The Storyteller Trilogy by Sue Harrison

view by the men around him, hissed at the one who had spoken.
    “He is alive,” Cen repeated.
    “He is,” the scarred man finally said. A young man pushed his way to Cen’s side. Cen had seen him before. Yes. He called himself Sok, and had traded yesterday for several things.
    “The boy is alive,” said Sok, “but his mother’s spirit calls him, as does the spirit of my grandfather, who was also killed.”
    The trader stared at the man. Was he saying someone else had died? Three had been attacked?
    “Dead by a knife we saw in your hands yesterday.”
    “You have the knife?” Cen asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Many of you traded for knives yesterday,” Cen said. “Do you think if I had some reason to kill the woman and my son and an old man I do not know, I would be fool enough to use my own knife? To leave it?”
    There was silence broken only by the moaning of several women, by the mumbling of the men. A wave of pain washed over Cen but he fought it down. “Bring the knife here,” he said. “Let me see it. I might remember who bought it in trade.” He looked at the men surrounding him. Was there fear in any of the faces?
    “Bring the knife,” Sok said. “I need revenge on the one who killed my grandfather.”
    Chakliux walked the river. It was still frozen, some of the ice swept bare, some covered with snow hardened by wind. In one moon, perhaps two, the ice would weaken, and a rush of water, ice and earth from far upriver would roar down to the sea. Even now, Chakliux could see scars from previous breakups, places where whole trees had been uprooted and large portions of the bank swept away.
    If he had not seen it happen before, it would be difficult to imagine. The river under ice and snow seemed so quiet, as though it would never be anything but a white path for Chakliux’s feet.
    Chakliux missed his own village, his own people. He missed telling stories, but at least this village had a river. For as long as he remembered, Chakliux had loved the water. As a child at fish camp, he was told many times to stay away from the river, but still he played and paddled in the shallows. Eventually, he had learned to swim, even though the cold of the water made his bones ache.
    He was an otter, the shaman finally decided. Who could deny that? Who could not see his otter feet? Had he not been an animal-gift baby, sprung somehow from a clot of animal blood? Besides, everyone knew people did not swim.
    After that, K’os did not try to keep him from the water. His skills were useful in building and repairing the village fish traps, in recovering lost hooks and handlines. He had a place in his village and was honored for his difference.
    He was not otter enough to swim in the sea, but once or twice he had seen traders using boats built by the Sea Hunters. Iqyan, they were called, those boats, as sleek as an otter and sheathed with sea lion skins or split walrus hide. How different they were from the clumsy rafts and poles The People used to ferry themselves across the river in summer.
    Those Sea Hunters, a trader had once told him, considered themselves brother to the sea otter. Once one of their hunters had come to the fish camp to trade. He was shorter and darker-skinned than The People, with long arms and wide, strong shoulders. Chakliux had seen him roll the iqyax and come up from the river, water dripping over his wide smiling mouth. He wore a birdskin parka, so that some of the women said he was not man but seabird and fought among themselves to decide who would invite him to her bed in hopes of bearing a magic seabird child.
    Chakliux and the men had been more interested in the skin coat he wore over the birdskin parka. It was made, the Sea Hunter said, from seal intestines, each intestine split and flattened, then scraped so thin you could see light through it. The strips were sewn together so the seams did not leak water. When the man rolled his iqyax, the intestine parka protected him so the sea could not seep