His feet tangled as he turned to run, and the sudden intense pain in his right knee made him cry out. His leg collapsed under him. He hit the ground, hard, falling into the middle of the sand painting. Scrambling, he tried to get up, his knee burning in agony. His fingers clawed frantically through the sand, ruining the exquisitely detailed image.
A shadow blocked the moon. Dale looked up and could see the colors of the sacred mask: red, blue, and yellow. They encircled the gaping black pits of the eyeholes.
“Come,” the hollow voice hissed, “let us go talk to the dead.”
BROWSER FOLLOWED CATKIN and Stone Ghost across the plaza in Dry Creek village. Night had settled over the crowded village, and with it, the chill of late autumn. Low fires cast muted light on the knots of people who huddled under feather and cloth blankets, nursing the flames that cooked their evening suppers. Steam rose from pots of corn gruel on the coals.
The look of the people wounded his soul: vacant-eyed, listless, dwelling on the horrible memories locked in their heads. Two weeks ago they had abandoned their old home, Longtail village, and the tragedy they had left buried in the burned kiva. There, by the basket-load, they had carried dirt to bury the charred corpses of more than half of their children, torched by Two Hearts’s rage.
What possessed a witch to hate so much that he would incinerate innocent children? Was it that they believed in different gods, or was there something so evil and twisted in Two Hearts’s souls that he was nothing more than a malignant darkness that walked the land?
Browser touched the angry pink scar on his forehead. That scar, people could see. The one that had scabbed so poorly on his breath-heart soul remained invisible to all but him. From the moment he had married Ash Girl, he and the witch, Two Hearts, had been tied as tightly as a knotted cord. For that entire time he had unwittingly lived with the shadow of Two Hearts’s evil. His wife, Ash Girl, had been Two Hearts’s daughter. A woman tainted by incest, driven to madness by
her father’s crime until a monster soul had inhabited her.
And I was too much of a fool to see what was right before my eyes, what shared my bed.
Browser unknowingly had killed Ash Girl outside of a ruined house in Straight Path Canyon—and killed part of himself with that same arrow. For moons afterward, he had been lost, drowning in guilt and grief.
He studied Catkin from the corner of his eye. By killing Ash Girl, he had saved Catkin. He could finally admit to himself that had it been different, had he known what face lay beneath the wolf mask that Ash Girl wore, he would have still driven the arrow through Ash Girl’s heart—through his wife’s heart, the heart of the woman who had borne his dead son.
Gods, had he gone mad? Did the ancient crimes of the First People run in his blood?
Browser checked the position of his guards around the village. He nodded at Straighthorn, the young warrior who stood watch on the low line of rooftops overlooking the plaza, then turned to Jackrabbit, barely visible on the rim above the spring.
In the fires’ glow, Dry Creek village looked peaceful, the cracked plaster-coated walls gilded by the light. Small windows reflected the warming fires within. How had it come to pass that this shabby little village could have become a beacon for the remnants of a people who had once lived in splendor?
As if to make the point, firelight gleamed on pendants of turquoise, copper bells, jet bracelets, and beaded breastplates.
The sight of it brought a twist to Browser’s stomach. This broken people wore wealth looted from a hundred graves. Some of this same jewelry had been worn by his ancestors. Two Hearts had stolen it from the bones of the dead, and these people had stolen it from Two Hearts.
The weight of the little turquoise wolf in his belt
pouch tugged at him. It had belonged to Night Sun, his great-great-great-grandmother, the last of the powerful Matrons of Talon Town. She had been the first Matron to believe in the katsinas. For that, her people had hated her. After she’d left Talon Town, the First People had declared her an outcast and decreed that her traitorous name never be forgotten.
Browser grasped the wolf, feeling its shape through the fabric. He deserved to own it more than the man who had stolen it from her mummified corpse. At the touch of the wolf, a tingle ran through his fingers.
