“The man with the dead face,” Kwinsi whispers.
“He must have followed us.”
The stranger walks to our fire and extends his hands to the flames to warm them. His sunken eyes are pools of shadow. Softly, he asks, “Mind if I join you?”
Fourteen
Tsilu
I wait for Kwinsi to answer, but when he just stares at the man with his mouth open, I politely say, “Of course, elder. Please sit and share our tea. I regret that we don’t have any food to give you, but we—”
“Quite all right,” he replies.
As he sits down cross-legged between me and Kwinsi, Kwinsi closes his mouth, but he could not look more surprised if Moon Mother dropped out of the sky and rolled over him, leaving silver slime in her wake.
“How did you find us, elder? We tried to hide our trail.”
“I saw your fire.” He turns his hands to warm them all over.
“Oh…”
Blessed Spirits! How could we have made such a dangerous error? The shock of walking through the destroyed village, then being nearly captured by Iron Dog and his warriors, must have taken more of a toll on my wits than I thought.
“If you don’t have any food, you must be hungry.” The man tugs open the laces of his bag, draws out several long sticks of jerky, hands one stick to me and another to Kwinsi. “It’s buffalo flavored with beeweed. Comes from the far north.”
“Thank you, elder.” I rip off a hunk with my teeth and chew. The beeweed gives the jerky a wonderful peppery taste.
Before he tightens the laces again, the man pulls out a plain gray cup, chipped around the rim. As he dips the cup into the teapot, he says, “I need to speak with you.”
Kwinsi makes an unsuccessful attempt to stand up—to run away, I suspect. The elder puts a hand under his elbow to steady Kwinsi, but the man’s touch seems to make Kwinsi’s weak knees even worse. He slumps back to the ground, breathing hard. “I don’t know anything. I swear it.”
The man frowns. “About what?”
“What?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the man says softly. “I consider us allies.”
“Allies? Us?”
“We are on the same side. I’ll help you, if you will help me.”
The man looks thin and haunted, his entire body worn down to the bones, but it’s his eyes that draw me. They rest like smooth black stones in their sunken sockets. They’re too shiny. Feral.
“I am Tsilu of the Prairie Falcon Clan. I remember you from the council meeting.”
His head dips in what’s probably a nod, but the motion is almost imperceptible. “My name is Crane.”
When he shifts, his cape settles upon the ground around him in firelit folds.
“How can we help you, elder?”
“I need some information about the murder in the village.”
I exchange a glance with Kwinsi. “The murder of the Blessed Sun’s priestess? BoneDust? Kwinsi’s right. We don’t know anything.”
“I suspect you know more than you realize.” From his cape pocket, he pulls out a finely carved fetish and holds it up to the light. “For example, do you know what this is?”
I lean closer to study the fetish. It’s a beautiful thing. “No, but the artistry is stunning. It’s carved from jet, isn’t it? Looks like a red-eyed serpent coiled inside the broken eggshell. Where does it come from?”
Crane turns the object in his skeletal fingers. “It was given to me.” He tucks it back in his pocket. “No one should look upon it for long. The evil attaches itself to people and leeches into their souls.”
“It’s evil?”
“Oh yes. Very.”
He takes a moment to flip up his black hood, then looks away, so that his eyes are now hidden in shadow.
Faint memories flicker … stories Grandfather told me when I was a small child. “I wonder.”
He swivels around. “Yes?”
“I was just … thinking. I was around six or seven, I think. It was a winter night and Grandfather was telling me stories to keep my mind off the cold. I remember him mentioning a fetish. A serpent born from a cock’s egg. Supposedly, decades ago, the fetish belonged to the evil Blessed Sun Webworm, but Webworm gave it to his war chief, Leather Hand the Cannibal. The same man who is now the Blessed Sun of the Straight Path nation. I don’t remember much else about the story.”
Kwinsi shudders and glances around. “Keep your voice down, Tsilu.”
No one talks about the Blessed Sun without feeling a chill run down his or her spine. He lives on human flesh, and orders the White Moccasins to kill entire villages to supply him with victims. Men like Deputy Iron Dog and the loathsome Weevil.
