Thirty-four

The Blessed Sun

For days now, the soul pots on the rear wall of Leather Hand’s chamber had been carrying on a constant low drone of conversation, speculating on how much longer he could live without his fetish. That wretched hunter said that, at most, Leather Hand had a matter of days. But the old woman from Talon Town promised him two weeks. Not one of them gave him longer than a moon.

Flinging out an arm, he shouted at them, “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of your guesses!”

The four holy people, priests and priestesses, in his chamber stiffened and glanced back at the rack of beautifully decorated pots.

Leather Hand propped his walking stick and leaned on it, glaring at the gathering. He only had four priests and priestesses left, two men and two women, and all of them had guilty faces. He’d have to appoint some new holy people in the near future, before he ran out.

“Admit it! One of you stole it!” he shouted in a shrill voice.

“We are innocent, Blessed Sun,” Cub said and made a reassuring gesture with his heavily ringed hands. Flares of turquoise flashed with his movements. “Don’t blame us for—”

“Don’t tell me what to do! You’re all liars!”

Cub closed his mouth, and Leather Hand could see the Sunwatcher’s teeth grinding beneath his cheeks.

Fighting his dread, Leather Hand turned away to look at the macabre beasts painted on his walls. Every breath of wind that penetrated the chamber around his door curtain fanned the firebowls and made the life-size thlatsinas spring forward and Dance away. On the eastern red wall, the fearsome pair of Black Ogres spun and gyrated like spinning tops. Their magnificent long toothy muzzles flapped up and down, clacking. What truly caught his attention, however, were the long obsidian blades they carried in their right hands. The blades kept rhythmically flashing by, slashing toward Leather Hand’s chest as the ogres whirled. Each time, a bolt of fear surged through him.

He’d heard the Spirit beasts talking. They planned to end his rule and topple the last remnants of the Straight Path kingdom once and for all. The glory of the First People would soon yield to the wretched Made People, and there would never be kings or kingdoms again. Did the thlatsinas really think ignorant rabble could rule in some sort of egalitarian political system? What utter foolishness. Made People weren’t smart enough. They needed kings to tell them what to do. Without the superior bloodlines of the First People, they’d cease to exist in less than a generation, swallowed up by surrounding nations or dead by the greedy hands of their own neighbors.

“Where’s my fetish? No more lies!” Leather Hand shook a clenched fist at the gathering. “If none of you stole it, then why haven’t you fools found it?”

Priest Dogbane flapped his arms against his sides. “We have searched every crevice in Flowing Waters Town, Blessed Sun. I tell you, it’s not here!”

Forty summers old, Dogbane had a misshapen face where one eye sat much lower than the other. The man was completely incompetent, which was why a younger man, Cub, had ascended to the coveted position of Sunwatcher, instead of Dogbane.

“Maybe it’s outside. Did that occur to you?”

“Outthide?” Priestess Beaker asked. Her two front teeth were missing, which gave her an irritating lisp. Stringy black hair hung around her fat cheeks.

“It didn’t occur to you that one of the slaves might have taken it from my chamber? Did you search the bodies of the slaves? Anyone who’s ever been in my chamber is suspect.”

The holy people glanced at one another, and Cub said, “There are no slaves left, Blessed Sun.”

“I mean the dead slaves.” He lifted his walking stick and stabbed it in the direction of the huge mound of bodies awaiting burial. Every time the wind shifted directions, the appalling stench assaulted his nostrils. “Aren’t some of our slaves stacked among the bodies of our enemies?”

Stunned, Dogbane replied, “A few of your personal slaves did perish while they were collecting enemy bodies. The other slaves carried them to the mound, but surely you can’t mean you want us to dig through—”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Get started immediately. I want their bodies thoroughly searched.”

Horror slackened Priestess Squash Blossom’s expression. She pulled her tall body straight and said, “But, Blessed Sun, anyone who touches those bodies will die from the same disease—”

“Since you were the first to object, I want you to personally lead the search party.” He stabbed his walking stick at her like a spear.

Squash Blossom gave Cub a tormented look, as though she knew her four children would soon be motherless, and it would be his fault if he did not stop this.

Cub tore his gaze away from hers and grimaced at the floor, but Leather Hand could see thoughts moving behind his dark eyes, thoughts that did not bode well for Leather Hand. At heart, the man was a traitor. Leather Hand could sense the truth in Cub’s every facial expression and gesture.

Beaker reached out and took Squash Blossom’s hand. “I’ll help you,” she said softly.

“Now get out. My heart hurts.” Leather Hand clapped a hand to his chest where the dull ache had been building since sunrise. His left arm felt like it was being twisted off his body by monstrous pincers.

The holy people bowed and ducked beneath his door curtain into the sunlight. In their wake, an icy draft flooded the chamber. Icy drafts followed them everywhere, as though they were servants of the beastly Cold Bringing Woman.

