The Blessed Sun
The sweet tang of burning cedar scented the darkness. The air in this deep passageway moved slowly through the rooms, proof of the superb design of the great building.
Blessed Sun Leather Hand propped his walking stick and stood for a few moments listening to the whelk-shell horn echoing through the chambers and halls, announcing the arrival of midday, before he proceeded. Flowing Waters Town had been purposely built to cast echoes back and forth across the high cliffs, and the priests knew exactly how to use the wind to carry the notes around the four stories and through hundreds of rooms before they melted into the white plastered walls. Ceramic firebowls, filled with hot coals, stood at regular intervals on the floor. Their fluttering red brilliance lit his path. Unfortunately, inky shadows also danced in the hollows of the uneven floor.
He had to be careful. He’d seen more than seventy summers pass. Once, a long time ago, he’d been a strong and powerful warrior, but time had sapped the vigor from his body, leaving loose skin to hang from his arms where sinewy muscles once flexed. He was bald and completely toothless now, his lips shrunken back into his mouth and flabby jowls drooping from his chin. Despite his aged appearance, he was delighted to know that he still inspired terror. People fled just at the sight of him, or shielded their children’s eyes, so that Leather Hand, the monstrous witch, could not kill them with a single glance.
He chuckled as he rounded the corner on his way to the deep chamber where she’d died.
In the early days, after he’d kidnapped and enslaved his soon-to-be-wife, Matron Desert Willow, then forced her to name him the Blessed Sun, he’d come here often to gloat. Nightshade, the Mountain Witch, had been the most feared woman in the world. But she had died just like all the rest of his enemies.
The best part of being old was knowing he had outlived all the people who’d wanted him dead. They were gone, and he was still here ruling the nation—albeit a greatly diminished nation engaged in a brutal war that he was not winning.
Leather Hand stopped at the intersection of corridors and frowned as he looked both ways. The problem with his declining mind was that increasingly he lost his way—even when traversing halls he’d walked a thousand times. Here, in the dark interior of the town, chambers led to other chambers; doorways to other doorways. It was a gigantic rabbit warren, a maze impossible for him to navigate most days. Worse, as he got older, there seemed to be an ever growing number of dead ends that forced him to turn around and retreat back the way he’d come.
“Ah … there it is.” He nodded, relieved that he recognized the tunnel stairway to the lower floor.
It wasn’t easy to climb down. He had to lower his walking stick, prop it on the next stair, and step down. Then repeat the process over and over until there were no more stairs. Slowly he made his way through interconnected chambers. The first two were empty. The third was not. When he stood in the doorway, he grumbled to himself. He’d told his priests to make sure these rooms were brightly lit, but only one firebowl was nestled in each corner. He could barely make out the desiccated bodies of the dead, wrapped in matting and split-feather blankets. Leaning against the walls, they watched him with shriveled pits of eyes and grisly gaping mouths.
At the sight of the blanket-covered corpse in the back, a smile came to his lips. He walked over to get a better look at her. They’d driven a stake through her body, pinioning her hips to the floor in the hope that she would die a slow, agonizing death.
“The Mountain Witch. You were so powerful once. Now look at you, a heap of useless bones held together by dried-out sinew.”
Still, a small chill went through him. She’d been accused of witching the Straight Path nation with the Blessed Sun Webworm’s heart, the heart she had cut from the man’s living body. Her captors had ordered her to lift her curse. She’d refused, and so they’d brought her here to think about her future. The silly fool. All she’d had to do was tell them where she’d hidden the hideous heart and remove her curse. She could have lived. Her own stubbornness had caused her death.
Leather Hand’s gaze drifted around the poorly lit chamber. What a vengeful old witch she’d been, as determined to destroy the nation thirty summers ago as she was now, for her curse still lingered. The ranks of heretics worshipping the thlatsinas were swelling, and the Old Believers were dwindling to nothing. In the very near future, he feared the Straight Path nation would be nothing but a memory, their magnificent white palaces crumbled to dust.
