by Eileen Wilks
In the end, Dyffaya had agreed not to kill or allow his people to kill Kai or Arjenie except in fulfillment of the terms he’d already bound himself to; not to compel or beguile them; and not to strike at their families. In return, Nathan and Benedict would fight as the god directed. They hadn’t sworn to kill on his order, but that’s what it would come to.
Not right away, Nathan promised himself as he began his asanas to limber up for the coming trial, while the people inside that circle ate and talked and laughed. He had decided that at the start. He didn’t have to kill Benedict until the last bout.
A collective gasp of awe went up as Dyffaya suddenly appeared, standing in front of his throne-mound. He wore flowers and his mixed-race body for the occasion. It was every bit as well-endowed as his statue-of-David body. He told them to continue eating, sat, and snapped his fingers. A large goblet of wine appeared in his hand. He toasted his puppet people with it, and they cheered.
Grimly, Nathan continued his asanas. There was one problem with his decision to drag this out, hoping quite irrationally that he wouldn’t have to kill Benedict. Benedict couldn’t afford to return the favor. He might not know the true nature of Nathan’s Gift, but he knew some of Nathan’s skills. He knew, too, that Nathan healed much faster than he did.
No, Benedict would try to kill Nathan as quickly as possible, while Nathan would be trying not to kill. That meant he wouldn’t have the full benefit of his Gift. It would be like those bouts they’d fought back at Clanhome . . . and this first combat would be unarmed. Just like the first bout he’d fought with Benedict. The one he’d lost.
Dyffaya set down his empty goblet and called Dell to him. She woke, yawned, and sauntered to his side. He rubbed her behind the ears.
Nathan would have given a great deal to know how deeply beguiled the chameleon was, but Dell was avoiding him. The chameleon’s forced defection hurt more than he’d expected, perhaps because she was a tie to Kai. Or maybe he’d grown accustomed to not being alone anymore. The only unbeguiled person he could speak with was Cullen, and Cullen spent most of his time with Benedict.
Dyffaya had not liked being told he must bind himself to their agreement. He’d agreed, but he’d thrown a hissy fit first. That hissy fit involved taking away their clothes and insisting they wear the liarda from that moment on. He’d also insisted that Benedict and Nathan swear to avoid all contact with each other, save for their fights. And he’d broken both of Nathan’s legs.
Fortunately, Nathan’s bones knit quickly. Five days was ample time. Nathan knew it had been five days because Cullen had recast his clock spell.
Those five days corresponded to only half a day on Earth. Nathan knew that because he’d spoken with all the people Dyffaya snatched over that five-day period, and they’d all been taken on the same day. All eleven of them. Eleven people Dyffaya had snatched and beguiled and bedded, and who now sat on those flowery mounds chattering, eager to watch Nathan and Benedict try to kill each other.
Why bed them all? Why beguile them? Why bring them here in the first place? Nathan could think of many possible answers to those questions, none of which were convincing. There was a point to this lavish importation of forced worshipers. He hadn’t a clue what it was, but the god had spent a great deal of power stealing these people. He had a use for them, something more than a simple craving for adoration.
Though he liked that well enough. “My beloved ones,” Dyffaya said in a rich, mellow voice that carried beautifully. Everyone fell silent, even Cullen, though that was likely common sense, not adoration. “I am happy today.” That brought applause. They were so glad their lord was happy. “I am happy to have you all with me, and pleased I can offer you such fine entertainment, something never before seen in any of the realms. Nathan, Benedict—enter the circle!”
Nathan walked forward silently. So did Benedict. The crowd oohed at them. Some were betting—men, mostly. The odds, he noted, were on Benedict.
Benedict met Nathan’s eyes as they came together in the center of the circle. He nodded gravely. Nathan did the same. Together they turned to face the god.
