Qaletaqa

by Gladden, DelSheree

  Dodging another jab to my head, I went on the attack, throwing punch after punch. Not all of them landed, but enough did that after a few minutes the man finally stopped smiling and started to breathe hard. I wanted to flash him one of his own strange smiles, but I was breathing too hard myself. Any desire to smile was wiped off my face when one of the man’s fists made it past my blocking arms and collided with my jaw. I stumbled back, trying to right myself before he leapt at me.

  When I jerked myself back up I was surprised to see the man still standing a few feet away from me. Now he was grinning. This is just another game! I realized.

  Fury set me running at the man, shoulder first. His torso buckled under the blow, but not as much as I had hoped. He caught himself before falling to the asphalt and batted me to the side. Resorting to less than fair fighting, I kicked my leg out as I fell, plowing my foot into the side of his thigh. His knee pitched sideways and I was quick to follow up with another sweep of my legs, knocking his feet out from under him.

  The man finally went down. I leapt up. Gravel fell away from my elbows as I jumped across him and rammed my elbow up against his throat. The man’s hands clamped down on my arms. He made an effort to pry me off of him, but for some reason I had the feeling that he was considering me just as hard. The smile was gone, but the fear of dying was strangely absent.

  I stared into my attacker’s dark eyes. They had looked so cold before, now they looked almost friendly, and…proud. I knew exactly how long to hold my elbow against his throat to make sure that he would never get up again. My dad’s training had been very complete. I thought of Melody, and Claire, and even Harvey. I would kill the man to protect them.

  But did this man actually mean them any harm? Did he mean anyone harm? He was incredibly strong. He could have thrown me off of him if he really tried. Why didn’t he?

  The man’s face started to pale.

  Kaya’s three choices flashed into my mind. She had warned me about meeting a man that would equal me in strength. This man certainly qualified. She also warned me this man could break me, or I him. Depending on how I handled him, the man from her vision could help clear the way to what I desired most, or leave me mired in hatred and self-loathing.

  I looked deep into the man’s eyes and knew that I was facing another one of the tests Kaya saw. So I made my choice.

  Terrified that I was risking my life, and possibly everyone else’s, I gently lifted my arm away from the man’s throat.

  I stood up and backed away slowly. I knew there was still a chance he would attack. All the man did, though, was stand up and brush the clinging bits of gravel off his clothes. He folded his arms across his chest and said something that chilled my blood.

  “That was good, boy, but not good enough to kill the Matwau.”

  My back stiffened as I prepared for the next attack. It never came. The man just stood there, appraising me. Seconds inched by.

  “What do you want with me?” I asked. My voice came out half strangled, but clear enough to be understood.

  “I want to teach you. My name is Ahiga.”

  “What?” First he attacked me, now he wanted to teach me? I felt like my brain had been left back in the room. Nothing was making any sense.

  Wait. Ahiga? I knew that name. From where? “Teach me what?”

  “How to kill the Matwau,” the man said simply.

  “You know how to kill the Matwau? How do you know how to do that?” I asked.

  “I have fought him before, twice, and won both times.” His confidence was not prideful, just sure that he could help me.

  Ahiga. Now I remembered where I had heard that name. Kaya told me a story about a man named Ahiga, who fought the Matwau once to reach his Twin Soul, and again when the creature tried to murder his child. The only problem was Ahiga faced the Matwau hundreds of years ago. My mind told me there was no way that this could be the same man, but I had seen too much to listen to my mind when it came to things like this.

  “But if you won, why is the Matwau still alive?” I wished this man had been able to kill my enemy. How much simpler things would have been then.

  “I defeated the Matwau by driving him off, but only you can kill him. My commitment was not strong enough. You have the one thing I lacked when I faced the Matwau.” His face gave nothing away.

  “And what exactly would that be?” I asked.

  “The killing touch.”

