Find your own truth s-3

by Robert N. Charrette

  Howling Coyote might be a little odd, but the human companionship he offered was something Sam couldn't long go without. The old shaman was also Sam's only hope for Janice, and Sam was not about to abandon that hope after chasing it so long. For all of Howling Coyote's eccentricity, Sam felt somehow that the shaman was trying to help him. If only he could figure out what the old man was driving at. One thing was certain: Sam wouldn't get anywhere by freezing himself to death alone in the night.

  He walked to the ladder rising from the kiva and, coughing a little from the smoke, descended into the earth.

  Pain.

  Wind howls like a hungry wolf. Fire burns, destroying implacably. Faces are filled with pain, and rage, and fear, and death.

  Pain.

  His mother, crying and protective. His father, defiant and impotent. Oliver, his brother, torn away by the raging waves of the mob, to surface in impossibly distant places. And Janice…

  Pain.

  Running. Hiding. The dark shadow against the dark night comes hunting, circling ever closer, until an eerie, keening howl pierces the darkness and sends the shadow away. The sound stays in his head, piercing his peace and bringing…

  Pain.

  "Hey hey, pup. Is it Dog?"

  Sam started awake, dream fragments fleeing from him to be swallowed in swirling mists. Even though he was unsure of what they were, he was more than happy to see them go.

  Howling Coyote shook his shoulder. "You were chasing something. Talking to Dog?"

  Sam shook his still muddled head. He didn't want to remember, but he knew he hadn't been visiting that pleasant green place where Dog dwelled. "Just a dream. Nothing important.",

  "Hey hey, pup. You're dumb even for an Anglo. Dreams are important. They touch on the otherworld, the places where the totems live."

  "Dreams are fragments of leftover data. They're just the brain recorrelating information, subconscious data processing."

  The old man looked at Sam out the corner of his eye. "Ya sure, Anglo?"

  "It's scientifically proven."

  "Ya really are dumb. This is a magic world now. Science don't know everything."

  Sam was annoyed. "Nor does magic."

  "Nor do you," Howling Coyote said in near perfect imitation of Sam's exasperated tone. The old man swung a foot up onto the ladder. "Eat. Sleep. Think. Whatever. Just don't let the fire go out. Got something I gotta do. Ya stay put now, pup."

  The shaman climbed the ladder, momentarily blocking the sunlight and plunging the kiva into deeper gloom. In a surge of momentary panic Sam nearly swarmed up the ladder after the shaman, but he forced the urge away. He spent two days regretting his decision to stay.

  Each morning Howling Coyote told him to sit in the holy place of the kiva and dream. It was not welcome advice, for Sam didn't like the dreams he was having. But he did as the old man bid, sensing that his chance of learning anything from Howling Coyote, and therefore Janice's salvation, depended on his obedience. Wasn't the student always expected to be obedient to the master? It had been that way in his ancestral Europe and it was a way of life in the Orient. Why would the Native Americans be different? So Sam sat in the darkness, pacing the confining periphery of the kiva when the forced inactivity became too much. He spent a lot of time trying to guess the time of day from the angle of sunlight creeping in past the fiber mat grill Howling Coyote had placed over the opening. The boredom was so intense that he slept a lot. And when he slept, he dreamed. On the third day, Sam awoke to find Howling Coyote gone. Without the shaman to prohibit him from leaving, he decided he had grown thoroughly sick of the dark kiva. Climbing the ladder into the harsh light of mid-afternoon, Sam blinked and shook his head in wonder. He had thought it was only morning, and blamed the timeless dark of the kiva for the glitch to his biorhythms. Then again, had it been only three days? He hoped so; time was passing too quickly as it was. Hearing the faint strains of the shaman's voice chanting, Sam followed the sound to the edge of the cliff. The song came from somewhere below. Sam spent some time looking around, until he finally found what resembled a path downward. He had to scramble in a couple of places, but he made his way to a narrow level area and followed it along the edge of the sandstone bluff. lirning the comer of an outcrop, he came suddenly upon a structure more elaborate than those he had seen in the opposite wall of the canyon. Building after ruined building was crammed into the gash in the cliff. In one place a tower reached up almost four stories, molding itself to the curving overhang of the cleft. Hard-packed earthen surfaces with square holes in their centers marked kivas. Sam skirted the exposed circular wall of one in order to follow the chanting.