“No wonder it’s so strong,” Crane says and frowns at the fire. “The fetish was owned by two monsters.”
“It may not be the same Power object,” I say hurriedly. “If it was given to Leather Hand, why do you have it?”
Firelight flares in the silver hair at his temples. “I’m trying to find a way to kill it.”
Kwinsi sits up straighter. “You mean the serpent is alive?”
“Yes. And immensely dangerous. It has a malignant soul.”
While I think about that, I look beyond the fire into the river drainage that is thick with fallen cottonwood and willow leaves. The damp air carries the brittle smells of dying vegetation. It seems unnaturally quiet. As though every night creature is watching Crane with the same wariness it would a familiar predator.
At last, Crane turns toward Kwinsi. The two men stare into each other’s eyes for several long uneasy moments before Crane softly says, “I was wondering if you tried to open it.”
Kwinsi looks a bit like a startled stork. “The fetish?”
“The pot.”
“Open the pot?”
“Yes.”
“What pot?”
Crane smiles. His eyes reflect the firelight like mirrors. It’s a strange, eerie sight. “Nightshade’s soul pot. You have it, don’t you?”
Kwinsi seems too stunned to speak, so I say, “How do you know about the pot?”
“I gave it to Tocho many summers ago. It was far safer with him than with me. I was a hunted man back then. My family was constantly in danger because I possessed that pot.”
“You know my grandfather?”
He bows his head and nods. “Tocho is a very old and cherished friend. I’ve known him for over—”
“The pot!” Kwinsi blurts as though he’s just realized which pot.
Crane and I stare at him, waiting for his next words.
“You were saying?” Crane gently prods.
“Nothing … really … except … I didn’t try to open it because Tocho told me not to.”
“That was wise,” Crane says. “I don’t think you could have opened it anyway. I never could, and I don’t think Tocho could either. In fact, rumors say that only Maicoh can open it.”
Kwinsi squints at Crane. “Then why would you think I could?”
“Because, despite the rumors, I think Nightshade is waiting for the right person to come along. I thought it might be you.”
Kwinsi sits so still that the steam rising from his teacup sends a glittering veil twining up around his face.
I break the strange silence by asking, “When did you give the pot to Grandfather?”
“Long ago. Right after my family was killed.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Mine died, too. In a raid, I guess. I don’t remember them. Though I remember fire all around me, and being terrified.”
Crane’s usually blank expression tenses. He lowers his gaze to look down into his teacup and for the first time I see emotion on his face. Deep emotion. “I saw you that day. You were covered with soot and sobbing. You’re lucky Tocho came along when he did.”
“You saw me?”
He opens his mouth to answer, but Kwinsi lifts a finger to get his attention and says, “But!”
The word dangles.
I grit my teeth for a mo
ment before I say, “I wish you’d finish sentences. It’s annoying when you do that.”
Kwinsi glances at me, then at Crane. “How did you know Tocho gave me the pot?”
Wind gusts through the camp, and Crane huddles inside his black cape, as though suddenly intensely cold.
“Tocho told me you’re his favorite student. And I suspect my old friend was hoping he could relieve himself of the burden of caring for it. Even for a single day. I carried it for seven summers. You have no idea how difficult—”
“You spoke with him? You spoke with Grandfather about Kwinsi? When?”
It’s hard to believe, because we are almost always together. On rare occasions, Grandfather leaves me in the Sleeping Place while he travels to distant places to Heal the sick or meet with other shamans. And we were apart several times in the last few days. He was missing for over a hand of time during the harvest ritual, and again when he was in the village burying the dead priestess. He was gone when I returned to the village after finding Kwinsi, too. He could have met with Crane at any of those times, and I’d know nothing of it.
Crane brings up one knee and balances his cup on his kneecap. “I spoke with him after the council meeting. My old friend is in grave danger. He’s on his way to Flowing Waters Town for an audience with the Blessed Sun.”
“Why?”
