Luck | Page 9

he'd seen the Council of the Mammoths, Thumb thought
that the two herds were about to fight. Then Looker had explained.
Each of the herds walked its own land. Where the leaders met was the
boundary. The mammoths touched trunks as brothers might touch fists
or sisters hug. This was a dream of friendship, not of rancor, and it was
meant to speak to the people who kept the cave. The spirits
commanded them, said Looker, to live at peace with their neighbors. It
was their luck to take lovers from the shell people and send their
children to live with the horse people and to welcome all strangers.
Man, whispered a voice in Thumb's head.
Thumb whirled, but he saw no one. "Who are you?" He felt as if he
were standing on the sky and gazing up at the ground. "Tell me!" The
walls swallowed his anger. This was the place of true dreams and he
was its keeper. "This is the cave of the people! You don't belong here!"
Man, I am.
Thumb staggered across the Council Room and fell to his knees before
Father Mammoth. "Father, I've come looking for Owl, the storyteller.
Now something in your cave calls me. I don't understand what is
happening. Show me what I must do." And then he opened himself.
No dream found him.
Thumb didn't know what to do. Shocked, he knelt there waiting.
Waiting. This had never happened before. Father Mammoth stared
down at him but sent no dream. The spirits had forsaken him.

The torch began to gutter.
Man. Come to me.
Thumb fumbled for his lamp. Still on his knees, he flattened a wad of
boar fat into the bowl, pinched some moss for a wick and pressed it
into the fat. He lit the lamp from the failing torch.
Man.
"What?" he muttered as he stood. His knees creaked. How long had he
been kneeling on the cold stone? He left the torch behind and started
down the passage toward the Lodge of the Mother Mammoth. The
world shrank as he left the Council Room. The torch had cast a strong
light, but the lamp burned with a single flame. When he held it at eye
level, the floor of the cave disappeared. Thumb groped forward, his
free hand brushing the wall. He saw more with his feet than with his
eyes. Soon he came to one of the narrows. He stooped, and then
crawled on hands and knees. He picked his way slowly, holding the
lamp level so as not to spill melting fat or snuff the flame.

The ceiling in the Mother's Lodge was low enough that he could reach
up and press his palm flat against it. It was decorated with mammoths
and bison and ibex and horses and rhinoceros, outlined in black soot
stone. Some stood on top of one another. Upside down jostled right
side up. Here was a many to make a man's head swim. Thumb could as
soon count the leaves on a tree or the hairs of Onion's head. Ordinarily
the spirits of the cave were most present in this great gathering of
animals. When Thumb guided people to this room, dreams spun from
the ceiling like snow from the winter sky. But now he gazed up in vain.
He felt as if his soul had turned to stone.
"Why am I here?" He began by searching the edges of the room,
carrying the lamp low so he could see the floor. Nothing. "Talk to me!"
Then he struck out for the opposite wall, crisscrossing back and forth.
On his fourth traverse, his foot nudged the body.

Thumb rolled Owl over and felt his throat for the beat of blood. He was
alive. Thumb squatted, thinking of how to get the old man out of the
cave. If he slung Owl over his back and tried to carry him, he'd
probably douse the lamp. Besides, how would they wriggle through the
narrows? He decided that if he couldn't wake Owl up, he would have to
leave the cave, build a litter and bring Bead back to help.
"Owl." Thumb chucked the old man's chin. "Can you hear me?" He
leaned close and blew on his eyelids. "Uncle?"
"Hmm."
"It's me, Thumb."
Owl stirred and put his hand to his forehead. Then he opened his eyes.
Spears of light, brighter than any fire Thumb had ever seen, shot from
Owl's eyes and then winked out. Thumb screamed and sprawled
backward, spilling hot fat on himself and snuffing the lamp's puny
flame.
Darkness closed around him. He felt it press against his skin, stop his
nose, slither down his throat. He tried to scream again but the darkness
was smothering him. Terrified, he scuttled across the floor until his