Shadows in the Cave (23 page)

“That’s what I want.” But his tone was drab. “Oghi, I’m glad to see you.”

“Iona says to tell you she’s well, she’s missing you, and your child is growing fine in her belly.”

Tsola’s voice from within was surprisingly strong. “Bola, Bota, bring our visitors in.”

She came partway to meet them, tying a loose-woven mask over her eyes. Aku knew that she could see through it a little.

Aku introduced Shonan and Yah-Su. The Wounded Healer said to Oghi, “Hello, my friend,” and greeted them all in a
kind way. Bola and Bota flanked her closely. Aku wondered how she knew Oghi.

“I’m sorry, the light hurts my eyes. Will you …?”

The panthers led everyone to a shadowy side chamber. Their hostess unmasked and said, “I think you all have stories to trade.” Both panthers hovered close to her.

Aku begged his father to tell first how he’d escaped from Maloch the Uktena and the Brown Leaves. Shonan told the tale enthusiastically, without a hint of exaggeration, and giving Yah-Su plenty of credit. Though invited, the buffalo man had nothing to say.

While they talked, Tsola herself built a small fire and started some tea. When Shonan told about the attack on Maloch, he ended with, “The bastard is really something, getting away from us.”

“You were really something,” said Aku, “getting away from him. But how did you get here?”

Tsola served the tea in horns and put out bowls of berries in sweetened water.

“We ran like hell from the Brown Leaves. You’d be amazed by how Yah-Su can cover ground, and how he knows the country between the Brown Leaf village and ours, every nook and cranny.” He paused, and father and son just looked at each other. “When Iona told us you’d come here, we followed. Time to get moving. My daughter is lying in the Underworld with no life-fire. Your twin is lying in the Underworld with no life-fire. Let’s go.”

Oghi said softly, “I want to hear Aku’s adventures.”

The young man told slowly, diffidently, how he searched for Shonan but couldn’t find him, how he flew back to see Iona and then on to visit Tsola. He said nothing about the cave of paintings but mentioned vaguely that Tsola had sent him on a trip to the Land Beyond the Sky Arch, where
Maloch momentarily got him in his coils. He didn’t need to add, ‘And damn near killed me.’

Shonan didn’t want to hear about the spirit world anyway. “I want to get going.”

“Pray tell,” said Tsola, “where would you go?”

That put a stop to conversation.

Finally, Shonan said, “To the Darkening Land.”

“And where is that?”

“I’m sure you know, of all people.”

“This is rash,” said Tsola. “None of you is prepared for the Darkening Land. All of you will be killed.”

“What preparation are we talking about?”

The hard feelings between Shonan and Tsola had started the day he married Meli. Aku felt like he could eat the tension between his father and his great-grandmother.

“Physical skills, ones some of you have and some don’t. Emotional strength, for what you will see there. Wisdom, to understand. Strength of spirit, to know what to do and how to get back out.”

“I don’t think we’re weaklings.”

“No one has ever gone into the Darkening Land and returned.”

Shonan grinned like he’d caught her out. “One of your old stories says the seven men who went for the daughter of Grandmother Sun came back.”

“But they failed to bring the girl back.”

Besides, it was an unfair comment. Everyone knew things weren’t like they were in the days of the oldest stories.

Shonan advanced his case. “Seriously, a warrior who dies in battle goes to the Darkening Land and is immediately reborn on Turtle Island. You yourself teach that. And whatever happens down below
will
be a battle.”

“Reborn as an infant, which means failure. You are a
good man, Red Chief Shonan, but you are ignorant. To deal with spiritual worlds, you need to be a spiritual warrior.”

Shonan made his voice blunt. “I’m tired of this magic stuff. It killed my wife, his mother. If I let Aku go that way, it will ruin him. I know what he needs, and it’s action.”

Tsola looked at Aku. “ ‘If he lets you. He knows what you need.’ How do those words sit, Aku?”

Aku held his grandmother’s gaze. “I go my own way. I am not a tool of either one of you.”

Shonan seemed to wince.

“Shonan,” Tsola said, “do you feel ready to go to the Darkening Land, even if that means death?”

“A man gives everything to save his daughter. Or son.”

“Yah-Su, are you ready to go?” Isola asked in Amaso.

The buffalo man said only, “Yes.”

“Oghi, are you?” This was a key question. Tsola knew the seer in Oghi, and he could make the difference.

“I would like to talk to you in private.”

Tsola nodded. “Aku, are you ready?”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go.”

“All right.” She pondered. “All of you except Oghi and Bola, go outside. Aku, you aren’t healed yet. Sit in the waters. The rest of you, I’m sure the waters will take away your fatigue.”

“Oghi,” she said, “it’s good to see you again.”

When the Amaso people came to the Planting Moon Ceremony at the Cheowa village, Oghi had made the walk up the mountain to the Emerald Cavern. The Wounded Healer agreed to see him. After all, he was a Galayi now, and his village was a risky experiment, the uniting of peoples with different
languages and different customs. Immediately, they felt the power of the seer in each other. And at his request she drummed him across into the Land Beyond the Sky Arch.

