Killbird

fools. And now what are we to do?» «By the rules of the people they have warred on you,» Cree said. «They are now your slaves.» «Slaves?» I wept. «They are my people.» «No longer,» Yorerie said. «They have sworn to kill you and your family and to take what was yours.» He sighed. «You are bound by the customs.» «I will not enslave my own,» I said. «I give you your freedom. Go, what is left of you. Go and leave us in peace.» «Without hunters we will surely die,» the old man said. «True,» Cree said. «Then there is but one answer,» I said, suffering, wondering how many more punishments the gods of man had in store for me. «You will become of us.» Yuree looked at me, her eyes blazing. «Never,» she spat. «Killer of my mother and father, killer of my pairmate, I will never join you.» «Logan's death and the death of the hunters is on his own head,» Cree said heatedly. «You others,» I said, standing looking around at the mourning people. «Will you come into my valley? We will share. There is game for the taking. Will you come?» «Gladly,» said the old man, and all of the older ones agreed. Only two of the young widows who had so recently lost pairmates demurred, along with Yuree. «So be it,» I said. «But Eban the Hunter will not leave widows and children to starve in the cold of winter, and so I command you, Yuree, and all the others, to come. Come in freedom or come as slaves.» With a cry, Yuree launched herself at me, the sharp knife of dragonskin seeking my chest. I caught her arm. I had given the knife to Logan, and now his pairmate used it to try to kill me. I wrenched the knife away. «Tie her hands,» I said. «And the others.» People leaped to obey me, their loyalties changing swiftly. It was soon obvious to me that Yuree and the other two would be troublesome. We took all of the remaining members of my old family into the valley, where we men began to work to make log houses for the winter. There was food in plenty, and it was not too late to hunt. We fed them well and then considered the problem of Yuree and the two others, who tried, the first night, to escape. «Honorable father,» said Ouree the Unclaimed, «our men are few and are needed. And yet the slaves must be managed. May I offer myself?» «A thankless job, Ouree,» I said, «but it is yours, and my thanks to you. Treat them kindly. Perhaps they will relent, and should they do so, they can become of us.» And thus the unclaimed one spent her days managing the three slaves, slaves by choice, seeing to it that they did their share of work, guarding them against escape, for she was free, under the customs, to use the longbow which she had learned to wield so well should one of the slaves try to escape or offer threat to any member of the family. At first they were resentful, Yuree most of all, but gradually, as we treated them kindly, the other two relented and, with bodies flat to the ground, begged me, as family head, to release them from slavery. They promised to be good family members, and I granted it, and they took their place, sharing a log house between them with their several young ones. Only Yuree remained a slave. We had serious problems. Logan the Unwise, as he had come to be called after his death, had even armed the premen nearing coming of age and had led them to their deaths, moving as a body directly into an area where several dragons could spit at once. The family's males were decimated, leaving only boys. Three old men beyond the age of mating, half a dozen old women, seven widows, counting Yuree, an even dozen children. Three hunters—myself, Yorerie, Cree. And yet there was plenty, and the family was settled in well when the snows came and I, at last, could find some peace in my cave with Mar and our two children. I went back to my game. There was a name for it, I found. The voice of the eye called it a word and the symbols were four. The game was called read. I read symbols for many things. I read about a man, a woman and a child building a log house. They were happy. I read many things. I read about the deer and the bear and things I did not understand, and I got the idea as the winter began to close in that I was reading about a race of giants, for the pictures on the eye were becoming more and more clear and the size of the chair in which I sat was like that of the chair things and couch things in the house of the giants far to the east, and I had much to wonder about. On evenings I sometimes joined the family, there to tell tales. I told them about a race of giants who lived on our land in the time of the first dragons, and they were awed and interested. I told them of the travels of Eban the Hunter and his pairmate, of the sick and starving inbreeders of the low slopes, the monsters of the east. And things were good. Only two things concerned me. One, of deadly concern, was the health of our child, Egan. He was pale and weak, and there were times when, as he learned to speak words, he would cry and say, «It hurts, it hurts,» and rub his tiny little limbs with a look of pain so intense that I hurt as well. The second was Yuree, who continued to be a slave under the management of Ouree the Unclaimed. Both problems were to come to a crisis during that winter. Egan worsened. He had no urge for food. We forced him to eat but he did not gain weight or grow. Our girl was fat and healthy and always moving with that endless energy of the very young. Poor Egan lay on his couch and cried with his pain. Before the shortest night of the year, he was in constant pain, and finally, a mere bag of bones, white as if all his blood had left