Gods, why hadn’t Rain Bear taken them with him? Pitch looked at the bag, and he swore he could feel the obsidian creatures moving beneath the leather, as though waking from a long sleep.
“It’s as if someone breathed his soul into one of those fetishes, Roe.”
She watched him carefully. “Witches steal souls and breathe them into objects. Is that what you think happened? This man was captured by a witch?”
“I don’t … I need to speak with Dzoo about it. She has more experience with these things. She is closer to Power.”
“Dzoo will be occupied for a few days at the Moon Ceremonial.”
Stonecrop let out a small cry, and Roe tucked the hides around him where he nestled in his bed. The infant made an annoyed sound, then fell right back to sleep.
As Pitch watched her, fever rippled his vision; it was like seeing the lodge from underwater. His body, hot and burning, felt as if it floated up off the floor. The fetishes whispered to him from inside their bag. His gaze riveted on the leather, and the red coyote tracks seemed to Dance across the dark surface.
“What’s wrong?” Roe asked.
Pitch tipped his head, trying to hear better, and whispered, “I hear him. He’s weeping. As though …”
“As though what?”
The voice sounded pathetic, desperate. “I don’t know. I … I need to find a holy person. Surely if I can’t speak with Dzoo, there’s someone in the village who will understand what … who … is calling.”
“Roe!” someone shouted from beyond the door.
“Yes?”
“Chief Rain Bear has sent for you! Someone has arrived. It’s the Soul Keeper Rides-the-Wind, can you imagine?”
An image flashed in Pitch’s mind, as if he could see the old man’s sharp eyes burning into his very soul. Was it his imagination, or did he hear the fetishes whispering greedily?
Tsauz sleeps wrapped in a warm blanket made from a dall sheep’s hide. One side is covered with the bristly thick hair, the other, closest to his skin, is painted with a single peering eye. Despite the quiet night, the Dream tightens its grip … .
Twisting spirals! One of yellow-white light, the other of smoky darkness. They meet and wrap, twisting around and around, as if in a Dance.
Tsauz watches them turning, writhing, as Power drums in the distance. From the surrounding haze, he can sense Mother’s presence, her fire-blackened face just beyond his perception, her melt-glassy hair, streaking her charred scalp.
“Are you ready, boy?” a voice asks from the darkness.
“Mother? Is that you?” But the voice doesn’t sound like Mother’s. It is deeper, hollow, as though echoing from over a great distance.
“You are like Halibut,” the voice tells him, “about to be yanked from the safety of the depths. Can you breathe outside of your familiar water? Or will you lay flopping, gasping, your eyes protruding from your head while your heart slows? Will your flesh become dry and cracked?”
“I don’t understand!”
A low rumbling begins in the distance, and the twin strands of fire-yellow and char-gray wind ever more tightly about each other like spun cord. Fire and soot, they wind into a stiff pillar that reaches high into the night sky.
“If you wish to speak to me, you will have to ride the lightning, boy!” The voice booms now.
Fear, palpable, beats and claws inside him like a frightened and trapped animal.
“Seek me, if you are brave enough. I will tell you how to save your world.”
As if pulled tight, the rope of fire and smoke bursts into a whirlwind of chaos. From the middle of it, a single great eye stares into Tsauz’s frightened soul. The gaze is painful, and he tries to cower, only to feel a stab of light, like a lance, burning him away, searing, charring, and he is dying. Dying in fire, the way Mother—
A hard hand clamped over Tsauz’s mouth.
The familiar scents of the lodge swelled in his nose: the grassy odor of the sleeping mats, musty leather, the smoke of the fire. He tried to scream as he was dragged from the warm hides, “What—”
“Hush!” Father ordered, “We must leave now.”
Tsauz nodded, and Father released him. Tsauz could hear Father moving, his clothing rasping, and then moccasins slapped onto his chest. “Put them on. Hurry!”
He fingered the familiar leather and bent to pull them over his cold feet. “Why, Father? What’s wrong? Isn’t it still dark?”
“Be quiet!”
Tsauz heard Father ease his way to the lodge flap. He seemed to be listening to the sounds of War Gods Village: snoring and coughing. A baby whimpered.
“Where’s your cape, my son?”