Zadayi Red (38 page)

He took comfort in Tsola’s drum.

He grinned. He wondered if he was crazy. He kept his head pointed forward, as a predator bird does, since it sees well to both sides but observes less well straight ahead. He never actually saw either log move.

He wondered if the logs would coil before they struck. He didn’t think so. If this place had eagle panthers, why not fanged logs?

His mind felt calm. Truly. He almost believed himself, but his blood was rimed with ice.

He’d seen the same thing once. He watched two water moccasins sneak up on a bullfrog sitting at the edge of a pond. Their approach was so gradual, by such miniscule movements, that they not only fooled the frog, they fooled each other.

The joker Fate made them strike at precisely the same instant. Fangs sank deep into the frog from opposite sides. Snake bodies thrashed like limbs whipped by high winds. Each hunter was determined to exert its will, swallow its prey. Neither could.

The frog had no will.

The three of them fell into the pond and disappeared beneath the green scum, still thrashing.

Zeya was calm. He would know when. River water dripped from his beak, and he watched.

Two panther paws flashed at once. They bashed two snakes, which looked exactly like water moccasins now. While the snakes were dazed, an eagle talon seized one neck, a pincer the other.

The snakes coiled themselves around Zeya’s feathered legs, but that meant nothing to him. He lifted the heads, each to the level of his opposing eye. He gazed into their white mouths. A little fear still thrummed through his blood.

He maneuvered the two heads together, gaping jaw to gaping jaw.

The snakes clamped—they bolted all their fury into each other. They metamorphosed into a single snake, poisoning itself.

Zeya set the writhing heads down and pinned them with a paw. He picked up their tails with his talon and pincer and
tied them together. He inspected the knot, a job good enough to kill.

He examined the squirming, twisting heads once more. He felt elated. Smiling, he tossed the reptilian hoops far out into the river.

Nicely done,
said Tsola.

“They were my fears, all of them,” said Zeya. He was happily perched on his aerie.

You weren’t just the owner,
said Tsola.
You were the creator.

“I guess so.”

They were your closest companions.

“I actually made them?”

Yes.

“Then I was in control and couldn’t lose?”

You could. Your fear could have overwhelmed you, and you would have died not only in body but in spirit.

“I won.”

Yes. With help from . . . ?

“Mom gave me courage, you gave me the power to see through illusions.”

Exactly.

“Are we through with this?”

What do you want to do now?

“Meet Thunderbird.”

As her drum tripled its speed, Zeya felt his entire body lifted off the ground by hurricane winds. Thunder banged, and he lost his mind.

W
elcome,” said Thunderbird.

Zeya quailed at the earthquake of his voice. Thunderbird laughed. He clapped his wings together, and thunder cracked the air. He laughed again.

“You look dizzy,” said the great bird in a voice that was a mere roar.

He blinked, and sheets of lightning lit the world. Now Thunderbird really cackled. “Sorry,” said Thunderbird, “I can’t help showing off.”

Thunderbird had wings with feathers of every color imaginable, and now Zeya saw that snakes lived in them. He flapped one wing, hurled a snake downward, and it forked into bolts. “Sheet lightning from the eyelids,” he said casually, “and bolts from the wings.” He paused for effect. “You can relax now.”

Zeya took his hands off his ears and opened his eyes. Then he looked at his paws—they were again human hands. He had a human trunk and legs. He felt his neck and face—they weren’t feathered. A necklace of 108 beautiful feathers of the war eagle rested in his lap.

“Take a seat, guest.” Thunderbird fingered the feathers. “Tsola was right, you’ve done very well.” Zeya was aware of her drum on the edge of his consciousness, a steady pulse that kept him in this strange world.

Thunderbird’s tone changed. “You did so well she’s honored you with my name. Just remember that you’re the imitation Cloud Dweller.” He paused. “Don’t worry, I won’t be watching you closely back on Earth. I don’t pay that much attention to mortal matters.”

Zeya couldn’t help gaping at the bird. Each of his wings was as twice as long as Zeya’s body. His head was the size of Zeya’s chest.

“Don’t you have something to give me?”

Zeya held up the necklace and spread it with his hands. The gathering of the feathers had been the first great adventure of his life, and four men had died trying to stop him.

“No speeches required,” said Thunderbird. He plucked the feathers deftly out of Zeya’s hands and inspected them. “Beautiful, aren’t they? They remind me of me.”

Zeya listened and thought Tsola’s drum was advising him to say nothing.

“Look around you,” said Thunderbird.

They sat in a nest constructed from cornstalks and padded with mosses. It was roughly circular, wide enough for twenty elk to stand on, and it floated on air.

“Not really,” said Thunderbird. So he could read Zeya’s thoughts. “To float on air, that would be cloud-dwelling, wouldn’t it?” He chuckled at his little joke. “Walk over to the edge and look down. No, go ahead.”

Zeya crawled over and looked down. The nest was like a disc perched on top of a gigantic finger. This finger was actually a stone tower higher than any of the mountains in the Land beyond the Sky Arch. Dizziness whirled Zeya around for a moment, and he clung to the tap of Tsola’s drum for balance.

“Now what are we going to do?” said a human voice.

Zeya managed to turn without making his head tumble and look.

Thunderbird had transformed himself into a middle-aged man. He had pale skin, a head with only a fringe of hair, eyebrows that looked like black caterpillars, and another black caterpillar on his upper lip.

