Where the Dead Talk (15 page)

He moved a step deeper into the water, until its cold grip wrapped his knees.

"I’ve been killed, I’ve been…"

"Apat doh chu adonsett."

The dead spoke, too close. He tensed. What he was attempting was far bigger than anything he’d ever tried to do as a h’atonai. And he was just moving ahead, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Tanniwenta was wrong – what if I’m not strong enough?

"Steady," he said.

Nervousness was creeping into his arms. He’d thought, listened inside, put together the words of his long-dead father, the words of the spirit guides. The chants had worked – he could feel the power. He just had to stay focused, let whatever was working through him do what it needed to do.

"Tanniwenta, T’cha Toq’wa," he said, hoping the names of his and his father’s spirit guides could steady him, "help me get this right."

Pannalancet carefully balanced the skull in the crook of his left arm – the one that held the basket – and pulled out a thick handful of clay. He bit his lip, but nothing came to him.

"Oh God it’s sticking through me. Ow… ow…"

"NO! NO! PLEASE…"

How could he concentrate with this confusion of voices, some of them screaming right into his ears? The words, what were the words for the start of the skull ceremony?

"Osho tak’wa inhi…" he began, then faltered. That wasn’t right. That was the start of the blessing of the directions. He forced himself to just breathe for a few moments. Slow breath in, slow breath out. A long drawn-out wail came from directly in front of his face. The words weren’t coming. He closed his eyes, knowing better than to chase after them – they would only slip further out of his grasp, like minnows darting away in a stream.

"Je suis morte…"

The weight of the skull and the basket of clay was starting to bother his lower back. He chewed on the corner of his lip, eyes closed. He thought about his cabin, the circle of stones he’d made out back. His eyes opened.

"U’Nata tona to’p’sha, ha-tonway," he began, remembering the opening lines.

As he spoke, he held the skull out over the water. With his other hand, he pressed clay into the empty left orbit, then took another handful and stuffed the right orbit. His fingers pushed down the heavy clay, spreading it out and in so that it sealed the openings. The skull grew even heavier, and his arm trembled with the weight of it. He repeated the words, using another handful of clay to seal up the nasal openings. Working quickly, he pressed clay into every opening of the skull, saying the words over and over as he did. He could feel the power passing through him, and even the voices of the dead that babbled all around him couldn’t drown them out. When he finished, the skull was heavy, its surface smudged with clay fingerprints. The packed eye-sockets stared dumbly up at him. Pannalancet turned and tossed the almost-empty basket onto the shore. As he did, the skull slipped and splashed into the water, dropping to the bottom like a stone.

"Ach," he said.

He turned and bent over, fishing in the dark water with his hands. He stopped for a moment. Something shook the floor of the lake, a far off boom that came from – somewhere deep.

"Where are you?" he said, his hands passing back and forth near his feet, dragging through the cold silt of the bottom. There were screams from all around him, from men and women. His hands found the skull at last, and he pulled it from the water. It seemed to weigh thirty pounds. Water slipped from it and some of the clay from one of the eye sockets had fallen out.

"Oh no," he said.

He turned and waded back to the basket at the edge. With a grunt, he squatted down, pushing open the mouth of the basket. There wasn’t much clay left, but he scraped around and came up with a lump the size of a chicken egg. He straightened up.

Boom. Boom.

He stopped. The voices of the dead had stopped for a moment, gone silent. The noises came from deep below the lake.

Boom.

The surface of the water shook, the image of the moon breaking apart and then becoming solid again. The sound came up through his feet, and he felt it deep in his chest. He chanted the words again as he packed the last of the clay into the left eye orbit. They didn’t feel right, the words. Before, the power of them had run through him and surrounded him – like the air before a lightning strike. Now they were just words and he was just an old man with a trembling voice.

Boom.