“The Blessed Sun wants the pot. But I don’t think Tocho has it. Does he, Kwinsi?”
Kwinsi places his uneaten stick of jerky on the ground. He looks like a child with a stolen corn cake hidden in his pocket.
Crane glances at him, then out at the towering canyon walls. “If Tocho does not give the Blessed Sun that pot, he’ll kill Tocho.”
My heartbeat pounds in my ears. I look back and forth between the men. “What makes you think Kwinsi has it?”
“Tocho told me once that he carried Nightshade’s pack with him day and night. So, you see, I thought he had the pot with him. He should have had it with him when he was captured. And maybe he did, but…”
Kwinsi has his jaw clenched. Finally he says, “You can stop looking at me. I gave the pot back to Tocho the afternoon after the council meeting.”
“Are you sure?”
Kwinsi’s gaze lifts, and it shocks me. I’ve never seen that look in his eyes before. It’s stony. Hard as granite. “I had to give it back to him. I couldn’t bear to touch it for one instant longer.”
“I see. Well, I don’t blame you for that.”
Without seeming to be aware of it, Crane rests one hand on the buffalo-hide bag hanging from his belt, and a sad expression creases his face. “I assume you’re tracking Tocho, hoping to rescue him. I’d like to help you, if that’s all right.”
I turn to Kwinsi for his opinion, but Kwinsi’s eyes are closed as though he so dreads the idea he can’t even look at me.
Hesitantly I turn back to Crane. “Yes, elder. We would appreciate your help.”
“Good. I’m fairly sure I know the trails they will take. Tonight they’ve probably made camp in the abandoned ruins of GoingBuck Village. I hope the ghosts leave them alone.”
Fifteen
Blue Dove
Glumly, I examine the sandstone hollow where we have made camp. Forty hand-lengths long, it’s barely ten deep. The ceiling is furred with a black layer of soot from a thousand campfires that have been built here over the long winters. Wind gusts continually push veils of rain beneath the overhang, drenching me and the fire. Even worse, just down the slope, I can see ruins appear and disappear in the pouring rain. A dismal place. The toppled walls resemble jagged black teeth. I imagine that they’re going to transform into an ancient monster and gobble us all up.
Tocho sits dozing in the rear of the hollow, guarded by FishTrap. Barely eighteen, he’s a gangly youth with arms and legs that seem way too long for the rest of his body. His face reminds me of a deranged weasel. Tiny slits of eyes stare out over a ghastly long snout of a nose. To make matters worse, he has a squeaky voice that grates on my nerves.
“What is this place?” I ask, looking around with distaste.
Wasp Moth sits cross-legged on the other side of the fire with Tocho’s bag in his lap. He’s been trying to untie the old leather laces since dusk.
“It was called GoingBuck Village. Your father burned it to the ground twenty summers ago for failing to turn over the tribute it owed Flowing Waters Town.”
“The fools. Why didn’t they turn over the tribute?”
“They were starving.” Wasp Moth shrugs and continues plucking at the laces on the pack.
“I should think that starving was better than being dead.”
“They were sure they were going to be dead either way, so they decided to fight.”
Shivering, I pull my cape more tightly around my shoulders. “Their chief must have been an imbecile. What sort of man would order his people to fight against overwhelming odds, knowing they had no chance to win? If they’d simply turned over all their food to pay the tribute they owed, the warriors would have left. Maybe most of the villagers would have starved, but surely a few would have survived. A few is better than none.”
Wasp Moth frowns at the old leather bag. “Is it? I think it’s better to die fighting for your people than to live as a coward.”
“You think my father was unjust when he demanded the tribute?”
“I didn’t say that. But surely the GoingBuck villagers felt the attack was unjust.”
“Tribute must be paid,” I say in irritation. “Without tribute, Flowing Waters Town can’t take care of people. We are the ones who stockpile food, and redistribute it in times of drought. It’s our warriors who protect them from raiders. How can we afford to do that if they don’t turn over part of their harvests?”
“Part, yes, but all of it?”
