Doven drew a line beneath all four signs from left to right. “Pee-eh-el-ah. Pela.” He grinned at Gordon. “Pela,” he repeated.
Gordon found two sticks, added them to the fire, and moved some of the cooked meat from the night before close to the heat to warm it. Finished with that, he stood next to the mat weaver. “If you have the time, Doven, I would learn all the sound signs.”
Doven touched his left thumb to his tongue, shrugged, and said, “There is little else for this gifted to do until the reed bogs sprout in the spring.” He held out a finger, let it droop until it pointed down, and then laughed.
As Ekav climbed into the sky, they shared the meat, Doven made the signs, and Gordon learned his alphabet, the gods, their sound signs, and tried not to think about the mountain at his back. Before he had left the ledge, Jatka was back carrying a message from the naticha. “It is time,” was all he said.
Tonton Annajaka’s dwelling was past the cliff at the northeastern edge of the village, deep among tall cedars and dug into the side of a rocky hill. A single window filled with stretched translucent skin, and a dark leather and branch door in the sod wall at the end of a path, marked the house’s location. A thin ribbon of smoke came from the rocks and brush above the dwelling. Tonton Annajaka was standing in the open doorway dressed in a simple deerskin long shirt and moccasins. Her thin white hair was wrapped with a wide black deerskin band. “Come, God’n,” she said. “Best to pull the thorn quickly.” Tonton stood back from the door and Gordon entered.
It was a dark cave-like room, all but the east-facing wall of sod and the packed earthen floor formed from the hill’s rock. The north wall was crowded with leather-and-branch shelves filled with herbs, rocks, and powders contained in ceramic bowls, some with lids. Tonton seated Gordon on a leather cushion atop a rocky shelf. She sat upon a bed of furs facing him, both of them warmed by the west wall and the small wood fire at its base. The fire and the light coming through the scraped skin in the window added to the light provided by the fish oil lamp tucked into a rocky niche near Tonton’s bed. The smoke from the fire went up through a crack in the overhanging rock above.
“Now, God’n, you tell Tonton Annajaka about coming storm.” She brought her fierce blue-eyed gaze up and fixed it to his face. “Tonton will see if you believe your words.”
And he told her all that he knew about the great thing that fell from the sky long ago, covered the surrounding land with glass, and built Black Mountain. He told her of the age of ice and of the great glaciers on Black Mountain and its flanks, more ice covering the highlands and the plateau to the mountain’s south. He told her of the meteor to come, that it would shatter the mountain, the blast immediately killing everything within a straight walk of at least twenty suns’ distance. He told her of the great heat that would melt the ice and snow on and around the mountain as well as the frozen ground beneath, and of the great flow of mud, rocks, and trees that would fill Avina’s Valley almost to the men’s ledge. All the peoples of the Black Mountain would die. More floods and ice, then drought and sandstorms would come, filling the valley almost to the top of the cliff, burying all evidence of Red Cliff’s people and all they ever were.
The naticha remained still for a long time, her face a mask as she studied upon the things Gordon had told her. She looked startled as she glanced away from the space to Gordon’s left. He turned and could see nothing there. Looking back, he saw her staring at him. “Then do I believe what I say?” he asked.
“What you say, you believe, God’n,” She said in a quiet voice. Her expression was eerie as she said, “Two ghosts, God’n. Two ghosts you have. They believe what you say. A third ghost, in you...”
He looked again then saw the distorted light patterns, one on either side of him. For a split second he caught a glimpse of a shimmer just above his own hands. Tonton leaned forward and pointed a finger at him. “Tell me why they believe this!” Her eyes narrowed. “And if you believe this, God’n, why you not run!”
Time travel, parallel dimensions, one hundred and thirty-nine thousands of summers of human evolution, accomplishment, destruction, and the dangers inherent in turning a single grain of sand. “Ibrahim Taleghani, one of the spirits who believe, told me before he died that turning that grain of sand—placing all the human history we know at risk—was unthinkable. If he were alive, he would not run. He would stand here and die with your people.”
He couldn’t read Tonton’s expression as she went to her shelves of herbs and bent to her potions and powders. Tonton took a blackish substance, placed it in a ceramic bowl, added a pale yellow liquid, mixed it with a wooden spoon, poured a bit of it into her left hand, rubbed it into her palm, and turned to Gordon. “I would talk with your ghosts.”
Gordon almost began a sarcastic comment that ended abruptly as the naticha’s left palm suddenly opened facing him. An orange mist filled his vision and the universe twisted on its end and went dark.
“God’n? God’n?” He felt a hand shaking his right shoulder. He opened his eyes and Tonton Annajaka’s rock ceiling wowed in and out, orange mists at the edge of his vision. He had a headache that could chase down, kill, and eat Running Mountain single-handed.
“Drink this, God’n.”
He turned his head to the right. He was on the earthen floor of the room. Jatka’s face was looking down at him. The young man was holding out a wooden cup. “Drink this. Chase head pain.”
Gordon pushed himself up until he was sitting, took the cup and sniffed at its contents. It smelled like mint. He drank down the warm brew. As he lowered the cup, his headache diminished. Gordon handed back the cup to Jatka. “Where is Tonton?”
“She cross river.”
Gordon frowned. “What did she say?”
“Tonton say for me to take you to Ghaf’s tent for Temptations. You take long time to open eyes. I get you tea for head pain. Almost dark now.”
“Nothing about why she crossed the river?”
“Ghosts talk to her.”
Gordon waited until the headache was almost gone, then floundered around for a bit trying to stand. With Jatka’s aid, he made it. Once the room became steady, Gordon looked at the boy and asked, “Temptations?”
That night Gordon, the gifted, relatives, and well-wishers assembled in what functioned as Ghaf’s town house, a large tent of oiled leathers lined inside by bearskins. The edges of the recently expanded floor space were crowded by cedar-bough beds covered with leathers and furs, also added recently in preparation for guests attending the Temptations who might be staying over. In the center of the space beneath the smoke hole was a fire pit at which Lolna and some of the other women prepared food.
After making his greetings, Ghaf led Gordon before the guest of honor, Mahu, Clan Father. He was a strong-looking fellow who looked to be in his early forties. His brown beard had twin gray streaks down from the corners of his mouth. Fierce dark brown eyes peered over an aquiline nose.