Stone Ghost hobbled over to the ladder that protruded from the kiva roof in the middle of the plaza. He grasped the gnarled wood with callused hands and carefully climbed down into the firelit interior.
At Catkin’s questioning gaze, Browser smiled and indicated that she should follow.
Catkin led the way. He watched her take hold of the ladder, her muscular forearms rippling as her hands tightened on the wood, and she climbed down. Just before she disappeared into the interior, she looked up, and her eyes met his. The look touched his soul. Then her head vanished into the kiva.
Browser slipped his bow over his shoulder and followed her. His anxiety grew as he descended. At the bottom, he looked around. The underground chamber measured five paces across. The walls were plastered in white and painted with the dancing forms of the katsinas. One of the Blessed katsina masks lived in each of the square niches recessed into the wall. Browser’s flesh prickled under their hollow-eyed gazes. Four honey-colored posts supported the cribbed roof. A low fire burned in the central hearth, the dry wood almost smokeless.
The new Matron of the Katsinas’ People, Cloudblower, sat to one side of the low fire. The sight of her reassured Browser. Her choice as Matron had been prophetic. If anyone could rally the people, it would be
Cloudblower. Touched by the gods, she was a
kokwimu,
a woman’s soul inhabiting a man’s body. She had a reputation as one of the people’s greatest Healers. Her knowledge of Spirit plants and the rituals that secured a person’s breath-heart soul to their bones was unrivaled. Of all the living Katsinas’ People, Cloudblower’s fame alone could see them through the coming trials.
Behind her, Wading Bird crouched, one of the few elders they had left. He hunched under an old threadbare blanket, his bald head gleaming, and his lips sucked in over his toothless gums. He looked demented.
Matron Crossbill, of the Longtail Clan, sat opposite, her age-lined face reflecting the sorrow and strain of their current situation. Her village lay in ruins, and where she had once helped refugees, she now found herself one of them.
Rock Dove, Matron of Dry Creek village, reached out and laid a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. Rock Dove had lost her mother in the fire at Longtail village. Now, unable to grieve when her people were looking to her for leadership, she had accepted responsibility for her own people as well as for the Katsinas’ People. Browser could read the worry on her face. The simple truth was that Rock Dove had too many mouths to feed, too many bodies to shelter. And she had given her word that these people could share her hospitality.
Stone Ghost grunted as he seated himself on the split-willow matting. “It’s getting cool out there.”
“Drop a rock … and it falls. Change a sun cycle, and winter follows. Both are inevitable.” Crossbill blinked her translucent eyes. “And now we must discuss another inevitability.” She looked around, taking their measure. “If I’ve learned anything in my years, it’s that stomachs will end up empty, no matter how much they are fed in the beginning.”
“We have saved some of the corn we harvested from
Longtail village,” Stone Ghost said. “All that wasn’t burned.”
Cloudblower nodded. “That’s why I called this meeting. Crossbill and I have talked. We are going to move on.”
Rock Dove gave her a sober appraisal. “The Katsinas’ People and the Longtail Clan are welcome here. I have told you that. Somehow, we will manage. In the past, when we starved, Longtail Clan sent us food. When raiders prowled our hills, they sent us warriors. This will be difficult, but in my years I have survived many difficult things.”
Cloudblower smiled, one hand twisting her long black hair, streaked as it was in gray. “Matron, I cannot allow the generosity of your heart to lead you to more suffering.” Cloudblower leaned forward, beads of jet rattling where they lay on her chest. “We are the Katsinas’ People. The Blessed Poor Singer prophesied that if we could find the First People’s kiva and restore the opening to the underworlds, the wars would end, and the ancestors would restore their Blessing on this, the Fifth World. Our dead Matron believed Poor Singer’s prophecy. We still believe it. It is our duty to continue our search.”
Crossbill took a deep breath. “It is more than placing your village at risk, Rock Dove. Think about this world we are living in. About how we got here. In the time of our great-great-grandmothers, the katsinas came to give their vision to the Blessed Sternlight, the First People’s Sunwatcher. They came to him in hopes of saving the world.”
