Children of the Plains

Chapter 18

Autumn arrived. The days grew short and dark, but the darkness was not confined to the sky. Once the dragon was known to be injured, the atmosphere in the valley changed.

Nomad and villager had been getting along tolerably well, with occasional disagreements between individuals offset by frequent incidents of cooperation. Several of the younger nomads had actually begun teaching their village counterparts to ride horses. At first the elder villagers scoffed at those taking the lessons, but the young of Yala-tene knew riding could be an extremely useful sill. The lessons were marked by much raucous roughhousing, but the gibing was good-natured, and no one got hurt.

Now trouble between nomad and villager was on the rise — name-calling and theft became more frequent and escalated into shouting matches and fistfights. Riding lessons came to a halt. The once-friendly sessions had become untenable after several violent melees.

Amero and the village elders moved from one crisis to another, separating angry nomads and villagers, smoothing over confrontations, trying to resolve a growing host of simmering disputes.

“I don’t understand it,” Amero complained one evening. He was in the home of Konza the tanner. He and his host had gulped a hasty meal by the circular fireplace while waiting for the next outbreak of trouble.

“I thought things would work out better than this,” he continued, poking the fire with an aromatic cedar stick. “Our people and Nianki’s — we’re all plainsmen. We’ve learned so much from each other and can learn a lot more. So why is there so much trouble?”

“You believe too much in the goodness of people,” Konza said. The firelight etched the lines of weariness on his face with deep shadows. “These wanderers are lazy, good-for-nothing savages. What they want, they steal. What they don’t understand, they destroy.”

Amero looked up from prodding the flames. “I thought Nianki could keep them in line.”

Konza sighed, pouring hot water over a pot full of mashed dewberries. He let this steep a few moments, then poured off the resulting tea for Amero and himself.

“You’ll forgive me for saying so,” Konza said solemnly, “but your sister is mad.”

Amero stared at the flames. No anger showed on his face, for Konza was saying only what Amero had secretly feared for some time. Hearing the words from the sober, hard-working tanner made them seem all the more true.

Following her fall from the cave, Nianki had sunk into a strange, withdrawn state. She wandered through the valley, laughing or weeping for no obvious reason. Her hands, feet, and face grew dirty, her hair was tangled with bits of straw and leaves from sleeping in the open. She remained fierce, however, and thoroughly thrashed a pair of young bucks from the village who cornered her in the orchard one day and taunted her about her wild appearance. Amero had a terrible time keeping the boys’ families from retaliating.

The only time Nianki ever seemed to regain clarity was in the presence of Duranix. The dragon, his broken wing rendering him temporarily unable to fly to his high cavern home, remained on the shore of the lake. The village healer, a young sage named Raho, designed a massive leather harness for the dragon to wear which supported his folded, broken wing as it healed. Village delegates brought Duranix offerings of meat, but none of them, nor any of the nomads, would remain near the crippled creature for very long.

Only Nianki and Amero would spend much time with Duranix, and they rarely appeared together. Her brother’s presence seemed to provoke wild extremes of emotion. When Amero complained of this to Duranix, the dragon flicked his forked tongue several times and said cryptically, “The hardest stone in this valley is your skull, human.”

Now, facing Konza across a flaming hearth and hearing the tanner’s comment about Nianki’s state of mind, Amero tried to reason out the cause of all the trouble between the nomads and their settled brethren.

“We’ve had a lot of bad luck lately,” he mused. “The tunnels collapsed, Duranix got hurt, my sister’s ill, the nomads are restless, and I haven’t had any time to work on my copper experiments.”

Konza shrugged. “The answer to our bad luck is simple. It started with the arrival of the nomads, and it will end when we rid ourselves of them.”

Amero flinched at his blunt words, which stung like a lash. “They’re valiant and useful people,” he said. “They can add to our strength.”

