by C Lee Tocci
“Donny!” Marla yelled as she dropped her quaybo, and waded into the quagmire. Despite Ginger being nearly a foot taller, Marla managed to pull her off Lilibit and deliver a sound clout to her jaw. The larger girl fell like a stone.
Pausing for a moment to rub her knuckles, Marla stared down at the fallen Tiger in amazement.
“Ha! Who figured that she’d have a glass jaw?” she muttered smugly.
Marla had no time to enjoy her triumph. Two Tiger clanswomen came to the aid of their fallen comrade and within seconds, Marla was buried beneath the behemoths. Devon jumped in, but was immediately tossed off and he landed at the feet of the befuddled Donny. Three more Tigers moved to enter the fracas, but Devon and Nita, using their quaybos, tripped them en route to the battle.
From somewhere near the bottom of the tumult, a pained grunt was Donny’s spur to action. Grabbing one of the Tigers by the collar, Donny tossed the brawling clansman over his shoulder where he landed twenty feet away. He worked halfway through the fray before being mobbed by rebounding foes. He did not fall, but stood bemused like a rock swathed with seaweed.
“Enough!”
Keotak-se’s voice was the angriest that Todd had ever heard it. It froze the blood in his veins and the combatants to a standstill. Except for Donny, who shook himself like a wet puppy, dislodging the clinging Tigers into a stunned heap.
“Quaybo... Practice... Is… Over.”
Under Keotak-se’s baleful eye, the Tigers pulled themselves to their feet and retreated with furious dignity, leaving the Ravens bloody, bruised and panting on the practice field.
“Wow, Jeff!” Lilibit wiped the blood from her eyes. “You were right. Quaybo is not nearly so boring the way Todd plays it.”
Todd buried his face in his hands.
“Stone warriors don’t cry,” he whispered to himself. “Stone warriors do not cry.”
Chapter Ten
The Gifts of the Skywatcher
From the corner of his eye, Gwil watched the clan of the Ravens hike up the slope. They went everywhere as a group, he rarely saw one of them alone. Well, not Marla anyway, and she was the only one that he was interested in.
Gwil laughed silently at himself. He felt more like a lion than a wolf, patiently stalking his prey, waiting for the opportunity to separate his quarry from the herd. Shaking off that mood, he forced himself to walk on.
The clan of the Timber Wolf also climbed the hill, approaching the mesa where Rastor Skywatcher communed with the night skies every evening. They reached the summit about the same time as the other clans arrived and they all settled down to await the arrival of the Star Master.
An awkward lump emerging from the darkness alerted the neophytes as to Rastor’s arrival. His bearers carried him up to the crest of the hill as they did every evening and laid him on his woven mat. Legless and armless, maimed in a distant land fighting another people’s war, he had been reborn to a new calling and now held court every evening with the night sky. He barely acknowledged the neophytes at all; it was irrelevant to him if they were there. No attendance was taken, no attention was given, he spoke only to the stars and if others overheard his part of the conversation and discovered a truth they might call their own, then it was earned.
“Greetings Matella!” Rastor boomed with such a resonant baritone that you could easily believe that the stars heard his words. “What has got you all a-glitter this evening? Some joy in the deep? Your sisters have been whispering for months. Perhaps Terraza’s voice will soon join you? Hmm? The Stone Voice rises, yes, we all see that! But do not ignore Kee-talla’s warning! We see her glowing red, low in the sky. The Enemy stirs, he plots and plans! Yes, Kee-talla, we see your warning! We will be watchful. We will be ready. Can you see? The neophytes prepare. They will be strong. They will be true. When the Stone Voice rises, they too will serve.”
And so he spoke, deep into the night. The neophytes listened as long as they could stay awake until, one by one, they stumbled, yawning, back to their hogans, as full as they could hold with the words of the stars.
A movement drew Gwil’s eye. Marla stood and stretched. Stooping to pick up her mat, she folded it under her arm and kicked a wordless goodnight to Todd’s foot before meandering off into the dark.