Nothing bound minds together like a joint trip to the world above, living in each others’ heads.

“Oghi, why are you involved in this madness?”

“It’s my fault Salya was kidnapped, or partly mine. I should have warned them. I knew I should, and I didn’t.”

“That’s not the reason.”

“Have any seers gone down there? Might I have the wisdom they need?”

“No, I don’t think any seer has attempted it. We know too much. Do you see clearly enough? Maybe. It’s a slender reed to stake four lives on.”

Oghi heard the feeling in her voice, and when he peered through the shadows closely, he saw the tear on her cheek.

“I’m just fighting myself,” she said. “I hate this. I know my great-grandson has to go. He has been called. But I don’t want to say yes. I don’t want to send him. I don’t want to be the one who kills him.”

She clasped herself hard, closed her eyes, and did something within herself. “All right, I have a gift for you. You know it,
u-tsa-le-ta.
The Underworld … it’s agony to see. It’s almost impossible to believe. With this you can go into the minds of the wretches who live there.”

She scooped a handful of the red lichens out of a pouch, poured them into a small leather bag, and gave it to Oghi.

“Are you sure?” said Tsola.

“Absolutely.” He looked at the pouch of
u-tsa-le-ta.
“Thank you, Healer.” Out of respect, he waited before he spoke again. “I want to make a special request.”

“Speak.”

“You have traveled in the minds of many seers to the world above. Have you ever taken a mind journey into the world below?”

Tsola gasped. “No.”

“Our party has two seers. You can go along, inside us.”

He glimpsed the changes in her face and wished he could truly see them.

“Incredible.” She thought for a long while. “Thank you, Oghi the sea turtle. Thank you. I will be with you every step.”

She said to all four of them, “I will do what I can to help you go.”

Shonan seemed about to congratulate everyone but stopped himself.

Aku said, “Should we send word to Kumu and take him along? They’re promised to each other in marriage.”

“No,” said Shonan. “It would take half a moon to send a messenger to Kumu and for him to get here. My daughter, your sister, is dying. Salya is our responsibility, not his, not yet.”

Aku nodded.

“Let’s eat,” Tsola said, “and we’ll talk about how to begin.”

Bola had roasted the hind quarter of an elk on a spit over the fire, first consuming his own portion raw.

Tsola served tea, and they made small talk until she was ready.

“The entrance to the Darkening Land,” she told them, “is at the foot of the Tree of Life. Its other name is seldom spoken, for it is also the Tree of Death. Its crown reaches higher than any other tree in the world. Its roots open the way to the Underworld. It is the sacred tree of the Galayi people, the cedar. We burn it during ceremonies and draw in its lovely
fragrance because it is the emblem of fertility, the ever-renewed mother of life itself. And, underground, as they are inevitably mated, the great cedar leads to the abode of death. The tree is the home of Tsi-Li, Great Dusky Owl, master of the knowledge of life and death.”

Aku’s mind perked up—that was his species.

“Tsi-Li has two supremely important jobs. He guards the tree. And he decides who passes through the portal from life to death, and from death to life. Customarily, only the dead may descend. Because I will ask him, he will let you pass into the Underworld.”

She hesitated. “Aku, he is your great-grandfather. He … came to me once. You are a blossom of that seed.” Her eyes overflowed. “You know I have always loved you especially, and feared for you.”

She wiped her face openly with her hands and then addressed the whole group again. “Everything you need to know, Tsi-Li will tell you.”

Quickly, she spoke into the minds of Aku and Oghi.
I will be with you from the moment you enter the Underworld. Tsi-Li will know that, but say nothing of this to Shonan or Yah-Su.

“Grandmother,” Aku said out loud. “Will you …?”

Not now!
she commanded him.

She looked one by one into the eyes of Shonan, Yah-Su, Aku, and Oghi. “Do you all understand? Let me hear each one of you say yes.”

Each said it.

“You all understand the risk? No one has ever made this journey and survived. Tell me one by one that you understand.”

They did.

“Aku, you have crossed into the Land Beyond and acquired the first of all virtues, courage. Why don’t you make
one more journey and acquire another strength you’ll need? I feel as if you’re half naked.”

Aku answered immediately. “No,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Tsola opened her mouth to protest, but Shonan spoke first. “Salya is perishing.”

Tsola looked at them for a long moment, took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Follow me.”

She led them to the cave of paintings. The four adventurers, Aku, Shonan, Oghi, and Yah-Su, sat quietly in front of the Great Dusky Owl with their eyes down. Tsola had asked them not to study the paintings. She herself sat brewing tea. From her brisk movements Aku understood that she wanted to get this parting over with as soon as possible, be done quickly with the pain of loss.

“Drink this,” she said. She handed each man a horn. Shonan and Yah-Su quaffed theirs immediately. Aku watched nervously, thinking they knew not what they did. Oghi hesitated. He’d seen her put the
u-tsa-le-ta
in it. They would leave the world of Time and go to the Underworld. He and Aku looked at each other. They were scared. Holding each other’s eyes, they downed the tea slowly.