Gambit of the Gods Read online

  I reach the fort and stop in front of Spark, who is still in wolf form. He appears to be laughing, jaws spread wide in a wolfy grin, panting. I look him over. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, of course, but he’s my best friend so it’s different; more personal. I admire his thick coat, a beautiful mix of black, brown, and even white, the latter ringing his large, golden-brown eyes.

  Without thinking I reach out, burying my hand in his ruff, marveling at the surprisingly soft, warm deepness of it. Spark blinks, his jaws closing, then lowers his head, sniffing my hand. His muzzle rubs against my fingers, almost nuzzling them. My face goes hot and I look away, feeling confused somehow. We both pull back hastily.

  A moment later, he’s changing back into a boy. Well, a young man, I suppose. The Change doesn’t last long, at first. It takes practice; you’ve got to focus to keep it, or so my father says.

  Spark retrieves a change of clothes from just inside our fort and dresses. Sitting down on the branches that make up our fort’s front step, he gestures for me to sit beside him. Neither of us says anything. We just look out over the forest together as if searching for something. I sense from his body language that he’s feeling the same discomfort; the gut knowledge that our friendship will never be the same.

  After a while, I ask, “What does it feel like?”

  He turns to look at me, a question in his eyes. “The Change?”

  I don’t return his gaze, still scanning the trees.

  “Does it hurt? It looks painful.” I try to keep my voice noncommittal, as if we’re just discussing the weather.

  He shakes his head, squinting at a bird in a distant tree.

  “I imagine it’s what a bird experiences when it first learns to fly. It’s never used its wings before, then suddenly its mother pushes it off a branch and it’s in the air. Its body reacts in a new way, but in a way it’s built for. The wings spread and flap on instinct, and over time those new muscles strengthen. Before long, the bird can’t remember a time it hasn’t rode the winds.

  “So yes, it’s very uncomfortable at first, even painful, feeling your body shift, your skin stretch, your bones flow like melted wax. But after you’ve gone through it a few times, your body gets used to it, even comes to expect it. It becomes part of your reality. My father says that after several years of Changing it becomes so normal that sometimes, being human feels more unnatural to him. He dreams as a wolf most nights, and when he wakes, it feels like his life as a human is the dream, instead.”

  I nod thoughtfully. As we watch, the distant bird takes flight and soars out of sight. In my mind’s eye, I relive the moment when Spark Changed in front of me and left me behind. He is of the Wolf Clan. My father is of the Hunting Cat Clan, so if I receive my birthright, I likely will be, too. The People don’t marry between Clans; soon, Spark will be leaving me behind either way.

  “Did you see them?”

  He looks relieved at my change of subject.

  “Who?” He absently brushes a hand through his shoulder-length hair. Classic Spark, that move. I relax a little.

  “Swift Blaze, Whisker, and a few others. In that stand of trees by the dry riverbed.”

  “No.” Spark cocks his head a moment. “But I thought I smelled someone else, when I Changed.” He adds hurriedly, “Were they hunting?”

  Impatiently, I shake my head. He pulls a twig from my hair.

  “I’ve never known Whisker to go anywhere near Swift Blaze and his group.”

  Spark nods. Where I go, Spark usually goes, so what I see, he sees. Others often refer to us as “the twins” when they’re not calling us worse for our latest bit of mischief. Most recently, we stuffed handfuls of frogs into Wind Whisper’s empty cooking pot and put the lid on it. She’s easily and quite comically startled. We giggled for hours afterward, imagining her face when she takes the lid off the pot.

  I stand, shrugging as if to dismiss the subject, casually reaching behind me for a fallen branch leaning against the fort. Suddenly I swing it around to spit him on the end of my ‘sword’, but Spark’s already running, miming with hilarious accuracy the slow, ponderous trot of a moose. Dropping the stick, I mime pulling out my imaginary bow, sending arrow after arrow after him.

  We’re both laughing, dodging around ferns, rocks, tree trunks. But I know we both feel something has changed between us. Our usual, carefree joy feels dimmed.

