THIS WAS THE FOUKTH MORNING of the westward march, the pilgrimage back to the Place of Three Rivers. A dry cold wind had been blowing steadily out of the north ever since Silver Cloud had given the order to turn around and retrace their long path across the barren plains. Sometimes new gusts of thin, hard snow came whistling by, dancing in wild milky swirls overhead-and this in mid-summer! Truly, the Goddess must be angered. But why? What had they done?
By night the People huddled in crannies and crevices under a white moon that drenched the sky with rivers of chilly light. There were no caves here to crawl into. Some of the most enterprising ones found twigs and branches and flung little lean-tos together for themselves, but most were too weary after a day's marching and foraging to make the effort.
The day of the Summer Festival had come and gone, and-for the first time in memory-no Summer Festival had been held. Goddess Woman didn't care for that at all.
"We will have famine when the cold months come," she said gloomily to Keeps The Past. "To neglect the Summer Festival is a serious thing. Has there ever been a year when we allowed the day to go by without the proper observances?"
"We aren't neglecting the Summer Festival," Keeps The Past rejoined. "We're simply postponing it until we can seek the guidance of the Goddess."
Goddess Woman spat. "The guidance of the Goddess! The guidance of the Goddess! What does Silver Cloud think he's up to? I am the one who provides the guidance of the Goddess. And I don't need to return to the Place of the Three Rivers in order to provide it."
"Silver Cloud does," said Keeps The Past.
"Purely out of cowardice. He's become afraid of the Other Ones and he wants to run away from them, now that he knows that they're ahead of us."
"Ahead of us and behind us both. We can't hide from them any longer. They're all around us. And there aren't enough of us to fight them. What are we to do? The Goddess must tell us how to deal with them."
"Yes," Goddess Woman conceded sullenly. "I suppose that's true."
"So unless you can advise us yourself, in the name of the Goddess, concerning the tactics we ought to follow-"
"Enough, Keeps The Past. I see your point."
"Good. Try to keep it in mind, dien."
Goddess Woman uttered a sulky sniff and walked away by herself, over to the fire. She stood close, arms huddled against her sides.
She and Keeps The Past had been bickering for more years than Goddess Woman cared to think about, and they were not coming to like each other any more as the time went along. Keeps The Past thought she was something special, with her long memory (supplemented by her bundles of record-sticks) and her deep knowledge of tribal traditions. Well, she was special in her way, Goddess
Woman grudgingly supposed. But she is not holy. I am holy. She is just a chronicler; but I speak with the Goddess, and sometimes the Goddess speaks with me.
Still, Goddess Woman admitted, as she opened her fur wrap to allow the warm pink glow of the fire to rise up and around her lean, stocky body, Keeps The Past did have a point. The Other Ones were a tremendous problem-those tall, agile, maddening flat-faced people who had come out of nowhere and seemed to be spreading everywhere, appropriating the best caves for themselves, the finest hunting grounds, the sweetest springs. Goddess Woman had heard horrifying tales occasionally from tribeless wanderers who had crossed the People's path, tales of clashes between the Other Ones and bands of the People, of hideous massacres, of horrifying routs. The Other Ones had better weapons, which they seemed to be able to manufacture in incredible quantities, and they were more swift afoot in battle too, it appeared: they moved like shadows, so it was said, and when they fought you it was as though they were on all sides of you at once. So far Silver Cloud had been able to avoid any of that, deftly steering the tribe this way and that across the great open plains to keep them away from collisions with the dangerous newcomers. But how long could he go on managing to do that?
Yes, best to make this pilgrimage and see if the Goddess had any advice, Goddess Woman told herself.
Besides, Silver Cloud had been very persuasive when it came to the religious side of the argument. The Summer Festival marked the high point of the year, when the sun was warm and the day was long. It was a celebration of the kindness of the Goddess, of Her grace and favor, a giving of thanks in advance for the benefits that She would bestow during the remaining weeks of the summer hunting and food-gathering season.
How could they hold the Summer Festival, Silver Cloud had wanted to know, when the Goddess was so plainly displeased with them?
More to the point, Goddess Woman thought: how could they hold the Summer Festival when Silver Cloud flatly refused to perform it? It was a rite that required the participation of a man, and only the most powerful man of the tribe at that. It was he who had to dance the dance of gratitude before the shrine of the Goddess. It was he who had to carry out the sacrifice of the bullock, he who had to take the chosen virgin in his arms and initiate her into the mysteries of the Great Mother. The other holy festivals of the tribe were the responsibility of the three Goddess Women; but there was no way they could carry out this one. The chief had to do it. If Silver Cloud refused to take part, the Summer Festival could not be held. That was all there was to it. Goddess Woman felt uneasy about that; but the decision belonged to Silver Cloud.
