People of the Silence(7)

Buckthorn had not eaten in four days, a holy number, and he felt lightheaded and frightened. Soon, very soon, his life would change forever. He would no longer be the strange, lonely youth that the other children shunned and laughed at. His soul would tumble down the dark tunnel to the First Underworld, and he would either become a revered sacred Singer … or he would be dead.

Buckthorn frowned down at the Great Warriors. Do they already know which it will be?

In the Age of Emergence, just after the First People had climbed through the four underworlds to get to this Fifth World of light, the Great Warriors of East and West had vanquished many monsters that threatened to eat the new people. In the last horrifying battle, the Warriors’ bodies had been turned to stone, but their heroism had earned their souls special places in the skyworlds, sparkling on either side of Father Sun. Father Sun often told them about things that would happen in the world of humans. When necessary, the Warriors soared to earth as shooting stars and walked among men, advising, helping. Sometimes they even killed.

Buckthorn had once known a boy named Little Shield who had been chosen by the elders, as Buckthorn had been, to journey into the underworlds. He had died horribly. At the first sign of trouble, the elders had dragged the boy up from the kiva, the womblike subterranean ceremonial chamber, and stretched him out on the plaza while they raced about gathering herbs and Power bundles, anything that might help tie his soul to his body again.

Buckthorn had been six summers old at the time. He vividly recalled the way Little Shield had thrashed about and screamed that he saw the Great Warriors swooping from the sky to tear his flesh from his bones. It had taken half a day, but the holy twins had finally sunk their talons into Little Shield’s soul and ripped it apart; then they had carried its pieces to the skyworlds and cast them loose in the brilliant light of Father Sun.

The elders said that Little Shield had not been strong enough to make the journey to the underworlds, and that the Great Warriors had killed him so his soul would not be lost forever in the darkness.

A shudder climbed Buckthorn’s spine. Little Shield had died with his eyes wide open, staring in terror at the evening sky.

Will that happen to me?

A low drumbeat outside reminded him that his heart, that all hearts, beat in rhythm with that of the Creator, and that she alone had the Power to decide how long a boy might live.

Buckthorn tugged at his turquoise necklace, fighting vainly to loosen it so he could get more air into his lungs.

Just breathe.

He’d been choking since dawn, when he’d bathed in the icy river and his mother had twisted his wet black hair into a bun on top of his head.

He forced himself to inhale and exhale.

Beyond the door, Our Mother Earth slept beneath a soft blanket of snow, gathering her strength for spring. The Wind-flower Clan tiptoed about—so as not to wake her. Yucca sandals crunched the snow, and dogs padded by his door. During the Time of Gestation, the forty Blessing days, no digging, plastering, or wood chopping was permitted. No one could cut his hair. Women had to clean their houses only after sundown, and then very quietly.

The lilting voices of the Singers in the great kiva wafted to him on the west wind. The kiva nestled on the west side of the rectangular plaza, while two- and three-story buildings stretched eastward under the sheer face of the buff sandstone cliff. The Singers prepared the way for him.…

“They’re coming,” he whispered to reassure himself. “They’ll be here soon.”

He let out a taut breath.

To lessen his fears, Buckthorn counted the beautiful baskets that decorated the walls, large ones on top, smaller ones on the bottom. Black geometric designs and tan people adorned the weaves. His mother, Snow Mountain, had arranged them in order of descending height along the wall to his left.

“Oh, Spirits,” he whispered, “I’m scared.”

From the time he’d turned four summers, the great Singers of Windflower Village had looked at him differently than at other children. Their sharp old eyes had watched the other children tormenting him and noted the times when he’d sought the solitude of the canyons that cut down through solid rock to the River of Souls—and they were many. The elders had marked every fight he’d broken up, and every moment he’d sat with tears running down his face listening to them Sing. Those Powerful elders had seen in him more than an odd lonely child—a boy who had lost his father before he’d seen one summer.

At a Winter Solstice celebration at Talon Town when he’d seen ten summers, old gray-haired Black Mesa had come to sit beside him, his deeply wrinkled face mottled with firelight, and asked, “Why do you cry when you lift your voice to the gods?”