 They were not small, and two of them had monkeys in them.\u00a0 At first he thought they were sleeping, but they moved sometimes, clumsily, especially for a monkey.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you starving those two collared-monkeys?\u201d he asked finally.<\/p>\n She turned her head slowly, gazing at the two monkeys while she thought about her answer.<\/p>\n It was obvious she and Clauviku were sisters.\u00a0 She had the same forehead, and the curving jawline.\u00a0 Mukali, while she still had a slight overbite, her teeth were straighter.\u00a0 But she was gaunt, as if she had not eaten well.\u00a0 She also wore no paint like her sister.\u00a0 In fact she was covered with dust and dirt.<\/p>\n \u201cOh no,\u201d she finally said, \u201cI feed them and they have water.\u00a0 They have simply eaten too many fire-tail tadpoles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFire Tale tadpoles are poisonous,\u201d Kiptum said.\u00a0 \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t eat them!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t eat them,\u201d she answered, \u201cthe collared-monkeys do, and they are not poisonous to them.\u00a0 It effects them like strong honey affects us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSister,\u201d Clauviku said, \u201cwhy would you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know how the dumber clans will take grasses and leave them for birds so they will make nests so they can wear them as baskets?\u201d<\/p>\n There was an awkward silence.\u00a0 Selu lifted his hut-bird nest from his chest.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u00a0 I know.\u201d<\/p>\n Mukali looked at his face, looked at the basket, then nodded.\u00a0 \u201cYes, it is like that.\u00a0 I have trained the collared-monkeys to bring me Fall-out-the-tree flower.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFall-out-the-tree flowers are poisonous!\u201d Kiptum said. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t eat them!\u201d<\/p>\n Mukali giggled, an odd and disconcerting gulping noise.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t eat them.\u00a0 I trade them to the marsh-elephants, who do eat them.\u00a0 They eat them and in return they do favors for me.\u201d\u00a0 She waved to the barrier of downed trees.\u00a0 \u201cAnd I can teach you how to do all those things as well!\u201d<\/p>\n Then she watched them like a poor storyteller to see if they were keeping up with the tale.\u00a0 After long stretching moments, she turned to look at him, and Selu turned to watch the sluggish river.\u00a0 The Ollissim often had steep sharp banks, but here it was wide and shallow\u2014the worst kind of place.\u00a0 Crocodiles could come out of the sluggish water at any moment.\u00a0\u00a0 Above it all was the strange legged-hut.<\/p>\n Once, when he was a boy, he had realized that a hyena had followed him, and as he bent to pick up a stone to drive it away he realized there was another one in front of him, and a third beside.\u00a0\u00a0 That feeling, that he had been cornered, that he had walked into a trap, was what he felt now.\u00a0 Kiptum, following the etiquette of a visitor, broke the silence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have sharp-gill-white fungus, three hands of half-shell-nuts and a rock python we killed this morning\u201d the young hunter said.<\/p>\n \u201cI have\u2026.\u201d Mukali frowned, bit at her lip.\u00a0 \u201cI have monkey.\u00a0 And fish.\u201d She smiled, straightened.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u00a0 Fish, I can share.\u00a0 Let me check the trap.\u201d<\/p>\n She walked to the edge of the water and Selu\u2019s heart quickened.\u00a0 She had no spear!\u00a0 She had no stone!<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s throw stones, first,\u201d Clauviku said, reaching for her sister.\u00a0 \u201cTo drive away the crocodile.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStones?\u201d Mukali said.\u00a0 \u201cI have a better way.\u201d\u00a0 She walked among the oddities and debris and picked up a section of brambles, one that clattered and clanked with an uncountable number of palm-sized disks of her strange stone.\u00a0 She carried it toward the river and shook it.\u00a0 It was madness!\u00a0 The crocodile would explode out and drag her in.<\/p>\n Selu\u2019s leg complained but he forced himself forward and around, his spear at the ready; to the other side Kiptum moved to do the same.