Chapter 16

"He's awake!" shouted Assani.

My beautiful mates were surrounding and touching me while I lay on a pile of soft furs.

"How long was I out?" I asked.

Selma said, "It's been three nights and four days since Helga finished the ritual. It's almost dark out now. We were worried that you would not wake up but Mira and Adak told us you would return to us."

"We are all so glad you did," said Assani to nods from all of my mates.

"I am fine now," I said. "I still need some time to sort everything out in my head but I know what we need to do. Can I count on you all to help me make this world better place for all?"

My mates nodded and smiled at the idea.

"Then let's celebrate!" I said.

With that, I concentrated for a moment and all of their clothes vanished.

A few of my ladies shrieked at finding themselves suddenly naked. The few others just smiled knowingly.

When everyone finally calmed down, they were all looking down at me expectantly.

"I have some new powers," I told them. We all laughed together.

Thelma and Velma went first tonight. They both seemed to like the same things sexually. They held each other's hand while we all got to know each other better. With my new powers recuperation was a snap and I easily pleased all of my mates before we went into slumber that night. I wondered how many of them were already pregnant.

The next day, I woke while it was still dark outside to water a tree. It took me a few moments to extricate myself from the puppy pile we had slept in all night. Once done, I decided to take a swim in the pond to clean up despite the chill in the air. I had not washed for four days and was feeling pretty ripe. The water felt really cold but it cleared the last of the cobwebs in my mind. I started considering my new powers.

Andso told me to practice. Concentrating for a moment, I decided to make the water in the pond warm enough to enjoy a long soak. The water warmed instantly and a thick fog started to settle just above the water hiding the edge of the pond from sight. "Hmm, unintended consequences," I thought to myself. This was just a small thing and did no real harm but it had shown me exactly what Andso meant by practicing and what he meant by consequences. I had to be careful what I did and think through all of the possible problems that might result from any change I made.

If I changed the seasons to make it warm year round, the ice caps would melt and flood the coastal areas. If I did away with all of the predators, the herds would suffer and many would die of starvation because there would not be enough food for them all. If I decided to quickly advance the technology of all of the people on this world, some would abuse it to the detriment of others. I needed a plan.

What would really help increase and sustain the population? All I could think of was the basics of food, shelter and clothing. Having clean water and some sort of waste disposal in place as well as establishing some basic hygiene for the people of this world would be big steps in the right direction. Could I take the existing societies of this planet and advance them from the Stone Age into some type of agrarian society? What would the consequences of that be? How could I help most effectively with these basic needs? I would discuss it with my mates.

A short time later, my mates and sat down and worked out a rough plan. It required me to help everyone out by giving them permanent housing instead of having them move with the herds they were using as a food source. The housing would have fireplaces like ours and indoor plumbing. We would all travel together from area to area to help raise homes for anyone who wants one and to teach everyone about basic hygiene and how to use the indoor plumbing. We would try these things out at home before making any changes in other areas.

After our discussion, we gathered Mira and Adak and headed back to Selma's former village. It was a relaxing walk in the woods. As it was a pretty well used path near an active area, there were no animals around. Upon entering the village, I remembered what Helga had told me about the curse and hoped that it was no longer in effect. We were armed for anything but I really didn't want to further weaken genetic diversity in the world by erasing anyone else from the gene pool.

My fears were unwarranted. We were actually cheered when we entered the village. The new leader had been elected to replace Karrak and the people seemed happy with the change. His name was Brak and was the second best hunter in the village and seemed to be very popular with the people. He was a quiet and calm person and he welcomed us back warmly. I guess the curse no longer applied to me. What a relief!

We quickly collected Selma and both sets of twins' things, our horses and started back to the river village. The day was chilly and overcast. It would be snowing either today or tonight. I really wanted to take us home but had things to take care of at the river village first. I decided that it was too late in the season to go after more horses. I had a faster way to travel in mind anyway. The trip to the river village was uneventful as well. No animals or people attacked us for a change.

Hannock and Jannock greeted us at the edge of the village when we got there.

"Frank, we are glad to see you back," said Hannock

"We are eager to learn how to make the bow. Do you have time to teach us today?" asked Jannock.

Their mates joined mine and the women took our things and went together to our hut.

"I will be happy to spend some time teaching you this skill," I said.

We retrieved the hickory nut log we had brought back from the marsh a while back and started to work. We split the log into roughly 2 inch thick square sections, the long grain of the tree looked practically perfect. It would make some good bows. We then trimmed the length of the blanks to about 6 feet before we started shaping and carving.

Word of what we were doing must have spread quickly because several other hunters, a large group of children and teens and the elder showed up for the lesson. We had enough usable wood blanks for a total of six bows from this one log. Many of the blanks were rejected for having too many knots or not fine enough grain in the wood. Enough others joined us for the lesson that I handed out the extra blanks we had split from the log to four others so they could participate in the training.

It would have been easier to shape the wood with a draw knife, rasp and files but flint knives and scrapers were what was available and were used to shape the wood instead. Using my bow as an example, I explained the needed shape and the steps required to carve the bow as we went along and had them perform all of the work with their flint, stone and bone tools. The elder was by far the best wood carver of the bunch.

At the end of the day, most of the men had cuts and nicks on their fingers and hands from working with the sharp flint but they had made a good start on their bows. They still needed to be smoothed and sanded and the nocks weren't carved yet. We would finish up the carving tomorrow and my mates and I could finally go back home to settle in for the winter and make plans.