His thoughts flitted, as they did so often these days, jumping around in the future, then into the past. But he remembered … It had been snowing the day Nightshade killed Blessed Sun Webworm. The ripening corn had frozen solid on the cobs, the beans turned black in the fields, the sunflowers withered on their stalks. The next day, the truth couldn’t be denied. People were going to starve. Thousands would revolt.
“Which is exactly what happened.” Leather Hand kicked the bones before him, and they uttered a soft rattle, like a snake preparing to strike him down.
The nation had burst at the seams, village slaughtering village, people doing anything necessary to feed their children. But the long death of the Flute Player was almost over.
Idly, he reached up to finger the black fetish he’d carried in a small bag around his throat. Webworm had given it to Leather Hand as a gift—the red-eyed serpent coiled inside a jet cock’s egg. He didn’t feel the bag beneath his cape. He patted his chest, trying to find it. Had he left the Power object in his chamber? Probably. He was becoming increasingly forgetful. Perhaps that’s why he felt so weak today, as though his strength had seeped out through his skin and blown away on the cold winds that swept Flowing Waters Town.
Yes, the fetish …
An old prophet once told Leather Hand that the serpent had slithered out of Webworm’s dying heart and flown through the air like a malignant bird, to find the fetish, where it had nested for a time, before slipping inside its warm new home: Leather Hand’s heart. It was an exchange of sorts. The serpent sleeping in his heart would guarantee that Leather Hand became the Blessed Sun and lived to an ancient age, but in exchange his breath-heart soul would be locked in the jet fetish for eternity. It was part of Nightshade’s curse upon the Straight Path People. Just as Leather Hand had ensured that Nightshade would never leave this room, she had ensured that Leather Hand would never travel to the afterlife to be with his beloved ancestors. Instead, he’d be condemned to watch the world die over and over through the single red eye of the tiny black serpent.
At the time, he’d been young and strong, one of the most respected and feared men in the nation. It had seemed like a reasonable bargain. His breath-heart soul in exchange for a long life filled with wealth and influence beyond his wildest dreams. Besides, death was his profession. Which meant it was one of the least alarming things in his life. As a result, he’d never taken his own death seriously.
But in the last moon or so, he’d suddenly begun to regret that decision.
He’d started wondering if his condemnation could be reversed. How would such a thing be accomplished? Could someone draw his soul out of the fetish and shoot it back into his body, so that when he died he could travel to the Land of the Dead where his ancestors waited to greet him as a triumphant hero? He’d consulted with the high priests and priestesses who were supposed to know about such things, and they had unanimously agreed, the only person who could lift the curse was the woman who had cast it, the legendary Mountain Witch, Nightshade.
A dead woman.
Seemed a bizarre turn of events. He, the master of death, had to beg a dead witch to forgive him for murdering thousands and living a gloriously privileged life.
He shouted at the brittle old bones: “Does your soul pot actually exist, witch? Or is it a legend meant to torment me?”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside and Sunwatcher Cub stepped into the doorway and bowed to him. A slender youth of twenty-three summers, he had a long face, a hooked nose, and scared eyes.
Which never failed to annoy Leather Hand. Either a man lived like a wolf stalking prey, or he lived like a rabbit running for a hole in the ground. Leather Hand had little tolerance for those who chose the way of the rabbit.
“What is it?” he said sharply.
“Apologies, Blessed Sun, but High War Chief Stinger requests that you join him on the wall.”
“Why does he need me? He’s the high war chief. I’m busy.”
“Yes, I—I realize this is an imposition. I know you are communing with the dead, but Stinger says it’s urgent.”
“The man is incompetent! I should have him hurled from the walls, and promote one of his deputies,” Leather Hand grumbled, but propped his walking stick and turned for the door.
As he exited into the hallway, Cub looked at him with wide shiny eyes. The man was trembling.
Leather Hand waved a skeletal hand at Nightshade’s burial chamber. “I told you I wanted the path and the chamber well lit this morning. Why are there only four firebowls burning in there?”
“I—I don’t know, Blessed Sun,” Cub stammered. “I’ll find out and speak with the slave responsi—”
“You’ll find out and flay the slave alive in the plaza.”
