People of the Sky

by Clare Bell

  Kesbe vowed she would not be discouraged no matter how hard Sahacat made the task. If the road to initiation was also the path to communication with Baqui Iba and if through the aronan she could learn the truth about what had happened to the boy Imiya, she would persist. She felt her jaw set, her fists clench.

  “Stop,” said Sahacat’s voice. “It is not good to begin this way. There is anger in you.”

  Kesbe flinched. Could the woman read each thought as it entered her head? She had never heard of true telepathy, yet…

  “Do you think I take things from your mind?” Sahacat gave a low chuckle. “No. You give them to me. You tell them to me. Through tewalutewi, the knowing sense.” She paused. “The anger. Why?”

  Resenting the fact that she was somehow so transparent to the shaman, Kesbe bent her head and stared down at the space where her crossed ankles were, though she couldn’t see anything in the total darkness. She had plenty of reasons for her anger toward the shaman. The strange quasi-magical attack during the Cloud Dance was one, the encounter on the mesa trail the night of Kesbe’s return was another. Memories from both and from other incidents still burned fiercely in a part of her mind.

  She spoke them, growing increasingly articulate in her rage and less afraid of offending the shaman. “The worst thing of all was when you tried to stop me from searching for Imiya,” she concluded hotly. “The boy would have died if I hadn’t found him. You know that, don’t you? Yet when I brought him back, you labored as hard to heal him as I did to find him. Why?”

  “Had I stopped you, the boy would have died,” said the shaman’s voice. “His death would have weighed on my spirit. But now, because you acted, there is something that weighs even more heavily on my spirit. The life of a youth is a precious thing. But there exist things more precious still. The survival of a people.”

  “I can’t believe that whatever Imiya did could affect the entire Pai tribe. He’s only a boy!”

  The darkness between them suddenly felt very cold.

  “I did not say that it was only Imiya. You and your coming have caused an imbalance in our world.”

  “If I am so unwelcome, why are you allowing me to become kekelt? Why do you teach me?”

  Again, Kesbe heard the humorless, dry chuckle, like the rattle of the scorpion-tail bracelets. “Even I must do as I am bidden by the Sun Chief. If I did not, the imbalance of things would be even greater.” Sahacat paused. “When I healed you of the wuwuchpi’s bite, I warned you against pursuing your obsession with aronans. At the Cloud Dance, I tried to break the bond that was forming between you and the rogue. Not for my sake. For yours. You do not know yet what it means to partner with a flier. If words alone would convey the truth, I would tell you in words. But they do not, thus you must learn by taking the way of kekelt and then lomuqualt.

  “When I faced you on the mesa trail and cast the black flute, I sought to drive you from Tuwayhoima. Again I failed.”

  “You could have killed me.” Kesbe’s voice was flat. “You probably could do it now.”

  “You fear that I would kill you. You have this fear because you are not Pai,” came Sahacat’s answer. “Though my spirit wishes to be rid of you, killing is not the answer. It would cause even a greater wound in the world’s flesh.”

  If you weren’t constrained by your metaphysics, you’d have no compunction about killing me, Kesbe thought, although she felt less threatened.

  She shifted, leaning forward on her blanket. “So here we are. Enemies?”

  “An enemy makes a poor student and an even worse teacher,” came the shaman’s voice. “The characteristic of an enemy is that she has no face.”

  “Well, sitting here in pitch black doesn’t help matters,” Kesbe said icily. She heard the unexpected sound of a fire-striker and saw the flare of a lamp. Sahacat held the lamp up, letting flame-light dance over her features. “Then look upon that which you think you hate,” she said.

  Kesbe realized that in all previous encounters with Sahacat, she had never really seen the woman’s face. She had formed only a vague impression that there was a sinister difference between the shaman and the other Pai women, a difference that had thrown Sahacat’s face into shadow in her mind.

  Yes, the difference was in the strange Mayan or even Olmec cast to Sahacat’s features, but there was something more. Perhaps it was the eyes, hiding behind their long eyelids, or the hard yet sensual lines of the mouth.

