Trickster nodded. "By the way, boyo," he said to Jinndaven. "Plant a new idea in Yafatah's brain, will you?"
" Any new idea?"
Trickster gave his brother an exasperated look. "No, not any new idea. This new idea: nine candles on a long table. One for each landdraw. The eighth candle is for the Mayanabi. And the ninth for the Presence."
Jinndaven put his hands on his hips. "That's not a new idea, Rimble. I gave it to the Mayanabi ages ago, remember?"
Trickster groaned. "It's a new idea to Yafatah!"
"What's she supposed to do with the candles?"
"Light 'em, you nit! I'm making a correspondence between two universes.
Packs a bigger punch. Ooo, won't Mattie be surprised. This is an inner plane double-hitter!"
19
Rimble arrived in Milwaukee on a Sunday morning, just in time to cause havoc during the candle-lighting ceremony of an ecumenical service called the Universal Worship. The Obstinate Woman was officiating. Dressed completely in white, she wore only modest jewelry—nothing that dangled or called attention to itself. Her hair was combed neatly, her mood serene.
The service was being conducted in someone's living room. A stained-glass window composed of a gold heart with clear wings caught the light and cast its reflection on the white lace altar cloth. Six people sat in a comfortable circle around the altar, some lounging on the sofa, some sitting in a strict meditative posture on the floor. Everyone looked very nice. Too nice for Trickster's taste. He decided to liven things up.
Seeing that there was a candle being lit for every major religion in the world, Trickster waited patiently for the Obstinate Woman to honor the tradition of the Native Americans. After all they had given him some of his best names. Plus, the Native Americans had never made a devil out of him.
Trickster appreciated this. After a few minutes of waiting, Trickster realized the Obstinate Woman had no candle for the Native Americans on the altar.
He was waiting for nothing! Indignant, Trickster yelled, "Hey!"
The Obstinate Woman whirled around, her face pale. Until now, she hadn't realized Trickster was in the room. She said nothing, regarding Greatkin Rimble with consternation. She was certain he meant to disrupt the service.
"Hey!" repeated Rimble, patting the coyote furs on his legs. "I don't see the Indians up there. I don't see space for Old Man Coyote."
"We don't always light a candle for that tradition," said the Obstinate Woman. "The service was a little long today, so I—"
"So you skipped the Native Americans?"
The Obstinate Woman licked her lips, her face scarlet.
Trickster continued his tirade mercilessly. "I mean, it's their land you're standing on, kiddo. You gotta honor the ancestors."
The Obstinate Woman coughed, speechless.
"He a friend of yours?" asked a woman sitting on the couch. "We can throw him out—"
Trickster began cackling with wild laughter. The yellow and black paint he had drawn in bold diagonals across his torso rippled with each guffaw.
"You can't," muttered the Obstinate Woman. "I know. I've tried." Taking a deep breath, she turned to Trickster and asked, "So what do you want?"
Trickster grinned, but said nothing.
A spritely, pleasingly plump woman seated on the floor, wearing a pale blue dress and genuine Wisconsin black and white cow slippers, nudged the man next to her and said, "Who is this guy?"
"Looks like Rimble to me."
"But he's just a character in one of her books, isn't he? I mean, he's not real."
Trickster walked over to the pleasingly plump woman and pointed at the top of her forehead. "What's that?" he asked.
"What?"
"That."
The woman felt around on top of head. She stiffened. Her fingers had touched a strand of hair that was so coarse it reminded her of dog hair. Her eyes widened with astonishment. "I don't have hair like that. My hair is soft and brown and be- yooo-tiful—"
"Must be a hallucination," said Rimble slyly. "Couldn't be real." The pleasingly plump woman stared at Rimble and shut
her mouth.
"Rimble," said the Obstinate Woman, "this is a lovely worship service, and you're making a colossal mess of it. I'd really appreciate it if you'd just tell me what you want—"
"Patience," replied Trickster. Then he grinned, and vanished.
The Obstinate Woman bit her lower lip. Going to a desk in the living room, she rummaged in its top drawer. She pulled another white votive candle from a box that held twelve. She placed it in a glass holder on the altar.
