13,211 B.C.

I

Days dwindled away into winter, blizzards laid snow thick over earth frozen ringingly hard, the brown bear shared dreams with the dead but the white bear walked the sea ice. We spent most of the enormous nights in their shelters.

Step by step, slow at first but faster and faster, the sun returned. Winds mildened, drifts melted, streams brawled swollen, floes ground each other to bits, calves of horned beasts and mammoth tottered newborn over steppe where flowers burst forth as many as stars, the migratory birds were coming home. For Us it had always been the happiest of seasons, until now.

They dreaded the trackless interior, its wolves and ghosts, but cross it they must. In fall the hunters had come along to show the way and made them pile up cairns to mark it. Thereafter they went by themselves, bearing the gifts required of them. Once snow was on the ground they were free until spring. But during the warmer time, between every full moon and full moon, men from each family would make the journey. So did the hunters command.

Heavily burdened, Aryuk and his sons took three days. He knew the return would need less than two. Some homes were farther off than his, some not so far, but these absences weighed upon all, for while traveling you could not hunt, gather, or work for your household. Having come back, you would spend more days getting together the next load. Not much time or strength was left to take care of your own livelihood.

There had been talk of meeting so as to fare in a single band. Against the protection and consolation of that you must set the still more days it would cost most people. In the end, We decided groups should go by themselves. Perhaps they would do differently later, when they had learned more about this new order of things.

Thus Aryuk made the first springtime trek with his sons Barakyn, Oltas, and Dzuryan. Behind them they left Aryuk’s and Barakyn’s women and small children. They carried long, stout pieces of wood, such as they had been told to bring, and food to keep them going. Wind and rainshowers harried them, often mud caught at their feet, always the loads bore downward. Howls and distant roars haunted their nights. By day they trudged on over the rising land. At last they reached the hunter camp.

From a height they looked across it. The site lay not far below them, a broad flat ground where soil was well-drained. From still higher hills northward, a brook ran through the middle of it.

Awe smote Us. On their last visit in fall, they had thought the steep-sided leather shelters were many, surely more than all the Tula dwellings put together. Aryuk had wondered if they would be warm enough for winter. Today he saw that the strangers had since made themselves great huts of stone, turf, and hides. Tiny at their distance, people moved among them. Smoke from fires rose into an afternoon gone calm and sunny.

“How did they do this?” marveled Oltas. “What powers are theirs?”

Aryuk remembered certain remarks of Her Who Knows Strangeness. “I think they have tools we do not,” he answered slowly.

“Just the same,” Barakyn said, “so much work! How could they find time for it?”

“They kill large beasts,” Aryuk reminded him. “One of those will feed them for many days.”

Tears of weariness and pain coursed down Dzuryan’s cheeks. “Then why n-need they take from Us?” he stammered. To that his father had no reply.

He led the party downslope. On the way they passed a long, gravelly hillock. Beneath it, where a spring ran forth, hidden from the settlement and hitherto from them, stood something that brought them up short. For a moment darkness whirled through Aryuk’s head.

“She,” Barakyn croaked.

“No, no,” wailed Oltas. “She is our friend, she would not move here.”

Aryuk took hold of his spirit, lest it flutter from him. He might have cried out too, were he not so numbingly tired. Staring at the round gray shell, he said, “We do not know, but perhaps soon we shall. Come.”

They plodded onward. Folk spied them. Children dashed out, shouting, skipping, fearless. Several men followed at a lope. They carried spears and hatchets—Aryuk had learned those words—but smiled. He supposed the rest were off hunting. Women and more children seethed around as We reached the huts. Again he noticed persons who were wrinkled, toothless, bent, blind. Here the weak need not go off to die. The young and strong could feed them.

The guides brought Us to a dwelling larger than others. Before it, clad in fur-trimmed leather and a headband with three eagle feathers, waited the man who spoke for these folk. Aryuk had come to know him as Red Wolf. That was what the name meant in his speech. He would change it now and then during his life, therefore it had to mean something. To Aryuk, his own name was merely a sound that singled him out. If he had thought about it, he might have understood that it said “Northwest Breeze” with an accent different from his, but he never did think about it.

He forgot Red Wolf. He forgot all else. Another man was coming through the crowd. He loomed over them, even over their leader. They made way for him with much respect, yet also with smiles and greetings which showed he had been among them for some while. His face was thin and lacked beard, though a mustache grew beneath the curving nose. His hair was short. Skin and eyes, body and gait, recalled Her Who Knows Strangeness; his garments and the things hung at his waist were wholly like hers.

Dzuryan groaned aloud.

“Lay down loads,” Red Wolf bade Us. He had gained some knowledge of their tongue. “Good. We feed you, you sleep here.”

The one from beyond the world halted at his side. Unburdened, Aryuk ached but felt oddly light, as if about to fly off on the wind. Or was it only his head spinning? “Rich gathering be yours,” the one hailed in Our words. “Be not afraid. Do you remember Khara-tse-tuntyn-bayuk?”

“She … she lived near our dwelling,” Aryuk said.

“You are that very family?” The one was plainly delighted. “You yourself are Aryuk? I have been waiting for this.”

“Is she with you?”

“No. She is of my kindred, however, and asked me to give you her friendliest thoughts. My name is—the Cloud People call me Tall Man. I have come to spend a few years among them and learn about them and their ways. I want to know you better too.”

Red Wolf stirred, impatiently, and barked something in his own speech. Tall Man replied likewise. Words went between them, until Red Wolf made a chopping gesture, as if to say, “So be it.” Tall Man looked back at Aryuk and his sons, who stood mute within the encirclement of hunters’ eyes.

“Talk goes easiest when I help,” Tall Man said, “though I have warned them they should take the trouble to learn your tongue better. In time I also will depart this country, and meanwhile I will not always be here. Red Wolf wants to talk with you when you have rested, about what you and your folk are to bring later.”

“What have we to bring, other than driftwood and deadwood?” Aryuk asked, his voice gone as dull as his heart.

“They want more of that. But also they want good stone for their tools and weapons. They want peat and dung, dried for burning. They want pelts. They want dried fish, blubber, everything the sea gives.”

“We cannot!” Aryuk cried. “They already crave so much that we can barely feed ourselves.”

Tall Man looked unhappy. “This is hard for you,” he said. “I cannot free you of it. But I can make it bearable, if you heed me. I will tell the Cloud People that they can get nothing from you if they cause you to die. I will have them give you and show you the use of things that make fishing and hunting easier. They fashion … points that fish bite on and then cannot escape, spearheads that go into án animal and stay fast. Clothes like theirs will keep you warm and dry—-” His tone faltered. “I am sorry I may not do more for you than this. But we can try—”

He stopped, because Aryuk no longer heard him.

Red Wolf had shifted to the side of the entrance. Forth from it crept a woman. She was garbed like others, but the clothes were dirty, greasy, and stenchful. Her belly bulged them out. Hair hung lank past a face gone gaunt. When she rose to her feet, she wavered on them and her arms dangled slack.

“Daraku,” Aryuk whispered. “Is it you?” He had not seen her here before, nor been able to ask what had become of her. He had wondered whether Red Wolf told her to stay out of sight, lest she bring on trouble, or whether she hid in fear and shame, or whether she was dead.

She stumbled to him. He embraced her and wept.

Red Wolf threw a command at her. She cowered against Aryuk. Tall Man frowned. He spoke harshly. Red Wolf and the hunters who were in earshot bristled. Tall Man lowered his voice. Bit by bit, Red Wolf eased. At last he spread his hands and turned his back, a sign that he was done with the matter.

Aryuk looked across Daraku’s shoulder. How sharply her bones jutted under the buckskin coat. Hope flickered in him. Through a blur, through a surf he saw, he heard Tall Man:

“This girl that they took away is your daughter, is she not? I have spoken to her, a little, though she hardly ever answers. They wanted to learn your speech from her. They have done that now, as much as she was able to tell them before sadness grew too heavy in her. They still want the child she carries, to be another hunter or another mother for them, but I have gotten them to let her go. She may return with you.”

Aryuk flattened himself and Daraku on the earth before Tall Man. Her brothers did the same.

Afterward it was to eat—the Cloud women were generous, though the food was so different that We could not swallow much—and sleep, together again, in a tent raised for them, and then talk at length, Tall Man explaining between Aryuk and Red Wolf. A great deal was said about what We must do henceforward and what would be done for them in exchange. Aryuk wondered how long it would take for him to discover the full meaning. Certain was that life had changed beyond his power to grasp.

He and his children set out for home on a morning when wind flung raw gusts of rain. They walked slowly and often stopped, for Daraku could only stumble along. She stared before her and seldom answered when spoken to, then in just two or three words. Yet when Aryuk stroked her cheek or took her hand, she smiled enough for him to see.

That night while they were camped, her pangs came upon her. Rain cut and torrented. Aryuk, Barakyn, Oltas, and Dzuryan clustered close around, trying to give shelter and warmth. She began screaming and did not stop. She was so young; her hips were still narrow. When morning sneaked gray from the unseen east, Aryuk saw that she bled heavily. Rain washed it off into the peat moss. Her face was stretched across the skull and her look was blind. She had scant voice left. The last noises rattled away into silence.

“The baby is dead too,” Barakyn said.

“That is as well,” Aryuk mumbled. “I do not know what I would have done about it.”

Afar, a mammoth trumpeted. The wind loudened. This was going to be a cold summer.

II

The Patrol team came late on a moonless night, to do their work as fast and quietly as possible and then disappear. Local folk would soon know that another marvelous thing had happened, but best not have it occur in their sight. Always minimize impact.

However, Wanda Tamberly could arrive after sunrise. Her hopper brought her straight inside the shelter that had been erected for her. Heart thumping hard, she dismounted and looked around. The transparency was set at translucent and light was ample. Familiar stuff was arranged neatly enough. She’d need a while, though, to shift it around to the way she liked it. First let’s have a peek at the neighborhood. Warmly clad in preparation, she added a mackinaw, unsealed the entrance, and stepped out.

The time was fall in the year after she last left Beringia (and she had spent only a few weeks in the twentieth century before this return). Astronomically, the season was not very far along, but snow could fly any day now, at a subarctic latitude in an ice age. Morning lay bright and bleak. Wind whistled over sere grass. Hills narrowed horizons north and south. A heap of till, left when the glacier retreated, bulked above her dome and Corwin’s. A spring trickled from its foot. She missed the sea and dwarf trees at her earlier camp. What birds wheeled overhead were fewer, and inland species.

The domes were almost touching. Corwin emerged from his, immaculate in khaki, cardigan, and high boots. He beamed. “Welcome,” he greeted, striding over to shake hands. “How are you?”

“Okay, thanks,” Tamberly said. “How’ve you been getting along?”

He raised his brows. “What, you haven’t played back my reports?” he asked playfully. “I am shocked and grieved. After all the trouble I went to, composing them.”

“Composing” is right, she thought. Not that they aren’t scientific accounts. Elegant diction doesn’t hurt them any. It’s this sense I got of… glossing over, here and there. Maybe I’m prejudiced. “Of course I did,” she replied. Taking care to smile: “Including the objections you registered to my being reassigned here.”

He stayed amicable. “No reflection on you, Agent Tamberly, as I hope you realized. I simply thought it would add an unnecessary complication and risk, including the risk to you. I was overruled. Quite possibly I was mistaken. Indeed, I’m sure we can work well together. From a personal standpoint, how can I be other than happy to have company like yours?”

Tamberly made haste to sidestep that question. “No hard feelings, sir. But we won’t actually collaborate, you know. You study the, uh, Cloud People. I need to do a winter’s worth of observations on the animals, to get a halfway Complete picture of certain life cycles that seem to be critical to the ecology.”

She had repeated the obvious as the most gracious way she could think of to say, “Let me go about my business in peace. I mean to keep out from under your feet, and from under you.”

He took it in good part: “Certainly. With experience, we’ll work out the practical details, of noninterference with one another’s projects, cooperation and mutual assistance as called for. Meanwhile, may I invite you to breakfast? Since you’ve doubtless synchronized yourself with local time, I imagine you didn’t eat before you left.”

“Well, I figured—”

“Oh, do accept. We must have a serious discussion, and it may as well be in comfort. I assure you, I am not a bad cook.”

