Prophecy

by James Axler

  Despite the fact that, seemingly, the entire ville had come out of their wigwams and tepees to view the newcomers, it was uncannily quiet. The tribe seemed to be as silent as those who had ridden out to collect the two strangers. Mildred wondered if it was going to be difficult to work out just what it was that was expected of them. Would anyone actually open his or her mouth to tell them just exactly what it was the prophecy foretold?

  The riders dismounted, Mildred and J.B. following suit. In among the tribe members who were there to greet them were two men who obviously held special significance. By their bearing, and by the way in which their dress differed, they were plainly the elders of the tribe. The way in which they moved in silence through the throng, cutting a swathe with ease, confirmed that.

  “These are the ones you found,” one of them said as they reached the riders. It was a statement more than a question.

  The warrior who had spoken to J.B. by the river nodded. “It was as foretold. They had been on the plains for some time, and showed signs of a vision quest—”

  “Hey, don’t you tell me what we showed signs of,” Mildred said hotly. “We got separated from our party in that damn storm that blew up.”

  J.B. stared at her. He couldn’t believe that she was choosing now to let anger get the better of her. Not when they were surrounded and outnumbered. He wasn’t to know that the idea that the storm may not have been as it seemed was one that had been nagging at her subconscious for some time.

  “What storm?” asked the elder who had, so far, been silent.

  “That damn storm where the winds raised up so much dust that you couldn’t breathe without choking, and those damn frogs and locusts rained down like—” She stopped when she realized that the entire tribe seemed to be scrutinizing her, hanging on to her every word.

  “Were there such things?” the elder asked of the warrior.

  He shook his head. “There was a dust storm. But nothing else.” He turned to Mildred and J.B. “If what you say was true, then where were the frogs and locusts that rained from the heavens? Did you see them on the ground? I did not. Neither did my brothers.”

  J.B. looked at Mildred. “Hadn’t thought of it, but—”

  “Damn it, he’s right, John. It’s been bugging me since I first woke up the morning after…”

  “Truly, you were on a vision quest.”

  Mildred had been dreading this moment. All that she had previously dismissed as bull; now it seemed to be coming home to her as truth.

  “Could you,” she said slowly, “explain exactly what a vision quest is?”

  The elder who had questioned her paused to consider his words before speaking. Finally he said, “When a man seeks guidance, or to attain the next stage in becoming a man, then a warrior, he must go out into the wilderness alone, where he will undergo the rituals that enable him to see beyond the veil of this world, and into the world of the Sun and Earth spirits. Then he will be shown things that will reveal to him great truths.”

  “Frogs?” Mildred asked with a raised eyebrow.

  The elder smiled slowly. “Truth is not always boldly stated. Sometimes, the meanings can only be understood by those who take the time to look beyond the obvious.”

  Mildred said nothing. Maybe those things she had so readily dismissed were not the total crock she had thought. There was little else that could explain such strange and apparently hallucinatory effects. And if that was the case, then just maybe there was something in this prophecy that had been alluded to; if so, then she had the notion that J.B and herself were in for a very weird—and possibly dangerous—time.

  Moreso when she realized that the exchange had caused a ripple of murmured conversation around the fringes of the crowd. Looking over them, she could see that the men of the tribe, with their long, decorated hair and bared skins were at the forefront. The women—who had shorter hair, more functional clothes—were at the back.

  It was a patriarchal society. The elder had spoken of men going on vision quests. Not women. Yet here she was, proclaiming an experience that the very same elder was proclaiming as such a quest. Somehow, she had the feeling that this would not go down too well with some sections of the tribe. The looks on the faces of some warriors gathered in the crowd did nothing but reinforce this opinion.

  It looked as though her earlier fears could very well be confirmed.

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Eight

  Jak rested fitfully and uneasily during his first two or three nights in the ville. Always, of necessity, a light sleeper, he found that his rest was interrupted by the feeling that there was tension and unease throughout the ville, and that it was centered around himself and Doc.