Taking a deep breath, the Obstinate Woman went on with the Universal Worship. Raising her taper, she said, "To the Glory of the Omnipresent God, we kindle this light sym-bolically representing the Native American Religion."
Thanks, said a voice in her head.
20
At the Kaleidicopia, no one knew that Zendrak was again alive. People spoke in low voices, their gestures nervous. For the moment the holovespa wasps had stopped their attack. It seemed the Univer'silsila breed had wiped out Elder Hennin's hive. Still, no one at the Kaleidicopia felt safe any longer. If the two Greatkin in their midst couldn't survive Hennin's poison, then none of the residents of the "K" felt they had much chance of succeeding either.
Himayat and Fasilla tried to dispel the mood of gloom in the house.
Although Yafatah was glad to see her mother again, Yafatah was deeply distressed to hear of Aunt's death at the border between Saambolin and Jinnjirri. She had liked Aunt—maybe even loved her. Aunt had understood the things in Yafatah that her own mother had not. Aunt had encouraged Yafatah to explore and fall down and pick herself up. Above all, Aunt had trusted the young girl to do what was best for herself. This trust had been a priceless gift, and Yafatah sorely missed the giver of it. Especially right now.
"Let me see those stings," said Fasilla, her healer's instincts combining with a mother's natural worry.
"I keep telling you, Ma. I be fine."
"Yes, but why?"
"Because I got stung by them other wasps, Ma. Po says they saved me."
"Po?" scoffed her mother, "Now you do be quoting that scab at me? Doon't be foolish, child. Po be a pickpocket—"
"Po be a Mayanabi like Aunt!" shouted Yafatah suddenly.
Fasilla's prejudice against the Mayanabi was long-standing. Over the years.
Fasilla had tried to prevent Yafatah from meeting the Mayanabi who sometimes accompanied Asilliwir caravans on trading journeys. Any conversation Yafatah had ever had with her mother about this secret order had always ended in argument. Yafatah expected the same outcome now.
She would have been shocked to know—had she given her mother a chance to tell her—that while with Himayat, Fasilla had been formally invited to join the Order, and much to Fasilla's own surprise, had done so without hesitation. Fasilla's concern at present was what it appeared to be: Po was a Mayanabi, yes, but he was also a thief by trade. Fasilla didn't believe that Po's spiritual affiliations automatically made him a sterling person.
Rather, she suspected his spiritual affiliations mitigated any of Po's less endearing qualities. On this, Fasilla was quite correct.
Yafatah continued her indignant tirade. "Po do be a Mayanabi just like Aunt! And Aunt was your friend. You should listen to Po. He knows things!"
"Po knows only what suits him. Mostly what lies in a person's pockets.
You've been living too long in this house. It do be time to take you away from it. Tisna a healthy place for you," she added, touching her daughter's swollen face gently.
Yafatah pulled away from her mother abruptly. She ran up two flights of stairs to the second floor of the Kaleidicopia. Coming to her room, she slammed the door and locked it. Two deaths in such a short amount of time was almost unbearable for the young girl. There was also the matter of losing her father, Cobeth, barely three months ago.
"No big loss," Yafatah muttered under her breath. Raised by her mother, Yafatah
had never known the Jinnjirri. What others told her of him made Yafatah feel ashamed that she had been born of his blood. Cobeth had proved himself to be an out-and-out genius and drug addict—not a happy combination. Yafatah hoped that if it were her misfortune to inherit anything from Cobeth she would err on the side of genius. Her lower lip trembling, Yafatah began to weep as though her heart would break.
She wished she could have attended Aunt's funeral. Fasilla had described the Mayanabi ceremony to Yafatah in great detail. Blowing her nose on a handkerchief, Yafatah looked around the room for a candle she could use to honor Aunt's passing. Finding one in a desk drawer—in much the same way that the Obstinate Woman in Milwaukee had done—Yafatah lit the white votive candle. As she did so, she had the strangest feeling that she ought to be lighting more than just the one. Staring at the candle and the shadows it cast on the wall in her room, she contemplated lighting more.
She got up. Reaching into the desk drawer igain, she pulled out seven more candles. Arranging them in a crescent, she lit them. Yafatah frowned.