Konza snorted. “They’re violent and dangerous,” he insisted. With a sidelong look at the younger man, he added, “I’m not the only villager who thinks so.”

Shouts and a loud crash outside forestalled Amero’s reply and underscored the tanner’s claim. Wearily, Amero rose from the hearth and went to the door. Konza got up to follow, but Amero waved him back.

“Take your ease,” he said. “I’ll see what’s up.”

Two houses over he found a boy lying in the dirt, his head bleeding. The travois he’d been dragging was wrecked, and broken pots lay scattered about. A thick, sweet smell filled the cool night air. Honey.

Amero helped the boy sit up. His name was Udi, second son of Tepa, the beekeeper. Tepa had a cache of beehives in the apple orchard, and he traded his honey in the village at considerable advantage. Udi groaned a bit when he felt the bump on his head, but groaned much louder when he saw the damage done to his father’s supply of honey.

“Who did this?” demanded Amero.

“I never saw them,” said the teenager, a hand to his head. “I heard footsteps behind me, but. I thought it was just a neighbor. There was a yell, and when I turned to see who it was, something hit me on the back of the head.”

“Can you tell what’s missing?”

The boy counted jars. Eight were intact, four broken, and only one was missing.

“Someone attacked you to take just one jar of honey?” asked Amero, incredulous.

“It’s the riders,” Udi muttered. “They steal for the rough jest of it.”

“You don’t know that,” Amero replied, with more conviction than he felt. He helped reload the travois and sent Udi on his way. A cursory examination showed three pairs of footprints in the dust around the site of the robbery. Two pairs headed toward the lake. The third went north, toward the cattle pens.

He tracked the solo marauder straight to the walled corral. Sure enough, a single figure sat atop the stone wall, looking over the herd of brown and white spotted oxen.

“You there! Stay where you are!”

The fellow didn’t even turn around. Amero climbed onto the wall and was surprised to see that the lone figure was Pa’alu.

Pa’alu had been acting oddly ever since the night of the feast. He disappeared for days at a time and had not been seen now for over a week. Amero wondered at the epidemic of strange behavior.

“I thought perhaps you were gone from the valley,” he said, sitting beside the warrior.

“I’ve been away,” Pa’alu replied. “I’ve been hunting in the nearby valleys by myself, on foot. Haven’t done that in eight seasons.”

“There was a robbery back there.” Amero pointed to the row of dome-shaped houses.

“Robbery? What was stolen?”

“A jar of honey.”

“Ha, a robber with a sweet tooth.”

“He came this way. See anybody run by?”

“I wasn’t looking.”

The cattle stirred sleepily, crowding around piles of fodder that had been left for them. Amero watched the long-horned animals silently for several minutes, searching for the words he wanted.

“Pa’alu?” he said at last.

“Hmm?”

“What happened, the night of the feast? Why did you try to stab yourself? We’ve never talked about it.”

The other man turned his head, and for the first time Amero saw how hollow-eyed he’d become. “Too much wine,” Pa’alu said calmly. “I should thank the dragon for stopping me.”

Amero flashed a smile. “Duranix says living with humans means stopping a hundred stupid things a day.”

Both men laughed briefly. Amero threw his legs back over the wall and slid down to the ground outside the pen.

“I must keep looking for the thieves,” he said. “Good night, Pa’alu.”

“Peace be with you, Arkuden.”

Amero departed and was soon swallowed by the darkness around the village houses. Pa’alu waited to a slow count of thirty, then took a squat jar from under his cloak and broke the beeswax seal. Making clucking sounds in his throat to attract the hungry cattle, he poured a stream of golden honey on the dirt. Before long the oxen were lapping at it with their fleshy red tongues. Pa’alu wiped the rim of the empty jar with his fingers, then stuck them in his mouth.

Back in the camp, Nacris and Tarkwa were panting from their run. They ducked into a large tent, with triumphant grins. Hatu, inside the tent, was waiting with a small lamp burning.