  It was an ageless face and Kesbe realized she had no idea how old this woman might be. The idea that Sahacat might have only the same number of years as she herself made her reluctant to accept the other’s authority. A wizened crone, she thought, might have been easier to accept as a teacher than this arrogant black-haired witch!

  “You are thinking,” said the shaman, “that I do not have the accumulation of lifetime worthy of the respect I demand from you.”

  Kesbe eyed her warily, caught off-guard. Sahacat must have used this strange gift of tewalutewi to guess her attitude. And perhaps a few cues from her expression as well. “All right. I would like to know how old you are.”

  “If I told you, it would mean nothing, for I know only how many changes of season have passed since my last death.” She lowered her voice. “A shaman dies many times. You will find that truth if you travel the Road of the Healer.” Sahacat bent forward, holding the clay oil-lamp. Kesbe shifted on her rug.

  “No, sit still. I too must study the face of one I have feared.”

  At these words a little thrill shot down Kesbe’s back. Could that be possible? This powerful woman afraid of her? Yes, she had been called a warrior by no less than the Pai Sun Chief, but surely she posed no danger to a shaman such as Sahacat. Yet she was sure that the shaman’s words were not lies. There was only one question to ask.

  “Why do you fear me?”

  “Why? Why? Because I sense that although you are one, behind you are many. Warrior-woman, you carry the message of the Kachada, the People of the Axe.”

  “No. I know nothing of such a tribe.” Kesbe laughed nervously. “Tell me about them.”

  Instead of answering, Sahacat shut her strange eyes and laid her hands palms-upward on her knees. “Awatovi,” she said and repeated the word in a chant. “Awatovi. Awatovi.” She opened her eyes. “Do you know the meaning of Awatovi?”

  Awatovi. The word did sound familiar. She had heard it from her grandfather’s lips as part of some legend. It was the name of a village…where something terrible had happened. So deeply had it struck into the soul of the Hopi people that the very name of the village had become synonymous with a great tragedy. She told Sahacat what she knew and was ashamed of recalling so little.

  “So then your tribe has even forgotten Awatovi,” said Sahacat severely. “Then it must be taught again. Listen, and I will tell you the story.”

  With the oil lamp guttering in front of her, the shaman began. “You have learned already that we of the Pai Yinaye have come through five worlds. Most of our legends come from the Fourth World, where we dwelt before the Emergence.

  “So it was in the Fourth World that the people who were to become the Pai lived in quietness and peace with all things. Then came the tribe we call the Wielders of the Axe. Not only did these people cut many more trees than they needed, and took them without asking permission of their spirits, but they sliced deep into the flesh of the earth itself with keen metal blades, caring not that the earth was wounded.

  “Our ancestors tried to make friends with this new and strange tribe. It was said among many wise men that these people were the Pahana, the Lost White Brothers, spoken of in legends even older than this one. It would have brought dishonor upon the people had they not opened their arms in friendship to the Pahana, so they did so.

  “But the Pahana did not behave like brothers in their taking of the trees and cutting of the earth. Soon the people realized they had made a mistake. Sadly they said, ‘These men are not the Pahana.’ The people turned their backs on this tribe and g
ave them the name of Kachada, or Wielders of the Axe.

  “The Kachada would not be turned away. They took land, they took game, and they made the people poor. At last they made war with strange new weapons and conquered our people. Perhaps you know some of this, for by your appearance you are distant kin to the Pai,” Sahacat said, breaking her narration to fix her gaze on Kesbe.

  “I know some of it,” Kesbe replied softly.

  “Many seasons passed and our people suffered under the Kachada. Some of us argued that we should make war against the Kachada and the feeling grew, even though we called ourselves the People of Peace. There came a time when all the villages were ready to descend upon the Kachada and drive them from our land. One village, however, sided with the Kachada and warned them of the impending attack. The name of that village was Awatovi.

  “Awatovi’s betrayal did not save the Kachada. Our people fell upon them with all the rage that had been building through the many seasons we suffered under them. And when the power of the Kachada was crushed for a time, our rage turned to Awatovi.

