I WAS IN A SOUR MOOD AS WE FOLLOWED BACK-FROM-THE-DEAD and his retinue. The well-trodden trail we traveled wound along one of the streams. While rough and unwieldy for Back-from-the-Dead’s litter bearers, the encroaching brush, vines, and overhanging trees provided excellent cover. From the looks of the fresh-cut stumps of saplings, the route had been recently widened and “improved” for easier travel. No wonder, given that the main trails now belonged to the Kristianos.
I cocked an eyebrow as I watched Back-from-the-Dead’s lofty perch sway and lurch as his carriers negotiated a particularly treacherous section. You had to admire their balance and stamina as they bore their priest along a route more suited to deer than a wide litter. Sometimes hanging vines or low branches entailed lowering, twisting, and fancy maneuvering to get the litter and its occupant past the obstacle.
Where fallen trees had been laid across drainage channels, however, there was no other solution but for the chair to be lowered. Back-from-the-Dead would step off, walk serenely across the crude bridge, and wait while his men manhandled the litter chair across. When it was lowered on the other side, he’d carefully seat himself, arrange his apron and cloak, reset his headpiece, and with a gesture, be raised again to their shoulders.
“Can you see the tension in their faces?” Pearl Hand asked after one such crossing. “Those poor fellows are scared stiff. How’d you like to be the man who dropped the most Powerful priest in the world?”
“He’s not the most Powerful priest in the world. Just the most powerful Apalachee priest. But, to your point, my bet is the guy who finally drops him will simply bow down, open a vein, and, as he dies, pray that Back-from-the-Dead won’t curse his souls to eternal wandering.”
“Why doesn’t he walk?” Blood Thorn asked. “Being carried thus, along a trail like this, it smacks more of arrogant stupidity.”
“You got the arrogant part right,” I murmured.
“Part of maintaining authority is projecting an image,” Pearl Hand replied. “He wants his people to believe he’s going to beat de Soto with his Spirit Power. Maybe he needs to believe it himself.”
I chewed my lip, then said, “I’d gratefully gift him with everything we own if I thought he could do it.”
“Apalachee have strong Power,” Wide Antler said. “We have often suspected they were sorcerers given the successes they had against us.”
I met his solemn gaze. “No matter what his reputation, our spooky friend is headed for a grave and life-changing disappointment.”
“But, Peliqua—”
“I’ve looked Horned Serpent in the eyes, my friend. I have eaten from Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’s pot. Shared her fire and—”
“Drove your peg into her daughter?” Pearl Hand interjected wryly.
“—heard her say this was a battle between men, not Spirit Powers.” I was trying to make a point, but Pearl Hand’s remark hit the Orphans with the impact of a thrown rock.
“Corn Woman?” Wide Antler asked. “You did what with Corn Woman?”
I winced, shooting an irritated glance at my wife. “I thought you weren’t jealous of Spirit Beings.”
She gave me a cool gaze. “I was—after a fashion—part of it, remember?”
Embarrassed, I struggled with that hot feeling at the base of my neck. Giving a slash of my hand, I growled, “This conversation is over. Come on. Our self-important hilishaya is vanishing into the forest, and we don’t want to miss seeing how he’s going to destroy de Soto.”
I scampered my way across the latest bridge, watching to make sure the pack dogs followed without mishap. If Pearl Hand had slipped and tumbled into the muddy water below . . . ?
All right. Perhaps not. One of the things I truly loved about her was that lack of humility, her wry ability to find humor when we were in desperate straits.
As we entered a stand of red and post oaks, the way opened and we managed to make good time; the hilishaya’s bearers almost moved at a trot. His priests apparently hadn’t had much forest training; they made a lot of noise: their packs clattered, they talked loudly, and I was sure that they passed no stick they didn’t snap with a poorly placed foot.
The escort warriors were unimpressed.
After one of the priests tripped over a mossy log and fell crashing through dry brush, I opined, “Well, if there’s any saving grace to this, it’s that the Kristianos aren’t any better at reading the forest. Even if they heard, they wouldn’t know what it means.”
“We’d better hope,” Blood Thorn replied, his attention on the dark gaps beneath the trees. “But then, perhaps his Power protects us?”
“Really?” I arched a skeptical eyebrow.
Blood Thorn snorted, following behind Pearl Hand as we trotted down the trail. “What do you expect to happen when we arrive at Anhaica, Black Shell? What is this thing de Soto is planning?”
“Something involving death and misery,” I answered. “He knows no other way.”
Pearl Hand agreed. “So true. But then neither does Back-from-the-Dead. He sincerely thinks Power will protect him.”
