Wolf's Brother

CHAPTER FIVE

The days fell into a pattern both restful and ennervating. Tillu awoke with interest to each dawn, and lay down at night in weary peace. Animals and folk left the lakeside and its brushy banks and emerged onto the wide flats of the tundra. She and Kari gathered herbs and roots by day, and Kari learned the uses for each. Then came the sweet evenings when the folk halted and campfires were kindled and sleeping skins spread on the ground. Heckram's shelter was never far away. Kerlew migrated in happy circles from the fire Carp shared with Heckram to the one Kari shared with his mother.

Yet she saw less of her son than ever before in their lives. She felt her guilt as an uneasiness, a sense of a task uncompleted. Hidden from herself was the relief she felt at being freed from his constant presence. Tillu began to live a separate life of her own. If Kerlew felt neglected or missed her, he did not show it. The boy was more confident than she had ever seen him. But for his dragging speech, and the strange topics he chose, he might have been a normal boy. His circle of tolerant adults was larger than it had ever been, and his status as Carp's apprentice gained him a small measure of acceptance by the other children. They did not play with him, but they did not taunt or beat him either. Another boy might have felt his isolation as loneliness. Kerlew only felt relief. He moved through the camp without fear of thrown stones and blows. He seemed unaware of the children who ceased their noisy games to watch his passage with widened eyes.

There was an interlude Tillu was to long remember. She was returning from one of the tundra's myriad ponds with water for the evening's cooking. Carp must have been napping somewhere, for she spotted Kerlew alone, atop one of the worn gray boulders that dotted the tundra. He was stretched out on his back on the hard warm surface.

Over his face his slack wristed hand held a ranunculus. He was twirling it by its stem, watching the bright petals spiral. His lips smiled foolishly and from his throat came a sound like the happy grunting of a suckling babe.

A few strides away three boys crouched behind a screen of brush and watched him.

The grins on their mocking faces were hard and sharp as knives. Their giggling was muffled behind dirty brown hands. Two years ago, Tillu thought to herself, I would have rushed forward, jerked Kerlew to his feet and scolded him. I would have chased the other boys off to their mothers. She blinked her eyes, wondering what had changed, her boy or the way she regarded him. She walked on, water spilling in bright drops from the clay-and-moss-calked wooden buckets she carried.

In the evenings folk came to Tillu, for a salve for a blistered heel or a rub for a wrenched knee. Her healings were seldom more complicated than that. The herdfolk were a stout and healthy people, given to little worry about minor ailments. The runny noses of the bright-eyed children were ignored, as accepted as their ruddy wind-chafed cheeks and the bumps and scratches from their tumbling play. The work did not tire Tillu; she took pleasure in the chance to better know the folk she had joined. Of Capiam she saw nothing. He seemed content to trust her to perform her own tasks, or perhaps he was too busy to be bothered with her. Several times Joboam brought meat to her, the portion allotted to Tillu by the herdlord. He spoke little but the few words he said sounded both superior and threatening. The tension Tillu felt in his presence did not abate; it was like a slowly swelling abcess that must eventually be lanced or burst of its own pressure.

At those times she took comfort from Heckram's nearness. Whenever Joboam came to Kari's fire, Heckram, too, appeared. His errand was always an innocent one; to borrow some grease for a harness strap, or to ask the loan of a larger cook pot. He did not confront Joboam, but his very presence seemed to restrain the other man. But as soon as Joboam left, Heckram did also. He smiled at her, he was courteous, but he never lingered for a word with her, nor tried to be alone with her. Tillu could not understand the man. At first she tried to believe that it was the public nature of the caravan. The clustered tents and flat tundra offered no quiet rendezvous, even if the two could have eluded Carp, Kerlew, and Kari. But she noticed other couples left the arrotak, to 'fetch water' or 'hunt eggs.' Yet Heckram never invited her on such an errand. If he had decided to reject her because of her son, why did he still offer Kerlew shelter and food?

Because of Carp? She did not understand, but as the days marched past she persuaded herself she did not care. He was a man, like any other man. Her body had wanted a man, that was all that was between them. But that did not explain why she could not interest herself in the other men in the caravan, nor why it was his image that lingered in her mind in the twilight.

The one variance in their lives was the changing land they crossed. It became increasingly unfamiliar to Tillu, but the others accepted the wide emptiness of the sky as natural. The foothills dwindled behind them, leaving the world a flat and daunting place. The horizon moved away to an unattainable distance. The sun's warmth thawed the top few inches of the tundra, but couldn't reach the permanently frozen soil beneath it. Water did not soak into the earth, but stretched in wide flat ponds and pools, or flowed lazily across the near flat surfaces. The thawing earth and running water brought burgeoning life. Birds appeared, ones Tillu had never seen before, and in an abundance she had never imagined. They settled in the wildly sprouting grasses, and mated and fought and made hasty nests on the earth. Their muttered conversations filled the dusky evenings, and their cries of challenge and courtship filled the days.

Eggs were added to the herdfolk's diet.

