by Meredith
Zeya set the writhing heads down and pinned them with a paw. He picked up their tails with his talon and pincer and tied them together. He inspected the knot, a job good enough to kill.
He examined the squirming, twisting heads once more. He felt elated. Smiling, he tossed the reptilian hoops far out into the river.
Nicely done, said Tsola.
“They were my fears, all of them,” said Zeya. He was happily perched on his aerie.
You weren’t just the owner, said Tsola. You were the creator.
“I guess so.”
They were your closest companions.
“I actually made them?”
Yes.
“Then I was in control and couldn’t lose?”
You could. Your fear could have overwhelmed you, and you would have died not only in body but in spirit.
“I won.”
Yes. With help from…?
“Mom gave me courage, you gave me the power to see through illusions.”
Exactly.
“Are we through with this?”
What do you want to do now?
“Meet Thunderbird.”
As her drum tripled its speed, Zeya felt his entire body lifted off the ground by hurricane winds. Thunder banged, and he lost his mind.
45
“Welcome,” said Thunderbird.
Zeya quailed at the earthquake of his voice. Thunderbird laughed. He clapped his wings together, and thunder cracked the air. He laughed again.
“You look dizzy,” said the great bird in a voice that was a mere roar.
He blinked, and sheets of lightning lit the world. Now Thunderbird really cackled. “Sorry,” said Thunderbird, “I can’t help showing off.”
Thunderbird had wings with feathers of every color imaginable, and now Zeya saw that snakes lived in them. He flapped one wing, hurled a snake downward, and it forked into bolts. “Sheet lightning from the eyelids,” he said casually, “and bolts from the wings.” He paused for effect. “You can relax now.”
Zeya took his hands off his ears and opened his eyes. Then he looked at his paws—they were again human hands. He had a human trunk and legs. He felt his neck and face—they weren’t feathered. A necklace of 108 beautiful feathers of the war eagle rested in his lap.
“Take a seat, guest.” Thunderbird fingered the feathers. “Tsola was right, you’ve done very well.” Zeya was aware of her drum on the edge of his consciousness, a steady pulse that kept him in this strange world.
Thunderbird’s tone changed. “You did so well she’s honored you with my name. Just remember that you’re the imitation Cloud Dweller.” He paused. “Don’t worry, I won’t be watching you closely back on Earth. I don’t pay that much attention to mortal matters.”
Zeya couldn’t help gaping at the bird. Each of his wings was as twice as long as Zeya’s body. His head was the size of Zeya’s chest.
“Don’t you have something to give me?”
Zeya held up the necklace and spread it with his hands. The gathering of the feathers had been the first great adventure of his life, and four men had died trying to stop him.
“No speeches required,” said Thunderbird. He plucked the feathers deftly out of Zeya’s hands and inspected them. “Beautiful, aren’t they? They remind me of me.”
Zeya listened and thought Tsola’s drum was advising him to say nothing.
“Look around you,” said Thunderbird.
They sat in a nest constructed from cornstalks and padded with mosses. It was roughly circular, wide enough for twenty elk to stand on, and it floated on air.
“Not really,” said Thunderbird. So he could read Zeya’s thoughts. “To float on air, that would be cloud-dwelling, wouldn’t it?” He chuckled at his little joke. “Walk over to the edge and look down. No, go ahead.”
Zeya crawled over and looked down. The nest was like a disc perched on top of a gigantic finger. This finger was actually a stone tower higher than any of the mountains in the Land beyond the Sky Arch. Dizziness whirled Zeya around for a moment, and he clung to the tap of Tsola’s drum for balance.
“Now what are we going to do?” said a human voice.
Zeya managed to turn without making his head tumble and look.
Thunderbird had transformed himself into a middle-aged man. He had pale skin, a head with only a fringe of hair, eyebrows that looked like black caterpillars, and another black caterpillar on his upper lip.
“Humor is reason gone mad.”
Zeya was half confused, half revolted.
The new Thunderbird chortled. “Never seen skin this color, have you?”
