Fourteen

Tsilu

I wait for Kwinsi to answer, but when he just stares at the man with his mouth open, I politely say, “Of course, elder. Please sit and share our tea. I regret that we don’t have any food to give you, but we—”

“Quite all right,” he replies.

As he sits down cross-legged between me and Kwinsi, Kwinsi closes his mouth, but he could not look more surprised if Moon Mother dropped out of the sky and rolled over him, leaving silver slime in her wake.

“How did you find us, elder? We tried to hide our trail.”

“I saw your fire.” He turns his hands to warm them all over.

“Oh…”

Blessed Spirits! How could we have made such a dangerous error? The shock of walking through the destroyed village, then being nearly captured by Iron Dog and his warriors, must have taken more of a toll on my wits than I thought.

“If you don’t have any food, you must be hungry.” The man tugs open the laces of his bag, draws out several long sticks of jerky, hands one stick to me and another to Kwinsi. “It’s buffalo flavored with beeweed. Comes from the far north.”

“Thank you, elder.” I rip off a hunk with my teeth and chew. The beeweed gives the jerky a wonderful peppery taste.

Before he tightens the laces again, the man pulls out a plain gray cup, chipped around the rim. As he dips the cup into the teapot, he says, “I need to speak with you.”

Kwinsi makes an unsuccessful attempt to stand up—to run away, I suspect. The elder puts a hand under his elbow to steady Kwinsi, but the man’s touch seems to make Kwinsi’s weak knees even worse. He slumps back to the ground, breathing hard. “I don’t know anything. I swear it.”

The man frowns. “About what?”

“What?”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the man says softly. “I consider us allies.”

“Allies? Us?”

“We are on the same side. I’ll help you, if you will help me.”

The man looks thin and haunted, his entire body worn down to the bones, but it’s his eyes that draw me. They rest like smooth black stones in their sunken sockets. They’re too shiny. Feral.

“I am Tsilu of the Prairie Falcon Clan. I remember you from the council meeting.”

His head dips in what’s probably a nod, but the motion is almost imperceptible. “My name is Crane.”

When he shifts, his cape settles upon the ground around him in firelit folds.

“How can we help you, elder?”

“I need some information about the murder in the village.”

I exchange a glance with Kwinsi. “The murder of the Blessed Sun’s priestess? BoneDust? Kwinsi’s right. We don’t know anything.”

“I suspect you know more than you realize.” From his cape pocket, he pulls out a finely carved fetish and holds it up to the light. “For example, do you know what this is?”

I lean closer to study the fetish. It’s a beautiful thing. “No, but the artistry is stunning. It’s carved from jet, isn’t it? Looks like a red-eyed serpent coiled inside the broken eggshell. Where does it come from?”

Crane turns the object in his skeletal fingers. “It was given to me.” He tucks it back in his pocket. “No one should look upon it for long. The evil attaches itself to people and leeches into their souls.”

“It’s evil?”

“Oh yes. Very.”

He takes a moment to flip up his black hood, then looks away, so that his eyes are now hidden in shadow.

Faint memories flicker … stories Grandfather told me when I was a small child. “I wonder.”

He swivels around. “Yes?”

“I was just … thinking. I was around six or seven, I think. It was a winter night and Grandfather was telling me stories to keep my mind off the cold. I remember him mentioning a fetish. A serpent born from a cock’s egg. Supposedly, decades ago, the fetish belonged to the evil Blessed Sun Webworm, but Webworm gave it to his war chief, Leather Hand the Cannibal. The same man who is now the Blessed Sun of the Straight Path nation. I don’t remember much else about the story.”

Kwinsi shudders and glances around. “Keep your voice down, Tsilu.”

No one talks about the Blessed Sun without feeling a chill run down his or her spine. He lives on human flesh, and orders the White Moccasins to kill entire villages to supply him with victims. Men like Deputy Iron Dog and the loathsome Weevil.

“No wonder it’s so strong,” Crane says and frowns at the fire. “The fetish was owned by two monsters.”

“It may not be the same Power object,” I say hurriedly. “If it was given to Leather Hand, why do you have it?”

Firelight flares in the silver hair at his temples. “I’m trying to find a way to kill it.”

Kwinsi sits up straighter. “You mean the serpent is alive?”

“Yes. And immensely dangerous. It has a malignant soul.”

While I think about that, I look beyond the fire into the river drainage that is thick with fallen cottonwood and willow leaves. The damp air carries the brittle smells of dying vegetation. It seems unnaturally quiet. As though every night creature is watching Crane with the same wariness it would a familiar predator.

At last, Crane turns toward Kwinsi. The two men stare into each other’s eyes for several long uneasy moments before Crane softly says, “I was wondering if you tried to open it.”

