“Yes, of course.”
Wasp Moth calls, “Iron Dog? Weevil? Guard the Blessed daughter and her party until they reach the Blessed Sun’s chambers, then station yourselves outside the doorway.”
Iron Dog nods and says, “Understood.”
Apprehension fills me. I feel as if I’ve just walked onto a battlefield. The fear hanging over the town is palpable. Part of it is the unnatural silence, as though the entire world has died, and I just don’t know it yet.
Cub scales the first ladder to the second floor, then up to the third.
I follow behind him. Maicoh, Crane, Tsilu, and then Tocho climb behind me. Iron Dog and Weevil are last in line, and they look impatient, as though they find Tocho’s plodding up one step at a time maddening.
When I step off the final ladder, I see Cub standing anxiously beside my father’s doorway with one hand out to the door. “Please, enter. We’ve spread elk hides out for your comfort, and there’s a warm pot of tea hanging from the tripod, as well as cups for your use.”
As I pull aside the leather door hanging and drape it over the peg to keep it open, I stare hard into Cub’s frightened eyes. Just above a whisper, I say to him, “Something’s wrong, I can feel it. You’d better not be to blame.”
A flash of surprise widens his eyes before he controls himself. “I don’t know what you mean.” When he nervously licks his lips, there’s a faint trace of guilt in the action.
“Go on, get out of here. Inform my father that we await his arrival.”
“Yes, Blessed daughter.” He bows and trots for the ladder down to the plaza.
When I step into Father’s chambers, distaste fills me, as it always does at the sight of the beastly paintings on the walls. I’ve never understood why he insists upon keeping these ugly alien gods close to him. A large firebowl blazes in the center of the room, and smaller firebowls sit at regular intervals along the walls. They cast a flickering red light over the life-sized monsters.
As I walk across the floor to the circle of elk hides spread around the large firebowl, the hideous pair of Black Ogres on the eastern red wall seems to move, to take a step toward me. Their ghastly toothy muzzles are open, revealing black throats that seem to drop forever into the darkest underworlds. The long obsidian blades in their right hands glint as though their hands just twitched, on the verge of stabbing me.
Ignoring them, I lift my chin and stalk across the floor to slump down upon the hides. Father’s sleeping pallet, covered with thick coyote hides, occupies the northern side of the circle. Beside it, a teapot hangs from a tripod, keeping warm over the firebowl. Gorgeous black-on-white cups are stacked close to it.
I watch Maicoh, Crane, Tsilu, and Tocho enter the chamber and glance around as though stunned to see their sacred thlatsinas here.
“I don’t believe my eyes,” the albino says as he wanders around the chamber. “Your father hates the thlatsinas and wantonly kills anyone who follows them. Why does he cover his walls with their faces?”
“To remind him of who and what they are. In this case, half-human beasts.”
“Yes,” Tocho sighs in a tired voice. “The policy of a man who spent many summers as a war chief collecting captives.”
I smile. “Exactly.”
Tocho’s hair sways around his face as the old man limps across the floor and sits down to my right. He’s shaking, but I’m not sure if it’s because he’s exhausted from the long day, or because he’s dreading coming face-to-face with my father.
Instinctively, I glance at the door to make sure Iron Dog and Weevil stayed to guard me. In the light from the firebowls I can see their faces and tall white moccasins gleam where they’ve positioned themselves on either side of the door.
Crane stands rigidly just inside the chamber with his fists clenched at his sides.
“Join me, Crane,” I say. “Dip a cup of tea. You look like you need it.”
“I do. It has been a thirsty day.”
He walks across the chamber and crouches to my left to dip a cup of tea from the pot. When he brings it back and takes a long drink, his gaze strays to the girl, Tsilu, who stands peering up at the Black Ogres like a wide-eyed child who’s seen her first corn cake.
Far out beyond the town, an owl hoots.