  “What?” Now my analytical mind was starting to make sense. This guy had to be some wandering nutcase. “If I had some kind of killing touch, the Matwau would already be dead. I’ve already faced him twice and barely escaped with my life.”

  “You deny the pain your touch caused the Matwau?” he asked.

  “The pain I caused? I didn’t cause the Matwau any pain. It’s the other way around, buddy. He sends fire racing across my skin when he touches me.”

  How did he know about the pain?

  “The Matwau did not cause the pain. You did. It is only because you do not yet know how to focus your energy to keep it from yourself as well that you felt it,” Ahiga said. “I can teach you how to direct that touch.”

  This conversation would have sounded absolutely ridiculous to anyone else, but Ahiga’s words suddenly had me grinning widely. I knew the gods strove for balance in all things. I had doubted them only moments ago. It had bothered me more than once that the Matwau had so many powers given to him that aided him in trying to defeat me. What had I gotten in the bargain? Speaking with the animals, yes, but that hardly seemed to compare to what the Matwau could do, especially since I knew I had to face him alone. Bhawana’s vision had to be right in that regard.

  If that pain-inducing touch belonged to me instead of him, and I could learn to shield myself from its fire, that would be very useful indeed.

  “How is that you’re here?” I asked. “I know who you are, Ahiga. You did fight the Matwau twice, but that was centuries ago. How can you be here now to teach me your secrets?”

  Ahiga smiled and took a step toward me. His approach did not make me wary anymore. Gripping my shoulder with one of his hands, Ahiga met my gaze. “This will not be the first time a warrior from the past has been granted the chance to return from the spirit world to help a young warrior find his way.”

  “But how can you teach me about the killing touch if you never had it yourself?” I asked.

  Ahiga’s eyes suddenly turned as hard and cold as they had before. The iciness made me flinch. “This knowledge is known to the gods who sent me. The woman who was supposed to teach you failed in her duties to guide you to them for answers.

  “Quaile,” I said with a shake of my head.

  “No, Lina Crowe.”

  I looked up, surprised. “My mom?”

  “She should have taught you better.”

  “She taught me just fine,” I said indignantly.

  “Then why did it take you so long to enlist my help? If she had taught you how to approach the gods you would have been able to ask for assistance much earlier, yet she fell short in this thinking that the stories of heroes would be enough. She never truly believed a man could speak with a god so she did not teach you. That was her mistake.”

  “Approach the gods? When did I do that? When I was yelling at them a few minutes ago?”

  Ahiga laughed. “That is not the typical, or proper and respectful way to ask the gods for help, but time is drawing short, and asking is the key. The gods were willing to accept your supplication even though it was an unworthy offering because they are as desperate as you are at this point. They are bound by their own rules. They had to wait for you to ask them for their help.”

  “But…” My thoughts seemed to congeal. “But I thought it was my dad who was supposed to teach me how to kill the Matwau. I thought he told me, but I couldn’t remember.”

  Ahiga stared at me, forming his next words carefully. “Your father’s lesson is not mine to teach. I have a part of the key, and that is all I can give you. The rest
you must remember for yourself.”

  My whole body went cold. This was only part of the secret to defeating the Matwau. The rest was locked in my head, and only I could retrieve it. Just when I thought I had finally been granted some good luck. The reality tried to consume me, but I forced it back and focused on Ahiga. This one lesson, at least, I had to learn.

  “Why did the gods send you to me? Why didn’t they send my dad?”

  “Your father already taught you everything you needed to know. It is inside of you now. There was no reason for the gods to let him return. I wanted very badly to rid the world of the Matwau when I was alive, but I did not have the strength. Now the responsibility of defeating the Matwau is yours alone. And I will not let you fail. I will see the Matwau ripped apart and scattered in the winds.”