\u00a0 Sick or not, driven away from the Seer Folk or not, one does not let a person get pulled down by a chieftain of the shore.<\/p>\n A piece of riverbank broke away, then another\u2014three crocodiles, huge and nearly invisible in the lazy water, surged away from the bank, stirring and foaming the muddy water as they edged away from Mukali and into the center of the river.<\/p>\n She set the bramble hedge down and began pulling a poorly made grass rope and out of the water.\u00a0 Tied to the end was one of the stone-eggs, covered with dozens of small holes and a mass of branches over its mouth.\u00a0 Water sluiced out of the hand-of-hands of holes.<\/p>\n She looked back at him with a hard frown, \u201cCan you help? It is heavy!\u201d<\/p>\n As he hesitated, she waved her gaunt dirty arm toward the river.\u00a0 \u201cThey will not bother us!\u201d she reached back and shook the brambles.\u00a0 \u201cTo the them, this might as well be a wall.\u00a0 They do not know it is mostly empty air, that they could smash through it with no effort. \u201c<\/p>\n It was like a dream\u2014not a spirit-world dream\u2014but a regular dream, with all its chaos and unreasonableness.\u00a0 Still, Selu pulled on the slick rope and together he and Makuli dragged the thing out.\u00a0 Inside he could hear the flopping and slapping of many fish.<\/p>\n Kiptum, still eyeing the water and clutching his spear eased up.\u00a0 \u201cI am looking for a way to catch fish\u2014big ones, that one reaches into the water and pulls one out, but it is lost to us now.\u00a0 Do you know it?\u201d<\/p>\n Mukali looked at him and grinned.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 But I have been into the spirit world and come back with a hundred secrets and have many other things to show you.\u00a0 To show everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSister, before we do that,\u201d Clauviku said, \u201cyou are covered with ticks and we should take care of that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8.\u00a0 A Woman of the Seer-Folk Searches Still for Her Sister<\/strong><\/p>\n Clauviku marveled at an evening that was overran with luxury and oddness.\u00a0 They gutted and cooked the fish, drying those they didn\u2019t eat over a smoky fire as the sun fell.\u00a0 Now she picked ticks off of Mukali, out of her hair, off of her back.<\/p>\n Clauviku had not found a chance to whisper to her companions, but they obviously felt it, too.\u00a0 The utter strangeness of the camp, of this\u2026 being that walked in her sister\u2019s body.<\/p>\n \u201cYou missed one, in her hair,\u201d Selu said.\u00a0 He reached over her shoulders and lifted a piece of Mukali\u2019s natty hair just above the neck, and with a deft move cut a bit of it away with a flick of flint.<\/p>\n Her sister, what walked in her sister\u2019s skin, seemed utterly unaware that she should check her back for ticks.\u00a0 She seemed unaware that she should rub her teeth with hill-tang root.\u00a0 But she knew so many other things, the mystery of clay and \u2018pottery\u2019, the strange trick with the bramble screen at the water\u2019s edge.\u00a0 Kiptum had asked about the fish, and Selu had asked about fist-of-none.\u00a0 Mukali had not even known what fist-of-none was.<\/p>\n It was also obvious to Clauviku that Mukali\u2014no\u2014she could no longer call her that.\u00a0 This stranger was mostly eating the cat-tails that grew thick along the banks of the river.\u00a0 Yet there were several days\u2019 worth of cufa-plant growing by the river that she seemed unaware of.<\/p>\n Beside her, Kiptum suddenly stood and grabbed for his spear. Then she felt it, through ground, a low thud like far away thunder.<\/p>\n \u201cElephant!\u201d\u00a0 Kiptum warned.\u00a0 \u201cClose!\u201d<\/p>\n From the woods came three marsh-elephants.\u00a0 One, a young male, held a ragged hollow tree stump in its short trunk, the other, a small female, a long tree-root broken in a rough \u201cL\u201d shape.\u00a0 The third, a larger and older female, walked with nothing.\u00a0 But this third one had a great yellow stripe painted across her wide head, angling down over her left eye.\u00a0 Above and below the yellow swath were lines of orange ochre, and above and below those was a deep blue stripe.<\/p>\n Clauviku glanced at her companions.\u00a0 Both were watching the old female as if they were watching rain falling up into the sky.\u00a0\u00a0 Spreading out, the three beasts pawed at the ground and pushed the barrier with their great wide heads.