him, he died in great pain and left his father and his mother to grieve. My poor son. My only son. The family ate a feast of mourning, and we dug through snow and chipped away at frozen ground to place my Egan in his grave. «I will retire for a period of mourning,» I told the gathered family. «In my absence it is Yorerie to whom you will come, with the Seer as his adviser.» And for days I did not leave our cave. The only joy in my life was my daughter and my pairmate, and we clung to each other, the antics of the little girl sometimes making us forget, for a moment, our grief. My own grief was compounded by Mar's failure to get with child. Cree's pairmate had delivered a fine son, and I envied him so. I spent much time playing read, learning stories of the giants. Pictures showed giants riding animals of a strange form, four legs, long necks. There were no such animals in our land. It was a puzzle. And I longed to know more, spending more and more time at the game until, one night when both Mar and Margan were sleeping, the eye spoke to me. «You are man,» said the low and strange voice of the eye. I had come to understand it. «I am man,» I said in my pleasingly high voice. «Man learns,» the voice said. «I learn,» I agreed. Could the eye hear me? Yes, I thought so, for some of the games included voice. I could not make a picture change until I spoke the words desired by the eye. «Man has duty to man,» the eye said. «Man has his duty,» I agreed, nodding my head vigorously. «And now it is time for your duty to begin,» the eye said. «You are ready.» And before me the eye moved, an entire plate moving, sliding, opening a hole in the wall of the eye cave, and, curious, I looked to see step stones leading downward into a sunlit long cave which went down and down—I went without waking Mar—into a large and heated and sunlit cave which, at the center, had a chair and a tall thing of lights and other wonders. I walked near and examined. The tall thing extended to the top of the cave and was alive with lights, which, as I watched, began to blink in a pattern that was interesting. I took my place in the chair, and the flat surface in front of me came alive. It was, I discovered, another form of the game. «Man,» said the voice of the eye. «Now learn.» «I learn,» I said. A light came on on the tall part. I looked at my flat surface and saw a light. I pushed. There was a click and another light came on and there was a wait after I pushed the light which matched it and on my flat surface there were protruding things. I played the game until I was tired and left it to sleep. The new game was more complicated than anything I had done and required an exactness which sometimes bored me. Often there was a waiting period as I pushed lights and protrusions and moved little things from one position to the other. When I made a mistake the tall thing lit up and made a sound like a lion wailing. Then the game had to be begun all over again. After days of this I was bored, for there were no pictures. «I will go back to the other game,» I said, «the read game.» But the eye was not alive, and each time I entered the small cave of the eye the plate opened and there was nothing to do but go into the lower cave and push lights and move little things which clicked. I tired. «Man has duty,» the voice told me. «I am tired of this.» «Man has duty. Man must do duty. Man will be rewarded with good things to eat and other wonders.» This was new. I listened. It was repeated. I followed the lights and pushed things and after a long day of it the voice said, «It is good. You are ready.» «I sleep,» I said. «I am ready for that.» But there was not to be sleep. It was early evening, and when I went into the sleep cave above Yorerie was there, looking uneasy as he always did when he was in our cave. I had allowed him to visit us only after I had named him acting family head during my period of mourning. He did not like our cave. «Honorable father,» he said. «There is a problem.» «You are family head. If you need advice, ask the Seer.» «The Seer advised me to come to you, honorable father.» «Speak, then,» I said. «I suppose it is time I ended my mourning.» «It is the young widows,» Yorerie said. «They have spoken with the Seer of Things Unseen and they claim the right of family disaster.» «You will have to tell me,» I said. «I am not as wise as the Seer and do not know all about our ancient customs.» «Indeed, the Seer herself had to search her memory, for she had never experienced disaster,» Yorerie said. «Speak,» I told him. «When disaster, as in war or disease, strikes the men of a family, leaving many widows, it is the right of the widows under our ancient laws to use the remaining hunters for the purpose of getting with child, thus to rebuild the strength of the family.» «Gods of man,» I sighed. «Are we to become like the inbreeders?» «Seer tells me it is true,» Yorerie said. «Sensible, if you ask me,» said my Mar. «Would you lend me, then, to the widows to make babies?» I asked her in amazement. «Would you cease to love me if you did?» she asked. «Would it change you? Would you still not be Eban the Hunter?» «Gods of man,» I said. I resolved to speak with the family. I gathered them on a clear and starry night before a huge and ceremonial campfire. «I will hear the thoughts of all,» I said. «Seer of Things Unseen, tell us the law.» «The family needs hunters,» Seer said. «For soon all will be old and there are only five young ones who are male and they will have to feed and protect all. It is the right of widows, when males number fewer than females, to be