Shadows in the Cave (13 page)

“But that original fire, the one Water Spider brought back, it is the grandfather of the fire that burns in the council lodge in our own village now. The priest tends it so that it never goes out.

“So, Grandson, that is how this world got fire, and how human beings use its gifts. Fire is life itself in this world. The
sun is fire. A star is distant fire. A lightning bug is fire. The life of every living creature is fire. Your spirit is fire. In the Galayi language we have a single word that means your spirit, your soul, and your heart—your
yuwi
. That is your fire.

“Listen to this lesson carefully, keep it close within your heart, because it is an elusive one. Fire—spirit, soul, and heart—is not physical. It is the essence of life, and it cannot perish. Here on Earth, as long as there is fire, there is life, and as long as there is life, there is fire.

“That’s why, every winter solstice, when the sun is weakest, I come to this room and paint the sun the color of fire.”

They sat together for long moments, Aku’s mind sifting through what he had heard. Finally, he said, “When I change myself into an owl, I make no change at all. My fire is the same—I am the same.”

She came around the fire and squeezed his hand. “That is a great secret. When you know it as experience, not just thought, you will be more powerful.”

Aku went on, as though watching something at a great distance. “Your son and grandson are the same. They are the fire born into them, whether in human shape or panther shape.”

“Yes.”

“This is part of what you mean when you ask me to see beyond appearances to reality.”

“It’s one part, beginning to see the bones in the shadows.”

Aku swiveled his shoulders and stretched his back like he was uncomfortable.

“Who else are you thinking of?” asked Tsola.

“Salya.”

“And what do you see?”

Aku clasped his hands on top of his hair and shook his
head fast. “Maloch has stolen my sister’s spirit.” For a moment he lost his tongue. “That is beyond horror, and I must set it right. Now.”

“Drink this,” said Tsola. “It will help you get ready for the next step.”

Tsola and Bola watched each other for long, silent moments. When they knew their young kinsman was asleep, Bola said, “Maloch the Uktena won’t just kill him. He’ll eat his spirit. And you’re sending him there.”

“Not I. It’s what he’s born to.”

Bola heard a scraping in his mother’s voice. A rare thought zinged through him.
She’s getting too old
.

“Every one of them has something to teach the seeker,” Tsola said. She held her torch as high as his own so Aku could really study the painted images.

He checked out Rabbit, with its split nose. “What does Rabbit have to say to me?”

“He’s the trickster. But every seeker has to learn the teaching from every animal. It’s like giving birth, or having sex. No point in knowing
about
it—you have to experience it.”

“I don’t understand.” Well, he did, about sex.

She didn’t respond.

Aku held his light close to Little Deer, who was only knee-high and entirely white.

“Do you know the story of the King of the Deer?”

“No.”

Tsola grimaced. Meli, had she lived, would have made sure her children knew the old stories. Shonan thought they were the ghosts of the past. “The seekers of wisdom who come to me, each one gets to know some of these figures and the spirits
they represent. Seekers make different discoveries in different paintings—sometimes, in fact, within the same painting. Each seeker takes home his own wisdom, and usually they come back several times to learn more.”

Aku considered Rabbit for another long moment and passed on to Wolf. “That seems strange to me,” he said.

“What?”

“His fangs are showing, but his eyes, his eyes, they’re …” Aku rummaged through his mind. “Compassionate.”

“Very observant,” she said. “Wolf was the companion of First Man, the lucky hunter.” This was mere information—she could talk about that.

“That’s why no Galayi will kill a wolf,” said Aku, “except for the one man in each village who is given that power.”

At least her grandson knew some of the old lore.

Aku stopped in front of the drawing of Panther. Behind them Bola thumped his tail. “Look at the eyes,” Aku said. “They see in darkness but …” He considered the strange luminescence in the orbs. “Bola,” he said, “do you also see into the darkness of the spirit?”

“If you want the knowledge,” Bola said, “you have to take the journey.”

Aku turned and looked Bola straight in the face. “Can you see into the Darkening Land?”

Bola snapped out a roar.

Aku’s knees shook as he turned away. He pretended to study the next figure, Bear, for a long time, but fear lashed every thought out of his mind. Finally, he said, “Grandmother, why is Bear white?”

“If you walk with him, you will know.”

Aku cocked his head at Bear. “I think he looks like an uncle.” Among the Galayi, a boy’s maternal uncles were his particular guides and teachers.

He walked onward to look at Great Dusky Owl.

“Don’t gaze at him now,” said Tsola. “That’s for later.”

“Will these paintings last forever? Down here away from the weather?”

“I don’t think so, not on this limestone. I’ve already repainted some of them. Besides, I’d hate to think that in a hundred generations, when no Wounded Healer might be here, people would come and use the power of the paintings without guidance.”

Aku sidestepped to look up at War Eagle, the highest of all the paintings, curving with the wall so that its head and its amber eye glared down from the ceiling.

