Shockball (40 page)

“No one may understand how the gods work their magic.”

“Joseph Grey Veil is not a god. Neither is
Cherico
.”

“Jericho. That is what he called himself when he came to Four Mountains.”

“How old was he? How did he get there?”

“I’m not sure. Fourteen, fifteen years old, perhaps. He was found on reservation land, injured and near death. He ran away from the hospital the next morning. Milass found him hiding in the pinyon groves. We concealed him, cared for him.”

Hawk went on to describe the younger Jericho, later adopted by Milass’s family, gradually gaining influence among the young men of the Navajo. He gathered enough followers to make the tribal council concerned, then opposed them on the issue of deporting illegal Indian hybrids. In a bold move, he led the men and women who would become the Night Horse off the reservation in one night. Hawk and Milass were already his lieutenants by then.

“He kept his promises to us. He created
Leyaneyaniteh
so the hybrids would be safe. He mended the broken ties with the Four Mountain clans. He purchased the Gliders and ensured the entire tribe would never want for anything.”

“What about freedom, to come and go as you please? What about proper health care? What about not asking men to risk electrocution in order to donate to the tribal fund?”

“You do not understand what he did for us. The whiteskins were going to send every half-Indian off-planet, and our own families would do nothing to stop them. Rico stood up for us, spoke for us, protected us. We had nowhere to go; he made a place for everyone.”

“Giving everything he had,” Reever said. “The Navajo have great regard for someone who sacrifices himself for the good of the less fortunate.”

Hawk gestured toward the door. “And so it was.”

“That’s only the beginning of the story. What about when things started to go wrong?” He didn’t want to vilify his beloved chief, so I did it for him. “My best guess is the syphilis progressed to his brain after you established your underground here. You’d remember, he would have been a little irritable at first. Quick to anger. Irrational now and then.

“As the brain tissue deteriorated, he would have gone from cranky right into scary. The temper tantrums. The rampages. Memory loss and delusions. How many years has he been abusing the men and women of the tribe? Three? Five?”

“There has been no abuse.”

“You mean, everyone just let him have whatever he wanted? Out of respect? Or terror? I’ve seen Rico slit a man’s throat and walk away whistling. He nearly beat Ilona to death. I think those were mild incidents. Come on, Hawk, tell me, what’s he do on his bad days?”

Hawk wouldn’t look at me. “There has been no abuse.”

“He won’t condemn him, Cherijo.” Reever took my hand. “Put aside your anger and ask him what we need to know.”

Easier said. “Your chief is a very brilliant, sick, dangerous man. I need to know why he kidnapped us, and what that has to do with Joseph Grey Veil. I need to know why Rico is sending so many men back to the Four Mountains reservation. Why this World Game is so important to him.”

Hawk’s head sagged against the wall. “I don’t know. He hates the Shaman, but has never told us why. He needs both of you, but he will not say for what. He sends our men back to the Navajo to spread the Night Horse way. Having the Gliders play in the World Game has always been one of his greatest obsessions.”

“Would he confide in anyone? Milass? One of the other men?”

Hawk shook his head. “He keeps his own counsel.”

“Do you know if he ever lived at The Grey Veils?”

“He once spoke of it. He called it his prison for thirteen years. I knew then the Shaman was his father.”

Knowing Joseph, I’d bet Rico had been subjected to some of the same testing and training that I’d been. “It doesn’t make sense. Even if he was a total failure, Joseph would have kept him as a baseline, a yardstick to measure the success of future constructs. And why didn’t he do anything about the syphilis he’s carrying? Joseph would have made him take some kind of rudimentary medical courses. I had my first anatomy and physiology courses before I began primary school.”

“I must complete the ceremonial, but the Night Way will not help our chief.” Hawk looked hopeful. “Can your way save him?”

“I can get rid of the syphilis, but given the advanced stage of his disease, that won’t do much. He’s teetering on the edge of full-blown psychosis, and the brain damage he has is irreversible.”