  He left the sunlight behind as he edged through gaps in building walls to move deeper into the ruin. His progress slowed as the spaces became more restricted. Often, he had to turn on his side to crawl through openings that weren't wide enough for his shoulders to pass. Deep within the ruin, he found Howling Coyote daubing ochre paint onto the sandstone rock face that formed the back of the cleft. Sam said nothing and watched.

  In deft strokes, the shaman was sketching a stick man bent over a tube or rod that touched his head. Lines feathers, Sam presumed arched from the stick man's head. The central figure completed, the shaman spun spirals above and below the stick man. To the right and left he placed rows of dots, then stepped back to observe his work. Sam gave in to his curiosity and started to ask the old man what he was doing, but was shushed to silence before he said a word.

  Howling Coyote backed away from the painting, almost into the sunlight, and sat down. He drew a wooden flute from his belt and began to play a haunting melody composed mostly of single, long notes in terspersed with fluttering clusters of rising and falling tones. Sam walked over and seated himself at Howling Coyote's side. The music gradually became softer and finally trailed off into silence. Lulled by its beauty, Sam was startled when Howling Coyote spoke.

  "He's coming."

  "Who?"

  "Him." The shaman pointed at his painting.

  A tall, gangly being emerged from the rock, his form thickening from rosy translucency to opacity. His slanted eyes of deep, deep black were pools of oblivion against the night dark of his skin. His ears were pointed. Despite his fierce expression and the red glow that surrounded him, Sam perceived that the newcomer was no devil, just an elf. A strangely powerful and skinny one, perhaps, but an elf all the same.

  "That's the guy who tried to kill me in Denver!" Sam reached for his gun, but the Indian's hand snaked out and clamped onto his wrist. Sam relaxed, and the shaman released him. It was time to trust his teacher.

  The shaman stood, cloaked in an aura of power. "Hoka-hey, Wata-urdli. You've come a long way on your road of stone to die."

  "Peace, Howling Coyote." The elf raised empty hands and presented the palms. "This is not a good day to die. I wish you no harm."

  "Come in peace, stay in peace." The profound majesty of the Indian shaman shattered as the sprawl-runner crawled out. "Otherwise leave in pieces."

  If the elf noticed a change, he gave no sign. "Save your hostility for what you harbor, old man."

  The Indian squatted and dug around in his pouch. Finally he pulled out a pouch and a chipped clay pipe. He held them out to the elf. "Wanna smoke, Urdli?"

  A brief look of disgust crossed the elf's face, but when he spoke his voice was even and his tone polite. "I accept your offer, and as long as I stand in this place, bind myself by its terms. You will forgive me if I do not actually perform the ritual. You have my word as bond."

  "I hear you. The puppy hears you. The spirits hear you. They will rise and devour you if you lie."

  "As I said, I bind myself to the peace of this place.''

  Howling Coyote grunted.

  Sam was bewildered by the exchange, but the elf and the shaman seemed satisfied with each other. "What's going-"

  "Shut up, Anglo." Howling Coyote glared at the elf. "Urdli came to talk, it seems. Got any objections to talk? No? Didn't think so, since y
a like to do so much of it yourself. The elf wants to talk, let him. I'll listen."

  The elf nodded. "I did come to talk. Let me tell you a tale." Without waiting for permission, the elf started. "Long ago, this world knew magic. It was a better time then; all lived in accordance with their natures. The world was not perfect, but it was happier. In time changes came, and the magic grew weak. Many wonderful things perished. Some evil things as well, but evil always seems less vulnerable to the lack of magic. For a long time there was no mana, but the time of lack was only an interval. The mana returned and brought us to the Sixth World."

  "Aztec number," Howling Coyote interrupted. "Hopi got a different count. Aleut, too."