This was not the white-headed, white-tailed eagle, but the dark red-brown bird with the red-gold throat. He was sacred to the Galayi for two reasons. He carried messages between the people and the Powers who lived in the Land Beyond the Sky Arch, and they thought him the perfect warrior, the essence of courage. When a Galayi warrior acted bravely, the Red Chief gave him the feather of a war eagle to tie into his hair.

Tsola watched Aku keenly. He tilted his head far back and stared into the great eye. Quietly, she reached for a cup of special tea she had brewed.

“I could fly into his eye,” said Aku, drone-like.

She handed him the tea. “Drink this.”

Beyond thought, he drained it.

Tsola reached for her drum and began a gentle tap,
tum
-tum,
tum
-tum, like a heartbeat.

Aku felt a wobble inside, and in the next moment he was flying.

20

T
he wind was cool and bracing, its damp edge intoxicating. He swiveled his head in every direction. A jolt of fear thrilled him. His first measure of height was the distance the tops of the mountains rose above the plains. His second, equally helpful, was a thin gauze of clouds that shadowed the mountains. Aku glided to that height again, three mountain measures above the earth. His wings were spread, and he was floating, effortless.

What’s it like, wing-flapper?

Tsola’s words, without a voice.

Where are you?

His own words, without a voice.

In your mind
.

Inside my mind?

I can see out your eyes
.

The drumbeat insisted a little, and for the first time Aku noticed it.

This is our connection, the beat. It binds you to the world of Earth and lifts me to your world
.

Some tricks you play
.

What if this is reality? What if your ordinary world is the trick?

Jabber-talk
.

She laughed.
What do you want to do?

Fly!

Pay attention!

In fact, he could feel it now, he was not only flying, he was rising without any effort on his part. Somehow the invisible hand of the air itself was lifting him.

So, wing-beater, how does it feel to be a soarer? A high-flier? A cloud-dweller? Scary?

It feels supreme
. He didn’t add that a portal in his mind had been kicked in and a new world of infinite vistas spread before him. Aku was a man was an owl was an eagle was a life-fire.

Good
, said Tsola.

He felt a pang.
Grand
, he thought out loud,
but lonely
.

Power is always lonely. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little company
.

Wing tip to wing tip he flew alongside another war eagle. They met eye slit to eye slit and knew each other. Mates, life partners, male and female.

Aku’s spouse arced her beak downward, folded her wings, and dived. Aku zoomed beak to tail behind her. Down, fast as any living creature could go, plummeting like drops off a high waterfall.

After shrieking down forever, his mate suddenly stuck out her wings and glided.

You’re a little confused
, warned Tsola. There was a tease in her voice.

Aku followed his mate into the glide, and they coasted toward the top of a mountain with sharp, jagged promontories, peaks pointed like the tips of awls, or the splinters of broken bones.

Where do you think you are?
said Tsola.
Earth?

Aku was busy noticing something else. He was the bigger eagle, length greater, wing span wider, body heftier.

His mate floated to a landing on the rim of a nest, presumably their home.

Tsola’s drum
tum
-tummed,
tum
-tummed, holding him in this strange world yet connecting him to Earth.

He knew something but he didn’t know. He glided to a half-awkward landing on the nest, a bed made of thick limbs and soft, yellow grasses, waist-high to a man and further across than a man was tall.

Suddenly Aku’s mate was on his back. Aku had a wild thought that he was under attack. He turned his head directly backward, but his mate’s head was too far away to peck. And she didn’t look mad. In fact, her eyes had a look that seemed familiar—and he felt it! He was about to get …!

He writhed free, clawing.

What the hell are you doing?
He hurled the words at Tsola.

Tsola cackled.
Don’t give me that, just don’t. You knew it. You’re bigger—you’re the girl
.

Damn it!

Actually, you know, it feels good
.

Aku and her mate—Aku was the “her” now—bounced around the edges of their nest, trying to figure each other out.

Did Bola see that?

He can’t see you. Only I can
.

Good. Don’t tell me sex is a learning experience
.

Suit yourself
.

Aku’s mate sailed away. Aku didn’t think he was mad.

Why don’t you take a nap?
said Tsola.

Aku, She Eagle, nestled comfortably on two black eggs. She was content. Grandmother Sun was hot for a spring day, and the rock walls squared around the nest radiated warmth. She wanted to nod off.

Oh, Grandson
, said Tsola,
you think this is being a mother?

Aku didn’t answer.

He Eagle let out a little yawp, caught Aku’s eye, and pointed down with his beak. A red fox slinked along the hillside, hunting. Its handsome coat was silky, its belly white, the tips of its ears black. Aku liked the nimble way it moved.

Her heart beat a little faster. A fox was a lot of meat, and this time of year, when trees were budding but not leafed out, one fox probably meant two.

She admired the elegance of the fox’s strut for a moment, a fellow hunter.

