Exile's Challenge (33 page)

Rannach met his gaze and said, “No. Do you wish this? You'd stand before the Matakwa?”

The voice inside Taza's head said,
Yes'
So Taza nodded and voiced an affirmative: “I would. I have done nothing to deserve your blame. Save, perhaps …” He lowered his head in parody of embarrassment. “… wished to become a Dreamer. I shall not deny that I envy Davyd; but that I sought to slay him—no!”

They studied him;
as if
, he thought,
they studied a trapped wolf, wondering whether to leave it go or slay it
. And he felt confident: the voice inside him spoke congratulations, that he had done well, and that they believed him, or at least owned sufficient doubts they could not on the spot condemn him.

Then Rannach said, “So be it, eh? Let there be no more accusations made until Davyd is recovered. And are they, the Matakwa shall judge.”

Taza said, “That is fair,” and Rannach glanced at Morrhyn, who shrugged and motioned that Taza be dismissed.

It was strange to own such power that he might look a wakanisha—the Prophet, even!—in the eye and speak untruths: and a heady seduction. He thought he must own a power greater than Davyd's, and could not properly understand why Kahteney denied his right to become a Dreamer, why Morrhyn would name the upstart his successor. How could they be so wrong, so misguided?

Because
, the voice said,
they do not understand They are blind to the real power, which is not the Maker but what lives inside of you, inside of all men. Take what you want! That, or be a worm crawling through the grass. Would you be a worm?

Taza said, “No!”

Then be what I can make you
.

Taza said, “Yes!” And felt the heat of ambition fill him, and knew that some great destiny came to him.

Only wait
, said the voice,
until Matakwa Then you shall become great. Far greater than Davyd or Morrhyn, so that all shall hail the mighty Taza

Yazte said, “He lied.”

Kahteney said, “We cannot know that; not for sure,” and looked to Morrhyn.

“I do not know.” Morrhyn shrugged helplessly. “I sensed nothing. He spoke … honestly? But if …”

Tekah said, bluntly, “Kill him.”

“We cannot,” Rannach said. “Not without proper judgment, proper evidence. And that cannot emerge until we speak with Davyd.”

“Who likely cannot say,” said Tekah, angrily.

“Perhaps.” Rannach shrugged. “But I'll not judge a man on hearsay and suspicion alone.” He turned to Morrhyn: “How think you?”

“That,” Morrhyn replied, “you grow wise.”

Rannach shrugged again, irritable now. “Wise? The Maker knows, but I fumble in the dark for answers. Must I decide everything? Advise me, eh? Like you did my father.”

“Your father,” Morrhyn said, “made his own decisions.”

“With your guidance!” Rannach chopped air. “I am not my father: I am myself, and imperfect.”

Yazte's big hand reached out to grasp his wrist. “Racharran was not perfect,” the Lakanti akaman said. “Surely wise, surely sensible; but not perfect. He only did the best he could, thinking always of the Commacht and past that—to the good of the People. As you do! Like it or not.”

“Ach!” Rannach took up the flask and spilled tiswin into his cup; drank deep. “Must I make all the decisions?”

Yazte said slowly, “Perhaps; here in Ket-Ta-Thanne.”

“Without,” Rannach grunted, “even the advice of my wakanisha?”

Morrhyn said, “With all the advice I can give you. Save in this matter of Taza I can give you none. He is a mystery.”

Kahteney nodded silent agreement, and Rannach found himself facing a ring of watching faces that waited on his decision. He said, after a while, “Then we wait. Let Davyd recover his strength and tell us what he can; then we go to Matakwa—the decision shall be made there, before all the People.”

Even after so long amongst them Arcole found these things hard to understand. All circumstantial evidence pointed to Taza, and clearly—he had seen the faces about the fire's circle—most there agreed. But none would voice condemnation or appoint trial until all the People be present, the Matawaye and the Grannach both. He stared around, wondering anew at these people who trusted so well in their god to judge, and would condemn no one before all have a voice. It was not at all like Evander.

Then Yazte nudged him and offered him the flask again, and he shook his head, and said, “Thank you, brother, but no. My wife is over there, and I'd …”

What he might have said was lost under the Lakanti's roar of laughter, and he blushed as he heard the words that trailed his parting heels.

“A man in love, no? There she sits, and he runs to her.”

Arcole paused long enough to make a rude gesture that elicited fresh gales of humor from Yazte. He smiled at Arrhyna and put his hand against Flysse's cheek.

“How is he?”

Flysse said, “Mending faster than any mortal man. His wounds knit up like streams in the Moon of Ripe Berries. He'll be well enough to ride to Matakwa, I think, save his face shall be always marked. And his hair.”

It came to Arcole that they spoke the language of the People, not their own. Save, he wondered, was it not now their own—the tongue of their adopted land, their savior people? He asked, “Can I see him?”

And Arrhyna answered, “Best leave it, eh? He sleeps now, and I think you'd wake him. Lhyn is with him.”

“Then can I,” he asked, “take my wife away for a while?”

Arrhyna shrugged and smiled at Flysse: a shared glance that was full of promised hope. “I think that Lhyn and I might well care for Davyd awhile,” she said. “So yes.”

Arcole took Flysse's hand and lifted her upright. She smiled as she came into his arms and put hers around him. Then said to Arrhyna, “Does he wake you'll call me, eh?”

Arrhyna smiled and nodded. “Save we both be otherwise engaged, sister.”

