17 Stones

by Paul Telegdi

  Seventeen Stones

  The Gathering

  The fourth book of the Stone Series

  Paul Telegdi

  Dedicated to my family:

  A nighttime story of adventure for my son Jared

  Example of striving for my other sons, Dan and Jason

  Reworked stone-age psychology for my wife Melanie

  The romance she wished for, for grandma Jean

  Problem-solving for author Paul Telegdi

  Copyright © 2014, Paul Telegdi

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever

  Published by Paul Telegdi at Smashwords in January 2015

  Foreword

  Having survived Y2K back in 2000, I wasn’t so sure if I had it in me to write another book to add to The Stones Series. But I was curious: what happened to Chaiko and Dawn, and the rest of the Standing-Rock Clan? Of course, there were other story lines tempting me, so I promised myself that 17 Stones would be the last of the series. But wouldn’t you know? Yes, you guessed it: there was yet an 18 Stones in me.

  If you have read the series in sequence, then you know that Chaiko is reaching out to explore larger slices of his world. He is as curious as observant, filled with burning desire to learn more about everything around him in a larger context. He’s a man apart, but also very much part of the life of his clan. In this book he is tested as never before to face new challenges in The Gathering of all the clans, forced into politicking that, believe it or not, was very much part of the Stone Age. The inspiration for these books was to propose that modern man is not so different from his predecessors. We have wrapped ourselves in the comforts of our culture and the advantages that technology assures us, but take them away and ask again how are we different? We would probably have more regrets over what we have lost, but could we survive on our own?

  Please take note that this is not a stand-alone book. You should start with 14 Stones to make any sense of this.

  Chapter 1

  By noon the sun had finally gained enough strength to dispel the overnight chill that had surprisingly persisted so late into a midsummer day. For the travellers the coolness had been welcome, as the exertions of their march heated them up more than enough. The group moved at a measured pace across the valley floor, crossing and re-crossing the shallow stream that meandered in the same general direction.

  All morning they had squinted into the rising sun, but now, the brightness had passed overhead, and they were being led increasingly by their own shadows. They moved in a tight bunch. As always, the women and children were surrounded by a protective cordon of men. In spite of being in friendly territory, their vigilance did not relax. Their leader, Baer, demanded extra caution of them. There could always be mountain lions to guard against or a bad-tempered bear taking offence at their passing, or worse still, a pack of dogs could easily be lurking about in the tall grass looking for a quick kill. This far from their home cave, they could not rely on familiar spirits to warn them of dangers. Baer looked at his brother with narrowed eyes. Perhaps the shaman of the Standing-Rock Clan could sense some malevolence ahead? But Chaiko appeared unperturbed. He carried one of the twins in his arms, Moon, or was it Sun? Baer found it hard to tell them apart, in spite of the fact that one was a boy and the other a girl. Dawn carried the other. Three year old Yael scampered between the parents or allowed himself to be carried but a short distance before he insisted on being put down.

  “Be careful,” Dawn called after him, trying to keep all of her three children in view at once, but Chaiko only waved dismissingly, “Let him run. How else will he learn...” He had no time to finish as shouts from the front interrupted him.

  A short way ahead Makar was making noises of alarm and they all pressed toward this commotion, but Baer ordered everyone back. Cosh the Chief-Scout had ranged farther ahead, so Tusk was sent to investigate. The rest waited impatiently.

  After a brief time Tusk came back and was quickly surrounded by the curious, but he appeared reluctant to report what he had found.

  “Well what is it?” Baer demanded of the Chief-Hunter. Tusk made a face. He did not like mysteries, and was at loss to explain this. “It’s a print,” he said finally, shrugging his shoulders.

  “A print?” came echoes of astonishment. All this fuss over a print?

  “Yes, a print!” Tusk almost spat out the unwilling admission. He abhorred anything unexplained. “A print two strides wide and three long.” Two strides by three? Something that big caught everyone’s attention and there was no holding them back as they all rushed to the spot. On a flat rocky plateau that surrounded a shallow depression filled with mud deposits, they found a clear impression pressed into the soft soil of a print, indeed two strides by three. It appeared to have four toes and the indentation of claws was very clear. The size of the thing took everyone’s breath away. What monster could leave such a print? The size could cover the largest of them, which would be Tusk. A frightening thought. They all looked around apprehensively.