Dyffaya flung up one hand—and a ball of eerie blue fire appeared in the very center of the circle, some twenty feet above the ground. “This,” he announced, “is a fight to the death—but between fighters so superbly honed and skilled, such a trial may require more than one round. Today’s round ends when one of our fighters kills the other, or when the balefire touches the ground. If both combatants are still alive at the end of the round, we will hold another bout tomorrow.”
Nathan did not want to kill Benedict. He liked and respected the man, and Benedict’s death would hurt so many people . . . but Nathan had been a weapon in someone else’s hand before. As had Benedict, he was sure. They’d been willing weapons, their loyalty freely given—his to his Queen, Benedict’s to his Rho. Now they were wholly unwilling, but they understood each other’s choice. Benedict would kill to save Arjenie. Nathan would kill to save Kai.
He hoped hard that he wouldn’t have to. Irrational, yes, but he wasn’t simply hoping for a miracle. A little luck, maybe.
The third element. That was all he lacked. He’d sworn to fight Benedict. He hadn’t sworn that Benedict would be his only target.
TWENTY-NINE
KAI stared at her grandfather in dismay. “The gods need our help?”
“They always do, little though most see this. More help than usual this time.”
They were sitting at Isen’s big wooden table. Plates, forks, coffee mugs, and crumbs from the chocolate cake Carl had provided were strewn about. Isen was in his usual chair, with Nettie and Cynna on his right. On his left were Pete—the tall, rangy man in charge of security with Benedict missing—Arjenie, and Kai.
Joseph Tallman sat directly across from Kai. Even people who couldn’t tell a Native American from a Mexican American took one look at Kai’s grandfather and thought “Navajo.” That was partly the braids, but it was also his face, so much like the mountains he loved . . . desert mountains, where time stripped rather than softening, exposing bones both strong and severe. Today he wore his usual jeans, hiking boots, and blue cotton shirt, but he’d dressed up for the occasion. He’d added his silver conch-style belt.
He’d driven into Clanhome right at suppertime and hadn’t wanted Isen to call her. Nor would he say why he was here until he heard from her, so she’d brought everyone up to date on the day’s events over coffee and cake.
Then he’d said he was sent here, that the Upper World needed their help. Since she’d been hoping for the opposite—a little help from the gods against Dyffaya—she was taken aback. “I was . . . when I first saw you, I thought you here to deal with the god. Dyffaya.”
“This is what you call the elf god? You were right.”
“But—”
“Listen, Yázhi Atsa. Three nights past, my dreams sent me to the mountain. I climbed to where the veil is thin and prepared myself for a vision quest, that Doko’oosliid might speak clearly to me. Ha!” He set his mug down with a snap. “No quest needed. I was awake in the normal way when Coyote came strolling up to my camp.”
“Coyote? In person?”
“He was being a man at the time, but I knew him. Anyone who meets that troublemaker knows him. What he told me, though . . .” He shook his head. “Trouble for sure, and not of his making for once. Unlike the other Powers, he spends much time walking our world. He was here when this elf god usurped those portions of the Upper Worlds which connect to this part of our world. Not,” he added, “that this is truly what happened. It is a way to think of it, like seeing the letters c-a-t make you think of a cat.”
“Yes, well, if you’ve never seen a cat, those letters just confuse you.”
He grinned. “True.”
“Your grandfather,” Isen said politely, “has summoned the Diné to Clanhome. All the Diné.”
Kai’s mouth op
ened. And closed without her saying a thing.
“I have begun spreading the word,” Joseph Tallman said. “So have the other hataali. Several of them have been troubled by dreams, which they understood when I told them what Coyote told me. I have also spoken to our president.”
By “our president,” Kai knew he meant the president of the Navajo Nation. The country’s leader was always “the president.” “And?”
Joseph shook his head. “Gary is a stubborn man.” This was said with more admiration than resentment. Grandfather had a great appreciation for stubbornness, that being one of the chief virtues of a mountain. “But he agreed to send an email to those of the Diné on his list, which he claims is very complete, telling them I call them to me here. He will do this once he hears from our friend Isen that they are permitted on his land.”
