People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) (37 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear,Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past)
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Pitch examined their backtrail. Several of the refugees had followed along behind. They stood with their hands propped on their hips, waiting to see what would happen next. Pitch shook his head. But then, nothing about this situation was normal. If Tsauz succeeded in his hunt—if he managed to climb the Ladder to the Sky, receive his vision, and live through it—it would be the talk of the land. People still whispered about the Blessing he had received during the Moon Ceremonial, and that Rides-the-Wind himself had come for the boy. Mystery and legend were already swirling.
“I’m going to sit here for a while. Pitch, I wish you to help Tsauz with the hunt.” Rides-the-Wind waved a skeletal hand.
“Of course, Elder. Has Tsauz been presented with his weapon?”
Rides-the-Wind untied his pack from his belt and pulled out a
beautifully polished chert stone. It looked like it had been rolling around in the bottom of a river for tens of cycles.
“This is the most sacred of weapons. It has slain a great many Cloud People. Open your hand, Tsauz.” Rides-the-Wind dropped the stone into the boy’s palm.
Pitch could see a white zigzag that ran through the center of the red chert.
“Do you see the lightning bolt, Singer?” Rides-the-Wind asked.
“I do,” Pitch replied. “The lightning bolt is in the shape of a zigzag, Tsauz, while the stone is the color of blood.”
“A lightning bolt?” Tsauz smoothed his fingers over it. “But … how did it get in the stone, Elder?”
Rides-the-Wind rested his hands on his knees. “I found that stone in the belly of an ancient monster.”
“A monster?” Tsauz whispered in awe.
“Yes, a monster from the Beginning Time who’d been turned to stone.”
Roe had been telling little Stonecrop the Beginning Time stories. According to legend, when the North Wind People emerged into this world of light, they found it filled with huge lumbering monsters that wanted to eat them. The twin war gods were given the task of killing the monsters before the North Wind People were all hunted down and devoured. But how did one kill a monster? They had no idea. The stories of their various attempts were numerous and frightening. Time after time they barely escaped with their lives. Finally, fleeing in desperation from a pursuing monster, they climbed a rainbow to escape. Old Woman Above saw them clinging desperately to the rainbow and asked them what they were doing in such a tenuous place, since everyone knows that rainbows eventually fade. They told her of the monsters eating the North Wind People, and touched by their courage, she gave them lightning bolts to cast. Thus the twins climbed down. This time when the monsters attacked they cast the lightning bolts and turned them into stone.
Tsauz tucked the stone to his breast. “Was the lightning bolt frozen in the monster’s blood when he was turned to stone?”
“Very good,” Rides-the-Wind said in a perfectly normal voice. “That stone is a drop of monster blood with a fragment of lightning bolt inside.”
Tsauz’s blind eyes riveted on the rock. “Why did you give it to me?” he asked.
Rides-the-Wind pointed a crooked finger at Tsauz’s hand.
“It’s
very Powerful.
Remember that. Pitch, I want you to take Tsauz out into the forest and have him kill one of those Cloud People floating in the trees.”
“Kill one of the Cloud People?” Tsauz asked incredulously. “How do I do that?”
“Tsauz, you must throw that stone as hard as you can, or the Cloud Person will live and turn on you.” He waggled a crooked finger. “You don’t want that to happen. He might kill you … and Pitch, too.”
Tsauz swallowed hard. “But, Holy Hermit, I don’t want to kill one of the Cloud People.”
“Do you wish to talk with Thunderbird?”
“Well … yes.”
“It’s the only way you can prove to Thunderbird that you are worthy of speaking with him. After all, Thunderbirds kill Cloud People for breakfast every morning. They think it’s easy. You must earn their respect.”
The look of terror on Tsauz’s face sent a shiver through Pitch. What if the boy failed? If he didn’t pass this test, he surely wouldn’t survive climbing the Ladder to the Sky.
Rides-the-Wind flicked a hand.
“Now, go on, you two. Go into the forest and start hunting. You must return with a cup of Cloud People blood.”
“Blood?” Tsauz wondered. “Cloud People have blood?”
Pitch took Tsauz’s hand. “Are you ready to go hunting?”
