Product Description
Ravaged by tribal fighting, cursed by their enemies, abandoned by their sacred spirits, the People wander, hungry and desperate, across a frozen and forbidding land. The leader who guided them, the vision that inspired them, the magic that moved them--all have vanished from their midst. Far away, across a sea of ice, alone and desolate, the young shaman Cha-kwena must make a fateful choice. While he yearns to return to his loved ones, he is sworn to protect the sacred herd of mammoth, the last of their kind. The path he now takes will determine the future of his race: whether they will perish in savage conflict or flourish in a new age of bounty and hope.
Ingram
Torn apart by tribal fighting and abandoned by their sacred spirits, a band of prehistoric North Americans called the People put their hope in a young shaman who holds the key to the future of his race.
About the Author
Joan Hamilton Cline is the real name of William Sarabande, author of the internationally bestselling First Americans series. She was born in Hollywood, California, and started writing when she was seventeen. First published in 1979, Joan has been writing as William Sarabande for eleven years. She lives with her husband in Fawnskin, California.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PROLOGUE
"So she sang,
'A young man would be wise.
A young man would be brave.
He left the place he knew.
He came to death's valley . . .
He broke the living stone . . .
He slew my friend the bear . . .'
"And Iya said, "Ho, sing what you will. It is your death song and it is music that will make my heart glad.'"
--Bad Wound (Taopi-sica)
Lakota Myth by James R. Walker
"Shaman!"
The spirit of the wind called from the black depths of the Ice Age night. It moaned across the storm-savaged highlands, keening in the way of a wild beast mourning a lost mate until, at last, the sleeping boy's eyes opened in cold darkness.
Warakan's heart was pounding, and his thoughts ran as wild as the wind. It has returned to the forest, the thing that cries in the winter dark! The sad-voiced spirit that clothes itself in the invisible skin of North Wind as it haunts the abandoned village of the dead to which Jhadel has forbidden me to return!
Knuckling the residue of dreams from his eyes, the boy remained flat on his back upon the jumble of dried ferns, feathers, and strips of crudely cured animal skins that served as his mattress. He held his breath and listened, trying not to be afraid as he remembered, All that is bad comes from the north . . . all that is dark and cold . . . all that has to do with death and danger.
Beside him lay the sleeping old shaman and the orphaned cub of the tawny she-bear whose thick, shaggy pelt now clothed his own thin, furless hide. Beyond the vaulted confines of their hide-covered, sapling-braced lodge of bark and brushwood, North Wind was no longer moaning; it was howling through the forest like a gut-wounded dire wolf.
The lodge creaked, straining against its hardwood anchor pegs, then trembled violently. Warakan trembled, too, but although he was wary of the rising wind, he did not fear the storm that spawned it. His shelter had endured worse weather since White Giant Winter had come down upon the world. The size of the lodge was nothing to boast of, but its location on a bench of broken woodland beneath an overhanging streamside bluff would grant protection from the full fury of the storm. He and Jhadel had dug the broad, circular foundation of the lodge knee-deep into the skin of the earth, surrounding it with bark and brushwood to prevent the intrusion of all but the most tenacious drafts of cold air; even these were baffled by a ring of heavy stones that held the bottom edges of the lodge covers in place. Now, snug as a wood rat in his winter den, Warakan was confident that his shelter would survive this latest onslaught of weather; but he was less sure of other things, or more elusive things potentially far more dangerous. Of these intangibles he was afraid.
He lay motionless in the dark, breathing softly as he listened for the spirit to call again. Moments passed. Outside, North Wind continued its rampage through the trees, but if it spoke in the language of men, the boy could not understand its words. He closed his eyes, as though by depriving himself of one sense he might sharpen another, and gradually he became aware of other sounds: the soft rubbings of thong against wood; a loose section of hide flapping near the apex of the roof; the erratic snortings of the dreaming old shaman, Jhadel, sloppily sucking air through broad, camel-like nostrils; and the low, whistling snores of the yearling bear as it slept its winter sleep in a grass nest well away from the central fire pit, where the heart-ember of sacred Fire smoldered in a mound of ash lest it grow cold and lifeless before dawn.
The boy shivered, not against cold but against frustration. The latest snowstorm had kept him lodge-bound with Jhadel for more than three days and four nights. Not wanting to worry the old man, Warakan had not told him that the only reason they had meat in their boiling bag, fat for their tallow lamp, and kindling for their fire was because he had recently begun to replenish their supplies of dried meat, burnable twigs, grass, and fat from the many carefully placed hunting caches they had assembled at the beginning of winter. The boy's frown became a scowl as he wondered if the old man knew anyway; there was little in the way of secrets that a youth who had not yet seen the end of his tenth winter could keep from a shaman of Jhadel's years, even if the youth was Warakan, grandson of the war chief Shateh and son of the fabled Mystic Warrior, Masau.