Cub bowed. “Of course, Blessed Sun. I’ll take care of it.”
As he started hobbling down the hall, Leather Hand added, “And bring me the slave’s liver. I want it fried soft in bear fat for my lunch.”
“Yes, Blessed Sun.”
He craved human flesh. Nothing else quite matched the flavor, and he found the liver especially pleasing when it was slathered with a tansy mustard-seed sauce.
By the time he’d climbed up from the lower levels and stepped out into the sunlit plaza, his legs shook. He had to hold Cub’s elbow to walk across the empty plaza to the ladders that led up to the fourth-story roof where his war chief stood surrounded by archers. Each had his or her bow nocked and aimed down at something below the walls. It was strange that the plaza was empty. People must have retreated to their chambers. Probably taking refuge from the cold—as he should be. Cold affected him now more than it ever had in his life. Just the barest breath of an icy wind, and he found himself shivering.
Thank the gods that he’d ordered especially wide ladders built. Cub had to climb at his side and practically pull him up each rung. Finally he made it and stepped off onto the roof.
Stinger, a tall, burly man with a heavily scarred face, instantly strode across the roof and bowed before Leather Hand. “Blessed Sun, I thank you for com—”
“What’s wrong? Why did you drag me out into the cold morning air?”
Stinger extended a hand to the sunlit hills beyond the walls. “If you will allow me to show you—”
“Do it quickly. I have more important duties today.”
“I understand, Blessed Sun. Please follow me.”
Holding tight to Cub’s steadying arm, Leather Hand slowly made his way across the roof to where Stinger’s problem became abundantly clear. For as far as Leather Hand could see campfires dotted the hills, illuminating the rolling terrain. Dozens of fires … which meant hundreds of enemy warriors.
“When did they arrive? Why wasn’t I notified?”
“They started trickling in at sunrise, Blessed Sun,” Stinger said. “We didn’t wish to wake you. But I think we’re in for a siege.”
Astonished, Leather Hand said, “Who are they? Can you tell?”
“Fourteen different clan symbols decorate their shields and flags. We figure they’re warriors who escaped our recent attacks on the surrounding villages.”
“Come for revenge, eh?” Leather Hand drew a long breath in through his nostrils. When he exhaled, it clouded the air. “We have enough food and water for six moons, don’t we? Enough to carry us through the winter?”
“Yes, we do, and we should have enough arrows, depending upon how hard they hit us. I’m more worried about human numbers at this point.”
“Meaning?”
“Blessed Sun, we have dispatched so many war parties to the hinterlands to keep the peace that our strength here is greatly reduced. If they manage to throw up ladders to scale our walls, I’m not sure we have enough warriors in town to keep them out.”
Leather Hand gave him a scathing look. “Then make sure they do not throw up ladders.”
“Of course, Blessed Sun.”
The campfires flickered as warriors walked back and forth in front of them. His instincts kicked in, the instincts of a man who’d spent a good portion of his life on the war trail. Stories would be moving through the camps, people talking about what had happened in their villages. Rage would be ramping up. When the latest camps finally worked up the courage to attack, the warriors would dedicate themselves to scaling Leather Hand’s walls, and they’d be willing to kill one another to be the first to put an arrow in Leather Hand’s heart. He hoped the other great houses, to the east and north, and the smaller villages on the surrounding hills, were prepared to defend him.
“What of my daughter? Have you received any word?”
“A fire signal did flash last night saying that Priestess BoneDust had been murdered at a small village out in the distant canyonlands. Your daughter sent the message, so we assume she is there as well.”
Leather Hand gasped in mock surprise. “BoneDust? She was going to be my next sacrificial offering. Guess I’ll have to find someone else. What’s being done about it? We can’t allow the filthy barbarians to kill our missionaries with impunity.”
“I immediately sent word to Deputy Wasp Moth and his warriors stationed just to the south at Twin Pillars Village. He’ll handle the situation.”
