Forty-nine

Tsilu

Reverence has turned my chest into a hollow drum. All around me, the sacred thlatsinas lift their feet in unison and stamp them down to the rhythmic boom of my heartbeat. They are marching toward me …

I’m so lightheaded I seem to be floating above the floor. There are many doors that lead to the other chambers, but each is covered with a hide, so I concentrate on this chamber, where the gods Sing in voices that resemble the howls of faraway wolves.

In front of me, on the eastern red wall, the Black Ogres Dance with their magnificent long toothy muzzles gaping as though to swallow me whole if I displease them.

Slowly, I turn sunwise toward the southern wall where dozens of soul pots line the shelves. Some are tiny. Others are as large as skulls. The pots watch me with luminous invisible eyes. I don’t know why, but I find their gazes comforting.

When I turn to the lustrous white western wall, I see black footprints, breath-heart souls, climbing stair-step clouds into the sky to run the Star Road to the afterlife.

It’s only as I turn to the north that my breathing dies in my chest.

Cold Bringing Woman looms large on an utterly black wall. Thick white hair drapes her cape. She is the most Powerful thlatsina in the world, the source of winter snows and icy winds that freeze the bones. Beneath her fiery red gaze, I am suddenly aware of everything I’ve done wrong in my life, the sharp words, the thoughtless acts of cruelty, every unkind thought I’ve ever had.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, “for the awful, selfish things I’ve done.”

My brother hears me and walks over to stand at my side. As he looks up into the terrifying face of Cold Bringing Woman, he puts an arm around my shoulders.

Barely audible, he says, “Stay close to me tonight.”

“All right.”

He steps away, walking over to the southern wall to stare at the lines of soul pots, and I follow less than a pace behind him.

Blue Dove calls, “Come over here and sit down, albino.”

“Where’s your father?” my brother asks without taking his eyes from the soul pots.

“Conferring with his priests. You heard Sunwatcher Cub as well as I did. Now, come and sit down. I wish to speak with you.”

My brother can’t seem to take his gaze from the three tiniest soul pots on the far left of the middle shelf. When he tilts his head slightly, I wonder if he’s trying to decipher words I do not hear, or if he’s just deciding if he wishes to defy Blue Dove’s orders. Then, propping a hand against the wall, he sags forward, and I see his shoulders heave with silent sobs.

Does he know them? The souls in those pots. I hear nothing.

“Are you crying?” Blue Dove’s voice brims with disdain. “Turn around.”

When he’s regained his composure, my brother straightens up. His back to her, he answers, “There’s nothing left to say between us, Blue Dove.”

“Of course there is. We need a plan. What are we going to do when my father opens the soul pot and finds it empty?”

“I’m not going to do anything.”

She looks annoyed. “You’d better. The lives of your family will depend upon what you say or do.”

Maicoh wipes his eyes, turns, and walks over to sit on the opposite side of the firebowl from her. Close behind him, I kneel on the hides to his left, between him and Grandfather. The Blessed Sun’s raised sleeping pallet covered with thick coyote hides occupies the place to the north, right beneath Cold Bringing Woman’s watchful gaze. How can the Blessed Sun sleep here, within her reach? She is his enemy. Isn’t he afraid she’ll strangle him while he naps?

My brother dips a cup of tea and hands it to me, then dips another and gives it to Grandfather. He does not dip one for himself. Instead, he stares across the firebowl at Blue Dove.

“I understand now. These soul pots are the true source of your father’s Power.”

Blue Dove tosses her head coquettishly and smiles. “Are they? I wouldn’t know.”

Maicoh gestures to the pots. “I’m curious about the tiny children’s pots. Did he steal them from their parents, or capture the dying children’s souls himself?”

“A little of both, I suppose. Why?”

“It’s inhuman, that’s why. How could anyone deliberately prevent a child’s breath-heart soul from traveling to the Land of the Dead to be loved by the ancestors?”

“He tells me that the souls of children are especially Powerful, but how do I know? Ask him when he arrives.”

Maicoh lifts his eyes to the tiniest pot, no bigger than a grouse’s egg. It’s gray and undecorated. As though his gaze has awakened the soul inside, a child’s sweet laughter seeps from the pot.

My spine goes rigid.

Where have I heard that laugh before? It’s still ringing through me when Crane abruptly hunches forward and squeezes his eyes shut. He hears it, too.

Grandfather glances at Crane and bows his head. For a long time, he stares unblinking at the glowing red coals in the firebowl, then says, “Many of those pots are dead. The children died in the darkness as though they were lost stars falling through emptiness.”

“Why?” I can barely hear my own words. My throat has constricted. “Why did they die?”

“Oh, innocent souls are frail. They cannot understand cruelty or fathom that it will ever end, so they weep until there is nothing left to suffer.”

Blue Dove erupts in chuckles. “Then you must inform my father so he can crush those useless pots to dust.”

My brother presses his lips against my ear and whispers, “You’ll never be locked in a pot. I give you my oath.”

He turns to stare out the doorway. In the night sky, the Star Road blazes like a swath of glittering white fire.

There’s a commotion. Everyone in the chamber turns toward the door. Twenty or more White Moccasins climb up the ladder to the rooftop outside and stand in formation, waiting. Iron Dog and Weevil snap to attention when they spy the old hunchback being helped off the ladder.

I strain to see through the wall of moving men, but only catch glimpses of the elder.

But I know who he must be.

Grandfather’s sudden trembling makes it a certainty.

The Blessed Sun comes.