“Somehow,” I mused, “we have to find a way to dissuade him.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then he’s going to get a lot of people killed.”
That night, in a thicket a couple of hands’ hard run from Anhaica, we established camp in a grove of pines, chinquapins, and sassafrases. Pearl Hand had dug up some of the root from the latter, softening it with a stone hammer and setting it to boil as we prepared a supper of boiled corn, dried pawpaws, persimmons, and currents. Corn Thrower had killed a low-flying swan with a thrown stick. It now sizzled just above the coals.
Our camp was no more than fifty paces from Back-from-the-Dead’s. We could hear them talking, occasionally laughing, and the gentle singing as the hilishaya blessed their food. The escort warriors, of necessity, had their own fire a stone’s throw beyond the priests. Bound by ritual, both were following their prescribed behaviors when on the trail.
I kept glancing their way as I poked at the fire with a broken branch, stirring the coals, keeping the dripping swan’s grease from catching fire and charring the bird. What was the purpose of ritual in a world turned insane by de Soto’s abominations?
Pearl Hand hunched beside me, hair pulled back, her attention on the stew pot with its bubbling contents. The glow from the fire pit turned her smooth skin into glowing copper, accenting the hollows of her cheeks, gleaming from the angle of her jaw. I enjoyed the faint shadows it cast along the sides of her straight nose and how the light emphasized the sleek lines of her forehead. Pearl Hand just grew ever more beautiful. Were we to last a thousand years, I would never grow bored with her looks.
As if she felt my gaze, she tilted her head; an electric tingle ran through me as her dark eyes met mine and began to sparkle. Her lips curled into a smile, teeth shining.
“Want us to leave?” Blood Thorn interrupted my thoughts from across the fire.
“What’s that?” I looked up. He and the rest of the Orphans ringed our fire, each grinning at Pearl Hand and me.
“We were feeling intrusive,” Walking Thunder said dryly. “Like a grandmother staying too long at a newlywed’s house on the wedding night.”
I narrowed an eye, ready to say something unkind, but Pearl Hand beat me to it. “When Black Shell and I reach the point where we’re about to explode, we’ll be the ones to leave. It’s a cold night. You all will need the warmth.” She gestured at the flames and gave them a pantherlike grin. “We’ll have our own source of fire.”
The Orphans laughed at that, nudging each other with elbows. Skipper lifted his head, his oddly colored eyes curious.
After we’d eaten and made our food offerings to the fire, Pearl Hand and the Timucua wended their way down to the dark creek to wash the cooking bowl and clean their greasy fingers.
I sipped at the sassafras tea remaining in my cup and studied Blood Thorn, who had remained behind nursing his own tea. His attention was fixed on the fire, the expression on his face wistful, distant, and pained.
“Does it ever bother you? Pearl Hand and me?”
A sad smile turned his lips. “No, my friend. Just the opposite. Seeing the two of you is a reminder that even now, with the monster loose among us and terrible suffering everywhere, love can flourish. But I wonder how you dare to love with such passion.” He paused. “You know that none of us will live through this, Black Shell.”
“Death motivates with remarkable ferocity.”
Blood Thorn nodded, brooding at the fire.
He looked up. “So does hatred. What they did in Napetuca, and to the woman I loved . . . the way I was treated, and all those others they’ve brutally murdered . . .” He gestured futility. “Then we come here and find nothing but misery among the Apalachee. There are little things, too. You and the woman you love can never have the life you deserve. I see such things, and to my amazement, I can hate them even more. So I wonder, just where is the final limit of hate? Or does it go on, endless, like a great swelling flood?”
“Even a flood must eventually dissipate. There is only so much water on the earth. Only so much air.”
He grunted absently, then said, “Hatred I can understand. I cannot, however, figure out the Kristianos.”
“Figure them out how?”
“How can they be human?” He looked up. “Kristianos look for gold, true, but they remain oblivious to the misery and suffering they cause. This lack of comprehension defies reason. Even the most revenge-filled war party understands the pain and misery it inflicts upon captives: It is to repay them for their own suffering. But the Kristianos? They seem unconcerned.”
He frowned at his hand, watching as he curled and extended his fingers, as if fascinated by their movement. “You took one captive once. This Antonio. What did he say? How did he explain what they are doing?”
I shrugged. “To them we are soulless, worthless things. Like wiping rags they can use until worn out, then dispose of.”
“Perhaps. But until I can understand, my hatred will continue to grow. And eventually, it will burst my skin like an overinflated bladder.”
I nodded, wondering if my own would do the same.
