People of the Silence(24)
Buckthorn looked eastward. Sister Moon crouched full and bright on the horizon. She had just cleared a vast range of shining peaks that rose like gigantic ice spears. Clouds encircled the summits.
His father stopped at the top of the grassy meadow and waited. When Buckthorn loped up, his father used his black nose to point. “There, my son. The turquoise cave is up there.”
“The turquoise cave? The one I saw in my vision in the kiva?”
“Yes, son.”
Buckthorn looked. “It’s up there?” His night-sharp vision searched the lofty peaks and he spied a black spot, round, like a dark womb that receded endlessly into the side of the ice spear. The opening faced east. Buckthorn’s belly prickled. He nervously licked his muzzle and expelled a frosty breath. “It … it reminds me of the tunnel to the underworlds, Father.”
The coyote peered at him unblinking, his shining eyes pale green in the moonlight. “Come, let us go.”
Buckthorn trotted up the snowy slope after his father, his paws slipping. Snow clotted the fur between his toes and made them ache. As they climbed, freezing wind blasted their faces, sleeking their fur back and forcing them to squint.
His father stood at the lip of the cave with one paw lifted, his nose thrust forward. He sniffed the dank moss-scented air. As if from something threatening, he backed away, his tail tucked between his legs.
“What is it?” Buckthorn asked.
“I will stand guard. You must go in alone, my son. The cave is not open to me.”
“But…” Buckthorn peered into the cave and his front legs shook. “How do you know it is open to me?”
His father’s voice echoed hollowly from the cave: “Go now, hurry.”
His father turned and trotted to the base of the slope, where he stood scrutinizing the meadow for movement.
Buckthorn took a tentative step forward. As he edged closer, he noticed that the cave sloped downward. Moonlight spilled inside, lighting a narrow strip of the interior like a torch. A thicket of creeping barberry bushes blocked his way. Their waxy holly-shaped leaves reflected the moon glow.
Buckthorn lightly stepped into the thicket and tested the wind: The cave smelled oddly musty. It looked tiny and narrow, but he couldn’t really tell. The thin crescent of light only went back a few body lengths. Beyond that the darkness extended forever. He pushed through the thicket and walked deeper.
His toenails clicked on the stone, and he heard water dripping, a melodic plop, plop. His whiskers quivered. The deeper he went, the warmer it felt.
Buckthorn looked around. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could make out the thin veil of moisture on the walls. Drops slid down and pooled in the undulations of the floor, shining blackly.
He walked faster, his body swinging down the incline. The floor of the cave warmed his paws, and melted the snow clotted in the fur between his toes. He shivered with delight.
He entered what appeared to be a large chamber. A black pool of water covered the floor, and he could locate the source of the drip, straight above, draining down through the rock and splatting into the pool. Mist hovered near the roof, tendrils escaping into the brighter corridor, floating upward until they reached the mouth of the cave, where they shimmered. As they rose into the luminous sky, they gathered the cold around them like a thick woolly coat and grew, and grew, expanding to become clouds.
Buckthorn watched in wonder.
Sister Moon cleared the lip of the cave, hanging like a huge silver ball in the sky. When he turned back to the chamber, he expected to see a flood of revealing light pour down, but as she rose higher, he saw a flicker, then a series of flashes, as if bolts of lightning shot back and forth across the interior. A blinding azure blaze built, and a low half-moan half-growl rumbled in his throat. Buckthorn settled on his haunches and whined in fear. Now he could see.…
Over thousands of sun cycles, percolating water had carved a rounded hollow in a thick vein of turquoise, and this hollow was the chamber. Sharp fragments jutted out everywhere, like crystals in a geode. The moon glow made them burn with a brilliant blue fire. As Sister Moon continued her climb into the sky, the light shifted and Buckthorn’s jaws parted in awe as light streamed directly down the entrance. The cave transformed itself into a tumbling waterfall of ice-blue, sparkling azure, flowing across the roof and flooding the floor. The entire blue world seemed to be on fire, the sacred stone flaming, searing his eyes, and tingling like sparks in his veins.
The conflagration died.
Just died.
Sister Moon rose higher and diffuse pewter light filled the cave.
Buckthorn blinked.
Heart hammering, he gazed down into the pool. He could still see the turquoise lining the basin, but it shone dully, like chunks of common slate.