The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series (The Last Skywatcher, Anasazi Historical Thrillers with a Hint of Romance Book 1) (13 page)

Tokatsi’s emissary started to speak, but The Builder stopped him with the back of his hand. Instead, The Builder locked eyes with Pók.

Pók walked to the Truth Stone and asked The Builder to allow him to step upon it. The Builder raised his eyebrows, and then stepped aside. Pók now looked down upon everyone in the room. He felt good. The pathetic woman behind the bluestone mask had given him the perfect opportunity, especially with Wuyoke’s smokescreen and Koko’s pointless concurrence.

“We face a serious threat,” he said. “The deaths of our warriors proves the strength and cunning of an enemy whose head we do not yet see. As the prophecy says, we may have heard the rattle of the tail in Black Stone Town, at our southern limit. But we must check to see who is connected to these rattles to trace back to the head, wherever it may be. I have sent a patrol there, and Chief Tókotsi sent another patrol under the direction of Ráana to assess the situation. These patrols should have already arrived, and we await a runner with news as early as tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have doubled all sentries at every watchtower along the great roads. As the prophecy says, the head of the venomous snake could be sliding toward us at this moment, some outside invading force sent to destroy us, using coerced children to do their killing and confuse us. We must not be weakened by our own political suspicions of one another when war may erupt with an outside enemy at any moment. And if there is an enemy within, then when they make themselves known in opposition, my warriors will act swiftly and without hesitation.”

Pók swept the room with his eyes. Wuyoke and Koko would not openly oppose him. The Builder likewise would not unless he knew he had a strong hand, which he did not. The idiot emissary had no more influence than a child’s cornhusk doll, but his master, Tókotsi, would do everything he could to undermine Pók and elevate Ráana—a problem that perhaps had already been eliminated. Pók stepped down from the Truth Stone. He considered swearing an oath of allegiance to The Builder and the Southern Alliance, but changed his mind at the last minute. If the rumors were correct about the Truth Stone, he didn’t want to risk it.

“May I speak?” asked the emissary. The Builder grudgingly nodded, but kept his eyes on Pók.

The emissary puffed himself and began talking fast as if he might be silenced at any moment. “It is incumbent upon me here today, speaking for Tókotsi, Chief of the Southern Alliance, and sworn to work for the best interests of all members of the Alliance, to encourage us all to work together and in harmony to further the good impression we have enjoyed these last several years from our….”

Pók turned him off, as he suspected everyone in the room had. The Builder’s gaze shifted into space as he seemed to concentrate on something. The masked lady hung her head as if dejected. Had her little prophecy gone awry? He smiled. He had easily turned this group’s focus to an outside threat. Pók would no longer be under intense suspicion. The Truth Stone had corroborated his loyalty and his actions, if not his honor. If the threat worsened, he might even be able to successfully lobby Tókotsi and the Southern Alliance for a War Priest to replace a weak Builder Priest. The details of the news he expected soon from a runner would be crucial to his next move. He hoped his patrol and its captain had performed their duties well.

Nuva backed away from the edge
of the doorway where she had been listening and sneaking an occasional peek into The Builder’s council. She put her clenched fist to her lips and pounded herself lightly. Wuyoke had infuriatingly implicated everyone, not just Pók. And then Pók turned it completely around by standing on the Truth Stone and raising his own hunt for the culprit of the Black Stone Town killings, be they insiders or outsiders, to the level of war.

She leaned against a cool, plastered stone wall as the emissary droned on.

Pók said he expected a runner the next day. Nuva waved her fingers in an undulating motion while she concentrated, the three tattoo dots moving up and down. “It’s time we act,” she whispered, pushing herself away from the wall.
We must catch a runner
.

Nuva walked quickly through dark, turning passageways until she came to the storeroom behind the kitchen. When Cook saw her, she came and took Nuva by the arm and led her back into the dark passageway. “The kitchen is full of workers,” she said with alarm. “The Builder gave a sign for us to bring the midday meal as quickly as possible, but that Southern Alliance emissary won’t stop talking.”

“I need to talk to our two girls with the Fat Man,” said Nuva.

Cook seemed stunned. Nuva rarely instigated contact during daylight hours. “Now?” Cook asked.

“We’ve got to get some information before Pók does. He’s expecting a runner tomorrow, perhaps sooner. We need to find out what he knows before Pók does.”

“Make a runner talk?” Cook covered her open mouth.

“I just need the girls,” said Nuva. She took Cook’s wrists in her hands and squeezed hard enough to make her point. “I need the girls
now
.”

Nuva released her grip, and Cook whispered, “Yes, of course,” and backed away.

As Cook’s staff served the midday meal in The Builder’s chambers, two girls sneaked into the kitchen storeroom. Nuva led them into dark, quiet rooms deep in the heart of the palace. Nuva’s eyes could adjust quickly and see dim shapes in the darkest of rooms, but she knew the eyes of others stayed blind for much longer. She took their hands and led them. Finally, she stopped in a room with dozens of jars of bluestone beads, though the girls wouldn’t know it. She came here often and took beads to maintain Chumana’s costume.

Nuva asked the girls if they knew the runner likely to return from the patrol of regulars that had been sent to Black Stone Town. Yes, they said, they suspected they knew him. A regular. Nuva asked what he was like. Young and single-minded, they said. Sex-crazed, one of them whispered with a giggle.

“Good,” said Nuva. “I want you to sneak along the south road tonight and wait until you see the runner coming. Then I want you to convince him to go with you. I want you to find out what he will report.”