  That wasn’t exactly a surprise: it was the weight of expectation that worried him. After two days, he had seen very little of the ville, and had been told even less. The woman and man who between them looked after and seemingly guarded himself and Doc had been less than talkative. Given Jak’s own natural reticence, it would have been a good time for Doc’s loquacity to take center stage.

  But Doc was silent. Raving, occasionally, it was true, but mostly silent and either sleeping or unconscious. It was hard to tell which was which. Mostly still, he would sometimes twitch and mutter, shifting position as though in the midst of an uncomfortable nightmare. Then, at other times, he would sit bolt upright, his eyes wide and staring yet seeing nothing, yelling sounds and words that only occasionally cohered into some kind of sense. When it did make such sense as was possible, it seemed to be a continuation of the biblical rant on Revelation and the coming of the end that had spurred him into first disappearing into the storm.

  Jak wanted to wake him up and hit him. Stupe old bastard was still going on about the crap that wound them up here. He’d got them into trouble, and still he couldn’t change the subject—though it had to be said that Jak was beginning to question his own behavior more and more. To begin pursuit in such conditions had been the opposite to the way in which he would have usually acted. Reflection was something that came rarely and all too uneasily to the albino; now, however, he had the time and space in which to indulge. There was nothing he could do to find an escape route until Doc was ready to move.

  He was glad that he had found the old man. Doc was awkward, sometimes stupe…but he was one of them. And in some ways the one whose back needed looking out for the most. One down, four to go. It was better than being alone. But it had its own problems. A fit and focused Doc would back Jak all the way. If—when—Doc woke from this stupor, who knew in what condition Jak would find him.

  Meanwhile, Jak wondered about the people who tended him. The woman had said not more than two words since he had arrived. She tended to Doc, using poultices that stank of strange herbs to try to soothe his ravings. His other wounds were minor—scratches and abrasions—and were dressed and already beginning to heal. It was the wounds to his mind that were longer last ing. Nothing was said about them, but twice the shaman had come in and stood over Doc’s prone figure, breathing heavily as though hyperventilating himself into a trance state before chanting and singing in a tongue that made no sense to Jak. Then he had promptly left, without sparing the albino youth a glance.

  The man—who had obviously been ordered to watch over and guard them—had said little more than the woman. The first night, Jak had snapped awake to find the man sitting in the smoky, darkened wigwam, sitting as still as if he had been carved from rock. Yet he was not asleep. The whites of his eyes shone in the dim tallow light, and Jak could see that they were focused upon him. Unblinking. Giving nothing away. Jak had returned the stare for some time, until weariness had overtaken him once more, and he had been unable to prevent his eyelids from beginning to droop. As sleep claimed him, he knew that the man still stared at him, giving nothing away.

  Gradually, though, the warrior had begun to speak a few words. Jak, being a man of few himself, had not known how to initiate a conversation. So many things he needed to know if he was to begin to pla
n, and yet how to broach the chasm of silence?

  He hadn’t needed to. It was, surprisingly, the man he could only think of as his guard who started to speak.

  Jak was outside the wigwam, breathing in the early morning air, sharp and fresh. Without appearing to take much notice of the activity around him, Jak was mentally pinpointing the routines that he could begin to see taking shape in the community around him: the making of bread by the women; the order in which they gathered their tools and ingredients; the group who went to wash clothing by the small stream that he now knew ran just out of view, around the shelter of the mountain. Always the same time. He knew because he still had his wrist chron. He surreptitiously timed them. They were the same two days running. He knew they would probably be the same the following day. Likewise, the men had their own routines. Those who would hunt were already gone by the time that he had risen. They returned before the heat of the sun became too great. They carried with them strange-looking creatures: animals the like of which Jak had never seen again. Not misshapen, but somehow wrong: like hybrids of creatures he had seen in other places. One that had really shaken him had looked like a dwarf horse crossbred with a puma. Strange and unnerving to see those green eyes and snubbed nose, yet with an extended neck and a tail that was less like a big cat than a horse.

