Empire of Unreason (52 page)

“If there is one thing that life has taught me, Veronique,” she said
softly, “it is that
anything
can be destroyed.”

Red Shoes came back from memory to find the scalped man before
him, chuckling. He waggled a finger at Red Shoes. “Yes, I saw the
village you destroyed. It still smokes. Crows and buzzards pick at
the corpses of the warriors, the women, the children, the old men.

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A fine job.”

“They were my enemies,” Red Shoes said.

“And who are your friends?”

“Tug. Flint Shouting.”

“The ones you follow now.”

“Yes.”

“Think, Red Shoes. You killed the Mongols. You killed the Wichita.

What are your friends fleeing, when their pursuers are all dead?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did.”

“You know. They are fleeing
your

And it suddenly made sense. Of course they had run from him. Who
wouldn’t? Flint Shouting had tried to turn and fight Red Shoes, but
Tug had smacked the Wichita over the head. Red Shoes
remembered that. Good old Tug, doing what he had asked. He must
have figured that this was the “something” Red Shoes feared would
happen to him.

In any case, the scalped man was right—he should have known.

What
had
blinded him?

But he knew the answer to that, too. Something in him was afraid—

or remembered being afraid—of this sort of thing.

Something in him was like Grief, sickened by what he had done at
the Wichita village.

Part of him, yes—the fingernail of one hand was a part of him, too,
but not a large part. Yet this had been large enough to paint the
truth black.

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He would have to attend to that. What use this power if mortal
weakness made him fear to use it?

He nodded to the scalped man. “It is true, what you said. Do you
have anything else true to say, or have you used up all such words?”

“Do you still plan to kill me?”

“Not just now. I can do that anytime I want.”

“Indeed, you can. What
will
you do now?”

“Find my friends and prove to them that they need not fear me.

Find my people and protect them from what is coming.”

“The best way to be safe from it is to join with it,” the scalped man
said.

“Perhaps. I will decide when the time comes. You have helped me
just now, but I have not forgotten how treacherous your kind are. I
do not trust all of your advice.”

“May I travel along with you?”

“No.”

“May I follow you?”

“Do what pleases you, but remember I may change my mind and
kill you at any moment.”

For the rest of the night, the only sound he made was the lick of his
paddle into the river. He tried to sort out what had become of him.

He didn’t feel very different—he still felt like himself, like Red
Shoes. He had known persons hollowed out by the spirits, walking
skins with no human minds in them. That wasn’t what he was.

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It seemed, when he thought back, that he had changed when he
made the messenger shadowchild. That was when he understood
how very powerful he was, when the strength he had swallowed
began to quicken.

There were legends among his people of orphans who one day
learned that they were the bastard children of Thunder, who—after
a few tests—suddenly came into their legacy and power. He felt a bit
like that, as if he had finally earned the use of something that had
always been in him, that he had always deserved.

He caught Grief staring at him again and remembered another
legend.

“Can I untie you now? Will you try to run?” he asked.

Given her recent behavior, he didn’t expect her to answer; but after
a brief hesitation, she did. “Where I go?” she asked dully.

He drew a knife and cut the rawhide thongs on her hands and feet.

“This way you can swim if we overturn. But keep your promise.”

“I will.”

And again she lapsed into silence, which wasn’t what he was after.

“At the Wichita village—you were—sick,” Red Shoes ventured.

“Yes. You killed them all. The little children.”

“When did a warrior ever flinch from killing?”

“You weren’t warrior. They not die at the hands of warrior. You
tornado, grass fire. Plague.”

“Would you blame those things for killing?”

“I would blame the sorcerer who sent them.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Ah. May I tell you a story?”

“How could I stop you?”

“There was an orphan boy who had no luck, no hunting magic, no
kin, nothing. One day he went off into the woods, to succeed or to
die. In the night, a peregrine falcon came into the circle of his fire,
pursued by a horned owl. The falcon asked the boy to protect him,
while the owl demanded he give the falcon up to him. The owl, a
great sorcerer, promised the boy all the powers of the night if he
should leave the falcon to him.

“But the boy protected the falcon, who gave him the power of his
eyes, and his sharp breast, with which to strike prey like a war club.

The falcon made the orphan into a great hunter, a war prophet.

“We tell that story to our children. We tell them the orphan’s choice
was the correct one—owls are accursed beings, nightgoers. And the
boy benefited from helping the falcon.
But
—” He paused
meaningfully. “—Who knows what the boy would have gotten if he
had chosen the
owl?”

“You do,” Grief replied.

He grinned. “Yes, I do. People like me, when we are very, very
young—a voice calls us away, and we go. I remember it very well. It
was the little man,
kwanakasha,
also called
boh-poli,
the thrower.

He offered me two choices—a bag of herbs and a war club. It was
really no choice at all—either way I would have ended as an
accursed being, a plague to all people.