All the human beings Zeya had seen were tawny, except for the albino Ninyu. Only the bottoms of fish and frogs had Thunderbird’s white skin.
“And some men have thick hair on their lips and faces, they really do.”
Galayi men had very little hair like that.
“But you aren’t getting the joke. Now that I have no wings, only these puny feathers pulled off their wing bones, how are we ever going to get down from this nest?”
Zeya just looked at him.
“All right, dumb joke.” He ballooned back into Thunderbird. Unlike Klandagi, he made the change in a eye-blink.
“Why have you come?” His voice was basso now, and his tone formal. “I want you to ask me properly.”
“The Galayi people fell from grace. They broke the one rule the Immortals gave them. They killed each other. That brought the eagle-feather cape you gave them to ruin. I bring you these feathers with a formal request for a new cape.”
“Granted. You really are a remarkable young man, even though I’m making light of it.”
“Our Seer will wear the Cape and seek your wisdom.”
“I know.” Weariness lay under the words.
“And I request formally that you teach me all the songs of the Eagle Dance. Our singer, Awahi, is a good man, but over the generations we’ve forgotten many of the songs.”
“More than you imagine,” Thunderbird said. “I will put the songs directly into your mind. When you want to sing at the Eagle Dance back on Earth, open your mouth and the songs will come out.”
“And I want to ask you some things on my own, things Tsola didn’t tell me to ask.”
“Go ahead.” He sounded curious.
“Why is the grass pink in this world? Why are the leaves yellow, purple, orange—every color but green?”
“You like green?”
“I love green. It’s the color of life coming back to the world.”
“I could tease you by saying green is a color of death. A green leaf makes a yellow leaf inevitable. Life makes death inevitable.”
Zeya blinked at Thunderbird.
“Remember my answers and think about them when you’re back home. Hope for a good laugh.”
“Do you really answer our prayers?”
“I’m answering Tsola’s now, with the Cape.”
“Do you really think about us that much?”
“Whether I do or not, thinking of me, thinking of this eternal world, asking for its power to be in you—all that gives you strength in your mortal world.”
Thunderbird cocked his beak downward and considered. Then he spoke in a serious tone. “Remember, yours is a mirror world. I am the one true eagle. All of Earth’s eagles are reflections of me. The same is true of everything that is. The permanent and enduring raccoons, ants, bushes, rivers, and mountains are here. The ones on Earth are shadows, and have the weakness of shadows. That is why everything on Earth dies, or deteriorates. Not so here.”
“Why? Why did you make our world at all? Or why did someone make it?”
“What you’re asking, you don’t need to know. Your job is to live a good life as a human being. Besides, being serious is a bore. Let’s have some fun.”
Thunderbird grabbed Zeya in his talons and sailed off the nest. Tsola’s drum seemed to beat faster, maybe in imitation of Zeya’s pounding heart, or maybe as a tease.
First they seemed to take
a tour of the Land beyond the Sky Arch. Its beauty was ideal. Buffalo and elk grazed in fields thick with grasses that were every color of the rainbow. Wild-flowers bloomed everywhere. Huge waterfalls gushed on the mountains. Bushes and trees bright with blossoms lined sparkling rivers. Zeya chuckled—he realized that the rivers sparkled in a sun that wasn’t yet risen. The Immortals’ land ignored such obstacles—it was perfect.
Then he realized that this was no tour. Thunderbird was circling on air currents that were lifting them higher and higher. The air was getting colder. They rose above the highest mountains, and then above the clouds that puffed up to twice as high as the peaks, and then twice that high again. Zeya started shivering violently, and he couldn’t seem to get enough air. He told himself, Look at the sunrise. It’s incredible—enjoy it.
Just then Thunderbird dropped him.
Zeya plummeted. He felt twice as cold. Though the winds were terrific, he couldn’t seem to breathe.
Above, Thunderbird flapped his wings. Snakes flew into the sky, and the air crackled with lightning. Thunderbird’s laugh was almost as loud as the thunder he made. “Know terror!” he roared.
