Racing the Dark (34 page)

The death suddenly leaned forward and a strange light in its normally dark eyes grew brighter. She glanced at it sharply moments before she felt strong hands reach roughly under her armpits and haul her upright. She couldn't see her attacker, but she could smell him-a hard odor of earth and sweat and horseflesh. He was holding a strong walking stick to her throat with enough pressure to make it very hard to breathe. Actually, she realized moments later, she had been assaulted by two men. As one of them kept the stranglehold on her throat the other walked in front of her. His round, dust-red face was surprisingly young, but he looked at her with the determined bravado of a boy intending to prove himself a man. He wore a pair of low-slung hide pants and a short, open vest without any buttons.

The one behind her growled something in her ear. The words were incomprehensible, but they terrified her all the same. She heard a breathy bleat of terror and realized it was her own voice. The one before her, brandishing a carved stick that looked heavy enough to crack her bones with one blow, rattled off something else in the same tongue. She shook her head frantically-she would have said something, but the stick was still too heavy across her throat.

The one she could see made a brief gesture to the one behind her and the pressure on her neck eased slightly. Lana gulped air and then began to cough violently on the dust.

"Who ... are you?" said the boy in front of her slowly, his accent just barely intelligible. "What your business is? Eggs ... eggs ..." He trailed off, looking desperately at the man behind her for help.

"Steal," said the man, with an even thicker accent. "Come to steal eggs of ..." he paused and then said another incomprehensible word that sounded like hrevech. He pulled the stick hard across her neck again. "Answer," he said.

Lana nodded frantically and the pressure eased. "My name is Lana ... Iolana. I am here to see the wind spirit ... I need to go to the ruins on the mesa."

The boys looked at each other. The young one said something but the one holding her made a dismissive sound. "Hrevech," the first one said again. "Steal eggs?"

"I don't know anything about eggs. I don't know what a ... hrevech is." She noticed that the boy in front of her had a leather sack attached to his hip that she now guessed was filled with the precious eggs. He narrowed his eyes at her before kneeling in front of the crevice she had cleared the old nest out of earlier. He picked up a few of the dried twigs and pieces of animal hair littering the stones nearby and said something to the other one.

"Old," the boy told her, standing up. "No eggs."

Suddenly, she heard a grating screech echo off the rock. The man holding her abruptly let go and she stumbled forward.

"Hrevech!" he shouted. They were no longer paying any attention to her-he and the boy were waving their sticks in the air and shouting. Lana looked up and gasped. Circling in the sky above them was the largest bird she had ever seen. It looked vaguely like an oversized hawk with a wingspan at least twice Lana's height, except its eyes and its beak were disproportionately large. It had a blue-gold underbelly and dusty red feathers on top with fluffy, stark white feathers on its face. Her breath caught in her throat. How beautiful.

It seemed to Lana that her erstwhile captors were trying to catch the creature's attention for some reason. The bird-a hrevech, she assumed-flew closer to them. Lana's heart started pounding when she glanced in its eyes-she didn't trust their alien, predatory intelligence. When the bird began circling less than ten feet away from them, the older one-a man, perhaps, but certainly no older than she-grabbed her summarily by the elbow and hauled her farther down the slope. With another screech so powerful Lana was afraid her ears would bleed, the bird swooped down. Lana screamed and cowered against the stone, but the bird pulled up barely two feet from her head and began circling around the crevice, almost protectively. The boys looked back and saw the same thing. They exchanged a few terse words and then the younger one began to sing.

His singing voice was rough and his words incomprehensible, but his wavering pitch held a certain determined power that she had heard before. When she felt the beginnings of a strong wind, she realized why his disjointed notes had sounded oddly familiar: he was calling a wind. The wind began to howl and blow around them, but he still sang, even when Lana could no longer hear him. Suddenly the wind grew so strong that she realized she was in danger of tumbling off the edge of the rock. Before she could find an outcropping to grab onto, a particularly strong gust punched her in the stomach and she tumbled into open air.

She didn't even have time to gasp.

I should have hit those rocks, she thought. But the two boys, still on either side of her, didn't look surprised at all. Was the younger one, still singing, somehow using the wind to make them fall at an angle? Just before they should have smashed into the red dust at the bottom of the cliffs, the wind suddenly gusted with enough force to pop her ears and buoyed them so they landed with barely a thump on the dry earth.