They are both dead, and you are here beyond the edge of the world, cast out from among the People with only an old man and a bear to care whether you live or die. So much for the powers of Jhadel!
A sigh of bitter acquiescence to this unwelcome truth brought the scent of the lodge into Warakan's nostrils. It was an appalling invasion. The rancid stink of soiled bed furs and clothing, of charred wood and dung and bones, and of moldering hides mingled with the smell of the unwashed old shaman and the young bear.
Too long has White Giant Winter kept us in this lodge! Will Warm Moon never rise again? Will the forces of Creation never send the sweet breath of South Wind to speak to us of spring?
As though in answer to the boy's unspoken questions, the wind rose again to slap at the exterior thong-lacings of the lodge, and suddenly Warakan's head went up in the darkness. He opened his eyes. His heart was pounding. It was there again--not the voice of the wind, but something crying in the wind, a distant unarticulated sound of such unspeakable sadness that the boy yearned to howl back in sympathy . . . and in fear.
What is it? Why does it cry? And if Jhadel is truly a shaman, why does he not hear the spirit summoning him on the wind?
Stung by his suspicions he dared not ignore, Warakan sat up. The old dread was back in his gut. The voice of the spirit was already fading. He strained to hear it, but movement had roused a sharp, all-too-familiar pain in his battered rib cage, and he found it difficult to concentrate. Hissing through clenched teeth, he reproached himself for his weakness.
Someday I will be a warrior! Warakan reminded himself sharply as he glared into the blinding-black interior. Someday, no matter what Old One says, I will leave the dark deeps of this winter-cursed forest into which he and I have been forced to flee from our enemies. Someday I will turn my back to the rising sun and strike out for the stronghold of those who have beaten me and scarred my face. I will return their "gift" of pain. And I will bring to them a gift of my own. Strong in the power of the sacred stone talisman of the Ancient Ones I will bring it. With my face and body painted with the blood of Life Giver, the white mammoth that is totem of the People, I will bring it. Wearing the skin of Yellow Wolf, the Red World shaman who turned the hearts of all but Jhadel against me and made my grandfather name me Outcast, I will bring it. I will bring Death to all who are responsible for the slaughter of my father, grandfather, and sister!
"Someday . . ." The whispered exhalation flowed from Warakan's mouth like blood from a wound. He pressed his lips together, deliberately stressing the newly healed gash that ran from his upper lip into the right nostril of his broken nose. This time when pain flared, the boy welcomed it and named it Teacher. In a world of warring tribes in which few boys lived to be men, he knew he must learn from pain the most important lesson of a future warrior--how to command his body to submit to the will of his mind.
Gritting his teeth against the hurt in his sides, he reached forward and fumbled for his winter foot gear. He could see nothing in the darkness, but he could hear great tides of air surging and shifting restlessly beyond the lodge as he realized the voice that wept in the wind was silent now. Frustration pricked him. Soon the storm would be over. Over North Wind went its way, only the forces of Creation could say how long it would be before the spirit called to him again, if ever. And if, as he feared, its cries warned of approaching danger, he might be too late to take heed.
Be it a spirit of the wind or, as Jhadel claims, only a wounded wolf or lion or fang-toothed leaping cat, if a boy can snare it, this Warakan will do even though the Old One has forbidden it! I will go into the night. I will extend our traplines. And if I catch it, be it beast or spirit, then will I know if I am right to fear it!
Finger-fishing for thong laces, he located them, pulled the attached moccasins onto his lap, and reached forward again; this time his hands hunted the two long, thin, feather-stuffed buckskin liners that he would wrap around his feet and calves before pulling on the heavy, trisoled, knee-high moccasins Jhadel had fashioned for him from two thicknesses of smoked elk hide. Moments later, the insulating liners were in his hands and his feet were wrapped. He put the moccasins on, cross-lacing the thongs to prevent trespass by the carnivorous, toe-eating frost spirits he would surely encounter on his forbidden journey across the frozen land.
As silently as Night Hawk winging across the face of Moon I must go, he cautioned himself. For if I wake Little Bear Brother, the cub will follow to ruin the hunt as he so often does, and if I wake Jhadel, he will never let me go. But if I do not, and the spirit is crying in the wind to warn us of . . .