The boy looked like he longed to run back to the village, but he glumly answered, “I guess I have to.”
The guards moved through the trees around them as Pitch led the way forward along the path.
When they’d walked five tens of paces, Tsauz tugged on his hand and hissed, “Wait!”
Pitch stopped. “You don’t want to disappoint the North Wind People’s most Powerful Soul Keeper, do you?”
Tsauz wet his lips. “No, but … I’m scared.”
“Well, so am I. If you miss and the Cloud Person turns on us, he’ll probably eat me first. I’m bigger.”
“Yes, but you can see to run. I can’t!”
The boy needed reassurance more than anything. “I’ll warn you. I promise.”
Clouds twined among the branches like gauzy dreams. “There are a lot of Cloud People hovering around us. I don’t think this is going to be too hard. Is the rock ready?”
Grudgingly, Tsauz lifted it.
“Good. Let’s sneak into the trees and find a Cloud Person who’s looking the other way.”
Tsauz whispered, “How will we know he’s looking the other way? Have you ever seen a Cloud Person’s face?”
“Yes, I have.” Pitch smiled. “I’ve killed one myself.”
“You did? Was it hard?”
“It’s always hard to kill.” Pitch considered the filaments of mist hanging in the air. “One of the great truths is that life and death live within each other. They are like male and female: different, but necessary to each other. They lay intertwined like lovers, forever together, but separate.”
Tsauz considered that. “When you killed the Cloud Person, were you afraid?”
“Oh, yes.” He knelt before the boy. “Tsauz, listen to me. If you do this thing today, you are going to face the most difficult trial of your life, but I want to ask you a question, something that I think might help.”
“All right.”
“When you were hiding during the attack on War Gods Village, were you afraid?”
Tsauz swallowed hard, clutching the stone as if it were the most precious possession on earth. He jerked a short nod, his expression betraying shame and reluctance. “I didn’t like it,” he whispered.
“I’m sure you didn’t.” Pitch patted his shoulder. “But you know what fear is in a way that few other boys of your age do. As unpleasant as it was, you lived through it, didn’t you?”
Tsauz nodded.
“I want you to remember that in the coming days. You will be judged by your courage, and by the way you face your fear. If you can overcome it, you can speak with the Thunderbirds.” He patted the boy again. “So, come on. Let’s go hunting.”
Pitch led Tsauz to a thick copse of leafless alders where tens of sleeping Cloud People clung to the trees like bats. “Cloud People,” Pitch whispered. “They’re thick in the trees ahead of us. We’ll have to approach carefully. Sneak up on them.”
Tsauz gripped the rock tightly as he whispered back, “All right. Show me where they are.”
Pitch aimed the boy’s forefinger at each Cloud Person in the trees. “See, they’re everywhere.”
Tsauz’s eyes flitted over the branches for a long time before he suddenly stiffened and said, “I
do
see something.”
“You do?”
“Yes, they look like glittering yellow serpents crawling around behind my eyes. Is that them?”
“Probably. Can you hit one?”
Tsauz lifted the stone, but he didn’t cast. He started walking in a small circle, stopping, looking, then walking again.
“What are you doing?” Pitch asked in a hushed voice.
“Trying to decide which one to kill.”
The dark clouds that had been hovering out over the ocean had drifted closer. A bruised thunderhead billowed over the top of the trees to his right.
Pitch told him, “More Cloud People are coming.”
“Where?”
“Behind you. There’s one peeking over the fir trees we just came through.”
Tsauz spun on his heel and looked straight at the thunderhead, as though he could see it. With the quickness of a weasel, he flung the stone.
Pitch watched it fly higher and higher; then it started down. It fell through a small tuft of mist and into a leafless alder, making several thunks as it clattered through the branches to the ground.
“I think you missed. But don’t worry, we can …”
Thunderbird roared so loudly it knocked Tsauz off his feet. As lightning danced over their heads, the entire cliff shuddered. Pitch was just standing there, his mouth gaping, when a massive white bolt crackled from the sky and exploded in a fir to their right. Chunks of wood whipped through the air.
“Look out!”
Pitch crouched over the boy, trying to shield his hurt arm.
“Stay down, Tsauz!”
