In the darkness that first morning his mother came to him, trembling, and woke him with his name.

"Dreyu, what is wrong?" He became aware of pain first, a pressing pain spread through his chest. Her long hand touched his head. "You are so quiet. Ohh--" Her hands began to search frantically over his body, his neck and his chest. "Dreyu!" And then her fists were raining down on his ribs, each distant thump echoing wrongly inside him as his mother hurled her little weight down upon her son.

He opened his eyes, narrow and sticky with drying tears, and felt the inside of him knotted up and aching. He heaved with his lungs until at last the air touched his voice, weakly.

"Mother."

"Dreyu!" She held up her hands and stared. Her hair streaked across her mouth. "My love, your heart--" Her face still taut with panic, she bent low over him.

"Am I dying?"

She had pressed her head hard against his chest, listening, her own uneven breathing rattling loud like fire. "No," she said shortly, like an instruction, but still she trembled. She laid three fingers over his mouth and shut her eyes tight as she kept listening. The pain would not leave. And it did not, not until the sun rose, when it dried at length into a soreness that has not left him since.

He is named Iniei-dreyu, that means Sky in His Eyes, because his eyes are blue. He wonders what that looks like. Some tell him it's beautiful, and he tries to believe it, but others have said he is cursed. Everyone remembers it, and he is glad for that. His body is in bloom, his voice is settling into a man's voice, and he grows always stronger. He likes to be noticed.

Today, though, he wants to hide again when he emerges from the house. Now when he walks he walks uphill; he must watch each footstep to be sure his legs still move. His mother and his father have told him it is time to appear in council, though, and they walk before and after him so that he must go on. He has no more strength than a falling stone. And the people along the way stand quiet and grave; they all know. He tries not to meet their eyes.

The sun is at zenith and the people are moving, now, walking at a distance the same road Dreyu walks. They are going to the lodge to hold council. They greet one another briefly or not at all.

The boy is too young; he has not yet grown to wisdom and he may not sit on the council. But today the council meets to speak of his heart, and he will sit with them.

Sunlight enters into the lodge only through the door and the rim of the wall under the thatch. Dusty sunbeams fall among the people and they listen as Dreyu's mother tells them how her son's heart has stopped its beating, how the silence of it wakened her, how it ails his spirit and pains his body. Dreyu feels the eyes of his elders upon him but does not lift his head.

"Please," his mother says softly to the council, "I have asked you to gather because I know nothing more to do. Please, let us consider this together." She is silent a moment. "I am finished speaking."

Adan the sandpainter shuffles away from Dreyu to make a place for her as she sits again. Briefly his hand rests on her shoulder as his eyes brush over the boy, and she tries to smile in acknowledgement. Low voices begin to collect in the lodge. None step forward; most are waiting for a cue from Uye-te-reyos, the boldest of the warriors, whose counsel is precious in peace and war. But he just listens.

"I would like to speak," says the woodbender. The people turn their heads, and a few nod. "No one may live whose heart does not beat." The man pauses to judge their reaction.

"It is just so," Tems the trapper affirms, bobbing his head. "Dalei's son has simply died, my friends, but he does not know it." Dreyu's mother holds her breath. Dreyu just looks up at Tems slowly, not sure what to think.

"Perhaps we must bury him?" someone suggests uncertainly. The woodbender raises his arms, frowning.

"This is not what I mean to say." The people grow quiet again. "It is plain that the boy still lives. And so his heart must beat--but I believe he has lost it. If we would heal him we must seek it out."

Voices crowd the assembly now; Dreyu's mother looks tense, but his father just shakes his head. "Perhaps it was stolen," says Iele the shepherdess.

"If it was stolen, it may have been eaten."

"Perhaps not. It may be someone seeks power over the boy."

"Surely it is not stolen. He is young and careless; he has left it somewhere."

"Somewhere!" says Mide, the boy's neighbor, almost smiling. "We need not look too far. Iniei-dreyu is a beautiful young man, is he not? Do the young women not follow him about day after day? Is it not forever one way with the young?

"Come, Dreyu," he prompts, wagging his finger. "Have you not given it? To whom? That is all we need to know."

The boy opens his mouth but finds it empty. The ache in him rises, and he sits still, half forgetting the council. It is his father who answers.

"It isn't that way, Mide. The heart is still in him; it does not beat."

For a moment the council is daunted, the faces turning between doubt and awe. Then they all answer at once.

"But surely--"

"How would you know, Loka? Why are you so sure?"

