by C Lee Tocci
Lilibit was in full panic mode. She kicked and thrashed like a drowning spider. Stuck in mid-air, all Todd could do was call to her, to try to calm her down, but she was too far gone to listen.
Todd was white knuckled from clutching his quaybo, but as a weapon, it was useless. Even if he could see an enemy, with his feet off the ground, he couldn’t get any leverage to swing at anything. And the only way he’d ever been able to release the power of his staff was by striking it against the earth. They hung, suspended like marionettes.
A sudden flare of light on the mesa top drew their attention and even Lilibit stopped her struggles, frozen. A blazing human figure, carrying a fiery staff, strode out into the clearing from a cleft between some rocks. The flames, which flared out two feet above its head and a foot or so in every other direction, made it look gigantic, but when it struck its staff on the ground and the flames flickered out, there stood a woman, her right hand holding her staff, her left hand, still aflame, high above her head.
Her hand flared as she brought it forward and the light hit her face. The knot in Todd’s chest loosened as he recognized Gil-Salla, but his relief was short-lived. The anger on her face made her look alien; almost inhuman. She waved her staff in an arc and something struck him on his side that felt like an invisible telephone pole. Whatever it was, it struck all five of them, and they were shoved like dolls onto the mesa, falling into a heap.
Gil-Salla’s words throbbed low and hard. “For centuries, the People of the Valley have dedicated their entire lives, working to provide a haven for the neophytes.” Her voice made the gravel beneath them buzz. Tufts of flame, exploding from her hair and shoulders revealed an anger held barely in check. “Generation upon generation have been dedicated to their safety. Your safety. And you would throw their sacrifices into their faces?”
They scrambled to their feet, but couldn’t meet her eye. She strode to the edge of the mesa.
“Look!” She ordered and they stumbled towards the rim, keeping as far away from her heat as they could. She pointed her staff down toward the base of the cliffs.
A spear of white flame crackled from her staff. It hit the rocky clearing below and split the ground with a deafening crack. A fountain of glowing lava squirted upwards, igniting the rope that still dangled, searing it to ash. The maw opened and closed like a smacking mouth, blackened lips squirting red tongues of glowing molten rock that licked the cliffs and the scrabbling foothills.
The heat drove them back from the edge. There was no way anyone was going out through Jeff’s Bluff again. Or coming in. The breach was sealed.
Gil-Salla turned back to the five truants.
“Chieftan of the Ravens.” Gil-Salla’s voice was soft and even, but that made Todd quake all the more. “Report to my hall after this evening meal. Alone.”
With that, she stabbed her staff onto the ground and burst into flames. When the blaze died and the smoke cleared, she was gone.
Todd stared at the spot where she had disappeared, shaking with fear and awe. His dread at having to meet with Gil-Salla was dwarfed by his amazement. He had no idea that the Flame Voice could wield such power. He looked over the cliff to where the lava mouth still spat.
Marla, ashen and trembling, stood beside him, and looked down. “Who knew she could do that?”
“Who knew she’d be that angry?” Todd shook his head. “We are in deep trouble.”
Jeff stomped around the mesatop, swearing loudly, kicking at the charred remnants of his satellite hookup. “I was this close!” he fumed, shaking a cable in his fist. “All I needed was this last stupid adapter and I’d have been online!”
“C’mon Jeff.” Todd started down the path. “You’ve caused enough trouble for one day.”
“What?” Jeff’s yell reached Todd as he dragged Lilibit down the ravine back to the valley below. “Like this is all MY fault?”
The rest of Jeff’s rant was lost in the echoes as Todd led his clan back to their hogan.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Aroma of a Rat
The evening meal was subdued. From the puzzled nudges of the other neophytes, you could tell they had no idea why. Keotak-se was missing and Gil-Salla sat grim and silent.
“What happened to you two up there?” Todd asked Devon and Nita in a clenched whisper.
“It was getting dark, but we saw the horses coming,” answered Nita.