Plant life sprouted in a bewildering array, familiar plants in dauntingly unfamiliar shapes. But willow ossier, Tillu found, for all its dwarfed and twisted shape, had the same properties as willow. And fireweed greens were as tender whether they stood tall and slender, or writhed flat across the earth.

Not in weeks, but in days the colors of the tundra ripened and deepened, here brown and gold, there purple and mauve, there a green of unbelievable intensity. Even the coldest stone was coated with lichen of white or yellow or dun, while the mosses bloomed frantically in their haste to rise, live and reproduce before winter returned.

Heather vied with butterwort, the bells of linnaea rang in contrast to the daisies of arnica. Tiny blue forget-me-nots were trodden underfoot, while cloudberry and tangles of arctic raspberry promised later bounty. Everywhere there were new plants to be crushed and sniffed and tested against the tip of her tongue for healing virtues.

Kari proved an able assistant, and was full of questions. She did not yet help Tillu with the healing, but her bright black eyes took in every detail of mixing and application. After the salved or bandaged folk were gone, Kari would question her: why this herb and not that one? Why a salve and not a tonic? Why had she lanced that abcess, but put a poultice on the one she had seen two days ago? The girl's mind was quick and retentive, her questions betraying an intellect seldom used. But the wildness never faded completely from her eyes, nor the strangeness from her movements. Her interest could shy suddenly from a pragmatic discussion of bandaging material to her latest dream of Owl. She was so like, and yet unlike, Kerlew.

Kerlew she watched from afar. He was changing in ways she could not understand or control. He was learning and growing, and, she grudgingly admitted, discovering himself as a person apart from her. She watched his relationship with Heckram, and finally accepted that Heckram's affection for Kerlew was not feigned. He always had time for the boy. Tillu watched from Kari's fire as Kerlew shifted between Carp and Heckram, testing the reality of one man against that of the other. He shadowed Heckram at the evening chores, eventually carrying one of the water scoops, and even helping prepare the meals, despite Carp's scornful derision of men doing 'women's work.' He ate at Carp's side, receiving whispered instruction about the spirit world. An hour later he would be at Heckram's elbow, watching him mend worn harness or holding the ends as Heckram braided a new leadrope from long, thin slices of leather.

She sensed the struggle in him. She longed to help him but during those rare moments when he sought her out, she refrained from advice. Pushed, Kerlew would resist. She hoped he would eventually find Heckram's attraction the more powerful one.

Yesterday Kerlew had come to her, bringing his shirt to be mended. He had torn out both shoulder seams. She had measured the worn garment against him, and found that the fault was not in her sewing, but in the boy's sudden growth. She had given it back to him, minus the sleeves, to wear while she pieced out a new shirt for him. For a quiet time he had crouched beside her, watching her select leather for the shirt. She decided to make it from the calf-hide, now scraped and supple ivory-colored leather. Drawing her knife, she cut out the needed pieces quickly. She styled it after the herdfolk's way, a collarless, loose-fitting garment that could be belted at the waist and worn alone, or over leggings. She had held the leather against him, swiftly marking the length of tunic and sleeves he would need. He moved docilely to her commands, holding out his arms obediently as she checked the cut pieces against him. Then Kerlew had crouched beside her, watching intently as his new shirt took form. With a sigh he leaned against her, and the heavy warmth of his small body was so poignantly familiar that Tillu's throat closed. She turned her eyes away from her stitching, to watch the light of the fire make hollows and curves of his face. He was losing the rounded chin of a little boy, his cheeks narrowing and flattening as he grew. The firelight gave his skin a sallow cast, and suddenly she saw the faces of the race that had fathered him, the black-haired, hard-eyed men that had killed her mother and carried her away from her home. Fierceness washed through her, and she cried out aloud as her bone needle plowed a long gash in one of her fingers. She jerked the needle free of her flesh, and the blood followed it, rushing from the gouge and staining her work.

Dropping the needle, she thrust her injured finger into her mouth. This was what came of not keeping her mind on her work. Kerlew never flinched at her cry; his dark eyes fixed on her face. She looked at him questioningly. He put a fingertip to the wet blood on his new shirt, and then casually raised it to his mouth to lick it away. 'Spilled blood,' he said softly. The shadows of ghosts danced over his features. 'The stain never comes out entirely. Somewhere it shows.' Then he had risen, without another word, to seek Heckram's fire and Carp's company. The words had chilled her.

The next night she sat again by Kari's fire, scraping at the stain with a scrubbing stone. Bits of leather rolled away before her efforts, but the blood had soaked through.

It would not be taken out by anything Tillu might do. With a sigh she gave it up, and set to work on the final seam. From time to time, she glanced up from her sewing, wondering where Kerlew was. This was the first time Heckram's shelter was not near Kari's, and she wondered at that as well.