  “Just one?” Baer asked and everyone scoured the vicinity but could find no other marks. Not on the lichen encrusted stones, nor on the grass that encroached on the rocks. Tusk shook his head in doubt, but there was no denying the clear imprint in the mud.

  “I wish Cosh were here.” Baer scratched his head. If they were up against this giant of a thing, he would like to know more about it. The Chief-Scout was an expert tracker and he could speak at great length about even the faintest of prints. The trouble was that he was somewhere up ahead. It was already a considerable puzzle that he had not warned them. Surely he could not have overlooked it? Baer chewed on his lips. The older he got, it seemed the more cautious he was becoming. He did not like this.

  “Perhaps it is a giant bird,” Gill offered not too hopefully. That would explain a single print and nothing else besides. Startled, the rest quickly scanned the sky, fully expecting a monster to sweep down upon them.

  “Curious. Most curious,” mused Chaiko, bending over to have a better look.

  “Is curious all you can say?” his brother wanted to know. Be a shaman, his tone commanded, and unravel this riddle. His brother looked up at him, unblinking, obviously thinking of various possibilities.

  “Do you not find this thing peculiar?” Chaiko asked, his voice strangely unimpressed.

  “Yes, I find the size most disturbing!” Baer retorted a little irritated by his brother’s seeming lack of concern.

  “Do not look at the size,” Chaiko said with infuriating calm; “Try to see it as any other print.”

  Baer tried, but the size overshadowed all other considerations. He had this eerie feeling that something large was lurking about ready to pounce on them. One of the monster creatures that the old tales told about. Why had he not heard of this before? He looked beseechingly at his brother.

  “Is it a left foot or a right foot?” Chaiko asked in the same calm tone.

  “Left? Right?” Baer was taken aback. Who cares, he thought, then looked anyway, but could not find an inward curve to the toes; instead, the claws pointed straight ahead. Then a few oddities about the print began to occur to him too. He bent down and poked into the soft mud. “You know, for its size, it has to be surprisingly light, barely sinking a fingers’ breadth into the soil.” He poked the imprint with his fingers to measure the depth. The bottom of the print was not all that compacted and the edges did not curve up and away as if to yield to a great weight. “You know, if I rightly look at it...” his voice trailed off as he looked closer at the audacity facing him.

  “Is it not curious how a simple distraction of size could mask all other features and so mislead the senses?” Chaiko mused aloud. “Is it not said that the eye does not lie but sees truly? Yet,
here the eye hurries to err.” He motioned toward the others, who were still looking anxiously around for some hideous danger threatening them. Makar was expounding on the sheer size of the creature that must have made such a print. “I fear a much smaller creature has made this print, to raise some great mischief.” Chaiko’s tone was amused.

  “Surely not Makar? No, not him. It must be Ruba!” the two brothers concluded simultaneously. The youth had been up ahead of them, ranging back and forth across their path searching for edible plants and roots to supplement their food stores. Baer took a deep breath to summon the miscreant, but Chaiko forestalled him. “Be not so quick, brother. It can be argued that the fish that bit on the hook was trying to pull the fisherman into the water. A trick can be turned on itself.” He rubbed his face with relish, the stubble of his beard rasping under his touch.

  “By no means.” Baer rose, recovering from the annoyance of being taken in so easily, grimacing ruefully. “People!” he called aloud, “take heed and care. There is great danger near us as this print testifies. Why should we so challenge such danger? Perhaps it is best that we do not go to this Gathering. No, it is most prudent to turn back and go home. Only a fool invites danger onto his head.” An involuntary chorus of dismay was forced from the crowd. Deny them the pleasures and excitement of a Gathering? Surely not! But Baer was adamant. “We must warn Cosh and call him back!” Baer looked around, his eyes alighting on Ruba. “Ruba, you are fleet of foot, go as fast as your legs will carry you and bring Cosh back here at once!” the leader yelled the last words at the vacillating youth who was startled into motion before he realised it. It was soon eating him that his harmless little joke so miscarried, now risking even the rare pleasure of a Gathering. He should not have made the print in the first place, but having made it, he should have confessed, instead of running on some fool’s errand, making his original transgression into more of a sin.

