People of the River(158)

But it wasn't Nightshade who stepped through. It wasn't a woman at all. Instead, a man stood there—a man wearing a golden robe and a headdress of beautiful yellow feathers. Intricate tattoos covered his face. He wore splendid copper ear-spools, almost as large as his very ears. He lifted her chin and stared at the Stone Wolf with a predatory gleam in his eyes. "Who are you?"

"I—I'm Lichen. I need to see Nightshade."

A groan sounded from behind the gate, and the man turned and said gruffly, "Get him out of here. He no longer entertains me."

Lichen stumbled sideways when two warriors dragged out a woman—no, it was a man, a berdache, in a dress. Black lumps covered his face. Bruises—some yellowed from time—covered the rest of the berdache's exposed skin. He struggled weakly, moaned, and gazed at Lichen through fever-brilliant eyes. She thought, but wasn't certain, that he muttered, "Run!"

The guards dragged him off down the path that led to the south.

The man with the golden robe looked at Lichen. Waving a hand to his guards, he ordered, "I want her in my chamber. Bring her."





Thirty-nine


A little girl's cries . . .

Orenda jerked her eyes open. She had been half-asleep on the cattail mat beneath Nightshade's bed. She held her breath to listen more closely. Wind worried the shaggy roof, shishing and thumping in the darkness, carrying the yips of a fox down from the north. Maybe the girl's cries had been only a dream?

"Nightshade?" she called. "D-Did you hear that?"

A firebowl made an orange blot in the far comer of the room. At the edge of the glowing halo. Nightshade sat with the Tortoise Bundle cradled to her breast, peering unblink-ingly into a Wellpot. The light reflected eerily in her wide, black eyes.

"N-Nightshade?" Orenda slid out from under the bed.

Indigo shadows draped the walls and ceiling like the fluttering hem of a garment. Orenda sniffed to let the pungent fragrance of damp cedar and earth fill her senses. Fog must be hovering around the temple, seeping into the bones of the logs, to coax such sweetness from the old wood.

Orenda trotted across the room, her tan sleeping kilt patting at her knees, and crouched before Nightshade. Curtains of long hair fell over Nightshade's shoulders, framing her slack face. Orenda bent down and stared into her eyes.

"Nightshade? I heard s-something."

Nightshade looked dead.

Orenda wet her lips anxiously. She had been with her mother a few times when they had accidentally disturbed Old Marmot's journeys to the Underworld. Her mother's voice repeated in her thoughts: "Dreamers look dead when their souls are swimming in the Underworld, Orenda. It's because their bodies are just barely alive."

Orenda cautiously peeked into the small basket with red spirals on it that sat beside Nightshade's knee. A gray paste smeared the bottom.

"Nightshade. There were s-screams. Did you hear them? I need you. I'm afraid."

When no answer came, Orenda pulled back Nightshade's long hair to scrutinize her temples. Yes, just like Old Marmot's. Gray paste smudged them.

She let go of the curtain of hair and sat back, watching it sway before it settled again over Nightshade's cheeks. Orenda hugged her knees to her chest and tried to force her frightened mind to think. Nightshade had been attempting to enter the Underworld for weeks, but hadn't been able to. Orenda wondered why First Woman had decided to open the gate to the Well of the Ancestors on this cold, damp night.

Another cry echoed through the halls and was abruptly cut off.

Orenda's heart pounded. The sound came again, this time more muted, like a stifled sob. A chill thread of terror coiled in her stomach.

"It is a little g-girl's voice," she whispered to herself in horror.

She put a hand on Nightshade's cheek and patted it hard. "Nightshade? I . . . I'm afraid. There's another little g-girl in the temple. I don't know who ..."

She tensed. Could it be the girl who had been talking to her in her Dreams? The one who kept telling her not to worry, that she was going to go talk to First Woman and make everything all right again?

But if he had caught the little girl . . .

She jumped to her feet, breathing hard. Her mind began spinning panicked images of what Tharon did to little girls, and in the recesses of her soul, a muted voice screamed. No, no, it can't happen to someone else!

Orenda threw off her sleeping kilt as she ran to Nightshade's bed. She slipped on her red dress with the rolled-up sleeves, then combed out the tangles in her long hair with her fingers. Before she left, she called again, "Nightshade? Nightshade, please w-wake up."

But Nightshade didn't move.

Orenda peeked around the door-hanging. The firebowl beside their doorway cast a radiant aura over the soundless, deserted hall, but the bowl at the end of the corridor had been snuffed.