Silently, Gwil rolled to his feet and followed Marla as she disappeared into the night. She walked slowly, her hand wrapped around something that hung from her neck, faint whispers escaping from her lips. Gwil moved quickly down the slope, sweeping a wide arc so that he would reach the base of the hill before her. He waited in the shadow of an enormous hazel tree.
“Hey Marla,” Gwil spoke quietly but Marla jumped, startled, nonetheless. Even by the dim white light of the quarter moon, Gwil saw a faint blush and a small smile on her face.
“Hey Gwil,” she answered, her voice little more than a whisper. Her eyes shot a quick glance towards him, then away. Her lips twitched wordlessly for a moment, then her hand fell from her neck and she smiled at him.
“Walk with you back to your hogan?” he asked casually.
“Um, okay.”
The tall pillar-like stones that lined the path cast strange shadows in the moonlight. Marla glanced up curiously at Gwil as they walked slowly back towards the Crescent Courtyard. Gwil opened and closed his mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of a thing to say. He hoped that Marla would think his muteness was cool, but he couldn’t rely on that indefinitely.
“You should have been in my clan,” he blurted out at last. “The Timber Wolves are definitely the best.”
Wrong thing to say. He felt Marla tense up next to him.
“We follow the Raven,” she said quietly, “and we stay together.”
Gwil backpaddled quickly. “I meant that we have a really great clan and our hogan is the largest and the nicest. Would you like to see it?”
Marla’s eyes flicked towards Gwil as she considered this. It was rare to invite an outsider into your hogan… and an honor. A faint nod answered Gwil and he grinned broadly in response.
They walked along in silence and Gwil, gathering his courage, placed his arm awkwardly on Marla’s shoulders. He felt her stiffen, glancing over at his hand in confusion. He shot her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet began to heave and convulse. Instinctively, he shoved Marla behind him and spun around, looking for what threatened them. The rough hewn pillars that towered alongside the path seemed to twist and sway as if to bend down and strike them. Gwil cursed under his breath as, between two of the closest stones, the ground erupted in a fountain of rock and dust. Then words froze in his mouth as he saw a new pillar of stone emerge between the two ancient ones: an obelisk of white shining crystal, gleaming in the moonlight, towering above his head. Yet his terror was not complete. The gleaming stone turned and Gwil saw that it had powerful arms and legs carved out of living crystal, enormous eyes, and a huge gaping mouth that screamed silently in the night. In its right hand, it clutched a huge crystal spear, which it waved threateningly.
Gwil backed away from the specter looming in front of him until they were pinned against one of the stone pillars. The crystal spear closed in on his throat. Behind him, he heard Marla’s muffled exclamations as she tried to squirm out from the shelter of his back. Pushing free, he watched in amazement as she bolted around him to stand in front, her hands on her hips, glaring up at the monster.
“Ulex!” she cried, her voice trembling, “knock it off!”
It took Gwil a moment to realize that her voice shook with anger and not fear. The monster roared at her silently and, as it lunged towards Gwil, Marla slapped its arm.
“What? Are you going to do this every time a boy talks to me?” she asked. “I don’t think so!”
Their eyes locked for a long, tense moment until a movement up on the ridge drew their attention to the top of the hill. The other neophytes, having heard and felt the disturbance, rushed to see what the commotion was about. Some of the elders, Keotak-se
among them, appeared near the base of the hill. Even Gil-Salla left her hearth to investigate. Marla, looking sheepish, stepped in front of the monster, as if her small body could hide the massive bulk of the intruder.
A shocked hush descended on the glen, broken only by a cricket’s evening song and the thumping in Gwil’s chest. Finally, a voice sliced the silence.
“Hi Ulex!” Lilibit piped merrily. “When did you get here?”
Chapter Eleven
The Reckoning
The silence within the Hall of the Flame was daunting and the muttered whispers from the crowd outside didn’t make Todd feel any better. The Clan of the Raven stood mutely with Ulex before Gil-Salla and Keotak-se.
