“BLACK SHELL?” THE SOFT VOICE BARELY PENETRATED.
“Black Shell? Wake up.”
I blinked, aware of darkness, the chirping of crickets, and the distant hoot of an owl.
“Try not to wake Pearl Hand. Nothing’s wrong. I just need to see you.”
Somehow my sleep-fogged mind managed to place Tishu Mikko Fire Falcon’s voice. I carefully slithered away from Pearl Hand’s warm body and crawled out from the blanket. Chill caressed my skin, and I reached around to locate my hunting shirt and cloak.
“Tishu Mikko? What do you want?”
“Come with me.”
I stared at where his dark shape hunched against the faint glow of false dawn. “Come where?”
“That’s an order, Trader.” He stood, pointing off to the south. “Take your weapons with you. One of my people will explain to your wife and the rest if you are not back by the time they awake.”
I muttered to myself, pulling on my shirt and draping my cloak around my shoulders. Grabbing up my quiver and Caddo bow, I carefully followed in his footsteps as we picked our way across his camp and then down the trail that led to the creek.
Trying to thread our way through that mess in near pitch-black was no fun.
I barely ducked as a branch flipped back after his passage. “What are we doing, Tishu Mikko?”
“Perhaps saving the world.”
“Of course.”
“Careful of this fallen log. It’s slick with dew.”
“Why are we out here?”
“The hilishaya wishes to see you.”
“The answer is no.”
“You haven’t heard the question yet.”
“I have. He just hasn’t heard the answer.”
Fire Falcon sighed. “Myself, Trader, I don’t know what to believe. My heart tells me that the hilishaya will conjure Power. He will gather it about him and unleash it against the invaders. Afterward, once they are weakened by Spirit Power, we will finally crush them once and for all.”
He hesitated, ducking a thorny vine. “We know these things in our hearts because we know the stories of the Beginning Times; we’ve seen the hilishaya conjure, heal, and bless. These things are our truths, and if they do not work for us now, what is left?”
“Ourselves, Tishu Mikko. Our strength and faith in our ability to finally beat the Kristianos through intelligence, skill, and courage.”
“Then . . . what? Spirit Power is meaningless? Is their wooden cross more potent than white and red Power? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Blood and muck, no! I’ve been to the Spirit World, seen Horned Serpent. He’s real. It’s all real. Here’s what I think is happening: The Spirits the Kristianos believe in, this dios-jesucristo of theirs, and this paraíso, along with their wooden cross and gold cup, these things balance our Power. Like the red balances the white, neither dominant, but each different. One cannot destroy the other any more than light can destroy dark or earth can destroy water.”
“Then you think the Kristiano Spirits are part of the Spirit World?”
“Part of a different Spirit World,” I replied. “One that exists in another place, separate from ours.”
“But they have brought it here?”
I shrugged, tripping over a tangle of honeysuckle. “Perhaps. I don’t know. Were we to travel to their world, would red and white Power accompany us? Infect their Power? Who knows? These aren’t things traders are taught to understand.”
“Unfortunately, they are not the province of mikkos, either.” He stepped out onto a sloping bank beneath overarching trees. I could make out the black lace of branches against the brightening sky. The stars were fading.
A fire burned just to the left, wood popping and sending up sparks. Fire Falcon stopped just shy of an upright stick. Twisted into the soil, it stood, a falcon feather hung by a thong from its top. I could see the shaft had been painted, but the light was too poor to tell the color.
Down by the water I could just make out another and realized what I was seeing: Sacred ground had been marked off. These were boundary sticks marking the eastern extent of the holy enclosure. Off to the west, beyond the fire and what I now discerned as a sweat lodge, would be two more sticks, forming a square.
Seated around the sweat lodge were the hilishaya’s assistants and the litter carriers. I could hear the soft cadence of voices as they prayed.
Even as Fire Falcon and I watched, the flap was thrown back on the sweat lodge and Back-from-the-Dead emerged, his naked body wet and shining in the firelight. Without a glance our way, he lifted his arms high, walking, head tilted back, his voice raised in song.
The sepaya on my chest began to throb.
In unison, Fire Falcon and I dropped to our knees, heads bowed, hands offered palm up. Belief is as much a part of us as the heart, liver, or lungs. It flows through us as does our blood. We are Mos’kogee right down to the bone, and Powerful medicine was being made before us. I could feel it, thick in the air, an almost electrical prickling of the skin. I’d felt the same just before the Sky Beings pitched lightning at a high peak.
The sepaya on my chest began to vibrate.
Water splashed as Back-from-the-Dead bathed in the stream. Hilishayas never let sweat dry on their skin. Rather, they let water wash it away, leaving them even more pure.