Arcole could not understand why he blushed; nor care.

Davyd sat the buckskin uncomfortably, the steady movement of the horse seeming to tug at the healing stitches decorating his body so that each one became a dull, fiery talon sunk in his skin and he felt as awkward as the first time he'd sat a horse. He did his best to ignore the pain, fixing his face in what he hoped was a calm and stoic smile, acknowledging the greetings of the riders who passed, telling himself it should not be long before they halted; wishing he believed himself.

The People spread out in a great, magnificent column behind, and it was a strange sensation to ride at the head of such a multitude, as if he no less than Morrhyn and Rannach and the others led them. They moved slow—which was a blessing—even did they carry the lodges on the carts Rannach had designed. Still, the rough-hewn wheels handled the ground swifter and smoother than the poles of the travois—which Davyd could not help somewhat regretting.

They told him he healed faster than any mortal man had right, and that must be the Maker's blessing, but still the wounds pained him and he wished the Maker heal him swifter. Then felt guilty at that thought: he should be dead. No man had survived a wolverine's attack alone and naked. He touched, unthinking, the skin Tekah had brought him, wondering. It was somewhat of an embarrassment, that skin, and also … He was not sure, could not define it properly. He wore it because Tekah had skinned the beast and cured the hide and given it to him with pride, and now it sat across his shoulders, the still-fanged skull surmounting his head. Where, he thought with yet another spurt of amazement, his hair was all white, like Morrhyn's.

That had been the hardest thing to accept. The wounds, yes—he must admit he was somewhat proud of those for all they hurt him, for they were battle scars, and he had, after all, defeated the beast. But to find his hair gone pale as snow was … He could not define it. Did it mark him, as the Matawaye believed, touched by the Maker? Like Morrhyn, holy? He did not feel holy. He had dreamed and believed that the Maker had sent him those dreams, but he also believed that Taza had ambushed him, and for that felt a great resentment that he must struggle to conceal.…

Morrhyn and Kahteney had come to him when the women allowed he was fit enough to stand questioning, and spoken at length. Then Rannach and Tekah, Arcole and Yazte, had come to say their pieces. And he had told all he could remember past the hunger and the fear and the fever and the fight, and wondered if Taza
had
truly sought to kill him. And when he thought on it longer, he had decided it must have been so—and wondered what to say, to do, about his enemy.

But he could not be sure. What evidence there was, was only circumstantial, and he could not give them—Tekah especially—what they wanted: the yea or nay of it, not firmly and without doubt. And he had realized that he could not condemn a man on only hearsay, and so told them only the truth: that he had seen no one in the wood.

That had seemed to please Morrhyn, Kahteney less so, though both wakanishas still showed doubt that Davyd had not understood until Morrhyn explained.

“Listen,” the Prophet had said, “it is possible—I say only that! no more, eh?—that some power cloaks Taza.”

Davyd had felt a terrible fear then and started up from his bed so that the stitches threatened to split asunder. Morrhyn had pushed him gently back and urged him to calm and said, “When you're better mended I'd give you pahé again, that we all dream on this.”

“I did!” Davyd had cried. “I dreamed in the wood, Morrhyn! There are things I must tell you.”

And Morrhyn had said, “Later, eh? First, let those wounds
heal and then we'll dream. Do you and I and Kahteney take the pahé, then you can share those wood dreams with us.”

And it had been so, though none could properly interpret the meanings, and surely there had been nothing in any of their shared dreams that might convincingly condemn Taza. He remained an enigma.

“But these other things,” Morrhyn had said, “seem to me significant. I wonder if the Breakers do not trail us somehow.”

“In Ket-Ta-Thanne?” Kahteney had asked nervously. “Another world?”

“They inhabit no world,” Morrhyn had answered, “and all the worlds, I think. They are …”

Davyd had never thought to see Morrhyn look afraid. It made him afraid, as if some solid platform had been snatched from under him.

“What does it mean?” he had asked. “What do my dreams mean?”

Kahteney said, low and slow, “I thought the Maker gave us this world. I thought we were safe here.”

Morrhyn had chuckled then, humorlessly. “Do you not remember the story of the Green Turtle and the Grass Boy?”

Kahteney had nodded and looked lost. Davyd had asked, “What is that story?”

“An old one,” Morrhyn had replied, “from the first days in Ket-Ta-Witko. Listen: The Grass Boy was fat from all the grass he'd made—and comfortable, because there was no one else there to eat it. But then the Green Turtle came and ate it, and the Grass Boy made himself a spear—which was the first in the world—and threw it at the Green Turtle. It bounced off the turtle's shell and the turtle laughed and said, ‘That cannot hurt me, but if you go across the river the Water Daughters made, I'll eat only the grass on this side.' So the Grass Boy went across the river on the backs of the Daughters and seeded the land there with his spit so that the grass grew and he could eat again. But then the Green Turtle ate all the grass on his side of the river and got hungry.

“The Grass Boy laughed at him, because he had plains full
of grass and the Green Turtle had nothing now, and the Grass Boy did not believe the Water Daughters would allow the turtle to cross the sacred river. But the turtle could swim, and he plunged into the water and snapped at the Daughters when they tried to stop him, and crawled out on the Grass Boy's side and set to eating the grass there. And when the Grass Boy asked him why he had broken his word, the Green Turtle said, ‘That's my nature. I like to eat everyone's grass.' Do you understand?”