Tamberly yielded. Corwin had arranged things inside his shelter more neatly and compactly than she had ever managed in hers, making it a trifle roomier. He insisted that she take the chair, and poured coffee from a pot already at work. “This is an upper-case Occasion,” he declared. “Ordinarily in the field one merely refuels, eh? Today, what would you say to bacon, French toast, and maple syrup?”

“I’d say, ‘Let me at ’em before I trample the fence down,’” she admitted.

“Splendid.” He busied himself at the tiny electric stove. The nuclear miniunit that powered it also kept the dome warm. She shed her mackinaw, leaned back, sipped the excellent coffee, and let her gaze rove. Books—his tastes were more highbrow than hers, unless he’d gone for these when he knew she would join him; they didn’t seem much handled. The two he had published while in academe stood among them. Some implements rested on a shelf, gifts or exchanges which he probably meant to take home for souvenirs. Among them were a lance with a composite head and a stone-bladed, antler-hafted hatchet, held together by thongs and glue. Even the handleless cutters, scrapers, burins, and other tools were finely made. Tamberly recalled the crude work of the We; tears stung her eyes.

“I trust you are aware,” he said, keeping his look on the cookery, “the Wanayimo think you’re my wife. That is, when I told them you were coming, they took it for granted. They haven’t the free and easy sexual mores of the Tulat.”

“Wanayimo? Oh, yes, the Cloud People. Uh—”

“Not to worry. They accept that you will have your own house, to work your own magic. You’re safe among them, especially since they think of you as mine. Otherwise … fear of your powers might stay their hands, but scruples would not, and some young bucks could decide this was a test of their courage, their manhood. After all, I had to tell them beforehand what they were bound to find out, that you were earlier associated with the Tulat, whom they don’t really consider human.”

Grimness drew Tamberly’s lips tight. “I’ve gathered that, from your accounts that I’ve seen. Frankly, I wish you’d paid more attention to it. The relationship between the two peoples, I mean.”

“My dear, I can’t cover everything. Not a fraction of what I should, if this were a proper anthropological undertaking. I’ve only been with them seven months or a bit less, their chronology.” He’d gone uptime occasionally, to confer and take a rest, but unlike her among the We, always came back to a day soon after his departure. Continuity was important in human affairs, in ways that it was not when you studied wildlife.

I’ve got to admit he’s done a remarkable job in so short a span, and under a lot of other handicaps as well, she thought. He did have a head start on the language; it’s close to that of tribes in eastern Siberia who’d been visited, and not terribly different from that of later generations migrating through Canada, whom he himself had worked with. But that was his solitary advantage at the beginning. It took nerve, too. He could’ve been killed. They’re a fierce and touchy lot … he reports.

“And I scarcely have more time ahead of me,” Corwin continued. “Next year the tribe moves on eastward. I may or may not find it worthwhile to travel with them, or rejoin them wherever they resettle, but the interruption will be disruptive at best.”

“What?” Tamberly exclaimed. “You haven’t entered that!”

“No, not yet. It’s such a new discovery for me. At present, they fully expect to stay, they believe they’ve reached their Promised Land. In order to get some idea of how they’d develop in it, the better to understand their interaction with the next immigrants, I jaunted several years uptime. The region is abandoned. I established that will happen this coming spring. No, I don’t know why. Do they find certain resources insufficient? Perhaps you can solve the riddle. I doubt they will feel any threat from the west. I ascertained that no new Paleo-Indians will arrive in these parts for some fifty years, as slow and fitful as their migrations are.”

Then my We will have that long a peace. The release within Tamberly lasted barely a second. She remembered what had been going on, and apparently would as long as the Cloud People remained. When they left, how many We would be alive?

She forced herself to tackle the matter. “You said a minute ago, they don’t look on the Tulat as being quite human,” she stated. “Your accounts say very little about how they actually treat them. You just mention ‘tribute.’ What is the truth?”

His tone grew slightly irritated. “I told you, I haven’t had the chance to examine every detail, and I never shall.” He broke eggs into a mixing bowl as if they were the heads of referees who had rejected an article. “I acquired the Tula language in advance. I spoke with some who came here bearing the levy; the season for that started shortly after my arrival. I mitigated the lot of two or three individuals. I paid a visit to one of their miserable little warrens on the coast. What more do you expect? Like it or not, my concern, my duty is with the peoples who will make the future. Aren’t you supposed to concentrate on those things in nature that are important to them?”

His testiness evaporated. He offered her a smile. “I don’t want to seem callous,” he added. “You are new in the service, and from a country that had had a remarkably fortunate history. I don’t want to seem condescending to you, either. But the fact is that throughout humanity’s existence, till indefinitely far uptime of our birth period, clans, tribes, nations normally regard the rest of mankind as booty, potential or actual—unless somebody else is sufficiently strong to be an enemy, potential or actual.

“You’ll find the Wanayimo aren’t so bad. Not Nazis or, for that matter, Aztecs. War was thrust on them, because Siberia is becoming overpopulated for the resources available to Paleolithic technology. They keep memories of that defeat, but you can’t call them warriors when they no longer have anyone to fight. They are bold, macho, yes. That’s a requirement for the life they lead, hunting big, dangerous animals. It’s as natural for them to exploit the Tulat as it is to exploit the caribou. They are not deliberately cruel. In fact, they have a certain reverence for all life. But they take from the world what they can, for their wives, children, old ones, and themselves. They must.”

Reluctantly, Tamberly nodded. Corwin’s reports had described what a stroke of fortune it was for the Cloud People to come upon the We. Yet it would not have been that had they failed to make use of it. He had not foreseen their doing so. Such a circumstance was unprecedented in their experience. Some genius among them had made an invention—taxation—that immensely benefited those folk to whom he owed his loyalty. It would be made again and again in the millennia ahead, around the world, usually with less justification.

The wandering had been as long as and far more desperate than the mythical forty years of the Hebrews in the wilderness. No manna fell from heaven, only snow, sleet, ice-cold rain. Others already occupied the good hunting grounds, and in a short time mustered themselves to drive the strangers onward. When at last they reached these parts, farther from the Asian motherland than men of their race had ventured before, their first winter was almost as cruel as the Pilgrims’ first winter was to be in Massachusetts.

Now they flourished. Wood brought by the We enabled them to replace improvised shelters with real houses. The breaking of a spearshaft was no longer a calamity. Usable stone, fuel, fish, flesh, fat, skins—such things they could and did get for themselves. However, what the We added was priceless. It freed the energies of the Cloud People for bolder hunts, bigger constructions, craftsmanship ever more careful, art ever more beautiful, songs and dances, thoughts and dreams.

Corwin had pointed out that, for pragmatic reasons, they were following his advice and giving their subjects some recompense, fishhooks, harpoons, needles, knives, stoneworking techniques, ideas. It was progress, he said. “Yeah, and I’ll bet the We sit happily around in the evenings singing spirituals,” Tamberly had muttered.

Still, she knew the primordial Americans were doomed. Hard though the newcomers made a life that had been tough to begin with, at least these aborigines weren’t being slaughtered like Tasmanians by nineteenth-century whites or pushed beyond their thin margin of survival like Ukrainians and Ethiopians by twentieth-century governments. Nor were alien diseases ravaging them; the bacteriological isolation of New World from Old would not start till Beringia drowned. As long as they brought their tribute and made no trouble, the We could live in their own ways. If occasionally a Wanayimo brave passing by forced himself upon a Tula girl, well, among her folk that wasn’t the shattering disgrace it would have been among his; and wasn’t it better the genes mingle than that one strain go entirely extinct? Wasn’t it?

Tamberly noticed Corwin’s regard. Time had passed. She shook herself. “Sorry,” she said. “Woolgathering.”

“Not overly pleasant, I suspect.” His voice was sympathetic. “Really, matters could be far worse. They are far worse, in too much of history. Here we can even ameliorate things a bit. Oh, just a bit, and most cautiously. But, for example, I found that, early on, the Wanayimo had taken a daughter of your friend Aryuk—Daraku, her name is; you probably know her well—they’d brought her here. She wasn’t purposely mistreated. Their idea was simply that they needed someone from whom to learn the rudiments of her language. But she’d fallen into deep depression—homesickness, culture shock, lack of companionship. I persuaded them to give her back to them.”

Tamberly had jumped to her feet. “Huh?” She stood for a moment staring. The horror receded. A measure of warmth followed. “Why, that, that’s wonderful of you. Thank you.” She swallowed.

He smiled. “Now, now. Common decency, after all, when the opportunity presented itself. Don’t get overwrought, especially not before breakfast. Which will be ready in the proverbial two lambshakes.”

The smell of frying bacon restored her mood faster than she supposed was morally right. Over the meal he kept conversation light, often humorous; yes, he could talk about something besides himself, and give her a chance to speak too. “Delightful city, San Francisco, agreed, but someday you must explore her in the 1930s, before she professionalized her charm. Tell me, though, about that Exploratorium you mentioned. It sounds like a marvelous innovation, quite in the old and truly spirit….”

When they were done and he had lighted what he called the virginal cigarette of the day, he got serious. “After I’ve washed the dishes—and no, you may not help, at any rate on this first morning—I had better take you to meet Worika-kuno.” She recognized the name, Red Wolf, from frequent mention in his reports. “A courtesy rather than a requirement, but among themselves, the Wanayimo value courtesy as much as will the Japanese.”

“He’s the chief, right?” Tamberly asked. Her studies had not made his status perfectly clear to her.

“Not in the sense of being invested with any formal authority. Tribal decisions are a matter of consensus among the men and the old women, those who’ve survived past childbearing age. Outside of council, young women have a tacitly granted say in everyday affairs. However, by sheer ability and force of personality, someone is bound to dominate, to be the most respected, whose word usually settles things. That man is Worika-kuno. Get on the right side of him, and your path will be reasonably smooth.”

“What about the, um, medicine man?”

“Yes, the shaman does have a unique and powerful position. My relationship with him is somewhat precarious. I have to go out of my way, over and over, to show that I have no intention of becoming his rival or stealing any of his prestige. So will you. Frankly, you were dispatched to this precise date on my recommendation, after it was determined that you would return, because he’ll be preoccupied, mostly secluded, for the next several days. Give you time to learn the ropes before you come in contact with him.”

“What’s he busy at?”

“A death. Yesterday a band that had been out hunting brought home the body of a comrade. A bison gored him. That was more than a loss, it was an evil omen, because he was a skillful hunter, a good provider. Now the shaman must magic the bad luck away. Fortunately for everyone’s morale, Worika-kuno played the animal till his followers got it killed.”

Tamberly whistled softly. She knew the Pleistocene bison.

In due course she accompanied Corwin to the village. It was an impressive sight after they came around the concealing hillock. She had seen images, but they conveyed no sense of the human energy that had gone into this work. A dozen or so rectangular sod houses, timber-framed, bungalow-sized, stood on clay foundations along the banks of a shallow stream. Smoke rose from most of the turf roofs. Offside lay a ceremonial area, defined by a ring of stones, at its center a firepit and a cairn covered with the skulls of big animals. Some were from the steppe, some from the woods and vales south of it: caribou, moose, bison, horse, bear, lion, mammoth on top. At the opposite end of the settlement was a workplace. There a fire blazed and women in buckskin gowns or, for the youngest and hardiest, the lightly woven tunics of summer, prepared the latest kill. Despite the death of Snowstrider, talk and laughter blew on the wind. Prolonged grief was a luxury these people could not afford.

The chatter died away as they saw the pair approaching. Others came from the houses or ceased their amusements among them. Those were mainly men, off duty; they did the hunting and the brute-force heavy work while women handled the home chores. Children hung back. Corwin had related that they were greatly loved and generally brash, but were taught to defer when deference was due.

The scientists passed on through an obbligato of greetings and ritual gestures, which Corwin returned. Nobody tagged after them. Someone had apprised Red Wolf, for he waited at his dwelling. Two mammoth tusks flanked its doorway and he was better clad than average. Otherwise nothing marked him out but his presence, his panther assurance. He raised a hand. “Always are you welcome, Tall Man,” he said gravely. “Always may you have good hunting and, in your home, contentment.”

