Slowly but steadily, she and SK took one short step after another, until finally, Dale grabbed her hand and helped her over the edge. She collapsed on the ground. In another minute, SK knelt next to her.
“Liv–”
She didn’t give him time to finish. She grabbed him close, buried her face in his shoulder, and held on as though her life depended on it. A few seconds ago, her life had depended on it.
He hugged her back and kissed the top of her head.
“Why didn’t you say you were afraid of heights?” Dale asked.
She shook her head. There was no good reason.
“You’re okay,” SK whispered. “You’re fine. You did good.”
The light of Dale’s phone went off and stayed off. For once, Livvy was relieved at the darkness. As her breathing and heart rate slowed, she eventually released her grip on SK.
“Where are we?” he said.
The light came back on and both she and SK took their first look around. A ledge that was a few feet deep but several yards wide was providing their stopping point. Livvy knew better than to look down but she turned to look at Spider Rock. This was the view. It snapped into place as if a photo of the scene in sunlight was overlaid with what she was seeing now.
“That’s it,” she said, sounding surprised.
“That’s it?” asked Dale. “This is the view?”
“Are you sure?” said SK.
“I’m positive,” she said.
Then she looked at the ledge. It was wide but they were clearly able to see every last bit of it and it was blank. No dirt, no vegetation, only bare rock and then more footholds that continued up the face of the cliff. How could this possibly be the right place? There was no tablet here.
“Well,” said Dale, shaking his head and squatting down. “I’ve got news for you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Livvy. “This was the vision. This is the view the crystal showed me.” She felt it inside her clothes. “Why bring us here if the tablet isn’t here?”
“I don’t know,” Dale exhaled, sounding tired.
The three of them sat in silence.
“The steps lead up,” said SK, looking at them. “It’s possible this is just a waypoint.”
“Except this is the only vision I had,” Livvy said. “It didn’t continue. I don’t know where we’re supposed to go from here.”
As though they’d all had the same thought, she pulled the crystal from beneath her shirt.
“Maybe try again,” Dale said.
“Time for another vision,” SK said.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
AS DALE HAD shown her before, Livvy sat cross-legged and put the crystal on the ground in front of her. Dale didn’t bother to bring his out but took a seat to her left. SK sat to her right. The ledge, though not deep, was more than wide enough for the three of them to sit abreast, gazing out into the darkness over the valley, toward the moonlit spire that was Spider Rock. Although the view was probably spectacular Livvy studiously avoided it.
She bent down and looked into the crystal. Even in the darkness its color changed, gradually shifting through the spectrum. It occurred to her these were very different than the colors used in the goggles. Did that have something to do with the different type of vision it induced?
Aware that Dale and SK were watching her, Livvy fidgeted a bit and took a deep breath. It had been easier to concentrate in the hotel room. Sitting on a ledge in a cliff face wouldn’t have been her first choice in terms of focus.
On an impulse, she picked up the crystal, held it horizontally, and brought it up directly in front of her right eye. She closed her left. Now the view into the canyon was gone.
Also gone was the sensation of watching colors change. She couldn’t focus on something that was so close. Instead, she saw through it. Rather than see Spider Rock, though, a face coalesced in front of her.
“Leon?” she said.
“Olivia?” Leon replied.
“What?” Dale said.
SK shushed him. Then he put his hand on her knee and the ledge suddenly grew. It was no longer a ledge but a plain and there stood Leon, with the village in the distance behind him.
“Leon,” she said, approaching him.
Then she paused as she realized what had happened. This wasn’t like the previous crystal search. This was the Multiverse. Leon slowly closed the distance between them and she saw with a start that he was wearing a costume. His entire body was painted in great bands of black and white. His face was painted white but his mouth and eyes were rimmed with black. He wore a black loincloth and a tall striped hat that reminded Livvy of something a court jester would wear.
“What are you doing here?” Livvy asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Where’s here?”
“Well, this is my vision. I’m trying to find the person with the missing tablet.” She paused at the puzzled look on his face. “Is that why you’re here? Are you trying to find it too?”
“No,” he answered promptly. “I know where it is.”
“You what?” Livvy stared at him. “But how did you find it?”
He shook his head slowly and looked down at his hands. He turned them over, palm up and then palm down, and stared. Livvy realized she could see through them–see through all of him. She quickly looked at his face. She’d only seen something like this once, when her mother had to leave the Underworld to continue her spirit’s journey.
