and in time you will see that now that a gift has been given, a gift must be returned. This is a natural thing.”
The young Pwi in camp started to sing and abruptly stopped. A commotion began, people shouted. Darrissea Frolic came rushing to the grotto. She stood at the top of the small ridge for a moment, her blue cloak flapping in the moonlight as she peered into the shadow.
“What?” Chaa asked.
“You had better get up here, Chaa,” Darrissea said. “There’s a big gray bird out here, like nothing I’ve ever seen, and it is asking for the town of Smilodon Bay.”
The Spirit Walker rose to his feet, nervously dusted the redwood needles from his pants. Chaa said to Tull, “It seems that the future is thrust upon us, whether we have seen it or not.”
Tull rushed from the grotto to the campfire, and there he found the young people of the village standing next to a huge gray bird as large as the great-horned dragon. The beast stood six feet at the shoulders, yet it was no ordinary bird. It had the face of a woman, young and beautiful, with wide-set gray eyes and strong lips. Fine downy feathers covered her cheeks.
The Pwi boys stood close, almost daring to touch her, and Tull’s heart pounded.
“Back!” Tull shouted. Some boys turned to look at him, and Tull shouted again, “Run! Get back!”
The boys stepped back tentatively. Chaa followed Tull. “Get back or she’ll kill you!” Chaa said menacingly, and the boys leapt away at the Spirit Walker’s warning.
Anorath had a gun propped against a tree, a pump-action smooth bore that fired a slug large enough to rip open a woolly rhino; he grabbed it, covered the bird. Other boys pulled their swords and kutows. The bird sat on the ground, wings folded, feathers unruffled. Her huge gray eyes were empty, staring ahead as if dazed.
“What happened to her?” Tull asked, wondering why the bird was so still.
Anorath said, “She asked where Smilodon Bay is, and asked for Phylomon the Starfarer. We told her that Smilodon Bay is near, but that the Starfarer is gone. She stopped moving and now just sits. What should we do?”
Chaa shrugged, looked at Tull. “You tell them.”
Tull studied the bird. Her face, her wings. She was far larger than the deadly gray birds he’d seen up north, and she had a human face rather than a beak. He didn’t know if she was dangerous.
Perhaps the Creators had given her lips and a voice so she could deliver a message? Her head was smaller than a human’s. He wondered how much intelligence lurked behind those eyes and decided to test her.
He whispered to Anorath, “Ready your gun. If she moves, shoot her.” He grabbed a kutow from a boy, stepped close to the bird.
This is foolish, he told himself. If you flirt with death, she will cleave to you. He looked back at Chaa for advice but the Spirit Walker just shrugged.
“What do you want?” Tull asked, his mouth dry. She didn’t answer. “What town do you seek?”
The messenger’s eyes suddenly focused on Tull, and he cringed. She dug her great talons into the ground and said, “Smilodon Bay. I seek Smilodon Bay.”
“This town that you see is Smilodon Bay,” Tull said, gesturing expansively at the redwoods. The gray bird studied the trees quizzically, as if inspecting them.
“And who do you seek here?” Tull asked.
The bird sank her talons into the thick humus, readjusted her wings. “Phylomon the Starfarer.”
“I am Phylomon the Starfarer,” Tull said.
The gray bird tensed, like a hawk ready to pounce, but studied his feet, ran her eyes up over his body from toe to head, obviously mystified. “Phylomon the Starfarer has blue skin,” the bird said.
“I am blue,” Tull answered.
“You are not blue!” the bird screeched, flapping her wings in anger, glaring out over the crowd of young men that circled her.
Tull gestured to one young Pwi boy who had painted his face blue. “You are right! I am not blue, and I am not Phylomon. That man is
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