The Sky People

by Terry Goodkind

  “Thank you, Walking Stag, for seeing me safely to the sacred land. Go back, now, and help get our people ready.”

  “I will. Return safely to us, Raging River.”

  She had to make Big Dog lie down lest he tip the canoe over as the strong young man, the first strong warrior of the Sun People, shoved the canoe out into the moving water. River started paddling for the opposite bank, worried about what she might find ahead.

  Chapter 11

  By the time River made it across the marshland on the opposite side of the Bitterroot and then across the broad river valley to where the forest thickened into a confusing tangle of trees, limbs, and brush, it was too dark to find a way to go any farther. From what she could see of Spirit Mountain while there had still been light, it was going to be a difficult climb in places.

  As much as she hated stopping, the moon, which would have helped light her way for a while longer, was completely hidden by heavy clouds. With the cloud cover, there were not even stars to help. It would simply be too dangerous to continue on in the dark. She couldn’t help anyone if she stepped in a hole and broke her leg or slipped and fell from a ledge because she couldn’t see the edge.

  Resigned to making camp for the night, River cut some pine boughs for bedding and spread them out under the sheltering limbs of a big spruce tree. She laid her blanket over the pine boughs to have a bed up off the cold ground. It was a chilly night, but she didn’t want to spend the time collecting wood and making a fire.

  Once she lay down and called him, Big Dog came close and curled up beside her, as he had done since he was a frightened pup in need of comfort. With Big Dog beside her, she was warm enough to try to get some needed sleep. With his fur coat, Big Dog was enjoying the cooler nights.

  As she lay close to her warm dog in the darkness, animals in the strange woods made frightening whoops, clicks, and howls. Whenever there was a worrisome call from the woods, Big Dog lifted his head to growl. But they were both tired and before long they were asleep. She trusted that if anything happened, he would be up in an instant to protect her.

  Noisy crows up in nearby pines woke her at first light. River yawned and stretched. Big Dog was eager to get up. He always woke excited that it was a new day. It always took River a little longer.

  She ate a quick breakfast of dried fish, which she shared with Big Dog, and some roots She Who Knows the Moon had packed for her. Big Dog stood beside her as she ate, his eyebrows bunched in concentration as he stared at the fish in her hands, waiting for her to share some with him. She had trained him never to take food from her unless offered. It wasn’t a big meal, but it was enough. After eating, she quickly gathered up everything and set out.

  Even though it was still cloudy, by the time she was ready to start out it was light enough for them to easily make their way through the woods. Before they got too far into heavy woods, River spent a bit of time studying the lay of the land, looking for terrain that would make for natural trails. Once she found deer trails through the brush in the direction she wanted to go, they led her to the easiest way to start up the mountain.

  Following the animal trails and the natural lay of the land, she began to make out signs that people had come this same way before. It was reassuring to know that she was on the right trail as it wound its way through dense spruce and deeply shaded woods. Big Dog explored the fern beds as she kept to the trail, occasionally pouncing to flush out a small animal. He was a born hunter. As the trail began to climb, there were natural switchbacks that helped her and Big Dog start the ascent.

  For the most part, Big Dog stayed close by, but now and then he was sidetracked smelling things only he could smell. River was in too urgent a hurry to wait for him. Sometimes he would track those smells into the underbrush and vanish. She kept on going at a quick pace. He always eventually emerged and caught up with her again.

  After a time, as she was breathing hard with the effort, she came across the first of the caves she had been told about. It was more like a recess in the rock of the mountain created by a jut of rock overhead. From what She Who Knows the Moon had told her, important people in the past were laid to rest in such places.

  Inside the wide maw, River encountered a terrible smell. She tried to ignore it and found a natural shelf of sorts along the back of the shallow opening. The remains of three bodies lay on the shelf. They were tightly wrapped with strips of cloth and leather. One was decorated with beads sewn along a broad leather strip laid down the length of the body.

  There were no names on any of the remains. Since no one visited the burial ground, names would be pointless. From what the old woman had told her, the height up on the mountain held no significance or importance. The only thing that mattered was that the remains were laid to rest on the sacred ground of Spirit Mountain. For all River knew, these remains on the bottom might have been the most important ancestors laid to rest first in the more easily accessed spots.

  Inspecting the remains, she was able to tell that they were of great age. She didn’t recognize the designs of the beads. Fearing to be disrespectful, and fearing that their spirits might be watching her, she lifted the feet of one just a little to test the weight. They were feather-light, which meant it had been laid to rest long, long ago and the bodies were now mostly dust.

  Even as ancient as these remains were, they still had a strong, unpleasant odor about them. All three had that same smell that caused River’s nose to wrinkle. Big Dog didn’t like the smell at all and stayed back outside the opening of the cave.

  It wasn’t the smell of death, but rather something that had probably been poured on the bodies to keep animals from disturbing them. It had obviously worked, since the cave was large, with a wide opening, and not at all deep, yet none of the wrapping appeared to be disturbed in any way. Big Dog, as curious as he was about dead things, didn’t want anything to do with them.