“Then Gil-Salla just appeared!” From the corner of his eye, Devon stared at the Flame Voice with awe. “It wasn’t like she’d walked up the path. One second she wasn’t there, and the next second she was!”
“She was so mad!” said Nita.
“Really?” muttered Jeff. “We didn’t notice.”
“She told us to go back our hogan and wait. We never even got the chance to tell her you’d gone down to Alamos Tierra to get Lilibit,” said Devon. “It was if she already knew.”
Todd looked over at Gil-Salla. She stared into the flame of her hearth. Todd hadn’t seen her raise her eyes once during the meal.
The food tasted like mud and dread made digestion a painful process, yet Todd did not want this meal to ever end.
There were no shared stories after dinner, only the sounds of muttering and shuffling feet as the hall emptied.
The Ravens lingered, not wanting to abandon Todd, but with a jerk of his head, he sent them to follow the rest of the neophytes. Lilibit was the last to leave. She hadn’t said a word since Gil-Salla’s exit from the mesa top, but now she hung back and wanted to say something.
“Forget about it.” Todd stopped her before she could speak. “We’ll talk about it later. Go with the others.”
Since she looked like she was about to argue with him, he shoved her towards the door. She stumbled and remorse flipped to anger.
“I just wanted to say, sorry,” she scowled before turning and stomping out the door.
When she was finally gone, Todd turned toward the hearth. Gil-Salla and eight of the Elders still sat, in a straight line, their eyes boring into him. Besides Hihomay and Cohanna there were two men and a woman that he’d seen around the Valley, but had never spoken to. There were also four men that he’d never seen in the five months that he’d been at Kiva. Strangers were rare and were usually announced with great fanfare at the evening meal, so their presence did little to make him feel better. While the decorated leather tunics they wore weren’t as blinding as Hihomay’s, they had an aura of formality, and combined with their dour frowns, they made Todd feel like a stupid little kid that just wet his pants. He wished he’d brought his staff, but since no one else ever brought them to dinner, he’d left his back in the hogan. He rubbed his sweating palms against his thighs, slightly reassured by the feeling of the small knife he kept hidden beneath his pant leg. He thought of his father then, who had given him that dagger, and straightened his back. He took a deep breath and walked to the hearth.
For the first time that evening, Gil-Salla met Todd’s eye and what he read there froze him. The anger was still there, but burning cold: black embers barely controlled. The strength was still there too. But it looked like Gil-Salla had aged a century in the past two hours. Her skin seemed chalkier and the lines around her eyes and jowls had deepened; his first thought was that someone had gouged her cheeks with a knife.
And behind the ferocity was something else, something even more disturbing. Todd thought he saw fear. A deep, soul-scarring dread. Todd had never seen fear like that before and never expected to see it in the powerful face of Gil-Salla.
“Raven Chieftan.” Gil-Salla’s cool voice revealed nothing of what Todd had seen in her eyes. “Did you not understand me when I said the neophytes were not to leave the Valley without permission?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Todd answered. Truthfully, Gil-Salla’s decree had been a little ambiguous, but Todd had understood it. It had been Jeff and Lilibit who had chosen to interpret it more loosely. Todd decided not to mention that.
“And when you discovered that one of
your clan had left the Valley, why did you not alert one of the Elders?”
“I thought…” it sounded stupid now, “that we could find her and bring her back and no one would know.”
The silence was crushing. One of the Elders, hawk-nosed and hard eyes, grunted with disgust. Gil-Salla took no notice of him and continued.
“I am aware, young Todd, that during your journey to Kiva, you were forced to rely on only yourselves for your survival, to trust only each other and your own instincts. But here at Kiva, you must adhere to the rule of the Council. You must subordinate to the Elders.”
Todd could think of nothing to say to this. He nodded tensely and, with a milder voice Gil-Salla, went on.
“All neophytes, when they first hear the call of the stone, face many perils in their journeys to reach Kiva. The very act of overcoming these obstacles not only proves them worthy of the Stone, but also strengthens them and prepares them for the even more demanding challenges ahead.”