“You didn’t ask? You started summoning people here without asking Isen?”
“Tch.” Grandfather shook his head sadly. “Coyote has a bad effect on me.”
Kai had wondered sometimes if Grandfather disliked Coyote because he’d been a little too much like him in his youth. Now she thought his inner Coyote wasn’t all that inner, or all that much in the past. She glanced at Isen apologetically. Nokolai and the Navajo people had long and close ties, but you didn’t invite thousands of people to your friend’s territory without asking. “How many people are we talking about? I don’t know how many Diné there are.”
It was—surprise—Arjenie who had that information. “I don’t remember the exact number, but around three hundred thousand are enrolled in the tribe. Three-fourths of them live in Arizona and New Mexico.”
Kai’s eyes widened.
“Not all will come,” Grandfather said. “Some will not be able to. Money troubles, jobs, age, sickness, or family matters will keep them home. Others have drifted too far from our traditions to answer such a call.”
“If even a tenth of them do . . .” She stared at him, appalled. “Grandfather, Nokolai doesn’t have room for thirty thousand people!”
“They will camp, of course. Here or maybe at that state park, or in the national forest nearby. There are campsites there.”
“Not enough! Not nearly enough. Even if they bring their own food and tents or campers or whatever, they’ll need water. And sanitation. Sanitation is a huge issue for so many people.”
Grandfather nodded. “Arranging such things will be a great task. We are lucky that Isen is good at organizing.”
Isen made a small noise. It might have been a smothered laugh or a curse.
“But why? Why do you need all these people? What will you do with them?”
“Coyote didn’t know why they are needed, just that they are.”
Kai closed her eyes. “You want to invite thousands—tens of thousands—of people to descend on Clanhome based on Coyote’s word, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“He seldom does. But I did not yet tell you one thing.” The craggy face softened. “My campfire was also visited briefly by another. She told me to do as Coyote says and call the People together. Coyote’s word is not so reliable. Hers, I trust.”
She? Who did he mean? “Changing Woman? Abalone Shell Woman?’
“Kai.” He clucked his tongue. “Your grandmother.”
Her grandmother had been dead nearly thirty years. “That shouldn’t seem more unbelievable than you chatting with Coyote over your campfire,” she said after a moment, “but it does.”
“You are wise.” He nodded and pushed back his chair. “And now I will go take a shower so Isen can ask if I am sane. He needs to know this before he gives permission.”
“I’m sure I haven’t said that,” Isen murmured.
Grandfather chuckled, appreciating the joke, then turned and headed for the hall.
“I will borrow some of Joseph’s directness,” Isen said to Kai. “Is he sane? Did he really talk with Coyote and your grandmother?”
“I . . . his colors are clear.” She’d seen the same white-streaked blend of turquoise and lapis, yellow ochre and granite that she always saw in his thoughts. Though maybe there’d been more of that pearly white than usual. “I saw nothing to suggest confusion or any mental problem I’m familiar with.”
Isen sighed. “I was afraid of that. You haven’t spoken with him since all this began?”
“I tried calling him yesterday. He’d already gone up on the mountain. I left a message, but just that I’d called, no details.”
“There’s been no mention of a chaos god in the news, but Joseph knew about Dyffaya. Not by name, but he knew a sidhe god had intruded on our world and was causing problems in both the Ordinary and the Upper Worlds. He told me Dyffaya uses up the space there that belongs to Changing Woman and that which should be Coyote’s, if Coyote were ever to spend time in the Upper Worlds, ‘the way he should.’ Which apparently he can’t do now, because his path to the Upper Worlds is cut off.”
“It would be,” Nettie said. “Coyote partakes of chaos pretty directly, so Dyffaya is a serious problem for him. Dyffaya must be siphoning off some of the spiritual energy that would normally go to Coyote. But Changing Woman, too, is tied to chaos. She’s about transformation, giving birth to new possibilities—but the new either arises from chaos or causes it.”