\u00a0 The clay faces rattled in the tangle of branches.<\/p>\n Clauviku had never seen a marsh-elephant, it was much less impressive than the huge elephants that roamed the plains where the Seer Folk preferred to live.\u00a0 Marsh-elephants were\u00a0 sacred animals: they could use baskets.\u00a0 They were sacred but unpredictable; dangerous sometimes.\u00a0 They were not nearly as big as the elephants that stirred up clouds of dust on the plains.\u00a0 Bigger than a water-buffalo, maybe the size of a hippo.\u00a0 They had the same large ears, but their trunks were thin and not as long, and their small tusks curved downward out of their mouths.<\/p>\n \u201cDo not worry,\u201d Mukali said, walking slowly up from behind them.\u00a0 \u201cThey are my friends, like the monkeys.\u201d<\/p>\n She took one of her clay bowls and carried it to the edge of the enclosure, walking to a part of the wall and then standing on a tree trunk.\u00a0 Mukali held the clay bowl high over her head and the big female marsh-elephant dipped her trunk into it, scooping out a cluster of fall-out-the-tree flower and curling it around to her mouth.\u00a0 The other two placed their items on the ground and did the same.\u00a0 The three of them reached and dug and ate and cooed until finally the old matriarch pulled the bowl from Mukali\u2019s hands, and with a shake of her head sent it flying away across the clearing where it shattered.<\/p>\n The traveler\u2014for that was as close to a proper name, a description of Mukali could be\u2014laughed her odd laugh.\u00a0 \u201cYou see, they are my friends.\u00a0 As you say, sacred and so very very smart.\u00a0 They need only a little nudge and they would be as smart as you are.\u201d<\/p>\n She turned back to them, \u201cThe sun is going down.\u00a0 You can stay in the lower hut. You have seen it is safe from the crocodile, and the neck-breaker will not climb the branch-wall.\u00a0\u00a0 He could jump it, but he will not.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, tomorrow I will show you the secret of clay.\u00a0 How to make a clay mask to wear on the back of your head so that lions and hyenas and neck-breakers will always think you are watching them.\u00a0 Then I will show you the sling, which will let you throw a stone five times as far as you could with your arm.\u00a0 And perhaps, if there is time, how to make glass.\u201d<\/p>\n With that she returned to the leg of her tower and climbed up.\u00a0 For a moment the three people stood together in the growing dark, their shadows fretting in the flickering firelight while just outside of that the three marsh-elephants picked up the root and the stump and shuffled off into the dark woods on the far side of the clearing.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is not my sister,\u201d Clauviku said to her companions.\u00a0 Some part of her had hoped that, like a fever, the odd possession might end.\u00a0 She thought she herself would be more emotional, but after the long days of tracking and the unreality of this place it was simply what was.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps she has become a great shaman,\u201d Kiptum said.\u00a0 \u201cShe surely knows great secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMany secrets,\u201d Selu said, leaning on his spear.\u00a0 \u201cMany more secrets than she shares.\u201d<\/p>\n Clauviku felt a tension between her shoulders release.\u00a0 \u201cI thought the same.\u00a0 I feared I was the only one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh no,\u201d Kiptum said, \u201cI saw it, too.\u00a0 Like a man who has been in the sun too-\u201d<\/p>\n Selu faltered suddenly and Kiptum reached out to steady him.\u00a0 The old man\u2019s shadowed face looked dazed.\u00a0 \u201cThere are ways to find secrets.\u201d\u00a0 His tongue darted out and licked his lips.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve eaten the guadro root and will journey to the spirit world.\u201d<\/p>\n He looked at Clauviku.\u00a0 \u201cI promised to find your sister\u2019s spirit.\u00a0 I will\u2026\u201d he lost his thought, his words.<\/p>\n Then he whispered, to them or to himself, Clauviku did not know.\u00a0 \u201cA hard journey after a hard journey.\u201d<\/p>\n The old man leaned hard against the young hunter and together they walked back to the ground hut.\u00a0 By the time they got there, Selu could barely keep his feet, his pupils were huge, his breathing shallow and quick.<\/p>\n \u201cClauviku,\u201d the shaman whispered, \u201ctie my left hand closed.