Solemnly, Ilara took the necklace from the Shaman. She hesitated for a moment, and then she put it around her own neck.<\/p>\n
And suddenly found herself in a different world.<\/p>\n
Well, not exactly. It was the same world, only it looked different. For one thing, it had extra people in it, and mammoths too.<\/p>\n
She looked at them more carefully. No, they weren’t people and mammoths exactly. They were something else. But what?<\/p>\n
And then she had it. They were Spirits! She looked at the Shaman with surprise.<\/p>\n
The Shaman smiled back. “You can see them, can’t you?” Ilara nodded, words failing her.<\/p>\n
“You have the sight,” the Shaman continued. “I’ve never had it, and neither has anyone in our tribe for a long time. It comes back only when our people need it.”<\/p>\n
“Actually, it comes back only when both<\/i> of our tribes need it,” she heard another voice say, a much older voice. She turned to look. It was the mammoth Elder, speaking to her. And she could understand!<\/p>\n
Then she heard a far more familiar voice. It was her mammoth friend. “And I can understand your humans too. It looks like you and I have a lot to figure out. Now that we are both Shamans.”<\/p>\n
Ilara smiled. “Well, we can always ask the Spirits. I have a feeling there’s a lot they want to tell us.”<\/p>\n
She reached her hand up affectionately, and touched the trunk of her fellow Shaman. Today was the end of a chapter in both their lives. But the next chapter was still waiting to be told.<\/p>\n
End of Book I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Solemnly, Ilara took the necklace from the Shaman. She hesitated for a moment, and then she put it around her own neck. And suddenly found herself in a different world. Well, not exactly. It was the same world, only it looked different. For one thing, it had extra people in it, and mammoths too. She … Continue reading “Before the Cave, part 31”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19694"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19696,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19694\/revisions\/19696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}