Ghostcountry's Wrath (6 page)

But those were reconstructions; at least in part, this looked…not lived in, but perhaps
maintained.

“This is
Otalwatadjo
,”
the Red Man said. “The Place at the Navel of the Earth. It is the center of Galunlati. Enter Otalwatadjo from the East.” And with that he stepped into the woods and was gone.

Uki met them at the designated point—which was simply an overlapping of the walls like the entrance to a spiral. But where before the shaman had been simply clad, now he wore an elaborate headdress of white feathers that looked like egret, with more frothy plumes depending from quilled and painted bands around his arms and legs, while a complexity of lesser ornaments made mostly of incised conch shell clicked and winked from his ears and nose, at his throat, wrist, and ankles, and among the waving feathers. He also sported a gray-and-white finger-woven sash. Wordlessly, though with a ghost of a smile, he gestured to them to follow. Sighing, they fell in behind him and marched (still keeping time to the beat of the unseen drums) up the southern mound.

It was not all that high, but the pitch was steep, and Calvin's calves tightened painfully as he trudged up the split-log stair. The summit was level and grassy, maybe sixty feet on a side, and centered by one of the thatch-roofed buildings. A single opening faced the head of the stair. They dared it, entering a garage-sized room lit by four torches fixed to the four wooden pillars that stabilized the pitch-poles that supported the roof. A fire blazed in the center of the floor, fed by logs set along the primary axes, burning where they met.

Calvin bowed toward it, in obeisance to Sacred Flame, but as he raised his head, Uki stepped past him to pause before a low carved box of cedar wood set against the far wall. His body blocked Calvin's view, but when he turned back around, he held a pottery jar the size of a man's empty skull. “This is the fat of Yanu, the Bear,” he said. “Annoint yourselves until Yanu's strength conceals every trace of your paleness.” Whereupon, he set the jar between the bewildered young men. It contained some sort of foul-smelling, red-tinged ointment.

Calvin squatted beside it, sniffed it, and winced at the strong animal musk. But this was no time for shirking. Rolling his eyes at his companions, he scooped up a handful and smeared it across his chest. It was disturbingly warm.

The next few moments were a comedy of nervous embarrassment as they slathered themselves from head to foot until they were gleaming in the flickering light, their skins now faintly scarlet.

Uki inspected them for a long ambiguous moment, then returned to the chest. This time when he faced them, he clutched three white leather bags, fringed with engraved shell discs and egret feathers. “Take now the first rewards of silence, of suffering, and of patience,” he intoned as he passed them one each. Calvin opened the drawstring that bound his and fumbled inside. His fingers brushed soft leather. But there was more. He sat down and rummaged about in earnest.

The first thing he drew out was his medicine bag; the second, his uktena scale necklace. Next came a long strip of white leather with thongs along either side that proved to be a loincloth similar to Uki's, though shorter and less ornamented. There was also a pair of low, pucker-toed moccasins. He studied them briefly, then eased them on, stood, and secured the loincloth about his waist, noting that his friends had been similarly gifted. When they had finished, Uki nodded an impassive, mute approval and motioned them back outside.

The glare made Calvin squint, as they descended to the court at the bottom. The drums were still pounding, too: still invisible, but louder and with an indefinable note of celebration infecting their rhythm. Calvin couldn't stop his gaze from darting from one mound-top temple to another. But nowhere could he see anyone save Uki, who stood like a strange white bird at the crest of the southern stair.

Abruptly, the drumming shifted tempo, and this time along with it Calvin caught a shimmer of voices: the high, clear tones of women.
“Yo
He Wah!”
they sang.
“Yo
He Wah!”
over and over, hypnotically. He didn't recognize the language.

