by Sharon Sala
Heat shot through her, burning so hot and so fast that she thought she would die, and then she did not. When he began pulling away, she wanted to open her eyes, but was helpless to move.
“Wait! Don’t go! Will I ever see you again?”
As you see yourself, so you will see me.
The air inside the chamber swirled softly, shifted against her body as if reaching for a final grasp, and died.
The hold he’d had on her will was gone. Tyhen opened her eyes as the sadness swept through her. She took her torch from the wall and began retracing her steps. When she came out, Yuma was still standing in front of the doorway with her moccasins, but the sun was already moving past the top of the sky. She’d been inside for hours and it felt like only minutes.
“I’m ready,” she said as she touched Yuma’s shoulder.
He turned around, started to speak and then stared. “Tyhen?”
“Yes it’s me. Who else would I be?”
“You look... you look different.”
She shrugged.
“Was it the Windwalker? Did you see him?” he asked.
“I saw him,” she said softly, and slipped her hand in his. “I want to leave now.”
Yuma gave her the moccasins, then took a deep breath and stifled every question on his lips.
They began the walk back through the playa, then through the marketplace toward the hill that led to the palace. Twice Tyhen stopped to talk to people trading their goods, once accepting a piece of sugar cane to chew on, and another time to ask about a new baby.
Yuma felt her sadness, but there was also a maturity that had come out of nowhere. When she handed him a piece of sugar cane, he took it with a smile and thanked the trader, promising to bring something from the palace as compensation. But the trader refused, happy to have been the one chosen to give the chief’s daughter a treat as they walked away.
They walked in silence for a few minutes more as they chewed on the chunk of cane, and then Tyhen suddenly tossed hers aside and took Yuma’s hand without looking at him.
“He told me to leave in seven sleeps.”
His heart leaped. This was a shock! Only seven days.
“He told me the shamans will know of me and will be looking for the sign to tell them I am coming.”
Yuma tossed his sugar cane away. “What is the sign?”
“A dove. He said they will see a white dove.”
A chill ran up his spine. “The same name Johnston Nantay gave you.”
She nodded. The rest of what Windwalker said was hers to know. They would see her powers when the need arose, and they had no need to know that he’d died for her, giving her all that was left of him.
It was a sacrifice she would not waste or ever forget.
Chapter Nine
The palace was in an uproar when they arrived. Singing Bird was trying to calm Cayetano, but it wasn’t doing much good.
Tyhen and Yuma could hear him shouting all the way down the hall toward the throne room.
“It sounds as if the news Adam gave Cayetano has upset him,” Yuma said.
Tyhen tossed her head, impatient with the fact that Cayetano always rejected change. A mountain on fire was out of his control and that’s what had set him off.
“And what I have to say is not going to make him happier,” she added.
Even the guards looked nervous as they passed them in the hall, which wasn’t surprising. They weren’t deaf. They could easily hear what Cayetano was saying.
Yuma glanced at them warily then lowered his voice. “It does not appear there will be a need to announce the need to leave Naaki Chava. Word is going to be all over the city before nightfall.”
She glanced at a guard as they entered. He looked ready to run and knew she needed end this. “This has to stop,” she said.
“Look! There’s Tyhen now!” Adam said, pointing toward the doorway.
“Where have you been!” Cayetano yelled, then spun and pointed at Adam. “This one talks of death and fire and burning rocks and you are gone without a word to anyone. We have important things to discuss before the people can be warned.”
“You are not going to have to warn anyone,” Tyhen said sharply. “You have frightened everyone within hearing distance. I am sure the servants are already spreading the word down in Naaki Chava. You need to speak to the people immediately before a panic begins.”
Cayetano blinked. Tyhen had never spoken to him in such a tone, and as his temper cooled, his perception heightened. Something was different about her. She looked older, but it wasn’t her face that had changed. He looked closer, then stifled a gasp. It was her eyes! The child he’d known was not in there anymore. Shocked by the realization, he sat down on the bench with a thump.
Singing Bird was so focused on Cayetano that she missed the exchange between them.
“See. It is as I told you. Your anger goes before reason and the people will be afraid.”
“They already are,” Yuma said. “I saw it on the guards’ faces in the hall.”
Cayetano’s world was crashing down around him. He had nothing more to say.
Adam was pacing, but Evan was standing quietly aside, cowed by raised voices and anger.
Adam focused on Tyhen, and even though he didn’t speak aloud, she heard his voice.
“Did you see him?”
Tyhen glanced up at him. Yes, but say nothing.
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
There is no need. It will only make things worse with Cayetano.
Adam’s focus shifted to Yuma, surprised by the calm, almost fatalistic expression on his face. There was something more they weren’t telling, but what was it?
Tyhen took her mother’s hand and then squeezed it gently, remembering all the times Singing Bird had wiped her tears or put medicine on a scrape. All the nights her mother had held her when she cried from dreams she didn’t understand.
Singing Bird saw her daughter’s face, and like Cayetano, immediately saw the change. But unlike Cayetano, she recognized something he did not, and jerked her hand away. She wasn’t seeing her daughter. She saw Niyol. What had happened? Why was this so?
