The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing (17 page)

“I think it’s a mistake to go,” Zumo said. “Not that
you care that he will be as like to eat as feed me.”

“He may kill you,” Nangi agreed. “There’s no
knowing. If he does, you have no one but yourself to blame. I told
you that your sister would take care of the White Lady, in a way
that could not be blamed on us, but you insisted on locking her up
under Vio’s nose. Did you think he would allow such a provocation?
What have I done to deserve such a goat-headed fool for a son?”

Zumo scowled. He hated it when his mother was right.
“So I shouldn’t go.”

“He can find you here as well as there.”

Zumo had already reached the same conclusion, even
though his stomach roiled at the thought of facing his uncle. For
mercy’s sake, Uncle Vio was the man who had once had prisoners lie
down before him, still alive, so he could stomp on their skulls for
fun. Rumor had it that his warriors took bets on how many stomps it
would take him to crack the bone and spill out the brains like
seeds from a broken pumpkin. Usually, it only took him one.

Vio hadn’t stomped on skulls for a while, and
wouldn’t let anyone call him by his old Shining Name. Now you
called him the Maze Zavaedi to his face, if you knew what was good
for you. But who knew when he might start feeling nostalgic?

Zumo shuddered.

The walk from his house to Vio’s house was short.
Next door, in fact. He did not need to enter the street at all, he
could have jumped from one balcony to the other, as he and Kavio
had as boys.

The distance had grown in other ways since then,
however. So Zumo took no liberties. He climbed down the ladder from
the balcony of his own house, walked the paces in the dusty street,
and stood at the base of Uncle Vio’s house. Only two years ago, a
mob would have beaten his cousin Kavio in this spot, had Zumo not
intervened; though, to be honest, Zumo had probably saved lives in
the mob more than the other way around.

“A guest is here, asking entry to your feast!” Zumo
called up. Two warriors, supporters of the Maze Zavaedi, stood
there, but ignored him. Then Uncle Vio himself peered over the edge
of the balcony. He nodded, and the two warriors lowered the
ladder.

No one offered Zumo a hand up on the last rung.

“Well met, Uncle Vio,” Zumo said, with some attempt
at cheer.

Uncle Vio did not return his smile. His stony
expression made Zumo’s heart sink. Uncle Vio climbed to the next
level and Zumo followed.

The mats for the potlatch feast filled the whole
second story balcony, which was a large one. The space seated sixty
and more men and women. Larger potlatches would be held in the
central square, for hundreds, even thousands, of guests, but for a
gathering of this size, the amount of food was impressive. There
was a whole roast pig, piles of sausages, bowls of leeks and
onions, baked squashes, mashed beans, a pile of oven-blackened
pigeons, plucked but with heads and wings still attached, a tower
of flat round bread and bowls and bowls of cheese and diced meats
for
pishas
. There were jugs of beer and milk and clarified
butter.

One of Kavio’s friends, Nilo, held out a bowl to
Zumo.

“Honeyed nuts, Zumo?” Nilo grinned. Zumo’s loathing
of the sweet was well known.

Zumo just walked past him contemptuously. Nilo
didn’t matter by himself. What mattered was that every other guest
here but Zumo himself was probably one of his uncle’s
supporters.

Or not.

To his surprise, as Zumo walked to his seat next to
his uncle at the head of the mat—technically the place of honor,
but often offered to an enemy at affairs such as this—he saw many
Morvae. There were friends of his mother and father, and also quite
a few from his own age cohort. In fact, it appeared that Uncle Vio
had gone out of his way to invite all of Zumo’s closest friends and
allies in the Labyrinth to this little soirée. They outnumbered the
Maze Zavaedi’s own supporters. There was Gideo’s son—Rablo. Rablo
was head of the Whistlers. Surely Uncle Vio knew that? Rablo wasn’t
the only Whistler there. Zumo counted half a dozen.

By the time Zumo sat down and filled his plate, he
felt lighter. He had many allies. No matter how angry Uncle Vio
was, he would not dare retaliate against Zumo for locking up Aunt
Vessia. No wonder Uncle Vio was such a grouch. The old man sat in
his place and opened the feast with the usual speeches, but ate
very little. He glowered at his plate. He did not look at Zumo.

