“Aiya!” said Inzara.

“Oracles don’t travel,” said Ara. “Why are you here?”

“My spirit told me to go with these people. They are important in some way or other.”

Ara looked at me and at Derek. He made the gesture of doubt and then the gesture of agreement. Together, they meant “if you say so.”

The oracle continued: “In the end Inahooli decided that the cause of all her trouble was your shamaness. She had put a spell on Inahooli and made her believe the tower was ruined.”

Tzoon grunted. “I never liked the shamaness. I remember what she was like as a girl. Always talking. Always being clever.”

Inzara frowned. “Why would the shamaness do a thing like that?”

“Inahooli said she used to belong to the Groundbird Clan, and they are rivals of your clan.”

I added, “She told us—the big moon was involved.”

Inzara looked at me, frowning. “The moon? How?”

“It was boiling over then.”

“We know,” said Ara. “We saw it, but that has nothing to do with the making or unmaking of towers. That means we are going to be short of food in the winter.”

“The old women say,” Tzoon added.

Inzara made the gesture of disagreement. “Inahooli was not telling the truth. The moon had nothing to do with what was happening, and our shamaness is the daughter of the old shamaness. A true daughter, born out of the old woman’s body. She has always belonged to the Clan of the First Magician.”

Ara said, “The mother of the old shamaness was born in the Clan of the Groundbird. She was adopted by the shamaness of that time, who had only sons. Some people said that she—the mother of the old shamaness—favored the Groundbird Clan more than she should have. But that was three generations ago.”

“Well, then,” the oracle said. “Inahooli was lying. We believed her and let her go. She came back at night and attacked us. In my opinion she was crazy. She fought without caring what happened. She almost won. But one of us managed to stab her before she killed all of us. That is what she was trying to do.”

“That is the whole story,” Nia said.

There was a silence. The three brothers were frowning.

“Well?” said Tzoon at last. “Are they telling the truth?”

Inzara made the gesture of affirmation. “It sounds like Inahooli. Deep inside her, she always believed things would go wrong for her. She looked for bad luck. When that one arrived”—he waved at Nia—“she must have thought, this is it. The thing I have been waiting for. The thing that will make me fail.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I’m thirsty,” Inzara replied. “Let’s drink from the river and then sit down. I will tell you about Inahooli.”

“All right,” said Nia.

The three brothers drank, kneeling one by one at the edge of the river. As one drank, the other two kept watch, glancing at us and the grove of monster grass and the far side of the river. Tzoon was the last to drink. He rose and wiped his mouth. “Unh!”

Inzara moved away from the bank. He sat down with his back against a stem of monster grass, stretched out his legs, and rubbed one thigh. “It was a hard ride from the lake. We had to rebury Inahooli and do it the right way, with singing and with gifts of parting. All that took time.”

Ara sat down at the edge of the grove, not far from Inzara. He folded his legs into a half-lotus position. “We could not do the entire ceremony. A shamaness is necessary for that. But we performed the parts we could remember from when we were children in the village.”

“Tell the story,” the third brother said. He remained standing on the bank of the river. How tall was he, anyway? Over two meters. In the sunlight his fur was dark brown instead of black. There were reddish highlights in the fur. His eyes were partially closed. The pupils had contracted to lines. The irises were pale yellow.

Inzara pointed at the ground, and the four of us sat down. We were facing Inzara and Ara. Tzoon was behind us. There was no way to watch him and his brothers at the same time. If anything went wrong, if the brothers became angry, he would be on us before we could rise and turn.

“Inahooli was the first born,” Inzara said. “The oldest daughter. She should have been the most important child. But we came next, and we were magical.”

“Ah,” said Nia.

Inzara made the gesture of affirmation. “Everyone watched us. Everyone talked about us. We were the important ones.”

Ara said, “I used to wonder why she looked unhappy. But I couldn’t ask her. It was never easy talking to her. She was quieter than he is.” Ara waved at Tzoon. “And she had a bad temper. Either she said nothing or she yelled and jumped up and down.”

“I never noticed that she was unhappy,” Inzara said. “But I have to say I never paid much attention to her. I was happy with my brothers and our mother and Iatzi.”

Behind us Tzoon grunted. In agreement, I decided.

Inzara went on. “I met Inahooli again—for the first time since we left the village—the spring before last. I had a territory close to the village in between two men who were getting old. They no longer had the strength for confrontation, not with me or Ara or Tzoon. But we let them in, so we would be safe from one another.

“The first woman who came into my territory was Inahooli. She looked good. She was an impressive woman. And I was glad to see her. She was my sister, after all. We had shared the same tent and the same fire. I thought, this is good luck. I will be able to ask about our mother and about Iatzi.

“But the moment she saw who I was, she became furious. ‘Can’t I ever get away from you?’ she yelled at me. I was surprised.

“We mated—”

“Why?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you mate, if she was angry with you?”

“Because that is what a man and woman do when they meet in the time of mating.” He spoke slowly and clearly, as if he were talking to a child. “Unless, of course, they are mother and son.”

An incest taboo, I thought. Why? Maybe to protect young boys from their mothers. Was that possible? Or maybe to allow the men one relationship that was not sexual.

“Go on,” said Ara. “Tell the rest.”

“After we mated, I asked her why she was angry. She said I was a child of the Trickster, born to cause trouble. She had waited and waited for the change. She had given us—all three of us—fine gifts and told us good-bye. At last, she told herself, she was out of the shadow and into the light. We were gone. She was free of us. But we wouldn’t leave her alone. Every spring, Inahooli said, the women asked, ‘Who has mated with Inzara and Ara and Tzoon? Are they all right? Did they make it through the winter? Are they as lucky as they have always been?’ ”

“Unh!”

I looked around at Tzoon. His eyes were almost entirely closed, and he looked as satisfied as a cat in a patch of sunlight. Nothing wrong with that, I told myself. Everyone enjoyed appreciation.

Inzara continued: “Her luck was always bad, she told me. Her children were ordinary. She had no special skill. No one respected her. She had no friends.

“I told her it wasn’t my fault. Then she hit me. I thought, she will make me angry. I got out a mating gift. ‘Get out of here,’ I told her. ‘If you still feel the lust, go east. Old Hoopatoo is there. He isn’t much good at confronting, but he ought to be able to mate.’

“She gave me a gift, then rode away. I did not see her again until I dug into her grave.” Inzara paused a moment. “The next spring I asked the women—the ones who came to me—how Inahooli was doing. She had gotten pregnant, they said. Her child had been born too early. It died. That was bad news. But there was good news. The clan had chosen her to be the guardian of the tower. She was a difficult woman, they told me, but impressive. Strong and forceful, and her family was respected by everyone. A good choice for the guardian, all the women said.