People of the Silence (40 page)

“That’s because he abandoned me.” Gingerly, he sat up and took a deep breath, apparently feeling better. He shifted the round object back to the other cheek; it clacked on his teeth as it passed. “But before he went he told me to practice being a bug.”

“As punishment?”

He blinked. A curious expression came to his narrow face. “How strange that I never thought of that.”

Cornsilk gestured to his blistered shoulders. “You had better get a salve on that burn soon, or you’ll scar.”

“What?” he said, looking down at his skinny body. “What burn?”

Cornsilk stood up. “Maybe that spinning addled more than your sense of balance.”

He grimaced, got to his feet, and staggered into her. Cornsilk grabbed his arms to steady him, but his feet kept weaving, as if dancing without his brain’s consent. He stumbled into a thorny thicket of brush and almost toppled over backwards. Cornsilk gasped and tugged him firmly toward her. He braced his feet and blinked, as if not certain why she’d done that.

“Are you all right?” she asked, aware of the fevered heat rising from his sunburned flesh.

“Oh, it’s just that I haven’t eaten in many days, and my eyes go black when I stand up too soon.”

“Haven’t eaten? Then what’s that in your mouth?”

“A pebble.”

“You have a rock in your mouth?”

“Umm.” He smiled and nodded happily.

She let go of his arms and studied him. “How many days have you been fasting?”

“I really can’t say. I’ve lost track. Perhaps seven or eight?”

Cornsilk’s expression slackened as her eyes took in his emaciated carcass. “Blessed Ancestors. You’ve been drinking water, though, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I figured I’d die if I didn’t.”

“Well,” she said pointedly, “once you start to feel that burn, you might wish you had.”

He held his arms out and examined himself, curiously frowning at the blisters on his chest, thighs, and arms. “You really think it’s that bad? I don’t feel anything. Except my skin feels tight, as if it’s stretched out on a drying frame.”

“You should see your back.”

“Bad?”

“Raw meat.”

Cornsilk glanced at the dilapidated little house. Big flakes of white plaster scattered the jungle of sagebrush that engulfed three walls. Only the front side had been cleared to allow entry and exit. There was a dangerous dip on the left side of the roof. The ceiling poles had rotted out until it looked as if it might collapse in upon itself at any moment.

She narrowed an eye. “If you’ll share a meal with me, I’ll tend those burns for you.”

He gave her a startled look. “I’ve forgotten my manners! I should have invited you for supper. Please, come. It’s not my food anyway, so it really doesn’t matter.”

“Uh … fine.”

She gestured him ahead and followed him up the narrow trail. Prickly pear cactuses clotted the way, their thorns as long as her fingers. A wren had made a nest in one of the larger trunks of giant sagebrush. Dried grass and old feathers protruded from the hole.

Cornsilk leapt backward as the young man lost his balance and stumbled.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“Oh, I’ll be all right. Really, you don’t have to—”

Cornsilk took his arm and led him to the door. The leather curtain had been mouse-gnawed. Where the plaster had cracked off, the red sandstone masonry showed. “Is this your house?”

“No.”

“Well, if this isn’t your house, or your food, who do they belong to?”

“My teacher, Dune the Derelict. He’s a great Singer. A very holy … What’s the matter?”

Cornsilk gasped and swung him around. He almost fell over the top of her. She put her hands in the middle of his chest to prop him up so she could stare into his soft brown eyes. “Great gods! This is where old Dune lives?
He’s
your teacher?”

“He was. For a few days.”

Fear prickled her spine. Dune had a reputation for doing unpredictable things, like changing people he didn’t like into packrat urine or a sticky fly’s foot. She gave the young man a suspicious look.

“How does your soul feel?

“Hmm?” he said, peering at her with the surprised curiosity of a roadrunner. His waist-length black hair billowed in a puff of wind, fluttering over Cornsilk’s shoulders. “My soul?”

“Yes, does it still feel
human?
Maybe Dune gave you a moth’s soul before he left, and that’s why you’ve had the uncontrollable urge to be an insect.”

The youth thought about that. “He does have an odd sense of humor, and I must admit I have been feeling very floaty and fluttery—”

“Like your soul has wings!”
Cornsilk leaped back, and he crumpled. His knees struck the ground, then he sprawled face-first across the trail. When he struggled to get his knees under him, his bright red buttocks thrust up. That effort proved too difficult, so he gave up, rolled to his back, and squinted at Cornsilk.