“And look where it got them,” Wading Bird said bitterly. His bald head glowed yellow as he lowered his eyes to stare at the ground.
“I think the vision was altered,” Crossbill continued, ignoring the outburst. “The Blessed Poor Singer told us the way: We must find the First People’s kiva, the place where they emerged from the underworlds. It
isn’t just us, but the entire world that we have been tasked to save.”
Cloudblower nodded. “Yes. Look around. What do we see? Villages abandoned, people fleeing to the east. Clans have turned upon themselves. Some, the old believers who cling to the Flute Player and his ways, make war on the Katsinas’ People. The rains have failed. The coughing sickness spreads from village to village. The old roads of the First People are abandoned. Their great cities lie in ruins. We are like mice trapped in a pot who have turned on each other. We are eating each other when we need to work together to save our world.”
A silence fell on the room.
Stone Ghost steepled his fingers. “We cannot forget that another element has been added.”
People turned to look at him. Browser tensed, knowing where this was headed.
Stone Ghost smoothed the fabric on his new shirt. “When the Blessed Night Sun left Talon Town, and the earth was split, the Made People turned on the First People, hunting them down. Men, women, and children were mercilessly murdered by the hundreds. For years we have believed them all to be dead. Now we know that they are not. The White Moccasins are out there, and they are a force to be reckoned with.”
“We only know of a handful,” Rock Dove protested.
“Yes,” Stone Ghost answered. “That’s all that we know of. But they lived among us in Longtail village. And before that, in Hillside village, and who knows how many other places? Can you say for certain that none lives here among us in Dry Creek village?”
No one spoke, but people looked around uneasily.
Stone Ghost frowned as he rubbed his hands together. “They pose a unique challenge.”
“How so, Elder?” Cloudblower had turned her soft brown eyes on Stone Ghost.
“You cannot hunt them down.” Stone Ghost spread
his hands wide. “The Made People tried that more than one hundred sun cycles ago. If they did not succeed when most of the First People were known, how could we succeed now, when they are in hiding?”
Browser touched his stomach. Catkin’s sudden piercing stare had a hawklike intensity. Gods, his flush wasn’t obvious to anyone else, was it?
Crossbill said, “I suppose you know how to deal with them?”
“I do,” Stone Ghost answered mildly.
“Tell us, Elder,” Cloudblower said in a calm voice, her steady gaze on the old man’s face. “Please.”
Browser fought the urge to fidget. What did she suspect? Worse, what did she know? Only a fool underestimated Cloudblower.
Stone Ghost might have been discussing the milling of corn. “If you locate several of their warriors, and kill them, you might as well cut off an enemy’s hair. It is but a matter of time before it will grow back.”
“This isn’t hair we’re talking about,” Wading Bird said. He looked irritated.
Talk concerning the First People struck close to Elder Wading Bird’s heart. He was old enough to suspect—and probably to remember—what the tattooed spirals on Stone Ghost’s chin meant.
“No, the White Moccasins are like a human body,” Stone Ghost insisted. “One mind and heart runs everything else.”
Cloudblower sat back, eyeing him curiously. “You mean if the heart is cut out the body will wither.”
“Yes. It is their leader we must destroy, or the madness will go on and on. Not just with the remaining First People, but who do you think is stirring the hatred of the Flute Player’s warriors? Why do you think they have begun killing Katsinas’ People?”
“You think the poison comes from the White Moccasins?” Cloudblower asked thoughtfully.
“They have worked from the shadows for many
summers.” Stone Ghost nodded. “Only now are they growing bolder, willing to strike openly. They are driven by the thirst for revenge, and seek only to make Made People kill each other.”
Wading Bird’s gaze locked on Stone Ghost’s chin. “Why would you care?”
Browser held his breath, his fist tightening on his war club. His tension had cued Catkin, who rested her slim fingers on the handle of her club.