Robin continued to chuckle, but uncertainty nibbled at his soul. “No man, sorcerer or not, allows himself to be captured when he knows his intestines will be boiled.”
“Oh, yes he does.” Pale Snake thumped his breast. “Were I possessed by a black evil that was inside me, killing me, eating my soul, I’d walk right into your hands.”
“I see … in fact, it appears that you have.”
Pale Snake threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, anything but! I don’t need to have an evil driven out of me. Driven, I say. Do you understand, Robin? By boiling the Magician’s guts, you drove the evil from within him. Of all the curious ironies, you helped him!” Pale Snake continued to laugh.
“Which of your warriors do you suppose the evil entered when it fled Tall Man’s body? Eh? You, Robin? Is that why you are so obsessed with the Mask?”
His warriors gasped.
“Move up!” Robin ordered. “Take him.”
“Wait!” Pale Snake held up his hands. “Hear me. I am but the messenger of Many Colored Crow. If you pass, you shall die and your souls will be tortured in blackness! Turn back!”
“I think I’m going to cook your guts.” Robin lifted his paddle and edged the craft forward.
“Not mine,” the sorcerer replied with a wry grin. “Before you’re even close, I’ll dive into the water, rum myself into a fish and be gone. Oh, by the way, those wishing to die will need to go that way!” He pointed toward the western channel. “It’s the shortest route to death. Star Shell took it.”
Robin drove the canoe forward. Even as he did so, the sorcerer dashed into the water, diving cleanly. He barely created a splash as he cleaved the surface and disappeared.
“Spread out!” Robin ordered. “The water is clear here.
You’ll see him.”
His canoes drifted, the men looking over the sides into the pale green depths.
Robin glanced around. “Don’t just look down, you idiots!
He’s got to come up for air sometime!” They continued to drift ever closer to the shore. The warriors looked about warily, exchanging a few anxious words.
“There!” two warriors cried simultaneously. And others in their boat scrambled to look to where the two pointed. Then they glanced back at Robin.
“Do you see him?”
“We see a big fish, War Leader.” Woodpecker looked at him with tormented eyes. “If that is the sorcerer, his words were true. And … and you saw the swelling in the Magician’s liver!
It was pustulous and bleeding. How could this sorcerer know about that evil?”
Mutters broke out among the warriors. Robin heard two men heatedly discussing his drive to find the Mask, speculating that Tall Man’s evil had indeed entered him and taken over his soul.
Others were muttering that they’d been foolish to kill a dwarf.
Everyone knew that dwarfs were good luck.
Robin cursed, driving his canoe toward the eastern fork of the river.
“That way was shorter.” One of the warriors—his eyes half panicked—pointed to the west.
“He wanted us to go that way.”
Woodpecker’s voice carried across the water. “War Leader, let us return to our homes. We should not pass this point! I am willing to hunt for Star Shell but not to cross Many Colored Crow.”
Robin turned. The three other canoes were still backing water.
“You are ordered to come!”
Woodpecker stood up and dared to smile as he cupped a hand to his mouth. “I refuse, cousin! This is no longer a thing for our clan. The Mask is gone from our territory. Our holdings, our clan, are safe. For me, that is enough. A death has repaid a death.”
Robin reached down, untying his atlatl from his belt. He picked up a war dart and nocked it to the shaft. “You will follow me!”
“I will not! Nor will my warriors!” Woodpecker crossed his arms over his chest.
Robin fought the sudden trembling as he straightened his arm, ready to cast. Only the sudden rocking of the canoe stayed him, and he turned just as a warrior slipped over the side. Another of his warriors half-rose and dove cleanly into the water. One by one they went, each stroking for the other canoes, heedless of his deadly dart, until he alone remained in the stolen Ilini craft.
“Will you kill us all?” Woodpecker shouted, gesturing to the warriors swimming away from Robin’s canoe. “We are your relatives!”
Anger drove heat into Robin’s heart. “I will find the Mask, cousin! And when I have it, I shall seek out each of you and make you stare into it! You will see your cowardice—and your souls will flee your bodies!”
With that, he dropped his weapons, grabbed his paddle and drove his canoe eastward, seeking the fastest portion of the channel.