The lake shook again, the water reverberating with the impact. Pannalancet brought the skull close to his face, inspecting his work. He’d refilled the one eye orbit, and everything else looked sealed. It would have to do. He had no more clay. Hoping that the last chant had worked, he waded deeper into the water. He grimaced as it touched his sex, but he kept going. Cold on his belly. A few steps more and the dark frigid water was up around his chest. The bottom fell off sharply. He held the skull up out of the water, using both hands. The dead were whispering again, leaving behind their short silence. The screams were gone now. Just whispers, all around him.

The ceremony of skulls and clay to shut the gate, the ceremony of bloodfire to seal it.

He was ready to finish the first part. These words he felt sure of. The fasting had cleared his head, given his thoughts a lightness that didn’t leave room for second guessing. With the skull held up to the stars and out to the middle of the lake, he began the next chant.

"Ha’toqwa tem ha’tonquinn so’ta a logonta…"

At the end of that first phrase, the air around him changed. The words came faster, as though his lips and mouth and voice were being driven, and not by him.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

He fought to keep his footing. All the water of the lake moved and he was pushed on the tide. Pannalancet let the words keep coming, focused on holding up the skull. Damn these skinny, old-man arms. He shifted his grip on the skull, bending his arms a little more to ease the strain.

"… so’ta a logonta, she – emme, tonoqa ha’toqwa…"

Close the gate, close the gate, close the gate. He narrowed his eyes and went ahead. He drew a breath in, suddenly not shivering. The words surrounded him in warmth.

There was a rustling on the shore.

He turned his head. In the ferns to the left of the fire, there was movement. A hint of white. Pannalancet kept the words flowing through him while staring at the shore. He’d been afraid of this, of a toke-nata interfering with the ceremonies. There was another movement of the branches, and a glimpse of a figure. He turned back to the center of the lake, the prayer coming to an end. Whatever was on the shore would have to wait. He held the skull out to the four directions, seeing its faint reflection in the water in front of him as he did.

BOOM!

The lake shook so hard that he lost his footing on the bottom. He slipped into the deeper water, scrambling to catch himself. He pulled the skull in tight, afraid that he would drop it again and not be able to find it this time. Twisting, he got his footing just as his head bobbed below the surface. A few panicky steps and he was back at a depth where his shoulders and head were in the air again. He wiped water from his eyes and face. The noises and shaking grew louder.

Hurry.

To be safe, Pannalancet offered the skull again to the four directions, then held it straight up.

"To’nat ha, to’nat sekot."

With that final chant, he tossed the skull as far out in front of him as he could. It hit the water only six feet away with a deep thoomp and disappeared beneath the surface, throwing up a tall finger of water that caught the moonlight before falling back. Pannalancet wiped his wet hair from his face, starting to shiver again. The air was freezing. The dead were silent.

"To’nat ha, to’nat sekot."

He repeated the chant four more times. The lake suddenly went still. The surface flattened out, as though it were smooth ice.

A vibration began, barely more than a feather shiver, then growing. He could see it on the water, the reflections of the stars and moon beginning to dance. He took a few steps back. Water dripped off of him in loud rivulets. All around him, the water shook, the vibrations growing more powerful.

The ceremony of skulls and clay to shut the gate, the ceremony of bloodfire to seal it.

He moved towards the shore, trying to hurry through the water, but moving painfully slow. The gourd near the basket contained the mixture he’d prepared for the bloodfire ceremony. This time was dangerous. If everything worked – and he kept telling himself that it had – then the gate between the worlds was shut now. It wasn’t sealed yet. A loud noise came up from behind him. The center of the lake roiled, white with ten thousand fast bubbles. All around the center, the water shimmered. The whispering of the dead started up again, fast and horrible.

"Bloodfire," Pannalancet said, unable to tear his eyes from the center of the lake.

As he watched, a wall of water shot up into the air in a powerful spray, the droplets glinting in the moonlight. It rose high enough so he needed to crane his neck back to see the leading edge.

BOOMBOOMBOOM!