Leather Hand looked out at the morning campfires that covered the hills. He hated the thlatsina heresy and all who followed it, and he suspected that many of his warriors were secret believers. Only nine moons ago, in the midst of a dreadful battle, one of his deputy war chiefs claimed to have seen the masked gods, the thlatsinas, Dance out of the clouds and down to earth to fight alongside him. When he’d told the other warriors in his camp, they had fallen at his feet weeping. Many had converted on the spot and switched sides, fleeing to fight with the enemy. Leather Hand had lost that battle.
Since then, he’d intensified his efforts to send missionaries far and wide, trying to establish centers of worship for the old gods. Villages that rose up against him were stripped bare and the spoils distributed among believers. Believers ate. Nonbelievers starved. It was a simple truth and, he’d found, the key to controlling vast regions of the country.
“I want to be notified immediately if you receive any word from Maicoh. By now, news of my offer has surely reached his ears. It’s being carried everywhere by hundreds of wagging tongues. I expect him to contact me.”
“Of course, Blessed Sun, but please understand that our enemies are constantly attacking our signal stations and wiping out the small groups of warriors we have stationed there. It’s a miracle we received your daughter’s message about BoneDust. Until we can get control of those stations again, we may get no further news.”
“I know that.” Leather Hand briskly rubbed his freezing arms, turned, and headed for his chamber, where he knew firebowls would be blazing.
Cub accompanied him across the rooftop to his door. “Is there anything else you require, Blessed Sun?”
Leather Hand flicked a hand at him. “Leave. The sight of you makes me want to kill something.”
“Yes, Blessed Sun.” Cub turned and practically ran away.
Leather Hand pushed aside the heavy deerhide door hanging and stepped into the first chamber of his ten-room suite. Doors led to the other chambers, each covered with a hide to hold in the warmth of the firebowls. In this chamber firebowls lined the bases of three walls, creating a stunning red glow that washed over the elaborately painted life-size images of the thlatsinas. His enemies. On the northern wall, which was painted black, stood the white image of Cold Bringing Woman. Thick white hair hung to her waist, obscuring everything but he
r blazing red eyes. She was the most Powerful thlatsina in the world, for she brought the bitter frost and snows of winter: The cold that was killing the world. On the eastern red wall, a fearsome pair of Black Ogre thlatsinas Danced with one foot in the air, their magnificent masks with their long toothy muzzles terrifying and beautiful. Each ogre carried a long, serrated obsidian blade in its right hand, which it used to saw apart people, especially children, and eat them. The western wall, painted white, displayed black footprints, breath-heart souls, ascending stair-step clouds into the sky to run the Star Road to the afterlife. Encircling the paintings of the thlatsinas, war trophies hung from pegs: scalps, polished skulls, Power bundles taken from the greatest priests and priestesses to have ever lived. The sacred Power that radiated from the bundles held the thlatsinas hostage here, in this room, so that Leather Hand could curse them and spit upon them as it pleased him.
But the true source of Leather Hand’s strength, the Power objects most feared by his enemies, lined the shelves on the wall in the rear of the chamber: Eighty-two soul pots. Some were as tiny as eggs, others as large as a man’s head, and each was uniquely painted with the clan designs of the former owner. His favorite pot was a black one decorated with white lightning zigzags. It sat on a pedestal on the middle shelf. It shouted a lot, which amused Leather Hand. He made sure that his priests kept the lids on the pots securely glued shut with pine pitch, but the souls inside spoke to him anyway.
As he gripped his walking stick and made his way to the thick coyote hides spread on his sleeping pallet in the center of the chamber, his hips ached. Gingerly, he lowered himself to the hides and let out a sigh.
In the bloodred light cast by the firebowls, shadows leaped. Then a strange blur filled the air, and he saw the old hunter from the lightning pot materialize and angrily crouch in front of him.
Leather Hand pointed a crooked finger at the man. “You’re that hunter who ran away to live in the Great River Valley, aren’t you? The one we caught in Poor Singer’s village fifteen summers ago? Or was it twenty? You were returning home with your wife and children. You had five sons, as I recall.” He thoughtfully tapped his chin with his finger while he looked at the six soul pots around the hunter’s pot. “Tell me more about the king, the Morning Star, and his huge army at Cahokia?”
People of the Canyons Page 5