But he certainly recognized the singers! For just as the sun cleared the roof of the eastern temple, four young women danced into view from behind it, their slow, shuffling steps those of what Calvin knew from attending pow-wows was called a stomp dance. The first and last held turtle-shell rattles, with more clumped like barnacles around their ankles. These he identified with an impossible to suppress shudder as Uki's sisters, the Serpent-Women (he'd heard no other name for them). Both were almost as tall as their brother and as white-skinned. They had black hair, too, but Calvin knew that it was false, that beneath their waist-long tresses their heads were as bald as pumpkins. They wore kilts of snow white leather, but went bare-breasted—and would have been impossibly enticing, had their mouths not been bracketed by the gaping maws of tattooed serpents, the bodies of which curved around those breasts to sting the nipples with their tails.

And the middle two…could only be Liz and Sandy, clad much like their companions, if somewhat more modestly, with knee-length feather capes fastened around their chests. And they really
were
singing, right along with the Serpent-Women. More to the point, neither looked at all uneasy. Indeed, Sandy, in particular, looked like she was having a hard time not grinning, as if she knew something Calvin didn't—which she undoubtedly did. Liz's eyes sparkled as well, and Calvin thought she looked fine indeed, with her red hair set off by the white feather cape. Dave was a damned lucky guy.

The worst was over, then—he hoped. Why else would Liz and Sandy be carrying on so, perfectly relaxed as they were?

“…Yo He Wah! Yo He Wah! YO HE WAH!”

Three final beats of a drum, as the women ranged themselves at the foot of Uki's mound…then silence.

—Broken, from the North, by a jingling of bells.

Calvin nudged David with his elbow, and the three boys spun about—to see, standing at the top of the northern mound's stairs, the disquieting figure of Asgaya Sakani, the Blue Man of the North. He was dressed much like Uki, save that his clothing and feather ornaments were the blue of lizard tails, jays, and herons, accented with discs of mica and incised slate. In his right hand he bore an arm-long length of azure wood Calvin identified as an
atasi,
or war club.

“Sikwa Unega!”
Asgaya Sakani cried. “White 'Possum, whom men in the Lying World name David Sullivan! Is it you that stands before me, arrayed for war, yet weaponless?”

Calvin was relieved to hear David reply clearly, “
Siyu, adewehiyu:
it is I!”

“Sikwa Unega,” Asgaya Sakani continued, “was it you who came to Galunlati, where you had never been, and where your kind are no longer welcome, baring no weapon save a simple stick of wood?”

“It was.”

“And was it you who fought the great uktena that threatened the peace of Walhala? Was it you who, when your friend was wounded nigh unto death, ventured alone to the Lake Atagahi, where you fought Yanu Tsunega and won the water which healed that friend? And was it you who put an end to a war in the land of the Nunnehi that made Nunda Igeyi burn hot across Galunlati?”

“It…was,” David said meekly.

“These are the deeds of great warriors,” the Blue Man went on. “And by a warrior's name should you therefore be known! Henceforth you will be known as
Yanu-degahnehiha:
He-Wrestles-Bears! May warriors in every Land hear that name and despair!”

And with that, he strode down from his high place until he was an arm's length from David. “Wits are a mighty weapon,” he said. “But a warrior must rely on his strength of arm as well.” And with that, he passed David the war club. David took it awkwardly, but Calvin could see he was grinning like his namesake.

Asgaya Sakani studied him for a moment, then reached around and clamped his left hand briefly on David's bare shoulder. David flinched, and his eyes widened, but he did not cry out.
“Iaaai!”
the Blue Man whooped, and withdrew, staring at David as if awaiting some reply.

“Iaaai!”
Calvin yelled, to fill the nervous void, and because it seemed right. After a moment, Alec followed. Finally David responded as well.
“Iaaai!”
he cried.
“Iaaai!
Hear me, Asgaya Sakani, and all of Galunlati. I am…Yanu-Degaluiehiha!”

Calvin relaxed. They'd had no coaching on this, but as best he could tell, Dave had winged the right response. Or at least Asgaya Sakani looked pleased, before he turned and ascended the northern stair.

When he reached the summit, a second jingling sounded, this time to the West. As one they faced that way.