Todd saw the glance that passed between Keotak-se and Gil-Salla. It was easy to see that they were trying to understand the significance of Marla’s hand clutching Ulex’s. At over seven feet tall, Ulex towered over even Keotak-se. He looked like a huge growth of white crystal, carved into human form, with large black eyes that were lidded now to protect against the glare of the hearth’s flame. He would have been a lot more terrifying if it weren’t for the nervous twitch on his face and the panicked flickering of his eyes.
When no one else would break the silence, Todd stepped into the breach.
“This is our friend, Ulex,” he blurted. “We met him on the way to Kiva.”
Gil-Salla’s eyebrow rose in a mute question. Keotak-se’s face offered even less. Todd plowed on.
“You see, Marla fell into this hole and disappeared. When she was down there, she met Ulex. We climbed down to find Marla, but we got lost and then we got trapped in this cave. When Marla found us, Ulex helped us escape and showed us the way out of the caverns.”
“And when the giant snake ate Lilibit, Ulex took his crystal spear and stabbed its tail!” Nita exclaimed, her entire body dramatizing the event. “He was awesome!”
“And when we got trapped by that fire in the canyon, Ulex broke open a hole from underground so that we could all escape!” chimed in Devon. “He was brilliant!”
If it were possible for a creature such as Ulex to blush, he would. Instead, he ducked his head behind Marla and hid his face. Marla smiled as she squeezed his hand.
Gil-Salla’s eyes narrowed as she watched Ulex closely. “It is unusual for a denizen of the Nether Rock to understand the words of the Overworlders, and yet it appears that Ulex has understood everything that has been said.”
“That’s because Ulex and Marla can talk with their stones,” said Lilibit.
“And they talk all the time!” added Devon with a roll of his eyes.
“That’s because they’re amantes!” teased Nita, breaking into her native Spanish. She batted her eyes and made a goofy face at Marla which drew a blush and a shove from her victim.
Todd squirmed as Gil-Salla’s eyes glided gently over them.
“It seems,” she said, “there are many events that occurred on your journey to Kiva. Perhaps it is time for you to share them with us.”
Marla glanced at Todd, biting her lip. Todd looked down at Lilibit and saw her reluctance to re-visit the terrors of that journey. It had been only the last week or so that she’d been able to sleep by herself in her own den. When they’d first arrived, sleeping alone had brought on nightmares so upsetting that on two occasions she’d woke up all the hogans on the Crescent with her screams. After that, it was decided that they would all sleep together down by the hearth until Lilibit got settled in.
Gil-Salla and Keotak-se were aware of these night terrors. That might be the reason they waited this long before asking about their adventures.
At a sign from Gil-Salla, the Ravens sat around her hearth. Ulex clattered to the floor as he sat, cross-legged, amidst the others. Everyone looked to Todd expectantly.
Todd took a deep breath to gather his thoughts before diving in. “We all used to live at Dalton Point, that’s a foster home just north of Valley City.”
“Except Ulex,” Nita piped in.
Todd rolled his eyes and continued. “About a month and a half ago, the social worker dropped off Lilibit at the home. She had… um, she was…”
“Broken,” said Donny.
Todd shot a grateful grin at Donny. Despite being twelve years old, Donny’s mind was like a much younger child’s. Some people might call him slow, and while his thoughts might be a little less complex, sometimes his simple honesty was exactly what was needed.
“Broken,” Todd repeated. He reached over to tousle Lilibit’s short black hair. It looked like he did this as a simple expression of affection, but he knew that the small movement would exposure the web of nasty red stripes that crisscrossed her scalp. He glanced over to Gil-Salla and Keotak-se and he knew that they had seen them. Gil-Salla’s eyes widened and she sucked in her breath and Keotak-se’s jaw hardened as he clenched his teeth. Yet as bad as those scars were, they hadn’t seen what a wreck Lilibit was when she first arrived at Dalton Point. Nor did he tell them how fast she had healed after she got her stone. He glanced down at Lilibit who smiled back up at him, oblivious to the attention her scars were attracting.
“We went on a hike in the mountains the next day. While we were walking, there was a big earthquake and it exposed a stone that Lilibit picked up. It nearly killed her.”
