First he had to findout how good Kami was at manipulating their shield song, and thiswas where his plan came unstuck. He explained what he wanted Kamito do and Kami told him he couldn’t do it nor would he if he could,as it was too dangerous. He could see the old shaman was afraid,and he didn’t really blame him. They weren’t used to manipulatingmagic at all, let alone on the grand scale that Aquitain wasproposing.
The real problem wasthat Kami was set in his ways. He had done the same things the waythat his shaman master had taught him for his whole life. That wasthe way knowledge was passed on from generation to generation.Aquitain was asking him to make changes and he couldn’t, theirsystem wasn’t flexible enough.
However, it might bepossible to make changes in the way Rori worked, as he was stilllearning; so he asked Kami whether he could borrow Rori to teachhim some magic. Kami pointed out that only the Chief made decisionslike that, and he would likely refuse.
Aquitain was feelingmore than a little frustrated by the time Miranda flew back withthe components he had asked her to get. He knew he could now makethe keys that would switch the fountains off, but somehow he had toconvince the little people to be a part of it. He told Miranda ofhis plan and of the problems, and she smiled and said,
‘It’s reassuring toknow that there are still some things that spirit bears can’t do. Ithink I can solve your problem, Tain. You want Rori to assist you,leave it to me!’ and she went off to talk to Loma.
Then she and Loma wentto talk to the Jeti chief and they sat talking for an hour beforeshe returned to Aquitain, who was directing work on building hiskeys. He had drafted the two young wizards and Gaston to help himin this part, mainly because it was easier to explain to them whathe wanted done.
The job would have beensimple in any workshop, but in the field it was more difficultthough still possible. The little people had made him four disks ofwood, and he had the wizards carve channels into the disks in theshapes of the four elements. They then heated the bee’s wax thatMiranda had brought back from the village, mixed in the poweredrock that had stuck to a knife blade drawn across the floor in themine, and poured the mixture into the channels carved into thewooden disks. When the wax cooled they had four keys that Aquitainhoped would replicate the effect of Kami’s amulet.
Kami wasn’t convinceduntil Aquitain showed the old shaman that when the air key wascovered by parchment and iron powder poured over it, the samesymbol showed as was in his amulet. When Kami finally nodded,Aquitain was relieved. It was absolutely imperative to keep the oldshaman on their side, as he had the final say in all tribal mattersof religion and magic.
Miranda’s solution togetting Rori to help was quite ingenious. When she had been at theJeti village after bees’ wax, she’d had a chance to talk to many ofthe Jeti woman. They were very afraid about what might happen tothe males who had rebelled the night before. The chief had takenthem with him to the temple, and they were to prove themselvesworthy of staying in the village or else would become outcasts,which was a death sentence.
She realised that ifshe could get Loma to suggest to the Jeti chief that he mightascertain the rebels’ value by allowing them to enter the temple toswitch off the fountains, and he could take them into his tribe,which was very depleted of men at the moment. This would remove aserious problem from the Jeti village, and substantially help theBarra people. However, he also needed Rori’s help as a temporaryBarra shaman, to help them sing. He pointed out that since junglecats had killed many of his people, the Jeti people owed him agreat deal of help.
The Jeti chief didn’tneed much convincing to release the rebels, but he wasn’t keenabout losing Rori, as his people had developed a growing faith inthe young shaman’s assistant and definitely saw him as their nextshaman. However, he had to agree that giving Rori moreresponsibility would prepare him for his shamanic duties morequickly, and eventually he capitulated.
Poor little Rori didn’tknow what was happening. One moment he was sitting chatting withhis new girlfriend, the next the spirit bear and Kami appeared outof thin air. They told him he had been elevated to acting shaman ofthe Barra tribe, to grab his belongings and say goodbye to hisfamily, and they were off. Rori was both terribly excited andafraid at the same time. He wasn’t sure whether he was ready forthe responsibility yet, but he had little choice. The chief andKami had decided he was ready, so therefore he would do hisbest.
In the late afternoonAquitain finally had his fountain deactivation team. Rori plusseventeen reluctant volunteers, who solidly believed they weregoing to die. They had witnessed what had happened to Goth, andthought that no one could come through that alive; however, thealternative was also bleak. To be banished from their tribe forrebellion was a death sentence. Helping the spirit bear offered theslight possibility of surviving, so they had taken it.
Aquitain’s firstproblem was to build up confidence in his team so they would becomeconvinced that they could do it. The way he decided to do this wasto break them into four teams of four and have them get thematerials to construct a mock up of one of the fountains, while hewas giving special tuition to Rori. The one left over was given thejob of supervising the others.
While Rori was smalland had little power, he was enthusiastic and trusted Aquitaincompletely. Aquitain had to teach Rori two things. First, how tocontrol power channelled to him from Aquitain, and then how to