The Black Man stood atop the mound there: Asgaya Gunnagei, Chief of Usunhiyi, the Darkening Land. His loincloth still bore slick black fur, the feathers he wore were black, and his ornaments were of jet, obsidian, and raw iron. He too clutched an atasi.

“Tsulehisanunhi!”
he shouted. “You, whom the Lying World names Alexander McLean! Is it you that stands before me arrayed for war but weaponless?”

“It is!” Alec said, far more forcefully than was his wont.

“And was it you who likewise came to Galunlati, though you fear to fare in such Lands? And yet you came, because your friends had need of you?”

“It…was.” Alec sounded uncertain, and Calvin had a good idea why, though this was not the time to think on such things.

“Tsulehisanunhi, was it your spear that slew the great uktena when no other weapon could? Was it you who felt the fire of its poison and well nigh died by that, so that I thought to have you as my guest in Tsusginai?”

Alec's expression darkened. “It was.”

“And did you likewise master the ulunsuti, and thereby help restore Nunda Igeyi, and thus save Galun-lati?”

“I did.”

“It is good that you did!” Asgaya Gunnagi cried. “For by those acts you mark yourself a warrior indeed, and by a warrior's name shall you hereafter be called:
Uktena-dehi:
He-Killed-An-Uktena! May warriors in every Land hear that name and tremble!”

The ritual that followed was the same as before. The Black Man descended, conferred the club, and clapped Alec on the back with his left hand—prompting a startled yip that provoked a frown from Asgaya Gunnagei before he whooped.

Fortunately, Alec recovered enough to respond properly, as Calvin and David added their cries to his.

By now Calvin was primed for what passed next. But the jingling came not from the South, as he expected, but from the East.

He spun about and saw Asgaya Gigagei, the Red Man of the Lightning, clad as the others, though in scarlet, and likewise grasping an atasi.

“Edahi!” he shouted. “You who were named at birth Calvin Fargo McIntosh! Is it you who stand before me arrayed for war yet weaponless?”

“
Siyu, adewehiyu!
It is I!” Calvin called back with a grin.

The Red Man raised an eyebrow. “Was it you, Edahi, who sought the way of Ani-Yunwiya, though your father would have denied you that part of your soul?”

“It was!”

“And was it you who came to Galunlati and contrived the slaying of the great uktena? Was it you who first pierced its side, and thus awakened it?”

“It was!”

“Was it you who then fared to the burning sands at the edge of my Quarter so that you might aid your Nunnehi friend, and dared the perilous return alone?”

“It was!”

“Was it you who aided these others in fixing Nunda Igeyi once more in its proper place?”

“It was!”

“And—”

But a jingling interrupted, from the South. Calvin glanced that way uncertainly—and saw Uki, dressed as before with the addition of a club similar to the others.

“Edahi!” Uki cried fiercely. “You whom I, Asgaya Tsunega, whom you know as Hyuntikwala claim as friend and apprentice; is it you who comes before me arrayed for war yet weaponless?”

“It is—adewehiyu!”

Whereupon Uki frowned. “Was it you, Edahi,” he began, “who studied my arts and my learning for more than a year, though it cost you great pain to fare to the place of my teaching?”

“It was!”

Uki's face turned even grimmer. “And, Edahi, was it you who then used those arts in the Lying World to open a gate to this Land?”

Something about Uki's face and tone made Calvin's heart skip a beat. “It…was.”

“And was it
you
,”
Uki asked louder, “who by creating that gate allowed Utlunta, whom your kind call Spearfinger, to enter the Lying World where she did not belong? Was it
you
who admitted one there who slew a woman who had done you no harm, and likewise your sire and a young man to whom you were beholden, and also a girl-child, whose brother befriended you? There, in that place where friendship is as strong as clan or kin?”

“I—”

“And,”
Uki thundered, “was it
you
who took the fault of all that upon yourself, as a warrior should? Was it you who tracked Utlunta, and shot her with arrows, and fought her in more shapes than one? Was it you who discovered her dread of water and drowned her at last, so that she is no longer a threat to the Lying World?”