This short story leads off a seven-story collection on Amazon’s Kindle Select. For that reason, only the opening two paragraphs are shown here. To see the rest, download your copy of the collection from Amazon. 

1190 CE The shaman looked down on the towering mountain through the eyes of a raven. She was there, in the sacred spot, her hair aflame in the bright sun burning through the oracle window. He circled lower and lower over the dusky dun rocks. Finally he traversed the hole that gave those with the gift the vision of things to come. A vision best received on those rare days in the dry Southwest when shadows danced with passing clouds on a brushy screen. A day such as this one, promising special knowledge to be shared when he reentered the man’s body resting beneath the pinion pine below. A body stilled and a mind altered by the jimson weed.

He saw the future of the people this day. As it had for the three centuries since they discovered the fountain, water seeped through barely visible cracks in the scalloped green and gray stones, pooling at the base of the wall. Throughout the year, the water remained ordinary to the skin of the people and slaked their thirst. But once a year, it did something more. On that day, the magic water revived the totems that kept the people young.