Forty-nine
Tsilu
Reverence has turned my chest into a hollow drum. All around me, the sacred thlatsinas lift their feet in unison and stamp them down to the rhythmic boom of my heartbeat. They are marching toward me …
I’m so lightheaded I seem to be floating above the floor. There are many doors that lead to the other chambers, but each is covered with a hide, so I concentrate on this chamber, where the gods Sing in voices that resemble the howls of faraway wolves.
In front of me, on the eastern red wall, the Black Ogres Dance with their magnificent long toothy muzzles gaping as though to swallow me whole if I displease them.
Slowly, I turn sunwise toward the southern wall where dozens of soul pots line the shelves. Some are tiny. Others are as large as skulls. The pots watch me with luminous invisible eyes. I don’t know why, but I find their gazes comforting.
When I turn to the lustrous white western wall, I see black footprints, breath-heart souls, climbing stair-step clouds into the sky to run the Star Road to the afterlife.
It’s only as I turn to the north that my breathing dies in my chest.
Cold Bringing Woman looms large on an utterly black wall. Thick white hair drapes her cape. She is the most Powerful thlatsina in the world, the source of winter snows and icy winds that freeze the bones. Beneath her fiery red gaze, I am suddenly aware of everything I’ve done wrong in my life, the sharp words, the thoughtless acts of cruelty, every unkind thought I’ve ever had.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, “for the awful, selfish things I’ve done.”
My brother hears me and walks over to stand at my side. As he looks up into the terrifying face of Cold Bringing Woman, he puts an arm around my shoulders.
Barely audible, he says, “Stay close to me tonight.”
“All right.”
He steps away, walking over to the southern wall to stare at the lines of soul pots, and I follow less than a pace behind him.
Blue Dove calls, “Come over here and sit down, albino.”
“Where’s your father?” my brother asks without taking his eyes from the soul pots.
“Conferring with his priests. You heard Sunwatcher Cub as well as I did. Now, come and sit down. I wish to speak with you.”
My brother can’t seem to take his gaze from the three tiniest soul pots on the far left of the middle shelf. When he tilts his head slightly, I wonder if he’s trying to decipher words I do not hear, or if he’s just deciding if he wishes to defy Blue Dove’s orders. Then, propping a hand against the wall, he sags forward, and I see his shoulders heave with silent sobs.
Does he know them? The souls in those pots. I hear nothing.
“Are you crying?” Blue Dove’s voice brims with disdain. “Turn around.”
When he’s regained his composure, my brother straightens up. His back to her, he answers, “There’s nothing left to say between us, Blue Dove.”
“Of course there is. We need a plan. What are we going to do when my father opens the soul pot and finds it empty?”
“I’m not going to do anything.”
She looks annoyed. “You’d better. The lives of your family will depend upon what you say or do.”
Maicoh wipes his eyes, turns, and walks over to sit on the opposite side of the firebowl from her. Close behind him, I kneel on the hides to his left, between him and Grandfather. The Blessed Sun’s raised sleeping pallet covered with thick coyote hides occupies the place to the north, right beneath Cold Bringing Woman’s watchful gaze. How can the Blessed Sun sleep here, within her reach? She is his enemy. Isn’t he afraid she’ll strangle him while he naps?
My brother dips a cup of tea and hands it to me, then dips another and gives it to Grandfat
her. He does not dip one for himself. Instead, he stares across the firebowl at Blue Dove.
“I understand now. These soul pots are the true source of your father’s Power.”
Blue Dove tosses her head coquettishly and smiles. “Are they? I wouldn’t know.”
Maicoh gestures to the pots. “I’m curious about the tiny children’s pots. Did he steal them from their parents, or capture the dying children’s souls himself?”
“A little of both, I suppose. Why?”
“It’s inhuman, that’s why. How could anyone deliberately prevent a child’s breath-heart soul from traveling to the Land of the Dead to be loved by the ancestors?”
“He tells me that the souls of children are especially Powerful, but how do I know? Ask him when he arrives.”
Maicoh lifts his eyes to the tiniest pot, no bigger than a grouse’s egg. It’s gray and undecorated. As though his gaze has awakened the soul inside, a child’s sweet laughter seeps from the pot.
My spine goes rigid.