“May fair weather and kindly spirits ever walk with you, Red Wolf,” Corwin responded. “Here I bring her of whom I told you, that we may pay our respects.”

Tamberly followed the speeches. Corwin had downloaded his knowledge of the language, once he had a reasonable command of it, into a mnemonic unit uptime, and she had had it entered in her brain. Likewise had he painlessly acquired the additional vocabulary and nuances of Tula that she discovered for herself. (He “had!” No, he “would,” some fifteen thousand years in the future.) Eventually, when they had no further use for the knowledge, it would be wiped from them to make room for something else. That was a rather sad thought.

She pulled her attention back to the Ice Age. Red Wolf’s look lay keen upon her. “We have met before, Sun Hair,” he murmured.

“W-we have.” She rallied her wits. “I belong to no folk here, but go among the animals. I want to be friends with the Cloud People.”

“From time to time you may wish a guide,” he said shrewdly.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Such a one will find me thankful.” That was the closest this language could come to saying that he would be well rewarded. Let’s face it, with the kind of help available here, I can accomplish ten times what I was able to earlier.

Red Wolf spread his arms. “Enter and be blessed. We shall talk undisturbed.”

The interior was a single room. Flat stones at the middle made a hearth on which a fire smoldered; starting one afresh was toilsome, to be avoided as much as possible. Low clay platforms along the walls, richly provided with hides, could sleep about twenty adults and children. Hardly any of them were now on hand. Given daylight and reasonable weather, the outdoors had far more to offer. Red Wolf introduced his pretty wife, Little Willow. He went on to present another woman. Her eyes were red from weeping, her cheeks were gashed, and her hair hung unbraided, signs of mourning. She was Moonlight on the Water, Snowstrider’s widow.

“We plan how to provide for her and her small ones,” Red Wolf explained. “She does not wish to take a new man at once. Well, I think she can stay here until she feels ready to.”

He gestured his guests to sit on skins spread near the fire. Little Willow brought a leather bottle, not unlike a Spanish bota, that held fermented cloudberry juice. Tamberly squirted a little into her mouth, just to be polite, and learned it wasn’t bad. She was being treated more or less as a man, she knew, but then, her status was extraordinary. At that, Little Willow and Moonlight on the Water weren’t kept in purdah, but listened. If either thought she had something important to say, she would speak.

“I heard how you slew the terrible bison,” Tamberly told Red Wolf. “That was valiantly done.”—the more so when, in his mind, it must have been possessed by a malignant spirit.

“I had help,” he said, not modestly but matter-of-factly. He grinned. “By myself, I do not always win. Maybe you can teach me how to make a fox trap that works. Mine never do. I wonder if somehow I once offended the Father of Foxes. Toddling around as a baby, did I leave my sign on top of his?” The grin became a laugh.

He can joke about the unknown, Tamberly heard herself think. Damn, I believe I’m going to like him. No doubt I shouldn’t, but I believe I’ll have to.

III

She mounted her timecycle, projected a map with a coordinate grid, set her destination, touched the activator. Immediately the dome was gone from around her and she back at her old campsite. Locking the controls, though neither man nor beast would come so near so alien an object in the next few hours, she started off afoot.

Sky and sea reached steely gray, sunless. Even over distance and against the wind she could hear how surf crashed on Beringia and tore at it. The wind skirled across dead grass, dark moss, bare shrubs and trees, strewn boulders, out of a north where darkness had engulfed the horizon. Cold laved her face and searched for any opening in her clothes. The season’s first blizzard was on its way southward.

Lifetimes of feet had beaten the path she found and took. It led her down into the gulch. Depth walled off most wind, but the river, engorged by high tide, foamed dirty white. She reached the bluff, now barely above that violence, where three stone huts huddled by a spring.

Somebody must have spied her through the dwarf alder, for as she arrived, Aryuk pulled aside the bundled wattles that served him for a door, crawled forth, and rose. He gripped a hand ax. His shoulders were stooped under a carrion skin. Between mane and beard she saw a haggardness that shocked her.

“Ar-Aryuk, my friend—” she stammered.

He stared at her a long time, as if trying to remember or understand what she was. When he spoke, she could hardly make out the mumble in the roar of river and surf. “We heard you have come back. Not to Us.”

“No, I—” She reached toward him. He flinched before he stood his ground. She lowered her arm. “Aryuk, yes, I stay with the Mammoth Slayers, but only because I need to. I am not of them. I want to help you.”

He eased a little—less in relief, she thought, than yielding to his weariness. “True, Ulungu said you were kind to him and his sons when they were there. You gave them the Lovely Sweet.” He meant chocolate. In earlier days she had perforce handed it around very rarely. Else a van-sized Patrol vehicle couldn’t have brought enough.

She recalled the dull gratitude of those who no longer hoped. God damn it, I will not cry. “I have Lovely Sweet for you and everybody here. First, though,” since Aryuk had made no move to invite her in, not that she really wanted to enter the hovel, “why did you not come too, this moon?”

It had been the probable last month until spring for the We to bring tribute. After encountering the Bubbling Springs folk, she’d been glad she was away in the field when others appeared. What consolation she could offer was so tiny, and she hadn’t slept that whole night. However, she had asked Corwin to inform her of Aryuk’s advent. She couldn’t forbear to meet him. If need be, she’d hop a few days downtime. But he never showed.

’The Mammoth Slayers are angry,” she warned. “I told them I would find out what the trouble is. Do you mean to go soon? I fear a storm is about to strike.”

The shaggy head drooped. “We cannot go. We have nothing to bring.”

She tautened. “Why?”

“At the fall gathering I told everybody that I did not think we would,” Aryuk said in the rambling Tula fashion, but with none of the Tula liveliness. “Ulungu is a true friend. After he and his sons had made their own last trip, they came to see if they could help us. That was when I learned you had joined the Tall Man.”

Oh, God, how betrayed you must have felt.

“They could do nothing, for we ourselves had done nothing,” Aryuk went on. “I told them they should go home and care for their women and children. This has been a hard summer. Fish, shellfish, small game, everything was scant. We went hungry because we must spend time getting things and traveling for the Mammoth Slayers. Others suffered too, but the new hooks and spears helped. They are not much use here, where schools of fish and the seal that prey on them seldom pass by.” Shoal water in the estuary, currents, something like that, Tamberly guessed. “We must make ready for winter. If we worked any more for the Mammoth Slayers, we would starve.”

Aryuk raised his head. His eyes met hers. Dignity descended upon them. “Perhaps we can give them more next summer than we did in this,” he finished. “Say to them that I alone decided.”

“I will.” She wet her lips. “No, I will do better than that. Fear not. They are not as—as—” Tula had no word meaning “cruel” or “merciless.” It wouldn’t be fair to the Cloud People anyway. “They are not as fierce as you think.”

Knuckles whitened above the hand ax. “They take whatever they want. They kill whoever stands against them.”

“There was a fight, true. Do the We never kill one another?”

His stare became wind-bleak. “Two more among Us have died at their hands since then.” I didn’t know that! Corwin doesn’t bother to inquire. “And you speak for the Mammoth Slayers. Well, you have heard what I have to say.”

“No, I, I only … only am trying to … make you happier.” Give you heart to last out the winter. In spring, for whatever reason, the invaders will pull up stakes. But I’m not allowed to predict that. And you doubtless wouldn’t believe me if I did. “Aryuk, I will see to it that the Cloud People are content. They will want no more from Alder River before the snow is off the ground again.”

He stayed wary. “Can you be sure? Even you?”

“I can. They will heed me. Did Tall Man not make them give you back Daraku?”

Abruptly an old man stood there under the darkening sky. “That was no use. She died on the way home. The child that so many of them put into her, it took her away with it.”

“What? Oh, no, no.” Tamberly realized she had moaned in English. “Why did you not let Tall Man know?”

“He was never there when I was, afterward,” said the flat voice. “I saw him twice, but not nearby, and he did not seek me. Why should I go to him, then, if I dared? Can he call back the dead? Can you?”

She remembered her own father, whom she could gladden with a phone call and overjoy by stepping across his threshold. “I think you would like me to leave you alone,” she said as emptily.

“No, come inside,” where the rest crouch in murk, in fear and stifled, stifling rage. “I am ashamed at how little food we can offer, but come inside.”

What can I do, what can I say? If I’d grown up alongside Manse, or in some earlier era, I’d have known what, young though I am. But where-when I hail from, they send printed sympathy cards and talk about the grief process. “I … I should not. I must not, today. You need … to think about me, till you understand I am your friend … always. Then we can be together. First think about me. I will watch over you. I will care for you.”

Am I wise or weak?

“I love you,” she blurted. “All of you. Here.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the chocolate bars. They fell at his feet. Somehow she smiled before she turned and left him. He didn’t protest, merely stood where he was and looked after her. I guess I am doing the right thing.

A flaw of wind whirled down to rattle skinny boughs. She hastened her steps upward. Aryuk shouldn’t see her cry.

IV

The council, the grown men and old women of the tribe, crowded the house where they met; but the sacred fire could not burn outdoors when a storm bade fair to blow for days. The booming and snarling of air came through thick walls as an undertone. Flames on the hearthstones guttered low. They picked out of darkness, waveringly, the crone who squatted to tend them. Otherwise the long room was filled with gloom and smoke and the smells of leather-clad bodies packed together. It was hot. When the fire jumped high for a second, sweat glistened on the faces of Red Wolf, Sun Hair, Answerer, and others in the innermost circle around it.

The same light shimmered along the steel that Tamberly drew and raised high. “You have heard, you have understood, you know,” she intoned. On solemn occasions the Cloud People used a repetitive style that to her sounded almost Biblical. “For that which I ask, if you will grant me my wish, I give to you this knife. Take it of me, Red Wolf; try it; make known if it be good.”

The man received it. The sternness of his features had melted away. She thought of a child on Christmas morning. Silence gripped the assembly until their breath seemed as loud as the gale, heavy as surf. Nonetheless he tested its heft and balance with skilled care. Stooping, he picked up a stick. His first attempt to slice it was awkward. Flint and obsidian take edges as keen as any metal, but they won’t cut seasoned wood, being too fragile, and you can’t properly whittle with them. He was also unaccustomed to the shape, the handle. With a little coaching, though, he got the knack fast.

“This comes alive as I hold it,” he whispered raptly.

“It has many uses,” Tamberly said. “I will show them to you, and the way of caring for the blade.” When a stone grew blunt, you chipped it afresh, till it got too small. Sharpening steel properly is an art, but she felt sure he’d master it. “This is if you will grant me my wish, O People.”

Red Wolf looked about. “Is such our will?” he inquired sonorously. “That I take the knife on behalf of us all, and for our return gift we forgive the tribute that the family of the Vole man Aryuk should have brought?”

A buzz of assent ran among shadows. Answerer’s harsh voice cut through. “No, here is a bad thing.”

Damn! Tamberly thought, dismayed. I’d expected the whole business would be pro forma. What ails that wretch?

The talk rose to a soft hubbub and died out. Eyeballs gleamed. Red Wolf gave the shaman a hard stare. “We have beheld what the Bright Stone can do,” he said slowly. “You have beheld. Is this not worth many loads of wood or fish, many skins of otter and hare?”

The wrinkled countenance writhed. “Why do the tall pale strangers favor the Vole People? What secrets are between them?”

Anger flared in Tamberly. “All know that I dwelt with them before you entered this land,” she snapped. “They are my friends. Do you not stand by your own friends, O Cloud People?”

“Then are you friends to us?” Answerer shrilled.

“If you will let me be!”

Red Wolf lowered his arm between the two. “Enough,” he said. “Shall we squabble over a single moon’s share from a single family, like gulls over a carcass? Do you fear the Vole folk, Answerer?”

Shrewd! Tamberly cheered. The shaman could only glare and reply sullenly, “We know not what witchcraft they command, what sly tricks are theirs.” She remembered Manse Everard remarking once that societies frequently attribute abnormal powers to those whom they lord it over—early Scandinavians to the Finns, medieval Christians to the Jews, white Americans to the blacks….

Red Wolf’s tone went dry. “I have heard of none. Has anyone?” And he lifted the knife over his head. A natural-born leader for sure. Standing there like that, Lordy, but he’s handsome.