“Humor is reason gone mad.”

Zeya was half confused, half revolted.

The new Thunderbird chortled. “Never seen skin this color, have you?”

All the human beings Zeya had seen were tawny, except for the albino Ninyu. Only the bottoms of fish and frogs had Thunderbird’s white skin.

“And some men have thick hair on their lips and faces, they really do.”

Galayi men had very little hair like that.

“But you aren’t getting the joke. Now that I have no wings, only these puny feathers pulled off their wing bones, how are we ever going to get down from this nest?”

Zeya just looked at him.

“All right, dumb joke.” He ballooned back into Thunder-bird. Unlike Klandagi, he made the change in a eye-blink.

“Why have you come?” His voice was basso now, and his tone formal. “I want you to ask me properly.”

“The Galayi people fell from grace. They broke the one rule the Immortals gave them. They killed each other. That brought the eagle-feather cape you gave them to ruin. I bring you these feathers with a formal request for a new cape.”

“Granted. You really are a remarkable young man, even though I’m making light of it.”

“Our Seer will wear the Cape and seek your wisdom.”

“I know.” Weariness lay under the words.

“And I request formally that you teach me all the songs of the Eagle Dance. Our singer, Awahi, is a good man, but over the generations we’ve forgotten many of the songs.”

“More than you imagine,” Thunderbird said. “I will put the songs directly into your mind. When you want to sing at the Eagle Dance back on Earth, open your mouth and the songs will come out.”

“And I want to ask you some things on my own, things Tsola didn’t tell me to ask.”

“Go ahead.” He sounded curious.

“Why is the grass pink in this world? Why are the leaves yellow, purple, orange—every color but green?”

“You like green?”

“I love green. It’s the color of life coming back to the world.”

“I could tease you by saying green is a color of death. A green leaf makes a yellow leaf inevitable. Life makes death inevitable.”

Zeya blinked at Thunderbird.

“Remember my answers and think about them when you’re back home. Hope for a good laugh.”

“Do you really answer our prayers?”

“I’m answering Tsola’s now, with the Cape.”

“Do you really think about us that much?”

“Whether I do or not, thinking of me, thinking of this eternal world, asking for its power to be in you—all that gives you strength in your mortal world.”

Thunderbird cocked his beak downward and considered. Then he spoke in a serious tone. “Remember, yours is a mirror world. I am the one true eagle. All of Earth’s eagles are reflections of me. The same is true of everything that is. The permanent and enduring raccoons, ants, bushes, rivers, and mountains are here. The ones on Earth are shadows, and have the weakness of shadows. That is why everything on Earth dies, or deteriorates. Not so here.”

“Why? Why did you make our world at all? Or why did someone make it?”

“What you’re asking, you don’t need to know. Your job is to live a good life as a human being. Besides, being serious is a bore. Let’s have some fun.”

Thunderbird grabbed Zeya in his talons and sailed off the nest. Tsola’s drum seemed to beat faster, maybe in imitation of Zeya’s pounding heart, or maybe as a tease.

First they seemed to take a tour of the Land beyond the Sky Arch. Its beauty was ideal. Buffalo and elk grazed in fields thick with grasses that were every color of the rainbow. Wild-flowers bloomed everywhere. Huge waterfalls gushed on the mountains. Bushes and trees bright with blossoms lined sparkling rivers. Zeya chuckled—he realized that the rivers sparkled in a sun that wasn’t yet risen. The Immortals’ land ignored such obstacles—it was perfect.

Then he realized that this was no tour. Thunderbird was circling on air currents that were lifting them higher and higher. The air was getting colder. They rose above the highest mountains, and then above the clouds that puffed up to twice as high as the peaks, and then twice that high again. Zeya started shivering violently, and he couldn’t seem to get enough air. He told himself,
Look at the sunrise. It’s incredible—enjoy it.

Just then Thunderbird dropped him.

Zeya plummeted. He felt twice as cold. Though the winds were terrific, he couldn’t seem to breathe.

Above, Thunderbird flapped his wings. Snakes flew into the sky, and the air crackled with lightning. Thunderbird’s laugh was almost as loud as the thunder he made. “Know terror!” he roared.

Zeya knew it in his fingers, his toes, his nose, his ears, his bones, and his blood. Panic pitched him this way and that and every which way. He became a blob of shimmering fear. He looked around at the beauty of the world. His eyes wanted to clutch it, because it was the last beauty he would ever know.

Halfway between the great heights and the death that awaited him below, Zeya grew calm. He knew the end of his adventure, and the knowledge gave him ease in his heart. He had nothing to fear.

He decided to pretend that he could fly—and made a discovery.
If he flattened himself like a leaf descending from a tree, he could sail a little bit, almost like a bird, and he didn’t fall as fast. In fact, he lost the sensation of falling. He floated. Toward the earth, yes, and toward death, yes, but he was floating. He was almost flying.

He looked and for the first time saw the ground rushing up toward him. A riff of fear clattered through him. He almost lost what little control he had, almost nosedived toward the rocks below. He eased himself out of the fear and back into his float.

Tentatively, he flapped his arms. They seemed to hold a little air. He flapped again, and, yes, air. It was a wonderful illusion—he was flying, he was a bird! He flapped again and again and learned . . .