Zeya knew it in his fingers, his toes, his nose, his ears, his bones, and his blood. Panic pitched him this way and that and every which way. He became a blob of shimmering fear. He looked around at the beauty of the world. His eyes wanted to clutch it, because it was the last beauty he would ever know.
Halfway between the great heights and the death that awaited him below, Zeya grew calm. He knew the end of his adventure, and the knowledge gave him ease in his heart. He had nothing to fear.
He decided to pretend that he could fly—and made a discovery. If he flattened himself like a leaf descending from a tree, he could sail a little bit, almost like a bird, and he didn’t fall as fast. In fact, he lost the sensation of falling. He floated. Toward the earth, yes, and toward death, yes, but he was floating. He was almost flying.
He looked and for the first time saw the ground rushing up toward him. A riff of fear clattered through him. He almost lost what little control he had, almost nosedived toward the rocks below. He eased himself out of the fear and back into his float.
Tentatively, he flapped his arms. They seemed to hold a little air. He flapped again, and, yes, air. It was a wonderful illusion—he was flying, he was a bird! He flapped again and again and learned…
He was flying! He could lift himself in the air! He could sail back upward! I can fly! I’m going to live!
He felt his vision change somehow. He didn’t see ahead so well, but to each side he saw with a clarity that seemed incredible. He felt as though a world painted in fuzz was now turned into sharp lines and glowing colors.
He gulped. He saw a wing attached to his body—a wing on each side. He took a chance, tucked his head, turned it sideways, and looked down and back. Talons, and a broad, feathered tail. He studied the markings on his wings.
I am a war eagle.
He looked up at Thunderbird. The great bird laughed. Zeya soared up, and Thunderbird laughed louder. Only a bird-god, thought Zeya, could make a laugh sound like thunder.
I’m flying. As a child he flew in his dreams. I’m flying in reality. He chuckled. I guess this reality.
“Let’s play!” roared Thunderbird.
Thunderbird whirled and flew at Zeya from the front. An attack!
At the last moment Thunderbird spread his great wings and stopped in midair in front of Zeya. He held out his talons. “Grab on!”
Incredulous, Zeya reached out and held talons with the great bird.
“In this position we could kiss or kill!” roared Thunder-bird. He blinked, and sheet lightning flashed.
“Close your wings!” said Thunderbird.
They both tucked their wings in and fell, locked together eye to eye.
“Diving!” roared Thunderbird. He let go of Zeya, turned himself beak down, flattened his wings to his body, and sped downward.
Zeya peered after him. “Why not?” he shouted.
He imitated Thunderbird’s form and shot down. The winds were ferocious, and in Thunderbird’s wake the turbulence was intense. Zeya watched his mentor and told himself, That isn’t a mountaintop rushing up at me—I’m not headed for those trees.
He clutched everything within himself tight and hurtled down.
Just above the summit Thunderbird changed angle and followed the slope of the mountain down.
Doing the same—he hoped!—Zeya didn’t get the movement exactly right and actually brushed a wing tip against a jutting rock. He felt some pin pricks and glanced back to see several of his feathers dart through the air.
Thunderbird flashed down to the river, let his huge wings flap against the water, and flung back a rainstorm at Zeya.
“Let me show you how to climb the easy way,” roared Thunderbird.
He crossed the valley to the next mountain—what freedom they had, covering such distances! There he simply stuck out his wings and began to float upward. How could that happen to Thunderbird’s huge body?
Zeya did the same, and the air lifted him, too.
“Warm winds rise,” Thunderbird cried, “and cool winds sink down. Here the sun is always coming up, so the air’s always getting warmer, and we can go up without working hard. What a deal!”
They rose in perfect quiet, a sublime upward sail without effort. In the time it would have taken to walk across Zeya’s home village, they passed the mountaintops.
Thunderbird flapped out over the valley again and gave Zeya a mischievous look. “Let’s go back to the nest. I have a surprise for you.”
Zeya resisted saying he wanted to keep flying.
He watched Thunderbird and carefully made his first landing as an eagle, wings spread, body weightless, a gentle float onto the nest.