Neither debate nor vote followed. That was not the way of the Wanayimo, and would have been unnecessary in any case. While they depended on their shaman for intercession with the supernatural and for spells against sickness, they gave him no more homage than was reasonable, and indeed looked somewhat askance at him: a man celibate, sedentary, peculiar. Tamberly sometimes recalled Catholic acquaintances, respectful toward their priests but not slavish and not uncommonly in disagreement.

Acceptance of her proposal went like a quiet billow, more felt than uttered. Answerer sat down cross-legged, drew a buckskin cloak over his head, and sulked. Men gathered around Red Wolf to marvel at the thing they had gotten. Tamberly was free to leave.

Corwin joined her at the exit. He had stood silent in the background, as beseemed an outsider present by courtesy. Dim though the light was, she saw the dourness upon him. “Come to my dome,” he ordered. She bridled, then mentally shrugged. She’d rather expected something like this.

The door was hingeless but closely fitted into the entrance, a composite of sticks, withes, hide, and moss. Corwin freed it. Wind tried to snatch it from him. He wrestled it back into place when he and Tamberly had passed through. They raised their hoods, closed their jackets, and set off toward their camp. Air raved, bit, slammed, clawed. The snow that it drove was a white blindness. He needed a hand-held, compasslike direction indicator.

When they regained shelter, both were a little numb for a few minutes. The storm racketed, the dome fabric shivered. Objects clustered inside seemed fragile, weightless.

Neither sat down. When Corwin spoke, they stood as in confrontation. “Well,” he said, “evidently I was right. The Patrol should have kept you home where you belong.”

Tamberly had been preparing herself. Not insolent, not insubordinate, but firm. He does rank me, but he is not my boss. And Manse has told me the Patrol values independence, provided it goes along with competence. “What have I done wrong … sir?” she asked as gently as was possible in the noise.

“You know quite well,” Corwin rapped. “Unwarrantable interference.”

“I don’t believe it was, sir. Nothing that could affect events any more than we already do by being here.” And that’s taken care of. We have “always” been this small part of prehistory.

“Then why didn’t you confer with me in advance?”

Because you’d have forbidden it, of course, and I couldn’t buck that. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. No such intention, honest.” Ha! “I took for granted—well, what harm? We interact with these people. We talk, socialize, accompany them, use them for guides and reward them with little objects from uptime. Don’t we? I did more among the Tulat than I did today, by a long shot, and headquarters never objected. What’s a single knife? They can’t make any like it. It’ll break or wear out or rust away or be lost in a couple of generations at most, and nobody will remember it much longer.”

“You, a new and junior agent—” Corwin drew breath. A touch less coldly, he proceeded: “Yes, you too are given considerable discretion. That can’t be helped. But your motives. You had no sound reason for doing what you did, only a childish sentimentalism. We can’t allow that sort of attitude, Tamberly. We dare not.”

I couldn’t stand by and let Aryuk, Tseshu, their kids and grandkids be brutalized or killed. I …didn’t want Red Wolf involved in an atrocity. “I don’t know of any regulation forbidding us to do a kindness when we safely can.” She shaped a smile. “I can’t believe you’ve never been kind to somebody you cared about.”

He stood impassive for a space. It broke in a smile of his own. “Touché! I concede.” Gravely: “You did take more upon yourself than you should have. I won’t pursue the matter, but consider this a lesson, a warning.”

Genial again: “And now that that’s out of the way, let’s re-establish diplomatic relations, shall we? Sit down. I’ll make coffee, we’ll have a spot of brandy on the side, and it’s been far too long since we shared a meal.”

“I’ve mostly been in the field,” she reminded him.

“Yes, yes. However, we are weatherbound now, for days to come.”

“I figure I’ll skip uptime to when this has cleared.”

“Hm, really, my dear, your zeal is admirable, but heed the voice of experience. Occasional rest, recreation, outright loafing is highly advisable. All work and no play, you know.”

Yeah, she thought. I know what kind of R & R you have in mind. She didn’t resent it. A natural notion under these circumstances; and probably he imagined it was a compliment. No, thanks. What’s the most tactful way out of here?

V

The least of the houses, scarcely more than a hut, was Answerer’s: for the shaman dwelt alone, save for whatever demons he kept at his beck. Often, though, a man or woman of the tribe sought to him.

He and Running Fox sat at the fire. More light than it gave straggled through the hole in the roof and the smoke swirling up. Clear weather, almost warm, had followed the great wind. Magical objects seemed to stir in shadows. They were few, a drum, a whistle, engraved bones, dried herbs. Everyday possessions were meager too. His strength and life lay mainly in the spirit world.

He squinted at his visitor. They had exchanged some careful, meaningful words. “You also have your reasons for unease,” he said.

Running Fox’s sharp visage drew into a scowl. “I have,” he replied. “What quarry do the two tall strangers stalk among us?”

“Who knows?” Answerer breathed. “I have sought visions about them. None came.”

“Have they cast spells against yours?”

“I fear that may be so.”

“How could they?”

“We are far from the graves of our ancestors. Later we left our dead behind as we trekked onward. Thus far in this place there are very few to help us.”

“Snowstrider’s ghost is surely strong.”

“One man’s. Against how many of the Vole men’s?”

Running Fox bit his lip. “True. A musk ox or bison is stronger than any wolf, but a wolf pack can bring down any bull.” He pondered before he asked, “Yet—do the Vole People tend graves and stay friends with their dead, like us? Do their ghosts linger at all?”

“We do not know,” Answerer said.

Both men shivered. A mystery is more daunting than the starkest truth.

“Tall Man and Sun Hair command mighty spells and powers,” Running Fox said at last. “They call themselves our friends.”

“How much longer will they abide here?” Answerer retorted. “And would they really help us in dire need? Might they even be lulling us while they prepare our destruction?”

Running Fox smiled sourly. “Just by being on hand, they threaten your standing.”

“Enough!” snapped the shaman. “You feel yourself menaced.”

The hunter looked downward. “Well … Red Wolf and most others … honor them more than I think is wise.”

“And Red Wolf heeds you less than he did aforetime.”

“Enough!” Running Fox barked a laugh. “What would you do about it if you could?”

“If we learned more, and got a hold on them—”

Running Fox signed for caution. “One would be crazy rash to go straight against them. But they do care about the Vole People. At least, Sun Hair does.”

“So I was thinking. And what secrets, what powers, do she and they share?”

“By themselves the hairy ones are naught. They are indeed like voles, which a fox kills in a single bite. If we took them by surprise, unbeknownst to Tall Man and Sun Hair—”

“Can such a deed be hidden from those two?”

“I have seen both of them surprised when something unawaited happened, a ptarmigan breaking cover, river ice suddenly cracking underfoot, that kind of ordinary thing. They are not aware of all that is in the world … any more than you are.”

“Still, you are a daring man.”

“But not a stupid one,” said Running Fox, turning impatient. “How many days have we been sounding each other out, you and I?”

“It is time we spoke openly,” Answerer agreed. “You think to go there, I daresay to that very Aryuk whom she holds especially dear, and wring the truth out of him.”

“I need a companion.”

“I am not a man of weapons.”

“I can do that work. You, for your part, understand spells, demons, ghosts.” Running Fox peered at the shaman. “But can you make the journey?”

Answerer’s response came stiff. “I am no weakling.” He was in fact wiry and, while missing several teeth and seeing poorly, could walk long distances or run quite fast.

“I should have asked, do you wish to make the journey?” Running Fox amended.

Mollified, Answerer signed assent. “We will have a freeze in the next day or two,” he forecast. “This softened snow will become like stone, easy to move upon.”

Eagerness leaped behind Running Fox’s eyes, but he kept his face blank and spoke thoughtfully. “Best we leave by dark. I will say I want to go scouting by myself for a while, to learn this territory better and to think.” Folk would believe that of him.

“I will say I want to raise spirits in my house, and must not be disturbed for days and nights until I am ready to come forth,” Answerer decided.

“At that time you may indeed have mighty tidings.”

“And you may win much honor.”

“I do this for the Cloud People.”

“For all the Cloud People,” Answerer said, “now and always.”

VI

Like a hawk upon a lemming, there the invaders were. A shout pierced Aryuk’s winter drowse. He groped through its heaviness. Another cry tore it from him. That was the call of a woman and small children in fear.

His own woman, Tseshu, clutched at him. “Wait here,” he told her. Through the blindness of the den his hand found a weaponstone. He scrambled out of the skins, grass, and boughs in which they had rested, sharing warmth. Fear tore at him, but rage overwhelmed it. A beast, vexing his kin? On hands and knees, he shoved the windbreak aside and scuttled through the doorway. Rising to a crouch, he confronted what had come.

The courage spilled from him like water from a cupped hand flung open.

Cold seared his nakedness. Low in the south, the sun turned day to a blaze, hard blue sky, hard blue shadows, brilliant white over ground and alder branches. Ice gleamed duller on the stream, swept clean of snow by winds. Where the ravine ended, the stones of the beach lay rimed, and the sea itself had frozen a long ways out. Surf growled afar, as if the Bear Spirit spoke in anger.

Before him stood two men. Leather and fur covered them. One held a spear in his right hand, a hatchet in his left. Aryuk had met him before, yes, he knew that thin glittery-eyed face, they called him Running Fox in their tongue. The other was old, wrinkled, gaunt, though not much wearied by his traveling. He gripped a bone carved with signs. Both had painted their brows and cheeks, marks that must be powerful too. Tracks showed how they had come down the slope—quietly, so quietly, until they were here and yelled their summons.

Barakyn and Oltas had gone off to walk the trap lines. They would not return till tomorrow. Did these two watch and wait for my strong helpers to leave me? flashed through Aryuk. Barakyn’s woman Seset huddled at the entrance of their dwelling. Aryuk’s third living son, Dzuryan, hardly more than a boy, shuddered in front of the hut he shared with Oltas, where he had been tending the fire and otherwise dozing.

“What… what do you want?” faltered Aryuk. Though dread clogged his mouth, he could not bring himself to wish these newcomers well as one should for any visitor.

Running Fox replied, colder than the cloudlets that puffed from between his lips. He had learned Our speech better than any other Cloud man—in how many times with Daraku? “I talk to you. You talk to me.”

That, yes, of course, Aryuk thought. Talk. What else have we left? Unless they want to mount Seset. She is young and toothsome. No, I must not let myself know wrath. Besides, they do not look at her. “Come inside,” he said reluctantly.

“No,” spat Running Fox—half in scorn, half in wariness, Aryuk guessed. Crammed into a Tula shelter, he would have no room to wield those beautiful, deathful weapons. “We talk here.”

“Then I must cover me,” Aryuk said. His feet and fingertips were already numb.

Running Fox made a brusque gesture of agreement. Tseshu crept forth. She had put on shoes and a skin cloak, which she held tight as if afraid or ashamed to have strangers behold sagging breasts and slack belly. She brought the same garb for her man. Dzuryan and Seset slipped back and outfitted themselves likewise. They returned to the entrances, very quiet. Meanwhile Tseshu helped Aryuk dress.

That comforted him mightily, as belittling as it was to do this while Running Fox flung his questions. “What walks… between you … and Sun Hair?”

Aryuk gaped. “Sun Hair? Who?”

“Woman. Tall. Hair like sun. Eyes like—” Running Fox pointed at the sky.

“She Who Knows—We, we were friends.” Are we yet? She abides in your place.

“What else? Talk!”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Ho! Nothing? Why she give tribute for you?”

Aryuk stiffened. Tseshu finished tying on the moss-stuffed bags that were his shoes. “She did? What?” Joy rushed over him. “Yes, she promised she would save us!”

Tseshu straightened and took stance at his side. So had her way ever been.

His moment’s happiness blew off across the ice. “What kuyok in knife?” Running Fox snarled.

“Kuyok? Knife? I do not understand.” Was the man working a spell? Aryuk raised his free hand and made a sign against it.

The intruders tensed. Running Fox spoke to his companion. The elder man pointed his carven bone at Aryuk and uttered a short, shrill chant.

“No tricks,” Running Fox rasped. His hatchet waved toward the elder. “Here is Aakinninen—you say ‘Answerer.’ He kuyokolaia. Got kuyok much more strong than yours.”

