Read an Excerpt

PART ONE

610 B.C.

The old woman looked down at the child. The boy's eyes were shining alert. She was tired, but howoften did a storyteller have the pleasure of passing her tales to a child like this? How often was a Dzuuggi, a child destined to be a storyteller, born to the People? And this one was surely Dzuuggi. She had heard his voice in her dreams even when his mother carried, him in her womb.

The old woman had also been chosen Dzuuggi, taught as a child the histories of the River People, but now that knowledge was a burden--so many words to be remembered. Each day as she told the stories to the boy, she felt their weight lift from her, and each day she felt lighter and stronger as though her old bones would straighten, and she would walk once more with firm steps.

She cupped a wooden bowl of willow bark tea in her hands. She raised the tea to her mouth, and sipped. The bowl had darkened with age, the wood rich from the many teas it had held, the many stories it had heard.

Be like this bowl, small Dzuuggi, the old woman thought, and she closed her eyes, lifted her head so those thoughts would climb like a prayer. Be like this cup. Hold much, give much, and become rich with what is within you.

"So then, child," she began, "you remember those two storytellers, Aqamdax and Chakliux?"

The boy nodded, whispered the names.

"You do not hear many stories about storytellers; their voices you hear, but only that. So this is something unusual." The old woman paused and stared 'into the smoke of the hearth fire at the center of her lodge. The wood was still peaked high, a feast for the burning mouth that would finally consumewhat she had offered. She reached into the smoke, brought a cupped hand to her face as though to pull words from the flames.

"And you remember that Chakliux was from the River People, just like we are?" she asked. "You remember that he was also chosen as Dzuuggi like you?" Though her words were questions, she did not give him time to answer; instead she went on: "And the woman Aqamdax, she was what?"

"Sea Hunter, First Men," the boy said.

The old woman nodded.

"Not River," said the boy.

"Not River, but not so different from us. We share their blood, at least some of us do." She lifted one finger, pressed it to the wrinkles that spread like a fan between hey eyes. "You remember Chakliux had a little Sea Hunter blood, though he was River. I told you about his foot."

She pulled off one of her furred lodge boots. The leather sole, softened by wear, dark from hearth fire smoke, had worn thin under her toes. She used one hand to press the side of her foot to the floor.

"Curled on edge, it was," she said, "like an otter's foot when he paddles in the water and his toes were webbed on both feet. Like otter toes." She rubbed her bare foot, rubbed and hummed a tuneless song, then pulled on her boot.

"So now perhaps I will listen," she said, "and you will tell me a little about Chakliux the Dzuuggi."

The boy straightened his shoulders and began to speak in a small, soft voice. The old woman interrupted him. "You think anyone will listen to you if you speak like that?" She pressed her hands into the arch under her rib cage. "From here, your words must come from here." She puffed out her chest with air, and the boy did the same. "Now," she said, and he spoke again, this time much louder.

"Good," said the old woman. "Now I can tell that the words come from your heart."

"When he was a baby," said the boy, "Chakliux was left on the Grandfather Rock to die."

" 'Ih?" the old woman said, as if she were listening to an actual storytelling, and the Dzuuggi's words had surprised her. "A Dzuuggi left to die?"

"It is true," the boy said. "His grandfather left him, because of the foot. He did not see it as otter, but only as a curse, and he left Chakliux. But Chakliux did not die The woman K'os came and found him there. She took him home, and he became her son. But she hated him. She hated everyone else, too, after men took her by force on the- Grandfather Rock and killed the spirits of her unborn children. She thought Chakliux was a gift to make up for what had happened.

"When Chakliux grew up, she was Jealous of him because he was wise, and because he was chosen to be Dzuuggi. She even killed his wife and baby."

"They must have driven her from the village after she did that," the old woman said.

The boy leaned toward the old woman and lowered his voice to a whisper. "No, she did it secretly with poison, and so everyone thought they died from sickness."

"You know that she was the one who started the war between the Near River and Cousin River Villages," the old woman said. "Of all the things I have taught you, there is nothing more important than the remembrance of that war. Though it was long ago, much changed because of the fighting. So many of the River People died, and villages that had been strong grew weak."

Her throat sounded full, as if she would cry, but when the boy looked into her eyes, he saw that they were hard and dry. She shook her fist at the hearth fire, and he wondered if the smoke could carry her anger back through the years to those foolish people. Cry of the Wind. Copyright © by Sue Harrison. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.