“A fellow might think you’d been an eagle all your life,” said Thunderbird.
Zeya felt like strutting.
“Before the principal business at hand,” Thunderbird said, “a request. Here is the new Cape.”
“Gorgeous,” said Zeya. It glowed with splendor.
“In return for this gift,” said Thunderbird, “I would like the Galayi to initiate a new practice among the warriors. From now on, when a man performs a heroic feat in battle, his comrades will give him a beautiful feather from a war eagle, and the warrior will wear it as an emblem of his courage. From now on this will be the highest sign of honor in war.”
The god-bird cocked an eye at Zeya.
“I will tell everyone,” said Zeya.
“However,” Thunderbird went on, “these feathers must be gathered without killing any eagles.”
“Yes,” says Zeya.
“Very good. You and I, we’ve gotten along famously, haven’t we?” That mischievous look again, with something dark in it.
Zeya answered formally, “I could not be more grateful for what you’ve done for me.”
“Perhaps now you’ll do something small for me.”
“Of course.”
“Change yourself back into a human being, back into the young Soco man who came here as a seeker.”
Zeya felt a thrill of fear. “I don’t know how,” he said.
“Just begin, and you’ll know.”
Zeya cocked his head sideways and looked down at his right talon. Inside himself, he told it, Change.
Claws fell off. Toes reappeared. The four-part talon started growing skin, and then melded together into a human shape.
Lifted by wonder, Zeya extended his right wing. Change, he told it without words. The tip of the wing started reshaping itself into fingers.
Zeya’s eyes got huge, and he had to resist laughing.
Zeya made a mess of one thing. He converted his beak into a nose and accidentally back to a beak. When he thought he’d finished his face, Thunderbird handed him a cloth and said, “Blow your nose.”
When Zeya honked his beak, they both laughed.
Still, Zeya got it done in short order. He looke
d down at himself in amazement. He studied the body he’d had all his life. Then he looked directly at Thunderbird. “Thank you. For me personally, this is the greatest gift of all.”
“No,” said Thunderbird, “for you personally this is the greatest gift.”
Thunderbird seized Zeya with one of his huge talons and held him up to an enormous eye. He blinked, and sheet lightning numbed Zeya’s brain. The bird-god pointed his beak to where Zeya’s ribs met his belly and stabbed him.
Zeya felt warm blood run down. He managed to gasp, “What are you doing?”
“Eating you,” said Thunderbird.
Quickly, the bird-god slit Zeya from sternum to crotch bone. Zeya felt the cold air of the heights seep into his being.
Thunderbird reached deep under Zeya’s ribs with his beak and drew something out. Zeya’s heart. It beat one last time in Thunderbird’s beak, and the bird-god solemnly gulped it down.
SEVEN
Triumphs and Losses
46
Zeya suddenly lay by the fire in front of them, unconscious.
Tsola reached out and took the Cape from his loose hands. Tenderly, she wrapped it in a painted elk robe. Then she stepped back to Zeya, knelt, and turned his zadayi so that the red side was out.
“Thank you,” said Sunoya.
“That, what Thunderbird did, was terrible to watch,” said Tsola.
“I heard of it, but I never saw it done,” said Sunoya.
Zeya stirred.
“You’re Okay,” Sunoya told him.
Pacing nervously, Klandagi said, “It won’t help, not yet.”
He was right, it wouldn’t. Soon the world would rotate a quarter circle to the left, or some direction, and her son’s mind would click in.
“You’re all right,” she said again.
“Zeya, can you hear me?” This was Tsola. “You’re here with your mother, and me, Tsola, Klandagi, and Su-Li. You’re fine.”
Both medicine women remembered the disorientation of their own first trips across. They looked at each other with the knowledge of how much more awful Thunderbird had made this crossing.
“The greatest gifts call for the greatest sacrifices,” murmured Tsola.
Sunoya gave her mentor a look. She didn’t need lecturing right now. “You’re fine,” said Zeya’s mother, stroking his forearm.