“He would never take medicines or allow doctors to touch him. That has not changed since he came to the Four Mountains. Even now, he has his food tasted before he eats it.”

“I’ll find a way.”

Before I could do anything about my long-lost brother or the venereal disease that was driving him insane, disaster struck on two fronts.

The sound woke up me and Reever close to dawn after the last day of the Night Way ceremonial. We had stayed up most of the night, and Reever was permitted to observe the Dance of the
Atsálei
and the Dance of the
Naakhaí
, and join in on a beautiful sing called “The Song of the House Made of Dawn.” While I already knew I had no singing voice whatsoever, I discovered my husband had a rather startling, mellow tenor.

“You could be an opera singer, with that voice of yours,” I said as we made our way to our hogan. “No kidding, this could be a real career option for you.”

“I doubt it.” He gave me a pointed look. “You, however, should not sing.”

“So I’ve been told, many times.” I ducked inside and knelt to bank the fire. I felt exhausted, wrung out from all the revelations of the day and the endless turning wheel of my thoughts. I smothered a yawn. “What other hidden talents have you been keeping from me?”

He pulled off his tunic. “You will have to discover them for yourself.”

The last of the firelight danced over his skin, and suddenly I wasn’t so tired anymore. “Sounds like a challenge.”

Understandably I was very groggy when, several hours later, things started to rumble and shake. Reever, who was already up and dressed, tossed me my clothes before he disappeared out the door. I had to scramble to catch up.

The entire tribe assembled in the center of the cavern, while the noises got louder and closer.

“What’s happening?” I asked Hawk when he limped by us.

“The Shaman has returned with more men, and has blown a passage through to the east subway station. We think he’s using more explosives to try to create an entrance to the inner tunnels.” A sound from the other side of the cavern made us both turn. “The League forces have also been concentrating their efforts, working their way in from the west.”

Attacked from two sides with enemies all around us. Would I ever stop getting in these ridiculous predicaments? Then I remembered Ilona and the outcasts. Their new sanctuary was out where the League was currently blowing things up.

I grabbed Reever’s arm. “We’ve got to get to the hybrids before Shropana’s forces do.”

Dhreen appeared beside me, his face still bruised and pale from the beating Rico had given him. “Doc, we’ve got to get Ilona and the others out of those pipelines.”

I saw all the entrances were being guarded. “That may be more difficult than you think.” I spotted Milass, who was ordering everyone in different directions. Little twerp looked like he was having the time of his life. “Stay here. It’s time for me to collect on a favor.”

Milass was snapping out orders to his men and barely glanced at me when I came up. “Move the children and the women into the quake bunker. Have the men destroy the perimeter tunnels, all except the ones to the village and the arena drop point.”

“Excuse me.”

Now he looked at me. “What?”

“There are people out in those sewer passages. We need to get help to them, too.”

“The unclean?” I nodded. “The chief already told you, let them die.” He turned his back on me.

“No, I won’t.” I went around and planted myself in front of him. “Who came to me a few days ago, begging for help?”

“That was different.” He got a besotted look in his eyes. “Ilona Red Faun is not cursed.”

“She couldn’t stay here. Guess who I sent her to a few days ago?” At his gape, I nodded. “Uh-huh. She’s hiding out with them, and they don’t have a chance against armed League troops. They’ll all be slaughtered.”

He hit me, and I went down. “How could you send her to them?”

“Why?” I pushed my hair out of my face and glared up at him. “What else could I do? I didn’t see you volunteering to help me with the problem—and you’re the one who dumped her on me.”

“They are cursed. Rico forbids us to go near them.”

“They’re not anymore. I’ve cured their curse. I can cure everyone, now that I know what it is, and who’s spreading it.” I resisted the urge to tell him exactly who had been cursing the Night Horse. “You’ve got to send some men into the sewers and get them out of there.”

