by C Lee Tocci
He checked the newspaper every morning, looking for his own obituary.
“Ahem,” a voice interrupted his sulking. He looked up to see that his two visitors were still there, the red headed boy tapping his foot impatiently, while the blond one stared blankly into space.
“What do you want?” There was nothing pleasant in his voice, just as he intended.
The bigger of the two was taller than Elias himself, but had the face of a child. White blond hair topped a gawky head notable only for pale blue eyes that held a dull gleam. He could see that the mind of this boy worked differently than most others and Elias averted his eyes in distaste. He didn’t like people that were different. They made him uncomfortable.
Elias turned his attention to the smaller boy. Sharp green eyes watched him shrewdly. Freckles and curly red hair may deceive some into thinking this was a charming innocent boy, but Elias didn’t think so. He recognized trouble when he saw it.
“I’d like to get a gold nugget assessed,” the boy spoke with an assurance completely at odds with his appearance.
Elias sighed. Oh well. It could be worse. A stupid kid thinking he’d hit the mother lode would waste less of his time than trying to explain his pointless job to some middle school brats looking for a B+ on a term paper. With a nod of his head he motioned to the counter.
His eyes widened slightly in surprise when, instead of emptying their pockets, the larger boy hoisted a bulging knapsack onto the counter. It landed with a heavy clunk that rattled the file cabinets across the room. When the flap was pulled back and its contents exposed, Elias forgot to breathe.
From the moment he saw the stone, Elias knew, from the depths of the soles of his feet, that this was a monumental gold nugget of unparalleled purity. The weight, the glow, the liquid crystal hardness beneath his fingertips, these all told him, even before the scales and the chemical tests, that this was the real thing.
Quickly he dropped his eyes to hide his glee. Too late though. The smirk of the red headed boy told him that he had seen his flash of recognition. No matter, this was just an ignorant boy who could not know the value of the nugget.
Or could he?
“Impressive,” said Elias, his eyes watching the boy intently.
“I think so,” the boy answered.
His impudence made Elias long to shove him out the door. Instead, he lifted the nugget with a grunt and lugged it over to his bench. The thud of its landing launched the dust motes into swirling eddies, but he didn’t mind this time. His mind worked quickly as his hands moved slowly.
“Where did you find a nugget this large?” he asked, his voice as indifferent as possible.
“On a river bank in the valley,” the boy answered.
In the mountains then, thought Elias, not believing him for a moment. From the corner of his eye, he studied the pair.
They wore denim jeans and tee shirts, like most boys would, but their clothes were more worn and dirty then you might expect. It was unlikely that they lived nearby, most of the local children had the dark eyes and hair and tawny skin that marked them as native. Tourists perhaps? Or runaways?
Elias turned his eyes back to his work while his mind flickered over the possibilities. In the last few months, something strange had been happening in the mountains north of Alamos Tierra. Strangers would arrive in town, mill about aimlessly for a couple of days, then walk out into the desert and never return. The locals knew something. Elias had heard them buzzing. He hadn’t been curious, though. What these backwater oakies did was of no importance. But now he knew what had them all in a tither.
Gold. They must found have a significant vein up in those mountains. That would account for that murmur of suppressed excitement that he’d been feeling in town. They were probably up there digging it out by the buckets, hoarding it so that the vein got worked out long before they’d let anyone know what they’d found.
He couldn’t blame them. That’s what he’d have done.
He smiled as he carried the specimen back to the counter. These two boys must have got impatient and snuck away, hoping to cash in their nugget and spend it before their parents found out. Well, it would have only been a matter of time before Elias discovered what was going on, and if this was any indication of what they were finding up in the hills, there was probably more where it came from.
“Well, well, well.” Elias was not accustomed to speaking in a congenial voice, but he was willing to make the effort. “This is quite the nugget you boys have. It’s probably worth every penny of five thousand dollars!”
A snort of contempt was not the response he expected. The red-headed boy reached out to drag the nugget back into the knapsack. With a spurt of panic, Elias grabbed the boy’s wrist.