  All around us, the sun begins to encroach through the trees, slowly burning away the mist. We’ve switched roles now: I’m the one hunted, trying to flee a hail of imaginary arrows. Taking an arrow to my side, I fall to my knees, defeated. I die gloriously though, thrashing in dramatic death throes until we’re both giggling, gasping for breath.

  Finally, I lie still, then roll over until I’m cross-legged on the ground. Spark sits beside me, putting an arm around me as he’s done before, times beyond counting.

  “Nothing needs to change,” he says quietly. But when he looks into my eyes, I can see the lie there. We both know it. Everything has changed.

  On our way back towards the Village, we sneak up to the copse of trees where I glimpsed the older boys. It’s empty.

  We walk in silence through the woods, enjoying each other’s company. When I pause beneath a certain low-hanging branch, Naira, my squirrel, drops down onto my shoulder, settling herself comfortably in my shirt pocket. It’s her favorite place to nap.

  I clearly remember the day I found her wounded at the base of a tree when I was five summers old. At the time, we were traveling from Civitas Dei to live with the People because my father had come to claim me. Naira’s mother abandoned her during an attack by a hawk or an eagle, judging from the talon-marks that scored her sides. Abandoned by my own mother when she left me shortly after giving birth to me, I immediately felt a certain kinship with the bereft and broken little animal.

  My father, Thunder Echo, scoffed when I brought her back to our campsite. But Miklos, the man who raised me, took her gently from me without a word, carrying her over to his healer’s bag. Cradling her in the crook of his arm, he asked his son Artan to select a certain healing salve. Miklos applied it to the tiny squirrel’s wounds while chanting over her. I prayed to the Civitas Dei God, begging Him to let her live. Fortunately, Miklos has the ability to heal. All but his most grievously wounded patients usually mend within a few hours or days under his care.

  By the time night fell, Naira had opened her large, bright eyes. ‘Naira’ sounds like the word for ‘big eyes’ or ‘bright eyes’ in the tongue of the People and was the one gruff word Thunder Echo offered as we’d gathered around to exclaim over her. She gazed about inquisitively, showing no fear of humans or fire.

  She spent the next day in Miklos’ arms while we fed her tidbits of acorn meat, mushrooms, and blackberries. But as soon as she could get around on her own, she climbed my leg and rode my shoulder as if she’d always perched there. Somehow, she knew I’d saved her.

  When we finally arrived at the Village that was to become my new home, the Elders called for me to appear before them.

  Thunder Echo warned me, in his brusque but not unkind way, “Child, the Elders might take Naira from you.”

  “But she and I have already bonded!” I knew it would break my heart if they separated us.

  “It’s considered unseemly for a child of the People to make a pet of a prey animal,” Father explained.

  Miklos went with me to meet with the Elders. He loves to tell the story of what happened next.

  The Elders sat around the main fire pit, each one looking more ancient and solemn than the next. I came before them with Naira sleeping in the crook of my arm, meeting their stares with my own like a treed hunting cat stares at the wolves circling below her. Thunder Echo stood to one side, watching.

  “What is your name, child?” one of the Elders asked in the Common Tongue.

  Without hesitation, I answered, “Asha”, for Miklos had named me so. “And this is Naira,” I added defiantly, gesturing to the ball of brown fu
r cradled against my side. “She is mine.”

  At that moment, Naira opened her eyes, uncurled, and crawled up to my shoulder. There, she stood blinking sleepily at the Elders.

  A long silence followed. Miklos likes to say when he tells the story, “At this point I began to wonder if we’d be sent back to Civitas Dei.”

  I didn’t back down, crossing my skinny arms across my chest, staring back at my austere audience without fear.

  The Elders considered me for what felt like a long time. At last, the same Elder spoke, his face showing no emotion.

  “Naira is a good name. This squirrel has been given a name by a child of the People. I say that no one may take it from her.”

  The other Elders murmured agreement.

  “This squirrel has a name,” the Elder continued. “But this girl does not.”

  I opened my mouth to repeat my name but he spoke again, cutting me off.

