Darkthunder's Way (31 page)

David shook his head but did not turn his eyes from his friend’s face. “I have no idea. I—” He broke off. “Why did he
do
it, Calvin? What was he trying to prove?”

The Indian shifted to a more comfortable position. “Uh, look, Dave, this is probably a bad time and all, and ’scuse me for butting in where it’s none of my business, but since you
asked…
well, it seems to me like you guys have been—how shall I say?—having some trouble lately. Oh, you’ve probably not really noticed, what with being in love and all. But I’ve seen the way Alec looks at you, and me too, for that matter, and it’s
like…like…”

“Yeah?”

“Well, ’pears to me there’s a lot of resentment there. I think that’s what made him go crazy right there at the end.”

David grimaced sourly and wiped his eyes again. “Yeah, well, maybe you’re right. I guess I should have paid more attention to how he feels and all; but shoot, Fargo, a guy can’t control who he falls in love with, or when, any more than he can control who his friends are.”

“But he oughtn’t to let it blind him.”

“More red man’s wisdom?”

Calvin shook his head and grinned wanly. “The North Carolina lady. She talked as much as she,
ahem…
acted.”

David sighed heavily. “Maybe I
have
been blind—or at least selfish. But Jesus God, I’d sort of hoped that he’d understand that I had to take advantage of Liz’s—availability while I had the chance. He’d have me all during school, after all. Besides, all I heard all summer was him egging me on about her.”

Calvin gave up on the bow and laid it aside. “Well, as I said, it’s none of my business.”

David did not reply.

A rumble of thunder reached them, then; and Calvin looked up. “Well, that didn’t take long,” he said. “Here comes the Lizard. Looks like he found Thunderman.”

David twisted around to see the Faery and the—what
was
Uki, anyway? Maybe an elemental?—trotting up the slope toward them.

Uki spared a brief glance toward the uktena, then joined them. He knelt by Alec’s side, examined his hands, checked his eyes, and felt at his throat for a pulse. With each movement, his face grew grimmer. Finally he stood. “The boy lives,” he said. “But he is fading, and will fade further.”

“But can’t you do something?” David almost sobbed. “You’re the head honcho around here, aren’t you?”

“Indeed I am not,” Uki replied. “I am merely Chief of Wahala. Other Powers there are that rule me, Powers far, far greater.”

David clenched his fists in despair. “Okay, so where are they? I’ll ask
them
,
by God!”

“Your flesh would not stand it,” Uki told him softly, “For it is of the greater Thunders you speak: Kanati the hunter and Selu the corn; of the Sun and Moon, of the land above this one.”

David’s breath hissed out; he pounded his thighs ineffectually. “Worlds, Worlds, Worlds, always more goddamn Worlds. What do you do for wounds in
this
World?”

“We die. Usually blood is spilled and we are reborn. It is a dangerous thing to die without blood being shed.”

“But Alec’s lost blood!” David wailed helplessly. “Lots of it!”

“But he is not of this World.”

“So we’ve gotta get him back home, then.”

Uki laid a hand on David’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Once again, that is impossible. He could never survive the journey. You have only to look at him to see that.”

“And,” Fionchadd reminded him, “we have still a quest to fulfill—or I have.”

“Well
fulfill
it, then!” David snapped. “Just get the hell away if you’re not gonna help me!”

The Faery danced back a step, startled.
“I…”

David was on his feet in an instant. “You
what?
Do you think I care what you’ve got to do when my best friend’s dying? Do you think I give one
fuck
about that? Your whole
friggin’
race can go to hell for all I care!”

Fionchadd started to reply, but David cut him off. “I’d be real careful what I said right now, Finno.
Real
careful. You might just find yourself in the same shape as Alec!” The Faery tensed, and David tensed as well, balling his fists, and starting forward. But then strong arms wrapped him from behind. “Easy, Sullivan,” Calvin murmured into his ear. “He’s not your enemy, none of us are. We’ll deal with that in due time. For now we’ve gotta get Alec outta here.”

“Well spoken,” said Uki. “We can take him to my house. There I can better care for him.”

David relaxed a little and Calvin let him go, though fury still burned in his face as he fought to regain his composure. “But can you
heal
him?” he finally managed to sob.

“That is for time to tell.”

Calvin pointed toward the crevasse and took a deep breath. “Well, we did one thing right, anyway: we killed your monster for you.”

Uki followed his gaze. “That you did, and well, though perhaps too rashly.” Abruptly he straightened and addressed them formally. “Know, oh travellers, that you have completed the task I have set you and by that have proven yourselves warriors. Thus it is that I hereby grant you passage through Wahala, to whatever honorable end awaits you.”

“But what about
Alec
?”
David persisted, his control slipping again.

Calvin ruffled his hair. “Uki’ll do what he can.”

“So let’s be at it, then.”

“And so we will—in a moment. There is one thing still to do here. Come, Edahi, Dagantu—you also, Sikwa Unega, if you will—and I will show you the way to free the ulunsuti from the head of the uktena.”

David hesitated. He didn’t want to leave Alec, but knew there was no reason not to, and at least this way he could learn something. Wearily he rose and followed his companions toward the crevasse.

Uki stood on the gulley’s edge, looking down; and David found himself forced to shield his nostrils with his shirttail at the stench—a reaction echoed, to his surprise, by Fionchadd. Calvin, who was shirtless, simply blanched and put his hand over his mouth.

“Gag, what a stink!”

“Foul, indeed.”

“No fouler than that which breeds it,” said Uki. “But it will not smell for long. Behold.”