Then a strange thing happened. The tufts of mist started to rise through the rain, floating into the sky to join the other Cloud People.
All except one.
The smallest tuft of mist—the one that Tsauz’s stone had fallen through—melted before his eyes. It spread out, thinned, and settled to the ground.
Pitch whispered, “Tsauz, you got one!”
Tsauz looked up in surprise. “I did?”
“Yes! Come on.” He rose and grabbed the boy’s hand. “Let’s go see what’s left.”
Pitch led him through the splinters, mangled branches, and bracken to the place where the Cloud Person had fallen.
“Do you see it?” Tsauz asked breathlessly. “What does it look like?”
Pitch cocked his head. A tiny puddle of water lay cupped in a rocky hollow atop a protruding basalt boulder. “Well … like a water puddle.”
“A water puddle?” Tsauz sounded disappointed.
“Yes, a water puddle, but”—he squinted at it—“it doesn’t look ordinary. It has lots of colors flashing through it.”
Excited, Tsauz said, “Scoop it up. We’ll take it back to Rides-the-Wind. He’ll know if it’s a Cloud Person’s blood!”
Pitch awkwardly untied the cup from his belt and dipped it into the puddle.
Tsauz looked anxiously around the forest.
“What’s the matter, Tsauz? Do you see more yellow serpents behind your eyes?”
“No,” Tsauz quietly answered. Deep reverence filled his young voice. “They slithered into the sky right after Thunderbird cast his lightning bolt. But … I hear something.”
“What?”
“It’s a—a rhythm. There’s a rhythm to the shishing the drops make in the trees. Don’t you hear it? It sounds like words.”
“Words?”
“Yes.” Tsauz nodded. “Words spoken almost too softly to be heard. But I think if I just had the time to listen, I might be able to figure out …”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know. They’re so faint.”
“As a Singer, I can tell you that when you’re ready to hear, the words will come to you. Meanwhile, we need to get this cup of Cloud People blood back to the Soul Keeper.”
R
ain pattered in the trees as it fell from the brooding clouds. Pitch tucked the cup of Cloud People blood into the boy’s hand when they stopped before Rides-the-Wind.
“Elder, Tsauz killed a Cloud Person.” He was still trying to come to grips with what he’d seen. When he’d gone through the ritual, he’d thrown a stone through a streamer of mist, too, but it had been nothing like this. No bolt of lightning had blasted a tree. Pitch’s little tuft of cloud had drifted away, unlike Tsauz’s. No puddle of water had lain below the wounded mist.
Tsauz clutched the cup in both hands as he carefully felt his way forward.
“Rides-the-Wind, look!”
“Well,” the old man said. “I’m surprised to see the two of you alive.”
Tsauz halted in front of Rides-the-Wind, breathing hard. “Why?”
“Because I heard Thunderbird. Didn’t you realize he was hunting that same cloud? You must have killed it right under his nose to make him that angry.”
Huge raindrops splatted on the elder’s gray hair and beaded on his hawklike nose as a sense of wonder filled Pitch. He studied the whip-thin boy again. Power was threading around them, light and pulsing, echoing from the falling rain, the winter grass, and the slumbering firs.
Gods! Just who was Tsauz, anyway? What kind of Power lay at his beck and call? Pitch was aware of Rides-the-Wind’s knowing gaze.
Tsauz chirped, “But we lived! And we got it!” He held out the cup. “Look!”
The Soul Keeper took the cup and peered into it. Rain stippled the surface. “Yes, you did get him, didn’t you? Did you see the thousands of tiny rainbows in the water?”
“Yes! … Well, no, but Pitch told me about the colors.”
“These aren’t just colors. Come here, look.”
Tsauz felt his way forward with his moccasins, and Rides-the-Wind put the cup in his hands again.
“Do you see them?”
Tsauz blinked. After a few moments, he said, “I see … waves. Black waves. Like looking at a lake at night.”
Rides-the-Wind stared curiously at Tsauz. “Are the waves shiny, or murky?”
“Shiny.”
“Do they have a voice?”
Pitch flipped up his hood and shifted uneasily.
A voice?
Tsauz listened to the cup. “I don’t hear anything, Elder.”