“Oh gods,” she whispered.
Leon returned her stare as understanding dawned.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?”
For several moments, Livvy could only look at him. He didn’t seem afraid or even surprised. Instead his voice held a sense of quiet awe. But he’d asked her a question and, as a shaman, she did the thing she always did–she answered with complete candor.
“Yes,” she said, finally.
He nodded, looked at his hands again and then lowered them.
“But what happened?” she asked.
He knit his eyebrows together, looked past her into the distance, trying to remember. Then his eyebrows flew up.
“Don’t let Dale see my body,” he said.
“What?” Livvy exclaimed.
The shock and sadness of Leon’s death suddenly turned to dread.
“Promise,” Leon said, coming closer to her. “Please, don’t let him see my body. You have to promise.”
He was more afraid of what Dale would see than of being dead.
“Yes, I promise,” she said quickly.
Livvy watched as several emotions played across his face. Finally though, he was calm. Then he looked at her and shrugged. “I guess I needed purification,” he said as he touched the front of his throat.
“I don’t understand,” she said, watching the strange gesture.
“It’s not important,” he replied. “Not now.”
Except it was important. Livvy knew that. In the real world, there’d be the pain of loss. A deep emptiness would invade people’s lives. There’d be grief, there’d be anger, there’d be questions. Livvy studied his painted face. But those were the worries of the living.
“Leon,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Look.” He held out his big arms with the black and white stripes. “It used to take me hours to do this.”
He actually smiled at her.
She shook her head and smiled back at him. “You’re amazing,” she said. “You know that?”
He seemed a bit embarrassed and cleared his throat. His face grew serious and Livvy could only watch him, not even able to guess what he must be feeling.
“The tablet’s in a burial chamber,” he said abruptly.
“A what?” Livvy asked. “Did you say burial chamber?”
“There’s no one there,” Leon said, sounding oddly comforting. “Not for a long time.”
“Right,” she whispered.
“Up on the plateau above you,” Leon said. “It’s small but you can�
��t miss it.”
SK had been right. The footsteps that led up from the ledge were going to be the way.
“But how do you know where it is?”
He grinned.
“Someone told me,” he said. “Someone who was buried there a long time ago. He told me.”
Livvy nodded, understanding.
“I guess I’m supposed to tell you,” he concluded.
“I guess so.”
It had indeed been a crystal search. It was just that the person with the tablet was no longer in the real world. They were here in the Multiverse so that’s where the search had led.
Leon looked down at his transparent hands.
“The breath-body,” he said quietly. Then he looked up at her. “I think I have to go.”
He turned to head toward the village but paused and looked back at her.
“Remember what I said. Don’t let him see me.”
Livvy nodded and the entire scene simply winked out. She blinked a couple of times, closed her eyes and lowered the crystal. The wave of vertigo washed over her quickly this time and then was gone. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
“Welcome back,” said SK.
Without looking at him, she placed her right hand over his, and turned to Dale.
“Before you went quiet,” Dale said. “You said ‘Leon’.”
She let go of SK’s hand and took one of Dale’s hands in both of hers. He stared down at it. Then he jerked his eyes up to search her face. His mouth formed a silent ‘what’.
“I’m so sorry, Dale,” she whispered. “Leon is dead.”
He recoiled from her and snatched his hand back.
“That’s, that’s … but ….”
Livvy remembered what Dale had said about his prescient dream.
“I think you knew it,” she said quietly.
“No!” Dale yelled.
“Liv,” SK said. “What’s going on? What happened to Leon?”
Although she answered SK, she still looked at Dale. “He said he was purified.”
Dale’s hands flew to the base of his throat.
That gesture again.
Then he covered his mouth to stifle a scream.
“What does that mean?” SK asked.
Dale shot to his feet. His hands clenched into shaking fists.
“Dale,” Livvy said. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to go,” he said, his voice shaking.
“What do you mean go?” she said. “Go where?”
“Dale,” said SK, also standing. “Don’t do anything rash.”
“Rash?” he yelled. “Did you hear what she just said?”
Now Livvy stood as well but she backed as far away from the front of the ledge as possible.
“Dale, please. We need your help. I’m so sorry for your loss but there’s nothing you can do for Leon now.”
He shook his head wildly. “No,” he said. “No.” He turned to the ledge.