After a few moments, he filled his lungs with air, and through a long exhalation said, “No, more like a cloud in a windstorm.”

Cornsilk leaned over to peer down at him. “Oh, well.” She shrugged. “Then maybe you’re still human after all.”

He sighed and extended his hand. “Could you help me up? I don’t think I can make it by myself.”

Cornsilk gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet. Weaving, he headed for the door, held back the curtain, and waited for her. Inside, she saw a firepit in the middle of the floor and a rolled-up gray blanket to the right of it. A stack of baskets sat in the rear. Nothing looked sinister … and she longed to rest and eat. Her legs had begun to tremble again.

“Thank you,” she said, and ducked under the curtain into the house.

He draped the curtain over a peg in the wall, leaving it open, and followed her. “With evening coming, we’ll need the light to get the fire going.”

She stood awkwardly while he scraped the long-dead coals to the side of the pit, arranged a nest of dead juniper bark, and pulled kindling from the woodpile to lay atop the bark. Her eyes took in the new surroundings.

Soot splotched the white walls and created a shiny black ring around the smoke hole in the roof. The dried corn, squash, beans, and prickly pear fruits hanging from the rafters bore a coating of creosote and ash. A grinding slab, water jug, and a few plainware pots sat by the door. Five tattered baskets leaned in the corner ahead and to her right. Not even a thin sleeping mat separated the gray blanket from the cold floor.

“Hallowed Ancestors,” she murmured. “It had never occurred to me that a great Singer like Dune would be poor.”

“He’s a very holy man. He gives away everything he gets.” The youth picked up his fire cobbles and began striking them together over the bark. They sparked, but nothing happened. He kept striking and mumbling, and after ten or twelve attempts, said, “This firepit
hates
me! I don’t know what I’ve done, but—”

“Here,” Cornsilk said, “You’re weak, let me try.”

He slid aside and handed her the chert cobbles. Cornsilk knelt, unslung her pack, and pulled out a small tuft of her remaining cotton. She tucked it into the midst of the shredded bark.

“While I start the fire, why don’t you fill the boiling pot with water and bring over the tripod.”

“I can do that,” he said as he rose. “The boiling pot doesn’t hate me.” He went to the door where the water jug sat, and she heard water gurgling and splashing as he poured it into the pot.

Cornsilk leveled the fire cobbles over the cotton and smacked them together several times. Sparks flew, and a tiny red eye caught in the charred cotton. Cornsilk blew softly. The spark reddened, smoked more, and finally crackled to life. Flames greedily licked through the shredded bark. She kept blowing until the twigs caught, then added larger pieces of wood from the woodpile.

“The firepit likes you.” He smiled as he knelt beside Cornsilk and arranged the tripod and boiling pot so that the bottom of the pot sat directly over the flames. His legs trembled as he sat back down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how feeble—”

“Rest,” she said. “I’ll make us supper and tea. Where are the cups and bowls?”

“Over by the door. Dune puts the small cups and medium-sized food bowls inside the larger bowls. Just lift up the top bowl and you’ll find everything you need.”

The rich fragrance of burning juniper encircled her as she rose and walked to the pots. She drew out cups, bowls, and two horn spoons, then examined the coarse pottery. It was plain and red; the potter had not even bothered to smooth away the coil marks. When a potter began a pot, she rolled out long snakes of clay, then coiled them on top of each other until she’d finished the basic shape of the pot. Next she took a piece of wood or stone and smoothed the surface to erase the coils so the pot could be decorated. This potter had not cared much about her work.

“Does Dune only keep the worst of everything?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. He distributes the rest of his belongings to the needy.”

Cornsilk tilted her head curiously. She lifted the lid off the meal pot and examined the contents. Blue cornmeal. Good. It would give a sweet richness to the dumplings she planned to make. Another contained ash from the four-wing saltbush, which would make the dough rise. She carried the pots to the fire, along with the cups and supper bowls.

The young man was watching her with an unsettling intensity, as if seeing right through her. She ground her teeth a couple of times, then asked, “Is something bothering you?”