“Well?” demanded Hatu.

“He wouldn’t strike a blow, but he took a jar,” Nacris reported.

“Good. Pa’alu will soon be one of us. Next time, we must make sure he strikes the first blow but not the last.”

Hatu bent forward and blew out the lamp.

Nianki was not sleeping in the orchard.

Though she lay in the soft grass at the base of an apple tree, she could not rest. She stared up through the tree’s twisted branches at the patches of night sky visible through its remaining leaves.

It was a tree that saved me.

Amero’s voice drifted through her mind. He’d climbed a tree to escape the yevi all those years ago.

Thoughts of Amero kept Nianki from sleeping. Each time she closed her eyes, her brother’s face seemed to rise up before her like a spectre that wouldn’t be banished.

“Go away,” she muttered. “Leave me be. Go away.”

Her brother’s face smiled at her.

“Leave me in peace!” she screamed and sprang to her feet, drawing her flint knife as though she could fight off the strange, unnatural feelings assailing her.

With a shock, she found herself facing a stranger. A tall, thin figure with a high forehead stood only a few steps away from her blade. He recoiled so sharply that the long robes he wore whipped around his ankles.

“Stop!” he commanded.

Nianki kept her knife between them and demanded to know who he was.

He recovered himself quickly and adopted a calm, superior air. “Savages have short memories,” he said. “Don’t you know me, Karada?”

She still didn’t relax her posture, but it was obvious that her mind was working to place him. With a small smile, he lifted his hands and pushed back the hood he wore. The moon’s light limned his features with silver, including a wispy beard and tall, sharply pointed ears.

Surprised, Nianki backed away a step. “Elf!” she spat. “You were with Balif the day we fought on the plain. He called you…” Her troubled mind wouldn’t obey her. The name escaped her utterly.

“Vedvedsica,” he said coolly. “My name is Vedvedsica.”

Nianki wasn’t listening. Her head darted violently left and right. “Where are your troops?” she demanded. “Does Balif think to attack us as we sleep?”

“There are no troops,” he said. “There is no one but me.”

After a few more moments peering into the dark, she had to accept his words. “What do you want?”

“You.”

Her expression was so outraged the priest gave a dry laugh. “Calm yourself, savage,” he said. “I merely wish to take you on a journey.”

She backed away. “I’ll go nowhere with you.”

Vedvedsica shrugged. “You would cast aside an opportunity to know your enemy better? You aren’t much of a leader, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I offer you the chance to learn more about the Silvanesti. It will cost you nothing, not even time.”

She obviously didn’t understand, and he sighed. Slowly, as though speaking to a particularly dim-witted child, Vedved-sica said, “I will not harm you. I merely wish to show you the city of your enemy.” Stroking his wispy beard he added, “A true leader would not miss such an opportunity. Unless she were afraid to see the truth.”

His taunt penetrated her clouded thoughts. It was true her mind was a whirl of conflicting impressions and impulses, and she often found herself in places with no memory of how she got there. For all of that, she understood the elf’s slight to her courage, and it angered her.

Stiffening her spine, Nianki shoved her knife back into its sheath, pushed her tangled hair from her face, and said, “Show me, then.”

“Take my hand.”

She nearly balked again, but his expression — so condescending! — caused her to clench her jaw and obey. She wrapped her hand around his wrist. The cool dryness of his skin made her flinch, but a sudden blast of icy wind in her face was much more shocking. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep the dust out. It felt as though she were falling.

“Home.”

At his spoken word, Nianki opened her eyes and gasped. She was suspended in midair, hundreds of paces above the ground. The elf was by her side, and she still held his wrist. She was immensely grateful for the touch now. It seemed the only thing between her and a horrible death.

“Amazing, is it not?” Vedvedsica said calmly, looking around.

Nianki squinted in bright sunshine, though only seconds before it had been night in the orchard. Once her eyes had adjusted, she gathered her courage and turned her gaze slightly downward. It was enough to set her heart to pounding, and she closed her eyes.