  “Those who had betrayed us to the Kachada paid in blood. We did not spare their women or children. The village was destroyed and never rebuilt. It was a dishonorable thing. Not what Awatovi did, but that we took such vengeance against our own people. It was a thing of such dishonor and sadness as to stain the soul of our people and make a mockery of our name for ourselves. We were no longer in our hearts the People of Peace. Awatovi had shattered us.

  “And even our betrayal of our honor did not save us from the Kachada. They waited many seasons and then returned to conquer us once again. Though we existed as a tribe, we were broken. Many of us became like the Kachada, forsaking the old ways. The wise men knew that if we stayed in that land we would die as a people. So they found the sipapuni, the birthway that led from that world to this, and guided the people through it.

  Sahacat paused, drawing in breath for the conclusion of her tale. “But Awatovi has lived in our memories and our language. Even though we have been cleansed by the Emergence from the Fourth World into this, the Fifth, it remains as a warning of what has happened and what may happen again.

  “Legend says that we left the Kachada, the Wielders of the Axe, behind us when we abandoned the Fourth World. Many wise men and women of this tribe believe that is true.” Sahacat stopped abruptly. Kesbe thought she would continue, but instead the shaman eyed her as if she was the only one who knew the end of the tale.

  “What do you think, warrior-woman? Have the Wielders of the Axe found us once again?” she asked.

  “You said yourself that I appeared to be distant kin to the Pai,” Kesbe said, not wanting to speak the answer she knew lay within her.

  “That is true. But your ways and your thoughts—they make me remember the legends of Kachada. That band you have on your wrist with a face of rock-crystal. Is it an amulet to some god that you always keep upon your person?”

  Kesbe glanced self-consciously at her chronometer. Even though she had discarded her flying suit for Pai garb, she still wore the timepiece. She tried to explain its function to the shaman and found herself frustrated by a language that had no discrete units for measuring time. Even the quantification of time was a concept foreign to Pai thought and speech.

  The shaman stared long and hard at the chronometer. “This too is an axe,” she said solemnly. “It cuts the flow of experience into pieces. It arbitrarily separates life into what has been, what is and what will be.”

  “But I need to be able to do just that in order to fly Gooney Berg,” Kesbe argued, and attempted to explain the details of aerial navigation to the shaman.

  “Our child-warriors fly their aronans without such amulets as this. Give it to me.” Sahacat extended her hand for the chronometer.

  “Please, don’t destroy it,” Kesbe found herself pleading as she undid the band that held the timepiece to her skin. Her wrist felt more naked than her body had been during the times she had been made to remove her clothes.

  “I will hold the amulet in safekeeping,” said Sahacat. “If you do not become Pai, it will be returned.” She put the chronometer into a drawstring pocket of her shoulder-cape. Kesbe stared into the small flame of the oil-lamp, wondering why she so resented this small loss. What else would Sahacat take from her?

  Chapter 15

  In my dreams I am once more behind the rock within the cave, watching the girl Mahana approach her aronan. Her face is beautiful, but it is an inhuman beauty. Her eyes are alight, but it is not the light of love. Her creature waits for her, trusting that she will not harm it, for she has never done so before this rite. It does not know that the hands that once guided it in flight will reach to seize the base of its wingspar and wrench the wing from its body…

  I wake, sweat-bathed. I draw a hand across my forehead, trying to wipe the dream away. Oh why did I follow Mahana to the cave to see what was forbidden? Is this my punishment, to witness the scene repeatedly until I am driven mad? The thought of Mahana’s aronan will not leave me. What became of Desqui Deva after the ceremony? Was it given a merciful end?

  I wait in the darkness, not wanting to fall again into sleep, for I know that I will only relive the vision again. Someone comes. I try to stir, but I am still too weak. Chamol? No. Sahacat. My dry tongue sticks to my lips. The shaman gives me water. She studies me.

  “I have dreams,” I say “They tell me I have done wrong.”

  “Would you make penitence for the evil you have done the gods and the tribe?”

  “Yes.”

  “What moves through your dreams?”