Todd might have argued that point. While they’d never told the other neophytes about their battles with the thirty foot acid-spitting snake or the fire breathing demon, he’d heard some of the stories from the other kids. While most of them had a pretty hard time getting to Kiva, none of them had gone through the gauntlet that the Ravens went through. Yet he held his tongue.
“The Elders,” Gil-Salla nodded to the men and women on either side of her, “have great respect for all of the neophytes, but we can not permit the rules to be disregarded.”
“The Ravens should be disbanded! Immediately!” The hawk-nosed man roared suddenly. “It was a sham to allow them to form their own clan! That was not how it was done before! That is not tradition!”
“What?” Todd was startled into speaking. “No! You can’t disband the Ravens!”
“Quiet.” Gil-Salla raised her hand in a gentle reproof that seemed as directed to the hawk-nosed man as it was towards Todd. “Leot-Kay, we discussed this earlier in Council…”
Leot-Kay. Todd had heard of him. Chieftain of the Hidotmay. And Nov’m’s father. Looking closely at him, Todd could see the resemblance, both in face and in ruthlessness. Todd didn’t know that Nov’m’s father was on the Council of Elders. The stare that met Todd’s was cold with a hidden fury. Todd’s scalp twitched.
“It is true that, to permit a group of Neophytes to create their own clan is… untraditional…” Gil-Salla placed a significance on that word that Todd did not understand. “…but it was my decision to allow it and… traditionally… the Flame Voice has always supervised the training of the Neophytes.”
Leot-Kay turned his glare onto Gil-Salla and settled back to the floor, but his scowl was unchastened. Gil-Salla ignored him as she spoke to Todd.
“Your clan has earned a reputation for being undisciplined. This insubordination cannot be permitted to continue. The Council has decided that if you are unable to control your pledges, than the Clan of the Raven will be disbanded and the clan members will be split up into the other hogans.”
Todd felt his chest tighten. They couldn’t separate them!
“Do you understand?” Gil-Salla’s voice softened slightly, but it was small compensation. Todd nodded miserably. “Very well. You may leave.”
Heavily, Todd left the Flame Voice’s hall. Standing in the Crescent Courtyard, he could hear the faint mumble of the Council as they spoke. He recognized the angry mutters of Leot-Kay and the cool murmur of Gil-Salla mixed among the other voices, but the Council sat too far from the door to make out any of their words. He was heading towards the Raven Hogan when he heard a scrabbling noise, then the sound of gravel falling and finally a soft “thwop” of something hitting the ground. Rounding the side of the hall, he caught a small dark figure rising from a crouch, evidently having just landed after sliding off the dome.
“Rodent!” Todd’s angry whisper hissed in the darkness. Rodent smirked as he straightened before disappearing into the shadows. Rodent was a thin dark haired boy from the Clan of the Tiger. Todd didn’t know if Rodent was his real name, or just a nickname, but it fit him. He had a mean little face that matched his mean little body and if he hadn’t been Nov’m’s cousin, he probably would have been rejected to the Rabbit Clan for being too scrawny. He made up for his lack of size by snooping around and digging up the dirt on his fellow neophytes. He wasn’t very well liked even within his own clan, but he was Nov’m’s pet spy and he could normally be found strutting in his shadow or skulking on his missions.
Todd glanced up and figured that Rodent had been on the roof, listening at the chimney hole. He didn’t know how much he’d heard, or who he’d tell, but Todd knew that it wasn’t going to be good for the Ravens. Like he needed one more thing to worry about.
Picking up a pebble from the dirt, he pitched into the dark where Rodent had disappeared. He was surprised by a small yelp of pain and the sounds of a scurrying retreat. Rodent had still been lurking in the alley between two buildings and, by sheer luck, Todd had managed to bean him. Heartened by this small, unexpected victory, Todd threw out his chest and returned to his hogan, ready to take on a far greater challenge:
To tame the Ravens.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Swoop
Two weeks had passed since that unfortunate event on the mesa top and Lilibit had been behaving very well. Except for two minor incidents, but no one is perfect and you really can’t expect a person to do what they’re told all the time, every time. Can you?