“Trader?” one of the priests called from the darkness. “The hilishaya requests you to come.”
“Excuse me,” I told Blood Thorn, getting to my feet. “I am being summoned. Good little camp dog that I am.”
Blood Thorn fingered his chin. “I wonder if he has the foggiest notion of how dangerous you really are, Black Shell.”
“I hope not. And I would prefer to keep it that way.” Only then did I realize that while I was making a joke, Blood Thorn certainly wasn’t.
I turned, blinking, trying to adjust my vision to the darkness after being fire blinded. Fortunately the path was flat.
I heard the stealthy padding of paws and glanced back, making out Squirm’s white blaze and bib as he followed along behind me. I’d acquired him in a Yuchi town, so I warned him in that language. “Careful, old friend. You’d better hope they’re not hungry for dog.”
Or for a trader’s soul, my internal voice cautioned.
I was led not to the priest’s fire but back from there, into the darkly shadowed recesses under a spreading magnolia. My guide stopped, touching his forehead respectfully, saying, “The trader, as you requested.” Then he turned and left.
I lowered my head, squinting at the blackness beneath the tree. Squirm stopped by my side and I could feel his tail whipping back and forth. Someone was certainly there.
“Sit,” Back-from-the-Dead ordered in a wooden voice.
I bent, felt around, and lowered myself to the leaf mat. Then I pulled Squirm down beside me, relieved to have him close. Hopefully his senses would give me an edge if anyone came sneaking up.
“What can I do for you, Hilishaya?”
Silence stretched.
I was entertaining the notion of leaving when he said, “For generations my ancestors have lived with Power. It runs through the living like braids—strands of human and Spirit Power interlaced so thoroughly that they become one. And incredibly strong. My grandmother, herself a sorcerer and conjuror, caught me as I was born. A newborn’s vision is foggy, unfocused, but I recall her expression as my slick body was expelled into her calloused hands. After she used a cloth to wipe my face, I looked into her knowing black eyes. She smiled, exposing that gap between her teeth, and said, ‘You are a fine one. Filled with Power, boy. It runs through you like a thick rope.’”
My vision had adjusted. Back-from-the-Dead sat on his traveling chair, a darkness within the darkness.
He remembers being born?
Myself, I couldn’t remember anything further back than the beating Uncle gave me for walking into the Women’s House and dragging out Mother’s menstrual cloths. I was only four at the time, but so strict is the male-female taboo among my Chicaza that only after I’d been washed, ritually smoked, scrubbed with button snakeroot, and painted white did Uncle dare to take a willow switch to my young hide. Believe me, it worked. I’ve never set foot in the Women’s House again—and never, but never, touched a menstrual rag.
As I petted Squirm’s long head, Back-from-the-Dead continued. “In the memory of the people, no one advanced through the training as fast as I did. Grandfather and father agreed that I was ready for initiation at the age of six. At six, you hear? Why? Because I knew the sacred healing roots, could tell them apart by sight, smell, and taste. When the holy words were spoken, they became part of my souls, locked away as if kept in a pot. When I needed them, I had only to reach into that soul pot and pull them out again.”
I waited as the breeze rattled the waxy leaves over my head.
“I was seven when I cured a woman who was dying. From the smell of her urine, I recognized the type of witchery used to make her sick. With a sucking tube I removed the bit of vulture bone that had been shot into her. It caused her to bleed from the sheath.”
“She was lucky to have such a skilled healer,” I said diplomatically, and wondered why he’d called me here.
Perhaps to settle his debt from the chunkey game? Okay, maybe not.
He said, “The first time I sent my souls to the Underworld, I was eight. My training allowed me to avoid the traps. Once, while diving, I saw the Piasa, watched him swim obliviously past, his wings beating.”
Wait till he grabs you by the neck. At the memory I rubbed my throat. “He always seems to be waiting when I show up.”
He ignored me. “I have flown to the Sky World. Taking the form of an eagle, I have ridden the winds to look down upon the land.”
“Hilishaya, I’ve been to these places. Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies made me supper and healed the disease I’d caught from the Kristianos. Her daughter, Corn Woman, took me to her bed and, well, you wouldn’t believe how that turned out. In the Sky World I was eaten by Horned Serpent and apparently shit out at the edge of a muddy lake outside Napetuca. In short, you aren’t impressing me.”
He was silent, and I could imagine the expression on his tattooed face.
Finally, he said, “On the day the Kristianos try to teach us our lesson, I am going to walk into Anhaica and defeat them. Not drive them out, not sicken them, but kill them. Do you understand?”
I pursed my lips, trying to stare through the darkness. “All right. But if I were you, I’d try to witch them from a long way away.”