“You won’t fall, savage.” His sarcastic comment forced her to open her eyes again.

“Where — ?” It came out as a croak, so Nianki swallowed and tried again. “Where are we?”

“Silvanost. The city of my master, Balif, and his master, the great Silvanos. You may be the first human ever to see it. Don’t squander the opportunity.”

Taking a deep breath, Nianki vowed to do as he said. She looked down. She was standing on stone so white it nearly blinded her to look at it. The marble was cool beneath her bare feet and just ahead of her it curved downward. Behind her the white stone stretched for a good distance, probably twenty paces at least.

“What is this?” With her free hand she gestured at the glossy marble platform.

“The Tower of the Stars.”

“Tower?” Nianki carefully edged her feet forward, toward the downward curving edge of the marble. Peering beyond the edge, she gasped.

She and the elf were standing atop a structure that must surely reach halfway to the sky. Its white marble sides stretched for a dizzying length to the ground far, far below.

Nianki slowly and carefully straightened herself again, fighting against the urge to clutch the elf’s arm with her free hand. When she was upright once more, she turned her gaze outward to take in her surroundings.

Now that she’d grown accustomed to the great height, her first impression was one of light. It glinted and sparkled and flashed from a thousand surfaces. All around this tower were other, smaller structures. They appeared to be made from white or milky stone and the sun’s light scintillated off them as though from a thousand polished blades. Quite a few of the structures looked complete — Nianki stopped counting after thirty — but nearly twice that number seemed to be still under construction.

It was astonishing. Amero’s village of Yala-tene represented the largest gathering of people Nianki had ever seen, yet this place, this Silvanost, was easily ten or more times the size of the humans’ village.

Looking past the ring of spires, Nianki saw the city was built on an island. Beyond the surrounding water lay a forest. It stretched away, green and dense, as far as the eye could see.

Strange — too strange. Not only had it been dark before and now was bright day, but the season had changed as well. It had been cold in the valley of the falls. She remembered the chill night air in the orchard. Had not the apple trees’ leaves turned brown already and fallen around her? Here the trees were clothed in their mid-summer foliage, not the bright colors of autumn.

Vedvedsica seemed to sense her growing confusion. With his free hand he squeezed her arm, saying sharply, “You tax my concentration! Be calm! There is great disorder in your thoughts.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered. His words acted as a tonic though, and her surroundings sharpened into focus.

Nianki saw the streets below fill with movement. The figures were made impossibly small by distance.

“Shall we move among them?”

She had no chance to reply to his question before they were dropping like stones. Though her fingers tightened convulsively on his wrist, Nianki stifled an urge to cry out. Vedvedsica, she was sure, would not let them be hurt.

Their plunge suddenly halted a few steps above the ground. Her heart pounded in her throat, and she threw the elf a furious glare. He paid her no heed whatsoever.

Three male elves nearly walked into Nianki. She stepped back out of their way, but they gave no sign they’d seen her.

As a pair of females approached, Vedvedsica planted himself directly in their path. Nianki was astonished to see the females pass through him as though he was made of smoke.

“How — ?” she began, then gave a violent shake of her head. Why question what was so obviously the work of great spirit-power?

They were graceful-looking people, she had to give them that. No taller than she, and many of them shorter, they somehow gave an impression of height. Their movements were easy and fluid. Their skin was paler than hers, their hair was mostly light-colored, ranging from sandy blond through pure snowy white. They wore flowing robes in a rainbow of bright colors.

Though she saw their lips moving, she could not hear what the elves were saying. In fact, she realized, she could hear nothing at all from her surroundings. The elves walking or riding on horseback made no noise, and there was no sound of birds or insects.

“Why don’t I hear them?” she asked.

Vedvedsica looked a bit strained. “It isn’t necessary,” he told her, and that was all he would say on the subject.