  River was happy to leave the cave and the repugnant smell and start back up the mountain. It wasn’t long before she realized that the trail wound up the mountain the way it did in order to go past natural openings and caves. She could see a few openings to caves that looked inaccessible without some difficult rock climbing. Since there were so many caves to explore on the trail, she decided to leave those alone for the time being.

  Many of the burial places were simply low recesses under rock shelves. Some were vertical splits in the rock face. She could see wrapped remains placed deep within the narrow cracks in the mountain. Other burial spots were natural caves that had been worked as necessary to open them up, or to get into larger caverns beyond.

  What they all had in common was that they had bodies placed in them, and all the bodies had that same repulsive smell to keep animals away. Many of the caves still had a lot of room left for a great many more burials. A few had no room left.

  At midday, after a strenuous climb, River stopped to have something to eat. She sat on a ledge of rock that jutted out enough to give her a grand view of the valley below and the mountains beyond. She and Big Dog shared some more dried fish, along with strips of venison jerky, and then they were quickly on their way again.

  In late afternoon, nearing what looked to be the top of the mountain as far as she could tell by brief glimpses through openings in the trees, the trail abruptly came to an end. River sat on a rock off to the side to catch her breath. She was sweating and tired from the daylong climb.

  She was disappointed that she had not found any evidence of the Sky People. She didn’t have any idea what she had hoped to find, but whatever it was, she hadn’t found it.

  As she sat resting, trying to decide what to do next, she noticed that the way the trail ended seemed odd. It simply stopped at the face of a large boulder. Curious, she got up and inspected the abrupt ending of the trail.

  There was a lot of rock piled up, as if there had been a rockslide, but there was one big boulder sitting in such a way that it was the primary block in the path. The boulder sat against a rock face to the left side of
the trail that was too steep to climb. To the right was a drop-off down the mountain. When she leaned out and looked down, she could see the tops of tall spruce trees far below. Climbing down and around looked just as impossible as climbing up and around. The smaller rocks piled in around the boulder could be removed with some work, but the big boulder was far too big to move.

  That struck her as deliberate.

  When she turned back to the face of the rock blocking the trail, River paused and frowned. Under roots and debris, she could just see a faint image on the rock. Her people often painted things on rock walls—animals, people, stories. This was much like those, and yet it looked to be very different.

  “What do you think this is, Big Dog?” she murmured half to herself.

  She used her hand to brush away the lichen, moss, webs of hairlike roots, and accumulated dirt to get a better look at what had been painted there. Once she had cleared it off, she blinked at what she was seeing painted on the rock.

  The painted images were clearly people made with black lines. They looked like regular people, with legs with feet and arms with hands, but the crazy thing was that their heads were all big and round with no features. All of the figures had the same big, round heads. None had eyes, noses, or mouths. Those big empty heads were somehow frightening.

  They looked otherworldly.

  River had seen lots of rock paintings before, done both by her people and others. Yet in all her life she had never seen images like these. They gave her goose bumps up her arms.

  She knew, she just knew in her heart and soul, that these had to be drawings of the Sky People. What she didn’t know was why they were painted there on that rock blocking the trail.

  Once she cleared away more of the dirt and roots, she saw what was even more worrisome. Under the drawings of Sky People there was a drawing of two large crossed bones. Crossed bones were a sign of extreme danger.

  The big rock had been placed there to block the trail and keep anyone from going any farther. The crossed bones painted on that rock were a warning that if you went any farther, you would die.

  Chapter 12

  River used the war hammer she was carrying to pound the broad side of her knife blade into a young, slender maple tree, first angling into one spot, then angling the blade in the opposite direction a short distance away in order to pop out large chunks of wood. In that way, she was quickly able to cut down the tree. Once she had felled it across the trail, she cut off the top with all the branches so that she ended up with a good length of tree trunk a little fatter around than her arm.

  She muscled the tree trunk up and jammed the end into a small opening between the boulder that was blocking the trail and the sheer wall to the left side of it. She forced a big rock between the wall and the tree trunk to give her something to lever against.

  Ordinarily the warning of crossed bones drawn on the boulder would have stopped her. Such warnings always had frightening consequences for people who ignored them. She couldn’t imagine anything more frightening than everyone she knew being slaughtered.

  Making sure Big Dog was clear, Raging River grunted with the effort of pushing the long log lever. The tree trunk bent a little. When it sprang back she used the momentum of it springing back and forth to increase the power of each push.

  When the boulder made a grating sound as it started to move, she repositioned the rock braced between the tree trunk and the cliff wall to get more leverage. River grunted with the effort of a big push. The rocks packed in around the boulder fell free as the boulder began to tip outward. When it did, she rammed half the length of the tree trunk into the gap and gave the tree trunk a mighty pull against the boulder.

  The boulder rolled over just enough to take it to the lip of the trail. With her back against the rock wall, she put both feet on the boulder and then pushed with all her strength. The boulder tipped and began to crumble the ground at the side of the trail. As more and more of the dirt and rock at the side of the trail fell away, all of a sudden the boulder toppled out over the edge.