  “The Elders of the People give every child a name that suits them at the age of five summers. A name that child carries until given a new name after she goes on her Vision Quest and embraces her Spirit Animal. I say this girl shall be called ‘Little Squirrel’. She has shown great bravery before us.”

  We had to strain to catch his next words.

  “The Spirit Over All has shown me that this bravery is like that of the squirrel, who leaps from branch to branch without fear. May her leap always be true and her paws always find the next branch nimbly. And let no man or woman of the People raise a hand against Naira.”

  Again, the other Elders murmured their agreement. Later, Miklos told me he saw Thunder Echo surreptitiously swipe a tear from his cheek. I’d made him proud.

  Naira and I soon became a familiar sight in the Village. More than one child searched the forest nearby in hopes of finding a baby squirrel of her own. As she grew older, Naira made small forays into the trees surrounding the Village, but she always returned to me in time to make a nest of my hair to sleep in every night.

  Fortunately, the People only eat squirrels when no other meat can be found, both because they only supply a small, unsatisfying morsel, but more importantly, because of legend. In one well-known story, the People did not yet have the gift of fire, so the coyote, the bat, and the squirrel stole it from three hags. They took turns carrying it until finally the squirrel delivered the sacred flame to the People. It is said that the squirrel carries the scorch marks from the fire upon his shoulders to this day, which is why his tail curls over his back to cover them. In another legend, an ancient squirrel ran messages up the great World Tree to the Spirit Over All. If I had found almost any other land animal, I wouldn’t have been so fortunate.

  When villagers notice Naira tucked into my pocket or riding my shoulder, most chuckle or pretend they don’t see her. Some say she and Tika are lucky, a sign of the favor of the Spirit Over All upon His People.

  Tika (which sounds like the word for ’brave one’ in our language) is a falcon that started following me one day. At first, I thought she wanted to eat Naira so I tried to shoo her away, but she always returned. She watches me from just beyond a stone’s throw away whether Naira is with me or not.

  As a rule, falcons prefer to hunt and nest nearer the coast, but our Village lies about half a day’s flight from the ocean. Still, Tika visits me every few days, sometimes carrying a freshly-killed dove or sparrow in her claws to tear at, her head cocked slightly as if taking my measure. I’ve come to find her presence somehow reassuring, like a friend watching my back.

  Falcons, coincidentally, figure in our legends as messengers to heaven as well, bridging earth and sky to carry back blessings and warnings alike.

  When Tika first began following me, some among the People looked at me with new eyes as if gauging previously unnoticed spiritual depths. Others whispered behind my back of unnatural or even evil influences. Even now, summers later, most still see me as an Outsider, along with Miklos and Artan, because I wasn’t born among them and because of my mother’s foreign blood. I’ve learned to live with the stigma, having found a few friends who treat me as if I am no different from anyone else. Spark is chief among them.

  Soon after entering the Learning Meadow just outside of the Village, Spark and I encounter several pairs of staring eyes. Some, those of our fellow students, appear amused; others bored. One pair is disapproving; this is our teacher, Old Bramble. But it’s the disappointment on Truth Seeker’s face that withers our smiles. He’s the leader of the council of Elders, the one who gave me my name so many summers ago. We all look up to him.

  “Sorry, we didn’t mean to be late,” Spark and I apologize, heads bowed. But Seeker just shakes his head.

  “Wind Whisper found the frogs you two left in her cookpot,” he says, his deep voice matter-of-fact. “Have you forgotten? We treat every flower, every animal, every pebble with great love and respect.” His lack of anger only makes his disappointment worse.

  “It’s my fault,” he continues, surprising us, as he shepherds us away from the class so they can continue with lessons. “I’ve been too permissive with you two, telling everyone it’s just a phase you’re going through that will soon come to an end.”

  Spark reddens.

  “But you’ve gone through the Changing now, Spark,” Truth Seeker continues, turning to him, the white in his beard flashing in the sunlight. “Your family is counting on you to take your place among the young warriors and bring honor to the Wolf Clan. You are a man now in the view of the Clans. It’s time to leave childhood mischief behind and start acting like one.”

  Spark nods, eyes cast down in shame.