Nianki went back to watching the Silvanesti. There were so many! The streets teemed with life, young and old, male and female. She caught sight of two children — a boy and girl — jogging toward her. The girl, taller of the two, was obviously teasing the boy, and even Nianki could see the family resemblance between them. When the girl turned her back, the boy reached out and yanked a long golden plait of her hair. He then turned, laughing, to flee as she gave chase.

“At least children are children everywhere,” she said.

“Really? That girl will likely outlive your great-great-grandchildren.”

Looking at him as though he were the one whose wits were addled, she snorted. “I’m not that far gone in my head, shaman.”

Vedvedsica’s eyes glittered with a strange inner light as he turned to look her full in the face.

“Do you suppose all the races have the same pitifully short lifespan as humans?” he said in that same calm, certain tone. “We elves live for hundreds of years. My Lord Balif has seen ninety-eight springs come and go, and he will still be a strong, valiant warrior when your grandchildren are nothing more than dust.”

Nianki opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“How can you hope to best an enemy,” Vedvedsica continued, “who will still be vigorous when you are twisted with age, who will still be hale and hardy when your grandchildren are bowed down with the weight of years? Don’t you see how foolish your resistance is?”

Movement above her head caused Nianki to look up quickly. The white stone structures on each side of the street loomed above her, their tops seeming to draw closer and closer together, blocking out the sky, blocking out the light.

She felt a painful tightness in her chest. As yet another elf moved through her, unseeing, unknowing, leaving not even a whisper of air in his wake, she swayed on her feet.

“What have you done to me, shaman?” she gasped. “Can’t breathe — ”

Faster than thought, Nianki found herself back atop the Tower of the Stars. The strange breathlessness faded, and she inhaled and exhaled deeply, relief coursing through her.

“You’re hexing me,” she accused.

He regarded her thoughtfully. “In truth, I am not. You’re unaccustomed to the presence of so many beings, so many structures. For one raised under the open sky, it would be a shock.”

Nianki was rubbing her temple with her free hand. It pounded as though a drummer was beating on her head. “Can it be true?” she muttered to herself. “Ninety-eight years? Ninety-eight?”

“It is but a brief moment, after all.”

The plainswoman looked up quickly. The priest was no longer there. In his place stood the warlord Balif. The wind blew through the elf’s shoulder-length blond hair, and his sky-colored eyes regarded her with a strange intensity.

She took a step backward in surprise but found herself brought up short. Just as her fingers were releasing his wrist, he deftly caught hold of her arm, maintaining the contact between them. Nianki looked down, staring dumbly at the long, pale fingers encircling her sunbrowned arm.

“Do not fight me, Nianki,” he said. “There are greater rewards to be had as my friend than as my enemy. To fight the Throne of the Stars means only death for you and your followers.”

“Stop!” she cried. Nianki moved as far away from him as his hold on her arm allowed, though that brought her perilously close to the edge of the marble platform. “This is a trick! You aren’t Balif, and I will not give up what is mine!”

So saying, she yanked her hand violently out of his grip.

As soon as their hands parted, Nianki felt herself fall backward off the tower. The last thing she saw as she plummeted into the void was Vedvedsica’s surprised face staring down as her as he stroked his wispy beard.

Nianki woke with a violent start, her angry shout still echoing in her ears. Casting about wildly, she saw the faint outlines of the Yala-tene orchard, but atop this was overlaid the phantom elf city — bright towers, impossibly high, reared out of the silver waters of the lake. Crowds of transparent elves passed to and fro among the white marble columns.

She shook her head, but still the ghostly images lingered. Nianki struck her forehead hard with her fist. The ghostly scene blurred and thinned slightly, the dark outlines of the orchard growing stronger.

So, pain countered the spell? Very well. She was no stranger to pain. Nianki drew her knife.