  After the youth disappeared behind a screen of bushes, Baer looked at Chaiko and asked, “Now what?”

  Chaiko winked back at him, and yelled out loudly, “Ork! Sosa!” Then he continued evenly to his brother, “If anybody knows how to turn one of Ruba’s tricks back on him, then these are the two.” Baer nodded in agreement, then went among the rest to reassure them. Soon as the realisation began to sink in, there were angry voices raised in indignation. They could not believe how easily they had been duped. Only Gill seemed inclined to laugh, relishing the prank.

  “I knew it!” Makar was the first to recover. “I knew there was something wrong with the print,” he maintained, “but not what. How could you tell when you could not even take in its size at a single glance? And who would expect Ruba to show so much... originality?”

  Tara stabbed the end of her staff into the print and uttered a disdainful, “Hrump. It does not even look like a real print.”

  “No, it does not,” validated Chandar, “but that only makes it more strange. The more unreal it appeared the more likely it became.” Tara looked doubtfully at him, and he continued defensively, “Would you have believed a giant squirrel paw print?”

  “Hrump,” Tara blew through her nose. Like the others, she, too, was backing away from her own unwitting role in the deception they fell into. It might have been Ruba who made the print but it was each one of them colluding to believe it.

  Chaiko looked at the episode more pragmatically. “Do not forget that his father was an artist, who liked to draw animals and had a lively imagination. It should therefore not be surprising that his son should have some talent, too.”

  “True. But his father had it under control, whereas it leaks out of Ruba as mischief,” Tanya argued, sounding unusually harsh in condemnation of the youth. Even Dawn raised an eyebrow. But it was understandable. Tanya believed it when her mate, Baer, threatened to call off the Gathering and she had been scared that she would miss her chance at seeing her relatives. A Gathering was a rare event, occurring only once every four years.

  Tusk was relieved to have an explanation for the seemingly unexplained, but it also gave a clear target for his irritation. He promised to wring the miscreant’s neck for so fooling them. Rea kicked some dirt into the print and protested that he had not been scared in the least.

  Chaiko then waved to everyone, “All right. This is what we will do to teach one so bold as to play with our fears and emotions...” And he drew them all into the conspiracy as he detailed what he had in mind. Ork and Sosa smirked with undisguised pleasure. More and more heads nodded with enthusiasm as the mood of revenge blossomed. Dawn noted how her mate had adroitly turned the shock of the scare into eager anticipation of a payback.

  It was tending to late afternoon when Cosh, Ushi and Ruba returned to find not a soul on the rocky plateau. The print was still there, obscenely large, and Cosh puzzled briefly over it then searched for signs of the rest. Ushi was mesmerised by the sight of the print. There were plenty of signs but except for the obvious path leading in, there were no tracks leading away. It seemed that the rest of the clan had disappeared into thin air as had the mythical bird that had left the print.

  Ruba was suddenly very worried. He had found the Chief-Scout but had not dared to confess his role in the prank. Instead, he stammered incoherently about a giant bird that landed in their path. Cosh could make no sense of the youth’s confusion as Ruba had tried to weave fiction with fact. They had hurried back, and here at least Cosh had a chance to read the signs. He circled about, his eyes on the ground, drawing conclusions from the faint traces. At times his penetrating gaze would brush over the boy and each time Ruba felt acutely uncomfortable. He should have confessed, it ate at him, but now he was stuck with accounting for the delay and the continued deception. He could find no way out of his dilemma. Where were the people anyway? What could have happened to them?

  As Ushi made some expectant noises, wanting an explanation, Cosh finally straightened and turned on the youth. “The nearest I can make out, some big bird landed and made off with them,” the Chief-Scout finally said, his eyes boring into Ruba’s. The youth’s mouth opened and closed... but uttered only an unintelligible squawk. Ushi could not manage even that.

