"Listen, for I tell you of the end of the empty caves."
He stood silent for a moment watching hope filter into their faces, hope that made their dull eyes shine in the semi-darkness.
"Do not let joy curl your lips until you have listened, for it would be a false joy."
The lines of tiredness and worry returned to the faces about him. Atanta did not look down at his woman's face, for she knew him very well and she would know what he had to do.
"We are told of a time long ago, when the cave of man was filled with food as the night is filled with stars, and the caves and the men covered the five corners of the world. But these were not the caves that we know now. They were magic caves, and these were magic men. The men of that long-ago world created the very mountains into which they dug their caves. The mountains they created raised their peaks through the highest clouds, and every mountain held countless caves ... caves stuffed with bear and fish and captive winter winds. These were magic times when every man was a priest. Every man could make fire blossom from nowhere and every man could fly through the air like a bird.
"All this was long ago when the world was young, and the world was hot, and our people could live in the heat. But Nuomo the God of Night became jealous of these magic men, for he had seen them fly into the night itself in search of the stars. And so Nuomo wrapped his black wings around the world and shook it for ten tens of days. The world cracked and burst with flame that sprouted up into the darkened sky. The people ran in terror and their mountain-caves were sucked down into the earth or burned into ash by the flame. At the end of the ten tens of days, Nuomo thought that all were dead and so he rolled a sheet of ice across the earth to cool it.
"Only one man was able to escape the wrath of that ancient god. He was an old man with only little magic and he felt himself on the edge of death. He look from his body a rib which he fashioned into a son. But he made the son in such a way that he could live upon the ice itself, as we do now.
"The son knew that the old man was about to die, and so he said: 'Father, use your magic to make a woman to keep me from being lonely.'
"'Woman!' the old man cried. 'I should think you would want me to teach you the use of magic.'