Goddess Woman turned away from the fire. It was time to set up the shrine for the morning rites.
"Goddess Women!" Goddess Woman called. "Both of you! Let's get to work!"
They had all had individual names, once. But now each one of the three priestesses was simply known as Goddess Woman. You gave up your name when you entered Her service. The Goddess had no name, and Her servants had no names either.
Goddess Woman was still able to remember the name of the youngest Goddess Woman, for she was Goddess Woman's own daughter, and Goddess Woman had named her herself: Bright Sky At Dawn. But it was years since she had spoken that name out loud. To her, and to everyone else, her daughter who had once been Bright Sky At Dawn was simply Goddess Woman now. As was the second-oldest Goddess Woman, whose earlier name was starting to slip from Goddess Woman's memory-it was either Lonely Bird or Runs Like The Fox, Goddess Woman was not sure which. Those two had looked very much like each other, Lonely Bird and Runs Like The Fox. One of them was dead and the other had become a priestess, and over the years Goddess Woman had come to confuse their identities in her mind.
As for her own birth-name, Goddess Woman no longer had any idea what it might have been. She had forgotten it years ago and she rarely gave it any thought now. She was Goddess Woman and nothing but Goddess Woman. Sometimes as she lay waiting for sleep she found herself wondering despite herself what her old name could have been. Something with sunlight in it? Or golden wings? Or shining water? There was brightness in it somewhere, she was fairly sure of that. But the name itself had slipped away forever. She felt guilty for even trying to think of it. Certainly there was no one that she could ask. It was a sin, a Goddess Woman using her birth-name in any way. Whenever she started to think about it she immediately made a sign of purification and asked forgiveness.
She was the second-oldest woman in the tribe. This was her fortieth summer. Only Keeps The Past was older, and by no more than a season or two. But Goddess Woman was strong and healthy; she expected to live another ten years, perhaps fifteen, maybe as many as twenty if she was lucky. Her mother had lived to a great old age, even beyond her sixtieth year, and her grandmother as well. Long life was a characteristic of her family.
"Will we do the full rite this morning?" the youngest Goddess Woman asked her, as they moved the stones about, assembling the shrine.
Goddess Woman gave her an irritated glance. "Of course we will. Why shouldn't we?"
"Because Silver Cloud wants us to leave here right after morning meal. He says we have to travel farther today than we've been doing the last three."
"Silver Cloud! Silver Cloud! He says this, he says that, and we hop like frogs to his commands. Maybe he's in a hurry, but the Goddess isn't. We do the full rite."
She lit the Goddess-fire. The second Goddess Woman produced her little wolfskin packet of aromatic herbs and sprinkled them on the blaze. Colored flames flared high. The youngest Goddess Woman brought the stone bowl of blood from yesterday's kill and poured a little onto the offering-altar.
From the furry bear-skin in which they were stored, Goddess Woman brought forth the three holy bear-skulls that were the tribe's most sacred possession, and put them out on three flat stones to shield them from contact with the ground.
The skulls had been in the tribe's possession for more generations than even Keeps The Past could say. Great heroes of long ago had slain those bears in single combat, and they had been handed down in the tribe from one Goddess Woman to the next. The bear was the Father-animal, the great kindling force that brought forth life from the Great Mother. That was why Goddess Woman had to take care not to allow the skulls to touch bare soil, for then they would fructify the Mother, and this was not the season for doing that. Any children who were kindled into life now, in mid-summer, would be born in the dark days of late winter, when food was at its scarcest. The rime to kindle young ones was in autumn, so that they would come forth in the spring.
Goddess Woman laid her hands on each of the skulls in turn, lovingly stroking its upper vault, polished smooth and ice-bright by the hands of many Goddess Women of years gone by. She felt shivers running through her hands and arms and shoulders as the power of the elemental Father-force tingled upward out of the skulls and into her body.
She caressed the shining fangs. She fingered the dark eye-sockets.
The Father-force opened the way for her, admitting the Mother-force to her soul. One force necessarily led to the other; one could not invoke one without feeling the presence of the other.
"Goddess, we thank Thee," murmured Goddess Woman. "We thank Thee for the fruit of the earth and for the flesh of the beasts and most deeply do we thank Thee for the fruit of our wombs." Briefly she touched her breasts, her belly, her loins. She crouched and dug her fingertips into the hard frosty soil. Cold as it might be today, it was still the breast of the Mother, and she fondled it with love. Beside her, the other two Goddess Women were doing the same.