*

Duranix squirmed fitfully, trying to find a comfortable position. His left wing ached, so he had to lie on his right side exclusively. Trouble was, his weight tended to cramp his good wing if he lay on it too long. Pain and annoyance combined to ignite an angry blue aura around his head. When his blood was up, the air around him tended to crackle with lightning.

He gave up trying to sleep and went down to the lake for a drink of water. He trod as lightly as he could so as not to disturb the sleeping humans around him. When humans were disturbed there was always noise — babies crying, dogs barking, men cursing when they stubbed their toes on the way to the latrine, women complaining about the babies crying, the dogs barking, and the men cursing. Duranix preferred his nights quiet.

He waded out a few paces and dipped his long neck down for a sip of cold water. It didn’t taste as sweet as it once had, before the humans started living here. Water from the falls was as pristine as ever, but the lake had lost its purity long ago.

The dragon turned and slogged back to shore. He spied a lone, lanky figure coming down the pebbly beach toward him. For once his eyes deceived him. He thought it was Amero, but when the stranger began humming tunelessly in a high, hoarse voice, he realized it was Nianki.

“Greetings, mighty one,” she said.

“Thunder and lightning, woman!” Duranix said. “What have you done to yourself?”

Nianki had cut her hair — rather violently, from the looks of things. Long tendrils still hung to her shoulders, but the rest was sheered off so closely that less than a fingerwidth of hair remained. In a couple of spots, her pallid scalp actually showed through and cuts on her head showed dried beads of blood.

“I was in the orchard,” she said simply. “My hair got tangled in a tree limb, so I cut it off.”

“You look like you’ve been in a fight, one you didn’t win.”

“Oh, no,” she said, smiling. “I won.”

Duranix sensed that the haze in her mind seemed thinner now. Had she succeeded in chasing the shadows away?

“How’s your wing?” she asked.

He worked his left shoulder in a circle, hissing from the resulting pain. “Still hurts, but I’ll fly again.”

She ran a hand over the stubbly crown of her head. “Did I thank you for saving me?” Before he could answer, she frowned and added, “I can’t remember. So much has happened that I can’t remember.”

The dragon’s voice cut through this thought. “Do you recall your brother, Amero?”

“Do you know the sun and the wind?” she said sarcastically.

They both heard footfalls among the loose rocks higher up the shore. Two men paused on a rocky outcropping and one called out, “Karada! We must speak to you!”

She squinted into the darkness. “Who’s there?”

“Tarkwa,” Duranix said, “and the one-eyed man — what’s his name?”

“Hatu.” Raising her voice again, she asked, “What do you want?”

“Karada, we need to speak to you!” came the call again.

She started up the hill and Duranix followed, but the men waved the dragon off. “We only want to speak to our chief!”

“Rude animals,” said the dragon. He settled down on his haunches. “Watch yourself, Karada.”

She looked back at him. “Why?”

“I sense those men are not your friends.”

She laughed in her old way and seemed almost her normal self. “No, they aren’t my friends,” she agreed, “they’re my followers. Besides, Hatu doesn’t hate me; it’s you he loathes. He thinks you killed his father.”

“I did. Ate him, too.” He waited for shocked exclamations.

There were none forthcoming. Instead, she asked, “Really? How was he?”

“Treacherous, like most humans.”

Amero didn’t like jokes about eating people, but Nianki laughed heartily and strode up the hill to meet her men. When she drew near, both Hatu and Tarkwa recoiled at the sight of her ragged hair.

“Who attacked you?” exclaimed Tarkwa.

“Forty angry centaurs, but I bested them,” she replied. “What do you want?”

“We want to leave, Karada.”

“So go.”

“He means the whole band,” said Hatu.

“I’m not ready to leave,” she answered.

The two men exchanged looks. Tarkwa said, “Karada, we can’t stay here forever, living on scraps from the villagers and idling our days away. We’re getting to be like those fat oxen they keep in pens, dull and lifeless. We need action! What about the elves? What about your plan to drive them off the southern plain?”