Indignant, I say, “It isn’t our fault that they had poor harvests that year. Do they think dying makes them heroes? Personally, I’d much rather be a live coward than a dead hero.”
Wasp Moth gives me a curious glance. “Dead heroes have honored places in the afterlife, Blessed daughter. The souls of cowards must walk the earth for eternity, condemned to regret and loneliness. I’ll take death any day.”
As though tired of speaking with me, he returns all his attention to the knotted laces.
I sigh and look away.
For as far as I can see down the length of the canyon, rain sheets from the cliffs. Runoff has turned the river into a murky thundering torrent. Less than a hand of time ago, I saw an entire cottonwood battering its way down the drainage.
“I can’t figure this out,” Wasp Moth says in frustration.
“Why not?” I glare across the fire at him. “Are you stupid? It’s a simple series of knots.”
Tocho leans against the canyon wall in the rear, watching with a bored expression on his face.
“I know they look simple, but they’re not.” Wasp Moth squints, and the stylized moth wings that spread across his cheeks scrunch into a chaos of indecipherable black lines.
“Give the pack to Deputy FishTrap. Let him try.”
Wasp Moth tosses the worn leather bag, and FishTrap catches it.
“It’s a tangle, no doubt about it, but looks easy enough,” FishTrap says.
“Just wait.” Wasp Moth leans back on his elbows and smugly watches as FishTrap begins to tug at the leather cords that tie the pack. As soon as he loosens one cord, another pulls taut. When he loosens that one, another tightens.
“Well, what the…”
“See?”
I scowl at Wasp Moth. “You’re to blame for all this, you know? If you hadn’t lost old Crane, who I’m certain is Maicoh, we’d have that bag open by now.”
“I swear to you, Blessed daughter, I only looked away from him for an instant, but when I looked back, he’d vanished into the night air like smoke.”
“The great Wasp Moth can’t even keep track of a frail old man. Some war chief you are.”
Wasp Moth looks angry, but doesn’t sa
y anything.
I turn toward Tocho. The shaman is half asleep. He keeps dozing off and jerking upright again. When he notices me staring at him, he gives me a benevolent elder smile. Sparse gray hair frames his wrinkled face.
“What are you smiling at? Did you witch that pack?”
“I’m not a witch,” Tocho says mildly. “Just a shaman.”
“Why can’t we get it open?”
Tocho’s hands are bound together with yucca rope, so when he gestures it’s a little awkward. “Perhaps their fingers are too big. You might want to try. A woman’s smaller fingers are more dexterous, I think.”
I extend my hand to FishTrap. “Give me the pack.”
He swiftly hands it over, as though glad to be rid of it.
Placing it in my lap, I study it. It’s about two hand-lengths across, and the leather is worn so thin, anyone ought to be able to just rip it open and spill the contents on the ground. But that would risk damaging whatever is inside. When I tip the bag up to the dim light, I can make out the faded yellow and blue image of a tortoise on the front, or maybe it’s a wolf’s head. Actually, it could be both, one image superimposed over the other. Hard to say, but the bag is light as air. I knead the leather, trying to discern what might be inside.
“Feels like there’s a small pot in there.” I trace the globular shape with my fingers.
“I thought the same thing,” Wasp Moth says.
FishTrap nods in agreement, while Tocho naps in the rear.
When I shake the bag, it “tinks”—metal striking ceramic. “Why is it so lightweight?”
“Doesn’t make any sense.” Wasp Moth’s chin-length black hair shimmers in the firelight as he leans forward to prop his crossed arms on top of his knees. “Even if the pot’s walls are as thin as a leaf, it should be much heavier.”
“Ten times heavier,” FishTrap says.
The laces have been whipstitched all around the square, then cinched closed at the top and tied into a series of what appear to be simple slipknots. As FishTrap noted, the knots look easy enough to untie. It’s just a jumble of loosely tied loops, but when I grasp one end of the cord and work it through the knot to loosen it, another part of the knot sucks up tight. After I’ve been working at it for a full finger of time, I order, “Wasp Moth, give me your knife.”
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