Kari crouched on the other side of the fire. Her eyes were half-lidded, and Tillu could not tell if she drowsed or stared. The day had been a long one and the whole camp was unusually quiet. When Lasse stepped into the circle of their firelight, Tillu started, but Kari only raised her eyes slowly. 'What do you want?' Kari asked with heartless disdain. But Lasse had not come courting her and he did not flinch. His eyes jumped from Kari to Tillu and back again.

'Heckram just came into camp,' he said slowly.

Tillu glanced up, and anxiety ran cold through her belly. 'What kept him?' she demanded. She wadded up the shirt and set it aside as she reached for her healer's supplies. Her mind leapt to her own conclusion. 'Who's hurt?'

Lasse looked straight at her, and then past her, to peer into the darkened shelter. He cleared his throat. 'Not Heckram. Only a harke. It started to stagger earlier today, and Heckram had to put its load on the other harkar, so Carp had to walk. It slowed Heckram's whole rajd and angered the najd. Carp sent Kerlew forward to find you, to ask you to come and purge the sick reindeer. He thought that would cure the beast.' The youth raised his eyes to meet Tillu's and asked, 'Is Kerlew here?'

Tillu couldn't answer. Her hand gripped her herb pouch too tightly, bending her nails against its leather. The night grew darker and closer, pressing against the small fire. She realized how little she could see beyond the fire's circle. The moon was a sliver of light in the far sky. The warmth of the day was already fleeing the earth, seeping away into the empty sky. The night would be cold, and black. Alone, in the darkness, in this wide flat place, this tundra, where every stretch of land looked like every other piece, where the horizon didn't change and every pool they passed looked just like the last one. Kerlew.

Emotions raged through her: Anger with Carp for sending the boy to find her, and with Heckram for letting him go. Fury with herself, for trusting the boy to strangers.

Kerlew was her son, she should have kept him by her, she should have killed the old shaman before letting her son become so attached to him. How had she let herself forget that she was a mother before all other things, before healer or friend or woman?

Where was her son now? Walking blindly in the dark, stumbling on, calling for her? Or was he crouched somewhere, huddled against the night's chill, stubbornly waiting to be found? Had he been distracted from his errand by a shining flow of water, by a leaf spinning in a spider's web as the wind blew past? Did he even know he was lost or was he wondering why Carp had sent him on such a long walk?

Kari broke into her thoughts. 'He's probably somewhere in the camp, playing with the other children. No doubt he forgot his errand entirely, and won't remember it until he get hungry. Lasse, go and ask until you find him.'

But this time her imperious command didn't move him. Lasse met her eyes steadily as he slowly said, 'I already have. I knew Kerlew wasn't with you when I brought your harkar to you earlier this evening. So, before I came, I went to every family that has children his age. Some saw him pass, on his way to find Tillu, but no one spoke to him, or saw him leave the caravan. I was hoping that somehow he had reached the camp and found you since last 1 was here.' Lasse's voice was husky. He folded his arms against his chest and hugged himself against the night's chill.

Tillu was empty. 'He's gone,' sang a small mocking voice in her mind. 'You'll never see him again. He'll never lean against you, never need your protection, never annoy you again. You're free. No one will call you Mother, no one will shame you with this strangeness, no one, no one, nothing. He's gone, you'll never even find his body. The wolves that follow the reindeer will have him, or the cold will take him, or both. And haven't you always wondered what it was like to be alone this way, haven't you always secretly wished he'd die and leave you to live your own life? Didn't you wish him dead, isn't this all your fault, didn't you kill him when you entrusted him to strangers, didn't you always know this would happen if Carp had his way? Haven't you killed him just as surely as Heckram killed Elsa?

Over the maddening voice she heard her own voice, calm and grave, saying, 'I have to go back and look for him.'

'You'd never find him in the dark. You don't even know where to begin looking.'

Heckram's voice, coming from the darkness behind the fire. She hated him in that instant, hated his steady, reasonable words, hated the deep, resonating voice that uttered them. Then he stepped into the light and looked at her in dumb agony, and her hate died. She had no need to accuse him of the loss of her son. Heckram already accused himself.

'My father would never allow it anyway,' Kari added morosely. 'Twelve years ago, two families were separated from the herd. One of the women had a hard birth, and they decided to rest a few days. There were seven of them, it seemed there could be no danger. But they never caught up with us, nor reached the Cataclysm. No trace was ever found. Some say wicked spirits carried them away. No, Capiam never lets anyone stray from the herd once the migration is begun. It is his duty.'

Tillu was scarcely aware of the girl's words. Her eyes searched Heckram's face.

'How?' she faltered, and then, 'Where?'

He looked away from her, moved forward to crouch by the fire. The soft light of the flames touched the hard angles of his face and body, turning him to a figure carved of stone and misery. 'This morning. We hadn't traveled far ... do you recall the big boulder with the red and yellow lichen over it, near the thicket of ossier? Not far from the third stream we crossed?'

He didn't look up to see Tillu's tense nod. Kari and Lasse had moved in closer, drawn by the low voice. Kari gripped one of Lasse's hands in both of hers, but seemed unaware of him. 'It was there, by the boulder. One of the harke must have eaten something; it began to bloat, and then to stagger. It's not so unusual a thing to happen.