“It didn’t mean to!” said Lilibit. “It was just … it grabbed me too hard … it was… talking too loud…”
She pulled out her stone and let it sit in her palm, the light from Gil-Salla’s hearth reflecting off its multi-colored facets, glittering a rainbow of speckles onto her cheeks. The anxiety smoothed from her brow and her face lightened into a surprisingly mature grin. Gil-Salla and Keotak-se watched intently as raised the stone and placed it on her cheek, listening motionlessly.
“She speaks more quietly now. Sometimes she’s barely a whisper.” She stretched like a kitten, arching her back and holding her stone above her head. She giggled as Todd jerked away to avoid contact. He remembered too well the wallop that stone packed if it came too close.
“When we got back to Dalton Point, we found that our foster parents were dead and that the house was destroyed. Lilibit didn’t remember much from before Dalton Point, but she remembered Kiva.” Todd paused before he continued. “This may sound kind of weird, but both Devon and I had dreams that night, telling us to follow the raven east to Kiva. In the morning we saw a raven sitting on the fencepost. So we packed up and came.”
A long pause fell and Todd hoped that they were going to let them get away with just that much of the story. No such luck.
“And the, er, giant snake..?” asked Gil-Salla.
Todd really didn’t want to share this part of the story in front of Lilibit, but at a look from Gil-Salla, he continued, resigning himself to the fact that chances were none of them were going to sleep well that night.
“One night, we camped in a canyon, by a stream. During the night we were attacked by this huge snake-like creature…”
“And it grabbed Lilibit in its mouth!” Nita’s eyes glittered with excitement.
“Donny, Nita and I threw rocks at it,” added Devon. “Marla tried to pull Lilibit out while Todd, Jeff and Ulex kept stabbing it.”
“And they stabbed it to DEATH!” Nita’s arms jabbed the air for emphasis.
Nita has a very weird streak in her, thought Todd idly. He looked down at Lilibit, amazed to see her grinning at Nita’s enthusiasm. He had only the barest inkling of the horrible memories that haunted her dreams; maybe being eaten by a demonic serpent didn’t make the top ten.
“What weapons did you use to slay the demon?” There was an intensity to Gil-Salla’s question that made Todd pause.
“Um, Ulex used his crystal staff and Jeff used some dinner knives that he had packed.”
“And what weapon did you use?”
“Just an old knife that I have,” mumbled Todd.
“Do you still have it?”
Todd bit his lip. His first thought was to say no. Instead, he nodded
his head slightly.
“May I see it?” Gil-Salla’s voice was soft and low, but there was a power there that Todd did not want to defy. Slowly, he withdrew the blade from the sleeve that hung on his hip on the inside of his leggings.
The blade glittered in the hearth light. Its silver haft was set with an elaborate mosaic of stones into an intricate design. Gil-Salla tilted her head, silently asking permission to pick up the weapon. Todd swallowed hard and nodded. Gil-Salla carefully lifted the knife with her fingertips, not touching the blade and barely touching the haft. She examined the weapon intently for a long moment before handing it back to Todd reverently.
“And where did you get this knife?” her voice was as gentle as a breeze and yet impossible to ignore.
It took Todd a minute to meet Gil-Salla’s eye. He took a deep breath.
“My father,” he said softly.
Only Gil-Salla and Todd knew that Grey Feather, the raven that led them here to Kiva, was a shapeshifter, trapped in the body of a bird by the evil Stone Voice, Korap. But Todd suspected that Grey Feather was also his father, who had dropped him off for his first day of school and had never returned to pick him up.
Gil-Salla nodded slowly. “I see.”
Todd took the moment of re-sheathing his knife to compose himself. He didn’t raise his eyes again to Gil-Salla’s until he felt his face begin to cool.
“Did you use this knife when you battled the B’ricas?”
Todd looked up sharply, stifling a shiver at the mention of the cyclone-like demons that attacked them as they climbed the pass over the Sienna Sentries.
“I didn’t fight the B’ricas.” His voice sounded both defiant and a little guilty. “Keotak-se did. I only fought the other thing. The smelly flying creature.”