Pitch added softly, “Elder, you should know that Tsauz heard Thunderbird’s voice. Right after Thunderbird blasted the tree, he said the raindrops in the forest had a rhythm to them, like words.”
Tsauz nodded. “Yes, I thought they were words, but I couldn’t make them out. I guess it could have just been the rain.”
“It wasn’t the rain,” Pitch reminded. “You
almost
heard words.”
Rides-the-Wind shoved to his feet with a soft, pained grunt. “Well, let’s see what Tsauz hears after he’s had a sip of Cloud People blood.”
Tsauz’s head jerked up. “I have to drink Cloud People blood?”
“That’s why we went to the trouble to kill a Cloud Person. Tonight, if you succeed in climbing the Ladder to the Sky, you will fly to the Above Worlds. Dead people do it all the time, of course, but to do it while alive, a human needs to have the blood of the Cloud People inside him.” He put a hand on Tsauz’s shoulder. “First, you must be properly prepared.”
Tsauz stood rigid, his eyes wide.
Rides-the-Wind took Tsauz’s hand, guiding him down the trail. Over his shoulder, he called, “Pitch? Would you be so kind as to see if you could find my rock?”
“I’d be honored, Elder.”
 
 
E
vening Star listened to the patter of rain on her roof. She had retired to her lodge after sharing Rain Bear’s breakfast. He had gone off to another of his endless council sessions as he tried to hammer out an alliance with the other villages and clans.
Now she lay in the darkness, reviewing the words he had spoken. In truth, it wasn’t her fault that her village had been taken and her family killed.
It’s not your fault.
And yes, Rain Bear was correct: Both her husband and mother would have been saddened by her behavior.
“So what are you going to do about it?” she asked herself softly. Her fire had burned down to a bed of red glowing coals; in the gloom she was left alone with herself. She heard the wood and bark of her lodge creak, as if a weight had been placed upon it. Her gaze silently lifted to her sagging roof. The storm had soaked the wood. It might be rain dripping from the trees onto the lodge, or onto the ground.
She sighed, tossing onto her back to stare up at the darkness. Placing a hand to her pelvis, she realized she was cycling. With the death of her daughter and with her captivity, her milk had dried up. It was known that women missed when they were under stress of starvation, hard work, or abuse.
Having passed her moon her loins were coming alive again, and her thoughts took her straight to Rain Bear. She smiled wryly into the darkness. Life had a way of making up for death, didn’t it? Here she was, safe, fed, protected, and in the presence of a man who filled her idle moments with fantasy. She watched him, and kept those moments for later so she could recall the way he moved, how he smiled. She liked little things about him: the way he held his shoulders, the lines at the corners of his eyes. That longing in his eyes touched her in particular.
Love or duty?
That had been the choice Tlikit had faced, and in the end, she had chosen this man over the needs and demands of her people.
“I have never truly been in love with a man.” The simple statement shocked her. She remembered the boys she had liked and teased as a maturing girl. Then, before she could catch her breath, she had suffered through her first cramps, passed her period in the menstrual hut, and been married.
Within the year she was pregnant and slowly accepting more and more of her aging mother’s responsibilities. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that she might be something else besides the matron of her village.
And now? She reached down to press on the tender spot just inside the swell of her pelvic bone. Just what
did
she want for her future? The wood creaked again, as if the weight were being released. She looked up, puzzled. Then heard the soft rasping of something heavy being dragged away.
Were her guards up to something? She cocked her head, hearing stealthy steps as wet moccasins scuffed the muddy ground outside her lodge.
She crawled across the floor and picked up a piece of firewood to use as a club.
Wind Woman breathed through the lodge flap, and the coals in the firepit flared, casting a fluttering halo of red light over the walls.
A voice hissed, “I know you’re alone. I just want to speak with you. Don’t be afraid.”
Her first impulse was to try to run, but he’d just club her as she ducked out the door, if that’s what he’d come for.
Where are my guards?
An obsidian knife blade eased the flap aside, and she glimpsed a face. Then he ducked inside.
He was a thick, rough-looking man. Greasy graying black hair straggled over the front of his brown cape.
A slave’s garment
. Despite his dress he acted like anything but a slave. She thought he might even have been of the North Wind People.