Where have I heard that laugh before? It’s still ringing through me when Crane abruptly hunches forward and squeezes his eyes shut. He hears it, too.
Grandfather glances at Crane and bows his head. For a long time, he stares unblinking at the glowing red coals in the firebowl, then says, “Many of those pots are dead. The children died in the darkness as though they were lost stars falling through emptiness.”
“Why?” I can barely hear my own words. My throat has constricted. “Why did they die?”
“Oh, innocent souls are frail. They cannot understand cruelty or fathom that it will ever end, so they weep until there is nothing left to suffer.”
Blue Dove erupts in chuckles. “Then you must inform my father so he can crush those useless pots to dust.”
My brother presses his lips against my ear and whispers, “You’ll never be locked in a pot. I give you my oath.”
He turns to stare out the doorway. In the night sky, the Star Road blazes like a swath of glittering white fire.
There’s a commotion. Everyone in the chamber turns toward the door. Twenty or more White Moccasins climb up the ladder to the rooftop outside and stand in formation, waiting. Iron Dog and Weevil snap to attention when they spy the old hunchback being helped off the ladder.
I strain to see through the wall of moving men, but only catch glimpses of the elder.
But I know who he must be.
Grandfather’s sudden trembling makes it a certainty.
The Blessed Sun comes.
Fifty
Tsilu
A muscular man with a heavily scarred face edges around the Blessed Sun and strides forward with Wasp Moth behind him. When they enter the chamber, the scarred man orders, “I am High War Chief Stinger. Remove all your packs, belt bags, and any other personal items you’ve brought into this chamber. Wasp Moth, collect them and pile them somewhere out of reach.”
This must be standard procedure for all guests entering the Blessed Sun’s presence. Pulling Kwinsi’s pack from my shoulder, I give it to Wasp Moth as he moves around the firebowl, collecting each person’s possessions. When he reaches Maicoh, my brother places a hand protectively on the Wolf Bundle and shakes his head.
“I’m not giving you the bundle.”
“You will give it to me, or—”
“I will not. It’s the first thing the Blessed Sun will wish to see. Besides, she’s ordered me not to give you the bundle.”
Wasp Moth’s extended hand wavers.
Stinger glances at him and walks forward with his war club in a tight fist. “Who? Who ordered—”
In unison, Wasp Moth and Blue Dove say, “Nightshade.”
Stinger’s gaze lowers to the rounded shape inside the bundle. “Are you telling me her soul pot—”
“Let him keep it,” Blue Dove orders. “He’s right. It’s the first thing Father will wish to see.”
Stinger bows and backs away. “As you command, Blessed daughter.”
Wasp Moth carries the rest of our belongings over and unceremoniously dumps them before the Black Ogres, then both warriors leave.
Voices rise outside as warriors leap to form two lines, creating a pathway for the king to walk to his chambers. They resemble ants as they scurry against a background of night sky.
When I see him clearly for the first time, it’s a shock. Leather Hand the Cannibal, the man I have feared all my life, looks nothing like I imagined. Old, hunched over, with sparse white hair clinging to his age-spotted scalp. The way his mouth sinks in over his gums, I know he’s toothless. Frail and ancient, he’s barely a shadow of the grand legendary war chief who had once terrorized the land.
With agonizing slowness, the Blessed Sun props his walking stick and starts forward down the aisle.
Blue Dove waits until he stands silhouetted in the doorway, then runs up to embrace him. “Father!”
The Blessed Sun endures the embrace for barely a heartbeat before he shoves her aside. “Where is Maicoh?”
“The albino claims to be Maicoh.” She backs away. “Stand up, you fools!”
As my brother rises to his feet, he bows. “I am Maicoh, Blessed Sun.”
Leather Hand gives him a distasteful appraisal, then slowly hobbles across the chamber.
In the meantime, Crane and I help Grandfather totter to his feet. He has to brace his legs to stay upright. His breathing is ragged, tortured. The pain in his swollen knees must be unbearable.
The Blessed Sun stops in front of Maicoh and studies his long white hair and too-white skin, then moves over his dusty clothing. My brother’s blue cape appears purple in the reddish gleam.