She closed her eyes. She saw the great arc of the Mother's breast stretching out before her to the horizon. She filled her soul with awareness of Goddess-presence, of Mother-force.
Bless us, Goddess Woman prayed. Preserve us. Give us the grace of Thy love.
She was pulled harshly from her meditations by the sound of raucous screeching laughter somewhere behind her. The boys of the tribe, playing their rough games. She forced herself to ignore them. They were of the Goddess too, however crude and cruel and foolish they might be.
The Goddess had created women for bearing children and giving nurture and love, and men for hunting and providing and fighting, and each had a role to play ftiat the other could not venture to perform. That was the meaning of the Summer Festival, the coming together of man and woman in the service of the Goddess. And if boys were rough and irreverent-why, it was because the Goddess had made them so. Let them laugh. Let them run in circles and strike at each other with sticks when they caught up with one another. That was how it was meant to be.
When the lengthy rite was finished Goddess Woman rose and scratched the fire into embers with a stick and collected the holy stones. She gathered up the bear-skulls, kissed each one, tucked them away in their mantles of fur.
She caught sight of Silver Cloud standing at a great distance, arms folded impatiently as though he had been waiting in an ill-tempered way for her to get done with it. Closer at hand, Goddess Woman saw She Who Knows leading a band of the littlest children around in a circle, teaching them a song.
How pathetic, she told herself. She Who Knows, that barren woman, pretending to be one of the Mothers. The Goddess has dealt harshly with She Who Knows, Goddess Woman thought.
"Are you done finally?" Silver Cloud shouted. "Can we get going now, Goddess Woman?"
"We can get going, yes."
She Who Knows came over to her. A little gaggle of the smaller children tagged along behind her-Sweet Flower, Skyfrre Face, and a couple of the others.
"Can I talk to you for a moment, Goddess Woman?" She Who Knows asked.
"Silver Cloud wants us to pack up and get on our way."
"A moment, that's all."
"A moment, then."
She was an irritating woman, She Who Knows. Goddess Woman had never liked her. No one did. She was clever, yes, and full of dark energy, and you had to grant her a certain grudging respect. But she was prickly and difficult. She had had a life full of troubles, and Goddess Woman felt sorry for her about that-die dead babies, the loss of her mate, all those things. But nonetheless she wished that She Who Knows would leave her alone. There was an aura of bad luck about her, of Goddess-displeasure.
She Who Knows said quietly, "Is it true what I hear, diat there's going to be a special sacrifice when we get to the Place of Three Rivers?"
"There'll be a sacrifice, yes," Goddess Woman said. "How can we have a pilgrimage if we don't make an offering when we get to the Pilgrimage-place?"
"A special sacrifice."
What was left of Goddess Woman's patience was rapidly wearing thin. "Special how, She Who Knows? Special in what way? I have no time for riddles now."
"The sacrifice of a child," said She Who Knows.
Goddess Woman would not have been more starded if She Who Knows had thrown a handful of snow in her face.
"What? Who says such a thing?"
"I heard the men talking. We'll give a child to the Goddess at the Place of Three Rivers so that She will make the Other Ones keep away from us. Silver Cloud has already decided it. Presumably after discussing it with you. Is that true, Goddess Woman?"
Goddess Woman felt a pounding in her breast and heard a sound like diunder drumming in her ears. She felt weak and dizzy and she had to force herself with difficulty to remain upright and to keep her eyes level with those of She Who Knows. She drew her breath in deeply, filling her lungs, again, again, again, until some semblance of poise returned to her.
Icily she said, "This is madness, She Who Knows. The Goddess gives children. She doesn't want them back."
"Sometimes She takes diem back."
"Yes. Yes, I know," said Goddess Woman, her tone softening a little. "The Goddess moves in ways beyond our understanding. But we don't kill children and offer them to Her. Animals, yes. Never a child. Never. Such a thing has never been done."
"The Other Ones have never been a serious danger to us before, either."
"Sacrificing children isn't going to protect us from the Other Ones."
"They say diat you and Silver Cloud have decided that it will."
"They're lying, whoever they are," Goddess Woman said hotly. "I don't know anything about this plan. Nothing! -All this is nonsense, She Who Knows. It won't happen. I promise you that. There'll be no sacrifices of children around here. You can be completely sure of that."
"Swear it. Swear by the Goddess. -No." She Who Knows reached out and took Skyfire Face by one hand and Sweet Flower by the other. "Swear by the souls of this little boy and this little girl."
"My word should be enough," Goddess Woman said.
"You won't swear?"