  “I want to make you all proud, sir,” he mumbles. “It was just one last prank. I’ll act like a man from now on. I promise.”

  Seeker pats him on the back.

  “I am glad to hear that, and I’ll hold you to it. As of today, you won’t need to report to Old Bramble for lessons any longer.”

  Spark looks up swiftly.

  “A hunting party is leaving shortly. You’re going with it.”

  Spark’s face lights up. It will be his first real hunt as a Wolf.

  I watch my best friend take his first step away from me after his Quest; the first of many to come. He dances away, excited but unsure where to go.

  “Your family waits for you at the Lightning Tree,” Seeker says with a chuckle. Without even looking at me, Spark heads off at a run to join them.

  “As for you, Little Squirrel…” Seeker turns, looking at me thoughtfully. I flinch, knowing as soon as he begins what he’ll say. And hating it.

  “I know it’s been tough on you, growing up without a mother.”

  I stare him in the eye, hands fisted at my sides, willing him to chastise me instead. He hesitates, then continues.

  “You’re a brave girl. I see great things in your future. We all do.”

  That last bit isn’t true.

  “Your Vision Quest begins tomorrow. Go one last time to the Purification Hut to sweat and pray, then wash yourself in the river. But first, go to Miklos. He has something to say to you.”

  I sense amusement from Seeker; something in his tone, perhaps, because his countenance has turned stern. Maybe he got into some mischief when he was younger, too. Hard to imagine. I try, and fail.

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you and the other Elders, sir,” I say stiffly, not wanting him to see how his pity wounds me. “I’m ready to put childhood mischief behind me, too.”

  As he did with Spark, he pats my back, but gingerly, as if I might break.

  “I know you are,” he whispers, pushing me gently in the direction of Miklos’ hut. I walk away without looking back or looking in the direction Spark went.

    

  As I alluded to earlier, Miklos and Artan aren’t of the People, though they’ve lived among them for my sake for the past eleven summers. They were originally citizens of Civitas Dei, the City of God, high in the Elusian Mountains to the northeast. The people of Civitas Dei and those living in the
valley below it call themselves the Children of God, for they alone worship the One True God.

  In contrast, the People believe in the Spirit Over All, but we don’t worship or pray to the Spirit in the way that the Children of God do. Instead, we believe that everything around us, every leaf and stone, every tree and hill, has a spirit that can guide us. And because the Spirit lives in us and in everything around us, everything we do is an act of worship.

  Yet for the first five summers of my life, because I was raised in Civitas Dei, I learned to worship and pray to the One True God. It’s something that many of the People, MY People, hold against me to this day. Knowing I’m different, they wonder, as I myself do, if I will go through the Change and take my place among them. In a few days, we will find out.

  The full story of how I came to be born in Civitas Dei is this. A summer after my father, Thunder Echo, had his Vision Quest and went through the Change, but before he took a mate, he went out hunting alone. He saw in the distance a young woman of the Queensrealm riding her horse. We of the People usually keep to ourselves, though in the summertime, we trade with the Queensrealm Ladies for cooking pots made of metal, ribbon, beads, and the like. But we do not ever enter their City, avoiding any interaction with them beyond simple trade.

  My father found himself entranced by the young woman’s beauty. Her hair was a color he’d never seen before, dark brown with deep red hidden in its depths that flashed when the sun touched it. She wore a dress the color of the sky at night, divided for riding, with boots finer than anyone among the People could ever dream of fashioning. She looked like an angel newly fallen to earth, he told me.

  She didn’t see my father because she was a city dweller, untrained to see those who do not wish to be seen. So my father watched her that day and on many days after that, thinking himself unnoticed. He was just curious, he told himself.

  But the people of the Queensrealm have a gift the Spirit has not given us—they call it ‘telempathy’. Simply put, they can sense the feelings of others when they are within a certain distance. One day, my father ventured too near this woman after she’d dismounted to allow her horse to drink from a stream. She looked straight into his eyes where he lay, thinking himself well hidden, and called out in the Common Tongue, “Don’t be afraid. Please, come out where I can see you.”