If I had more harkar, it would have made no difference. But it was my largest reindeer, and carrying the heaviest load. I had to unload it. So, Carp had to walk, so that the other harkar wouldn't be overburdened. He began to mutter and complain. And we had to go slowly, for the sake of the sick beast. Carp seemed upset as the other folk passed us. He said we should send Kerlew to find you, and you could come and tend the sick animal. He thought you could purge it. Kerlew was anxious to go, and I didn't see anything wrong with the idea.'

His eyes pleaded with Tillu. 'I didn't think he could get lost. All he had to do was follow the line of folk to where you were. He was so pleased to run ahead.'

She nodded slowly. She could imagine Kerlew, impatient with the slow pace, and perhaps grown a little bored of Carp's lectures. Had he wanted to show off for Heckram? Probably.

Kari broke silence. 'But if he came forward, along the line of people, how could he get lost? Why didn't he find us?'

Heckram shook his head, and anger crept into his bafflement. 'That's what I can't understand. If he was following the line of people, what could have happened to him?'

'Kerlew happens to himself,' Tillu said softly. 'Anything might have led him away from the caravan. He might have sat down to watch a bird and fallen asleep in the warm sun. Something as simple as that.'

'Where's Carp?' Kari demanded suddenly. Irritation tinged her voice, as if there were questions she wanted answered.

Heckram's own voice was tinged with disgust. 'He's by my mother's fire. Chanting.

When I wanted to find Kerlew before we did anything else, he got angry. He said the boy had allies I could not imagine, and that only a fool would worry about him. That Kerlew was walking on paths I could not follow. Then he went to Ristin and demanded food and a place by her fire. He got it, but more from her graciousness than from his demanding. Now that he has eaten, he sits by the fire and chants to a rabbit.'

'A rabbit?' Tillu was baffled.

'Earlier today he saw one of Kelr's boys playing with a rabbit he had caught. He called the boy and traded him a hunting charm for the rabbit. He wrapped the rabbit in a skin, like a baby. Now it's dead, but he keeps it. He laughed at me when I told him the meat would spoil. He said the sweetness of the meat would bring Kerlew back to him, and keep him safe ever after.'

Disgust filled Tillu's face. Lasse and Heckram looked uneasy and Kari seemed to retreat within herself. 'We cannot hope to understand the way of the najd,' she said softly. 'We can only watch him and learn.'

'I'd rather be out looking for Kerlew than watching him chant to a rabbit,' Heckram said sourly.

A sudden slow throbbing sounded in the night. The sound of a drum carried far on the still air, reaching beyond the call of a voice. Tillu saw Heckram and Lasse exchange slow glances, and then look away as if fearful of sharing too much. No one spoke. The drum sounded on and on, beating with a raw monotony that scraped determinedly at Tillu's frayed control. She rose abruptly. 'I'm going to see the herdlord,' she announced.

The others looked at her, and Kari nodded slowly.

The herdlord's tent was no mere stretching of hide over a pole or two. It was domed like a hut, and made of hides sewn together in a pattern. Even the earth outside it was coated with soft hides of black wolf, tanned with the lush fur on. The tents surrounding it were large but Capiam's was twice the size of the others. It squatted beneath the tundra's wide sky as if it had always been there. Smoke rose from its vent flap, and with it the smell of roasted meat and burned fat. A muttering of voices seeped from its snug walls, and then laughter. Tillu did not notice the sound, nor the lushness of the furs her dirty bare feet trod. She lifted the door flap and peered into the tent.

It boasted no less than four travel chests, each carved and painted with bright figures. One was decorated with bits of bronze and amber set into the polished wood.

Brightly woven baskets were stacked about the interior walls; cheeses and tools hung from the pole-supports. The shelter smelled of reindeer and dog, smoke and sweat and heat. After the cool night air, it was stifling. Tillu stepped in.

The circle of men about the fire did not notice her at first. Capiam was turned away from her, listening to some low-voiced suggestion from Pirtsi. The boy hadn't been to Kari's fire since the migration began. So Kari's intended husband courted her father, not her. Tillu wondered if Capiam knew how little interest Pirtsi had in Kari. Or if he cared.

To Capiam's left were Acor and Ristor, one dozing in the fire's heat, the other sucking on a marrow bone. A woman's broad back was turned to Tillu, the framework of her bones mantled by fat. Her black-haired head was bent over some work in her lap, while beside her Rolke picked chunks of flesh from a fish's bones and stuffed them into his mouth. And beyond Rolke, closing Capiam's circle, was Joboam. A smile widened his mouth but didn't extend to the darkness of his eyes. And his eyes went darker still when he lifted them to Tillu. He did not speak. It was Rolke who followed his gaze, and spoke around a mouthful of fish.

'Father, it's the healer, come at last! I would think she would have come sooner to make her courtesies!'