  Other men were engaged in the manufacture of weaponry. They whittled and carved bows, strung with fine wire made of gut. Arrows were whittled, sharpened flint heads attached, feathers for flight carefully added. Targets of varying sizes and at differing intervals were used both to test the new weaponry and also the mettle of the men who would use them to hunt or in combat.

  Jak tried to be circumspect as he made his study, but he suspected that he would be detected. He was good, but he did not underestimate these people. The manner in which they had been able to sneak up upon him while he had tried to approach them spoke for itself. So he was less than surprised when the warrior suddenly spoke.

  “You have nothing to fear. You are not our enemy.”

  The man was behind Jak. The albino had known he was there, so was not taken by surprise. Slowly, wishing to show no sign of hostility, Jak turned to face him.

  “Then why keep me and Doc here?”

  “Are we making you captives? You are free to move about, are you not?”

  “Long as not go too far,” Jak countered.

  “Why would you do that while your friend is still in the land of the spirits?”

  Jak frowned. He had to have looked puzzled, as the warrior added, “He speaks in tongues that make little sense to anyone except the shaman. Even when he wakes, he sees not us but the spirit realm.”

  Jak had seen Doc’s madness too many times to do anything but wonder at how the Pawnee interpreted it. Nonetheless, it gave him a way to broach the subject that was his concern.

  “Suppose want to leave when he right? You saying easy?”

  The warrior considered that. “Maybe not. You were sent to us. Destiny must be fulfilled as it was told to us by the Great Spirits. We have a purpose to fulfill. You have, too. You are a part of that purpose. To go against the spirits would be a bad medicine, and I cannot see why anyone would wish to do that.”

  Jak could see from the man’s open expression that he was truly baffled as to why Jak would wish to leave before this destiny, whatever it may actually entail—was fulfilled.

  “What happens when Doc okay?” Jak asked bluntly. “Destiny mystery to us. You know?”

  The warrior paused. It was a subject to which he was giving great thought. Whether it was because he was unsure of the answer, or because he was wondering if it was his place to speak on the subject, Jak could not tell. Whatever, the albino knew that he could not totally trust the accuracy of what the man said next, even though it might give him an indication of what could happen.

  “When the old one is well enough, when he has returned totally to this world from his sojourn with the spirits, then you will go with the chief and with the shaman to the earth lodge. There you will convene with the greatest of them all, our father Wakan Tanka, there to discover the path that we must now take to reclaim that which is ours.”

  “AN EARTH LODGE?” Krysty asked. “Up here?”

  Martha Is-A-Man laughed heartily, throwing back her head. “How stupe do you think we are?” she returned. “Since you’ve been here, you keep looking at us like we’re savage and little better than the meat we hunt. But you think we got that little going on in our heads?”

  Krysty was taken aback. Somehow, because she associated some of the ideas that she had divined in these people as being like those of her home ville of Harmony, she had assumed that she would be in better touch with their way of life than Ryan. Yet, when she stepped back and looked at it, she realized that she had come across as superior.

  Ryan had adapted better than she had thought. True, he was used to a much more violent and straightforward way of living; societies that were based on the rule of the blaster and of fear. Yet because he had realized that these people based their way of life on other, older ideas, he had stepped back to let them show him. He had questioned that which he did not understand.

  Krysty realized, as the women in front of her stared her down, that she had assumed too much. She had acted as though she knew everything about their way of life. And she didn’t. Harmony was different. There were some ideas in common, but that was all. It made her realize, perhaps, how much she had missed her home ville.