  The elf shrugged. "The number is unimportant, but the concept should be understood. Mana has waxed and waned. There was a time when the mana was low, too low for the true nature of the world to manifest. And in those days a tradition was handed down, a sacred trust. Dedicated individuals swore to guard a place. You would not know of this place, but I know it as Imiri ti-Versakhan, the Citadel of Remembrance. It was a place meant to make the low time safer, and it was a bastion against the return of evil should the mana return. Terrible things were kept there, locked away so they could do no harm."

  Sam felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. He was beginning to guess what the elf was leading up to. Apparently oblivious to Sam's sudden pallor, Urdli continued.

  "Recently, the ancient citadel was assaulted and despoiled. Through the actions of the intruders, something escaped bondage, something terrible." "Spider." Howling Coyote turned his head and spat. "You know." Urdli was silent a moment. No one else spoke either. "How?"

  The shaman smiled his sly smile. "Got a few friends of my own where the totems hang out."

  The elf's expression grew more grave. "If you know, you must understand the danger. Knowing that, you must understand the crime of the one you call a puppy."

  "Hey hey, only got your word for it. Not everybody tells the same tales of Spider. Hopi say she saved the people. That don't sound too terrible to me. 'Cepting, of course, that it was the Hopi she saved. Spider's a canny old bitch, knows a lot."

  The shaman's remarks seemed to anger Urdli. "The human mind cannot comprehend the alienness of Spider. To deal with Spider is, as the English say, to deal with the devil."

  It was the shaman's turn to shrug. "Don't know about that. But ya do have to walk the web carefully if ya want to come home again. Now, some of them other bugs are real troublemakers. Sooner eat ya than look at ya."

  "Spider has always been more subtle," Urdli agreed. "A builder of artifices and a lurker in dark places, she is. Fortunately, since the Awakening, Spider has not been whole. A portion of her power, stolen in the old time, was locked away from her access.

  Until recently." Urdli looked directly at Sam. "That has changed."

  "I didn't know," Sam protested.

  Urdli laughed bitterly. ' 'Ignorance is such a favorite excuse of humans. The gossamer threads of Spider's webs can tug in such a way that her commands may seem to be her puppet's own innocent thoughts. Many do her work without knowing it. Can you not see that Verner may be one of those?"

  "Not this pup," the old shaman said. "Don't smell no Spider on him. He didn't know about your Imiri-place when he took the stone. He did it to help his sister. Typical Dog trick, noble but stupid. Can't be too bad a problem, the sky ain't changed."

  Sam wasn't sure he liked the way the shaman was defending him, but its effect on Urdli was visible. The elf seemed slightly less sure of himself.

  "Innocent or not, he has strengthened Spider and her minions," Urdli insisted. "They have the stone now. The harm may not be irreparable if it is redressed at once. I have come to demand that he join the struggle to undo what he has done."

  "You tried to kill me," Sam pointed out,

  The elf looked at Sam as though he were a stupid child.

  "Why should I help you?" Sam asked. "You'll probably try to kill me again as soon as you get what you want."

  "You have a responsibility. Your action has strengthened Spider and emboldened her. She stirs now, and the world lies in danger. She is drawing on her web and pulling to herself the instruments of holocaust."

  "Hey hey, elf, cut the flowery stuff. Like I keep telling the pup, I'm a stupid old man. Ya talking about what I think you're talking about?"

  Urdli spoke slowly and clearly. "Spider is engaged in operations to acquire a forbidden arsenal of nuclear weapons.''

  Sam was confused. What was a spirit going to do with bombs? "That doesn't make sense. Totems don't have any physical presence. Why would Spider need an arsenal?"

  "Spider is an old totem with very strong ties to the earth. She is different from the totem to which you profess allegiance. She manifests through avatars, and those unfortunate beings have all-too-human flaws and all too many enemies. Spider has enemies as well, and radiation is as intangible as a spirit. Might it not therefore affect a spirit?"

  "You don't sound like you're sure it can." "Even if it cannot, there will be effects beyond the physical if Spider employs the weapons with that end in mind. Rival spirits work through people as well, and they could not work on this earth if they had no agents. I think that you will find that Spider has no love for Dog, or for Coyote. The Spider. and nuclear weapons combination has a great potential for disaster."

