K'yish tlyed soothingly to the etwani even as his own thoughts mirrored the
terror in her eyes.  She was still grasping onto the protruding root,
trembling as her feet dangled over the yawning crevise; while he was hanging
onto a rope just a few feet above her.  Their combined fear scent
overpowered him again and his voice faltered breaking the power of his song.
----------------------------------------------------

It had started out a deceptively fine day.  He had been resting on the
mountainside, listening for the rythms of life that could be pieced into
song, when Land had suddenly cried out in distress.  The shock of it had
roused him from his spirit search even as the first physical jolt had hit.
After the Land calmed enough, he had been gratified to discover he and
R'ket, his faithful Bond Companion, were unhurt.  Relief was short lived,
however, as a panicked cry came from down the slope.  Of course, he had
immediately mounted R'ket to find the source of the distress call.  It did
not take them long.  There, in the midst of terrible upheaval were two Etwan
Herders crouching near a newly-opened gash in  the rockface.  He had barely
finished hailing them in their own language when they had ran over and
practically dragged him off of R'ket's back.  That had been his first
inkling of how bad the situation was---  the Etwan normally were never so
rude as to touch a K'tlyan (let alone an Elder) unless the K'tlyan gave
permission or the Eldest of the Etwani so ordered it.

"Second Elder--- save her!  You must save her!  Tly!  Voice!  Do something!"

So they had cried as they had pushed him dangerously near the edge.  That's
when he heard the whimper and looked down to see a young female, maybe four
Turns old, clutching at an exposed tree root several feet  from where he
stood.  Here was the missing third of their triad.  Below her were several
times that distance of rock and loose dirt.  The very sight had made his
heart skip a beat.

R'ket would have come forward to help, but it was plain that Land was barely
holding on as it was and would never suffer the bulky animal's addition:
bits of soil were crumbling downward just from the the Kievet's combined
weight alone.  Ordering them all back, he had taken a woven pakha rope from
his pak, tied one end securely around the only nearby tree, and, tlying
fervently to everything he could think of,  Rock, Tree, Soil, Pakha, prayed:
for K'yavanti's breath, please do na let Unayarek trouble you again.  If
they fell, it would be near impossible for anyone to retrieve their bodies
from the abyss so that the K'aves Ceremony could be completed.  The thought
of his or any Kievet dying without the K'aves being performed was enough to
send a cold chill through his veins; for without the necessary making of an
opening how was the Spirit to join with K'yavanti?  The Spirit would be
forced to wait until the body decayed enough on its  own.  Down there in the
crevise... that could take a very long time indeed.  So he had moved with
extreme caution even as his heart told him to hurry.

Then he had run out of rope.
---------------------------------------

K'yish took a deep breath to calm himself before restarting his tly.  The
rope was too short to reach her as he had hoped; however, if he were to
continue lowering himself until it ran out altogether..?  He did so.  Now he
was low enough for the etwani to grab ahold of his leg cuff.  That was good.
A small rainfall of dirt and pebbles cascaded onto his head and down into
the shadows.  That was bad.  Rock and Soil were getting tired.  He
strengthend his Voice to them to no avail.  A tiny tremble began in the
rope, echoing the cry of Tree--- it was coming loose!

K'yish felt his blood pound into his ears drowning out the sounds of Other
for a few precious seconds.  And in those seconds he heard the laugh of
Unayarek:  You are going to die, K'tlyan.  A horrible death; an eternity of
entrapment.  I will hold you until K'yavanti has forgotten your very
existence!

"NAH!  Sha, Unayarek!  Tlyg es K'tlysa!  K'tlysa aveneng K'tas es K'tlyan!
(No! Quiet, Destroyer!  Will sing to Warning Song.!  Warning Song will give
message to my brothers.)

Perhaps...  But the etwani...

The evil thought faded away leaving K'yish gasping.  Ayth!  He had given
Unayarek an opening into his mind by letting his fear take over.  He must be
on guard and not let that happen again!