“Even if I disobeyed the chief, my men couldn’t get to them. Your League pursuers have collapsed the western perimeter tunnels. They’re cut off, probably buried alive.” Hatred replaced the anguish in his expression. “You have her blood on your hands.”

He kicked me out of his way and stalked off.

Reever and Dhreen got on either side of me and grabbed when I would have gone after the demonic dwarf.

“They’re trapped,” I said to Reever. “We have to get to them. Do you know a way out of here that will take us to them?”

“No. But Hawk might.”

We found Hawk outside the Night Way hogan, getting ready to destroy the last of his dry paintings. He listened, then shook his head.

“Is that a no, you don’t know the way, or no, you can’t help us?” I frowned when he squatted beside the dry painting. “Hawk, this is important.”

Dhreen got disgusted fast. “Let’s get out of here. Every minute we waste on him, she could be dying.”

“Wait.” I watched Hawk’s patient sprinkling of the dried flower petals and stomped down the impulse to kick the ’
iikááh
into a big smear. Then something caught my eye. “Reever, you said the tunnels were laid out like a web, right?”

“Yes.”

“Look.” I nodded toward the spiral pattern Hawk was creating on top of the dry painting mural. “This was finished. He doesn’t do that when they’re finished.”

Reever studied the new design. “He’s drawing us a map.”

It must have been the only way Hawk could help us without disobeying the chief’s orders. On a hunch, I crouched down beside him. “Where are the outcasts? Show me.”

He stopped sprinkling the larkspur petals and discarded them on one side in favor of some red sand. Carefully he made a small dot on one of the outer “web” strands.

“And where are we?”

He sprinkled another red dot in the center of the web.

Reever studied the dry painting for a moment. “I know where they are. How do we get to them safely?”

Hawk sprinkled a thin blue line from our position, through the web of tunnels, and over to where the outcasts were located. I looked up at Reever, who nodded.

“Would you take the cats up out of here?” Hawk nodded, and I squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”

He started to chant as he added swirls of red along the outer ring of the design.

“
The enemy is everywhere
,

The enemy is inside us
,

The enemy is outside us
.

We walk the rainbow path

To fight the enemy within us
.”

“He is marking the position of the League troops,” Reever said.

I judged the distances. “God, they’re really close.” Hawk got to his feet, destroyed the entire dry painting with a couple of shuffling steps, and left the hogan.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

«
^
»

Change of Course

S
ince everyone had moved to the emergency bunker, we only had to slip past one of Rico’s guards. I suggested the smallest one might be the easiest to jump, but Reever overruled me.

“That man.” He pointed to the largest of the guards.

“Reever, he’s twice your size. Forget about it.”

Before I could stop him, Reever went over to the big guard, and spoke in low tones with him. Then my husband turned and gestured for us to come to him.

“This redeems my debt to you,
Nilch’i’
,” the guard said, then he turned and faced the stone wall.

Reever led us past him without incident.

“What debt does he have to you?” I asked.

“You are not the only one who has favors to collect. I took a penalty for him during a game.”

“Copycat.” I glanced back at the guard. “So why is he facing the wall?”

“Milass ordered him to see that no one went into the tunnels. By doing so, he was not disobeying the
secondario’s
orders.” He stopped me when I would have turned toward Medical. “Where are you going?”

“To get Shropana. You’re coming with me. This may be the only chance we have to get him up to the surface.”

Shropana was unconscious again, thanks to the continuous sedation I’d been keeping him on. I hooked up the external pump to the side of the gurney and had the men carefully transfer him to it. His artificial heart was still operating smoothly, my subsequent scan revealed.

“Whatever you do, don’t drop him.” I downloaded his chart onto a datapad and placed it by his side. “And don’t knock those pressure lines out of the pump, or his chest.”

Dhreen and Reever handled the gurney while I packed a medical case. The outcasts had doubtless suffered some injuries from the explosions, and I hoped they wouldn’t be severe. There was only so much I could carry. I spotted the Lok-Teel, looked at Shropana, then slipped the ambulatory mold in my pocket.