Memories of her bizarre dream echoed in Nianki’s mind. She shook her head hard, dismissing them, and said flatly, “We’re not ready yet. We need to build up our numbers, rest, get strong.”

“And how long will that take?” asked Hatu.

Nianki folded her arms. “As long it takes.”

“Some of the band are restless,” Hatu retorted. “Nacris has been talking to the warriors — ”

“That poisonous wench had better keep her mouth shut! I spared her because of what happened to Sessan, but if she crosses me again, I’ll have her head!”

Nianki’s voice had risen to a shout. From twenty paces away, Duranix heard her and lowered his head to ground. He could hear better that way, as the rocky soil transmitted noise to the sensitive barbels on his chin.

“It isn’t just Nacris,” Tarkwa said. “Others are grumbling too. Even Pa’alu.”

“Where is Pa’alu?” she demanded.

“I can’t say for certain, Karada,” replied Hatu. “He seldom stays in camp but roams the valleys by night and the high peaks by day.”

“Hiding from me, is he? Next time you lay eyes on that pig, you tell him I want to see him. No, better still, bring him to me! Drag him, if he won’t come on his own! I have much to pay him back for!”

Both Hatu and Tarkwa were edging away from her. The sight of their chief, red-eyed, hair ravaged, screaming at them, was fearsome even to the seasoned warriors. She might have gone on denouncing Pa’alu had not Amero appeared, drawn by the sound of her loud voice.

“Nianki? What’s the matter?” He stared at her, aghast. “What’s happened to you?”

Her rage evaporated like mist in the hot morning sun. In the space of a few breaths, Nianki’s face mirrored a whole gamut of emotions — delight, relief, anguish, shame. The display wasn’t lost on Hatu. He made careful note of it.

“Amero,” she said, “forgive me, I didn’t mean to shout.”

“Is there trouble?” He stepped forward, hand out, but his sister evaded his touch.

“No trouble, Arkuden,” said Tarkwa quickly. “We were talking about the day our band leaves Arku-peli.”

“Oh? When is that?”

“Soon,” said the two men in unison.

Nianki’s jaw worked. “I haven’t decided yet. There are still things to be done here.”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” Amero told her, putting a hand to her back. She swayed and shut her eyes briefly.

“Spread the word,” she said to her followers. “Karada’s band will move when Karada says so — not before.”

Hatu said nothing, but Tarkwa nodded, saying, “Yes, Karada.”

They left.

“Did you fall off the mountain?” asked Amero, perfectly seriously.

She touched her head self-consciously. “It was tangled in a tree limb. I couldn’t free it, so I cut it off.”

“What with, a hatchet?”

“No, a flint knife.”

He looked her in the eye. She avoided meeting his gaze momentarily, then let herself be fixed by his concern.

“I am well,” she said firmly. “For the first time in many days, I am well.”

“Are you sure? Forgive me, but you look like you just finished battling a panther with your bare hands!”

“A panther would be easy compared to what I’ve been wrestling with.”

“Was it a fever of the brain?” he asked.

“No. The affliction lay… in other regions.”

Hearing Duranix snort nearby, Amero moved toward the dragon. Nianki followed closely.

A warm breeze struck their faces. Amero halted, peering into the darkness. He held a finger to his lips and pointed. Duranix had fallen asleep at last. The breeze was his breath.

Amero took his sister’s hand, and they tiptoed away. Nothing was said as Amero led Nianki past the falls to the waiting hoist. Remembering her last visit to the cave, Nianki dug in her heels and balked.

To be heard over the roar of tumbling water, he had to put his lips close to her ear. “It’s all right,” he said reassuringly. “You won’t fall out this time.”

He righted the basket and helped her in. With a stout heave on the rope, Amero started the counterweight on its downward journey. The basket stretched under their combined weight then, with a groan, lifted off the ground.