Tyhen knew things were going to get worse once she told them her news, but this was the time to do it.
“I will leave Naaki Chava in seven days. Many of the New Ones will be leaving with me. It is their choice and not mine.”
Singing Bird’s heart stopped. The pain was so deep it felt fatal, but she said nothing, just as her grandfather had said nothing when she rode away on the back of Niyol’s motorcycle another lifetime ago.
Cayetano was still reeling from the news that Naaki Chava would be destroyed, and losing Tyhen so quickly was another shock.
“You have not prepared,” he argued.
“The New Ones made preparations for us. They said Singing Bird told them what to do, and it was done,” Tyhen said.
Singing Bird couldn’t breathe. The fact that she’d actually participated in aiding her own daughter’s departure was horrifyingly real. Blinking away tears, she walked over to Cayetano and sat down in his lap. Instinctively, his arms went around her. Welcoming his strength, she leaned into his embrace and began issuing orders.
“Yuma, prepare the guards and tell them to ready the warriors to go with us. Adam, blow the Conch shell. The people will gather at the temple when they hear it, and I expect all four of you to be there standing behind your chief when he speaks. Leave us now, all of you.”
Singing Bird put her arms around Cayetano’s neck as her children walked away.
As soon as they got into the hallway, they began talking among themselves.
“Singing Bird is very sad,” Evan said.
“We are all sad,” Yuma said. “Everything is changing and that is always a hard thing to accept.”
Despite all the t
urmoil, Tyhen thought of one change in her life she would never regret, and that was taking the final step to becoming Yuma’s woman.
“I have to summon the people to the temple, but I have never done it. I’ve only seen it done,” Adam said.
“It has not happened since I was born,” Tyhen said. “How do you make it happen?”
“The shaman blew into a giant shell from the big water. It makes a very loud sound that echoes from one side of the valley to the other and was only used in times of trouble.”
“This definitely qualifies as trouble,” Yuma said. “Where is it?”
“It used to be in the temple, but we brought it back here after we cleaned the place out. It’s in our room. I’ll get it,” Evan said.
“Do not go until I get back. I will walk with you to the temple,” Yuma said and ran to notify the guards and warriors to assemble and accompany Cayetano to the temple.
Moments later, Evan returned with the shell and Yuma was on his heels.
“It is done,” Yuma said. “We have to hurry. The shell must be blown so the people can assemble before Cayetano reaches the temple. We can take a shortcut through the jungle.”
“Let’s do it,” Adam said and followed Yuma and Tyhen down the hall and then out of the palace.
Once they began the trek, they quit talking. The reality of sharing their terrible truth was that some people would not believe it and reject it outright. Some would rebel and refuse to leave. Some would panic and slip away in the night to other villages that, in the long run, might not be any safer than Naaki Chava, but the majority would follow Cayetano and Singing Bird anywhere they led them.
“I think we should walk faster,” Tyhen said.
Yuma stepped out of the group and began to run at a lope with the others on his heels. A few minutes later they came out on the backside of the temple and quickly ran inside. Yuma grabbed a burning torch from the wall and led the way to the inner staircase that took them up to the top of the temple. They caught a glimpse of something small and furry darting into the shadows as they started up the stairs, but didn’t look back.
As soon as they reached the top, Adam stepped outside a few steps, lifted the shell to his lips, and blew as hard as he could.
Nothing happened. Not a squeak. Not a sound. He tried once more without success then started to hand it to Evan when Yuma pointed toward the palace.
“Look! They are already coming.”
“Give it to me,” Tyhen said and lifted the shell to her lips.
The loud, mournful swell of sound ripped through the city, stopping everyone in their tracks. People ran out of their homes, while others came running from the fields and out of the jungle.
Tyhen took a second breath and blew again and the people saw her standing on the upper-most tier of the temple. When they began hearing the thunder of footsteps and realized it was Cayetano and Singing Bird marching down into Naaki Chava, surrounded by their guards and warriors, they began moving toward the temple in waves, anxious to hear why they’d been summoned.
Tyhen smiled shyly as she handed the shell to Adam. “A Windwalker’s daughter has much air,” she said.
Yuma grinned.
Adam and Evan looked embarrassed. “We will practice.”
Tyhen nodded, then turned around and looked out across the city, letting the magnificence of the scene below her unfold. She wanted to remember the sunlight on the playa and the large blue parrots perched on the houses across the way, the shiny black feathers bobbing on the warriors’ headdresses, and the blood-red feathers fluttering on Cayetano’s cape.
At first she couldn’t see her mother, and then when she did was struck by her expression and looked away, not wanting to remember it was fear that she had seen.
The people were gathering in swarms, at first struck silent by the unusual aspect of the gathering, and then the sound of their voices rose as they began murmuring to each other.
Minutes later, Cayetano reached the playa. The people parted to let them pass, and as Cayetano and Singing Bird began climbing up the outer steps of the temple, Singing Bird’s children came down to meet them.