  The intensity in his words and the painful grip he had on my shoulder had me more than convinced he could fulfill his promise. It was only part of what I needed, but it was a start.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  22: Warning

  I was vaguely aware that Uriah had left the room. The fact that I felt him go only meant I was not focused enough to reach the trance state. I could feel my legs starting to cramp up. I was trying to focus, but all I could think about was the incredible feeling I had experienced earlier when I tried to touch Uriah’s soul. I could still taste the strawberries and smell the alfalfa fields.

  Reluctantly, I let go of the memory and focused on the pinpoint of nothingness as Kaya had taught me. A tiny black speck in my mind, it took every ounce of mental strength I had to hold onto it. Slowly, I worked to expand the little dot until it pushed away everything else. Blackness filled my mind.

  I held the emptiness of total focus for a few more minutes, making sure it wouldn’t slip away. When I felt sure I was stable enough to move forward, I started to think again. I didn’t let my thoughts wander aimlessly, though. Deciding on what I wanted to dream about took hardly any time at all. If I was going to help Uriah, I needed to know what he was about to face.

  Filling the empty void with my thoughts, I carefully crafted the details of Uriah’s fight with the Matwau. I knew the vision by heart. The desert sands where the first to fall into place. After that came the surrounding trees, the ones Uriah had run through to reach the desert. I knew there would be a hill or mesa. A sandstone platform rose above the desert floor.

  Melody-I cringed at how easily I could picture her face-laid trussed up in ropes on the ground. The power-filled Matwau stood over her. Holding the image in my mind, I was afraid to add the last detail. I didn’t want Uriah to step into such an awful situation. Wandering sheep came into view as I wished we were home instead. The entire image started to waver.

  Still aware of my body, though barely, I felt my arms growing heavy, my breathing slowing even more. I was close to falling asleep. Quickly, I erased the sheep from the scene and pictured Uriah walking out of the trees to face his enemy. My last thought before falling asleep was to make my dream Uriah turn and smile at me.

  ***

  The forest was empty. I knew Uriah would be making his way through the trees soon, but I was not waiting for him. Instead, I took in the details of where I was.

  Most of the residents of San Juan grew up there and died there, rarely leaving New Mexico. One of the few benefits of my dad’s business income was that we got to travel more than most. I grew up around piñon and hickory trees, but forests were no mystery to me, either. Pine and aspens on the edge of changing their colors were everywhere.

  Our tortuously long drive through Colorado had shown me plenty of the same trees, but I didn’t think this was Colorado. The pine trees were smaller than the average Colorado pine. They were also more spread out and thin looking. The aspens filled in the gaps the pine trees left, but these were also not very tall. The forest floor around Harvey and Melody’s cottage had been covered with vines and ferns and thick grasses. Dead pine needles and little bits of ground cover dotted the dusty floor here.

  Looking up at the mountain peaks behind me, I felt a sense of familiarity with the place. The outline of the peaks was something I had seen before. But where? The caps were bare of snow, but I doubted they would have kept their white caps past the first few weeks of spring. This was not a Colorado forest.

  The crunching of leaves startled me. I whipped around to see Uriah stalking through the trees, determination written on his face. He paid no attention to me. I doubted he could even see me. I was simply an observer in this place.

  Having learned all I could from the immediate environment, I followed Uriah deeper into the woods. His steps were careful, but expectant. We both knew what lay ahead. Somewhere in the distance were the misshapen and lumbering wolves. The Matwau’s allies. They were waiting to ambush Uriah, but he had already been warned of their presence.

  Stopping in a small clearing, he waited for them to surround him. I knew that they couldn’t see me anymore than Uriah could. I walked up to the nearest beast and thought about touching its matted fur. Snapping its head in my direction, it seemed to be looking for what had almost disturbed him. It saw nothing. I stepped back, afraid to risk intruding any more.

  Had it felt me, or was it reacting to something else?

  Uriah walked within a few inches of me. His focused gaze never wavered. The wolf had felt my presence, but couldn’t see me standing right behind him. Could he hurt me? I didn’t want to find out. Stepping away from the creature, I carefully made my way around the group.