The word must mean “magic,” Aryuk knew. His heart shook his ribs. The cold slid through cloak and flesh. “I meant you no harm,” he whispered.

Running Fox brought his spearhead near Aryuk’s throat. “My strength much more strong than yours.”

“It is, it is.”

“You see Wanayimo strength at Bubbling Springs.”

Aryuk clutched his hand ax tight, as if its weight could hold him from being whirled up by a gust of forbidden fury. Should I go flat in the snow?

“Do what I say!” Running Fox shouted.

Aryuk glimpsed Dzuryan and Seset, how they quailed. Somehow he stood fast, and Tseshu beside him. “What must we do?” he asked in bewilderment.

“You say what is with you and the tall ones. What they want? What they do?”

“Nothing, we know nothing.”

Running Fox slanted his spear downward. The stone-edged head sliced across Aryuk’s calf. A shallow cut reddened behind it. “Talk!”

The pain was little, the menace bigger than heaven. When at last he meets the lion, a man stops being afraid. Aryuk squared his shoulders. “You can kill me,” he said low, “but then this mouth cannot speak. Instead, my ghost will.”

Running Fox’s eyes widened. Either he knew the word for ghost or he guessed its meaning. He turned to Answerer. They conferred fast and harshly. But always Running Fox stayed mindful of where each of Us was. Aryuk’s free hand found Tseshu’s.

Answerer’s withered face hardened. He barked something. His companion clearly agreed. Aryuk waited to learn the fate of his family.

“You not make kuyok against us,” Running Fox said. “We take one along. She talk.”

He stuck his spear upright in the snow, made a long stride forward, seized Tseshu by the arm. He hauled her from her man’s clasp. She wailed.

Daraku!

A wind roared over Aryuk. He himself screamed as he sprang.

Running Fox chopped with his hatchet. Caught off balance, he missed Aryuk’s head but struck him on the left shoulder. Aryuk neither saw nor felt the blow. He was in against the Cloud man. His right arm swung. The hand ax crashed on Running Fox’s temple. The hunter crumpled.

Aryuk stood above him. Pain smote. He dropped the hand ax and went to his knees, pawing at the hurt shoulder. Dzuryan boiled toward him. A weaponstone of his own, hurled, barely went by Answerer. The old one whirled about and ran off, in among the trees, up the slope. Dzuryan joined Tseshu where Aryuk was. Seset silenced the children.

Aryuk’s soul returned as the darkness ebbed from him. Helped by both women, he regained his feet. Blood ran, a red flame amidst the snow, from his shoulder. That arm hung useless. When he tried moving it, the pain was so vast that the night rolled over him again. Tseshu drew his cloak aside to look at the wound. It wasn’t deep, the edge had hit bone, but surely that bone was broken.

“Father, shall I catch the other man and kill him?”

Dzuryan asked. Did his boy-voice waver, or was that how Aryuk heard it?

“No,” said Tseshu. “He is too far ahead of you now. You are too young.”

“But he, he will tell the Red Wolf what happened.”

Dimly surprised, Aryuk found he could think. “That is best,” he muttered. “We must not make this thing worse … for all of Us.”

He stared downward. Running Fox sprawled limp. The blood that had gushed from the man’s nose flowed no more, only trickled, slower and slower as the cold thickened it. The open mouth had gone dry, the open eyes had filmed over, the open bowels had emptied. A snowbank into which he had fallen hid the smashed part of his head.

“I forgot myself,” Aryuk whispered at him. “You should not have laid hand on my woman. Not after my daughter. We were both unwise, you and I.”

“Come in by the fire,” Tseshu said.

He shambled obediently along. The women tended him as best they could, stanching the cut with moss, binding arm to side with thongs. Dzuryan built the fire up and fetched a frozen rabbit from a small cairn nearby. Tseshu laid it in the coals.

Hot meat gave heart, and Aryuk drew more strength from the bodies pressed against his. At last he could tell them: “In the morning I must leave you.”

“No!” moaned Tseshu. He knew that she knew what he intended. Nonetheless she protested. “Where can you go?”

“Away,” he said. “They will come after their dead man when they hear, and after me. If they found us together, it would go very badly with you. When Barakyn and Oltas return, everybody must go different ways, seeking shelter and help among friends. The Cloud men will know that I and I alone killed him. I think, if they do not see you where he lies, they will be content with my death. Tracking me down will use up most of their anger.”

Seset hugged herself, rocked to and fro, wept aloud. Tseshu sat moveless, excépt for taking her man’s good hand in hers.

“Say no more now,” Aryuk ordered. “I am weary. I need a night’s rest.”

He and Tseshu sought their hut. Lying beside her, he found he could sleep—lightly, skimming above pain, dreams flickering like bits of rainbow. I have lived longer than many, he thought once, half wakeful. It must be time for me to go find our children who died. They have been lonely.

At dawn he ate again, let her clothe him, and went out. The ravine reached shadowy, its alders hunched into their own dreams. A few stars still glimmered overhead. Breath smoked into the chill. From the sea rumbled sounds of waves and of ice grinding ice. His wound throbbed, hot, but if he moved with care the pain seldom bit too hard.

His woman, son, and first son’s woman gathered about him. He pointed at the corpse. “Bring this inside and close the entrance before you leave,” he told them. “The Mammoth Slayers may feel milder if gulls and foxes have not eaten of their friend. But first—” He tried to stoop. His wound forbade. “Dzuryan, you are the man now, until your brothers come home. Dig those eyeballs out. If I carry them away, his ghost should follow me and leave you alone.” The youth hung back, lips fluttering in the twilit blur of his face. “Do it!”

When the things rested safe in his pouch, Aryuk, one-armed, drew Tseshu to him. “Had I grown old and feeble, I must go into the wilderness,” he said. “I leave a little sooner, only a little sooner.”

From Dzuryan he took a hand ax. He wasn’t sure why. He had refused a food ration, and was in no shape to knock down an animal or even make a trap. Well, the stone was something to hold. He nodded, turned, and trudged off, toward the easiest path up the slope and out of sight.

Surely you never wanted this for me, You Who Know Strangeness, he thought. When you learn of it, will you come help? Better if you help my children and grandchildren. I do not matter anymore. He sent the memory of her elsewhere and gave himself to his wandering.

VII

Throughout winter, the Tulat were as little active as possible, to conserve energy for survival. They collected what food they were able to; by daylight they did what work came to hand; but mainly they stayed in their dens, and for most of that time they slept or sat in a self-induced, daydreamy trance. It was no wonder that so many, especially infants, took fatally sick. Yet what choice had they?

The Paleo-Indians were different, busy the year round, even during the long nights. They had the skills and the means to keep themselves well fed in all seasons. While some animals, such as the caribou, migrated, others, such as the mammoth, did not. That was the reason they settled on the steppe, though their hunters ranged into the northern highlands and the southern woods. Only the sea daunted them. Their descendants would master it. Meanwhile these, the Cloud People, had the Tulat to glean along its shores for them.

Thus Ralph Corwin grew accustomed to movement and noise after dark. An optical pickup secretly planted in the till enabled him to watch on a screen in his dome, magnifying the view at will. If things got interesting, or if he simply felt like it, he would stroll over and mingle. The folk had long since accepted him as human—enigmatic, potentially dangerous, but fascinating and, it seemed, well-disposed. You could enjoy his company, the mystery adding salt to the pleasure. Girls smiled, and some were quite pretty. Too bad that taking advantage would mean a degree of involvement compromising his mission. The Tulat were easygoing but … grubby; nor had he time to spare for them. The Patrol didn’t want its too few agents spending more lifespan than necessary on any single job.

How grand it would be if Wanda Tamberly, who otherwise fitted what he’d heard about outdoorsy California girls of the later twentieth century, were forthcoming. No matter, he often scolded himself.

On this night he forgot about her. Tumult was rising in the village. He dressed warmly and left.

The air lay still, as if wind had congealed in the cold. Passing through his nostrils, it felt liquid. A moon just past the full made his breath a phantom akin to the hills north and south. Snow glistened and crunched underfoot. He had no need of a flashlight, nor did torches flare among the houses ahead. It was an extravagance the Wanayimo could have afforded, thanks to their tributaries. A fire was being built at the cairn of the skulls. Folk milled about, talking, gesticulating, sometimes howling. When the flames were high, they would bring drums and dance.

It would be a dance of mourning and propitiation, Corwin judged. That meant leadership, which meant certain plans and preparations. He steered wide of the crowd and made his way to the home of Red Wolf’s extended family.

His guess proved right. The hingeless door leaned loose between the tusks and light trickled around it. He put his face to the crack. “Aho,” he called softly. “Tall Man speaks. May he enter?” Ordinarily that would have been an affront, implying that those inside were not hospitable, but rules changed when demonic forces were abroad, and Corwin also had an idea that Answerer was on hand. Unease had waxed these past few days, after the shaman sequestered himself; and now this abrupt excitement—

After a minute, a form within blocked off the light. “Be welcome,” said Red Wolf, and drew the barrier aside. Corwin stepped through. Red Wolf accompanied him back to the middle of the room, where the banked coals had been stoked up. That small, smoking blaze gave about as much illumination as the fat that burned in four soapstone lamps. Beyond hulked darkness. Corwin could barely see a screen, hide stretched over a driftwood frame, propped across the rear end. Behind it must be such of the family as had no business here tonight and were not out among the howlers.

Those who had met were a chosen few. Corwin recognized the hunters Broken Blade and Spearpoint, the respected elder Fireflint, standing. On the floor, arms across drawn-up knees, sat Answerer. Shadows lay doubly deep in the furrows of his visage, the sockets of sunken eyes. His back and neck were bent. Utter exhaustion, Corwin realized. He’s been away, but I don’t think it was on any spirit journey.

“Yes, best is that Tall Man be in our council,” said Red Wolf. His tone was steely. “Did you summon him, Answerer?”

The shaman made a noncommittal noise.

“I saw what appears to be trouble, and came to see if I might be of use,” Corwin told them, not insincerely.

’Trouble indeed,” said Red Wolf. “Now Running Fox is dead, the cleverest of men.”

“Ill is this.” Corwin had found that man valuable—quick on the uptake, talented at explaining things—though apt to ask disconcerting questions. His shrewdness and independence of mind were a distinct loss to the tribe. “How did it happen?” Some extraordinary way, obviously.

Gazes through the gloom ransacked the outsider. “The Vole man Aryuk slew him,” Red Wolf replied. “That Aryuk for whose sake Sun Hair gave up her knife.”

“What? No, can’t be!” They’re cowed, the Tulat, they’ve had it stabbed into them that they’re helpless.

“It is so, Tall Man. Answerer has just arrived with the news. He escaped by a gnat’s wing, he, whose person should be inviolable.”

“But—” Corwin drew his lungs full of warm, odorous, sooty air. Stay calm. Stay alert. This situation could get nasty fast, “I am surprised. I am grieved. I ask that you tell me how the woe came about.”

Answerer looked up. Flame glinted in his eyes. Malignancy hissed: “It was because of you and your woman. Running Fox and I went to find out why those Voles are so dear to you.”

“Friends, only friends. Sun Hair’s from earlier years. Not mine. I hardly know them.”

“Aryuk said the same.”

“It was true!”

“Aryuk may have cast a spell on her,” Fireflint ventured.

“Answerer needed to find out,” Red Wolf said. “Running Fox went with him. They spoke for a while, then suddenly Aryuk attacked. He took Running Fox off guard and killed him with a blow of a hand ax. Somebody threw another at Answerer, who fled.”

No wonder he’s done in, Corwin thought distantly, an old man—perhaps as old as fifty—going day and night over the snow in terror for his life. The shaman had slumped again. “But what could make Aryuk do this?”

“It is not clear,” Red Wolf replied. “A demon may have seized him, or the evil may long have nested in his heart…. You truly have no knowledge?”

“None. What will you do now?”

Glance met glance. The silence grew until Red Wolf reached a decision. He’s still leery of me, Corwin knew, but he wants to believe Wanda and I are honest. He wants to show his own goodwill by being candid.

“I will not dance for Running Fox tonight,” Red Wolf said. “With certain hunters I will be bound for the sea. We must bring our friend home.”

“Yes, you must,” Corwin understood.