"He was in health when he went to sleep."

"True--"

"Who can say? He may not have slept."

"How can you know?"

"He knows, he is the father--"

"They say On-wes was struck with lightning, and his heart stopped."

"On-wes died."

"He was old, though--"

"Anyway there are no storms yet this spring."

"The boy lives. His heart must beat."

"The heart is in the boy," an old woman proclaims, "but there is no thunder in the heart. It is his naming." Most in the room turn to listen; she is Ten-kaoa, and she is the eldest. Her face is crumpled like dried fruit but her eyes are bright. She nods to him across the room with the assurance of the old. "I know the one. How was he named? It is his naming."

Uye-te-reyos, whose heart is great, stands to speak. They have been waiting for him; always when the hero speaks it is done as he says. "We are walking backwards, I think. Must we not begin with the boy himself?" He turns and speaks to the boy directly.

"Will you speak to us, Iniei-dreyu, and tell us how it is with you? We want to help you, but we need your help to do it. Is the heart still in you? Do you know?"

The boy stares back into the dark eyes of the man he most admires, and strives to think of something to say. He is aware of the people in the room, watching, but it is hard to think beyond the dry pressure inside him. The council waits with agonizing patience.

"I think--" The boy falters and stops.

"Love, you must answer, so they can help," his mother pleads from beside him. "You must say what you are feeling."

"I know." He is still again, but the people wait, so he must try.

"I think...I'm sorry. I didn't try to do this." The crowd murmurs comfort, but he has found his tongue. "I don't know why. I was not like this before, quiet and forgotten like this, like a hanging drop--I am like water falling one drop at a time--"

"Dreyu, can you--"

"--and it is quiet in me. Here, there is nothing--" he gestures limply toward his chest "--nothing moving, no time passing. My heart has forgotten me."

"Dreyu."

He does not stop; he is driven by his pain, pain that sways like grass without rhythm. "It was not like this. I was quick and I think I was happy, I know I was but I cannot remember it now. I am sorry. I don't know why."

"Iniei-dreyu." It is Uye-te-reyos.

"Please, I--"

"Listen to me," the great man insists quietly. "We must know. Is your heart still in you?"

"Yes." The word grates from him with momentary vehemence. Then he is without words again, and he lets his head fall.

"So. He has his heart." Uye-te-reyos sits back down and looks around him. The council is grim, the voices low and the heads shaking. They have nothing to say, so after a moment he speaks again, addressing Ten-kaoa.

"Grandmother, how do you think his naming could have caused this?"

"This is the boy whose eyes were blue. He was not named as a child should be. His time came when we left the mountain, and we did not wait for his naming."

"Yes, I do remember it; he was the first."

"He is the only one," Ten-kaoa says with fierce emphasis. "The rest of the children have been babes in the low land. He was of naming age on the mountain. Only he. And he never tasted of the thunderlily."

All in the council understand except the boy himself. He cannot place the meaning of thunderlily, which is distantly familiar. But the people nod, and Ten-kaoa fixes his gaze to her own.

Her mouth is lost, a wrinkle among wrinkles, but her eyes flare wide as she leans toward him in her seat and brings her wobbling fist to rest with finality over her own heart. The ache inside him throbs in answer.

There is a restlessness in the room, and Uye-te-Reyos suggests they meet again tomorrow. "I at least cannot think with an empty stomach," he says shrugging, "and I think we might do well to think in peace a while before more is said."

"I agree," says Tems. Someone always must.

The boy's parents take counsel between themselves as the lodge empties, their voices tired but determined. They do not notice the warrior's approach until Uye-te-reyos is beside them. He nods gravely and speaks in a voice for them alone.

"If you think you might go to visit Ten-kaoa, when you have eaten," he says noncommittally, "I would be honored to accompany you. If you wish."

Ten-kaoa lives in a hillside hut some distance from the rest of the town. Her hearth is outside the door, and when they arrive she is tending a fire there. She squints when she sees the small party approaching, and shuffles a few steps toward them to wait. A little time passes before they can speak to her; the three adults walk slowly to accomodate Dreyu. They greet her when they draw close, and she bends her head.

"Grandmother," Dreyu greets the woman belatedly, after a nudge from his father. Ten-kaoa smiles and beckons them to be seated at the fire.

"Grandmother," the boy's mother begins, "how is it with you? Are you well?"

"Thank you, Dalei, I am well," she replies ostentatiously. "And you, Dalei? And you, warrior, farmer--is it well with you?" She says nothing to Dreyu.