Pirtsi started to nod his agreement, then stopped when Capiam's black eyes shot an arrow of reproach at his son. But the herdlord smiled as he rose to greet her. 'Come, Healer, we are glad whenever you can find time to share with us. I do not fault one who does not visit, not when many have told me of her healing skill. I trust Kari has been of some aid to you?'

Tillu found her courtesy. 'Kari is a great help to me, and could be a fine healer herself someday. But that is not why I have come to you tonight.'

The headman's smile had grown stiff as she spoke, and then faded entirely at the grave tone of Tillu's voice. 'Well?' he prompted her.

'My son is missing. He left Heckram and Carp to come and find me, and somehow strayed from the folk.' Ketla had turned to Tillu as she spoke. Her wide round face was a mirror of concern as she tilted it up to Tillu. Her black eyes were set deep in a face swollen with fat, but there was no mistaking the genuine sympathy and concern that shone in them. 'The poor little lad! Alone, in the great dark like that!' She turned to her husband. 'Capiam, surely we can send men back with torches. The little one will see them and come to them. Send them out now!'

'Little one!' Joboam snorted before Capiam could speak. 'You have a kind heart, Ketla, but the boy is ten or so, is he not, Tillu? Not some toddler. Leave him alone and he'll come into camp on his own. The trail is plain enough after our passage. No doubt he's but enjoying a little time on his own, as boys that age do. Has he a little sweetheart, perhaps?'

Tillu's voice was softly cold. 'I am sure you are aware that he has no friends of any kind, Joboam. Nor is he as capable as one might expect a boy of ten to be.'

Capiam's face was serious. 'You don't think he would follow the trail? Or come to a torch?'

Tillu shrugged helplessly, at a loss to explain that no one could know what her son might or might not do. 'If he crossed the trail, he might follow it. But he might follow it the wrong way just as easily. And if he saw a torch, he might come if the one carrying it were calling his name. But when he is frightened, he does unpredictable things.' Her voice caved in on itself. 'He might even hide. I don't know.' She fought for steadiness in her voice, tried to banish the tears that threatened her. They must not think her a hysterical woman who worried for nothing. They must see her as calm, in control.

Ketla didn't. She rose, lifting her bulk with remarkable agility, to enfold Tillu in a smothering embrace. 'Now, now, don't you worry. How I used to fret over Kari when she was that age! But children are always smarter than one gives them credit for. When you have a second one, you'll find out! Ten years old? Of course he'll be fine. He's struck his own little fire by now, and is enjoying a night on his own. And in the morning he'll come in as hungry as a spring bear, you see if he doesn't.'

'Kerlew isn't ... Kerlew won't ...' The words choked Tillu and she found herself taking a ragged breath. 'He's different.' She squirmed free of Ketla's hug, only to have the big woman put her arm across her shoulders.

'Now don't worry. Capiam, I know you'll think it silly, but just send Joboam back down the trail with a torch, won't you, to call for the boy? Remember how frantic I used to get when Kari would go off and hide from us when she was that age. Joboam will find him. Though he may not be happy to be found. Kari used to kick and scream and cry when Joboam would drag her home.'

Tillu could imagine that she might. As Kerlew would, too, no doubt, if Joboam managed to find him by accident. She could not believe he would actually search for the boy. But it seemed the best she could hope for.

'I'll go, too, with a torch of my own. He may be more prone to come to my voice.'

'Nonsense,' Capiam cut in firmly. 'Joboam can handle it. No sense in putting the whole camp in an uproar. Get some sleep, Healer. Joboam will bring you your boy before morning.'

'And if he doesn't?' Tillu asked.

'He will, he will. If the boy can be found, Joboam will find him. Stop worrying.'

'If he doesn't,' Tillu pressed relentlessly, 'I'll have to go back and search for him. And catch up with the herd later.'

Capiam shook his head in slow regret. 'I can't allow it, Tillu. One person alone with burdened reindeer is a gift to the wolves. Let's not fool ourselves. If Joboam does not find the boy tonight, he won't be found. It doesn't happen often, but children do stray and perish. Sending the mother to die also is not a solution. The herdfolk must remain together. But all this is foolishness anyway. Joboam will have him to you by morning.'

Joboam gave his leader a smile as unctuous as last season's fish. 'Of course. Though if the Healer and her son had traveled under my protection, none of this would have happened. Someone should speak to Heckram about this, Capiam. This is the second time that someone trusted to him has perished.'

'Oh, don't say perish, don't!' Ketla wailed before Tillu could respond. 'Surely the boy hasn't perished. But Capiam is right. There's no point to your going back down the trail tonight. None at all. You'd only come back too weary to keep up tomorrow, and cause all sorts of problems. Now you listen to me and go back to your fire and rest. Joboam will bring you your boy. Is Kari feeding you well? We were so glad to hear that you were sharing her fire. Though she was rather rude to Joboam to take you over like that.'