Kwinsi looks a bit like a startled stork. “The fetish?”

“The pot.”

“Open the pot?”

“Yes.”

“What pot?”

Crane smiles. His eyes reflect the firelight like mirrors. It’s a strange, eerie sight. “Nightshade’s soul pot. You have it, don’t you?”

Kwinsi seems too stunned to speak, so I say, “How do you know about the pot?”

“I gave it to Tocho many summers ago. It was far safer with him than with me. I was a hunted man back then. My family was constantly in danger because I possessed that pot.”

“You know my grandfather?”

He bows his head and nods. “Tocho is a very old and cherished friend. I’ve known him for over—”

“The pot!” Kwinsi blurts as though he’s just realized which pot.

Crane and I stare at him, waiting for his next words.

“You were saying?” Crane gently prods.

“Nothing … really … except … I didn’t try to open it because Tocho told me not to.”

“That was wise,” Crane says. “I don’t think you could have opened it anyway. I never could, and I don’t think Tocho could either. In fact, rumors say that only Maicoh can open it.”

Kwinsi squints at Crane. “Then why would you think I could?”

“Because, despite the rumors, I think Nightshade is waiting for the right person to come along. I thought it might be you.”

Kwinsi sits so still that the steam rising from his teacup sends a glittering veil twining up around his face.

I break the strange silence by asking, “When did you give the pot to Grandfather?”

“Long ago. Right after my family was killed.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Mine died, too. In a raid, I guess. I don’t remember them. Though I remember fire all around me, and being terrified.”

Crane’s usually blank expression tenses. He lowers his gaze to look down into his teacup and for the first time I see emotion on his face. Deep emotion. “I saw you that day. You were covered with soot and sobbing. You’re lucky Tocho came along when he did.”

“You saw me?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but Kwinsi lifts a finger to get his attention and says, “But!”

The word dangles.

I grit my teeth for a moment before I say, “I wish you’d finish sentences. It’s annoying when you do that.”

Kwinsi glances at me, then at Crane. “How did you know Tocho gave me the pot?”

Wind gusts through the camp, and Crane huddles inside his black cape, as though suddenly intensely cold.

“Tocho told me you’re his favorite student. And I suspect my old friend was hoping he could relieve himself of the burden of caring for it. Even for a single day. I carried it for seven summers. You have no idea how difficult—”

“You spoke with him? You spoke with Grandfather about Kwinsi? When?”

It’s hard to believe, because we are almost always together. On rare occasions, Grandfather leaves me in the Sleeping Place while he travels to distant places to Heal the sick or meet with other shamans. And we were apart several times in the last few days. He was missing for over a hand of time during the harvest ritual, and again when he was in the village burying the dead priestess. He was gone when I returned to the village after finding Kwinsi, too. He could have met with Crane at any of those times, and I’d know nothing of it.

Crane brings up one knee and balances his cup on his kneecap. “I spoke with him after the council meeting. My old friend is in grave danger. He’s on his way to Flowing Waters Town for an audience with the Blessed Sun.”

“Why?”

“The Blessed Sun wants the pot. But I don’t think Tocho has it. Does he, Kwinsi?”

Kwinsi places his uneaten stick of jerky on the ground. He looks like a child with a stolen corn cake hidden in his pocket.

Crane glances at him, then out at the towering canyon walls. “If Tocho does not give the Blessed Sun that pot, he’ll kill Tocho.”

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. I look back and forth between the men. “What makes you think Kwinsi has it?”

“Tocho told me once that he carried Nightshade’s pack with him day and night. So, you see, I thought he had the pot with him. He should have had it with him when he was captured. And maybe he did, but…”

Kwinsi has his jaw clenched. Finally he says, “You can stop looking at me. I gave the pot back to Tocho the afternoon after the council meeting.”

“Are you sure?”

Kwinsi’s gaze lifts, and it shocks me. I’ve never seen that look in his eyes before. It’s stony. Hard as granite. “I had to give it back to him. I couldn’t bear to touch it for one instant longer.”

“I see. Well, I don’t blame you for that.”

Without seeming to be aware of it, Crane rests one hand on the buffalo-hide bag hanging from his belt, and a sad expression creases his face. “I assume you’re tracking Tocho, hoping to rescue him. I’d like to help you, if that’s all right.”

I turn to Kwinsi for his opinion, but Kwinsi’s eyes are closed as though he so dreads the idea he can’t even look at me.

Hesitantly I turn back to Crane. “Yes, elder. We would appreciate your help.”

“Good. I’m fairly sure I know the trails they will take. Tonight they’ve probably made camp in the abandoned ruins of GoingBuck Village. I hope the ghosts leave them alone.”