by James Axler
As the two men had lowered themselves into the access shaft, J.B. knew that it was something similar to that which he and his companions had seen before—not a large military redoubt, but rather a kind of way station. Subdued lighting flickered on as they entered the shaft, and by the time they were at the bottom, the whole of the corridor was bathed in light.
Without a word, Little Tree led J.B. through the corridors, detailing all that lay within as though this was the first time the Armorer had seen such a place. J.B. did nothing to disabuse him of this notion. Instead he noted that the dormitory areas showed signs of use—presumably as sleeping areas when the storms came—but that the kitchens, stores, and particularly the armory were untouched.
“There’s a lot of ordnance and tech down here that could help you,” he murmured.
Little Tree shook his head. “You have to understand one thing, particularly if you are the unknowing vessel of the Great Spirit. This is white-eye shit. This is what made the world go wrong. We are grateful we were shown this place for shelter, but to touch anything else would be to ask for bad medicine. To deny our heritage and pervert our destiny.”
J.B. felt that it was a waste of good firepower, but opted to keep his own counsel. Instead his attention was caught by a wall map in one of the untouched rooms. It was clearly of the plains area, and showed a network of underground redoubts and bases in the region. He had never seen so many clustered together, and it told him that the plains had been an area that whitecoats and military considered of great importance.
But why?
“WHY?”
It was a simple question, but it held within it many strands of meaning. Mildred studied the crone’s face and noted the knowing smile that spread across it.
“Because,” she began carefully, “there are many things that become lost with the passage of time. Stories passed down can become distorted and changed. Not with the intent of deception, but because of a lack of understanding. Words get lost. Words like metaphor.”
The old woman’s eyes flickered from her nurse and Running Steer to Mildred, asking if she grasped the real meaning. Mildred nodded. Grunting in satisfaction, the old woman continued. “We have legends among our people that go back beyond the time of the nukecaust. Legends that go back beyond the time when the white-eyes first came to this land. To before they brought us the horse, and we traveled across these plains. Such are the ways of the spirits, that the coming of those who would seek to oppress us also made us free to roam. The ax had two heads. It always has two heads.
“Now, in our legends we have the twins Dore and Wahre’dua. They were fighters and defenders. Their mother was slain by a monster, and so they swore to avenge her by becoming slayers of monsters in their turn. This was how they spent their lives, for it was their mission. The notion of twins who fight in tandem to right the wrongs caused by monsters is something that runs through the way in which stories are told. You follow me?”
Mildred nodded. The old woman’s eyes darted across the others in the room, and she gave a brief cough of a laugh as she could see her meaning sail across their heads.
“Good. Understand that Dore and Wahre’dua would slay on sight. They would not always know who they were defending until the monster had been laid to rest. This could cause them to make mistakes. That they did not was because of the spirits, who guided them. That is how people see it always to be. But I wonder if the stories we hear are only the ones in which they were proved to be right. Others would reject such notions. They are the ones who are always right, and believe only in right. But Dore and Wahre’dua were only men, after all. And men do not always know the full stories of why they must act.”
“I understand. Dore and Wahre’dua were figures of legend, but before the legend was the flesh,” Mildred said. “And flesh is fallible, and must take care not to put itself in the line of monsters with no defense.”
Milled Red nodded with some satisfaction. “I see that you understand the truth behind legend very well. I have one more thing to say to you. We have another figure in our legends. A terrible monster called Itopa’hi. Sharp-elbows. He is an ogre whose greatest joy is in eating men. He has spikes on his elbows, on his face, and on both sides of his head. But that is not the most terrible thing about him. The worst of his ways is that he has two faces, one looking one way, one the other. Each can be different to the other. This makes him hard to fight, for you can never tell which way he is truly looking, or can you guess his true intent.”
Mildred bent and took the old woman’s hand. “Him, I recognize. A monster like that exists in every people’s myth and legend. Because he exists in truth. I know, I’ve met him often enough. Your words have not been wasted on me.”
And as the old woman smiled once more, Mildred Wyeth felt the years and the distance between her past and present melt away. For once, she had come close to someone other than Doc who could in any way understand what it felt like.
And make no mistake, she would heed the words of the wise woman. For the wise woman could have been herself.
Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
“Vision quest? What fuck—”
“Hush, now, my young Jak, for I suspect we are about to be enlightened.”
Jak glared at Doc. Glad as he had been to see the older man, and also that he had regained both his good health and a measure of his sanity, still, he was annoying. If Jak had been forced to choose any of the others with whom he would like to be stranded in a ville peopled by a tribe whose ways were in some respects alien to his own, Doc would not have been the first name to spring to mind. Right now, he just wanted to hit him.
The shaman nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Theophilus. You are right. I will explain to you the manner in which this ritual takes place, and why.”
Jak shook his head. The Native American had spent so much time with Doc that he was even starting to talk like him. One Doc was bad enough, but two…
“Every young man, when he reaches the age where he must attain his manhood, has to go through this ritual. Alone, he will go into the wilds for a period of some days. There is no water or food for him, and he must not partake, as this will block the channels through which he can communicate with the Grandfather.”