'Oh, please don't blame Kari for that. If there was any rudeness, it was mine. I felt more comfortable with her companionship. And she has helped me to understand your ways.' Tillu filled in her courtesies while her mind raced. She had been ordered to return to her fire and stay there. What would the herdlord do if she disobeyed?

Abandon her and her son on the tundra? Beat her? Other than Elsa, she had seen few incidents of violence among the herdfolk. But that was not to say she wouldn't be beaten if she disobeyed. She had never met a people who were tolerant of independent women. The herdfolk seemed so, and yet ... She bid them good night and thanked Capiam for sending Joboam to search for Kerlew. She backed from the tent, scarcely hearing Ketla's murmured reassurances. Her heart sank deep in her body, beating raggedly with a rhythm that vibrated through her flesh and matched Carp's insane drumming. She had to go back to look for him.

She stumbled past sleeping dogs and hobbled reindeer and fires banked for the night. Twice folk called out to ask her if Kerlew had been found yet. When she replied, she felt their sympathy, but also their condescension. What a fool they must think her, worrying over a boy ten years old. Any son of theirs would have followed the trail through the darkness, or built himself a shelter of bushes to weather out the night. Any son of theirs would not have wandered away or would have been able to find his way back.

Kari had pitched her shelter away from the other tents. Tillu set out across the empty space, her small fire a beacon in the night. Overhead the stars were myriad and tiny, the moon a discarded paring of cheese rind. Hummocks of grass dotted the ground and Tillu stumbled. Tears were very close and even more useless. Think, think. If she took a torch and went back down the trail, Joboam would find her. She didn't want to imagine what would happen next. If she didn't, the boy would never be found. And if she tried to go in darkness, circling around Joboam, hoping to strike the trail ahead of him? The night was too dark, the tundra too foreign a place to her. She would be as lost as Kerlew. 'Kerlew,' she whispered.

A dark shape rose between her and the camp fire. Heckram's arms enfolded her, holding her closely. The coarse leather of his shirt was rough against her cheek, but comforting. His voice rumbled in his chest and she felt the vibrations of it through her hands pressed flat against him. 'Go to Kari's, and get some sleep. I'm going back to look for Kerlew. I'll find him.'

'Capiam won't allow it.'

'I'm not asking Capiam.' His quiet words suddenly conveyed to her the depth of the rift between him and his people. It shook her.

'I can't ask this of you, Heckram. I think it will anger him greatly and ...'

He sounded almost amused. 'I didn't hear you ask me. I'm doing it for myself, and for Kerlew. That boy. I have no claim on him, but I couldn't bear for harm to come to him.'

'It wasn't your fault,' she said uselessly. When he did not reply, she added, 'Watch out for Joboam. Capiam has sent him back along the trail to find Kerlew. If he found you instead ...'

This time there was no mistaking the bronze-edged humor in Heckram's voice.

'Perhaps I shall find him first. Did you never think of that?' Kerlew: The Seite IT WAS

GETTING dark. He glanced about anxiously, his lower lip sagging away from his bottom teeth and brows puckered as he scanned the empty plain. He still didn't see Tillu or Kari. He didn't see anyone. He had walked and walked and walked, and still she wasn't here. He sniffled angrily. He was tired and hungry, and getting cold. Tillu should have been where he could find her. Why was she being so mean to him? And Carp and Heckram, too. They were all mean to him today.

He sat down abruptly and began to cry. Softly at first, and then, when that brought no results, louder, until his angry cries filled his ears. No one came. But Tillu almost always came when he cried. Where was she? His crying became frustrated screams, screams that tore his throat with their force. Still, no one came. He stopped suddenly, and opened his eyes to look around him. He snuffled miserably, and then lifted the front of his shirt to wipe his face. He tried to think what to do next.

What was he supposed to be doing? He thought back carefully. But his memories were tangled. Carp had spoken to him early that morning about the necessity for a shaman to seek his own vision. He had spoken of long fasts and journeys and sacred smoke. Then Heckram ... or was it Carp? ... had told him to run and find Tillu when the reindeer got sick. And something else? His mind plunged about erratically, and then suddenly brought up an image of Joboam. Joboam had smiled at him, and pointed the way to Tillu. He rubbed at his eyes again, and then slapped angrily at a mosquito on his wrist. It popped redly and left a smear of blood on his skin. For a moment he played with it, seeing how far his finger could spread the smear.

When he looked up, he couldn't see anyone. Where had they all gone? Instinctively he stood up to see farther. 'Tillu?' he called questioningly. 'Carp?' No one answered. He shivered and hugged his arms around himself. It was going to be night soon. They shouldn't have gone on. They should be pitching their tents and lighting warm fires and cooking food. His belly roiled at the thought of food. He sniffed hungrily, but smelled no smoke, no scent of bubbling stew or roasting meat. He swallowed the saliva that had welled up in his mouth at the thought of food.

Once more he looked around himself. In the distance, he picked out a shape that might be a great gray rock. He squinted his eyes. Were there scrubby trees growing at the base of it? Then that was where they were. Kari liked to pitch her tent against a stone for the warmth that it kept. And Tillu complained that the dung-fires stung her eyes. Tillu would like a fire of wood from the trees. Pleased with himself for figuring it all out, Kerlew set out for the shape in the distance.