“But my uncle was attentive. He noticed me, speaking to this
companion no one else could see. He was wise and powerful. Our
people—the wise ones, the sacred fire makers and the prophets—

have long known a simple fact. Some children are suited for these
spirits, but even so the spirit must stroke the mother just so, make
small changes in the child so he can receive them. The thing is—the
very changes that allow them to speak to us, to raise us in secret
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

though we are surrounded by family—those same changes make it
possible to turn against them. To cut them up, put them back
together, use them to manipulate the shadows of our souls and to
make magic that owes nothing directly to them. I did this, with my
uncle’s help. I denied the easy power, and took what was hard. In a
sense, I chose the falcon, you might say.”

“I not think so. I think you choose owl from very start. But you not
know until now.”

“I am not an accursed being, Grief. I have been good.”

“You not who you were, Red Shoes.”

He smiled briefly. “Did you know me so well?”

“I watched you.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer.

“Maybe I’m not who I was,” he went on. “Nor am I who I will be.

This is the test of the
kwanakasha
all over again. Again they try to
make me their servant, this time by presenting a greater power.

Again I foil them, steal their fire, use it for my own purposes.”

“Scalped man call you
brother
.”

“The scalped man fears me. The scalped man wants to bend me to
his will, by trickery since he cannot by strength. I laugh at him.”

“You slaughtered whole village.”

“I will slaughter many more than that, if need be, to keep my people
safe, to stop this army.”

Grief seemed to consider that. “It is said among my people that
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sorcerer’s greatest power is he can travel without his heart,” she
murmured. “Do you people also say?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you have a heart?”

“Maybe I don’t. Maybe that’s the difference you notice. If so, I’m
better off without it.”

Grief trailed her hand in the water. “After my kin die, I wish I had
no heart. If I know how to become sorcerer, to cut out my heart and
hide far from body, I would do, if get power for revenge. I would
still do it. You show me how?”

“Not and leave you alive, I fear.”

She nodded a little sorrowfully.
“You
my best chance for revenge,
then. Will you kill them who kill my people?”

“Yes.”

“You frightened me,” she continued. “I try to run away. I not try
again.” She flung droplets from her fingers out onto the dark
mirror of the river. “Where we going?”

He nodded downstream. “This will take us to the Okahina, the
Great Water Road.”

“I’ve heard of.”

“My people live beyond it. That’s where we are going.”

“What you do when you get there?”

“With my people, I will throw back this army. They will fall as thick
as leaves in the autumn. The Water Road will run red, and they will
have to give it a new name. And I will face this Sun Boy, and if he
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

has his heart in him, I will tear it out. After that—I don’t know. One
part of their idea may be right. It may be that we should destroy all
the white and black men. It may be that we should push them into
the sea, just as this army aims to do. Or…” He considered not
telling her, but then did so anyway. “Or it may be that the days
allotted to the world are done, that it is time to shatter the bowl of
the sky and begin again.”

“What you mean?” she asked, her voice peculiar.

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, remembering the flood again.

Someone had tried to do it before. “Something I heard somewhere.

It is of no real concern. It will happen or not.”

“My people have stories, too,” Grief said. “One is about man who
fight terrible serpent, horned serpent. To do this, he get power of
thunderbirds, who dwell in the mountains. He find them, and they
gave him the power. He destroy serpent, but the thunderbird
mystery still in him, and his body not— ah—hold it. He weep
lightning—first sometimes, then always. Whenever he look
someone—family, friends, lovers—he weep lightning, they die. He
too strong.”

“What became of him?”

“He not die. He wander yet, rag tied on face so not open eyes.”

Red Shoes considered it. “An interesting story. Beautiful, in its
way. Thank you for it. But do not fear—my lightning stays in me
until I will it to come forth. As you see.” And he widened his eyes at
her.

“At first,” she cautioned, “at first.”

Later they pulled ashore and built a fire. He watched the planes of
her face in the flickering light.

“You didn’t answer me. Why did you watch me so?”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

She met his gaze. “Because you watch me.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think I did that?”

For answer, she stood and unhitched her skirt, then pulled her
chemise over her head. Now the firelight played along the whole
long column of her, and for an instant he was in Venice, puzzling at
a marble statue of a woman, naked—in a city full of people obsessed
with covering their bodies. Two strange moments, come together.

He watched her approach, but did not rise. She walked closer, until
they were nearly touching.

He could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Her musky, smoky
scent filled his head. Gradually, by small degrees, he leaned until
his cheek touched her thigh, as if some force were pulling them
together, was still pulling, would not be satisfied until their bodies
had crushed and mingled into one.

“It is not this simple, what I want from you.” He sighed.

“I know that,” she said, and sank slowly down against him, so that
his cheek brushed across her belly, her breasts, finally came to rest
in the hollow of her neck. She came farther, engulfing him in her
scent, in the brassy fire of her skin.

The sun found Franklin and the rest through a curtain of fog,
beside a broad, swift stream. They paused to wait for better light,
and for the first time Franklin had a look at his benefactors.

There were twelve of them, and Franklin knew two of them
instantly—Voltaire and Euler.

“Voltaire?” he ventured. “I thought I left you with a job to do.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Good morning, my friend. Never fear—I brought pen, ink, and
paper. It seemed to me that there could be nothing so inspirational
for writing a declaration of freedom than the experience of nature,
where all things are free.”