“Are you sure I don’t know you? I would swear I’ve seen you before. What’s your name?”

Cornsilk hesitated
Trust no one!
“My name is … Spidersilk. But everyone calls me Silk.”

“I’m Poor Singer.”

She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “You are here studying to be a Singer—and you have a name like that? I’ll bet you’re eager for the day when old Dune gives you a new name.”

“That is my new name.”

Cornsilk cocked her head sympathetically and reached for a stick from the woodpile to prod the flames. “Maybe Dune thinks punishment is good for you.”

“But I just don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it!”

“Maybe it’s something you haven’t done.”

Poor Singer stretched his naked body out across the dirt floor and Cornsilk winced, imagining how the grit felt on his singed flesh, though he didn’t seem to notice. His long hair fell over his skinny chest and belly. He wasn’t handsome by any standard. In fact, he resembled a bird of prey. But something in his round doelike eyes touched her.

“Where are you from, Silk?”

“F-from Turtle Village.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t try to stop it. “My family … they were killed by … by raiders, Tower Builders, and I…” A sob lodged in her throat. She prodded the fire again. Sparks shot out and winked upward toward the smoke hole.

Poor Singer’s eyes tightened. “I’m sorry. I lost my father, too. But I was less than a summer old. I don’t even remember him. How long ago was the raid on your village?”

“Half a moon,” she answered, which was correct for Turtle Village.

“Blessed thlatsinas. You’ve been alone since then?”

She laid the cups, horn spoons, bowls, and pot of cornmeal out in a line in front of her. “Yes.”

“But you must have other family. In another village?”

“I—I think maybe in Talon Town.”

She stared at the flames that licked the bottom of the boiling pot and wondered what her Uncle Deer Bird and Grandfather Standing Gourd would be doing tonight. Had word of Lanceleaf’s destruction reached them? Were they even now rushing to the charred ruins in search of their family?

Before she could stop it, all of her terror and anguish flooded up and she sobbed aloud. Her chest ached. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she sat there, fighting, until she could get a deep breath into her lungs.

Poor Singer’s expression softened. “Is there something I can do to help, Silk?”

She shook her head. Rising swiftly, she went to the door, picked up the small grinding slab and handstone, and brought them back to the fire.

Poor Singer watched her remove several prickly pear fruits from their ties on the rafters. He said, “I tried to be a dung beetle a few days ago.”

“What?” She looked down at him.

His eyes shone. “A dung beetle. I tried very hard to learn to be one, but I just couldn’t.” Firelight danced over his narrow face, highlighting the arch of his hooked nose. “I think it’s because humans live in dung so much of the time that I couldn’t bear the thought.”

Cornsilk crouched to place the fruits on the grinding slab. “Maybe it isn’t so bad for beetles. They seem to like dung.” She used her brown sleeve to wipe her wet cheeks.

“Then again, maybe they don’t have any choice.”

Cornsilk thought about that. She hadn’t had any choice. Nor had anyone else at Lanceleaf Village—especially not Fledgling.

She met Poor Singer’s shining eyes as she picked up the handstone and began mashing the fruits on the grinding slab. “I think you’re becoming a Singer. And not a poor one.”

He grinned suddenly. “I want to be, very badly, so I can help my people.”

“What is your village?”

“Windflower. I am of the Coyote Clan.”

Cornsilk mashed the prickly pear fruits to a fine red mush, then leaned over to peer into the boiling pot. Tiny bubbles fizzed on the surface. For really good dumplings the water needed to be at a full boil, but she didn’t care tonight. She dipped up two full cups of blue cornmeal and emptied them into her supper bowl, then added two cups of hot water. Pulling a flat juniper stick from the woodpile, she ran it along the edge of the firepit, until she’d scooped up enough white ash, and added it to the cornmeal. Finally, she dumped in half of the prickly pear fruit mush and stirred. A soft purple dough formed.

“Almost ready,” she said. “But we should make tea first. There won’t be any hot water left after I drop in the dumplings.”

She dipped both of their cups full of hot water and added what remained of the prickly pear mush. As it steeped, the tea smelled delicately sweet. She handed a cup to Poor Singer.

He took it with a grateful smile. “Thank you. I’m still feeling like a cloud in a windstorm.”