“The ancient ways are always just beyond,” Yankay suddenly said. He seemed to be speaking to the fire, for he then nodded as if the flames had replied with something profound.

“Once it was a noble profession,” he declared, lifting his eyes toward Shan. “Only very learned men would chase the hail. It took as many years of study as that for a lama abbot, with hundreds of long prayers to memorize. But all those teachers fell off the earth in the last century.”

He raised a hand and pointed to the northwestern sky. A moment later a meteor shot across the heavens, exactly where he pointed. It had to be a coincidence, Shan told himself. There could be no explanation for it, just as there could be none for Yankay’s knowing of the earthquake at the Shoe Factory. He heard Lokesh’s whisper in his ear. Just accept the wonder.

“There are many evil demons roaming the earth in our time. That was the true job of the hail chaser, to use lightning, hail, and earthquake to subdue the demons that sought to harm humans.” He poked the fire with a long stick. “The charm against the inner-earth demon is soil that has been fused by lightning. The charm against the lesser female water demons is hellebore. The charm against the more powerful ones is powdered copper and black sulphur mixed with soil from a crossroads. The list is long, and some charms are lost forever. I didn’t have the right training. The gods speak to me, they tell me about hail, and lightning, and earthquakes, even meteors, but I don’t really know how to speak back to them. I am a mute wandering alone in the house of the gods,” he said, with a tinge of anguish in his dry voice.

The hail chaser shrugged. “I can always dance and have people think it is magic but it’s not magic. It’s the gods whispering in my ear. That day at the Shoe Factory, did you not hear all the dogs barking and see the mules bolting? There’s a special bark dogs have when an earthquake is minutes away. My early teacher taught me that much. All the birds had gone from the camp, though no one else seemed to notice. There’s a vibration in the air just before the ground shakes, though most humans have forgotten how to feel that as well. Maybe I just have obsolete senses that have died out in other humans.” He sighed. “I hear that down in the lower lands there are actually rivers a man can’t drink from and air that makes a man sick to breathe. If that’s true, it’s because no one knows how to speak with the earth gods anymore. I’m just a miserable fool who can only hear them. Which makes it a curse, really.”