"Etwani."  He kept his tone low and soothing.  Etwani, take ahold of my cuff
and I will pull us both out."
The brown eyes looked searchingly up at him as the rope signaled another
warning: Hurry!  Despite himself, K'yish let the fear coalesce his own
multi-shades of bluet irises.  He quickly forced the color back into place,
normalizing his pupil size.  Had she seen the lapse?

"Come, it will be alright."

She reached for his cuff and transferred part of her weight to it.
Immediatley the tree above them gave an ominous creaking sound and another
dirtfall dusted them both.  She hastily withdrew her hand .  Wide eyes
looked questioningly at him.

"Eldests say that the K'tlyan are precious to K'yavanti.  They sing."

"That is true, Little One.  But take hold of ..."

"I am not worth the Walking of such."

What was she talking about?  This was no time to discuss personal worth!
"Little One, we can talk of such after --- "  K'yish took a sharp breath as
he realized.  The Destroyer had not been talking soley to him.  Unayarek was
twisting the teaching of the Eldests to get her to sacrifi --- !  "Donna
listen to it!  All life is precious to K'yavanti!"

Without a sound she let go of the root and plummented into the darkness.

"Little One!  Little One! He screamed into the pit knowing it was no good.
She was gone.  She  was gone and her body would stay there; unreachable
until it rotted.

And who's fault is that?

Yours!  K'yish bitterly thought back.

Mine?  Whose eyes betrayed their fear?  I only reminded her of her duty as
an Etwan.

She was only an etwani!  K'yish sobbed, angry at the inidious voice that he
was too upset to tly into silence.

What does age matter?  It was her duty to give of herself for others--- for
your benefit.  You were afraid.  What was the one way that she could
alleviate your pain?  Save your precious K'tlyan life?

K'yish grit his teeth but said nothing.  Unayarek was Destruction in all its
forms, yet he could find no fault in its reasoning.  If he had not been
afraid ...  he closed his eyes in agonizing pain as he accepted the damning
accusation.

K'yavanti ---  I have killed her!  I might as well have kicked her into the
darkness!
----------------------------------------------------------------

"K'yish?     K'yish?"

The Second Elder opened his eyes and looked up.  K'yash, his brother and Ysh
Clan's First Elder, was looking back down at him with a concerned face.
When had he arrived?

"K'yish, my friend, why would you not hear us?  Come now, I have braced the
rope, but it is getting dark and the land is yet wounded.  Climb up and let
us leave here."

"K'yash, I killed her."

"What?"  The K'wi K'tlyan't of Ysh frowned.  His friend's voice had sounded
flat and uncaring, despite the awful improbability of his words.  "K'yish
..."  He stopped, seeing the other silently look down into the darkness.
Something was dreadfully wrong with his longtime friend.  He changed tact.

"Second Elder, your presence is requested by order of the First Elder.  You
are keeping him waiting."

Ah.. that did it.  K'yish slowly began to pull himself up.  As soon as he
was within reach, K'yash grabbed his arm and helped him over the edge.  Now
K'yish could see that it was indeed much later than he remembered.  Also,
his arms and hands ached something awful.

"The Etwan are gone.  I failed them and they left me.  You should have  left
me too."

K'yash pulled him away from the edge to a more safer location where their
R'kets stood impatiently.  The First waited while the anxious Companion
welcomed back its Kievet, lovingly licking K'yish's face.  K'yish, for his
part seemed to barely notice the animal, absently petting its neck as if his
thoughts were elsewhere.

"The Etwan left because I asked them to go.  The Eldests needed to be
informed of what happened.  I was here with you, though.  I called your name
many times before you looked up.  Now you say I should have left you alone.
Why is that, my friend?  Down there is na a place to mourn; and you would
soon have fallen yourself.  But come, we can discuss this  later for it is
quite late and your kien must be getting very worried for you."

K'yash was gratified to see a small flicker in the Second's eyes when he
mentioned Yer.  It was the first hint of real emotion his friend had
displayed.  But that was to be expected, the bond between Mieket and kien in
some ways surpassed that of even K'tlyan and Companion.