“Wait!” Elias’ voice was a bit sharper than he intended. He paused, and gave them a fatherly smile. “I like you boys, so I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a check for ten thousand dollars. Do you know what you can buy with ten thousand dollars?”
“No.” The redhead didn’t sound impressed. “Tell me.”
“A whole lot of video games!” Elias turned away to reach for the checkbook. The sound of the nugget being dragged off the counter made him spin back.
“Wait!” He hoped they couldn’t hear the panic in his voice. They were standing at the door, ready to walk out. “How about---“
“Listen up, you pinheaded wastehole.” The redheaded boy sounded bored. “This nugget weighs in at well over 18 pounds. With current market prices over five hundred dollars an ounce, I’m figuring this rock to be worth every penny of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Do you want engage a couple of braincells and talk real, or do I have to invest a couple of bucks in a bus ticket out of this hick town in order to deal with a legit broker?”
“Fifty thousand is more than ten thousand, right Jeff?”
“That’s right, Donny.”
“And that’s a lot of money, right?”
“It’s a start.”
From a distance, Elias watched the boys load up their pack horses.
The boys didn’t seem all that unusual, but the horses were. The two boys had walked to the edge of town and stood there while the tall blond boy called them. But there was no way those horses could have heard him; they were a mile or more away, loose on the prarie. But as soon as the boy called, they came galloping towards the outskirts, a dozen wild mustangs without saddles or reins. Elias thought they’d trample the boys, but they just stopped in front of them and waited, as tame as a housecat.
As they strapped the packages to the backs of the horses, Elias hurried off to rent his own horse. It would have been nearly impossible to spend all that money in a dusty backwater village like Alamos Tierra in one afternoon, he thought, but it looked like they came close. He had followed them all afternoon and he intended to stay on their tail. It would be well worth the investment of his time if he could find out where that nugget had come from.
It was full dark. Darker than Elias liked. He wasn’t much of the outdoorsy type and if he thought that living in Alamos Tierra was roughing it, riding on top of a horse across a rocky prairie was inhumanly primitive. Yet he was willing to suffer it in order to find the mining camp. He made a clicking sound with his mouth like he’d heard in the movies, jiggled the reins and thumped his legs against the horse’s flanks. It had worked well so far.
The horse stopped, its ears standing straight up. He thought he heard a boy’s voice whisper, but it might have just been the wind. The stars were masked with clouds and the nearby mesas were shadowy, black on black.
“Giddyap,” Elias told the horse. His elbows flapped and he bumped up and down in the saddle but the horse seemed to be listening to something else. Elias sat quietly for a moment, trying to hear whatever that might be, but there seemed to be just the normal desert night sounds. A coyote howled in the distance and again he thought he heard a whisper speaking over the whining breeze.
“C’mon you soggy old excuse for a donkey! Move!” Elias’
voice was edgy as it echoed back to him off the rocks, but the horse just stood there, waiting.
“GIDDYAP!” he yelled and slapped its rump with a stick he carried.
Well, that made the horse move. It reared up on its hind legs and neatly dumped Elias on to the ground.
Elias picked himself up, furious. He brushed the gravel off his pants and started towards the animal.
The horse cantered a few yards away and then looked back with a snort.
Elias paused. It was almost as if the horse was laughing at him.
The horse shook its head and snorted at him before rearing up again and galloping off. Elias stood there and helplessly watched it disappear into the night.
The wind howled through the canyons and across the plains. Elias thought he could hear the faint ring of someone chuckling as well.
Well maybe he wouldn’t be able to track the boys to their mining camp, but there was more than one way to jump a claim. As Elias started on the long walk back to Alamos Tierra, he was already rehearsing the phone call he was about to make.
“And where in the Mort-Gre’el Forest can you get french fries?” Marla glared at Jeff. One hand held Donny’s knapsack, the other shook Exhibit “A,” a cold soggy french fry.
If Jeff felt even slightly guilty, he hid it well.
