OCTOBER 2. IRON MOUNTAIN.
“You are the American. Tell us why we should trust you.” The rebel’s voice was flat, empty as his left eye socket. He was old now; his skin was as dark and sun-cracked as the earth beneath them.
Five of them crouched around the fire, eyes shifting suspiciously from Aubry to Old Man. Five of them: three leathery men and two thin, dusty women. Elder representatives of Five Songs. Farmers and traders from PanAfrica’s northernmost province, still called Matundu, in what had once been Zaire. They were all, in one way or another, crippled. Blind. Stumps for legs. A missing hand.
Phillipe Swarna had cost them much, and they now wanted nothing other than his death. They had traveled to Iron Mountain at Old Man’s urging, to hear what the American had to say.
“Swarna is your enemy,” Aubry began slowly. “He betrayed your people, he betrayed your trust. He is your demon, and he is mine.” He paused, seeking to organize his thoughts into some sort of coherent order.
“Five years ago I killed his only son, in fair combat. Now he wants to kill me, and my family.”
“And you came here to take your vengeance?” one of the men said. His cheeks were burnt black, sun and genetics, age, fatigue and tribal branding iron combining to produce a shade beyond blue-black. It was the blackness of despair and death.
Aubry nodded, waiting for what had to come next.
“But you didn’t kill the bastard. Came face-to-face with him, and you failed.”
He bristled. ”I administered the poison. If anything failed, it was the American technology,”
Scar-Cheeks laughed. “You are a coward and a fool. Do you know what any of us would have paid for a chance to die with Phillipe Swarna? You failed because you wanted to live.”
“‘Those who fear death cannot win,’” Aubry quoted.
“’Those who love both life and death cannot be defeated.’”
They murmured approval. “You know the Songs?”
“I am learning them. And the Dances.”
One-Eye turned to Old Man. “It is true?”
Old Man nodded, the corners of his dry, cracked lips lifting in the ghost of a smile. “Truth. He was lost. He has come home. He is one with us.”
They studied him, as if comparing him to some mental pictures of their own. Then Stump-Leg said, “And one of the Six was found near you, when you were rescued.”
“Yes.”
“And he rescued you from the prison. Where you were being tortured to death.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I …” He paused. “I’m not sure. I believe that he was cloned from my flesh.”
There was an ugly murmur at this conjecture. “He did not look like you.”
“My face has been surgically altered. However they raised him, some feeling of kinship for me remained. He wanted to kill me man to man, but was unable to complete the rescue. He was wounded. This is all I can say.”
The one-armed woman stood. She seemed so thin that Aubry was afraid the wind might sweep her up screaming into the sky. But there was an intensity within her, a fire raging behind her wide, accusing eyes. “We cannot believe this. Swarna sends death to you across an ocean. And fails. You strike at him, with America’s deadliest weapons. And fail. One of the Six attacks you in Los Angeles, and then another tries to save you here. And now you want us to expose Five Songs to you, to get you into Caernarvon Castle. How do we know you are who you say you are? How do we know that this entire story has not been concocted to draw us into the open, and thence to destroy us?”
“You are already exposed,” Aubry observed quietly.
“We are old,” One-Eye said. “And already damaged in the fight against Swarna. And we are but a single note in the Five Songs. If we die, or are captured, we will expose little. Our contact will flee, or commit suicide if we do not send the clear signal.” A knife appeared in One-Eye’s gnarled, rusty hands. “We believe that we have been betrayed. We will die, and we will take you with us.” The knife hovered near Aubry’s throat. Aubry met his eye evenly, unmoving.
Old Man spoke quickly. “No! He is one of us. He is a child of the Ibandi, raised in America.”
Scar-Cheek held up a hand, and One-Eye retracted the knife half an inch. “We heard that there was such a child,” Scar-Cheek said, “but how do we know that this is the one? He could be another clone, grown, implanted with a shadow soul. I mean no insult, but he would fool even you, Old Man. How would we know? How would he know?”
Aubry, about to argue, suddenly felt a sour question poisoning his confidence. “What do you mean?”
“Swarna and the Americans could have created you. Programmed you in America. Sent you in to uncover us. Perhaps their animosity is a sham.”
“But … they didn’t want me to come. I forced their hand.”
“So you say. Or think. But it need not be true.”
Aubry stopped, considering that. Then he shook his head. “Once, I might have doubted myself. I might have wondered. But I am no longer a man who doubts. The fire burns clean. I will kill Phillipe Swarna. No matter what the cost. I can do it—all I need is another chance.”
“Old Man,” the second woman asked. She bore no visible scars, but when she moved or spoke, it was with evident discomfort. “Why do you vouch for this—American?”
“Because of the Firedance,” he said. “It is known only to my people. Only to the warriors of my people. Swarna was a priest, not a warrior. He did not know the Firedance. This man did. Thomas Jai, who took the fetus to America, and claimed to be this one’s father, was a warrior. Thomas knew the Firedance. Aubry performed for us. It was flawed. It was partial. It was magnificent.”
“Could Thomas not have been captured, and the Firedance extracted under torture?”
“Information can be extracted, yes. But not the joy. Firedance holds the joy of our people, our love of movement. It must be taught, one to another, hands on, over a process of years. Love, given father to son, uncle to nephew. Protector to protected. You can steal the external shell, but not the nectar it holds. Aubry Jai was given the nectar. He is our child, come home.”
“Jai?” asked Aubry, confused.
“It is High Ibandi. It means protector. Guardian. Warrior. Knight.”
Old Man came and stood by Aubry, gray head rising only to the level of his shoulder. There was silence, save for the wind passing over the Iron Mountain. Passing as it had passed for ten million years, and would for a billion more.
The three men and two women gazed at Old Man, and at Aubry, and at last they nodded. “You risk your own people. You place their lives on the line. Five Songs will stand with you.”