K'yish nodded.  "Yer...  Aye, my young one will be waiting for me.  I must
get home."  he agreed blankly, mounting his R'ket.  It would be very bad
indeed to compound his grave error by causing his kien unnecessary pain.

The First Elder mounted as  well, leaning over to speak more closely with
the brother he had called Friend for six Turns now.  "This tragedy has
touched you deeply, my yan.  Perhaps we should ride together.  I will tly
peace for you after we mourn.  Then at Council tommorrow you will feel
better and we will decide what is to be done."

 K'yash waited for a reply, but none came, so he rode alongside K'yish until
they arrived at the latter's abode.  Like all Clan K'tlyan dwellings, the
Etwan-built shelter was just a simple structure of interwoven branches,
rather like an airy basket.  Worked into the roof were various leaves that
did an adequate job of keeping off the rain, but otherwise it was quite
open.  This was not to say that the Etwan Weavers were incompetent or that
they did not care about their K'tlyans' comfort.  On the contrary, they
built them that way because the males liked the openness.
To be completely surrounded by walls was unncessary, they said.  It hampered
their ability to feel the world.  Besides, that was one of the benefits of
being an Elder ---  one no longer needed to spend long periods in protective
caves during the Cold Time.  It was bad enough being cooped up during
Eldest/Elder meetings in the decidedly claustrophobic-styled Etwan lodges---
even with the roof blankets partially removed for their sake.

Hunched over against one side of the shelter was a young male of five Turns
dressed in a kien's garb of mid-thigh length tunic, trousers, and plain
boots.  His jet black hair hid the face, but K'yash could tell by the way
the boy breathed that he was asleep.  A soft nicker from a R'ket was all it
took to rouse him though.

"Mieket!"  Yer bolted to his feet and launched his small body onto the
R'ket's flank; using the luxuriously thick fur to climb up into K'yish's
lap, then balancing on the snow-white withers in order to blow a heartfelt
greetings to his teacher/guardian.  "Mieket, there were such happenings
today!  First the ground shook and then the wailing horns were blown.  I was
so afraid and wanted you and R'ket to come so we could hug and make each
other brave.  But you did na come for so long."  The short arms grasped
around the colorful K'tlyan scarf of his guardian.  "Now it is better," he
sighed.

His Mieket breathed his name, but did not hug him back or make any
comforting moves.  Instead he dismounted, leaving the mystified youngster to
stare after him as he walked stiffly into the shelter and sat down on  the
bare floor.

K'yash gave a little cough in order to get the kien's attention.  Dark green
eyes blinked out at him from the finely shaped face.  With an apologetic
gesture, he reached out his hand toward the small male.  A delicate,
blunt-edged claw gently traced a path through the pale, silken cheek hairs
that covered everywhere except the dark scalp and a few small beginnings of
charcoal spots that ran down the throat  to disappear under the tunic.  The
young male was well proportioned though short for his age. Undeniably a
special gift from K'yavanti for the Etwan.  In a few more Turnings, the
Elder thought, the kien would be turning heads as a new K'tlyan.  K'yash
smiled as the boy belatedly realized who his guest was.  He made the silence
gesture to forestall any awkward apologies and offers of food.

"You are Yer.  I have not seen you since last Festival and then you were
want to hide under your Mieket's cloak with R'ket to guard you.  You have
grown much since then."

Yer grinned, embarrassed at the compliment.

K'yash withdrew his hand.  "Will you do me a special favor, young Yer?"

The dark eyes grew even more so as the pupils grew.  "Me?"

K'yash chuckled at the surprised expression.  "You think it strange that an
Elder would need anything from a kien?  But I do require your assistance,
little Kievet."  He leaned down more to Yer's level and pointed toward the
shelter, voice lowered.  "A sad event was this enkati.  Your Mieket is much
grieved by it.  Will you voice to me that you will comfort him until he
feels better?"

The kien's eyes teared up at this news.  He nodded his agreement.  Of course
he would!  Mieket was nigh everything!  K'yash gave another smile of
approval as the promise was voiced.  Good.  Between the determined efforts
of a First Elder and a kien, what chance did mere despondency have?  K'yish
would be himself in no time.
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Onto Part Two!