Of course not, Lilibit thought as she headed for her Jiminy Tree. And it’s not as if she were skipping Quaybo class; she was just going to be a little bit late. But she’d promised Garen she’d meet him at their favorite bookswapping hideout right after breakfast and a promise is more important than Quaybo class. Isn’t it?
Garen had been glum and red-eyed at breakfast and wouldn’t tell her what was bothering him. Lilibit clutched “Harriet the Spy” under her arm as she trotted through a grove of trees and up a gravelly slope. She hadn’t finished reading it yet, but Garen looked so sad, she was ready to make the sacrifice if it would cheer him up.
The Jiminy Tree was actually a huge, rambling pinyon pine that grew on the western slope of Magpie Hill near a pebbly stream that ran down to Wishkapoo River. It had a special, earthy smell all its own, somewhere between pine and dirt and cinnamon. If you pushed the pinecones out of the way, the needles were soft and cushy to sit on. Sometimes Garen and Lilibit sat under the tree and read together. Sometimes they crawled over the network of branches as they talked about the stories. Today, Garen sat in desolate heap, mindlessly throwing pebbles into the stream. Lilibit plopped down beside him and watched the ripples of the stones dissolve into the current.
“’S’matter?” she asked after a while.
“Gotta go,” he mumbled, not looking at her.
“Where?”
“Away.”
“Away where?”
“Not here.”
“Alamos Tierra?”
“Nope.” Garen chucked a pebble so hard, it missed the stream altogether and buried itself into the brush on the far side. “Farther. I think I gotta leave Kiva.”
“Forever?” Lilibit felt cold inside. While leaving Kiva to go to Alamos Tierra had been exciting, it had also been a little scary. Never coming back to Kiva would be scariest of all. “Why?”
“I don’t belong.” His voice got clogged and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’ll never make a Stone Warrior. I don’t have it.”
“Have what?”
“A talking stone.” He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a lump of mica encrusted granite. “He stopped talking. He hasn’t spoken to me in months.”
Lilibit’s fingers itched to touch the stone, to speak to it and listen, but she held back and waited for Garen to finish.
“I found him in a field about a half a mile from my sister’s trailer. I was staying with her while my parents worked out custody. Maybe if I go back now, they’ll finally have figured
out who gets stuck with me.” That last sentence was just a mumble. He shook off his funk and continued. “I was taking the long way home from school and all of a sudden, I felt this urge to cut through a vacant lot. Halfway across, I noticed this stone. He didn’t look much different from the others on the ground, but as soon as I touched him, I knew he was special...” He stopped for a moment and gave his stone a little lip-bitten smile. “…and he knew I was special too. I ran back to the trailer, packed up my stuff, left a note for my sister, and walked out the door. I just kept walking. I walked for about a week before I met up with a couple of the others. It was so cool. We all heard our stones and we all had just packed it in and started walking. It took us another week of walking to get here, but we made it.”
Garen sounded proud of himself and Lilibit understood why. For an under-sized twelve year old to have come so far, alone, just by trusting his stone, was quite a feat. Lilibit wondered if she would have found Kiva if she had had to travel all by herself. For the first time, she wondered what might have happened to her if Todd and the others hadn’t decided that they would all take that first step.
Lilibit shook off the thought, made a mental note to be a little less rude to Todd in the future, and turned her attention back to Garen.
“It’s been months now,” Garen whispered miserably. “It stopped talking to me as soon as I crossed over Red Rabbit Ridge. I don’t know what happened, but I can’t hear it anymore.”
The tree creaked sadly as Garen flopped onto his back and looked up into its branches.
“I’m not a real stone warrior. I’m a fake. My sister was right. I’m nothing but a loser.”
Lilibit stared at Garen’s fingers that still tightly clenched his stone. “Can I try it?”
This made Garen sit up quickly.
“But you’re not supposed to…” He stopped and then shrugged. “Oh, well. I doubt it makes any difference now.”