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.”
Thirty-nine
Rain 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.