floor of The Cave, as the Ceremony demanded.

And now, Azak’s father, the chieftain Ozyk, began the Dance of Triumph, and his bull-like voice roared forth The Song – as his hard-soled bare feet slapped out the rhythm on the stone floor of The Cave, Our People joined with him, until the high-vaulted walls echoed with the sounds of their ecstatic jubilation.

After Azak was taken care of, he and both of the infant hunters were taken off of Al-Tar and removed to the portion of The Cave where Ygrim, the infant hunters’ father, made his bed. Ygrim, his thick-muscled body sweaty and panting from the Dance of Triumph, and still roaring The Song lustily, followed close behind those who carried Azak and his twin burden, and Ygrim was careful and solicitous of Azak and of the two infant hunters, as he should be. Ygrim was himself a good hunter, a Defender of Our People and a Provider for them from the Hunt, and he knew well the behavior expected of him towards his own sons and also towards him who had given them birth. He also knew, somewhere in his limited mind, that this most auspicious Double Birth would likely in time make Ygrim the next chieftain of Our People…

Ugurk left Asram to finish cleaning up and walked up from the floor of The Cave. He stood a little ways outside the door of The Cave, just beyond the reach of the faint light from the flickering torches. Ugurk stood in darkness on the rock ledge in front of the opening, high above the broad Valley below. The fountain of pure water that sprang from the cliff-face nearby splashed quietly in the dark stillness on its way down to the floor of the Valley below, and the light from the Full Moon gave the clear water a silvery gleam as it flowed down the floor of the Valley below and became the River.

The Shaman Ugurk leaned his ancient back against the almost-sheer rock cliff-face in which The Cave, with the small ledge that allowed access to its opening, was situated. He stared out into the night, with the Full Moon now low in the sky, and the wheeling stars greeting Ugurk like old friends, which in truth they were.

As Ugurk placed the healing herbs inside Azak’s body, The Power had departed from Ugurk’s hands, and flowed into Azak, as it should. Everything had gone perfectly tonight, as Ugurk had expected from the Signs all during The Process - but no Sign seen by Ugurk had foretold the Wonder of the Double Birth. With the departure of The Power, Ugurk was exhausted, but in a sort of floating ecstasy from the memory of the touch of The Power. He gazed up now at the stars above with only his own Shaman’s eyes, not with the eyes of The Power, and the stars, slowly careening in their intricate, dancelike, well-known patterns, seemed to him to be near enough to touch. The Shaman Ugurk, his back against the hard rock of the cliff-face and his old eyes on the distant fiery stars, pondered on the great mysteries of all that had occurred this night, and what these events might mean for Our People…

…to be continued…