It was more than sentiment: “We need him here. His is a strong ghost, like Snowstrider’s, to aid us against evil spirits and hostile ghosts.”

“Hostile…. Tulat?”

“Who else? Although I will see to it that Aryuk’s body lies afar with his ghost tightly bound to it. Answerer will give me the tools and words for that.”

“Do you mean to kill him?”

Surprise murmured through the crackling of the flames. “What else?” Red Wolf demanded. “We cannot let a Vole man harm a man of the people and go unscathed.”

“We should kill many of them,” Broken Blade growled.

“No, no,” said Red Wolf. “Then how can they bring tribute? They must be quelled, but I think it will be enough to slay Aryuk.”

“What if we fail in that?”

“Then, true, we must avenge Running Fox on others. Let us see what happens.”

“I wish you would stay your hands,” Corwin exclaimed. Immediately he knew what foolishness that was. He’d been thinking how Wanda would feel when she got back from the field.

The faces before him hardened. Answerer looked up again and croaked almost gleefully, “Then you do favor the Vole People! What is between you and them? That is what Running Fox and I went to learn, and he died.”

“Nothing,” Corwin said. “You went there for nothing. It is truth what Sun Hair and I have told you; we are only sojourners here, and in a while we shall leave forever. We only want friendship with … with everybody.”

“You, maybe. But she?”

“I vouch for her.” Corwin saw he’d better put up a brave front. He roughened his tone. “Hear me. Think. If we had ill intentions toward the Cloud People, need we hide it? You have seen a little of what we can do. A little.”

Red Wolf moved his hands, a calming gesture. “Well spoken,” he said quietly. “Yet I think it best if you, Tall Man, make sure that your wife Sun Hair keeps apart from this matter.”

“I will,” Corwin promised. “Oh, I will. She must not act. Such is the law of our tribe.”

VIII

Young hunters could travel swiftly. With brief stops for rest and a bite of dried meat, Red Wolf and his three companions reached Alder River the night after they left home. The moon was up, its fullness gnawed by the Dark Hare but still casting shimmer and shadow across clouds, snow, ice. The three huts crouched misshapen. Red Wolf breathed deeply and took a magic bone between his teeth before he could make himself crawl into the one whose entrance had been blocked. Inside, sightless, he laid hand on something that felt colder than the air. No stranger to death, he nonetheless jerked the hand back.

Mastering terror, he tried once more. Yes, a face lay stiff beneath his palm. “Running Fox, this is Red Wolf come to give you your honor,” he muttered around the bone. Getting hold of the coat, he dragged the dead man forth.

Moonlight grayed skin. Running Fox was frozen as hard as river or sea. Blood clotted black on the left temple and around the chin. Black too were the gaping mouth and the horrible twin emptinesses above.

The hunters squatted around. “They gouged his eyes out,” whispered Broken Blade. “Why?”

“To blind his ghost, lest it pursue them?” wondered Spearpoint.

“Their ghosts will suffer worse,” snarled White Water.

“Enough,” said Red Wolf. “These are unlucky things to speak of, worst by dark. We shall know more in the morning. Now let us take him from this ill place, that he may sleep among his comrades.”

They carried the body above the ravine, put it into the bag they had brought along for it, and spread their own. Wind whittered. The moon flew between clouds. Wolf-howls afar were homelike when men heard, as well, the mumbling of the sea beyond the ice. Red Wolf drowsed off, but his dreams were jagged.

At dawn his band cast about. The tracks they found in the snow, though days old, told a tale they understood. “Some have gone east, some west,” Red Wolf related. “Small footprints are in both sets. Those are surely Aryuk’s kin, seeking refuge till our wrath has been slaked. One trail goes inland, and is a grown man’s. That is Aryuk’s.”

“Or somebody else’s, like a son’s?” asked Spearpoint. “They are sly beasts, those.”

Red Wolf signed a no. “Why should a son mislead us, when we would hunt the father down too? If they meant to protect him, they would have gone at his side, ready for a fight. But they knew they would lose. Best that he die alone for what he did.” With a grin: “We will do as they wish.”

“If he dies before we catch him, Running Fox is cheated of revenge,” Broken Blade fretted.

“Then he shall have it tenfold on the other Voles,” White Water vowed.

Red Wolf scowled. Punishment was one thing, no different from slaying a dangerous animal. Slaughter of the harmless was something else, like killing animals without need of their skin, flesh, gut, or bone. No good would come of it. “We shall see,” he replied. “White Water, do you and Spearpoint carry Running Fox back to his burial. Broken Blade and I will settle with Aryuk.” He gave no time for talk about that, but struck out at once. The quarry had a long head start.

Otherwise there was little more to fear than evil spirits and whatever uncanny powers Aryuk possessed. Red Wolf doubted he had any. The hunters were paired only because the trail might grow difficult and because it was seldom wise to travel partnerless.

The tracks led north. As the shore dropped from sight behind him, Red Wolf saw that he followed a man who had already begun to weaken. Answerer’s story had been confused, but the shaman thought Aryuk took a blow before felling his enemy. The heart laughed in Red Wolf’s breast.

The brief day ended. For a while he and Broken Blade pushed on. If they looked closely they could still trace the spoor by starlight and, later, moonlight. It went slowly, but that did not matter, for they saw how Aryuk had grown slower yet and ever oftener must stop to rest.

Then clouds drew together, smothering sight. Perforce the hunters called a halt. Without fire, they ate of their jerky and rolled up in their sleeping robes. The softest of touches on his face roused Red Wolf. Snowfall. Father of Wolves, make this cease, he begged.

It did not. Morning was hushed and gray, skyless, full of white flakes through which men could barely see a spearcast’s length. For some time they were able to creep onward, brushing the powdery new snow off the old, but at last that was impossible. “We have lost him,” sighed Broken Blade. “Now his tribe must pay.”

“Maybe not,” responded Red Wolf, who had been thinking. “We cannot be far behind him. He may well be on the other side of the next hill. Let us abide.”

The air had warmed sufficiently that they could sit almost in comfort. Lynx-patient, they waited.

About midday the snowfall ended. They went on north. The going was hard, through stuff light but ankle-deep, sometimes knee-deep. Would that I had magical shoes to walk on top of this, Red Wolf thought. Do Tall Man and Sun Hair? They own so much else that is wonderful … Well, Aryuk is hindered too, worse than us.

From a ridge they saw hugely ahead, across the steppe. Clouds had parted and shadows reached long and blue over purity. Every bush and boulder stood marked. Right, left, forward the men peered, until Broken Blade pointed and cried, “Yonder!”

Red Wolf’s heart jumped. “Maybe. Come.” They struggled downslope. By the time they reached what they had glimpsed, the sun was gone, but some light remained by which to read the troubled snow.

“Yes, a man,” said Red Wolf. “Surely no long way off. See how he floundered and … yes, here he stumbled, fell, and picked himself up awkwardly.” His mittened hand tensed on the spearshaft. “He is ours.”

They went on at an easier pace than before, saving their strength, less for the prey than for the trek home afterward. Night rolled across the world. The sky was mostly clear, the moon still down; stars were soon aswarm, frost-sharp. The trail stayed plain.

Suddenly Broken Blade stopped short. Red Wolf heard his gasp and likewise looked up. Above the northern horizon, the Winter Hunters were kindling their fires.

In billows and rays light shivered aloft, brighter, higher, brighter, higher, until it licked at the roof of heaven. Cold had deepened and all sound lay frozen. Only the sheen of light on snow was alive. Awed beyond terror, the men stared. There danced the mightiest of their forebears, ghosts too strong for earth to hold them.

“Yet you are ours,” Red Wolf breathed at last. “You remember, do you not? Watch over us. Ward us. Keep horrors and vengeful ghosts from us, your sons. In your name, for you, we make our kill tonight.”

“I think they have come for that,” said Broken Blade as low.

“We should not keep them waiting.” Red Wolf moved onward.

Presently he saw something, a blot on the snow beneath the chill fires. He hastened his stride. The other must have seen him in turn, for a shrill, keening chant reached his ears. What, did Vole men also sing their death songs?

As he neared, he made Aryuk out, seated cross-legged in a hollow he had scooped for himself. “I will do this, Broken Blade,” Red Wolf said. “Running Fox was close to my spirit.” He went on as if no fresh snow burdened his feet.

Aryuk rose. He moved very slowly, clumsily, his last strength spent. But he never cringed. He finished his song and stood slump-shouldered, left arm lashed to his side below the skin cloak, yet steadfast. Frost whitened his beard. When Red Wolf drew nigh, he smiled.

Smiled.

Red Wolf halted. What was this? What might it portend?

The silent fires burned overhead, commanding him. He took another step, and another.

Here is no animal brought to bay, he knew. Aryuk is ready for death. Well, he shall have it as easily as I can give it. He has earned that much.

Two-handed, he thrust the spear. Bone and keen flint went in below the breast and up to find the heart. The blow felt oddly soft, into so worn and wasted a body. Aryuk toppled before it, onto his back. Once he kicked, and his throat rattled. Then he was quiet.

Red Wolf withdrew the spear and leaned on it, staring downward. Broken Blade joined him. The flames leaped and shook in heaven.

“It is done,” said Broken Blade finally, tonelessly.

“Not altogether,” answered Red Wolf.

He took the graven bone from his pouch and clamped it between his teeth. Kneeling, he opened Aryuk’s pouch. Nothing was in it but—yes—He drew out the eyes of Running Fox. “You shall go back to him,” he promised. Giving them to Broken Blade: “Wrap these well and sing them the Spirit Song. I have other tasks.”

Even for one who knew he was doomed and who was emptied by weariness, Aryuk died calmly. Almost happily, as far as I could tell by this witch-light. What did he know? What did he mean to do … later?

Well, he shall not. Answerer has told me how to bind a ghost.

Red Wolf did to the body what had been done to Running Fox’s. He crushed the eyeballs between two stones he dug from the snow. He slit the belly and laid more stones among the entrails. He tied wrists and ankles with thongs of wolverine leather. He drove a spear through the chest and out the back, as deeply into the ice beneath as he could. He danced around the corpse while he called on his namesake, the Father of Wolves, to send more wolves—and foxes, weasels, owls, ravens, all manner of carrion eaters—to devour it.

“Now it is done,” he said. “Come.”

He felt exhausted himself; but he would walk as long as he was able before he slept. When morning came, he and Broken Blade ought to spy a landmark, such as a distant mountain, and find their way home.

They set forth across the steppe, beneath the spirit fires.

IX

To Wanda Tamberly, over the months the old rogue mammoth had come to be like a friend. She almost hated to bid him goodbye. But now he’d given her what information he could, which might well include a key to the entire history of Beringia. If she hoped to learn more about other aspects, she’d better get busy on them. “Already” her superiors wanted her elsewhere and elsewhen. It was with difficulty, as messages went to and fro across space-time, that she had persuaded them to let her spend just a bit more lifespan here, finish out the season and observe one last interstadial spring. She suspected that they suspected her real reason was to see, in daily detail, how her Tulat would fare.

Not that genuine science did not remain to be done, man-centuries’ worth of it. She had heard that civilian researchers made studies of their own, both pastward and futureward of this period. But they came from civilizations uptime of hers, too alien for her ever to work with them. She was of the Patrol, whose concern was with things impinging directly on human affairs.

There were advantages to that, she often reflected. The real comprehension of an ecology lay in its foundations, geology, meteorology, chemistry, microbes, plants, worms, insects, humble small vertebrates. She got to trail the big glamorous creatures near the top of the food chain. Of course, she too must gather a lot of nitty-gritty data. In a general way, she oversaw the activities of the tiny robots that scuttled beetlelike about, sampling, observing, passing information on to the computer in her dome. But she also followed slot, examined scat, watched from a distance or from a blind, punted around lakes, mingled with herds; and that was fine, fun, real.

I’ll be sorry to leave for good. Although—her spine tingled—next assignment, Crô-Magnon Europe?

She had made this trip alone. Wanayimo guides were often invaluable, much better than any Tulat before them, but must not be exposed to really high tech. Loaded with camp gear, her timecycle rose on antigravity till it hung high. Instruments gave her a final look around. Their sensitivity and versatility were part of the reason that she, all by herself, could report on an entire region after a couple of years’ work. Overleaping miles, piercing mists, amplifying light, they spotted single animals and brought views as magnified as she wanted before her eyes. Musk oxen stood back to the wind, a hare lolloped through drifting snow, a ptarmigan took wing, and yonder wandered and grumbled the old mammoth….