He glanced down at the firewood in her hands. “You won’t need that.”
“Who are you?”
“A messenger.”
He squinted in the dim gleam, calmly surveying the lodge. “Did you get the message? The one Red Dog was carrying?”
She swallowed hard, and jerked a quick nod, her fingers tightening on the length of firewood.
“You could be the next matron, you know. People are already starting to talk about it.”
“What do you want?”
He squatted on her bedding hides. “I’m not here for your pretty head, if that’s what you think. I’ve been sent for the boy. If you have accepted the high matron’s offer, help me smuggle the boy out of
here. After that, we’ll meet up with a party of warriors, and I’ll take the two of you back to Fire Village.”
Evening Star glared at him. “Then you must be one of Cimmis’s assassins.”
A half-contemptuous chuckle came from his lips. “Maybe his best. Where’s the boy?”
She lifted an eyebrow, thinking. “Rides-the-Wind took him. He’s preparing the boy for some sort of ceremonial.”
That caught the grizzled man by surprise. “The Soul Keeper has him?”
“He’s training him,” she said firmly.
She saw the sudden hesitation, the faint worry his eyes couldn’t quite hide.
Why does that news upset him so?
“Matron, I
need
that boy!”
Evening Star used her chin to indicate her dress—the fine one with the dentalium. It was worth a small fortune. “If you’ll forget the boy and leave here, I’ll give you that.”
He glanced at it, eyes barely flickering as they passed over the garment. “Will you help me, or not?”
Her fingers tightened around the piece of firewood. For a timeless instant, every sound and scent seemed exaggerated; the pattering of the rain on her roof, her shallow breathing, the pungent scent of the fir smoke that drifted through camp like a blue-gray snake. How had he made it this far? Rain Bear had guards everywhere.
“Tsauz is gone.”
“Where to?”
“Does it matter? He’s not here. Rides-the-Wind took him. You’ve failed. If you value your life, you’ll make a run for it immediately—though I doubt you’ll make it out of camp alive.”
He smiled and leaned forward. She could see that a large stone gorget, or pendant, hung behind his shirt. “There are so many new arrivals here every day, all I have to do is kill you, and walk out into the crowd.”
“And all I have to do is shout an alarm. Besides, I’m getting irritated by your muddy moccasins on my bedding.”
He glanced down at his moccasins and smiled. “Truthfully, Matron, I don’t have orders yet to kill you, only to learn your answer. If it’s yes, I am to get you and the boy out of here. If it’s no … well, I’ll come in the middle of the night next time. When you’re fast asleep and lost in your final Dreams.” He propped his obsidian knife on his knee with the point aimed at her chest. “Are you going to accept Matron Astcat’s offer?”
“I sent my answer with Red Dog. It was for Astcat alone. But you’ll know it soon enough. I’m sure the news will run through Fire Village like a molten wave.”
His face screwed up, but his eyes resembled little knives, cutting away at her, seeking to slice down to her heart. Somehow, he read the tracks of her soul. “So that’s the way of it?” He chuckled softly. “I don’t need to kill you, Evening Star. You’ll be dead before Sister Moon rises.”
He ducked out, and the hanging waffled, letting a cold gust of wind in. Evening Star sat frozen in fear, the length of wood tight in her aching hands. Not until she heard him walk away did she dare breathe.
Her heart jumped again when she heard him speak softly with another man.
Who?
Their voices dwindled as they walked away.
Evening Star got her shaking legs under her and prepared to burst from her lodge to run like a scared rabbit.
A shout split the silence; then feet pounded past her lodge, and enraged screams broke out.
Rain Bear shouted,
“No! Don’t kill them! We need them alive!”
At the sound of his voice, such relief rushed through her that her knees buckled. She sat down hard. The entire camp must have roused. Tens of voices lifted and blended into an indecipherable din. People raced up the trail, shouting, screaming questions.
Rain Bear threw the lodge flap back, his war club in his hand. His dark eyes blazed. “Are you all right?”
“How did he get so close?”
“Evidently by working with Wolf Spider. They killed Hornet. His body is out in the trees at the end of a blood trail. Who was he? What did he want?”

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