\u00a0 I must not let go.\u201d<\/p>\n In the flicking light she saw that the lock of natty hair he had cut from Mukali\u2019s neck was held in his left hand.\u00a0 As she worked a line around his wrist, around his knuckles and fingers, his other hand dug clumsily at the hut-bird nest at his chest.<\/p>\n \u201cKiptum,\u201d he muttered.\u00a0 \u201cEmpty this nest.\u00a0 Three things\u2026 only three.\u201d<\/p>\n The hunter knelt and dumped out the beads, bones, and other bits from the nest.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat three things do you want take?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Selu made no answer.\u00a0\u00a0 Had he not heard?<\/p>\n \u201cSelu,\u201d Clauviku said, sharper, like one would with a child.\u00a0 \u201cWhat three things do you want to take?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA\u2026\u201d\u00a0 he started, and then stuttered for a moment.\u00a0 He put his right hand to his forehead trying to remember.\u00a0 \u201ca\u2026. and a\u2026\u201d then he fell back, lost in his trance.<\/p>\n She and Kiptum looked at each other, then at Selu\u2019s still form.\u00a0 They arranged him where he looked comfortable, put his arms to his sides and then his hands to his chest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should build up the fire,\u201d Clauviku said at last, because the idea of being without one in this place was too terrifying to bear.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, that is wise.\u201d<\/p>\n Together they put more branches and limbs into the fire until it grew so high and hot they had to back away from it.<\/p>\n Kiptum came close and whispered, \u201cDo you see light coming from beneath the door of Mukali\u2019s sky-hut?\u201d<\/p>\n She looked up and through the smoke and drifting embers of their own fire she did see a dim shine around the hanging hide door.\u00a0 But not yellow or orange like a fire, but white, like the traveler had captured a piece of the moon.<\/p>\n \u201cDo not go near the water,\u201d Kiptum whispered, and when she looked she could see, reflected in the firelight, at least four sets of crocodile eyes.\u00a0 She turned away from the sight.\u00a0 Crocodiles, even if they did not fear the bramble wall as Mukali promised, had no desire to get more than a stone\u2019s throw from the water and had no interest at all in being near a fire.<\/p>\n For long moments she stood then walked a step or two away from the fire.\u00a0 She looked out at the clearing, a wall of blackness beyond the hedge-wall.\u00a0 With a start she realized that she could see, just barely, the fire gleaming in the eyes of one of the marsh-elephants.\u00a0 It was watching her; she knew it in her marrow.\u00a0\u00a0 A moment later she could see the eyes of a second.\u00a0 Then a third set, that of the matriarch, with her yellow-paint glowing like a dying ember, watching her and waiting.<\/p>\n ________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n Adrian Simmons is co-founder and cheif editor of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.\u00a0 His work has appeared at Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Cirsova, and Savage Realms.\u00a0 He has a story forthcoming in Baen’s “Swords and Larceny” anthology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Miguel Santos is a freelance illustrator and maker of Comics living in Portugal.\u00a0 His artwork has appeared in numerous issues of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, as well as in the Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 2.\u00a0 More of his work can be seen at his online\u00a0portfolio\u00a0<\/a>and his\u00a0instagram<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A KNOWLEDGE SHARPER THAN FLINT- Part 1, by Adrian Simmons, pending art by Miguel Santos \u00a01.\u00a0 A Shaman Amok in Dreamtime The chieftain of the scout-birds circled over Selu\u2019s head, black wings glinting in the sun.\u00a0 She turned and dove, passing over him so close he could touch her. \u201cHe\u2019s here!\u00a0 He\u2019s here!\u201d\u00a0 Her beak, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,89,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-issue-64-archive","category-main"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4463,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions\/4463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sharper-than-flint-1a-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n