  "You're not even sure this is happening," Sam accused, on a hunch. The elf stared at him venomously, but Urdli's silence spoke to Sam of the truth of his accusation. Even so, just the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of someone who might use them was frightening. It was a fear that had dominated previous generations, and although it had subsided since the build-down, it had never entirely gone away. Sam wondered if man had succeeded in breeding it into his bloodline. If the threat were real, the elf wouldn't be the only one seeking to cancel it. "I don't think I trust you, Urdli."

  "Your trust is not desired. Your cooperation, however, is required. You have a responsibility."

  Sam looked away from the intensity of the elf's stare. When he had been a member of the Renraku corporate , he had understood the burden of responsibility as the Japanese did. They called it girt, and made of it a load they could never put down. Giri could never be completely discharged, but that did not stop one from continually attempting to do so. Sam understood responsibility well enough to feel the weight of it on his shoulders. He didn't like the idea of some strange elf dictating to him the nature of his responsibilities and the way to discharge them. So what, if he had unwittingly released some part of a captive totem? That didn't make him responsible for the plans or actions of the totem's avatars.

  Did it?

  Sam couldn't be responsible for the whole world. So why did he feel like he ought to do something about it? He turned to Howling Coyote.

  "What should I do?"

  "I'm Coyote. You're Dog. Why ask me?"

  Sam tried to catch the shaman's eyes and divine his true feelings, but the old man refused to look at him. Was this another test, the shaman's answer a riddle to be solved? If so, the proper response seemed easy. Dog was loyalty, and who should he be more loyal to than his family? Sam turned back to Urdli.

  "I say I have some responsibility to recover your guardian stone. You were willing to kill me to get it before and didn't even tell me what you wanted. If you had explained the situation, I might have given the stone to you. It hadn't proved effective for my needs. Your actions don't leave me thinking much of you." The elf seemed unconcerned about Sam's opinion of him. ' 'I have to admit to taking it, but I did it for what I consider an important reason. I was only interested in the power the stone would let me focus. Not that it helped in the end. Still, if I'd known what it was, I suppose I would never have taken it in the first place. I'd have found another focus. How was I supposed to know the place was some kind of citadel? It looked like an old cave."

  Howling Coyote snickered quietly, but Sam didn't let the sound disturb him. "If what you say
about Spider's plans is true, I'd like to help. But right now, I've got a pressing family problem. You said you're not even sure what the stone will do to help your enemy. Even if you knew it was an immediate threat, you don't know where it is. It sounds like you've got a bit of leeway. Even if it is a danger, you still need to find it. That's something you can do without me because I haven't got the faintest idea of how to track it.

  "I haven't got the luxury of time. I've only finished my own hunt recently, and still haven't got what I want." Sifting sand from one hand to the other, the old man ignored Sam's meaningful glance. "Time's pressing on me. I'm trying to avert a terrible result that is certain to come, but you're just worried about possibilities. I'm not worried about something that might affect the whole world, but something that will destroy a life the life of someone dear to me. Right now I Ve got my priorities lined up, I've put off helping my sister for too long, and I'm going to do what I can for her before I even think of anything else. When she is saved, we can talk again.''

  Urdli glared at him, then shifted his burning stare to Howling Coyote. The old man dumped the sand from his hands, dusted them off, and shrugged. He mumbled as he got to his feet and walked away.

  "Foolishness."

  Sam couldn't tell if the old man was referring to him or to the elf.

  The lights of Seattle were seductive. Across Puget Sound the myriad denizens of the metroplex were going about their nightly business. Salary men and cor-porates were on their way home, or perhaps still clacking keyboards and tapping in orders in an effort to impress their bosses and get a leg up over their fellows. The street haunts were crawling out to scene, shift for a buzz, or wrangle for turf. The hopeful relaxed, another day successfully completed, and the hopeless sagged with another one survived and only the night to face. On the edges and in the shadows, the runners were doing their biz. She could not see any of them, but the lights of the plex shone on all those scurrying little people. And the lights sang of their doings, burning the song into the air and promising such a rich feast of life. Oh yes, the lights were seductive.