Unnerved, Warakan cut off the query before a full mental image of his fear took form. On a night like this, he had no way of knowing what invisible forces from the world beyond this one lurked in the dark, waiting to carry the careless words and thoughts of a fearful boy upon the wind to the forces of Creation.
Warakan attempted to swallow his rising apprehension as, slowly, making considerable effort to move without rustling the bedding, he stood erect. His cautiousness saved him from bumping the top of his head when it came into contact with one of the framing posts. In a burst of happy enthus...
"So she sang,
'A young man would be wise.
A young man would be brave.
He left the place he knew.
He came to death's valley . . .
He broke the living stone . . .
He slew my friend the bear . . .'
"And Iya said, "Ho, sing what you will. It is your death song and it is music that will make my heart glad.'"
--Bad Wound (Taopi-sica)
Lakota Myth by James R. Walker
"Shaman!"
The spirit of the wind called from the black depths of the Ice Age night. It moaned across the storm-savaged highlands, keening in the way of a wild beast mourning a lost mate until, at last, the sleeping boy's eyes opened in cold darkness.
Warakan's heart was pounding, and his thoughts ran as wild as the wind. It has returned to the forest, the thing that cries in the winter dark! The sad-voiced spirit that clothes itself in the invisible skin of North Wind as it haunts the abandoned village of the dead to which Jhadel has forbidden me to return!
Knuckling the residue of dreams from his eyes, the boy remained flat on his back upon the jumble of dried ferns, feathers, and strips of crudely cured animal skins that served as his mattress. He held his breath and listened, trying not to be afraid as he remembered, All that is bad comes from the north . . . all that is dark and cold . . . all that has to do with death and danger.
Beside him lay the sleeping old shaman and the orphaned cub of the tawny she-bear whose thick, shaggy pelt now clothed his own thin, furless hide. Beyond the vaulted confines of their hide-covered, sapling-braced lodge of bark and brushwood, North Wind was no longer moaning; it was howling through the forest like a gut-wounded dire wolf.
The lodge creaked, straining against its hardwood anchor pegs, then trembled violently. Warakan trembled, too, but although he was wary of the rising wind, he did not fear the storm that spawned it. His shelter had endured worse weather since White Giant Winter had come down upon the world. The size of the lodge was nothing to boast of, but its location on a bench of broken woodland beneath an overhanging streamside bluff would grant protection from the full fury of the storm. He and Jhadel had dug the broad, circular foundation of the lodge knee-deep into the skin of the earth, surrounding it with bark and brushwood to prevent the intrusion of all but the most tenacious drafts of cold air; even these were baffled by a ring of heavy stones that held the bottom edges of the lodge covers in place. Now, snug as a wood rat in his winter den, Warakan was confident that his shelter would survive this latest onslaught of weather; but he was less sure of other things, or more elusive things potentially far more dangerous. Of these intangibles he was afraid.
He lay motionless in the dark, breathing softly as he listened for the spirit to call again. Moments passed. Outside, North Wind continued its rampage through the trees, but if it spoke in the language of men, the boy could not understand its words. He closed his eyes, as though by depriving himself of one sense he might sharpen another, and gradually he became aware of other sounds: the soft rubbings of thong against wood; a loose section of hide flapping near the apex of the roof; the erratic snortings of the dreaming old shaman, Jhadel, sloppily sucking air through broad, camel-like nostrils; and the low, whistling snores of the yearling bear as it slept its winter sleep in a grass nest well away from the central fire pit, where the heart-ember of sacred Fire smoldered in a mound of ash lest it grow cold and lifeless before dawn.
The boy shivered, not against cold but against frustration. The latest snowstorm had kept him lodge-bound with Jhadel for more than three days and four nights. Not wanting to worry the old man, Warakan had not told him that the only reason they had meat in their boiling bag, fat for their tallow lamp, and kindling for their fire was because he had recently begun to replenish their supplies of dried meat, burnable twigs, grass, and fat from the many carefully placed hunting caches they had assembled at the beginning of winter. The boy's frown became a scowl as he wondered if the old man knew anyway; there was little in the way of secrets that a youth who had not yet seen the end of his tenth winter could keep from a shaman of Jhadel's years, even if the youth was Warakan, grandson of the war chief Shateh and son of the fabled Mystic Warrior, Masau.
They are both dead, and you are here beyond the edge of the world, cast out from among the People with only an old man and a bear to care whether you live or die. So much for the powers of Jhadel!
