He had no evidence that Nightshade had witched him through that pouch, or even that she had put it there. But he believed she had. He had been gulping cups of galena tea to cure himself, but it only seemed to make the weakness worse.
"Witch!" he hissed. "Old Marmot was right. I should have killed you when you first arrived."
Tharon squared his shoulders. She had no right to make him afraid of her! He was the great Sun Chief! He ruled thousands. She was a—a woman —that was all!
He strode to her door and gripped the hanging. But it took several moments before he gained the courage to ease it aside a crack and peer into the darkness. While his eyes adjusted, he scanned the black shapes of pots on the right wall, then drifted to Marmot's starmap. It etched faint silver rings over the tripod that supported the Tortoise Bundle. Finally, Tharon squinted at Nightshade's bed. Black hair hung over the bedside, brushing the floor with nearly invisible strands.
Tharon pulled the hanging back far enough that he could stick his head into the room. Darkness lay like thick cobwebs in the comers, but the light from the corridor illuminated the bed.
Violent rage overwhelmed him.
Orenda? In Nightshade's bed? He saw her ugly doll slumped sideways to the left of the door. A blanket had been tucked around the bestial toy very carefully. The eyes peered malevolently at Tharon. Did Orenda think she could escape him so simply?
"Orenda!"
His daughter leaped up, terrified, and threw herself back against the wall. He laughed raucously.
"No, no, nonono!" Orenda sobbed.
Tharon lunged forward, a knotted fist raised to beat her for this outrage. Then the faint whisper of clothing rustled in the northern comer. Tharon whirled so fast that he staggered sideways.
From the dark comer. Nightshade's eyes gleamed. Plated with a silverish cast, they shone like frozen lakes.
"Nightshade!" he snarled. "How dare you kidnap my child!"
Her low laughter echoed, and her eyes disappeared.
Tharon backed up until his legs stmck the foot of her bed. Why couldn't he see her? Where was she in that smear of shadows? "Nightshade, answer me! I command you—"
A sound, a sandal scraping against dirt, sent Tharon lunging for the only thing he knew Nightshade valued: the Tortoise Bundle.
Clutching it to his breast, Tharon panted, "There! Now I've got it. Come any closer and I'll . . . I'll bum it. Nightshade! Do you hear me? I'll kill it!" His eyes darted wildly in the darkness, seeking a hint of her location.
"Put it down." Her voice was unnaturally quiet.
"No! I—I want my daughter, and I want to leave. That's all. Stay back!"
Tharon reached out and snatched Orenda by the hair. The child shrieked and fought as he dragged her out of the bed and onto the floor. Like a terrified mouse, Orenda buried her face in her hands to bawl. "Shut up!" Tharon ordered.
Nightshade's low laugh bludgeoned him. "Go ahead, Tharon. Keep holding the Bundle just like that."
"W-Why?"
"Because you have it centered over your heart . . . and it will kill you."
"You can't frighten me, Nightshade. I won't put it down! I know that if I do, you'll ..."
A chill crept into the room, like the damp cold in the bottom of a burial pit. Tharon shivered. Icy fmgers penetrated his robe to clutch at his belly and loins. When the cold knotted in his chest and his heart lurched, he abruptly released Orenda's hair and, stumbling, knocked over the Bundle's tripod. It clattered to the floor.
"Do you see, Tharon?" Nightshade sounded mockingly tender. "They've come for you."
"Who ..."
Voices whispered around Tharon, eerie, familiar. He opened his mouth to shout. But the voices rose to a roar. They rode the darkness like falcons, soaring, then diving at him. A thousand of them, they came from everywhere.
"What's happening?" he screamed.
Faces blossomed in the darkness, white and transparent, before becoming part of panoramic scenes: an old woman dragged a young man across a snowdrift in a dark land where lights Danced in the sky; a beautiful woman soared over the top of the world on the wings of Thunderbird; a little boy sobbed that his mother had killed herself . . .
The scenes faded, leaving the faces hanging alone in the darkness of the room. They swayed toward Tharon, angry, demanding that he put down the Bundle. He let out a shriek and slanmied the Bundle on the floor. Nightshade gasped. He saw her stagger and vomit as he ran for the door.
Tharon seized Orenda's big doll by the throat and plunged out into the hallway with it, yelling, "Kettle! Thrushsong! Help! Help me!"
Orenda's wails echoed up and down the temple corridors.
Twenty-one
Lichen tugged up the hem of her green dress—actually. Wanderer's shirt with the red spirals—^to avoid the tangle of dewberry vines that crept across the path. Fragrant white blossoms scented the air. She had pinned her braid on top of her head with a wooden comb, but now straggles crept down to tickle her ears. In the pack on her back, she carried all of the sacred things that Wanderer had used to teach her: Father Sun's trap, the cedar from First Woman's tree, a hollow tube to blow away bad Spirits; and the clothes she had brought with her.