They are well, they are well, the men affirm. Dalei smiles politely but tiredly.

"I am well, grandmother, for myself. I am worried of course about Dreyu, and his illness."

"Yes, yes. Is it well with you, young man? No. No, of course it is not. It is not well at all. Do you know what you need, little one?" The boy shakes his head. "You need your naming. Almost a man, now, so soon...you need the thunderlily."

"What is that?" He tries not to ask it slowly. "The thunderlily, what is it? I don't..."

"Don't know. You don't remember." She nods. Dreyu's parents exchange a glance but keep still, waiting for Ten-kaoa to explain. It is her place.

"Before we came to the valley, when you were only so high, we lived on the mountain. You remember?"

"A little...I remember, a little."

"Good. A long time we lived there; my grandmother's grandmother was born on the mountain. Ours is an old people. Only the mountain itself is older. You understand?"

The boy remembers some of his childhood in the high land, and has always looked back on it reverently. He nods slowly.

"Yes. I think so." He pauses. "Why did we come down?"

"The mountains are not gentle to their people," Uye-te-reyos says, looking into the fire. Dreyu's mother leans forward.

"We came down because we could come down, my love. It is good in the valley, safer and warmer than the mountains were, and it is fertile here. The people who lived here before us were a fierce people. But they died, and the valley was empty. Uye-te-reyos said it was time to go down. We followed him, and it was right, Dreyu; we are growing. We are a strong people. And we never were before, not in the high land."

"All peoples," Ten-kaoa says flatly, "come down to the valley. Sooner or later. We are no different; the time has come for us." She nods knowingly. "But it was the wrong time for you, little one.

"When a child grows old enough, it needs a new name, its own name, and so we go to the river to name it. Is it not so? But that is what we do in the valley. In the valley, life feeds from the river. On the mountain, we must look to the rains...and there we named children by the thunderlily. But not you. It was time, but we left."

"We named you on the way," his father tells him.

"Do you remember, boy?" The old woman watches him closely. "She grows alone, on the high slopes, above the old village. A great lily the color of a storm. Do you remember?"

Dreyu shakes his head, uncertain.

"He was at a naming once," his mother says to Ten-kaoa, "when he was just walking. He might not remember." Dreyu looks at her and tries to think back; he cannot know for sure. But the old woman nods, satisfied.

"But you have seen her--so she will remember you."

Dreyu has little memory of leaving his childhood home. He remembers the day they started walking, dimly, but he didn't understand what it was all about, not yet. That came later, with the day he does remember--the day he looked back from the foothills, looked back at the mountains. He had never seen them from beneath; they leaped up away from the earth, further than he could see, so high the clouds hid their peaks. He realized then that he was looking at his home in the distance, and came to really understand that they were not returning. Only then in his life had he realized what it means to be far.

It is dark and cool, and he is looking at the mountains again. They are further off now than they were that day, but he has lived all his life within sight of them. Tonight the clouds play over the moon and the moonlight plays over the peaks of the mountain chain; he stands for a long time in the field by his father's house and watches. High in the eastern sky run harried clouds rimmed with moonlight, and beyond them the stars are hazy against the deep blue. Even in the searing light of a moon still nearly full there are more stars than can be counted, disordered and unknowable. There above the mountains hangs the wedge of three bright stars he has seen on a hundred summer nights; they hang low, still barely risen.

He told his father he did not wish to lie down yet. The day has been hard, but he does feel stronger for it, after so many days in bed. And moreover he does not want to sleep; his dreams are many of late and always disturbing, dreams of silence and stillness where time never passes.

He has been a long time standing in the field, listening to the night noises, and the far-off river, and the deafening silence of his heart. His eyes will not stray long from the mountains; he thinks back to his early memory, all he can remember of his childhood in the high land. The wind stirs his hair, rustles around his face, cools the skin of his silent chest.

Tomorrow, Uye-te-reyos said, they should meet in council tomorrow, to decide who must go to help the boy on his errand. To prepare for the long walk home, the climb into the treacherous mountains in the coming storms. Later that evening Dreyu's mother even remarked, hopefully, that the warrior might go along himself. The hero of the people, himself, might go back upland because the cure is there, Dreyu's salvation is up there, there in the moonbrushed range where he was born. Tomorrow.

Which peak is it, he wonders.

It does not even seem an effort when he takes a step; he is not thinking much about walking. But he is walking, and each step is a little stronger than the last, carrying him east, to the high land.

Tomorrow he will be gone.

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