Suddenly his gaze was back on David. “And
you
bear the sign of the uktena, which is very strange, and I feel an even stronger magic about you. Indeed, there must be, else you would not so easily have slipped my sisters’ spells.” David’s heart sank, but then he remembered the pouch Oisin had given him. “Uh, could I, like, show you something?”
The man nodded.
David reached into his pocket, pulled out the pouch, and emptied the contents into his hand. The uktena scale glittered there in the half-light, strangely bright.
The man’s eyes grew large. “Tell me your story,” he said at last.
David took a deep breath and began. He tried to spend as little time as possible on cosmology (mostly because he only barely understood it himself), and devote as much time as possible to Oisin, whom he thought had left at least one favorable impression in this land, though evidently not with this man, who had only heard of him and identified him with the Nunnehi—which, David knew, was the Cherokee term for the Sidhe.
The man stared at him for a long time before he spoke again. “So the Nunnehi would have you seek passage through my land to Nundagunyi, and that is all?”
“If it’s your land, then we’d certainly appreciate passage.”
The man’s brow wrinkled. “You flee war, yet you may bring war even to Galunlati—though I doubt such is your intent. I like not the sound of that.”
David sighed. “Well, as best I understand it, the folks who may be going to war don’t even know you’re here, or at least very few do. And they can’t get here without goin’ through my World, which they wouldn’t do ’cause they don’t want to make waves there; or else goin’ through the land of a powerful potential enemy, which they
really
don’t wanta do.”
The man stared at him for a while longer. “Did you win this scale yourself? Does the uktena yet creep through the woods of the Lying World?”
“No,” David said. “It was a gift from the guy I told you about: the one who showed us how to get here.”
“So it is no proof of
your
manhood?”
David hung his head. “I reckon not.”
“Then it is no good.”
“Huh?”
“Because
any
man may carry the scale of an uktena. All it requires is that he claim a warrior for a friend. It is quite another thing to bear one by right.” The man’s eyes narrowed, and David felt his heart flip-flop, for he knew the glint of craftiness when he saw it.
“Still,” the man said, clearing his throat, “I may yet have a solution to your problem. I have myself been greatly vexed by an uktena of late, and yet I dare not slay him. Should you do what I cannot, and slay this uktena, I will grant you passage and aid you upon your return.”
“But what
is
an uktena?” David asked. “Evidently it’s some kind of snake, but what?”
The man laughed and pointed to the sand beneath their feet. “See you the grains there? Each is made of stone, and likewise is a mountain made. But as one of those grains is to a mountain, so the uktena is to a snake, in size, in cunning, in the danger it poses the unwary. Even I fear him.”
David frowned suspiciously. “Uh, could you be a little more specific?”
“The uktena is the greatest of all serpents. As big around as the great trees of the west, he is; and longer than the tallest. Horns he has on his head, and red is his skin, usually, or white, or sometimes in between, for it changes. His scales are like crystal and glitter like sparks of fire. And on his head is a bright blazing crest like a diamond.
Ulunsuti,
that stone is called, and it has great virtue. That I claim as my portion if you slay him.”
“Can it even
be
killed?”
“Proof of that you hold.”
“So why don’t
you
just kill it if it’s givin’ you trouble?” The man’s eyes flashed fire. “Because so dangerous is the uktena that even to see it is death!”
“Now wait a minute… How—?”
“Not the death of the
seer,
the death of his closest kin!” David stood straight up, his face ablaze with rage. “His
kin!
I’m not gonna risk my—bloody hell, no!”
“That is why I asked you: you are not of this land. The magic of the uktena does not extend beyond Galunlati. Thus you are the only ones who
can
slay him. It is either slay him or be slain, in any case. And if things transpire as you have said, your family may well die anyway.”
David frowned; he was being manipulated again, and he didn’t like it. And he was too tired to even think straight.
“This isn’t one of those archetypal animals like Tsistu, or something?” he asked finally. “I won’t get into trouble if I kill it, or anything?”
“Life
is
trouble,” the man said. “But death is no escape, and since you mention Tsistu I will tell you what you doubtless already know, which is not to trust him. He is a trickster, and gamester worse than any in Galunlati. He has even dared to torment me with his tricks, and I am chief here.”
“Chief?”
“Aye! I am Chief of Wahala, which is all the southern part of this land. Kanati has set me with enforcing His Laws here. You may call me Uki, which is a short form of that part of my true name which means Thunder.”
David bowed automatically. “I’m—I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realize. Oh, crap, I should have introduced myself. My name’s—”
“No!” Uki cautioned. “You are a stranger and a youth, and should not give your name so freely.” He glanced at David’s shirt for a moment, his eyes fixed on the insignia stenciled there. “Tell me, is that your totem?”
David glanced down in turn, saw the Enotah County High mascot: the winsomely grinning ’possum. “Uh, no, not really.”
“It fits you, though, and you must have a name to go by here. I will call you
Sikwa Unega,
which means
White ’Possum,
for your grin and your cleverness and the paleness of your hair.”
“Uh, thanks, sir,” David said, blushing. “But, uh, what were you saying about how many uktenas there are?”
“There is only
one
uktena at any time; and he alone of the beasts here no longer has offspring in your land. And yes, he may be killed, and has been: though rarely. Yet his medicine is like that of all beasts here: whenever his blood is spilled he is reborn.”
“So what’s the point, then?”
“He returns no longer than your finger. Years it takes for him to grow large enough to cause trouble.”
“So what’ve I gotta do to kill this thing? Can you give me any hints?”
