They stared at each other in silence, each measuring the other.
Pitch tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound trite, or embarrass him.
Rides-the-Wind turned his attention to the eagles. “Why don’t you tell me about the obsidian fetishes?”
Pitch’s eyes widened. “Did Rain Bear tell you?”
“Of course not. What? Do you think you’re the only one who can hear their cries? I started hearing them the day before I arrived here.” He held out a skeletal hand. “Let me see them.”
Pitch reached into his belt pouch, drew out the fetish bag, and placed it on the old man’s palm. “When you open it, you’ll see—”
Rides-the-Wind held the bag to his ear and closed his eyes. For a long time, he did not move.
The eagles began shrieking. One flapped into the air; then another lifted off. In a few heartbeats, the entire flock was airborne, shrieking and flapping through the purple dusk.
Rides-the-Wind opened his eyes. “I hear many voices, Singer. Some young, some old. Some male, some female.”
“Many voices?”
Rides-the-Wind gave him a bland look. “Yes. Why?”
“Well, I … I only hear one voice.”
“Have you held the bag to your ear?”
Pitch shook his head warily.
“Does his Power frighten you so much? Listen, and learn. He is dangerous, this witch, but the voices will not harm you. And surely you’re not afraid to listen to the dead?”
“Witch?” Pitch whispered. “The dead?”
“Of course.” Rides-the-Wind handed the fetish bag to Pitch. “Hold it to your ear and listen.”
Pitch’s fingers tingled as he held the soft leather against his ear. Within moments, the flesh of his face began to crawl. He still only heard one voice clearly, but behind the man’s wrenching cries, he thought he made out the faint din of other voices. “Who are they, Elder?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Who do you think they are?”
Pitch placed the bag on the ledge between them and rubbed his hand on his cape. His fingers burned and tingled as if bitten by wood ants. “If you’re right, and the voices belong to dead people, they could be my ancestors.”
Rides-the-Wind’s gray brows lowered. “That’s possible, but that’s not what has you so worried, is it?”
“No,” he said through a long exhalation. “I hear a man’s voice calling to me, begging me for help. How can I help if we’re hearing the voices of the dead?”
Rides-the-Wind tugged feebly at the sea-grass blanket over his shoulders. “The question is, dead when? Life is a great circle, Pitch. If you’re standing in the middle, birth and death are the same distance from you. What you see depends upon which direction you look. Are you hearing someone who has already died, or someone who will die and have his soul locked into the fetish sometime in the future? Do you hear words, or just cries?”
“Just cries.” Pitch clenched his fist in his lap. “Why is he crying? He sounds so terrified and lonely, it wounds my heart.”
Rides-the-Wind’s gaze followed the bald eagles. A few had landed again. They were preening, plucking at their feathers, combing their wings with their beaks. Out on the water, a whale blew. Water fountained twenty hands into the air. Immediately the fishermen began pulling in their nets, scrambling for paddles. Across the silver waves, they started in pursuit.
In a fierce whisper, Pitch asked, “Has this man already been witched, Rides-the-Wind? Or will he be witched? Will someone steal his soul and breathe it into one of those fetishes?”
“You begin to understand.” Rides-the-Wind reached for the bag again. He poured the fetishes out into his palm, where they glittered wildly. The largest was a black obsidian eagle with its wings spread. The flaking had been done with such deliberation that the scars looked like feathers ready to catch the wind. A coiled snake had been chipped out of red-brown obsidian, the flakes taken off in a pattern like scales. It glared with tiny polished jasper eyes inset in the triangular head. “He is a master flint knapper, isn’t he? Do you know which fetish holds the voice?”
“No. I only touched them once—and then just for a short time. The maker’s Power is almost overwhelming.”
As Rides-the-Wind studied the stones the purple gleam of dusk flowed into his deep wrinkles and threw an odd tracery of shadows over his face. “In all of my life, I haven’t encountered a witch like this one,” the old man said. “I’ve felt him for several moons now, caught the faintest whiff of his Power on the night wind. Sensed his presence at the edge of my soul. He has a great hunger, Pitch. He wants to devour, control, and terrify.” He paused, frowning. “And he has come at a time of great danger to us. Why now? Is he part of the pattern?”