He raised his hands over his head and clapped them together four times in a certain rhythm. The sound was no louder than mortal men’s hands performing the same gesture, but somehow the air seemed to thin, then thicken again, while the breeze brought the faint odor of ozone. David felt the hair prickle on his arms and neck, and gasped as sudden static charged everything around him, sending sparks crackling between his legs and the undergrowth if he so much as moved. And then sounds echoed in the sky: a booming of thunder, the intervals and cadence the same as Uki’s clapping.

Silence hung heavy on the mountain for a time; then suddenly the air was alive with the chirps and hoots and twitters of thousands of birds that spun and arced in from all directions and arrowed straight toward them. Uki clapped another rhythm, and once more the swirling skies replied, and the birds began to circle, as more and more were added to their number. They were closer, too; and David could make out individual species: hawks and eagles, mostly—and buzzards with naked red heads. But there were crows among them, and ravens; and amid them all a smattering of smaller, brighter species: cardinals and blue jays and orioles. There were even some parrots, or something very like them: hook-billed green birds with brilliant orange heads.

“Carolina parakeet,” Calvin gasped. “Extinct for a hundred years.”

“And passenger pigeons, I bet,” David added, becoming caught up in the excitement in spite of himself. He pointed to the northwest where a vast cloud of identical gray-brown shapes was joining the noisy array.

A third clapped rhythm, a third echo of thunder, and the birds descended upon the uktena’s corpse. A cloud of flies rose, indignant over having their feast usurped, and became themselves feasts for the more fastidious. As for the rest—the ones with hooked beaks and rending talons—for them serpent’s flesh was sufficient.

“In a few days only bones will remain,” Uki said. “Then we will retrieve the ulunsuti.”

Calvin grinned his appreciation. “Hey, neat trick, man.”

Uki fixed him with a speculative stare. “I might be able to teach you; you have the power, I think.”

David looked surprised. “I
knew
there was more to you than meets the eye.”

Calvin would not meet his gaze. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I only know what my grandfather taught me.

“Where few are strong it takes little strength to be greater,” Uki observed.

Calvin’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I’ll think about that later, if you don’t mind. For now, we need to worry about our buddy.”

Uki turned to Fionchadd. “You are fleet of foot and long of wind, Dagantu. Go seek my sisters, they will help us carry.”

“And us?” David insisted. “What do we do?”

“We will prepare a litter.”

*

Eventually they got Alec back to the cave. Impatient to begin and unable to sit and wait while his friend might be dying, David had demanded they start out as soon as the litter was completed: two poles lashed together with deer-hide Uki provided, and joined by Alec’s shirt and David’s jacket and T-shirt. As it was, they met Uki’s sisters less than a third of the way down the trail, whereupon the women took over the load and strode on ahead, making far better time than David and Calvin ever could have, even with Uki carrying half the weight at all times, and the three boys taking turns.

David was still sitting by Alec’s side in the sleeping chamber when Calvin returned a few hours later, having accompanied Fionchadd on a quest for some healing herb Uki needed that he had suddenly found in short supply. He supposed it was the Indian’s way of cutting him some slack, giving him some space while he got his head straight and resigned himself to the—not the inevitable, he told himself sternly—but to the distinctly probable.

Uki took the herbs, ground them into paste in a mortar, and rubbed some on Alec’s hands, then applied more to the blisters that patterned his body where the uktena’s blood had burned through.

“Will that help any?” David asked, mostly to have something to say.

“It will slow the poison,” Uki replied, “but while any remains in his body there is little hope. Now be silent, for I must begin the prayers.”

David nodded, and Uki closed his eyes and began to chant, slowly and softly at first, then more loudly:

Dunuwa, dunuwa, dunuwa, dunuwa, dunuwa, dunuwa.

Sge! Ha-Walasi-gwu tsunlun-taniga.

Dayuha, dayuha, dayuha, dayuha, dayuha.

Sge! Ha-Usugi-gwu tsunlun-taniga.

Twice he repeated the formula, all the while pacing in counterclockwise circles around Alec, once for each line. He then made two more circuits, each time pursing his lips and blowing outward.

Finally he returned to his place at Alec’s head. “It is a charm to cure snakebite,” he said, “for I know none against the uktena’s poison.”

David had no choice but to accept his word, though he had only the vaguest idea what had transpired. But now he looked at the herbs, he recognized them.

“Tobacco!” he said. “That’s tobacco.”

Uki scratched his chin. “We know it as
tsalu.”

“And the blowing at the end?”

“Is it not obvious?”

“’Fraid not.”

“Serpents always coil to the right and the uktena is no exception. That part of the spell simply uncoiled his spirit from your friend’s soul.”

David did not reply, for he had suddenly found himself once more fighting back tears.

Uki stared at him for a long time, then spoke very quietly. “I have been thinking,” he said, “and I have realized that one can sometimes become caught in just such a trap as snared the uktena: to assume that the answers one knows are the only ones.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And I do not express myself well. But what I mean is this: I have been thinking of healing ways, and many I have tried as you have seen. Yet I have been considering ways to heal a man of
this
land—and your friend is not of this land.”

David’s heart skipped a beat. Was there hope then? He dared not think it, but already his thoughts were speeding ahead. “Whatever it is, I’ll do,” he said quickly.

“If it is a thing you
can
do,” Uki answered softly. “But what I have thought on is this: To the north of here, two days steady travel, lies Atagahi, the lake where the beasts go for healing.”

David’s eyes brightened. “And you
think…”

“That if you were to go there and bring back some of that water it might heal your friend. The beasts who go there are more akin to those of your land than many here, ourselves included. Perhaps that will make the difference.” David leapt to his feet and started for the entrance. “You got it, man. I’m on my way.”