“You are Maicoh?”
My brother respectfully inclines his head. “I am.”
Grandfather’s trembling is growing worse. I hold tight to his arm, supporting him, but I fear that very soon he’s going to collapse.
When I glance up worriedly, I discover that Grandfather is gazing down at me with love in his eyes. He whispers, “Just a small step along the Blessed path, Tsilu.”
“What…”
The young man named Cub enters the chamber and walks straight to the Blessed Sun to take his elbow in a steadying grip. “Let me help you to the pallet, Blessed Sun.”
“Yes, I need to sit down.”
Leather Hand allows the man to guide him to the thick coyote hides that cover his sleeping pallet on the north side of the firebowl. After he eases Leather Hand down atop the hides, the young man turns to us. “I am Sunwatcher Cub. We welcome you to Flowing Waters Town. May we get you food or—”
“They won’t need food,” Leather Hand interrupts him. “Now, go stand somewhere out of my sight. I hate looking at you. The rest of you may sit down.”
The Sunwatcher bows and retreats to stand behind Leather Hand, right in front of Cold Bringing Woman.
“You can let go of me now, Tsilu,” Grandfather whispers.
“But, Grandfather—”
“Thank you for helping me.”
I reluctantly release him, and Grandfather almost topples forward into the firebowl.
“Grand—!”
“I’m all right.” He smiles at me, manages to regain his footing, and lowers himself back to the elk hide.
I drop beside him and slide closer, pressing my shoulder against his, so he can brace himself against me. Crane sits on the other side. My brother kneels beside Blue Dove, near the teapot hanging from the tripod, but his gaze is on Grandfather. For the first time, I see fear in his eyes.
“You must be thirsty, Father.” Blue Dove fills a tea cup and hands it to him. “After convening with your priests—”
“Set it down. I don’t wish to hold it.”
“Of—of course, Father.” She places the steaming cup on the floor within his reach. “I want to assure you that Maicoh carries Nightshade’s soul pot in that wretched old bag tied to his belt, but you should also know that when we were out on the trail, we—”
“Produce it,” Leather Hand orders and
glares suspiciously at Maicoh. “I don’t believe it. Nor do I believe you are Maicoh. None of the stories I’ve heard, and I’ve heard hundreds over the summers, ever mentioned that Maicoh was an albino.”
“I said the same thing, Father! In fact, I accused him of being a charla—”
Leather Hand shouts, “If you speak one more time without my permission, I will have you whipped to within a hair’s breadth of your life. If you weren’t the last female who can carry on the line, you’d already be dead.”
“F-Forgive me, Father.” Blue Dove lowers her eyes to the firebowl.
Her personality has completely changed. Out on the trail she was arrogant and Powerful, but here, in the presence of her father, she reminds me of a pathetic child. My thoughts spin, trying to figure this out. Long ago, Grandfather told me that the rulers of the Straight Path nation, the First People, traced their female lineage back three hundred summers. Such dynasties do not exist among the Canyon People, so it’s hard for me to imagine what that means. Except for the fact that Blue Dove and her future husband are destined to rule after Leather Hand the Cannibal is gone.
The Blessed Sun extends both hands and wiggles knobby fingers toward Maicoh. “Put it in my hands.”
While my brother unties and draws open the laces of the Wolf Bundle, I stare at the veins that crawl across the king’s hands like distended blue worms.
Gently, reverently, Maicoh removes the black pot from the bag. He whispers to it before he gives it to the king, and it occurs to me that the most evil witch on earth now possesses the most Powerful Spirit object on earth.
As Leather Hand brings it back to his lap, his faded old eyes widen. “Blessed gods, this is it. I saw this pot in the old woman’s hands many times. It was filled with gray datura paste.”
Blessed Sun rotates the pot in his lap.
Crane finally takes the lull as an opportunity to lean forward. “Blessed Sun, may we speak of the reward? I led Blue Dove to Tocho who had the pot. So, you see, I deserve—”
People of the Canyons Page 27