“He talk to his grandfather?” Jak snorted.
Doc glared at him. “Not the father of his father, but the Great Spirit. That is what they call him when not referring to him by name,” he intoned solemnly.
Jak was glad that his face could not be read easily by anyone. Any half-wit stupe knew that going into the wilds without food or drink for days would make you see things. It wasn’t talking to gods; it was called buying the farm. But he allowed them to continue.
“When a young man talks to the Grandfather, then it will be revealed to him what his purpose in life may be. When he returns home, then he sits with me in a sweat lodge and we discuss what he has seen. If he is unclear, then I can help him to understand what his path must be.”
Make it up for him, depending what you want him to do, Jak thought. However, he opted to hold his peace.
“So you see,” Doc said in an excited tone, taking up where the shaman had finished, “we did not go through this when we were the right age, but as we have been sent as the unknowing messengers of the Grandfather, we now have to travel forth and discover what our mission must be.”
“Thought knew that,” Jak mumbled. “They tell.” He indicated the shaman and the chief, who had sat silently beside his medicine man throughout. They were in an earth lodge, away from the rest of the tribe, symbolically separated while their mission was discussed.
“Exactly,” Doc replied. Then, when Jak’s blank look exasperated him, he sighed and continued. “We have not discovered it for ourselves, and if we are to fulfill the prophecy, then we must know this, and we must take the lead. We have been brought here, and now the way in which we must proceed will be shown to us.”
Jak could feel the anger boiling inside him. For days he h
ad wanted to try to get away from the ville, perhaps steal into the redoubt to see if there was anything that he and Doc might be able to use—a wag, maybe, or some more ordnance—to make a break and look for the others. If Doc had survived, sure as hell that Ryan and the others were out there somewhere. Yet Doc foiled him at every turn. It was as though the old man had finally seen a reason for why he had been flung into this world.
The tribe had not been hostile. On the face of it, they had been friendly. But they didn’t talk much. That would normally have suited Jak. But when they spoke, it was in their old tribal tongue, and much of what they said in common language was odd. It was as though they had learned it to talk to outlanders, but had little opportunity. Probably why the shaman was starting to talk like another Doc.
More importantly, everywhere that Jak went, everything that he did, he was aware of being watched. Not with any hostile intent, but he could feel eyes boring into him. The tribe wondered when he would make his purpose clear. But it was more, even, than that. Jak had finely attuned senses, and whenever he strayed more than the tribe would feel comfortable with, he could sense a tension run through them. Like one of their own bows, so tight that it sang in the wind, forever on the brink of snapping.
They may have felt that he and Doc were sent by Wakan Tanka, but they were also sure that they weren’t going to give him the chance to run before the prophecy had been fulfilled.
While this ran through his mind, Jak had been silent. He knew that Doc was watching him with eager anticipation; the shaman and the chief with something that was closer to apprehension.
Jak knew himself, and his abilities. He could also spot an opportunity in the tightest of corners.
Finally he shrugged. “Okay. Not young anymore, though—’specially not you, Doc.”
A huge grin broke on the old man’s face. “Not in years, perhaps, but in the ways and spirit of the Pawnee we are but infants. This is why we must go through the rituals of the young. I knew you would understand, Jak.”
Jak said nothing. What he understood, and what Doc figured he did, were far apart. But there was no reason for Doc to know that.
Not yet.
“THAT’S STUPE. You people want something, but you won’t play by the rules to get it.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. In all the years that he’d known Krysty, she had never played by any rules, or even acknowledged that such things existed. But now, when it came to playing every card…
The Titian-haired beauty turned away from the elder caucus of tribesmen—including the medicine man and the chief—who sat in front of her and Ryan. She had risen to her feet in anger as she spoke, and now she walked to the edge of the natural room formed in the rock, and looked down a corridor where cool air drifted against the warmth generated by the small fire and the close gathering of men.
“But I don’t understand,” one of the warriors said tentatively. By his tone she could tell that he was speaking the truth.
“Neither do I,” the chief added in clearer tones. “Why would you wish to put yourself through such an ordeal?”
“Why not?” she asked wearily. “Why do you think I shouldn’t?”
“Because you are a woman,” the medicine man said calmly. “In our way of doing things, this is not a woman’s task. It is something that they are least able to cope with. That is why men do it. It is just not part of their lives.”
Krysty turned back to the gathering. Ryan did not turn to look at her. She knew why; he was letting her lead to make a point.
She sighed. “That’s true of the women of your tribe. But I’m not. I’m from outside. If your spirits have sent Ryan and me to lead you, and you say that he must go on this dream quest to discover exactly what the spirits want him to do, then how am I supposed to know what they want me to do unless I go, as well?”
There was silence in the room. Through the echoing caves and passages, Krysty and Ryan could hear distant sounds of life that seemed to contrast with the confused and uncertain quiet of the elders.