Upon the vast white land, his shagginess was dark as the cliffs rearing northward. His one tusk scuffed snow off moss and his trunk grubbed the fodder. It was sparse, but the best that a solitary male, defeated in fight and driven from his fellows, could find. Sometimes Tamberly had thought that mercy required she shoot him. No, he was providing an important clue; and now that she had it, well, leave him in his gaunt pride. Who knew, he might survive into summer and fill his belly again.

“Thanks, Jumbo,” she called across the wind. She believed she had discovered why his kind were growing scarce in Beringia, while continuing common in both Siberia and North America. Though the land bridge was still hundreds of miles wide, rising sea level had shrunk it, even as encroaching birch scrub changed the nature of the steppe. She hadn’t known that these elephantines were so dependent on specific conditions. Elsewhere, related species occupied a variety of habitats. But the rogue had not gone south to the seaboard woods and grasslands, he had gone north to scrape out a marginal existence under the mountains.

This in turn bore implications that excited Ralph Corwin. Although the Paleo-Indians hunted game of every sort, mammoth was the prize. In Beringia they’d wipe out the already threatened herds of any given area in the course of a few generations; it is another myth that primitive man lives in harmonious balance with the life around him. The presence of mammoth farther east would then draw adventurous persons onward sooner than would otherwise have been the case, in spite of today’s Alaska being for the most part pretty desolate.

Therefore, probably the migration into America went more quickly than he had supposed, and later waves of it had a distinctly different character from their predecessors…. However, this couldn’t account for the Cloud People moving away as early as next year….

The wind swirled and bit. Vapors blew around her, gray rags. Let’s get back and put our feet up with a nice hot cuppa. Tamberly set controls and activated.

In her dome she dismounted, shoved the hopper into its place amidst the kipple, and switched off the antigrav. The machine thumped a few inches down onto the floor. She rubbed her bottom. Hoo boy, the saddle was cold! Next job, if it’s Ice Age too, first I put in for heating coils.

As she stripped, sponge-bathed, donned loose clothes, she wondered what to do about Corwin. Presumably he was elsewhere. Were he in his own place, his timecycle would have registered this arrival of hers and he’d doubtless have popped right over with an invitation to a drink and dinner. It would be hard to decline gracefully when she’d been gone for ten days. So far she’d managed to get him talking about himself, which diverted his attention and was, she admitted, by no means uninteresting. Sooner or later, though, he was pretty sure to make a serious pass, and in that she was posolutely not interested. How to avoid an unpleasant scene?

Too bad Manse isn’t an anthropologist. He’s comfort-able to be with, like an old shoe—a shoe that’s hiked a lot of very strange trails, and stayed sturdy. I wouldn’t need to worry about him. If perchance he did make a pass—Hey, I’m not blushing, am I?

She brewed her tea and settled down. A voice at the entrance broke through: “Hullo, Wanda. How’ve you done?”

I guess he was just down in the village. Damn. “Okay,” she called. “Uh, look, I’m awfully tired, lousy company. Could I rest up till tomorrow?”

“’Fraid not.” The solemnity sounded honest. “Bad news.”

An icicle stabbed. She got to her feet. “Coming.”

“I think you’d best step outside. I’ll wait.” And only the wind sounded.

She scrambled into wool socks, down-lined pants, boots, parka. When she emerged, the wind cut at her. It drove ice-dust low across the ground. Sinking behind southern hills, the sun ignited a multitudinous hard glitter in the drift. Also dressed for the weather, Corwin and Red Wolf stood side by side. Their countenances were stark.

“Good fortune to you,” Tamberly greeted through the whistling.

“Good spirits travel with you,” the Cloud man answered as formally and flatly.

“This tale is for Red Wolf to tell,” Corwin stated in the same language. “He told me he should. When I knew you had returned, I fetched him.”

Tamberly looked into the hunter’s eyes. They never wavered. “Your friend Aryuk is dead,” he declared. “I slew him. It was necessary.”

For a moment the world darkened. Then: Bear up. This is a stoic culture. Don’t lose face. “Why is this?”

The narration was short and dignified.

“You could not have spared him?” she asked dully. “I would have paid … enough to give Running Fox his honor.”

“You have told us you will leave in a few more moons, and Tall Man will not stay much longer,” Red Wolf answered. “After that, what? Other Vole men would think they could harm others of us and go free too. Also, Aryuk had won power over Running Fox’s ghost. Had we not recovered what he took, after death his own ghost would have been twice as strong, and surely full of hatred. I had to make sure he will never walk among us.”

“I have gotten a promise that there will be no further revenge on the Tulat,” said Corwin, “if they behave themselves.”

“That shall be true,” Red Wolf affirmed. “We do not wish to grieve you further, Sun Hair.” He paused. “I am sorry. I never wished to grieve you at all.”

He made a dismissing gesture, turned, and walked slowly off.

I cannot hate him, Tamberly thought. He did what he saw as his duty. I cannot hate him.

Oh, Aryuk, Tseshu, everybody who loved you, Aryuk!

“Tragic,” Corwin murmured after a minute. “But take comfort.”

It flared in Tamberly. “How can I, when he—when his family—I’ve got to look after them, at least.”

“Their own people will.” Corwin laid a hand on her shoulder. “My dear, you must control those generous impulses of yours. We may not intervene more than we already have. What could you do for anyone that is not forbidden? Besides, this tribe will soon be gone.”

“How much will be left by then? God damn it, we can’t just stand idle!”

He donned sternness. “Calm down. You can’t bluff the Wanayimo into anything. If you try, it will only complicate my work. Frankly, as matters stand, you have cost me some prestige, by association, when the news obviously stunned you.”

She knotted her fists and struggled not to weep.

He smiled. “But there, I didn’t mean to play Dutch uncle. You must learn to accept. ‘The moving Finger writes, and having writ,’ y’know.” Gently, he embraced her. “Come, let’s go inside and have a drink or three. We’ll toast memories and—”

She tore loose. “Leave me alone!” she cried.

“I beg your pardon?” He raised frosted brows. “Really, my dear, you’re overwrought. Relax. Listen to an old campaigner.”

“You wanna know what the moving Finger should do to you? Leave me alone, I said!” She grabbed at her dome opener. Through the wind, did she hear a resigned girls-will-be-girls sigh?

Sheltered, she flung herself on her bunk and let go. It took a long while.

When at last she sat up, darkness enclosed her. She hiccoughed, trembled, felt as cold as if she were still outside. Her mouth was salt. I must look a fright, she thought vaguely.

Her mind sharpened. Why has this hit me so hard? I liked Aryuk, he was a darling, and it’s going to be grim for his folks, at least till they can rearrange their lives, which’ll be tough to do with the Cloud People battening on everybody, but—but I’m no Tula, I’m only passing through, these are old, unhappy, far-off things, they happened thousands of years before I was born.

Corwin’s right, the bastard. We in the Patrol, we’ve got to get case-hardened. As much as we can. I think now I see why Manse sometimes suddenly falls quiet, stares beyond me, then shakes his head as though trying to throw something off and for the next few minutes gets a little overhearty.

She hammered fist on knee. I’m too new in the game. I’ve too much rage and sorrow in me. Especially rage, I think. What to do about it? If I want to stay on here any longer, I’d better make up with Corwin, more or less. Yeah, I was overreacting. I am right now. Maybe. Anyhow, before I can straighten things out I’ve got to straighten me out. Work off this that’s in me and tastes like sickness.

How? A long, long walk, yes. Only it’s night. No problem. I’ll hop uptime to morning. Only I don’t want anybody seeing me stalk off. Unseemly display of emotion, and might give wrong ideas. Okay, I’ll hop elsewhere as well as elsewhen, way away to the seashore or out on the steppe or—

Or.

She gasped.

X

Morning stole gray through falling snow. All else lay white and silent. The air had warmed a little. Aryuk sat hunched in his cloak. The snow had partly buried him. Perhaps he would rise and stagger onward, but not yet, and perhaps never. Although he felt hunger no more, his wound was fire-coals and his legs had buckled under him during the night. When the woman descended from unseen heaven, he simply stared in sluggish wonder.

She got off the unalive thing she rode and stood before him. Snow settled on her head covering. Where it touched her face and melted, it ran down like tears. “Aryuk,” she whispered.

Twice he could utter nothing but a croak, before he asked, “Have you too come after me?” He raised his heavy head. “Well, here I am.”

“Oh, Aryuk.”

“Why, you are crying,” he said, surprised.

“For you.” She swallowed, wiped the eyes that were blue as summer, straightened, looked more steadily down at him.

“Then you are still the friend of Us?”

“I, I always was.” She knelt and hugged him. “I always will be.” His breath hissed. She let go. “Did that hurt? I’m sorry.” She studied bound arm and blood-caked shoulder. “Yes, you’ve been hurt. Terribly. Let me help you.”

Gladness flickered faint. “Will you help Tseshu and the young?”

“If I can—Yes, I will. But you first. Here.” She fumbled in a garment and drew forth an object he recognized. “Here is Lovely Sweet.”

With his good hand and teeth he stripped off the wrapping. Eagerly, he ate. Meanwhile she got a box from the thing she rode. He knew about boxes, having seen her use them before. She came back, knelt again, bared her hands. “Do not be afraid,” she said.

“I am no longer afraid, with you by me.” He licked his lips. His fingers followed, to make sure none of the brown stuff was left behind. The ice in his beard crackled to their touch.

She put a small thing against his skin near the wound. “This will take away pain,” she said. He felt a slight shoving. On its heels ran a wave of peace, warmth, not-pain.

“A-a-ah,” he breathed. “You do beautiful works.”

She busied herself, cleaning and treating. “How did this come about?”

He didn’t want to remember, but because it was she who asked, he said, “Two Mammoth Slayers came to our place—”

“Yes, I have heard what the one told who escaped. Why did you attack the other one?”

“He laid hands on Tseshu. He said he would take her away. I forgot myself.” Aryuk could not pretend to her that he was really sorry for the deed, in spite of the evil it brought. “That was foolish. But I was again a man.”

“I see.” Her smile mourned. “Now the Cloud People are on your trail.”

“I thought they would be.”

“They will kill you.”

“This snow may break the trail too much for them.”

She bit her lip. He heard that it was very hard for her to say, “They will kill you. I can do nothing about that.”

He shook his head. “Do you truly know? I do not see how it can be certain.”

“I am not sure I see either,” she whispered, keeping her gaze upon her busy hands. “But it is.”

“I hoped I might die alone, and they find my body.”

“That would not satisfy them. They think they must kill, because a man of theirs was killed. If it is not you, it will be your kindred.”

He took a long breath, watched the tumbling snow for a bit, and chuckled. “So it is good that they kill me. I am ready. You have taken away my pain, you have filled my mouth with Lovely Sweet, you have laid your arms about me.”

Her voice came hoarse. “It will be quick. It will not hurt much.”

“And it will not be for nothing. Thank you.” That was seldom spoken among the Tulat, who took kindnesses for granted. “Wanda,” he went on shyly. “Did you not say once that is your real name? Thank you, Wanda.”

She let the work go, sat back on her haunches, and made herself look straight at him. “Aryuk,” she said low, “I can do … something more for you. I can make your death more than a payment for what happened.”

Amazed, marveling, he asked, “How? Only tell me.”

She doubled a fist. “It will not be easy for you. Just dying would be much easier, I think.” Louder: “Though how can I know?”

“You know all things.”

“Oh, God, no” She stiffened. “Hear me. Then if you believe you can bear it, I will give you food, a drink that strengthens, and—and my help—” She choked.

His astonishment grew. “You seem afraid, Wanda.”

“I am,” she sobbed. “I am terrified. Help me, Aryuk.”

XI

Red Wolf awoke. Something heavy had moved.

He turned his head right and left. Again the moon was full, small and as cold as the air. From the roof of heaven its light poured down and glistered away over the snow. As far as he could see, the steppe reached empty, save for boulders and bare, stiffened bushes. He thought the noise—a whoosh, a thump, a crack like tiny thunder—had come from behind the big rock near which he, Horsecatcher, Caribou Antler, and Spearpoint had made their hunters’ camp.