  “You must be... mistaken,” Ruba finally stammered out.

  “Well either that or... they tried to escape down this hole,” Cosh offered, seemingly satisfied with either explanation.

  “What hole?” both Ushi and Ruba wanted to know. Cosh showed them. Near the base of the cliff there was a fresh earthwork with a fair-sized tunnel leading below. There were numerous scuff marks on the mound and in the mouth of the tunnel, but nothing clear or definite. The view down soon disappeared in darkness as the tunnel wound its way through a maze of rocks. “That seems the only way off this plateau. I think it must lead to some other exit. It would be best to send someone down through it to see where it comes out.” Ruba had a sinking feeling that he knew who that someone was going to be. He was not wrong and soon found himself on all fours crawling along the dim constriction.

  In the darkness the world closed in on him, and he soon lost all sense of direction and had to feel his way along. There was a dank smell of earth but also a comforting draft as the air flow forced itself around him. That in itself promised another exit, and Ruba took heart. The tunnel was spacious enough to allow easy progress. Good thing it was not a small badger hole, he thought, but then size suddenly became a new, worrisome issue. Just how big was this creature who occupied this place? He fervently hoped it was not a bear. Even a badger was a serious enough threat. He could well envision large, sharp claws driven by a ferocious disposition. And the creature was used to this darkness that remained closed for him. On all fours Ruba scurried along, driven by his mounting apprehension. He sniffed the air nervously, his nose repelled by a musky, pungent smell mixed with the sharp odour of urine and scat. He found himself gagging as his senses reeled. As there was not room enough for him to turn around he drove himself onward into the blackness. Thunder filled his ears and he was surprised that all the booming a
nd reverberations were coming from his heart. Then he reached an inner chamber and suddenly found himself lost in the open space. The tunnel was no longer there to lead him. He fought down the momentary panic... how was he going to find his way out of here? He thought of Cora, which calmed him and helped him think. Follow the flow of air, his mind suggested. And so, frequently turning his head to let his cheeks catch the lightest swirl he proceeded cautiously along the path the air indicated. Soon he was in another tunnel, then found himself crawling upward, very encouraged by that fact. He wondered how the others had managed to push themselves through this constriction. Tusk for example. But Cosh could not be wrong about this. Not about signs and tracks. The tunnel took a turn and suddenly there was a crack of light up ahead. He sped up, his palms sore and his knees scraped raw by his progress on all fours.

  Suddenly there was a noise up ahead. A vicious snarl as something leapt at him in the dark. He recoiled and quickly backed up. After a few paces he paused, listening and considering, his heart hammering in his ears. The tunnel was too narrow to turn around and he decided against backing all the way to the main chamber. Seeing how close he was to the surface, he decided to try again to force an exit. He wished he had not left his spear behind, but it had looked as if there was no room for it in the twists and turns of the burrow. Now he was facing an ill-tempered beast with no weapon in hand. He dug into the tunnel walls and worked a fist-sized stone free. It was a crude implement but it was better than nothing. He tried a cautious approach upward. The light spilled into the tunnel, but it blinded him instead of helping him to see. Again the creature attacked, snarling and growling ferociously. In the close confines it sounded as if there were more than one. Ruba gritted his teeth and pressed on, striking out with the rock, hoping to hit the creature. Whatever it was, it yielded a step but then attacked. Again and again it charged in, then retreated to launch a new attack. Ruba had to get out of there and he met each charge with a determined counterattack. Little by little he won ground. Amazingly, the creature did not bite or even rake him with its sharp claws. Each success fed Ruba’s elation; he was winning his way free. Sunshine flooded into the mouth of the tunnel and inexplicably the creature snarled and wheeled away to disappear. Ruba, taking advantage of this opening, scampered after and heaved himself into the open. His eyes were assaulted by the brightness and he could not see. He strained to keep his eyes open but they were filled with tears. He staggered to his feet, waiting for the creature’s next attack. It did not come. Disoriented and confused, he fought the pain to see, but the light overwhelmed the shadows. He rubbed his eyes desperately. He needed to see!