After a time, she said, “You have news.”
“So I do.”
They walked a while, passing another two returning with empty slings, who greeted Eldest Uncle with open smiles and Secha with guarded ones.
“They fear me,” she said.
“It was the custom in the days before that she who challenged for the feathered cloak, and lost, gave herself as an offering to the gods.”
“What of she who was challenged, and lost?”
He shrugged. “Challenges were rare. Usually a vote was called only when the Feather Cloak passed into death and a new one must be chosen. Then a pair of candidates would be picked by the warriors and the blood knives, and set before the baskets. Even so, the outcome was usually determined in advance.”
She snorted. “Then little has changed.”
“You did not fight hard enough, Secha,” chided Eldest Uncle. “Where is that look you used as a child when my daughter bullied the other children? You were younger than her, but wiser in your mind!”
“I am not the right leader, Uncle. Not for this day. Not for this war. It is better that I stepped aside in favor of others.”
He frowned. “Even if they are wrong?”
“Are they wrong? I do not know.”
“Ah!” Such a sound a man might make when he is told that his beloved has left him. “She has persuaded even you with her arguments.”
“No, but I am not persuaded by my own. I am a good magistrate, Uncle. I can judge disputes and oversee labor and distribution. I can see who lies to me and who tells the truth, who seeks selfish favor and who wants to do what they think best for their clan. In exile, I could raise my hands and know that my decisions allowed every person in the tribes a chance to live that could not be stolen from them by another’s greed or anger. That does not make me the right person to stand at the head of an army. That does not make me the right person to raise my hands to the gods now that we have returned home.”
He grunted. The baby babbled and tried to touch his chin, which distracted him for a bit.
She saved her breath for walking, although she had become accustomed to the balance and strain of the load.
After a while, he said, “Feather Cloak wishes me to attend her on a matter of grave importance. I ask you to come with me.”
A pair of mask warriors came striding along toward them, on patrol.
“Uncle!” Almost in unison, the young men touched the tips of their left fingers to their right shoulders. “Any help you need, Uncle? Aunt?”
“We are well,” said Eldest Uncle, and the men touched their shoulders again and continued past at a brisk pace, trading jocular salutes with the warriors who attended Eldest Uncle.
“I feel that I am torn in half,” said Eldest Uncle, glancing after them. “So it was in my youth that we greeted elders in such a manner. How came it that such simple signs of respect failed us in exile?”
“So many died,” she said, “although I do not remember those days myself when corpses filled the streets. Many things were lost that were once treasured.”
The baby fussed a little, and Eldest Uncle bounced her on his hip in time to his stride, to soothe her. “We should not have let it happen.”
“It is past now. We must let go of what we were in exile, and face what we will become.”
His eyes were crinkled with a kind of amusement, but his lips had a set, conservative mood to them. “I fear.”
“What do you fear?”
“I fear that you are right. Secha, will you come with me? I rely on your strong eyes to see what I might miss.”
“I’ll come.” She laughed. “Only I will need attendants to bring along the babies.”
“You don’t ask what matter calls us.”
“That you ask is reason enough.”
The watchtower and its scaffolding came into view atop the steep slope. Here, for many months, Eldest Uncle had made his home. During their exile, he had spent more of his time in a clearing nearby, where the burning stone that marked a gateway between the aether and the world they had lost burned into existence at intervals. What he was waiting for she could never quite fathom. Maybe he had just been waiting to go home.
“Anyway,” she added, “I find I am already tired of hauling rock. I am ready to see what comes next.”
5
FOR many days they were forced to camp at the edge of a wasteland still steaming from vents and pits, a desolation so complete that no life grew there, not even the tiniest spear of grass or fleck of mottled lichen. Farther away to the southwest the sea sighed and sobbed on an unseen shore, heard mostly at night when the sound of the wind died away. In this direction lay open ground patched with grass and low-lying shrubs that had miraculously escaped the burning.