Uki shook his head. “I will instruct you of the beast’s habits and the proper means of his slaying tomorrow. For now, come; I am a bad host. Long you have walked, and weariness is in your eyes, if not your tongue. I will awaken your friends, and we will feast.” He looked up, clapped his hands—which sounded unnaturally loud in the cavern—and David was certain he saw sparks leap from palm to palm. “Sisters, come: put on your fair seeming, and bring our guests to a place where they may rest for the night free of fear of your scaled companions. And bring food and drink.”
“Food,” David said heavily, “and rest.”
Uki moved his hands a certain way, and the snakes began to slither away into the holes in the cavern walls. A second set the turtles lumbering to the corners. A third, and David’s friends stirred and opened their eyes.
“Hey, Dave, what’s happenin’?” Calvin yawned.
Fionchadd too awoke. He glanced from side to side, face dark with anger. “Power!” he whispered. “Power has been set on me against my will!”
“Against all our wills, Finno,” David said as calmly as he could. “But oh, Jesus, guys; I think I’ve won us a reprieve.”
“What
kind
of reprieve?”
“Probably a fairly short one. I’ll tell you about it over dinner.”
“
After
dinner,” Uki admonished. “It is impolite to speak of bargains while feasting. Now come, I must think of names for you others.”
*
Dinner, which the men ate on the floor of a torch-lit adjoining, smaller cavern that was blessedly free of anything either tailed, scaled, or shelled, proved to be an excellent repast of corn cakes, tubers, berries, and cider, along with a generous portion of some fine-textured white meat that David could not identify and was not particularly eager to inquire about. Too late he wondered about the wisdom of eating here: Faery food was supposed to be perilous, was supposed to trap you forever in that World. Maybe the same applied to Galunlati.
But there was no sense worrying about it now, he decided, as he licked the last bit of grease off his fingers and burped contentedly. It was, after all, the first food he had eaten in two days.
“A fine meal,” he told his host—and burped again.
Uki nodded, his face beaming. “My sisters are excellent cooks—and did I tell you? They are not married.”
David yawned as the woman cleared away the feast.
“It is much better to be friendly, is it not?” Uki said after a moment. “—now that you have your names.”
“Sure,” said Alec, without conviction.
“That’s easy for you to say, Tawiska,” Calvin chided. Alec blushed. The name Uki had given him upon awakening meant
smooth
or
slick,
in reference to his perpetually neat appearance.
“At least I can pronounce it,
Edahi.”
“At least
I
already had a proper name!”
“Yeah.” David laughed. “And
you’re
not named after a critter like me and Finno—’scuse me,
Dagantu,
here.”
“It fits, though,” Alec noted. “Dagantu’s a kind of lizard—which is what Fionchadd used to be.”
“It’s ’cause of how he moves, though,” Calvin noted, elbowing the Faery. “Ain’t it, Finny?”
Uki cleared his throat and stood. “You seem to be entertaining each other, so I will leave you now. Sleep where you will in this chamber. My sisters will bring bedding. I will see you in the morning.” He left, but the women soon returned carrying great piles of black fur which David thought must be bear.
He snuggled down into one, and regarded his friends, who had done the same.
“Okay, White ’Possum, spill it,” Alec said, after a prodigious yawn. “What’s this B.S. about a reprieve?”
David took a deep breath and told them.
“Kill an uktena?” Calvin cried. “You’ve
got
to be kiddin’! Those things are death even to look at!”
“Not for us, apparently,” David replied. “Nor for our families, if you were worried about that.” He explained what Uki had said about the World-walls being proof against that magic.
“Well, I don’t like it at all,” Calvin grumbled, though David thought he saw genuine fear hiding behind the Indian’s recalcitrance.
“Know anything about how to kill one?” David asked him.
Calvin shook his head. “They’re just not a thing you kill—not that it makes any difference, since there aren’t any left in our World, according to my grandfather.”
“Well, so much for that.”
“Yeah,” Alec snorted. ‘This is just great.”
“It should be interesting,” Fionchadd said. “I have never hunted an—what is the word?
Uktena
?”
“Welcome to the club, then,” Alec sighed. “I haven’t either.”
“Just think of it as coming to terms with your heritage, Calvin,” David said. “After all, you’re the nature boy here.”
“This is a little out of my league, though. Grandfather spoke of it only as a name, a child’s threat. ‘The uktena’ll get you,’ and that kinda thing.”
“Redskin boogey-critters.”
“Yeah, basically. Or boogey snake, in this case.”
“And he never told you anything about how to kill one?”
Calvin shrugged helplessly. “Medicine’s my thing, not warfare.”
“Know anything to put us to sleep?” Alec asked.
“Only my fists carefully applied,” Calvin said easily, then scowled as David glared at him. Alec’s face, too, clouded; and David saw his jaw tighten and his lips go thin. But he had no time to worry about Alec now. All he was concerned with was finding his way to slumber.
*
The torches had burned to embers when Alec awoke, but there was still light to see by from the bluish luminescence that lit the cave. He had meant to examine it more closely, for it seemed to be comprised of sparks that slid through the stones themselves, but had not had an opportunity. Nor was this the time.
He had been dreaming of Eva, and in the dream she was gazing sadly into his eyes, slipping something in his hand. His eyes filled with tears when he thought of her, of how he would never see her again. Then that memory broke and shifted. He sat up and glanced around the room, saw the dim shapes of David lying close by him, of Calvin in the corner, of Fionchadd sprawling uncovered by the entrance.