Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern

Chapter 18: A Vast Blue Cavern: Maia

 Maia sat in her egla, listening to the storm rage around the traveling camp. Four winters had passed since Hakua had become chief of the Liathua Khell, and they had been mild, almost not worthy of the long trek to the mountains. This winter had seemed until now as if it would be as gentle as the others. Maia had not seen this harsh spring storm in the bones, and she had supported Hakua's decision to start for Pebble Beach early. Two days out, they were surprised by a fiercer storm than Maia had ever known. A traveling camp was erected hastily, but even so five hunters and two boareal were lost to the ice, separated from the tribe by blinding, howling snows.

 Hakua and the warriors had blown the horns nearly nonstop, hoping to guide the hunters back in, but to no avail. Maia overheard whispers about her abilities fading. She was only twenty-five winters old, young for a healer, and she had been Healer for nearly ten winters. Over-use of the bones, gossiping mothers said, as if they knew anything about it. Maia ignored them. The bones did not always predict the weather, even storms that killed five members of the tribe, she told Hakua. She did not tell him that she too had been lulled by the mild winters, and hadn’t cast the bones since they left Pebble Beach in autumn. She took her pouch out now, stoking the embers of the fire. With luck, she would learn if any more people would be lost in these storms before they reached the coast. Or if the tribe should turn back, and huddle longer at the base of the mountains.

 Ten grandfathers and grandmothers shared her egla, and they all leaned in when she spread the little grass mat and flung the urchin spine powder into the flames. The tribe had been pressed to set up the egla quickly and were not able to build a full camp, so all the dwellings were as crowded as hers. She had ordered that the elderly be placed with her so they would be near, if they needed tending, and because they seemed to be immune to the effects of urchin.

 Maia breathed in the pungent smoke, then flung the bones out over the mat as she had done many times. They scattered in a pattern she had never seen. All bones but two fell off the edge of the mat, scattering on the icy floor. Two bones, one brown with age, the other nearly white, stood on end on the center of the mat, like two people standing on the ice. They were close, but did not touch.

 “Time flying closer like a Dhuciri bird. Come, they come, to rescue us all from the coming darkness. The hide is torn and they come. Cold, cold coming to rescue us. He burns like fire. He burns me. He burns—” Maia shrieked. Dhuciri were coming toward her from the walls of the egla. Dark figures, draped in feathers, turning the grandfathers and grandmothers to dust. “Crossbones,” she whimpered. “Rescue us.”

 The figures stopped mid-motion. She squeezed her eyes shut, but could not shut them out. They hovered on her eyelids, dark red. “Come, rescue me.” She heard Hakua's horn in the distance, saw the storm swirling around the egla. She crawled out of the entrance. The storm tore at her furs but did not touch her skin. Her eyes were still closed, and the Dhuciri followed her through the walls of the egla, into the storm.

 She walked toward the beaches, away from the mountains. The broad white peaks faded behind her until she stood in the middle of the icy plain. The storm continued to rage around her, driving shards of ice into her skin, sending her to her knees on the snow again and again. Again she struggled to her feet and trekked on. At last she saw a great dome, a giant egla, its edges smooth, no seams where blocks of ice come together. A fire burned within. It let off neither smoke nor flame. She reached inside the walls and took the fire inside her.

 “The fire will rescue us,” Maia whispered. The child of ice sat inside the dome, full of power, drunk on it. She swelled bigger than the dome itself. The dome shattered and the fire went out. “No. They must survive. They must rescue us.”

 When Maia awoke, the storm had abated and Hakua was striking camp. A grandmother fed her a replenishing broth while her egla was deconstructed around her. She rose shakily and went immediately to Hakua. He was strapping his mate's heavy boxes of shells onto their pack boareal. “We must make for the beach,” Maia said without greeting. “There will be another storm, greater than this one. But we must travel swiftly over the ice, blowing the horns all the way. There are survivors between us and the beach.”

 “Some of the five?” Hope glistened in Hakua's wind-watery eyes. His hood was pushed back and he struggled with the ropes as the boareal shifted. Maia went to the beast's neck and stroked it soothingly.

 “I don't think so. Someone from another tribe, perhaps. But we must rescue them. I have seen this in the bones.”

 “But the storm that is coming. Will we lose even more people? It's no good finding survivors to take for the tithing if we lose our people in the process.” He grunted as he yanked on the ropes, testing the load. Maia stepped closer.

 “I know it sounds odd. But you must trust me. Trust the bones.” She did not tell him that they must not give these survivors in the tithe. There would be time enough for that argument later.

 “Hakua . . !” His mate was calling. Maia grinned. He had stolen her from another tribe last summer, and she kept him on his toes. She was an expensive trophy, beautiful but demanding.

 “Very well. Kaliri has been at me to get down to the beach early. She wants to get the best shells before the other tribes arrive. We will head beach-ward, not turn tail like frightened doal and run for the mountains.”

 Maia breathed a sigh of relief, and wasted no time mounting her own boareal and urging it forward. As the camp pulled out, spreading into a long line of doal sleds, boareal and walkers moving across the ice, Hakua's horn began to blow long, clear notes into the deceptively mild spring day.