The Dawn Country(41)

Wrass rubbed his eyes, but when he lowered his hand, the man was still there. If it hadn’t been for his crooked nose, he’d be handsome. His black hair had been carefully plaited into a long braid that draped over his left shoulder.

“I’ve seen you before,” Wrass whispered.

Several times as the canoe passed, he’d seen the man staring fixedly at him from behind trees, or calmly sleeping in the frost—but he’d thought the man a figment of his fever. No human being could outrun a canoe powered by the arms of muscular warriors. But this man must have, or he would not be here now.

“I’m still dreaming,” Wrass whispered, and focused on the night sky. The brightest campfires of the dead shone like fuzzy white balls. Against that background, the bare branches above him painted delicate black brushstrokes. He wondered if his dead father was up there, sitting around the fire joking with his Ancestors. He’d died in the fight that destroyed Yellowtail Village. The People of the Standing Stone believed that each person possessed two souls. One soul remained with the body forever, while the other, the afterlife soul, ordinarily traveled to the bridge that led to the Land of the Dead. The bridge spanned a black abyss. On this side of the bridge, the life side, were all the animals a man had known. Those that had loved him protected him from those that had not, and gave him the time to leap onto the bridge and run for the death side. Oftentimes, a man was chased across the bridge by snarling beasts who tried to shove him into the abyss, where he would fall forever through darkness. Even if he made it across, the trial was not over, for on the death side he met all the people he’d known in his life. Those who had loved him protected him from those who had hated him. If there were more people who had hated him, the mob might drag the man back onto the bridge and cast him over the edge while his loved ones wailed.

As the man in the black cape waded closer, firelit rings bobbed across the water and collided with the shore.

Wrass squinted. “Did you come to take me to the bridge?”

The man smiled sadly. You’re not dying, Wrass.

“I want to. Please, take me. My family is dead. I want to go to them.”

No. Not yet. You have many things to do.

The man’s body wavered, as though Wrass were seeing him through a wall of water. He waded to the gunwale of the canoe, where Wrass looked up at him. He was very tall. Oddly, the firelight did not flicker from his cape. It remained utterly black, like a hole cut out of the world.

Wrass whispered, “Are you the human False Face? The one who is to come?”

His people had a story about the end of the world. The story predicted the appearance of a human False Face who would don a cape of white clouds and ride the winds of destruction across the land, wiping away evil so that Great Grandmother Earth could be reborn pure and clean.

The young man leaned over and tenderly smoothed Wrass’ hair away from his eyes. His fingers were cool.

No. But you will know him. I promise you will.

There was a long pause, and Wrass heard a sound like the roar of putting a seashell to his ear. He studied the pale translucence of the man’s skin, the smooth line of his jaw. “Are you a hanehwa?”

The hanehwa were enchanted skin-beings. Sometimes sorcerers skinned their human victims alive, then cast spells upon the skins, forcing them to serve as guards. Hanehwa never slept. They warned the witch by giving three shouts.

The man’s brown eyes softened. We are all husks, Wrass, flayed from the soil of fire and blood. This won’t be over for any of us until the Great Face shakes the World Tree. Then, when Elder Brother Sun blackens his face with the soot of the dying world, the judgment will take place.

“I—I … ,” he stuttered. “I don’t understand.”

The man tilted his head. Don’t worry about it now. You must sleep and heal.

He gently stroked Wrass’ hair again.

Wrass heaved a sigh of relief, and his gaze wandered across the camp. The Great Face was the chief of all False Faces, and he guarded the sacred World Tree that stood at the center of the earth. Its flowers were made of pure light. The World Tree’s branches pierced the Sky World where the Ancestors lived, and her roots sank deep into the underworlds, where they planted themselves upon the back of the Great Tortoise floating in the primeval ocean. Elder Brother Sun nested in the highest branches of the World Tree.

Get well, Wrass.

The man waded away through the water, and Wrass called, “Wait. Don’t go. K-Keep talking to me.”

The man didn’t even slow down. He faded as he walked away, until he was transparent, then gone. At the place where he’d vanished, Zateri appeared, and walked toward Wrass. Her chipmunk face glowed in the firelight. She seemed to be floating, weightless, like a milkweed seed on a warm summer wind, noiseless and beautiful. A smile turned his lips. As she got closer, she started looking over her shoulder, as though she feared one of the guards would try to stop her. When she climbed into the canoe, it rocked as she walked down to sit beside Wrass. She wore a blue-painted deerhide cape. He didn’t recall ever seeing it before. Had one of the warriors given it to her?