In the increasing light, I watched as Back-from-the-Dead emerged from the creek, water sluicing down his lean body. Just within the boundary of the sacred ground, a large shell bowl had been set on a square of fabric. I could just make out the slender piece of cane resting on the cloth beside the bowl.
Here Back-from-the-Dead stopped and knelt. He began to sing, lifting the painted cane tube. Then, placing it to his lips, he inserted one end into the liquid-filled bowl and began to blow. A hilishaya used his specially blessed medicine stick thus to insert Power words into medicine brews.
I cleared my thoughts, seeking peace and purity out of respect for the solemnity of what Back-from-the-Dead was doing. The sepaya’s heat began to warm my breast.
Finished, Back-from-the-Dead began cupping up water and rubbing it over his face, head, neck, and chest. He proceeded to slick down his arms, then his belly. The bowl was lifted and poured over his back. Setting it down, he scrubbed his genitals and then worked down the legs, ending at the feet.
“Red root,” I murmured. The Spirit root was carefully collected, prayed to, then chewed to loosen the fibers. Finally it was boiled according to ritual, in water from a special spring.
Back-from-the-Dead retrieved his medicine stick and walked up to the fire, where his carriers and assistants sat in two rows. As he passed between them, each man raised his arms, calling out a Power blessing.
At the edge of the fire I could make out a large whelk-shell cup. The smooth white exterior had been engraved but I was too far away to determine the design.
Back-from-the-Dead lifted the cup high, firelight bronzing his muscular body, illuminating the tattoos that wound up and down his limbs and across his belly.
“Giver of Breath and Life,” he called to the heavens, “hear my plea. In the name of the three worlds, I call on you. In the name of light and darkness, in the name of the Sky World and Underworld, I call on you. In the name of the plants and animals, I call on you. In the name of the ancestors and those unborn, I call on you. In the name of the white and red Powers, and all things, I call on you.”
He placed the shell cup’s rim to his mouth, drinking, his eyes still on the graying heavens.
Only when the cup of black drink was empty did he lower it, crying, “Give me Power. Help me to destroy the abomination!”
Then he turned, bent, and began to vomit. After the last of the black drink had spewed onto the ground between the lines of his assistants, he turned. I saw him toss a bundle of something into the fire. As a great billowing puff of red smoke arose he stepped straight into the center of the flames.
And vanished.
For long moments we waited, all eyes locked on the fire as the smoke began to dissipate. Even as I watched, it was apparent that no man stood among the burning embers—not that anyone could have withstood that kind of heat.
The rows of assistants remained where they were, singing prayers, their hands extended toward the sky.
I shot a look at Fire Falcon, seeing the awe and confusion in his face. The sepaya jerked back and forth on its thong.
“Why did you bring me here, Tishu Mikko?”
Fire Falcon blinked, confused, and swallowed hard. “Because . . . Because . . .”
“Because I asked him to,” Back-from-the-Dead said behind me.
I whirled, struggling to my feet. Where he had been naked, now a brilliant red breechcloth sporting a spotless white apron graced his hips. A cloak of cardinal feathers hung from his shoulders past his knees. His face was painted red and black, while a tall copper headpiece in the shape of a falcon pinned his tight hair bun. White swan’s feathers—like a sunburst—protruded from behind the headpiece.
Then my eyes fixed on the long copper mace clutched in his hands. The design was what we call a turkey tail, and the thing was polished to a shine. The length of my arm, it was obviously heavy.
He smiled tiredly, noting my fascination with the mace. “It is old, Black Shell, dating to the foundation of the Apalachee Nation. Some say it was carried by our ancestors from Cahokia itself, a gift from the god-emperor to the first of our hilishaya.”
“Why am I here?” I felt confused, my souls loose and adrift.
“I need your sepaya. I cannot win today unless I bear its Power. Do you understand? Horned Serpent’s Power, mixed with all the rest, will enable me to prevail. By tonight, the invader’s magic will be broken.”
Reflexively I reached up and gripped the leather pouch, which seemed to burn like an ember. Numb, I could only repeat, “I took this from Horned Serpent when he was killing me.”
“That makes it the most important concentration of Horned Serpent’s Power known. Others have obtained bits of horn, usually through trickery or payment. Your courage, what Horned Serpent did to you, that he passed you and the sepaya back to this world, makes that piece incredibly potent.”
I might have been stone, unable to move as his glowing black eyes seemed to search my souls. I could feel the Power radiating from his body, as if fit to explode it.