“Oh, he won’t do that, madam,” said one girl, with a congested cough. Nuva recognized the voice from her hallway corner sessions, the girl who sounded sick. “He always delivers his messages first, and comes to us after.”

“This time, he must deliver his message to you first,” insisted Nuva. “Do you understand? We need to know what happened at Black Stone Town, and we need to keep Pók from finding out for as long as possible.”

“But, that’s….”

“I know,” interrupted Nuva. “A death penalty for anyone caught doing it. I know. If I could find out any other way, believe me, I would. But I cannot. We must know what message that runner brings.”

Nuva felt the girls recoil at the idea and gather themselves.

“I’ll do it,” said the sick one who wheezed and sniffled. “I’m tired of living like this. I don’t care what happens to me as long as I don’t have to go back to the Fat Man.”

“But life is better than death,” said the other girl. “Especially the way they would do it.”

“They’re doing it to us now,” said the sick girl, “little by little, every time they bloody our noses or smash our faces or shove their disgusting man parts into us. You know it.”

Nuva let them sit in silence a few moments. Then she said, “Something big is about to happen. Things will change, for better or worse. If we can get to the runner before Pók, then maybe it will be for better.”

“Lead me out of here,” the defiant girl said, sniffling her nose. “I’ll do it, even if I have to do it alone.”

“No,” said the other girl. “I’ll go with you.”

Nuva led them out by a poorly watched back entrance. She looked from the darkness of the palace depths across the bright, parched canyon floor to where the girls ran along the base of the canyon wall away from the Fat Man’s ramshackle structures toward the south road. The bright lights hurt her eyes and she withdrew into the darker interior, all the while working her fingers as her mind raced.

It’s time to issue the sharp-stick order to the Sisterhood, she thought. Every girl and woman admitted into the secret society had to find a sacred stick, decorate it, sharpen one end, and keep it hidden. Nuva’s sharp-stick order would tell them to get their sacred sticks and bring them to Center Place Canyon. Once there, she would direct them to stand behind a warrior or a man of power and, at a signal she had not yet worked out, plunge their sticks into the men’s backs. She worried that too many of the Sisters would refuse to carry out the ultimate act of rebellion, and she could only hope enough would comply. And the timing worried her. There couldn’t be any mistakes.

She found Cook again and issued the order. Cook opened her mouth, eyes wide, but didn’t speak. “We have no choice,” whispered Nuva. “This may be our only chance.”

The moon had grown
to nearly three-quarters and rose in the middle of the afternoon. Tuwa lay on his back looking at it. After the blow to his head at Black Stone, his vision had gone fuzzy and he had trouble thinking straight. But today, for the first time, the moon looked crystal clear and didn’t drift.

The ache in his forehead seemed to diminish as the moon grew in size. His Grandfather had always said the time of waiting for the full moon was the most powerful, when many things were possible. That made him think of Grandmother Haki. Even though he’d known her for only a day, he felt as if she’d been important to him his whole life. More than even some of the young Pochtécans he’d known the last several summers. Many of them now dead.

Tuwa raised his head and looked around. The thirteen of them, the remaining Pochtécans, The Pochtéca himself still in a daze, plus the wild boy Tootsa, sprawled in a bowl-shaped bare-rock depression atop a low mesa that overlooked the north road from Center Place Canyon to Black Stone, not far from the hill where Ihu had outrun Tuwa. If only he’d caught the hairless man the first time, many would still be alive.

At the bottom of the bowl atop the mesa, not visible from the road below, shallow water collected and they all enjoyed its refreshment. They felt well-hidden here. Safe. Tuwa noted Choovio and Sowi lying at the rim, watching the road. Tootsa and some of the younger boys played in the black water and Kopavi watched over them, reminding them to keep their voices down. The Pochtéca, better now, but not himself because he had yet to speak, sat like a religious man meditating on his gods.

Tootsa waded out of the water and walked gingerly toward Tuwa. The boy had led them to this hiding place, urging them to abandon the road.

“Something’s going to happen,” said Tootsa when he got close. He squatted and water dripped from his knees in rivulets that glinted in the afternoon sun.

“What do you mean?” asked Tuwa. He sensed an odd air about the boy. He seemed tied into some parallel world that Tuwa and the others couldn’t see. The orphan boys his age acted wary of him. Tuwa imagined what they were thinking: two-heart, good on one side, evil on the other. Son of a witch. But Tuwa had detected nothing evil in the boy. Sad and unresponsive at times, yes. Odd in his behaviors, yes. Starved for attention, yes.

Tootsa didn’t answer his question but his eyes wandered from Tuwa’s chest to his face. “Was your granddaddy the top skywatcher?” He used the webbing between his thumb and forefinger to squeegee water down his leg.

“He raised me, yes,” said Tuwa, wondering what this odd boy was getting at.

“Lightfoot says what Pók did was the worst thing in the history of this world. We think some worser stuff happened in the other worlds, though, or they wouldn’t of been destroyed.”

Tuwa nodded. He had no response in words to that.

“My daddy’s dead. And my mother. And maybe all my sisters. I’m the only boy.” Tootsa looked at Tuwa as if he would say more, but he didn’t.

“You’re an orphan. Like us.” He still didn’t know what the boy wanted.

“If we didn’t know what they were doing, then it doesn’t have anything to do with us. Maybe that goes for if you don’t know who they are, too. Except now you do.”