  There were twelve of them. A few were cowering in fear, looking ready to sprint away at the first sign of actually having to fight Uriah, but the rest simply looked hungry. I could hear nothing of what they were saying to each other as Uriah said he could, but it was obvious they were about to attack.

  I watched as Uriah threw himself at the weakest animal. Crashing into the tree, the wolf slid down to the forest floor while Uriah raced away from the clearing. I wanted to follow Uriah, but the crumpled heap at the base of the tree captivated me. The other wolves raced off after Uriah. I stood watching the broken creature. Unmoving, I wondered whether it was dead. I wondered whether it could die. It was no ordinary wolf.

  As if answering my unspoken question, it began to rise. Its first steps were awkward, but each one after was stronger and more sure. Before it had been a quivering ball of matted fur, now it walked with a purpose, snarling with every step. Knowing that Uriah was probably already fighting the others out in the desert valley, I felt drawn to stay with the lone wolf.

  The change in his manner struck me as something to be wary of. Something in the wolf had changed. I was sure that Uriah would pay the price of it if the creature got the chance.

  I had to run to keep up. Whatever injuries it might have had, it was at full strength now. Tree branches slapped at my arms as I ran, but the ground was thankfully bare of anything that might trip me. When the trees stopped abruptly, so did the wolf.

  I wasn’t sure what I was staring at. There was a wide swath of bare ground, and then suddenly another wall of trees sprung up. Glancing to either side, I saw that the empty space ran in a long tunnel both up and down the mountain. The formation of the trees seemed very familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it. Not when I was standing next to a creature intent on killing Uriah.

  The wolf edged out of the trees and started down the hill. A few steps down brought me to the blood soaked body of one of the wolves. Neither I, nor the wolf I was following, stopped to inspect it. Trotting faster, the wolf rushed toward the distant sound of snarling. I ran behind it, watching the trees grow smaller and more scraggly as we went. Time was hard to gauge in a dream, but I knew we ran for a long time.

  When the trees gave way to a small valley, we both skidded to a stop. Out from under the trees, the summer sun rippled over my skin. A light sheen of sweat broke out on my body. I peered through the waves of heat at a desert. Even after having heard the description several times, I was still caught off guard. In the distance I saw someth
ing that surprised me even more. Pueblo ruins.

  The box-like structure of the ruins stood out against the horizon. I could see little more than the outline, but the shape was unmistakable to me. A smile worked its way onto my lips. Ruins dotted the southwest, but this would help narrow down the meeting place better than anything else could have. The shock of the abrupt change had momentarily drown out the sounds of the battle ahead of us, but a sudden high pitched yelp of pain cut through the hazy heat and drew my gaze to Uriah.

  I watched in fascination as he fought against the creatures, pitching them away from him, crushing their bones with his bare hands. The gruesome nature of it should have made me cringe, but the raw power was tempered by Uriah’s eyes. There was no joy or satisfaction in his gaze, only pure determination. I watched as one by one the creatures fell aside. Some seemed to be dead, but others just cowered in pain or fear. Blood flowed from nearly every part of Uriah’s body from bites and claw marks.

  Uriah staggered as the last wolf fell away. The wounds didn’t stop him, though. Turning, he faced the Matwau.

  “At last we meet again, but for the final time,” the Matwau said. His face was full of confidence and pride. “I have waited for you for a long time, Uriah. For centuries I have feared your birth. Now that you stand before me, I can laugh with pity for your fate.”

  “I have come to fulfill my purpose, Matwau,” Uriah said.

  “As have I,” the Matwau sneered, “but only one of us will be successful.”

  “It will not be you,” Uriah said.

  Uriah made a wild leap toward the Matwau. It took the sight of the once injured wolf I had followed flinging itself at Uriah’s back to make me realize it had moved from my side. A slow smile formed on the Matwau’s face, but Uriah was completely unaware of the creature. I was screaming Uriah’s name, but my warning drifted away on the breeze.