To the one on her right, She-Who-Plants said: You are Shapostim Mayah. You sing the world into movement and change, it is your duty to see that the winds blow when it is time and water flows. Go now about the world and sing without ceasing to wind and water and all things that change.
Shapostim Mayah left her and traveled through the world and through it again, singing into movement all things that by nature moved. From pole to pole Pitamaskai resonated to his song, wind and water moved and sang the Greatness of Oppalatin the Creator.
Then Ni-tahwaikis moved about-Pitamaskai, creating trees and bushes, plants and flowers, all kinds of seed-bearers and nut-bearers to clothe the earth, giving to each from the Breath of Oppalatin. In the same manner she created all kinds of birds and animals-molding them out of earth and spittle, covering them with the Blanket of Oppalatin, singing the Song of Creation over them and sharing with them the Breath of Oppalatin.
Kotakin went to Oppalatin and said: Behold, Pitamaskai lives.
Oppalatin saw how beautiful it was, the land, the plants, the birds and animals, and he was pleased. He heard the quick bright song of Shapostim Mayah, the slow dark song of Tahnokipo Waposh and he was pleased. He saw the Woman Ni-tahwaikis laid on her face before him, worshiping him, and he was pleased.-He said: It is good. It is very good.
Oppalatin said: It is time, Kotakin. Lie with the Woman and make children with her that they may grow and tend the world and be Companions for You and Worship Me.
Kotakin went unto the woman and put his seed in her.
On the first day, the day called Payatanwahash or the day of the earth, she bore Nataminaho the Hunter. He dropped from her womb fully formed. When she put him to her breast to suckle him, his teeth tore her flesh and she cast him away, crying out in pain.
He landed in soft warm mud and crawled beneath a shakan bush and slept for two days.
When he woke, he was hungry. He-called out for Ni-tahwaikis, but she was not there. He stamped the earth in his anger and Tahnokipo Waposh cried out: Who is moving what should not be moved?
Nataminaho stopped stamping. He considered himself. Standing without moving for a day and a night, he brooded over who it was that stamped.
Hare came hopping past. Nataminaho smelled the blood in him and remembered his hunger. He seized a stone and killed Hare and ate him. When the bones were bare he looked at them. He looked at the stone. He cried out: I am Nataminaho the Hunter.
On the fifth day, the day called Niyotansahash or day of the winds, Ni-tahvvaikis bore Opalekis-Mimo the Holy Dancer. He dropped from her womb eyeless and unformed. She lifted him and tried to make him suck, but he had no mouth. He wriggled against her and wept with his body from a hunger he could neither endure nor end. Day melted into night and night into day and still he wept and still his voiceless hunger grew. Ni-tahwaikis laid him on the Sacred Blanket, but he wriggled off. She wrapped the Blanket about and about him and rocked him in her arms and called out to Oppalatin to give him ease.
Kotakin came to her. In his left hand he had white clay, in his right hand he had black ash.
Ni-tahwaikis took the Blanket from Opalekis-Mimo and held him still upon the earth.
Kotakin smoothed white clay over the blindworm baby, covering him from end to end. With the black ash he drew broad bands around Opalekis-Nino so he was striped black and white. Where his face should be, he drew eyes and a nose, a mouth and ears. He drew arms and legs, fingers and toes.
Ni-tahwaikis spread the Blanket over Opalekis-Mimo and sang the Creation Song. When she took the Blanket away again, Opalekis-Mimo jumped to his feet and went dancing and dancing and dancing until the wind shook with his dancing. Shapostim Mayah cried out: My winds are shaking out of their courses. Who is shaking my winds?
Opalekis-Mimo stopped dancing. He considered himself. He looked at his feet and his hands, he touched his mouth and his eyes. He flung out his arms and laughed. I am Opalekis-Mimo and I dance. After that he went back to Ni-tahwaikis and suckled like any ordinary baby.
On the thirteenth day, the day called Milawehtansahash or day of blessings and coming together, Nitahwaikis bore Nikamo-Oskinin. The girl baby dropped from the womb small and neat and fully formed. When she touched the earth, she tore up fistfuls of it and ate it like it was porridge and when she could eat no more, she sang and sang and sang. Her song resonated with the earth and the earth sang in her, her song raptured the winds and they came from the Four Directions to spin about her and sing their descants with her.
Tahnokipo Waposh cried: Who shakes the stones and the earth, who makes the mountains dance when they should be still and seemly?
Shapostim Mayah cried: Who tears my winds from their proper courses and sings them dizzy…
Asteplikota stopped talking when Rohant came in, carrying a bloody piece of hide with a lump of meat wrapped in it, the cats following him looking sleepy and content. Sassa swept down and landed in the doorway with a small rodent in one talon; he shivered his feathers, settled his wings, and began tearing at his catch. Rohant sneezed, sputtered, dropped his burden by the fire, and began unwrapping the hide; over his shoulder he growled, "Flits going past like swarming blackflies. Why it took so long to get back, we had to duck for cover every second step."
Asteplikota rubbed at the tip of his nose. "Swarming?"
"Looks like someone wants us a lot:" Rohant began cutting the meat into small chunks and threading them on pointed sticks, leaning the sticks against Kikun's stones when he finished loading them. "How come they know it's us? Or do they?"
"Oh, yes. How? Kwantawiyal. All he had to do was get into a treelodge and make a conical Once he finished describing you, whoever he called would be as hungry for you as your cats were a couple hours ago for anything with blood in it."
"Mm." Rohant finished with the meat, began scooping coals into the cee and feeding more wood to the fire, broken pieces too dry to smoke. "What kind of detection equipment do your kanaweh use?" He laid the sticks across the coals, scooped water from the tin and washed the blood off his hands. "Bodyheat? Motionsensors? Visuals? A combination of some or all of those? We need to know." He wiped his hands on his trousers, straightened up.
Asteplikota scraped his hand across the dirt beside his thigh, frowning. "Depends on what they've been able to buy from offworld traders and that's classified information. There isn't much leaks out of the Kasta-that's Security Headquarters. Last month I heard they hung some poor sotch for talking out of turn. We try, but it's rind squeezings and sludge, nothing worth trusting to."
Kikun dug into his pouch, brought out collapsed cups, memorplas compressed into a dense rod. He broke off a section, twisted it open, dipped the cup into the infusion and carried it across to Shadith.
She looked at the murky liquid, looked up at him. "Just what is this supposed to be?"
"Good for you. Energy. You'll need it. We moving. Tastes all right, you'll see."
"I was still a babe when I learned what good-for-you meant." She grinned at him. "Oh all right, medicine works best when it tastes bad, give it here." She sipped at the warm drink, grimaced, it was about as foul as she'd expected, but it slithered down her throat and warmed her and swept away the clinging fatigue that weighed her down, mind and body. The meat was bub bling and charring, sending out smells to tempt the dreaming Oppalatin and she was suddenly very very hungry. "Ro, what he said…"
"Well, think about it, Shadow. Standard search, grid over the target area, sweep along obvious go-routes, what's more obvious than a river? It shouldn't take Kikun's visions to tell us we need to move."
"Fine time to be bringing that up now. Why'nt you say something before we hit ground?"
"One, I didn't hear you making any objections, girl. Two, you told me and Kikun shit-all about what you and Aste here were planning to do with the flit."