My hand seemed to move of its own volition, rising to lift the thong from my neck. I couldn’t breathe, my heart still in my chest, my flesh nothing more than inert clay. The sepaya’s Power pulsed between my fingers.
I was in the process of extending the thong, pouch swaying below, when a scream tore through my souls. “No,” I gasped. “Wait.”
The swirling depths behind his black eyes seemed to enlarge.
“I . . .” I swallowed hard. “I’ll go with you. Bear it, if you will. Like your carriers move your sacred articles from place to place.”
“And if I must have it?”
“Then I’ll give it to you.”
“You’re unprepared. Uncleansed and polluted. I can smell a woman’s odor all over you. Your souls are a mixture of red passion smudged with the black of death.”
“I am exactly who I need to be to fight this war.” I don’t know why I said it. “I am part of the sepaya’s Power. We work together, like the balance between the red and the white. Without me, the Power is dissipated.”
His eyes seemed to enlarge, swelling in his head. The effect was downright eerie. Then he said, “I understand. Come.”
I gave Fire Falcon a pleading look. “Tell the Orphans where I’ve gone. What I’ve done.”
Still on his knees, his hands in the supplicant’s position, he nodded, speechless.
The sepaya drawing me forward, I followed Back-from-the-Dead, the carriers and assistants lining out behind us. They lifted flutes, playing a sacred melody as we started along the creekside trail leading toward Anhaica.
I walked in a daze through most of the morning, the sepaya’s Power radiating in waves. The events just before sunrise kept replaying in the eye of my souls. Had I actually seen what I thought I had? Back-from-the-Dead stepping naked into a pillar of smoke, only to reappear behind me, painted, dressed, and bearing an ancient copper mace?
Was I dreaming? No. That cold hike from Fire Falcon’s camp to the river had been too arduous, and I had the scrapes from thorns, as painful now as when I’d received them.
And no, Black Shell, you didn’t have anything to eat or drink that might have been laced with spirit plants to give you visions.
That left the final conclusion: Back-from-the-Dead had stepped into the fire, vanished into the smoke, only to be deposited—fully dressed—somewhere outside the sacred square, behind us.
But . . . how?
I glanced up at the morning sun, now almost two hands above the tree-lined and hilly horizon to the southeast. I exhaled, and cold breath hung before me. When would the sun actually warm my unnaturally cold skin? Or was this just Power—perhaps the illusion Back-from-the-Dead spun around us?
Through narrowed eyes I studied the back of his head. The canted copper headpiece looked as ancient as the mace. In the days of the great empires, the high minkos had valued such pieces. The copper had been traded down from the far north, though some continued to be found in the mountains east of Coosa. Once the coppersmiths had beaten the pieces into thin sheets, they’d placed them upon wooden molds. Using delicate hardwood, antler, and bone dowels they had carefully pressed the copper into the mold, creating falcons, images of Eagle Man, Seeing Eyes, and other sacred designs.
More than one hundred years before, a series of droughts, wars, and migrations had destroyed the mighty empires, leaving the peoples now bearing their names but a shadow of their ancestors and our current cities but pathetic reminders of the great urban centers that had dominated entire river systems.
And now I followed a renowned hilishaya bedecked with the copper of long-dead high minkos to do spiritual battle with the invader.
Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies told me flat out: This will be won or lost by men.
So, why am I here?
Because deep in my heart, despite all that I’ve experienced in the Spirit World, I still believe.
I glanced down at the thong I’d wrapped around my hand. The pouch swung with each step I took. Somehow I’d been unable to replace the cord around my neck. As if the sepaya hung halfway between the hilishaya and me.
We were climbing up from the concealment of the creek bottom now. Back-from-the-Dead led the way, me behind, the two ranks of assistants followed by the carriers. The sound of the flute music echoed weirdly in the morning. As if the playing priests and I were walking inside a large clear bowl.
When I listened, the normal sounds of morning—birdsong, insects, the sigh of wind through trees—was missing. I shook my head. None of it seemed real. Even less so than when my souls had ventured to the Spirit World.
I should have felt hungry, or perhaps thirsty since I hadn’t drank since the night before. But the way I felt I might have just stood from a full meal, a lightness to my step.
I’m driven by Power.
Not just driven, but born on the euphoria of it.
Why, in the name of bloody pus, am I walking headlong toward disaster?
Because, fool, for reasons of its own, the sepaya wants you here.
And as we crested the next rise, I could see Anhaica in the distance. Back-from-the-Dead was taking us on a direct line, headed for the eastern gate.
I could see distant cabayeros and soldados. Morning light was gleaming on their silver armor. Clusters of what looked like slaves were being guarded in the vicinity of the curious wooden piles.