Something about the number of candles struck Yafatah as significant, but she couldn't say why. Touching each candle in turn, she spoke the name of a landdraw. The seventh candle was for Aunt, she decided. Aunt was Mayanabi, and no matter what her mother thought about Podiddley, the Mayanabi were important. They should have a candle. And the eighth? Who was the eighth for? she wondered. She shrugged. When in doubt, light one for the Presence. That could never be a wrong thing to do. Yafatah smiled.
She set the candle for the Presence on top of a small wooden box so that the eighth candle would stand higher than the rest. Still mad with her mother, Yafatah separated the seventh candle from the crescent, pulling it slightly forward. That's for you, Aunt, she thought triumphantly. Someone knocked at the door. "Who be it?" she asked, her tone of voice uninviting.
"Po."
Yafatah scrambled to her feet. She unlocked the door. Po smiled at the sixteen-year-old girl. "Heard you had a fight with your ma about me."
"Yeah."
"Can I come in?"
"I suppose. Only, doon't let me ma see you, okay? She be ragging on me fierce bad. And I doon't want to hear it."
"Okay," said Po, looking from side to side in the hallway. It was empty. The little thief walked in and shut the door. Seeing the arrangement of the candles on Yafatah's dresser for the first time, he whistled under his breath. "You little Tammi psychic."
"What?"
"Where did you get the idea for this setup?"
"You mean the candles?"
"Yep. The crescent, the number of them, and the color white."
"I doon't know," said Yafatah crossly. "I just thought it up."
Po grunted.
"Why?" asked Yafatah. "What be the big deal, any-way?"
Po sat down on the bed. He patted a spot next to him. Yafatah scowled at the scruffy Asilliwir thief and sat beside him. Po twirled his stringy mustache thoughtfully. "Look, sweetie, I'm going to talk to you real frank now. And I don't want you telling your ma what I say to you. It's not for her to hear, all right?"
"But if me ma asks, I canna' lie to her, Po. She'll know in a second if I lie."
Po took a deep breath. "If you tell her the truth, you'll regret it, Ya. She won't understand. But do what you will."
There was a long pause.
Yafatah stared at the floor in her bedroom, feeling uncomfortable. She knew Po was gazing at her intently. Her Tammirring senses monitored his interest in her silence. Yafatah scowled.
"What do you be staring at?"
"I'm waiting for you to make up your mind."
"About what?"
"About entering into a larger world."
Yafatah kicked her bed with her heel. Conversations with Zendrak popped into her mind. How many times had Zendrak told her Po was a better Mayanabi than thief? And hcw many times had he counseled her to ask Po about his
training under him? And how many times had Yafatah talked to Podiddley about one thing only—the dishes? The young girl shrugged. Maybe she should give Po a chance to be good.
Finally Yafatah said, "So talk to me."
Po pursed his lips. When he returned his gaze to Yafatah, it was intense and very, very sobering. "Ya, you can't have known about putting those candles in just that way without being a Mayanabi yourself. Do you understand? It's one of our most sacred ceremonies."
Yafatah looked at the floor. A single tear slipped down r.er cheek. "You could've told me anything in the world but this, Podiddley. If this be true, I will lose me ma's love. She na abide the Mayanabi. She made exception with Aunt because Aunt was special."
"I know."
There was a short pause.
Yafatah swallowed. "Somehow, I doon't be amazed, Podiddley, about me being Mayanabi. When I traveled in caravan, I was always making friends with the Mayanabi Nomads. I just liked them, you know."
"I'm not surprised." Po sighed deeply, his face becoming sad. "It's too bad Zendrak isn't here. He would've liked doing the initiation for you." He swore. "I can't believe he's dead. I just can't believe it."
Yafatah watched Po struggle with his feelings. "You really loved him, didna'
you?"
"Sure."
Yafatah smiled tentatively. "Well, seeing as how you loved Zendrak, I would be honored to be initiated by you. Mr. Podiddley."
Po stiffened in surprise. "Me? How about Himayat? He's been at this path a lot longer than me. He's downstairs in the kitchen making tea."
"You canna initiate me?"