A sigh of bitter acquiescence to this unwelcome truth brought the scent of the lodge into Warakan's nostrils. It was an appalling invasion. The rancid stink of soiled bed furs and clothing, of charred wood and dung and bones, and of moldering hides mingled with the smell of the unwashed old shaman and the young bear.
Too long has White Giant Winter kept us in this lodge! Will Warm Moon never rise again? Will the forces of Creation never send the sweet breath of South Wind to speak to us of spring?
As though in answer to the boy's unspoken questions, the wind rose again to slap at the exterior thong-lacings of the lodge, and suddenly Warakan's head went up in the darkness. He opened his eyes. His heart was pounding. It was there again--not the voice of the wind, but something crying in the wind, a distant unarticulated sound of such unspeakable sadness that the boy yearned to howl back in sympathy . . . and in fear.
What is it? Why does it cry? And if Jhadel is truly a shaman, why does he not hear the spirit summoning him on the wind?
Stung by his suspicions he dared not ignore, Warakan sat up. The old dread was back in his gut. The voice of the spirit was already fading. He strained to hear it, but movement had roused a sharp, all-too-familiar pain in his battered rib cage, and he found it difficult to concentrate. Hissing through clenched teeth, he reproached himself for his weakness.
Someday I will be a warrior! Warakan reminded himself sharply as he glared into the blinding-black interior. Someday, no matter what Old One says, I will leave the dark deeps of this winter-cursed forest into which he and I have been forced to flee from our enemies. Someday I will turn my back to the rising sun and strike out for the stronghold of those who have beaten me and scarred my face. I will return their "gift" of pain. And I will bring to them a gift of my own. Strong in the power of the sacred stone talisman of the Ancient Ones I will bring it. With my face and body painted with the blood of Life Giver, the white mammoth that is totem of the People, I will bring it. Wearing the skin of Yellow Wolf, the Red World shaman who turned the hearts of all but Jhadel against me and made my grandfather name me Outcast, I will bring it. I will bring Death to all who are responsible for the slaughter of my father, grandfather, and sister!
"Someday . . ." The whispered exhalation flowed from Warakan's mouth like blood from a wound. He pressed his lips together, deliberately stressing the newly healed gash that ran from his upper lip into the right nostril of his broken nose. This time when pain flared, the boy welcomed it and named it Teacher. In a world of warring tribes in which few boys lived to be men, he knew he must learn from pain the most important lesson of a future warrior--how to command his body to submit to the will of his mind.
Gritting his teeth against the hurt in his sides, he reached forward and fumbled for his winter foot gear. He could see nothing in the darkness, but he could hear great tides of air surging and shifting restlessly beyond the lodge as he realized the voice that wept in the wind was silent now. Frustration pricked him. Soon the storm would be over. Over North Wind went its way, only the forces of Creation could say how long it would be before the spirit called to him again, if ever. And if, as he feared, its cries warned of approaching danger, he might be too late to take heed.
Be it a spirit of the wind or, as Jhadel claims, only a wounded wolf or lion or fang-toothed leaping cat, if a boy can snare it, this Warakan will do even though the Old One has forbidden it! I will go into the night. I will extend our traplines. And if I catch it, be it beast or spirit, then will I know if I am right to fear it!
Finger-fishing for thong laces, he located them, pulled the attached moccasins onto his lap, and reached forward again; this time his hands hunted the two long, thin, feather-stuffed buckskin liners that he would wrap around his feet and calves before pulling on the heavy, trisoled, knee-high moccasins Jhadel had fashioned for him from two thicknesses of smoked elk hide. Moments later, the insulating liners were in his hands and his feet were wrapped. He put the moccasins on, cross-lacing the thongs to prevent trespass by the carnivorous, toe-eating frost spirits he would surely encounter on his forbidden journey across the frozen land.
As silently as Night Hawk winging across the face of Moon I must go, he cautioned himself. For if I wake Little Bear Brother, the cub will follow to ruin the hunt as he so often does, and if I wake Jhadel, he will never let me go. But if I do not, and the spirit is crying in the wind to warn us of . . .
Unnerved, Warakan cut off the query before a full mental image of his fear took form. On a night like this, he had no way of knowing what invisible forces from the world beyond this one lurked in the dark, waiting to carry the careless words and thoughts of a fearful boy upon the wind to the forces of Creation.
Warakan attempted to swallow his rising apprehension as, slowly, making considerable effort to move without rustling the bedding, he stood erect. His cautiousness saved him from bumping the top of his head when it came into contact with one of the framing posts. In a burst of happy enthus...