Zumo enjoyed himself more and more as the meal
progressed. He had friends, he had beer, he was alive. Life was
good.

He’d just polished off a good bit of pork and was
contemplating another rib when Vio stood up.

All conversations stopped.

Oh, muck
, thought Zumo.

“Thank you all for sharing my food,” Uncle Vio said.
“I wish I could have broken bread with you under a happier sky. As
you know, my son, though exonerated of the charges laid against him
two years ago, never returned from exile. It is my belief that he
is dead.”

Zumo dropped the pork rib. The clatter sounded loud
in the silence.

“It is my belief,” said Vio, “that Kavio was
murdered.”

Zumo shook his head. His lips moved but no words
came out.

Uncle Vio pointed right at him. “Zumo the Cloud
Dancer, I accuse you of the murder of my son. Until you confess or
stand trial, you will be confined to a cell in the maze beneath the
tribehold.”

Nilo and the two warriors who had lowered the ladder
appeared at Zumo’s back. Nilo had a bow cocked at him. The guards
had spears.

“Oh, please,
please
put up a fight,” Nilo
begged.

Zumo considered it. He darted inquiring glances at
Rablo and his other friends. They sat frozen like stones. None
would meet his eyes.

Uncle Vio leaned forward. In a low, pitiless voice,
he asked, “Did you think you were dealing with a sheep instead of a
wolf?”

Then Zumo understood what this had been all about.
Uncle Vio wanted to show him that he could have Zumo arrested in
front of all his closest allies and
still
get away with it.
No one would dare challenge the Maze Zavaedi, War Chief of the
Rainbow Labyrinth. Friends were useless.

Zumo was on his own.

He did not resist when the guards bound his hands
behind his back.

“Confine him to the same cell where he imprisoned my
wife,” the Maze Zavaedi commanded.

Dindi ate her fish alone. Umbral avoided her the
rest of the evening, and she was just as glad for his silence. The
idea that some memory of Kavio’s might be the spoils of his
gloating murderer was hard for her to bear.

The next morning, Umbral roused her before sunrise.
They broke camp with nothing to eat except some dried roots because
he had decided, apparently, they were to cross the Boglands, and he
wanted to hurry. He kept muttering about the lead that Amdra would
have since she had wings.

Nonetheless, as before, Umbral walked and let Dindi
ride Shadow. She wondered if it were her imagination or if Shadow
seemed a little smaller. More like a shaggy Northern pony than a
horse.

The Boglands hooked a cruel name on a pretty land.
Rolling hills, softened by snow, led them ever down, down, down
into warmer country than the mountains they left behind. After
several days, they descended past the snow line. The hills here
were not the bright green they would be in summer, but shades of
stained and faded browns mingled with dark spruce and grassy
peat.

After several days, they passed a lake edged by
marshlands. Many trees were submerged in the water. Probably the
recent rains had raised the lake level, though the prevalence of
sunken trunks in various stages of rot indicated it was not an
infrequent occurrence. While collecting duck eggs, Dindi came
across an upturned tree with an oval nest, made of moss, bark,
twigs and rootlets, lined with feathers and hair. More than thirty
winter wrens shared this little commune. They fluttered out of the
hole in the nest and serenaded her with energetic song. Pixies rode
on their backs, but the wrens had such fat, round brown
bodies—almost as spherical as a child’s ball—that the pixies kept
sliding off and plopping in the water. Dindi laughed out loud.

Suddenly, both pixies and wrens scattered. She
glanced behind her and saw Umbral, watching her with a strange
expression.

Dindi stopped laughing.

He looked away.

As if to punish her, he said roughly, “What you
should do now is dance for another Vision.”

Here? Now? But she did not dare defy him twice in a
row. She picked through the mud, trying to find a patch of ground
that didn’t squelch under her toes, and began to dance.

On the day to choose the War Chief, Vio broke with
only one tradition; he retired to his own house during the Casting
of Stones.

“I will not see who casts which stone,” he told the
Society of Societies, who assembled in the great, three-tiered
kiva, with a smooth river stone in hand. “Do not fear my wrath if
you wish to cast your stone in another’s jar. If you want me as War
Chief, my spear will be strong for you. If you choose another, my
spear will be strong for him.”