Isen glanced briefly at her. “Nettie wants me to agree to allow the Diné to assemble here. She believes this is necessary. She also believes that a great many people will answer Joseph’s summons, either from respect or out of sheer curiosity. She declines to speculate on how many that might be. Neither she nor Joseph seem to understand how impossible it is to suddenly house—even in camps—what might turn out to be tens of thousands of people.”
“The government should help,” Cynna said suddenly. “No, listen—I know you aren’t used to thinking of the government as helpful, given the way it’s treated lupi in the past, but this time we can use them. If huge numbers of the Navajo are needed to deal with the disasters that this chaos god keeps springing on us, that’s something the government ought to get behind. I’m thinking disaster relief. FEMA. They know how to set up sanitation and supplies for large numbers of people, right? The Red Cross, too, maybe—and that isn’t a government deal, but if the president declares this a disaster area, that brings them in, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” Isen said dryly, “but I don’t have the president’s private phone number.”
“Ruben does.”
* * *
KAI stayed up long enough to learn the results of two phone calls. Isen called one president, giving his permission for the Diné to gather here. Cynna called Ruben, who would speak with another president—one whose constituency was a thousand times larger.
It was eleven o’clock California time by then, two in the morning on the East Coast. Ruben Brooks was lupus, though that was being kept secret for now; he didn’t need the usual amount of sleep. The president, however, was a hundred percent human, and Ruben didn’t plan to disturb her sleep, so they wouldn’t find out the results of that call until tomorrow. But it just might work.
According to Cynna, Ruben’s Gift had kicked in the moment she told him about Joseph Tallman’s summons. He’d agreed that gathering the People was important, although he had no more idea than Coyote why. “He says he can’t guarantee anything,” Cynna had reported, “but people are getting spooked, and there’s pressure on the president to do something. This is something.”
After that, Isen, Pete, and Arjenie fell into a discussion of what to do about any of the Diné who showed up before the hypothetical federal assistance arrived. Grandfather began talking to Nettie and Cynna about Cynna’s tie to the node, which he thought he could help with.
Kai felt like a selfish wimp for abandoning everyone, but she was too brain-dead to contribute. She told Arjenie she planned to put herself in sleep. In-sleep was a healing state that would rest her more co
mpletely than regular sleep, recharging her both physically and magically, but it was harder to wake from. If she were needed in the next couple hours, someone would have to come in her room and shake her.
Arjenie assured her that exhaustion was a predictable response to expending so much power. That was true, but it wasn’t all the truth.
Kai hugged Grandfather one more time and headed first for the bathroom, then to the room she’d shared with Nathan. She went in, closed the bedroom door behind her, leaned up against it, and closed her eyes. Discounting the stalls of assorted ladies’ rooms, this was the first moment she’d been alone all day. She needed to be alone . . . just her and her grief and her fear.
How could she need something so much when it felt so awful?
She pushed away from the door and began stripping. Her body felt heavy, her mind dull and dazed, but that didn’t fool her. Being stupid with exhaustion often made it even easier for her mind to hop on its hamster wheel and go round and round, and she did not want to listen to herself tonight. Putting herself in-sleep would sidestep all those thoughts she did not want to think.
She opened the closet door and tossed the day’s clothes in the hamper—which was empty, dammit. She’d forgotten that. Nathan had washed everything yesterday. She grabbed the tote he’d packed. The one he wasn’t going to use after all, since the god hadn’t allowed him to bring any luggage along.
The dark green T-shirt she pulled out was soft and familiar. He’d worn it in four realms—five if you counted Edge. He’d worn it back in Midland, Texas, when he was still a deputy sheriff, a friend, and a mystery to her, long before they left on her quests. There was a small singed spot on the right sleeve and a blackberry stain. The singed spot was a bad memory, but the blackberry stain made her smile. She pulled it on. If she’d had Nathan’s nose, she might have been able to smell him. All she smelled was Tide.