  I tell her of the image of the wing-stripped flier.

  She clasps her hands together at her waist. “Mahana’s aronan,” she murmurs, as if to herself. “That is a good sign. Child-warrior, the gods may grant you passage into adulthood after all, if you offer me absolute obedience in all things.”

  I stare at her, not believing. Is there a road back from this place I have journeyed? Can I heal the wound between myself and my people? I acted for the sake of Haewi because I loved Haewi. Now Haewi is gone. I have left only my tribe. If they cast me out, I will die in spirit, if not in body.

  I say the words that promise obedience. She makes me swear before the gods that I will not turn aside from the path she will choose for me.

  “Now, child-warrior, I will grant you some of the knowledge for which you have hungered. A Pai youth does not become lomuqualt by the will of the gods alone. It recfuires a…gift…from an aronan. Mahana’s flier has been blessed with the ability to confer this upon its rider…and one other. If you are strong, child-warrior, that other shall be you.”

  I lie still, letting the knowledge seep into me. “Is it true then, that Haewi would have given me the same gift?”

  “If you had not become afraid, if you had not flown your flier to death in your fear, yes, it would have given you the same gift.”

  At a terrible cost, I think. I could not have done to Haewi what Mahana did to her Desqui Deva. Knowing that the crippled aronan still lives is another horror to me. And that I must accept something from it that will make me lomuqualt…

  “I have brought you the drink from the Kiva of the Brooding One,” Sahacat tells me, putting a bowl to my lips. “It will prepare you.”

  I swallow. It is much more than I have drunk before, much more than one who had barely entered the kiva would be given. I force myself to gulp down all of it, hoping my stomach does not throw it back. Sahacat wipes my lips. “Say nothing of this to Chamol or Nabamida. As for the woman Kesbe, you are forbidden to see her. It was she who turned you from the right way on your Road of Life. Shun her.”

  My body grows warm, my mind hazy. “I will come each day to tend you,” the shaman says. “When you have gained strength, you will be moved to the Kiva of the Brooding One. Chamol will be told that you are now under my care.” She wipes out the bowl from which I have drunk and puts it in her pouch. She looks at me hard before leaving. “Remember. You must obey
me in everything. You will speak to no one but me. To another, your lips are sealed, your mind is closed.”

  She goes. I remain, dreaming, but the dreams are no longer full of pain.

  “Tewalutewi.”

  The shaman’s voice came to Kesbe out of the dimness of the adobe chamber, speaking the word that meant “the knowing sense.” Outside the sun blazed brightly, but this room had no windows. It was only a shade away from being absolutely dark.

  “Your thoughts stray,” said Sahacat, who was only a hint of a dark shape seated a few meters away from her. “Bring them back again. We start over.”

  “How can I concentrate when I don’t know what I’m supposed to be concentrating on?” Kesbe complained.

  “Using tewalutewi, the knowing sense. I have something in my hand. Tell me what I hold.”

  She was completely baffled. What did she mean? How was she to accomplish what the shaman asked? Extrasensory perception?

  “What is tewalutewi?” she asked.

  “What senses do you have?” was the shaman’s question.

  Mentally she listed them in English and translated the concepts into Pai. Sight, vuuika. Hearing, dovgopa. Touch, bmasik. Kinesthetic sense, hoochponah. Taste and smell she had a harder time with. Finally she chose nishomka for taste, a word that meant, “with wet tongue” and for smell she settled for tototkvi which meant literally, “it knows that food is burning.”

  Sahacat was silent awhile, considering her answer. “You do not have a word in your language for tewalutewi. You must discover the meaning for yourself. I have something in my hand. Extend your senses and tell me what it is.”

  “I don’t think I have this sense you speak about.”

  “Do not doubt that you have tewalutewi. You could not live without it.”

  Kesbe raised her eyebrows in the dark. Well, if she had this tewalutewi, she would find it. She sat perfectly still, trying to extend her perception outward. She peered into the blackness, but could see nothing however much she strained her eyes. She listened as carefully as she could, but heard nothing except the soft echo of Sahacat’s breathing.