"My word is sufficient," said Goddess Woman. "I don't owe you any oaths. Not by the Goddess, not by Sweet Flower's little backside, not by anything. We're civilized people, She Who Knows. We don't kill children. That should be good enough for you."
She Who Knows looked skeptical. But she gave ground and went away.
Goddess Woman stood by herself, thinking.
Sacrifice a child? Were they serious? Did they actually think it would serve any purpose? Could it possibly serve any purpose?
Would the Goddess countenance such a thing? She tried to think it through. To yield up a little life, to return to the Goddess that which the Goddess had given-was that any way of convincing Her that She must help the People in this time of need?
No. No. No. No. However Goddess Woman looked at it, she saw no sense in it.
Where was Silver Cloud? Ah, over there, looking through Mammoth Rider's new batch of arrow points. Goddess Woman went over to him and drew him aside. In a low voice she said, "Tell me something, and tell me honestly. Are you planning to sacrifice a child when we get to the Place of Three Rivers?"
"Have you lost your mind, Goddess Woman?"
"She Who Knows says that some of the men are talking about it. That you've already decided on it and that I've given my agreement."
"And have you given your agreement?" Silver Cloud asked.
"Of course not."
"Well, the rest of the story is just as true. Sacrifice a child, Goddess Woman? You couldn't possibly have believed that I would ever-"
"I wasn't certain."
"How can you say that?"
"You canceled the Summer Festival, didn't you?"
"What's wrong with you, Goddess Woman? You don't see any difference between putting off a festival and killing a child?"
"There are those who'd say that one is just as wrong as the other."
"Well, anyone who says something like that is crazy,"
Silver Cloud retorted. "I have no such intentions, and you can tell She Who Knows that I-" He paused. His expression altered strangely. -"You don't think that it could possibly do us any good, do you? You aren't suggesting-"
"No," said Goddess Woman. "Of course I don't. Now you sound like you've lost your mind. But don't be ridiculous. I'm not suggesting it in the slightest. I came over here to find out whether there was any truth to the rumor, that's all."
"And now you know. None. None whatever."
But there was an odd look in his eyes, still. Silver Cloud's outrage seemed to have softened and he had turned inward upon himself, somehow. Goddess Woman wasn't sure how to interpret that inward look. What could he be thinking of?
Goddess above, he couldn't seriously be considering the idea of sacrificing a child all of a sudden, could he? Did I put something monstrous into his mind just now?
No, she decided. No. That couldn't be it. She knew Silver Cloud well. He was tough, he was unswerving, he could be brutal-but not this. Not a child.
"I want you to understand my position very clearly," Goddess Woman said with all the force she could muster. "There may very well be some men in this tribe who think it could be useful to offer a child to the Goddess, and for all I know, Silver Cloud, they might be able to succeed in talking you into it before we reach the Place of Three Rivers. But I won't allow it. I'm prepared to bring the heaviest curse of the Goddess down on any man who even proposes such a thing. It'll be the bear-curse, the darkest one of all. I'll cut him off from every shred of Her mercy without any hesitation. I'll-"
"Easy, Goddess Woman. You're getting all worked up over nothing. Nobody's talking about sacrificing children.
Nobody. When we get to the Place of Three Rivers we'll catch ourselves an ibex or a chamois or a good red elk, and we'll give its meat to the Goddess as we always do, and that will be that. So calm yourself. Calm yourself. You're kicking up a tremendous fuss about something that you know I'd never permit to be done. You know it, Goddess Woman."
"All right," she said. "An ibex. A chamois."
"Absolutely," said Silver Cloud.
He grinned at her and reached out to squeeze her shoulder fondly. She felt very foolish. How could she ever have imagined that Silver Cloud would entertain such a barbaric notion?
She went off by herself to kneel by a little stream and throw cold water against her aching forehead.
Later in the morning, when the tribe had resumed its march, Goddess Woman came up alongside She Who Knows and said, "I had a talk with Silver Cloud. He knew no more about this child-sacrifice scheme than I did. And he feels the same way about it that I do. That you do. He wouldn't ever allow it."
"There are those here who think otherwise."
"Who, for instance?"
She Who Knows shook her head vaguely.*'I won't name names. But they think the Goddess won't be satisfied unless we give Her one of our children."
"If they think that, they don't understand the Goddess at all. Forget all of this, will you, She Who Knows? It's just so much empty talk. The talk of fools."
"Let's hope so," said She Who Knows, her voice dark with foreboding.
They marched onward. Gradually Goddess Woman put the matter from her mind. She Who Knows' refusal to name names had aroused her suspicions. Very probably there was nothing to the story at all, and never had been.