  Panting to catch her breath, River stood at the side of the trail and watched the massive rock crash down through the forest. Treetops whipped back and forth as the boulder struck the trunks. It was some time before it finally came to rest and silence once again settled over the mountain.

  “Come on, Big Dog. Let’s go.”

  He jumped up to follow her as she hurried on up the now open trail. She didn’t encounter any more caves as the trail switched back and forth, going higher on the remainder of the mountain. The higher up she climbed, the more cracks she saw in the massive rock formations. She knew that each winter the water setting in cracks could begin to break rock apart. In several places she had to step carefully over wide splits in the rock that could have trapped her leg had she stepped in them.

  As late in the day as it was, and as gloomy as the light was getting under the low, dark clouds, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep going much longer. She knew she was going to have to spend the night on Spirit Mountain. More troubling, though, was that she hadn’t found anything yet that could be of any help.

  As she went up the switchbacks, she began to ascend into the lower reaches of the clouds. Cold mist prickled against her face. The fog reduced visibility the farther she went. The higher she went, the denser the fog became. Everything took on a ghostly gray cast.

  River decided that if those dark clouds began to release rain, she would have to go back down and stay in one of the caves, smell or no smell. While she knew it would be necessary, it was an unsettling thought. This was a place of ancestor spirits. She didn’t know if they would like to be disturbed.

  After climbing up several more steep switchbacks, River came upon another cave. It was similar to the others, though a little deeper. Gnarly tree roots from scraggly, windblown trees above the opening seemed to be holding the crumbling rock around the cave in place. Some of the roots hung down as if to veil the opening.

  The rock near the mountaintop was more cracked and crumbling apart than it had been down lower. Much of the higher trail had already fallen away, so she feared that with her weight part of it might even give way if she didn’t step carefully. At least the fog hid the dizzying sight of the drop should the trail collapse underfoot. She was relieved to find that the area around the cave opening was wide enough to be stable. The trail had dwindled down and ended at the cave, so there was nothing beyond. All around, sections of stone slabs that had cracked away from the face of the mountain stood upright, like sentinels in the mist.

  River ducked inside. The remains of only one body lay in the cave. The smell was just as repugnant as in the other caves. Big Dog had no desire to be anywhere near the smell. He took off to find aromas more interesting to him.

  Even though it was darker yet in the cave, there was no doubt in River’s mind that she had found the body of one of the Sky People.

  She stood in shock in the center of the chamber, staring at the figure lying on a flat stone table just big enough to support it. There were stone chips littering the floor of the cave, telling her that this boulder had been chipped away to prepare a flat place for the body to be laid to rest.

  The body had a big round head just like the drawings on the boulder. She stared in astonishment.

  Rather than being wrapped in cloth and strips of leather like all the others she had found, this body was clothed in the strangest substance she had ever seen. It looked something like cloth, but the fabric was smooth and shiny. Even though it was shiny like metal, it wrinkled the same as any cloth. There was a belt around the waist with strange objects attached to it. Metallic rings circled the ankles and wrists. Boots similar to the material on the body covered the feet. Gloves with finger pads covered the hands.

  But it was the head that was most startling. It was relatively round, with symmetrical indentations and ridges up along each side. After cleaning away the layer of dust, she saw that there was some kind of writing on the sides, but it had long a
go eroded away. Here and there on the head there were small raised areas that were different on each side. The most prominent aspect of the whole thing, though, was the glossy black front of the head.

  She realized that what she was looking at couldn’t actually be the head of the Sky person. She thought it must be a covering of some sort.

  River remembered well the mask with the hooked beak she had taken from Great Hawk. She had seen many other people with masks, most notably other Wolf People.

  No one, not even the Sky People, could have such a perfectly smooth, hard, shiny, black face with no features.

  What she was looking at could only be a mask.

  Chapter 13

  River worked at the edges, or what she assumed were edges, of the black portion of the mask. It fit so perfectly with the white portion of the rest of the mask, even though it was slightly recessed, that she couldn’t even get a fingernail in between the black and the white. She wasn’t even sure they were separate pieces. For all she knew, it could all be one piece that had been painted. Even that thought didn’t seem right, because she had never seen any paint so smooth or so shiny or with edges so sharp.

  She kept working around the mask, trying to find a way to get it off. There were the same metallic rings around the neck, below the mask, as there were around the wrists and ankles. She could find no opening in any of those rings that she could work to get apart. She stood at the head of the Sky person and tried to pull the whole round, masklike covering off the head, but with the way it was so solidly attached to the rest of the clothes, it would not budge. She feared she would pull the body from its resting place if she pulled any harder, so she stopped.

  The body was heavier than the others she had found. When she pressed against the shiny fabric she could feel arms and legs underneath. Pressing with her finger left squishy indentations. It didn’t seem to have turned to dust like the others. She thought that was strange, considering that it had to have been placed there back in the time of the earliest stories of the Sun People, back when they were given their laws.