Lana dug her hands in the soil and drew several long, shuddering breaths that rasped in her throat. She had spent months courting death, but she had never felt so close to it. She didn't even mind the dust-at least it was earth. At least she wasn't falling.

After a few minutes she felt someone tap her shoulder. She looked up to see that she was surrounded by red-faced people, looking at each other and talking in quick whispers. Her older captor had disappeared, but the younger one was standing protectively beside her, arguing with the gathered crowd. As they went back and forth, Lana attempted to brush some of the dust from her pants and stood up shakily. She wasn't sure if it was fear, thirst, or exhaustion, but though she knew she was on solid ground, everything she saw seemed to be wobbling. She took a deep breath and stared at her feet.

"Iolana," the boy said carefully. She looked at him. "They say why is she here?' You said ... before ... you wish to see the great wild spirit of wind, correct? You wish us to help you to the ruins?"

Lana nodded wearily. "Yes," she said. "That's it. I'm on a pilgrimage."

He nodded and turned back to the crowd. They spoke for a few more minutes, this time with considerably less emotional fervor. Lana took this as a good sign. Finally, they seemed to reach some agreement and the people wandered off, back to tend the fires that had dwindled in their absence and the food that was sticking to the pots.

"They say you are intruder. I say ... great spirit wants you some reason. We must help. They say take to ... leader." He paused and smiled reassuringly. "No worry. Good man, leader. Will help."

Lana smiled back and tried not to notice the death behind him, so opaque it almost looked corporeal.

The boy-whose name was Yechtak, he told her-led her to a large tent set up in the shadows of the cliff face. She wondered why their encampment would crowd so close to large outcroppings of rocks-was it possible they needed to defend themselves? The flaps of the tent were covered in dark maze-like designs that reminded her, in their intricacy, of some of the house decorations in Ialo during the spirit solstice. With one final reassuring smile, Yechtak pulled back the tent flap and led her inside.

The room was very dark despite the fire burning in a pit dug in the center. There was a hole up top for the smoke to escape through, but most of it seemed to linger in the room itself, making Lana's already irritated throat hurt. The only person in the tent was an old man sitting by the fire on a single cushion without even a support for his back.

Yechtak called out a greeting and the man turned his face to him, smiling. Almost immediately, though, the smile left his face and he looked toward Lana. She shuddered. Yechtak gestured for her to sit on the other side of the fire. As she lowered herself through the haze of smoke, Lana realized why the old man's gaze seemed so strange: his eyes had been gouged out. This had happened a very long time ago, judging by the weathered and creased scars. As with Akua's arm, she had no doubt that this man's mutilation had been intentional and self-inflicted. She knew that she was in the presence of great power.

The room began swaying again.

"You come with dangerous guests, Yechtak," Erlun said.

Yechtak thought Iolana looked tired and sick, not dangerous. Was even Erlun threatened by the presence of this young Binder? He shook his head. "We found her in an old hrevech nesting cave. If she had stayed the night there, she might have become baby food. We probably saved her life."

Erlun smiled. "Saved her life? Perhaps. But it certainly wasn't selflessness that led you to call a nesting hrevech nearly down on your heads. Now you can go up and steal the eggs when you want without searching for another nest, of course."

Yechtak blushed and stared into the fire. "Well ... it was a good opportunity. But, anyway, I don't see how she can be dangerous when she screams at just the sight of a hrevech."

Erlun made a clucking noise with his tongue. "Fear is not always a sign of weakness, Yechtak. Remember that. In some, fear is a sign of ignorance. And besides, you did not listen carefully enough. I said you came with dangerous guests. You have brought more than one creature to my fire this evening."

Yechtak looked around. "What do you mean? There's no one but me, you and the girl."

"You do not have the eyes to see my fourth guest, but I do, and I tell you that it is dangerous. And yet, I suspect that for now it will not harm us. This girl knows what she has brought with her, but she comes regardless, which indicates either great carelessness or great need. Which is it? Ask her."