“I have walked unseen among our enemies. Among all the Apalachee, no one can recall a hilishaya as powerful as me.”
“Did you hear what I said about keeping your distance?”
“The skepticism of foreigners is not my concern. I know the Kristianos can’t hurt me. I’ve used Power to kill people before, many of them accomplished sorcerers. This time—”
“You’ll be dead before you make it to the city gates. Or worse, a captive.”
He laughed, the idea clearly amusing. “My body shall be invisible to them. Wrapped in Power, I walked through the middle of a Tuskaloosa war party. Only when I appeared before Tuskaloosa himself did I drop the Power.”
“Kristianos aren’t Mos’kogee. They’re not Albaamaha, Hichiti, or Koasati. They don’t have the same Power. Ours doesn’t work on them, theirs doesn’t work on us. It’s different.”
“Enlighten me, Trader.”
“As best I can figure, it all comes out even. Like two trees of equal weight that fall to lean against each other.”
“One will eventually rot out at the bottom and topple to the other.”
His words were sobering. “That’s literally the root of this entire battle, Hilishaya. The strength in our tree must come from our faith in ourselves. It’s only when we lose it that the rot begins.”
I felt rather than saw his smile. “Perhaps. But they come with lures, things to drag us away from our ways. Their metal chisels, cooking pots, colorful beads, needles, and knives, all these things tempt us, lead us to covet.”
“You need not explain that to a trader.” I rested my chin on my fist. “But if you try to fight them directly with Spirit Power, you will lose.”
“Your lack of faith disturbs me.”
“Faith has nothing to do with it. I’ve been told, face-to-face, that this is a war between men. Not Powers. I can’t be more blunt.”
I could feel the intensity of his gaze. We waited a long time; Squirm finally settled his nose on his paw and went to sleep.
“Black Shell, why do you oppose me? What difference will it make if I try?”
“A great deal, if they kill you.”
“I have already died many times. I have no fear.”
“It’s not you I’m thinking about.”
“Oh?”
“How will the people react when their greatest hilishaya is killed by Kristianos?”
He didn’t reply.
“Your death would be a blow to their hearts and souls. They would ask, ‘How can we fight an enemy Powerful enough to kill our most holy priest?’ And their will to resist will drain away like water through sand.”
“When I walk out, the Kristianos will not see me. The Power I wrap around me will deflect their arrows and lances. My song will carry me unseen to the center of them, and once there I shall call down a tornado. With its mighty winds I will break them, sweeping the ground of Anhaica clean of their pollution.”
I took a deep breath, smiling wearily. “Hilishaya, since you haven’t heard a word I’ve said, I might as well go back to my camp and get some sleep.”
I prodded Squirm awake and stood.
“Black Shell, what would you take in trade for your medicine pouch?”
The request stopped me cold. I could feel the sepaya begin to warm through its bag. In reply I snapped: “I was being eaten, priest. In my terror I grabbed on to the brow tine of Horned Serpent’s antler. I remember the feel of it breaking off. One doesn’t trade a Power object like that. Not for any price.”
“Yet you say that Power doesn’t matter when it comes to Kristianos.”
“The sepaya matters to me.”
“I could order you killed and obtain it that way.”
That sent a chill down my back. “I serve Horned Serpent. How do you think he would react?”
Back-from-the-Dead sighed. “Forgive me. That night in the high minko’s, I felt the horn’s Power. When we played chunkey, it allowed you to win. When I walk out to do battle with the Kristianos, it could be the deciding factor.”
“Hilishaya, I don’t—”
“My people are depending on me. You, and your Orphans, need me to win. It’s not just the Apalachee but all peoples who hang in the balance. The future, thousands of lives, our very existence, depends on what happens when I walk out to face them.”
“If I thought you had the faintest chance—”
“I am begging you, Black Shell. Pleading. At least let me borrow it.”
I reached up, clasping my hand around the leather. I could feel the bit of red horn quivering like an anxious mouse.
“I’m sorry, Hilishaya. You’ll have to get your own sepaya.”
“If I fail, it will be upon your head. My souls will be waiting for yours in the Land of the Dead. There, Black Shell, you shall face not only me, but your ancestors as well. How will you explain that based on pride, you allowed the world to be butchered?”
His words cut like a chert knife. I reached up again, on the verge of removing the thong from my neck.
“Sorry, Hilishaya.”
I turned, making my way back through the dark. My only comfort was the sound of Squirm’s padded feet on the fallen leaves behind me.
Meanwhile, the sepaya seemed to burn through the leather sack.