“She speaks the truth,” Ryan said gently, choosing his words with care. “You say to me that the spirits reveal to the man on the dream quest a truth that is personal, and varies from man to man. That is why it is necessary for the medicine man to sit with him in a sweat lodge and divine meaning from the visions. So if that is so, then Krysty can only know her own truth if she experiences the dream quest. Is that not so? Would mine not be the same as hers?”
The chief looked at the medicine man, who brooded in silence.
“One-eye speaks true,” he said heavily.
“But—”
The chief’s protest was stayed by the medicine man’s raised hand. “Women of the tribe do not go on dream quests. But this woman is not of the tribe. Indeed, if she and One-eye are messengers from the Grandfather, then can they truly be mortal? Are they not some strange demon state between the living and the dead?”
There was a murmur of agreement.
“Very well,” the chief said finally. “You will both leave tomorrow at sunrise. Two men will lead you to the place where warriors must begin the quest. From there, you will have three days to commune with the spirits.”
UNKNOWN TO EITHER PARTY, J.B. and Mildred had been having a very similar argument with the Otoe chief and shaman. J.B. could not help but think that although the tribe’s way of life was in many ways a peaceful and idyllic existence, the rigid code by which they lived could be constricting. The look on Mildred’s face when she was told that she would not be accompanying the Armorer on the vision quest was one that, if directed at J.B., would have caused him to rapidly rethink his decision.
After much argument, it was only when Mildred insisted that they consult the elder Milled Red that the shaman began to unbend. Shrewdly, Mildred argued that there may be a precedent; one so distant that only the elder might remember it.
So they found themselves in the earth lodge that Mildred called home, the shaman and chief treating her with deference as they put the question.
The old woman paused as though in thought.
“Did you understand our request, old one?” the shaman asked with deference.
Milled Red snorted. “I’m not deaf or stupe, I’m thinking,” she snapped. Her eyes glittered with anger, and also with amusement as she fixed her gaze on Mildred. “Those who come from the outside are expected to abide by our ways when they are with us. Yet they are not raised with those ways. The differences between us are for a purpose. I would suggest that although we have no precedent for this—never, in the time that I have known—then perhaps it is the time to set such a precedent.”
“But it is such a step—” the shaman began.
Milled Red cut him short. “An exceptional circumstance demands an exceptional decision. If you cannot see that, then you are not worthy of your position. And I think that you are,” she added smoothly. “Mildred should join her fellow messenger. They are joined by fate, and who are such vessels as we to set them asunder?”
Her eyes met Mildred’s, and the latter could have almost sworn that the old woman winked at her.
The tentative glance between the chief and the shaman showed that the old woman’s words had been effective.
The course was set.
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
“I wonder if those on our tail will stay there the whole while, or if we shall be able to shake them.”
“Not if you talk so loud…”
Doc contained a wry smile. Jak was in a bad mood. It was not really surprising. Doc could see that the warriors who followed their every move would cramp his style.
They had been given horses by the men who were to act as their guides—though it was obvious they were also guards—and had ridden for several hours before the warriors had given them the command to halt. This, like most communication, had been done with a gesture. Doc had attempted to engage them in conversation, but had been unsuccessful. Why he had even bothered was something of a mystery, even
unto himself. He suspected it was something to do with the fact that he was to spend days in the wilderness with a lad who brought new meaning to the expression taciturn.
Further, although he had enjoyed his long conversations with the shaman—learning along the way a number of things about the Pawnee that he was sure would be useful before too long—he had noticed that the tribe as a whole were a silent people. They preferred their own language to that which Doc spoke; and even in this they were inclined to reticence. Doc liked to talk. Sometimes, perhaps, to his own detriment. But he liked it, nonetheless, and he missed the chance to cross swords for the occasional verbal thrust and parry with the good Dr. Wyeth.
Doc’s mind stopped wandering aimlessly and snapped sharply into focus. The others: that was why he wanted their tail to be lost. And he was sure that Jak echoed this.
When he spoke again, it was in a much softer, quieter tone. Barely more than a mumble. But with Jak’s sharp ears, it did not have to be more than this.
“If we evade them, then which direction?”
Jak’s incline of the head enabled him to murmur directly toward Doc. “They bring us due east. Ville southwest of where found me. Good place to start as any.”
Doc considered that. “That’s a lot of ground. Particularly for two men without food, water or transport of any kind.”
“Saying we should give up?”
Doc pondered. “No. Merely that we should try to get some.”
Jak’s impassive white visage flowered momentarily into a vulpine grin before returning to its neutral state. “You think right” was all he said.
As Doc looked around, he could only conclude that the idea was all very well; the reality may prove to be a little different.
Now, having left the safety of the shelter and the scrub that surrounded the old redoubt and hills where the Pawnee had pitched their ville, Doc and Jak were exposed to the harsh climate of the post-nukecaust plains—hard-packed earth with a light film of dust as a topsoil. The occasional burst of violently colored foliage held little hope of anything that could be eaten. Consequently, there was little sign of whatever could survive here, and could in itself be hunted, chilled and eaten.