Dark caught up with him as he walked. Gnats and mosquitoes sang shrilly in his ears, and stung him until he ran from the cloud of insects around him. He ran until he was out of breath and then walked again, until the stinging insects once more gathered around him and forced him to run. Always he kept the gray rock before him. In the uncertain light of the stars, it was no more than a lighter patch against the black horizon, a lump that rose above the blackness. Slowly it grew in his sight, until it was a thing that reared up taller than a man, taller than two men. And then he stood before it, panting with the effort of his last run.

He stared at the immense stone jutting up from the tundra. It was huge, bigger than three tents put together, and taller than one tent atop another. The stone itself was white and gray and black. Its planes of color changed as Kerlew walked slowly around it. What was a black hollow became a facet of glistening white mottled with silver when viewed from another vantage place. Lichen clung to it, softening some of its harsher facets, fuzzing its edges with life. The grass grew taller and lusher around its base, and small bushes crouched in its shelter. The warmth the dead stone gathered by day and released by night made its shelter a refuge for many forms of life.

Other things clung to it, too. Scraps of fur had been fixed to its rough surface with resin. An old offering of meat showed as a scatter of rib-bones on the tundra's sward.

Here was a small circle of amber pellets left beside the great stone. Symbols were painted on the flat surfaces of the stone in red and white and black pigment. Stark outlines of reindeer and men and other paintings more difficult to interpret decorated it. Here were the painted tracks of a rabbit, there a man's handprint, and beneath it in red the toe-pad tracks of a wolf. Kerlew shivered and hugged himself tightly. He tried to remember why he was here, but all he could recall was running toward the stone. He thought Carp might have sent him.

He walked around the stone, watching it change as he moved. Power. Power radiated from it like heat from a fire. It attracted Kerlew and filled him with fear at the same time. He dared not go close enough to touch the stone, even though he longed to feel the warmth of its rough surface, to trace with his fingers the power signs that decorated its sides. He contented himself with stooping by the circle of amber pellets.

Around the circle he dotted his forefinger, touching each pellet in turn. One called him, and he plucked it from its bed, held it close to his eyes to examine it. He felt its sleek sides, knew that in light it would be full of yellowness. He hesitated only a moment, then pulled his shaman's pouch out of his shirt and slipped the pellet inside. It might hold some of the power of this place. He hoped it was the right thing to choose. He wished Carp were here to tell him what to do. Carp.

He closed his mouth firmly, pressing his lips together. Maybe Carp had sent him here. A shaman had to seek his own vision. No one else could do it for him. And Carp had told him that sometimes shamans went for long periods without food or rest or warmth to find a vision. Had Carp told him to seek this place? He slapped a mosquito on the back of his neck, then suddenly battered angrily at the shrilling swarm that hung about his face and ears. He ran to escape them, then stopped again to stare at the great, gray stone. Would he find his vision here? Would he find his spirit brother and be a true shaman?

He chewed his lips, worrying at the idea. He knew it distressed Carp that he had no spirit guardian. Lately the old man talked of nothing else. He nagged almost as much as Tillu, telling him over and over again that he must have a spirit brother before he could be a full shaman. Was that why he had sent Kerlew into the night and the cold? To find this place?

He shivered, and wished suddenly for fire. But he didn't know how to make fire in the open. He only knew how to make fire inside the tent with Tillu's fire bow, and how to keep fire burning once it was started. He wished that Tillu were here to make a fire.

Or Heckram. Heckram was nicer. He didn't nag the way Tillu did when Kerlew couldn't do something. Usually Heckram just did it himself and let Kerlew do something else that he could do. He didn't scream at him for letting the fire go out, or nag him to go out and find a spirit brother. 'Heckram?' he called plaintively to the night.

But even he didn't answer.

Kerlew's eyes had adjusted to the waning light so gradually that he was scarcely aware that it was full night now. He noticed only the increasing cold that made him shiver in his thin summer shirt, and the swarms of mosquitoes that were attracted to his body heat and blood. Every few moments he would dash a few steps to escape the humming insects, and then pause to once more ponder his situation. But he never went far from the rock. He orbited the great gray stone as the night grew deeper and colder.

Details faded from the world with the passing of the light. There was the vast blackness of the tundra, the great arch of star-sparked sky overhead, and the looming grayness of the stone. That was all. The humming of the mosquitoes filled his ears.

Kerlew muttered angrily at them and at the unfairness of the world in general, and circled the stone. He was cold. He was hungry. He was sleepy. And he was alone, and beginning to be a bit frightened of the empty darkness and the ominous powerstone.

And then he was not alone.