She looked around the nest and saw no threats to her eggs. The two eagles stayed close to the nest while the eaglets were growing inside their shells, but for a prize like this … Once they hatched, mother or father would sit on the nest all the time.

Caution or daring?
said Tsola.

Aku looked down. The fox was poised, paw in the air, searching for something. Aku made eye contact with her mate. He swooped off to the side, away from the nest. Yes, the fox was worth a little risk.

The game of life and death began. He eagle drifted down toward the fox, further and further down, until he saw he’d caught the fox’s eye. The wily one pranced up the hill, toward the jumble of rocks. When He Eagle turned off toward the river, the fox started hunting again.

Aku stepped to the edge of the nest and looked back at her shiny black eggs.

Now He Eagle wheeled and made a fake dive toward the fox. The sly one skittered sideways about fifty steps, an extraordinarily graceful maneuver. Now it was at the base of the rocky slope, and could slip into a crevice.

He Eagle turned away and hovered over the river. The
fox watched the eagle with sharp eyes, wary. As He Eagle drifted downriver, the fox’s gaze followed it intently.

This was the moment. Aku launched off the nest and hurtled downward at a speed that made her blood pump. She hit the fox from behind with both talons, and in an instant had it high in the air, legs flailing. She squeezed its neck and felt the body go limp.

She laid the carcass on a flat stone near the nest. She ripped open the belly, and again felt a hollow clang in her chest. She took several pecks into the liver. Something in her felt odd and glorious at once.

Her mate lighted beside her. After a few more sharp strikes with her beak, Aku scooted onto her eggs and watched He Eagle feed. The clang still resonated in her chest.

Something must die?
said Tsola.

Someone must be born
, Aku answered.

A week later two white eaglets were eating hungrily. Aku could hardly believe how much they consumed. She and her mate no longer spent any time perched in the tops of pines watching the world turn. One of them hunted every moment, and the little eagles screeched for more morsels. Sometimes, when the sun told her to sleep, Aku’s belly howled for more food. The mother and father took turns, one hunting while the other fed and guarded infants, and then switching jobs.

Her own offspring dazed Aku. Soft and downy as they were, the babies weren’t a bit dainty or innocent. They ate voraciously. The older chick, the girl, often twisted around to get her gaping mouth under the meat as Aku brought it down to her brother, guzzling the drops of blood. In his previous life Aku the human being had thought animals should
be more like plants, and not devour each other in crimson gore. Aku the eagle knew better.

The male eaglet, the small one that hatched second, lay scrawny and lifeless on the sticks. The big female chick yawped for the mouse innards Aku dangled from her beak. She dropped them, and the chick pecked at them avidly. The reason the smaller eaglet was dead, in fact, was that the bigger one fought harder for food. Aku looked at her dead child and ached. This ache—agony—had been her entire existence since daybreak, when she woke up and found her dead boy. She hurt until she wished she wasn’t alive.

Why?

Tsola’s drum tapped out the sound of a heartbeat in the back of Aku’s mind. The she eagle whispered, “This is not my true world.”

It is true, but not earthly
, said Tsola in his mind.

“I want it not to be true.”

Where you are, birth and death rule. On Earth, birth and death rule
.

“Why aren’t we immortal, like the Powers who live above, beyond the Sky Arch?”

You know
.

Her mate hovered overhead and dropped the carcass of a badger next to Aku. She slit open its belly and picked out innards with her beak to feed her daughter.

Tsola chuckled.

Aku did, too.

Her mate gave her a look that might have been empathy, picked up the dead eaglet in his beak, and dropped it over the side. Then he launched off the nest to hunt.

Aku looked at her remaining child. The eaglet finished the scrap of food and looked at her mother for more.

Tsola said,
What do you need to live here? And on Earth?

Aku fed her daughter the badger’s heart.

“More courage than I have.”

The nest itself constricted subtly, but Aku didn’t see it, and Tsola saw only through eagle eyes.

Tsola said,
Say it in its full truth
.

Aku stalled. “In one moon, we will teach this chick to fly. It will follow us and learn to hunt. Then we will never see it again. But we will produce two more eggs late next winter, and the race of war eagles will go on.”

The nest constricted again, unnoticed.

Say it in its full truth
, repeated Tsola. Both the voice and the drum sharpened.

The nest coiled tight. Aku didn’t see that her home of sticks and grasses had become a serpent. Tsola was absorbed in the mind and emotions of the adventurer.

Aku wanted to look her grandmother, her teacher, in the eye. She said, “The courage to be mortal.”

Directly behind Aku, the dragon head rose from the serpent body.

Aku turned her head and saw too late.

Tsola flashed herself into the Land Beyond.

Maloch the Uktena struck.

Aku screamed at the penetration of its fangs.

Tsola began to chant the words.

The entire nest wrapped itself tight around Aku. As the serpent squeezed, Tsola shouted the last phrase of the ancient formula.

Maloch the Uktena and Aku fell limp, dazed, numb.

Tsola swept Aku up…