Is he ready for this? Pitch wondered as he studied the blind boy. Pitch wasn’t sure but that he’d rather go through the ordeal of having his wound drained again rather than face the Ladder to the Sky.
Rides-the-Wind said, “Remembering is like shooting the bolts back at the Thunderbirds, Tsauz. If you’re fortunate, you’ll hit one and knock him out of the sky.”
Tsauz’s blind eyes searched for Rides-the-Wind’s face. “But … won’t that make him mad?”
“Certainly. It will make him angry enough to blast you into small pieces, and that’s exactly what we want.”
“I want my soul to be blasted by a lightning bolt?”
“Absolutely.”
Tsauz cast a blind glance over his shoulder to where Pitch walked. The boy’s expression was anything but sure.
They took the western trail that climbed steadily toward a series of low foothills. At this time of the morning, the firs whiskering the hills cast oddly shaped shadows.
Rides-the-Wind kept his pace slow and guided Tsauz around the rocks that littered the trail. The scent of damp firs was strong. They passed through a grove of white-barked alders and emerged into a grassy meadow.
Pitch took a moment to appreciate the beauty. The trail wound across the meadow and up over the top of a gray cliff that stood perhaps ten tens of hands in height. Low clouds hovered around the rim rock. In the distance, Mother Ocean’s waves rose and fell.
“We’ll climb to the top of the cliff and stop,” Rides-the-Wind said.
As Old Woman Above carried the sun higher into the morning sky, bright yellow light flooded the cliff, and the clouds shredded into tufts of mist.
“This is high enough?” Pitch wondered as they topped the cliff and the land opened on a small meadow. His eyes fixed on the patches of cloud that blew through the jagged firs across the meadow from them.
Rides-the-Wind lowered himself to a square chunk of stone, breathing hard. The guards shuffled through the forest around them, watching with curious eyes but keeping their distance.
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.