Perhaps the woman had invented the whole thing; perhaps she was sick in the mind; perhaps it might be a good idea to send She Who Knows off on a little pilgrimage of her own to clear her troubled soul of such disturbed imaginings. Child sacrifice! It was unthinkable.
She forgot about it. And the weeks went by; and the People marched westward, back through the thinning warmth of summer toward the Place of Three Rivers.
And now at last they were on a sloping hillside overlooking the Three Rivers themselves. The long rearward march was almost over. The trail wound gradually downward through one level of hillside after another, and down below, in the misty valley, they could see the shining glint that the water of the Three Rivers made.
It was late in the day, and the People were starting to consider making camp for the evening. And then a strange thing happened.
Goddess Woman was near the front of the file, with Tree Of Wolves on one side of her and Blazing Eye on the other, to help her carry the packets of Goddess-things. Suddenly the air turned intensely bright just beside the path. There was a sparkling. Goddess Woman saw brilliant red and green flashes, glossy loops, a fiery whiteness at the core. The white light moved. It went up and down in the air, whirling as it traveled.
Looking at it was painful. She flung up one hand to shield her eyes. People were crying out in fear all around her.
Then it vanished-as abruptly as it had come. The air beside the path seemed empty. Goddess Woman stood blinking, her eyes aching, her mind aswirl with confusions.
"What was it?" someone asked.
"What will happen next?"
"Save us. Silver Cloud!"
"Goddess Woman? Goddess Woman, tell us what that thing was!"
Goddess Woman moistened her lips. "It was-the Goddess passing by," she improvised desperately. "The edge of Her robe; that was what it was."
"Yes," they said. "The Goddess. The Goddess, it was. It must have been."
Everyone was quiet for a time, wary, motionless, waiting to see if She intended to return. But nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Then She Who Knows cried out, "It was the Goddess, yes, and She has taken Skyfire Face!"
"What?"
"He was right here, just behind me, when the light appeared. Now he's gone."
"Gone? Where? How?"
"Look for him!" someone screamed. "Find him! Skyfire Face! Skyfire Face!"
There was a tremendous hubbub. People were scrabbling about, moving without purpose in every direction, movement just for the sake of movement. Goddess Woman heard Silver Cloud calling out for quiet, for calmness. The Mothers were the most excited: their shrill cries rose above everything else, and they ran about weeping and flailing their arms in the air.
For a moment Goddess Woman wasn't able to remember who the actual mother of Skyfire Face was; then she recalled that it was Red Smoke At Sunrise who had given birth to the little boy with the jagged lightning-bolt birthmark, four summers back. But the Mothers raised all the children of the tribe in common, and it made very little difference to them which one of them had brought a particular child into the world; Milky Fountain and Beautiful Snow and Lake Of Green Ice were just as troubled by his bewildering disappearance as was Red Smoke At Sunrise.
"He must have wandered off the path," Broken Mountain said. "I'll go look for him."
"He was right here," said She Who Knows acidly. "That light swallowed him up."
"You saw it, did you?"
"He was behind me when it happened. But not so far behind that he could have strayed. It was the light that took him. It was the light."
All the same, Broken Mountain insisted on going back to look for him. But it was useless. There was no sign of the boy anywhere. An hour's search produced nothing, not even a footprint; and now it was growing very dark.
"We have to move on," Silver Cloud said. "There's no place here for camping."
"But Skyfire Face-"
"Gone," Silver Cloud said inexorably. "Vanished into the Goddess-light."
"The Goddess-light! The Goddess-light!"
They moved along. Goddess Woman felt numb. She had looked right into the shimmering light, and there was still an ache behind her eyes, and when she closed them she saw patterns of floating purple spots. But had it been the Goddess? She couldn't say. She had never seen anything like that light before. She hoped she never saw it again.
"So the Goddess wanted one of our children after all," She Who Knows said. "Well, well, well."
"You know nothing about these matters!" Goddess Woman told her furiously. "Nothing!"
But what if she was right? Goddess Woman wondered. It was altogether possible that she was. Likely, even. So powerful a light could only have been a manifestation of the Goddess.
The Goddess had claimed a child? Why? What sense did that make?
We can never understand Her, Goddess Woman decided, after wrestling with the strange event far into the night. She is the Goddess, and we are only Her creatures. And Skyfire Face is gone. It is beyond all comprehension, but so be it. She remembered now the rumor there had been that Silver Cloud had been planning to sacrifice a child when they reached the Place of the Three Rivers. Well, at least there would be no more talk of such things. They were almost at their destination, and the Goddess had claimed a child without their having had to give it to her. Goddess Woman hoped that She would be content with that. There were not so many children in the tribe that they could afford to let Her have another one just now.