  The women had been skinning, gutting and salting the day’s chill. It was messy, necessary, and had exposed Krysty to the strange mutations that seemed to populate the plain. The deerlike creature she had been dissecting with Martha’s aid was a perfect example, being unlike anything she had seen before. Its sightless eyes stared up at her, as if questioning what she was about to face.

  But it was not the creature that concerned her now. Her eyes flickered to the oiled length of hide that stood between herself and Martha. On it were spread a number of finely honed knives, each with a blade that spoke of a specific purpose: fine, thin blades that were for skinning, thicker, heavier blades for scoring the flesh, carving it. Others were made for the specific purpose of gutting, filleting and preparing the meat and hide for use.

  Martha Is-A-Man had a large, thick knife in her fist. It was appropriate, as anything else would have been dwarfed by her large hand. Her name was appropriate. She was a large woman, muscled like a man. Her face was like a slab, and right now it was distorted by a loathing that she had been keeping inside for the past few days. The other women were gathered around the two of them. While the men were going about their business, the women had been set to their task and left isolated on a far reach of the mesa. They would prepare the food, then take it to the lower levels of the tunnel system, where the natural chill of the rock served as an icebox for the already salted meat. So that the blood and waste from the carcasses could be drained and disposed of without contaminating the rest of the area, they had been set apart.

  Now this isolation was working against Krysty.

  The women gathered, closed the circle around Krysty and Martha. The two women were screened off from prying male eyes, and at the same time were being forced together as the circle closed in.

  Krysty could feel the heat from their bodies as they drew nearer. She could see the hatred in Martha’s bloodshot brown eyes, the set of her lantern jaw showing her determination. She thought about trying to reason with them: the tribal elders would be less than happy with any damage to her before she and Ryan could fulfil their role in the prophecy; she had no reason to fight, no argument with them; her attitude had been misjudged, but had been bred from enthusiasm for a way of life like that she had once known.

  One look at the faces of the women around her, and another glance at the body language of the woman standing in front of her, and she knew this would be pointless.

  Martha wanted a chance to prove her superiority. Perhaps she had been the alpha female in the tribe and
sensed a threat in Krysty. Perhaps she just plain didn’t like her. Looking at several of the women, and thinking back to the way in which they looked at Martha, and the proprietorial way in which she acted toward them, Krysty realized that her Is-A-Man name came not just from the way she looked.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe she wanted Krysty, and the fact that the Titian-haired beauty had been oblivious and aloof had irritated her.

  No matter. She only knew now that she had to fight.

  In her hand she had a small knife that she had been using to pare the skin from the beast’s haunches. It had a handle that sat snugly in her palm and a thin, short blade. It was as sharp as one of Jak’s leaf-bladed knives, and in truth it felt comfortable, as she had used some of the albino’s blades on many occasions. But it would be useless unless she could get in close. And Martha had the length both of blade and reach to make that difficult. The woman was also built in such a manner as to suggest that brute strength could cover any lack of swiftness.

  She saw the blade she wanted. A long, thin stiletto-like knife that was used for skinning the main carcass. She dropped the blade she held, dipping down so fast that she had picked up her replacement before the first knife had hit the dirt.

  She had to be that fast, as Martha lunged for her as she moved, sensing that those few moments when she had no weapon were the optimum moments in which to strike.

  Krysty heard her enemy’s breathing quicken, come harder, as she threw her body forward, putting her whole weight behind her thrust.

  Bad move: a total commitment to one move left her wide open should it go wrong, should she miss.

  Krysty was too quick for her. As she plucked the longer knife from the oiled hide, she twisted her body so that she pivoted away from the lunging Martha. The movement took Krysty into a sideways roll. Exerting all the muscle control that she could muster, she rolled and came up again, feeling the strain in her thighs and knees as she came to her feet, keeping her balance, now almost behind Martha, who had pitched forward and stumbled as the expected resistance of Krysty’s pierced flesh was no longer there to halt her motion. Krysty raised one silver-tipped boot and pushed hard, connecting with her opponent’s bony rear.