“Forth and ready!” he called. He slipped free of his bag and took weapons in a single motion. The rest did the same. They had slept half awake too, in this brilliant night.

“Like nothing I ever heard before.” Red Wolf beckoned them to take stance at his sides.

Black against the moonlit snow, a man-form trod from around the rock and moved toward them.

Horsecatcher peered. “Why, it is a Vole,” he said, laughing in relief.

“This far inland?” wondered Caribou Antler.

The shape walked steadily closer. A badly made skin cloak covered most of it, but the hunters saw that it carried a thing that was not a hand ax. As it drew near they descried features, bushy hair and beard, hollowed-out face.

Spearpoint rocked. “It is he, the one we went after with Running Fox,” he wailed.

“But I killed you, Aryuk!” Red Wolf shouted.

Horsecatcher screamed, whirled about, dashed off across the plain.

“Stop!” Red Wolf yelled. “Hold fast!”

Caribou Antler and Spearpoint bolted. Almost, Red Wolf himself did. Horror seized him as a hawk seizes a lemming.

Somehow he overcame it. If he ran, he knew, he was helpless, no longer a man. His left hand raised the hatchet, his right poised the lance for a cast. “I will not flee,” rattled from a tongue gone dry. “I killed you before.”

Aryuk halted a short way off. Moonlight welled in the eyes that Red Wolf had plucked out and crushed. He spoke in Wanayimo, of which he knew just a few words when he was alive. The voice was high, a ghastly echo underneath it. “You cannot kill a dead man.”

“It was, was far from here,” Red Wolf stammered. “I bound your ghost down with spells.”

“They were not strong enough. No spells will ever be strong enough.”

Through the haze of terror, Red Wolf saw that those feet had left tracks behind them like a living man’s. That made it the more dreadful. He would have shrieked and run the same as his comrades, but clung to the knowledge that he could surely not outspeed this, and having it at his back would be worse than he dared think about.

“Here I stand,” he gasped. “Do what you will.”

“What I would do is forever.”

I am not asleep. My spirit cannot escape into wakefulness. I can never escape.

“The ghosts of this land are full of winter anger,” rang Aryuk’s unearthly voice. “They stir in the earth. They walk in the wind. Go before they come after you. Leave their country, you and your people. Go.”

Even then, Red Wolf thought of Little Willow, their children, the tribe. “We cannot,” he pleaded. “We would die.”

“We will abide you until the snow melts, when you can again live in tents,” Aryuk said. “Until then, be afraid. Leave our living ones alone. In spring depart and never come back. I have fared a long, chill way to tell you this. I will not tell you twice. Go, as I now go.”

He turned and went off the way he had come. Red Wolf went on his belly in the snow. Thus he did not see Aryuk step behind the rock; but he heard the unnatural noise of his passing from the world of men.

XII

The moon was down. The sun was still remote. Stars and Spirit Trail cast a wan glow across whitened earth. In the village, folk slept.

Answerer the shaman woke when someone pulled his windbreak aside. At first he felt puzzlement, vexation, and mostly how his old bones ached. He crawled from beneath the skins and crouched by the hearth. It held ashes. Somebody brought him fresh fire each morning. “Who are you?” he asked the blackness that stood in the doorway athwart the stars. “What do you need?” A sudden illness, an onset of childbirth, a nightmare—

The newcomer entered and spoke. The sound was none that Answerer had ever heard before in life, dream, or vision. “You know me. Behold.”

Light glared, icily brilliant, like the light that Tall Man and Sun Hair could make shine from a stick. It streamed upward across a great beard, to gully the face above with shadows. Answerer screamed.

“Your men could kill me,” said Aryuk. “They could not bind me. I have come back to tell you that you must go.”

Answerer snatched after his wits and found the graven bone that lay always beside him. He pointed it. “No, you begone, ya eya eya illa ya-a!” Tight as his throat was, he could barely force the chant out.

Aryuk interrupted it. “Too long have your folk preyed on mine. Our blood on the land troubles the spirits beneath. Go, all Cloud People, go. Tell them this, shaman, or else come away with me.”

“Whence rise you?” whimpered Answerer.

“Would you know? I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would rip your soul, freeze your blood, make your two eyes break free like shooting stars, your hair unbraid and stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But instead, I go now. If you remain, Cloud People, I shall return. Remember me.”

The light snapped off. Once more the doorway was darkened, then the stars shone unmercifully through.

Answerer’s shrieks roused families nearby. Two or three men spied him who walked from them. They told themselves they should not pursue but rather see what help their shaman needed. They found him moaning and mumbling. Later he said that a dire vision had sought him. After sunrise, Broken Blade mustered courage to track the stranger. Some distance from the village, footprints ended. The snow was tumbled there. It was as if something had swooped down from the Spirit Trail.

XIII

Far off southeastward, beyond the ice and the open sea, the sky began to lighten. Stars yonder paled. One by one, they went out. Overhead, north, and west, night lingered. Above snow, whitenesses swirled off the hot springs. Nothing broke the silence but an undertone of waves.

A man-shape arrived at Ulungu’s kinstead. He moved heavily. When he stopped among the dwellings he stood bent-shouldered. His call rustled faint. “Tseshu, Tseshu.”

They stirred within. Men peeked past windbreaks. What they saw flung them back at the bodies crowded behind. “Aryuk, dead Aryuk!”

“Tseshu,” It begged, “this is only Aryuk, your man. I have only come to bid you farewell.”

“Wait here,” said his woman in the fear-stinking darkness. “I will go to him.”

“No, that is death.” Ulungu fumbled to hold her.

She fended him off. “He wants me,” she said, and crawled out. Rising, she stood before the cloaked form. “Here I am,” she told It.

“Do not be afraid,” said Aryuk—how gently, how wearily. “I bring no harm.”

The woman stared at him in wonderment. “You are dead,” she whispered. “They killed you. We heard. Men of theirs went among Us, along the whole shore, and gave Us that news.”

“Yes. That is how Wan—that is how I learned where you are.”

“They said the Red Wolf killed you for what you did and We should all beware.”

Aryuk nodded. “Yes, I died.”

Care trembled in her voice. “You are thin. You are tired.”

“It was a long journey,” he sighed.

She reached for him. “Your poor arm—”

He smiled a little. “Soon I shall rest. It will be good to lie down.”

“Why have you come back?”

“I am not yet dead.”

“You said you are.”

“Yes. I died a moon or more ago, beneath the Ghost Birds.”

“How is this?” she asked, bewildered.

“I do not understand. What I know, I may not tell you. But when I begged leave, I was given my wish, that I could come see you this last time.”

“Aryuk, Aryuk.” She went to him and laid her head against his beard and mane. He brought his usable arm around her.

“You shiver, Tseshu,” he said. “It is cold and you have nothing on. Get back inside where it is warm. I must go now.”

“Take me with you, Aryuk,” she faltered through tears. “We were so long together.”

“I may not do that,” he answered. “Stay. Care for the young ones, for everyone of Us. Go home to our river. You will have peace. The Mammoth Slayers will trouble you no more. In spring when the snow melts, they will go away.”

She raised her face. “This … is … a great thing.”

“It is what I give you and Us.” He looked past her to the dying stars. “I am glad.”

She clung to him and wept.

“Do not cry,” he pleaded. “Let me remember you glad.”

Light strengthened. “I must leave,” he said. “Let me go, let me go.” He had to draw her arms from him before he could depart. She stood gazing after him till he had limped out of sight.

XIV

Tamberly brought her hopper across space-time and down through the snowfall to earth. She dismounted. Aryuk, who had held onto her waist on this as on other quick flights, left the rear saddle. For a span they were mute amidst the flakes and the gray morning.

“Is it done?” he asked finally.

She nodded. Her neck felt stiff. “It is done. As well as I was able.”

“That is good.” His right hand fumbled about his person. “Here, I give you back your treasures.” Piece by piece he returned them—flashlight; audiovisual pickup by which she had seen and heard what he did, earplug receiver through which she instructed him, speaker that enabled her to talk Wanayimo for him, with lowered voice frequency and some spooky feedback resonance at the transmission end. She dropped them in the carrier.

“What shall I do next?” Aryuk inquired.

“Wait. If … if only I could wait with you!”

He considered. “You are kind, but I think I would rather be alone. I have remembering to do.”

“Yes.”

“Also,” he went on earnestly, “if I may, I would rather walk than sit still. Your magic gave me some haleness back. It is ebbing, but I would like to use it.”

Feel yourself alive while you can. “Yes, do as you wish. Walk onward until—oh, Aryuk!” He stood there so patiently. Already the snow had whitened his head.

“Do not cry,” he said, troubled. “You who command life and death should never feel weak or sad.”

She covered her eyes. “I can’t help it.”

“But I am glad.” He laughed. “This is good, what I can do for Us. You helped me. Be glad of that. I am. Let me remember you glad.”

She kissed him and smiled, smiled, as she remounted her timecycle.

XV

Wind brawled. The dome shuddered. Tamberly blinked into it, got off the vehicle, turned on lights against the gloom.

After a few minutes she heard: “Let me in!”

She hung up her outer garments. “Come on,” she replied.

Corwin stalked through. The wind caught at the entry fabric. He had a moment’s fight to reseal. Tamberly posed herself at the table. She felt frozenly calm.

He opened his parka as if he disemboweled an enemy and turned about. His mouth was stretched wide and tight. “So you’re back at last,” he rasped.

“Well, that’s what I thought,” she said.

“None of your insolence.”

“Sorry. None intended.” Her gesture at the chair was as indifferent as her tone. “Won’t you sit down? I’ll make tea.”

“No! Why have you been gone all these days?”

“Busy. In the field.” I needed the terrible innocence of the Ice Age and its beasts. “Wanted to make sure I’d complete the essentials of my research, what with the season drawing to a close.”

He quivered. “And what with you due for cashiering—mind block, or even the exile planet—”

She lifted a hand. “Whoa. That’s a matter for higher authority than yours, my friend.”

“Friend? After you betrayed—ruined—Did you imagine I wouldn’t know what had to be behind those … apparitions? What your purpose was—to destroy my work—”

The blond head shook. “Why, no. You can continue with the Wanayimo if you see fit, as long as you want to. And then there are plenty of later generations waiting.”

“Causal vortex—endangerment—”

“Please. You told me yourself, the Cloud People will push on come spring. It is written. The moving Finger,’ you know. I simply gave it a little boost. And that was written too, wasn’t: it?”

“No! You dared—you played God.” His forefinger jabbed toward her like a spear. “That’s why you didn’t return here to the moment after you left on your insane jaunt. You hadn’t the nerve to face me.”

“I knew I’d have to do that. But I figured it’d be smart if the natives didn’t see me for a while. They’d have plenty else on their minds. I hope you kept well in the background.”

“Perforce. The harm you did was irreparable. I wasn’t about to make it worse.”

“When the fact is that they did decide to leave these parts.”

“Because you—”

“Something had to cause it, right? Oh, I know the rules. I’ve jumped uptime, entered a report, been summoned for a hearing. Tomorrow I’ll pack up.” And say goodbye to the land and, yes, the Cloud People, Red Wolf. Wish him well.

“I’ll be at that session,” Corwin vowed. “I’ll take pleasure in bringing the charges.”

“Not your department, I think.”

He gaped at her. “You’ve changed,” he mumbled. “You were … a promising girl. Now you’re a cold, scheming bitch.”

“If you’ve expressed your opinion, goodnight, Dr. Corwin.”

His visage contorted. His open hand cracked upon her cheek.

She staggered, caught her footing, blinked from the pain, but was able to speak quietly. “I said, ‘Goodnight, Dr. Corwin.’”

He made a noise, wheeled, groped at the entry fastener, got the dome open, and stumbled from her.

I guess I have changed, she thought. Grown some. Or so I hope. They’ll decide at the … court-martial… the hearing. Maybe they’ll break me. Maybe that’s the right thing for them to do. All I know is that I did what I must, and be damned if I’m sorry.

The wind blew harder. A few snowflakes flew upon it, outriders of winter’s last great blizzard.