Po licked his lips. "Uh—I mean—I guess so. I mean, I can. I just never been asked before." He peered at Yafatah with stupefaction. "See, the thing is, Ya—if I initiate you, then I'm your Mayanabi Elder. Means I'm supposed to teach you things."
"So?"
Po blinked. "Well, I—I just never had a student, that's all."
"So?" Like the others in the house, Yafatah was a natural Contrary.
Po took a deep breath. He got to his feet and paced. Under his breath he muttered, "Where the fuck is Zendrak when you really need him? Dead, that's what."
So initiate her, you big baby!
Po's face paled.
"What's wrong?" asked Yafatah.
"Now I'm hearing voices inside my head! That's what's wrong!"
Yafatah stared at the Asilliwir man. "Doon't you always hear voices? I do.
We Tammi always do. 'Tis as natural as having this conversation."
Po scowled, grumbling under his breath again.
"What?" asked Yafatah, starting to think Po didn't like her.
"I said, I wonder who's going to be teaching who in this arrangement."
Yafatah shrugged.
Po?
The little thief shrieked.
Yafatah giggled. "What did the voice say?"
"Just my name."
"Oh."
Po?
Po made a grimace and danced across the room, his hands on either side of his head. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" He jumped up on the bed.
Po, you little boob—just initiate her, will you? You know the ceremony.
Don't scare the poor girl. You're quite right. She's Mayanabi. Trust your spiritual instincts as much as you do your thieving ones.
Po shut his eyes and hopped about in the center of the bed on one leg. He howled and swore vehemently.
Yafatah watched him, her expression puzzled. "Does this mean you're going to initiate me or not, Po? I mean, it do be okay if you think—"
"Silence!" shouted Po, coming to a standstill, his eyes suddenly greedy.
"I'm getting messages from inside my head! Know what that means, dearie? Means I must've made it into the next rank." Po grinned gleefully.
"At last, at last—out of the scullery and into the real path—"
Po, if you don't shut up this instant, I'll take that rank back. It'll be remedial dishwashing for you. One can go backward on this path.
"I can?" Po said in astonishment. Without further s
pluttering, Po sat down and attended to the business at hand. He initiated Yafatah into the Order of the Mayanabi Nomads.
What happened between them was a secret, one that Yafatah never told her mother or anybody else.
21
While Yafatah was upstairs with Podiddley, the rest of the house sat downstairs in the kitchen. The group included six of Rimble's Nine and the two Asilliwir, Fasilla and Himayat. Barlimo had just made a large pot of black tea. She poured milk into the cups of those who wanted it.
"Honey?" she offered Janusin.
The master sculptor nodded, his expression as bleak as his blue hair. He held out his ceramic mug for a spoonful of the golden sweetener. He sighed and said, "I've never felt so depressed in all my life."
Tree and Rowenaster nodded their heads in silence. Tree's hair matched Janusin's moody blue. The professor looked as though he had aged ten years overnight. Every gesture he made was stiff and out of rhythm.
Himayat peered at Rowenaster intently. That's what it is, he thought to himself. This whole group is out of rhythm. But from what? he wondered.
The Asilliwir Mayanabi glanced out of the kitchen window. He didn't know what he hoped to see out there. Something. Something that explained the terrible drain he felt being directed at the people seated beside him.
Himayat continued to watch the professor, but said nothing.
Rowenaster cleared his throat. "And if Zendrak's death weren't enough," he muttered, "I fear we'll lose the house this week."
Barlimo shrugged. Dressed in layers of wools and mis-matched clothing, the Jinnjirri architect made a rude noise with her mouth. "It's an ongoing fight with the Guild. That's all. We just have to remain firm and we'll survive. We always have."
"Things are different now," said Mab softly. "We aren't protected anymore,"
she added, glancing at the ceiling, toward the upper floor where Zendrak's body had lain. "It's so scary now. We don't even know where Zendrak's body is. I mean, how can a body just disappear? Everything's going wrong.
Everything."
Timmer snorted. "Mab, just shut up, will you? You're really bringing me down. You're a psychic vamp sometimes. Just sucking away everybody's energy with your fear!"
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