his clan. It had a sleek, smooth outline, with long straight arms and
legs, and the shadow's hands had only one thumb and four fingers - like
the shadows of the sand-burrowers that Cadillac had never seen but whom
Mr Snow had described.
The hidden enemy far to the south by the Great Water who sent out the
iron snakes and the cloud warriors -' from whom he must always flee.
Cadillac M'CalI, now eighteen years old, belonged to one of the many
clans of She-Kargo Mutes that roamed the Central and Northern Plains.
According to Mr Snow, their ancestors had come from beyond the dawn on
the backs of giant birds whose beating wings made the noise of a mighty
waterfall.
They had landed at a place called O-haya, by the side of a great
lake.
To celebrate their arrival, they had killed and roasted the birds and
feasted on them all summer long then, when winter came, they used the
frozen waters of the lake to build a great settlement full of towering
pillars of ice that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow and
whose tops were lost in the clouds.
In the War of a Thousand Suns, the city had melted and flowed back into
the lake.. Every living thing had perished except for an old man
called She-Kargo and an old woman called Me-Sheegun and their
children.
She-Kargo had fifteen sons, all of them brave warriors, tall and strong
as bears; the old woman had fifteen beautiful daughters.
She-Kargo's sons and Me-Sheegun's daughters crossed wrists and bound
their bodies together with the blood kiss and their children, and their
children's children, grew strong and multiplied, and moved westwards
into the lands of the Minne-Sota, the Io-wa, Da-Kota, and Ne-Braska,
killing all who resisted them, and making soul-brothers of all those
who laid the hand of friendship upon them.
They triumphed because their warriors were braver, their wordsmiths
wiser, and their summoners more powerful.
And thus it was that-the Plainfolk grew strong in number and gave
thanks to their great mother-goddess, Mo-town.
Cadillac went to his chosen place among the rocks at the edge of the
plateau where the M'Call clan had set down their huts to wait out the
growing time. From the ragged edge of the plateau the ground fell away
steeply, ridged and hollowed as if clawed by the talons of a giant
eagle. Lower down, the ground evened out, flowing in a gentle curve to