The cave was dark when they arrived. Amero knew his way and crossed to the hearth. He poked in the embers of the afternoon fire and found some coals still glowing. Tossing a handful of grass on the embers, he quickly had a smoky red fire blazing. He laid on a few larger pieces of kindling. When the firelight bloomed, vast shadows were thrown upon the high walls.

“Come, warm yourself,” he said, beckoning her to the fire. “Are you hungry?”

Nianki sat down stiffly on a pile of furs. Amero stirred the small fire, laying on a few larger splits of oak to keep the autumn chill out of the cave.

“Hatu is right,” Nianki said suddenly. Her voice echoed off the distant ceiling. “The band should leave, and soon.”

“Really? Why?”

“It’s not good for us to stay.”

Amero held his hands up to the crackling fire. “Winter will be here soon. I thought you came here to shelter your people from the cold.”

“We’ll go to the north country, where it’s warmer. There’ll be game there. We’ll do all right.”

“Do as you think best, but I, for one, wish you’d stay.”

She regarded him longingly. “Do you mean it?”

“Of course,” he replied, surprised by the fervor of her response. “You’re my sister. I’ve only just found you, and I don’t want to lose you again.”

Nianki withdrew to the shadowed end of the hearth. For a time there was no sound in the cave but the snap of burning wood. She finally broke the silence by saying, “Are you happy with your life, Amero?”

“Yes. I think so. It’s hard sometimes.” He wove his fingers together and hooked his hands around one knee. “The villagers expect me to know what to do all the time, to have an answer whenever they ask a question. There’s a hundred questions today, and a hundred the next day, and a hundred the day after that. People think Duranix tells me what’s what, but he really doesn’t help me much. He likes to hear gossip, but he isn’t interested in the real work of the village. I keep trying new ideas — I want to make our lives better, easier. Lately I’ve been working on a way to get copper metal out of cliff rocks — ”

“What about the rest of your life?” Nianki said, interrupting.

He shrugged. “Only the spirits know what will happen then.”

“That’s not what I mean. What about the part of your life you share with another?”

“Duranix is my friend — ”

She rolled her eyes. “A mate, idiot! Have you ever had a mate?”

“No. I haven’t had time. There was a girl in the village, Halshi…” Amero’s hazel eyes clouded with the painful memory of the cave-in. “But she died, not long before you came.”

“Did you love her?”

Amero considered, then decided if he had to think about it so hard, the answer must be no. “I liked her. There wasn’t time for more,” he said. Shifting uncomfortably, he changed the subject. “What about you? Any man caught your eye?”

She shook her head violently.

“What about Pa’alu? He seems a fine fellow.”

Nianki’s eyes glittered in the half-light. “Pa’alu is the biggest fool on the plains. Soon, he’ll pay for his foolishness.”

The quiet savagery of her tone sent a chill through Amero. He put another split on the fire.

“I should find a mate,” he said, nodding. “I don’t suppose I can spend the rest of my life in a cave with a dragon.”

“A village girl, I suppose.”

“I don’t know. What about one of your fierce nomad women? Is there one you’d like to recommend?”

Her voice fell to a whisper. “Do you like fierce women?”

“I like you, and you’re pretty ferocious.” Nianki looked away. “When I wonder about a mate, I find myself thinking about women like our mother. She was a good companion to Oto and a good mother to us, don’t you think?”

Silence. Nianki was staring into the flames and Amero put her lack of response down to weariness. He was certainly tired.

He yawned. “I’m done! You’re welcome to stay here tonight. Sleep well, Nianki.”

The fire shrank to a bed of glowing coals. Amero crawled into the hollowed-out bowl in the rock floor that was his bed. He was asleep in moments.

He dreamed he felt his mother’s hand caress his face, like she did when he was a child. Though part of him knew it had to be a dream, it was a profoundly comforting one. He slept on in blissful peace.