The discarded bones were cracking in the cooking fire; the Sasku, bellies full, were dozing in the sun. Sanone looked up when Kerrick reappeared, went over and sat by him.

“There are things I wish to talk about, mandukto of the Sasku,” Kerrick said formally.

“I listen.”

Kerrick ordered his thoughts before he spoke again. “We have done what we came here to do. The murgu are dead, their threat is no more. Now you will take your hunters and return to your valley and your people. But I must stay here—though the reasons for this are just now becoming clear. I am Tanu—but I am also of the Yilanè, who are the murgu that grew this place. There are things here of great value, of value to the Tanu. I cannot leave without looking at them, thinking about them, considering them. I think of the death-sticks without which the murgu could never have been defeated.” He stopped as Sanone raised his hand for silence.

“I hear what you say, Kerrick, and begin to understand a little of the many thoughts that have been troubling me. My way has not been clear, but it is becoming more so. What I can understand now is that when Kadair took the form of the mastodon and shaped the world he stamped hard upon the rock and marked his track deep into the solid rock. What we need is the wisdom to follow that track. That track led you to us and you brought the mastodon to show us where we came from—and where we are destined to go. Karognis sent the murgu to destroy us, but Kadair sent the mastodon to guide us over the ice mountains to this place to wreak his vengeance upon them. And they are destroyed while this place has been burnt but not burnt. You seek wisdom here, which means you are following the mastodon’s tracks just as we are. Now I can see that our valley was just a stop along the track while we waited for Kadair to stamp out his path for us. We will remain in this place and the rest of the Sasku will join us here.”

While Kerrick had difficulty in following Sanone’s reasoning, the depths of the mandukto’s knowledge was great and well beyond him, he welcomed the decision enthusiastically.

“Of course—you have said what I was trying to say. There is more here in Alpèasak than one person could understand in a hundred lifetimes. Your people who make cloth from green plants, hard rock from soft mud, you will know about these things. Alpèasak will still live.”

“There is a meaning to the sounds and movements you make? Has this place been named?”

“It is called the place of the warm, the shining—I don’t exactly know how to say it in Sesek, the sands that lie along the ocean bank.”