“I guess some of us are just better at improvising in the wild than others.” His own knapsack bulged suspiciously as he climbed the ladder to his den. He poked his head out of his hatch before adding with a smirk. “It’s a gift.”
Todd’s snort didn’t lessen his concern. Whatever Jeff had been up to, Lilibit was involved. He saw that in the way that her face lit up and she practically danced with impatience when Jeff had returned to the Raven hogan. While a wink from Jeff seemed to defuse some of her excitement, it only served to inflame Todd’s uneasiness.
“He’s up to something,” Todd said quietly to Marla. His scalp tingled. He scrubbed his fingers through his hair.
Marla nodded, but said nothing. They would just have to wait and see.
Chapter Fourteen
Enter the Listener
Breakfast was a casual event in Kiva.
The People of the Valley ate at their own hearths with their families, but were always ready to share what they had with any neophyte who happened to wander near while they were dining. Usually though, the neophytes ate together in their hogans.
The morning meal was handed out at dawn on the Crescent Courtyard. A couple of clansmen from each hogan would pick up what had been prepared the night before. Soft cornbread sweetened with honey and wrapped in cornhusks, boiled eggs and fresh fruit. Every morning, Marla would take a bladder of warm buttermilk and carry it around to the pool of Otwega to cool it. She liked her milk cold. If it was a nice morning, the neophytes might eat on the courtyard, picnicking in the sun and chatting with the other clansmen. On rainy or cold mornings, they’d bring their meals inside and eat them by the warmth of the fire. After breakfast, they’d gather on the courtyard, waiting for either a teacher to lead them or for the thunderbird, Wakinyan, to announce their assignments for the day.
This morning, no teacher came to fetch them and Wakinyan sat as silent as a telephone pole. After a few minutes, some of the kids, carrying their staffs, started kicking a ball around the courtyard, making up a game somewhere between soccer and Quaybo, trying to knock each other with their staffs while controlling the ball.
Lilibit didn’t play. Instead she decided that it would be more fun to tease Mato the Bear. She’d sneak up on the totem pole, tap the carving’s nose, then scamper away before he could react. Most times, Mato would ignore her, his carved eyes closed, his wooden arms folded akimbo. But occassionally, he would wake with a roar and snap at her as she retreated squealing with laughter. Todd wasn’t sure if this was all that wise, but since the bear kept his claws in when he swatted at her and she wasn’t wandering off, he decided to let it go. But he kept half an eye on her nonetheless.
They weren’t ten minutes into the game when the sun broke over the Sienna Sentries in the east and a blinding shaft of light stabbed Todd in the eyes. He ducked his head just in time to avoid getting rapped from behind, and was rubbing the sun spots from his eyes when he caught sight of someone walking towards them. Lit from behind, Todd could barely make out the silhouette, but even that was intriguing. Without looking away from the approaching vision, he parried a quaybo strike and scooped up the ball, effectively ending the game.
The protests of the other players died out quickly when they turned to see what had caught Todd’s attention. A hush fell over the courtyard as the figure walked within sight.
With her shadow riding before her, she looked inhumanly tall, but as she got closer, they saw that, while she was taller than normal, she was only about six feet tall and very slender. Her tunic was white. Her skin was white. Even her hair, which fell straight past her waist, was white. Pure white. And so bright that it hurt to look at her. But it hurt even more to look away. Todd’s mouth hung open and his tongue dried out.
“Wow!” Beside him, even Jeff was nearly speechless.
“And then some!” said one of the other boys.
The apparition walked straight towards Todd. He brushed off his tunic and wiped the sweat from his face. Using his damp palms, he flattened his hair.
“She’s coming this way!” whispered Jeff. “She’s looking right at me!”
Todd shot Jeff a look of disbelief. “No she’s not! She’s looking at me!”
While Jeff was fully prepared to argue the point, he didn’t have a chance. The vision approached, walking smoothly, like a ship sailing over calm waters. She paused before the boys, pale blue eyes scanning them briefly before passing on to something behind them.
“Hi Cohanna!” Lilibit pushed between the two boys, her face beaming smugly.
