“I keep offering,” Našobok riposted, “for you to come with me, lovely one.”
“Me, or my nutcakes? Still your tongue and settle. If I know you, and I do, you’ll want to watch the show.”
Našobok blew across his fingers in Aylaniś’s direction and did as bidden. He knew her assistance in opening Council was truly meant; a genuine desire to aid her spouse’s sister. Yet there was another reason, akin to his own: the amusement of watching varied Importances arrive, Skybow-hued woodcocks strutting and preening—and shrieking, no doubt, by the end of it.
He knew Aylaniś remembered how Palatan had once been one of those woodcocks, with more bitter-deep reasons to strut and swagger than a daughter and granddaughter to chieftains a’Šaákfo could at first comprehend. A younger Aylaniś might have, at the first, been impressed with the raids and prowess of her aunt’s youngest tyah, but she’d also been quite contemptuous of Palatan’s raw temper and artless ways. In return Palatan had been manifestly unimpressed by Aylaniś’s supposed pedigree, and openly derisive of his own dam’s efforts to forward the suitability of such a match.
Našobok, at the time fostered with his granddam’s horsetalker relatives, had been little better at hiding his scorn; he’d never shown much interest in anything possessing teats and tucked-away plumbing. Neither was he about to share the love of his life with any nose-in-Sky fem.
Twenty summerings ago, it had been, when Palatan and Aylaniś had been chosen to call the Hunt together. Palatan had come from the rituals of the Breaking Ground with an altogether different Fire beginning to light his eyes, focused upon a desire and path he’d not, until that time of blood conjuring, realised he possessed.
A recipe for heartbreak and disaster. The latter had been courted, the former inevitable, yet…
Here they were.
Našobok smiled at his lovemate. As the remainder of the tribal leaders began entry, Aylaniś passed by and gave a discreet tuck of the blanket about Našobok’s shoulders. The blanket was Palatan’s; it still smelled of spicewood and horse, as well as the needlecreeper balm Aylaniś used on her hands. The latter in particular wafted about Našobok as Aylaniś retreated, graceful and straight-backed, to her place.
She would wait alone for a while, for Palatan had his own pride of place, well towards the end. He’d learned. But then, in the past summerings, they’d all learned many things.
THE DEN was full: of finery, of people wearing all that finery and sitting in a loose semicircle, of low talk, of Smoke’s haze, hanging in curves of wall and ceiling as the greeting pipe was passed.
“Good, we haven’t missed anyt—!” Madoc’s speech, quiet though it was, muted further as Tokela’s hand clapped over his mouth. In the next breath Tokela had rolled Madoc over, hand still firm over his mouth, the other forming several sharp signs. Hunting-talk. Only!
Madoc tucked his chin, swift acquiescence. Tokela nevertheless gave him another warning shake before loosing him.
They’d missed little, mostly the statements and orisons preceding any gathering. Their hiding place overlooked the den; a small high passage with an entry tunnel behind them, and one of many throughout the Great Mound that gave airflow to the deepmost passages. The height of it, a precaution against floods, meant they would likely remain unseen.
If Madoc could keep his mouth shut. Tokela shook his head and rested his chin upon his hands, unable to quell a tiny smirk. Madoc’s audacity remained as endearing as it was exasperating.
Snatches of soft conversation upon many subjects—fishing, trade, hunting, crops—were passed back and forth with the welcoming pipe. Smoke also wafted upward—a mistake, Tokela was beginning to realise. He’d not planned on Smoke having such a fondness for this particular hidey-hole; he’d little tolerance, active wariness, in fact, for the way it made him feel.
It should be one of the things to look forward to when he claimed his indigo, a pleasure finally allowed: Smoke, sweat, and the going inward to find his Spirit’s name and purpose.
Instead it reminded him of the strange, transparent dread the t’rešalt had engendered in his heart. The Shaped boughs denying Rain, the poison that had sent him within, the Chepiś that had brought him out.
And brought other things with it.
Smoke also sought to reminded him: until now, he’d been content enough to leave untouched what-had-been and what-could-be. It reminded him further of what would happen when he didn’t.
First, when he’d lain with the lung-sick after Sarinak had dragged him from beneath his parents’ wykhupeh, wet and shivering and mud-caked in the wake of their deaths. Not that he remembered; Inhya had told him. And then, five summerings ago when Tokela’s voice had deepened and he’d been Marked with the blood-hued wyrh tree on his ribs. They had given him the same fingerleaf tea they gave everyone after the ordeal, but in Tokela the draught had called dark’s Mare to toss and trample him.
The herbKeeper had tsked, said a closed place lay within Tokela’s Spirit. The rite had been cancelled, and he’d been given no name to take to the oških dens.
Smoke crept over his skin, curled at his nostrils, promised Seeing and Sensing; no delight, this. Too much, or too little, there seemed now to be no balance—only a heated, tactile weight upon his senses. Tokela could, suddenly, hear River even though many lengths of Earth separated him from Her, an echo timed with the thick drum of his heart.
The den of his Spirit lay no longer closed. Tokela gritted his teeth against his fists, squinted his eyes shut and whispered, silent and desperate:
N’da. Not yet. Please, not here…
And impossibly, River’s echo subsided. Smoke curled away from him and wafted lazily sideways. Toward Madoc, who lifted his head for a good sniff, sly enjoyment of a pleasure forbidden his age. Madoc would, when he was Broken to oških, no doubt announce himself with a broad smack to the pointed noses of whatever shadowlings might lay in wait.
Madoc’s time, however, lay some turnings hence. Tokela’s had seemingly crept