Three huge bangs came from deep below the lake, one on top of another. The ground shook so hard that Pannalancet was knocked down, landing in the water on his backside. Something came out of the lake. Pannalancet’s mouth hung open as an enormous shadow lifted from the water, black like the sky behind the stars, and empty. It was darker than heavy smoke, and didn’t catch the light of the moon. It rose up, an inverted triangular shape that towered thirty feet over the lake. At the narrow point of the bottom, a figure: thin, gaunt, tight skin showing rivulets of water; long black hair hanging down past the throat that hung wide open in a huge gash. The figure turned to Pannalancet and the darkness of the eyes froze him where he stood. A dreadful whisper came from him, echoing off of the surface of the lake, reaching his ears like ice spiders. He spoke Pennacook, but an older dialect that Pannalancet only semi-understood.

"You left us between worlds, betrayer," the figure said, "you and all the others. Cowards and women and dogs. Fleeing through woods and valleys. Fleeing to the newcomers. And now our doom has become your doom."

All around the shore, the trees began to blow, their branches waving and swaying. Pannalancet started to the shore, hands grabbing for purchase in the muck of the bottom. A wind howled from the center of the lake. He shook his head.

"The gate should be shut," he said. Strands of wet hair hung in his eyes.

More darkness began slipping out from the center, scurrying over the surface to the shores. Gusts of frigid air followed them, leaving trails of ice crystals floating in the water. The shadows shot to the edges of the lake and disappeared into the trees.

What have I done?

At the shore, a figure suddenly stepped out from the shrubs near the fire.

"Pannalancet!" he shouted.

It was Thomas Chase. The boy's face turned from him to the shadow and the figure behind him, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. Pannalancet started waving his arms, waving the boy off.

"Go, run!" he yelled.

The boy looked back at him.

"Something bad happened to my family," Thomas said, "and my father told me –"

Pannalancet struggled through the waist-deep water, still waving his arms.

"You have to run, Thomas," he said, huffing from the exertion. The boy stood as through rooted. This folly will cost us all, cost us everything, he thought. His heart racing, he tried to get to the shore. The dead were chattering mindlessly all around him. He looked down and stopped. There was a face in the water, pale white below the surface. A wave of the coldest air he’d ever felt blew across his back and the light from the moon and stars was blotted out over him. Still, the face shone.

"Oh no," Pannalancet said.

Hands shot out of the water, slamming cold fingers around him. The face remained under the water, eyes shining a watery silver. In one horrible second, Pannalancet recognized the face. He was dragged down to it, too weak now to resist the iron pull of the sallow arms. His last look was to the shore as he was dragged under – Thomas standing at the water's edge, screaming, his face terrified. As Pannalancet was pulled down into the water, feelings flashed quickly, lightning in a summer storm. Anger at his ignorance. Shame for not being the h’atonai he should have been, that his father was. Sadness that he wouldn’t see Nashoonon again. And as he was pulled down below the surface and took in his first throat full of icy black water, he had the strangest feeling of all.

Relief.

Relief at not being up above, up where the gate to the other world was open. At being away from what was now coming through the gate. Relief that his own doom had come early and fast, and that he wouldn't have to witness the end of his people – wherever they'd gone. Relief at no longer hearing the voices of the dead. Flashes of color went off behind his eyelids as he choked and breathed in the water, until there was only blackness.

A Little Late For Our Party

Across the room, Pomeroy watched the men. With some food and drink in him, he almost felt that he could think clearly. He was about to ask the tavernkeep to refill his mug when the floor beneath their boots shook with a deep boom, strong enough to shift the logs in the hearth. Bright orange sparks swirled and disappeared up the chimney; plates on the tables rattled. The conversations stopped. Several of the militia began talking at once. The tavernkeep stood up and went to the door.

"See anything, Brewster?" MacGuire called.

"No –"

BOOMBOOMBOOM.

Three loud booms, deep below the ground. They were stronger than the earlier one, and flickered the flames on the candles around the room and sent a crockery mug crashing to the floor in a spill of ale foam.

"That’s got to be cannon fire," MacGuire said, getting to his feet. He went to Pomeroy.

"You better start talking about where your men are, and what they got with them."

The tavernkeep stepped back in and closed the door.

"Didn’t you hear what I was just telling –"