Yechtak turned to the girl, whose wide, weary eyes seemed to trap him. He blinked for a few moments and then began to laboriously translate Erlun's question with his limited command of the Binder language. The girl's eyes, impossibly, widened further as he asked his question, and the glance she gave Erlun spoke volumes of guilt and pain. She reached to her throat to fondle a large red bead that hung from a chain in what seemed like a reflexive gesture. Who was this woman? He had seen mothers who had lost sons to the plains battles give looks like that. Could she have lost a child?

"I ... I apologize for coming," she said after a few silent moments. "But I came in desperation ... in great need. I must go to the ruins on the mesa. I must find the wind spirit. I was sum moned because perhaps, the wind spirit can help me evade this unwelcome guest and help me save someone ... someone very dear to me."

Yechtak translated Iolana's response much faster than he had translated Erlun's question. The old man smiled gently at her and nodded. Yechtak felt a ball of nervousness in his stomach that he had not even been aware of begin to unwind. He had not wanted this oddly appealing girl to justify Erlun's fears.

"She tells the truth, Yechtak. She carries a wind jar-the wild god desires her and I must do its bidding. Tell her that we will help her reach the ruins on the mesa. One of us will guide her there."

Yechtak's eyes were drawn to the old man's bare chest, where he could barely make out the intricate tattoo-the only record their tribe had of the safe path to the ruins. Each of the shamans in the six wind tribes had that tattoo given to them upon their ascension to power. And each of the shamans had sacrificed something in turn for the knowledge.

"You will take her?" he asked. "But, Erlun, do you think you could make such a journey..."

Erlun shook his head gently but something in his countenance made Yechtak snap his mouth shut.

"No, son. I know I cannot make such a journey. Someone else must be her guide-someone who I can trust with the map. You were the one who found her. It seems appropriate that you should be her guide. This will be your own special initiation into manhood. And perhaps, one day, you may even take my place."

Yechtak bit his cheek to keep his face from showing undue emotion, but he wasn't sure how successful he was. To be entrusted with the shaman's map ... it made his head spin. His mother would be so proud. No plains-battle manhood for him; his would be an initiation far more important and dangerous.

Erlun laughed and put his hands closer to the fire. "Well, tell her, why don't you? You can preen later."

Yechtak blushed again-a very unmanly habit that he would have to break-and began his awkward translation.

Lana found herself warming to the strange blind man, even though it was impossible to relax with the death hovering at the edge of the room. She should have had the foresight to make sure the old man invited her inside, but it was too late now. The death's recent silence put her on edge-made her think that it would hurt someone else out of frustration. Of course, it was silly for her to ascribe a human emotion to such an alien presence. She was grateful when Yechtak told her that he would guide her to the ruins on the mesa, although she didn't quite understand the pride in his voice.

A woman wearing a simple homespun skirt and buckskin top decorated with red and white beads entered the tent quietly. She was carrying a large basket that she placed down right beside the fire. Inside, Lana saw slabs of bloody meat and carefully cleaned wooden skewers. The smell of congealing blood this close was overpowering and she felt herself growing dizzy again. Why had this woman brought the flesh of slaughtered animals inside a tent, anyway? She glanced up at Yechtak by way of a question, but the unmistakable expression on his face made her understand.

This was supposed to be food. She had heard the wind tribes ate the flesh of slaughtered animals, but she hadn't imagined that it would be in such quantities, without any normal food to temper it. The woman smiled at both the old man and Yechtak and made what sounded like polite conversation with them while she skewered the meat and placed the sticks on holders suspended above the fire. This vaguely reminded Lana of how her mother made grouper, except the smell of roasting meat, with the blood and fat dripping into the fire with sizzles and pops, nearly made her want to vomit. Of course, she knew that she could hardly afford to refuse these people's hospitality after they had agreed to escort her all the way to the ruins. Once three slabs of meat were sizzling above the fire, the woman took the blood-soaked basket and left the tent. She returned a few minutes later with three smaller baskets, each one half-filled with warm, golden-brown bread and a clay jug of water. To her surprise, Lana loved the bread, even with the smell of roasting flesh in her nostrils. It was sweet and made with a grain she had never tasted before. Although she was thirsty, she only sipped at the water-she didn't know when she would have more. She watched in dismay as the woman smiled and pushed a huge slab of meat off the spit and into her basket.