Vumo and Nangi arrived at their house to report the
results. Vessia lowered the ladder to them from the balcony, as
houses in the tribehold had neither doors nor windows on the first
floor. Vessia did not need to eat thoughts to surmise from Nangi’s
disgruntlement which way the casting had gone.

“His little charade fooled no one,” Nangi grumbled.
“The jars would have been full for Vumo, but Vio never would have
bent his knee to his baby brother.”

Vumo looked uncertain. Listening to Nangi’s poison
day and night had made him suspicious of his brother.

“If you don’t take Vio at his word, then test him,”
Vessia said. “Tell him Vumo was selected, see what he does.”

“That’s not a good idea,” said Vumo. “He’ll kill
me.”

“You owe him the chance to prove he is true.”

They climbed up one more ladder, to the third story
rooftop, where Vio gazed out over the whole tribehold, to other
rooftops where families lounged, also waiting for the news of whom
the elders had chosen, and past that, to the hills where his
enemies camped. He leaned on his spear like a walking stick, and
his expression was impassive, but Vessia had learned to read the
small ticks in his forehead and cheek that showed his extreme
tension. He would not let himself ask how the casting went, but
waited for his younger brother to speak.

“The elders acclaimed Vumo the One-Horned Aurochs as
War Chief,” Nangi announced.

“Nangi!” complained Vumo.

All the blood drained from Vio’s face. He lifted his
spear, and Vumo took a step back.

“Now, Vio, wait…” Vumo began.

Vio went down on one knee and placed his spear
before Vumo. “You have my spear, my arm, my light. You are my
Chief, and I, your warrior pledged. If I fail you by word or deed,
let my spear be broken under your foot, let my life be spit in your
mouth.”

Nangi plucked something from the air and tasted it.
She heaved a sigh. “There is no deceit in him.”

On the other rooftops, men and women pointed at
them. Their exclamations of surprise and outrage carried on the
wind.

Vumo’s face flamed. “Vio, stand up!”

“As you command, my Chief.” He stood.

“No! I am not your Chief. You should not kneel to
me!” Vumo prostrated himself and laid his spear in front of Vio.
“Forgive my doubt. I only wanted to know if you would honor me. Of
course they chose you, Vio. Of course they did.

“You have my spear, my arm, my light. You are my
Chief, older brother, as you have been all my life, and I am your
warrior pledged. If I fail you by word or deed, let my spear be
broken under your foot and let my worthless life be spit in your
mouth!”

Now cheers and yells carried from the onlookers on
other roofs. Within a few days, the tale had spread, that Nangi and
Vumo had tested Vio’s honor and he had proven true, and the esteem
in which he was held rose. Yet there were those who had first
rejoiced at the thought that a Morvae, not an Imorvae, would be War
Chief, whose disappointment was all the more bitter for their hopes
being raised then dashed. These malcontents made Vumo more nervous
than Vio, and Vumo kept asking him, “You’re not still sore about
that trick we played are you? It was Nangi’s idea.”

“No,” said Vessia. “It was mine.”

Vio measured her a long look, but to his brother
said mildly, “I’m not sore.”

In earlier generations, only Tavaedies and warriors
would have been expected to bend knee and pledge life to the War
Chief, but the Bone Whistler had demanded the personal pledge of
every tribesman and tribeswoman, all eight thousand of them, who
lived inside the walls of the pueblo. The people were eager to
purge themselves of the stain of the fallen tyrant, and the elders
felt only a new pledge would break any lingering thrall of the Bone
Flute. Vio stood in the central plaza and received a long line of
men and women who knelt to him by turn. The process took days.

Nangi offered to eat the thoughts of those who gave
their pledges, as she had for her father. In her father’s day,
those whose thoughts belied their words would have been dragged to
one side and killed on the spot. Vio declined her services.

“Is it because you trust them so much, or because
you trust me so little?” demanded Nangi.

“Let each man and woman garden what thoughts they
please,” said Vio, “I will harvest only their deeds when I judge
their loyalty. The same is true for you, Nangi.”

She snorted.

With his position as War Chief at last secure, Vio
assembled seven septs of warriors on horse to sortie into the hills
against the Morvae. He mounted a speckled gelding whose haunches
had been dyed violet. Purple and black ribbons were braided into
his mane. Vio had an unpainted white mare brought for Vessia.