Cohanna did not smile, but her eyes warmed with amusement. “Good morning, Lilibit,” she nodded down at her. “Have you got into any more trouble lately?”
“I don’t think so,” Lilibit answered seriously, “but sometimes I’m the last to know.”
Cohanna nodded again before moving away. Her eyes swept over the two boys who still stood, spellbound. She headed for the entry to Gil-Salla’s hall.
“ENTER THE LISTENER!” Wakinyan came to life and his voice echoed off the courtyard cobblestones. “THE COUNCIL AWAITS!”
Cohanna exchanged a rueful look with Heecha the owl. They both shook their heads.
“Greetings Cohanna,” the owl hooted softly. “Many moons have risen and set since last you visited the hall of the Flame Voice.”
“Greetings to you, Heecha.” Cohanna spoke quietly too. “Too many moons perhaps. And greetings to you, Wakinyan. It has been too long since the call of the Thunderbird has been heard as well.”
Wakinyan puffed out his chest feathers and flapped his wings. He was not immune to the charms of Cohanna. Heecha snorted, very un-owl-like, and rolled her eyes.
“And does the great Mato still sleep?” Cohanna asked.
“I am merely resting my eyes,” said the bear. “It’s been difficult to get any sleep lately, what with all the hullabaloo going on.” Mato opened one eye a crack and glared at Lilibit, who ducked behind Todd with a giggle.
“Well, if Mato has roused himself, then I suppose the least I can do is attend the council.” Cohanna stepped past the totem and would have pulled back the door tapestry, but a small figure darted out and jumped in front of her.
“Excuse me, Ms. Cohanna?” Jeff blocked the entrance and executed a deep bow. “My name is Jeffrey Terrance and I just wanted to let you know that, here in the valley, if there’s anything that you need, I’m the man to get it for you.”
Cohanna looked down into Jeff’s eager face and did not smile. “Why thank you, Jeffrey Terrance. While I believe I have all that I require, I will keep in mind your very generous offer.”
With that, she placed a hand on his shoulder and slid him out of her way before disappea
ring into Gil-Salla’s hall.
Jeff reached up and reverently stroked his shoulder. “She touched me!” His voice was rapt. “I’m never going to wash this arm again!”
“Well, that’s going to start to stink after a while,” said Lilibit.
Jeff grabbed Lilibit’s wrist. “Lilibit! Who is she?”
“I told you before.” Lilibit pulled free and strutted away. “She’s my friend Cohanna. She’s the queen of the fairies and she lives in the Mort-Gre’el forest.”
Todd stepped up to block her way.
“Lilibit?” He put his hands on his hips and looked down at her.
“Okay,” Lilibit conceded. “I made up the part about the queen of the fairies, but the rest of it is true! She lives in woods and Keotak-se knows her.” She dropped her voice into a whisper. “And I don’t think they get along very well. They were kind of mad at each other when they met!”
They wandered back onto the courtyard where the other neophytes already gathered, gossiping. Lilibit was besieged for information and within a half an hour, her original story about the queen of the fairies had exploded out of recognition.
She was quite pleased with herself.
Chapter Fifteen
The Voices of the Wordless
The game of quay-ball, or as Lilibit called it, snocker, never resumed. Instead, when nearly everything that could be said about the newcomer had been said, an expectant hush fell over the neophytes and they clustered around the courtyard waiting.
The sun had cleared the Sienna Sentries and the day was warming before the tapestry pulled back and the Elders stepped out on to the courtyard. Keotak-se was first. His face was stony but his eyes, stormy. He strode off to one side tightly gripping his staff. After him, the rest of the Elders exited, then Gil-Salla, and finally, Cohanna. The two women, dark and light, stood framing the archway and looked out upon the pledges.
“Neophytes of the Stone,” Gil-Salla announced. “We welcome Cohanna to the Council of the Elders. We are honored to have her join us and are blessed by her wisdom. The Neophytes, too, are fortunate, as she has agreed to assist in your training. For those who wish to earn what the Listener may reveal, you may follow her to Kamama Hollow.”