He watched the curtain sway for a few instants, then, silent as a mouse, crept over to watch them through the slit where the curtain met the doorframe.

The holy people huddled a few paces away, whispering. Dogbane kept shaking his head, as though disagreeing with whatever Cub was saying. The two women, on the other hand, nodded in agreement. All the while, they cast fearful glances at the White Moccasins stationed at the highest points around the town, as though worried about Leather Hand’s elite personal guards.

As the wind sailed around the walls, he caught fragments of their conversation.

Dogbane said, “… can’t do it without the White Moc…”

Beaker shook her head. “… have to do some…”

Cub held up a hand to still the disagreement—“… wait … think about…”

Laughter simultaneously seeped from the eighty-two soul pots on the shelves behind Leather Hand. He swung around to glare at them. Their laughter sounded like a hundred pot drums booming in a small room. He aimed his walking stick at his favorite pot, the black pot decorated with white lightning zigzags. The hunter laughed the loudest. Huge belly laughs that echoed across the entire town.

“Shut up, you fool! I know exactly how to handle treachery. I am a master of the art.”

Pulling the door curtain wide open, he yelled, “Cub? Send Stinger to me.”

“Yes, Blessed Sun.” The Sunwatcher bowed and hurried away from the gathering.

The three remaining holy people stared wide-eyed at Leather Hand, as though they realized the grave error they’d just made by gathering outside his chamber to whisper together.

Leather Hand called, “I’m going to tell the White Moccasins that I suspect you’re plotting to kill me, and order them to watch you.”

Chuckling at their horrified expressions, he let the curtain fall closed and carefully made his way to the thick coyote hides spread on his sleeping pallet in the center of the chamber, but he couldn’t sit down immediately. His heart was thundering in his chest, beating as rapidly as a bird’s, and his breathing had gone shallow. Leaning on his walking stick, he waited and tried to suck in deep breaths.

Sometime later …

Leather Hand jerked awake to find himself sprawled face-first across the coyote hides. Had he blacked out? His walking stick lay a short distance away, as though he’d dropped it.

How did he get back here to his chamber? This was so odd …

The last thing he remembered was standing with Cub and Stinger, watching the foolish enemy warriors throwing themselves at the walls of Flowing Waters Town. Was the town still under attack? Stinger was the worst high war chief in the history of the Straight Path nation. Why, when Leather Hand had been war chief, he’d have never …

Right in front of him, on the black northern wall of his chamber, Cold Bringing Woman shook out her long white hair and leaned down to peer directly at Leather Hand. Her blazing red eyes were blinding. They kept growing and growing, coming closer, until they filled the entire room.

Reaching for his walking stick, he used it to steady himself as he struggled to his feet. “What do you want, beast?”

Her voice sounded like hailstones striking the floor: Sometimes it’s mere self-defense, you know.

“What is?”

Dying.

When she smiled he could feel the earth break open like a fragile eggshell. The roar of storm winds filled his chamber. Gripping the knob of his walking stick, he braced himself against the sudden blast of freezing cold. He had the uneasy feeling that he and Cold Bringing Woman were heading toward some colossal confrontation.

To calm himself, he reached up to touch the Spirit bag that hung from a cord around his neck. It contained the jet fetish Webworm had given him. When he didn’t feel it, he frantically began patting his chest, searching for it. It was gone. Had he taken it off? Didn’t seem likely. He never took it off, for it contained his breath-heart soul. It was too dangerous to take it off. Someone might steal it or crush it to spite him.

Wandering from chamber to chamber in his suite, he searched every place he might have left it. He couldn’t find it! Panic set in.

Soon, his body would fail him. He could feel it coming. He was growing weaker by the day. And this constant dull pain in his chest …

As he lifted a hand to massage the leather shirt over his heart, he thought about the Mountain Witch, Nightshade. While he had forgotten many things, he remembered her curse perfectly well. Without that fetish, and her soul pot, he would never get to the Land of the Dead.

At the top of his lungs, he shouted, “Where’s my fetish?”

Steps pounded across the roofs outside as people ran toward his chamber. But none dared enter. Instead, the cowards gathered outside his door and speculated on what might be wrong.

Sunwatcher Cub called, “Blessed Sun? Are you well?”

Leather Hand hobbled over, threw aside the curtain, and stepped outside to scan the assembled holy people and High War Chief Stinger. He yelled, “Come here immediately. My serpent fetish is gone! You must find it!”

Cub moved a few steps closer. “Yes, Blessed Sun. We know it’s missing. We’ve discussed this before. We’re searching everywhere for the fetish. Have you forgotten?”

A sick feeling filled Leather Hand. They’d discussed this before? And he remembered none of it?

Drawing himself up as erect as he could, he shouted, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. Find it!”