"Why are you telling us your secrets? Showing us your power?" Ayla asked.

The question was so direct that it caught the woman off guard, but then she smiled. "Do not imagine I am telling you all my secrets. I am only showing you the obvious. Brugar thought he knew my secrets, too, but he soon learned."

"I'm sure Brugar must have been aware of your trials," Ayla said. "You can't make a hot fire without everyone knowing about it. How were you able to keep secrets from him?"

"At first he didn't really care what I was doing, so long as I supplied my own fuel, until he saw some of the results. Then he thought he would make figures himself, but he did not know all that the Mother had revealed to me." The smile of the One Who Served showed her sense of vindication and triumph. "The Mother rejected his efforts with great fury. Brugar's figures burst apart with loud noises and broke into many pieces when he tried to fire them. The Great Mother flung them away with such speed that they caused painful injuries to the people close by. Brugar feared my power after that, and he stopped trying to control me."

Ayla could imagine being inside the small anteroom with pieces of red-hot clay flying around at great speeds. "But that still doesn't explain why you are telling us so much about your power. It's possible that someone else who can understand the ways of the Mother could learn your secrets."

S'Armuna nodded. She had almost expected as much from the woman, and she had already decided that complete openness would be the best course to follow. "You're right, of course. I do have a reason. I need your help. With this magic, the Mother has given me great power, even over Attaroa. She fears my magic, but she is shrewd and unpredictable, and someday she will overcome her fear, I'm sure of it. Then she will kill me." The woman looked at Jondalar. "My death would not be very important, except to me. It's the rest of my people, this whole Camp, that I fear the most for. When you talked about Marthona passing the leadership on to her son, it made me realize how bad things have become. I know Attaroa would never willingly turn over leadership to anyone, and by the time she is gone, I'm afraid there may be no Camp left."

"What makes you so certain? If she is so unpredictable, couldn't she just as easily grow tired of it all?" Jondalar asked.

"I'm certain because she has already killed one person to whom she might have passed on her leadership, her own child."

"She killed her child?!" Jondalar said. "When you said Attaroa caused the death of the three young people, I assumed it was an accident."

"It was not an accident. Attaroa poisoned them, though she doesn't admit to it."

"Poisoned her own child! How could anyone kill her own child?" Jondalar said. "And why?"

"Why? For plotting to help a friend. Cavoa, the young woman you met. She was in love with a man and was planning to run away with him. Her brother was trying to help them, too. All four were caught. Attaroa spared Cavoa only because she was pregnant, but she has threatened that if the baby is a boy, she will kill them both."

"No wonder she seems so unhappy and afraid," Ayla said.

"I must also be held responsible," S'Armuna said, the blood draining from her face as she said the words.

"You! What did you have against those young people?" Jondalar said.

"I had nothing against them. Attaroa's child was my acolyte, almost like my own child. I feel for Cavoa, hurt for her, but just as surely as if I had fed them the poison myself, I am responsible for their deaths. If it were not for me, Attaroa would not have known where to get the poison and how to use it."

They could both see that the woman was obviously distraught, though she controlled it well.

"But to kill her own child," Ayla said, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the idea. She was horror-stricken by the mere thought. "How could she?"

"I don't know. I will tell you what I do know, but it is a long story. I think we should go back to my lodge," S'Armuna suggested, looking around. She did not want to spend any more time talking about Attaroa in such a public place.

Ayla and Jondalar followed her back to her earthlodge, doffed their outdoor clothes, then stood by the fire while the older woman added more fuel and cooking stones for hot tea. When they were settled with the warming herbal drink, S'Armuna paused to collect her thoughts.

"It's hard to know where it all began, probably with the early difficulties of Attaroa and Brugar, but it didn't stop there. Even when Attaroa was far along in her pregnancy, Brugar continued to beat her. When she went into labor, he did not send for me. I only knew about it when I heard her crying out in pain. I went to her, but he refused to let me attend her when she gave birth. It was not an easy delivery, and he would allow nothing to help her with the pain. I am convinced he wanted to watch her suffer. Apparently the baby was born with some deformity. My guess is that it was caused by all the beatings he gave Attaroa, and though it wasn't obvious at birth, it soon became apparent that the spine of the child was bent and weak. I was never allowed to make an examination, so I'm not sure, but there may have been other problems," S'Armuna said.

"Was her child a boy or a girl?" Jondalar asked, realizing it hadn't been made clear.

"I don't know," S'Armuna declared.

"I don't understand. How can you not know?" Ayla said "No one did, except Brugar and Attaroa, and for some reason, they kept it a secret. Even as an infant, the child was never allowed to appear in public without clothes, the way most babies and young children are, and they chose a name with neither a male nor a female ending. The child was called Omel," the woman explained.

"Did the child never say?" Ayla asked.

"No. Omel kept the secret, too. I think Brugar may have threatened dire consequences to them both if the child's gender was ever revealed," S'Armuna said.

"There must have been some hint, especially as the child grew older. The body that was buried appeared to be of adult size," Jondalar said.

"Omel did not shave, but could have been a male late in developing, and it was hard to tell if breasts developed. Omel wore loose clothing that disguised the shape. Omel did grow to be quite tall for a female, in spite of the crooked spine, but quite thin. Perhaps it was because of the weakness, but Attaroa herself is very tall, and there was a certain delicacy there that men don't usually have."

"Did you have no sense of the child as it was growing up?" Ayla asked.

The woman is perceptive, S'Armuna thought, then nodded. "In my heart, I always thought of Omel as a girl, but perhaps that is what I wanted. Brugar wanted people to think of the child as male."

"You are probably right about Brugar," Ayla said. "In the Clan, every man wants his mate to have sons. He thinks of himself as less than a man if she doesn't have at least one. It means his totem spirit is weak. If the infant was a girl, Brugar might have been trying to hide the fact that his mate had given birth to a female," Ayla explained, then paused and considered a different point of view. "But deformed newborns are usually taken away and left exposed. So it could be that if the baby was born deformed, especially if it was a boy and unable to learn the necessary hunting skills required of a man, Brugar might have wanted to hide that."

"It's not easy to interpret his motivations, but whatever they were, Attaroa went along with him."

"But how did Omel die? And the two young men?" Jondalar asked.

"It's a strange, complicated story," S'Armuna said, not wanting to be rushed. "In spite of all the problems, and secrecy, the child became Brugar's favorite. Omel was the only person he never struck or tried to hurt in some way. I was glad, but I often wondered why."