Tyhen stopped only feet from where Cayetano stood and looked at her mother. Singing Bird said nothing, but the look that passed between them was telling. Her mother was afraid the people would riot. She could hear her thoughts now, and they were startling. Singing Bird feared they might blame the fire in the mountain on Ah Kin’s recent demise. Everyone knew the old shaman had died of snakebite but they didn’t know it was self-inflicted. They also knew Cayetano had ordered the body to be burned. Some were going to blame the fall of Naaki Chava on the bad medicine. Some were going to suggest sacrificing Cayetano to appease the gods.
Now Tyhen was afraid. She hadn’t known of the undercurrent of dissatisfaction. She’d been so wrapped up in her own life and quest that she’d missed this.
She glanced at the twins.
Did you know the people were upset about Ah Kin’s death?
They nodded.
Did you tell Cayetano?
“He said he didn’t care what they thought.”
She sighed. That sounded just like him.
Yuma could tell they were worried about something. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Some are going to blame the fire in the mountain on the way Cayetano dealt with Ah Kin’s body. They do not know he killed himself. They think the snake bite was an accident and that he was not treated with respect due a shaman.”
“Will they riot?” Yuma asked.
“No, but there will be discord.”
Yuma moved closer and lowered his voice even more. “So what if Cayetano takes away their reasoning by suggesting outright that the mountain’s anger was because Ah Kin betrayed Cayetano?”
“Then they will want to sacrifice someone to appease the mountain,” Adam said.
Yuma frowned. As long as he’d been here, he was still taken aback by the superstitions and brutality of how they thought life should be lived. No wonder Firewalker came.
And then it was too late to consider more options because Cayetano raised both arms to signal silence, and in a rare gesture, Singing Bird slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow as he took a step forward. It was as public a display of unity they’d ever made. And then he began to speak.
“My people! There are two things Singing Bird and I must tell you, and both are heavy on our hearts. The time has come for our daughter, Tyhen, to leave us. In seven sleeps she and a large number of the New Ones will leave Naaki Chava to continue the journey that Singing Bird began. As much as we regret this happening, we are also proud of the sacrifices they make to save our people and the future of our people.”
A universal groan of dismay rose from the crowd as they looked upon the young woman, wanting to see her expression, wondering if there would be tears. Instead, she let out a war cry as she thrust her fist in the air.
The war cry the New Ones sent back to her echoed from one side of the valley to the other.
Yuma’s heart swelled with pride, but also with a sudden sense of despair. He had grown to know and love these people, and they were giving up a far gentler way of life for uncertainty and danger, all for a chance to go home.
Cayetano held his hand up again for silence and the crowd hushed. “I said there were two things. The other is that we have been given a vision.” He swung his arm toward the mountain. “In the vision, that mountain that has sheltered us will come apart, throwing burning rocks and thick, choking, smoke high up in the sky. It will bleed fire into Naaki Chava and our homes will be no more.”
Shocked silence lasted for only a few moments and then just as Singing Bird had feared, someone in the crowd cried out.
“Ah Kin’s spirit is angry. He was not honored as he should have been.”
Cayetano frowned. He didn’t like to be thwarted and
had not expected this. “Ah Kin has nothing to do with—”
“Sacrifice to the gods and they will save us,” another yelled, then a large part of the crowd began to chant, “Sacrifice! Sacrifice!”
This took Cayetano aback. He glanced down at Singing Bird. Her chin was up, her eyes flashing. The small scar at the corner of her mouth was white from clenching her jaw. He looked back up at the crowd and began to shout, trying to be heard over the roar of disapproval.
“We no longer sacrifice!” he yelled.
Someone from the crowd off to Cayetano’s right threw a large piece of rock directly at him.
Yuma saw the motion as the man lifted his arm. Without thinking, he leapt in front of Cayetano and pushed him away just in time to take the brunt of the blow. The rock hit him on the side of the shoulder and cut a gash that immediately began to bleed.
Warriors began running up the steps to protect Cayetano, while others in the crowd grabbed the man who’d thrown the rock and put him on the ground.
Tyhen saw the blood on Yuma’s shoulder, which triggered the rage that rushed through her. She flew down the steps, past Yuma and the twins, past Cayetano and her mother, running all the way down to the bottom tier where she threw her head back and screamed.
A great wind came out of nowhere, knocking people to the ground. The sound that came with it struck them mute. She unloaded her rage, shouting at the top of her voice.
“Cowards! Stupid, ungrateful children! That is what you are! For every year I have been living, you have been told again and again why Firewalker came. You saw with your own eyes how the New Ones suffered. You counted their numbers and knew that, because they had been given a warning, they had survived. Now Cayetano gave you a warning. It was just like the warning the New Ones received that saved their lives. Now you know that danger comes. You have been given time to pack up and get away. He is saving your lives and all you can think to do is kill someone? You think shedding blood and ending someone’s life will stop a mountain from bleeding fire? So who among you wants to die first to feed a mountain? Speak up! I can’t hear you.”