He became aware of a brush of sound, of darker moving shadows in the surrounding dark, and then the sudden flash of a glistening eye. He stopped batting at the gnats that screamed so incessantly in his ears and froze. The shapes gathered and drew closer, but stayed beyond the reach of his eyes. He backed closer to the rock, forgetting his awe of it in his new fear. Its harsh cheek rasped suddenly against his back, and he felt his body steal warmth from the stone. His arms fell to his sides and he pressed his palms back against the stone's rough surface as he faced the night creatures that ringed him.

He heard their breathing, their curious snuffling of his scent, and sensed how they shifted positions as they studied him. For long moments he could not think or move, could only stand at bay. He clamped his jaws shut against his own hoarse panting. He took a deep, shuddering breath through his nostrils and became aware of their scent.

Less rank than a dog's smell, hotter and sharper somehow, so that in his awareness it stung the back of his throat.

Wolves.

The mosquitoes still sang in his ears, and beneath their high whine was a deeper thundering. He was no longer cold, but his legs shook beneath him. What to do, what to do? The question rattled in his head. If they were bears, he would have dropped everything and run, run back to Tillu. No. Tillu was lost. Climb a tree, some vague instinct whispered. No. The trees here were no taller than he.

Go toward them. Touch one between the eyes and claim Wolf as his spirit brother.

Kerlew closed his eyes in sudden sickening tenor. He swallowed. But behind his closed eyelids, he could see Carp's image, hear his insistent voice. 'A shaman must have a spirit brother. The most powerful shamans have many guardian spirits in the shadow world. But most important is your spirit brother, the one first to choose and be chosen by the shaman. He is the shaman's strength. If he forsakes the shaman, the shaman dies.

Without a spirit brother, you cannot be a shaman. Without a spirit brother, you are barely a man at all.'

And here was Wolf, come to claim him. And here he was, sent out to seek a vision by his master. All he had to do was step forward and boldly set a hand between the eyes of the Wolf and claim him. 'Show no fear,' Carp had warned him. 'If you flee or show fear, you will be torn to pieces.' He opened his eyes.

They had drawn closer. He could see them now, or parts of them. Sharp ears, lolling tongues, gray coats with edgings of black, black sleeker than the night, glistening. He saw eyes that watched him intently, and some that took little notice of him at all. One bitch with sagging teats lay down suddenly and began licking at the dark blotches that spotted her light forepaws. A young male stood, neck and tail stretched out flat as he stared at the boy. He took a cautious step forward, but an old male with a hairless scar down the side of his muzzle growled a warning. The younger wolf froze, and then lowered his head and slunk abashedly back amongst the pack. The scarred male sat down, and curled his tail neatly around his forefeet. Kerlew looked at him carefully.

'Are you come to be my spirit brother?' the boy asked softly. The sharp ears pricked at his words, but the wolf gave no other sign. Kerlew lifted a hand free from the stone, slowly extended it toward the Wolf. 'I come to touch you,' he announced hoarsely. As the boy's hand moved, several of the wolves bounded into the shadows, but the scarred male only stared. He lifted his writhing black lips in a silent snarl. 'I must not be afraid,'

Kerlew told himself. But he could not remember how to take the two steps that would put him within reach of the Wolf.

Then, from some incredible distance beyond the stars, the lone howl of a wolf rose.

The scarred wolf swiveled his head sharply, stared off into the night. The howl rose and fell, paused breathlessly, and began again, to climb higher still. Tension suddenly tightened among the wolves that circled Kerlew. They moved in small anxious movements, glancing from one to another as the howl filled the night. The boy was forgotten. The young wolf lifted his voice in a whining plea, but when the old bitch leaped at him, snarling, he broke off with a yelp and rolled on his back before her. She stood over him, teeth bared, and once more the howl paused. This time it was taken up by other distant voices, wildness blending into a single tongue.

The scarred wolf bayed once, briefly, a short sound as unlike a dog's bark as a man's voice might be. Almost, Kerlew understood him. The other wolves did, for when he wheeled away from the boy and trotted off purposefully, they followed in twos and threes. The old bitch gave him a last baleful glare, and then trotted off after the leader.

Even the young wolf rolled to his feet, and, tail tickling his belly, hastened after them.

Kerlew remained flattened against the rock, watching the shapes vanish into the darkness. Then, with a wailing cry, he flung himself away from the stone and ran after them. 'Wolf!' he cried into the night, beseechingly. 'Wolf!' He ran, heedless of the coarse bushes that caught at his feet and the sudden hummocks of grass he stumbled over. He might yet catch up with them. He might yet have the chance to place his hand between those yellow eyes and claim a spirit brother. He could still hear the rising howls, the chorus swelling as voices joined it. He lifted his own voice in a pitiful wail, heard it blend for a moment with those other cries in the night. Then he tripped and fell, landing full length upon the ground. As suddenly as the howling had begun, it ceased. His beacon had been extinguished. Kerlew rose to his knees, blind in the absolute darkness, bereft of sound or sight to guide him. He had failed again in his quest for a spirit brother. In despair he howled again, listened vainly for some reply in the vast night.

And when none came, he fell forward into the hollow that had tripped him, and gave himself up to the empty night.