Come on, Hilishaya, we’re betting everything on you.
The cold leeches into her ancient flesh as she watches the ceremony, and with it comes threads of memory. She sits back against the tchkofa, butt on a bench, wrapped in a blanket. The hopaye leads a procession into the great plaza. The man is dressed in a feathered cape crafted so that when he extends his arms, eagle feathers spread like wings. The effect is so real she half expects him to leap, flap, and rise into the clear winter sky.
She winces at the pain in her burned hand, now wrapped in cloth and treated with ointments. She needs but close her eyes and the fires of Mabila will burn brightly again.
Instead she watches the hopaye approach the tchkofa where she sits. He dances, his steps imitating those made by Eagle Man back in the Beginning Times.
The sound of flute music, accompanied by the deep thumps of the pot drum, are mirrored by hundreds of voices as the spectators lining the square begin to sing. The rhythm and harmony carry her back . . . back to memories.
Trouble and holy men, a mix that can turn volatile.
Priests, they are all the same. The unkind thought comes unbidden. She makes a face that rearranges her wrinkles and exposes her toothless gums.
Those around her misread it as joy—such is the ruin that time has made of her once-smooth skin.
Then she is falling back into the memories. Images of priests firming and fading. The one that finally rises to dominance is of a cold morning. Yes, she knows that place: a forest camp filled with Apalachee warriors. And in the rear towers a mighty beech tree.
She’d been cold—like today—as she awoke and threw the blanket back. Rubbing her tired face, she’d glanced around, searching for Black Shell. The rest of the Orphans lay in their blankets on the flattened grass. Faint tendrils of smoke rose from white ash in the deep-set hearth. Packs had been placed alongside fallen logs draped with half-crushed vines. The dogs were there, some catching the last of their dreams, others watching her. She remembered Skipper with his odd eyes, one brown, one blue, staring at her, and then looking plaintively across the Apalachee camp toward the trail that led down to the creek.
But nowhere had she seen Black Shell.
Driven by a prickle of unease, she’d stood, straightened her sleep-wrinkled dress, and drawn her cloak over her shoulders. Picking her way among the sleeping Orphans, she stepped over the log and made her way to where Fire Falcon’s camp lay.
She looked up from his empty blankets just as the tastanaki appeared from the creek trail, his face troubled, eyes haggard from no sleep.
“Greetings, Tastanaki. Have you seen my husband?”
He’d met her worried stare with one of his own. “I just left him. He’s accompanying the hilishaya. They have gone to destroy the Kristianos with Spirit Power.”
She’d stared, dumbfounded. “Let me get this straight: Black Shell has gone to help the hilishaya destroy the Kristianos?”
Fire Falcon had nodded, his face blanching. “I saw it myself . . . the hilishaya, draped in Power, shimmering like a morning sun. He wanted the sepaya Black Shell carries, would have had it. But at the last moment, Black Shell agreed to accompany him. To augment the Power.”
She relived the growing disbelief, the sensation of confusion. Only when Fire Falcon stared anxiously back at the trail had the fear burst loose in her souls.
She’d turned, sprinting back across the crowded camp, leaping logs and fire pits, bolting past rising warriors.
“Get up!” she’d shouted at the Orphans. “Grab your weapons!”
“What’s wrong?” Blood Thorn demanded as he clawed the sleep from his eyes. The others were scrambling out of their blankets, reaching instinctively for weapons.
“I’m not sure yet,” she’d answered in a fear-cold voice. “But whatever Black Shell’s doing, he’s not in his right mind.”
She was already plucking her crossbow from the ground, strapping the quiver of short metal-tipped arrows around her shoulders.
“And bring the dogs! We may need them.”
The fear was pounding through her now, and she turned . . .
“Elder?” a voice asks, and she flinches, staring around her. Eyes blinking, she realizes that the high minko, the tishu minko, and the clan elders are all watching her. She knows that worshipful look in their eyes.
Fire Falcon’s camp is gone, and she stares out at a hopaye dressed as Eagle Man as he pirouettes in the city plaza, scores of people watching, clapping, and singing.
“Dreaming,” she whispers self-consciously. “I was back . . . So long ago . . .”
“Yes, elder,” the high minko says solicitously. “It is a day of Power.”
They are so accommodating about her visions, her slips into the past.
“Yes.” She brushes the images of that long-gone day from her souls as though they were cobwebs. This is a day of life, of celebration.
But that was a day of death.
“Black Shell,” she whispers inaudibly. “What made you do it?”
For a moment, she relives the fear she felt as she and the Orphans went tearing down the trail, seeking the tracks of Black Shell and the crazy hilishaya . . .