“Dale,” Livvy said. “Leon had a message.”
Dale paused but he didn’t look back.
“He said you shouldn’t view the body.”
A rush of air escaped Dale’s lungs. A wheezing whimpering ‘no’ finally came out of his mouth and he kept repeating it. He stepped to the front of the ledge, turned around, and started to climb back down.
SK took out his own phone. He held it over the edge to light Dale’s way until he disappeared. They could still hear him saying ‘no’ and then that faded away too. SK turned off the phone. They were silent for several seconds.
Livvy looked down at the ledge.
SK looked over it and then back at Livvy.
“What does purified mean?” he asked.
“I wish I knew,” she said, shaking her head. “Leon didn’t say.” She paused. “I can’t believe he’s dead, SK. Even though I saw him there, I still can’t believe it.”
“I know,” he said, softly. He took her hand and waited for a few moments. “How did you see him at all?” he asked.
“I think the crystal search led to the Multiverse because someone there used to have the tablet. They told Leon the location and he told me.”
Livvy looked up the slope.
SK aimed the light of his cell phone up the cliff face. “I take it the tablet is up that way.”
The footholds in the first ten feet or so stood out as black smudges rather than depressions.
“Yeah,” she said. She took a deep breath and slowly blew it out.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Never,” she said.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
“PURIFIED?” SCREAMED CELESTINO. He jumped to his feet and his goggles fell to the floor.
The singing and drumming above stopped abruptly.
He stalked over to stand directly in front of Franklin, who semi-reclined on the bench, stretching out his long legs and crossing his lanky arms over his chest.
“You killed Leon?” Celestino screamed. “Killed him?”
Franklin looked up at him, bland, calm, even mildly curious. The other shamans who had moved into the lower level of the kiva were silently staring at them.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Franklin said, now standing up to his full height. He looked at the faces turned toward them. Then he picked up his jacket and headed to the ladder. “Follow me.”
Celestino nearly choked with rage.
Murder?
He scanned the faces in the kiva. Had someone here been party to it? Was there a murderer here? He stared at Franklin’s back as he climbed the ladder. No, it was him, the Pahaana.
“Celestino,” asked one of the men. “What did you see?”
The one question released a flood of others.
“Are you talking about Leon, the clown?”
“Did you see the tablet?”
“Has Leon been purified?”
“Celestino!” Franklin barked.
Celestino stomped over to the ladder and started up, as much to escape the growing cacophony in the kiva as to confront Franklin.
“Did he say Leon was dead?” he heard behind him as he stepped up into the next level and then promptly up the second ladder.
Franklin was outside waiting for him at the edge, out of ear shot. “What in the hell is the matter with you?” Franklin said.
“Leon the clown is dead,” Celestino said hotly. “That’s what’s wrong with me.”
“Where’s your faith, sorcerer?” Franklin retorted. “I’m the Pahaana.”
“Faith? I’m talking about murder. He said he’d been purified!”
“Shut up,” ordered Franklin. “Before somebody hears you. Knowing them, they’d all run.”
Franklin began to turn away from him but Celestino grabbed his arm and spun him around.
“Leon is dead,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “He was purified. Did you kill him? Chop his…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Franklin yanked his arm out of Celestino’s grip. His silky white hair caught and reflected the moonlight. It glowed in the darkness, ringing his face with light.
“You said yourself the Hopi would be purified,” Franklin said, jabbing a finger at him. “It’s the tablet that shows a decapitation. It wasn’t my idea. And now that the prophecy is coming to pass, true to the words you spoke, you want to stick your head in the sand.” Franklin tossed his head back and barked a short staccato laugh. “No wonder you need the Pahaana.” He bent down to put his face in front of Celestino’s. “If Leon is dead, it’s because he needed purifying. It’s the prophecy.” This time he jabbed his finger into Celestino’s chest. “Or have you forgotten, sorcerer?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Celestino said, but he was hearing his own words come back to him.
“The Fifth World is coming,” Franklin said, raising his hands toward the sky. “It’s almost here.”
He grasped Celestino by the shoulders. “No one said it would come without pain. It is the nature of death and birth that
there is pain. It is necessary.”
He was silent for a few moments. “Now, where is the tablet?”
Celestino didn’t answer.
Could Franklin be right? Is that how the Fifth World is going to come?
Yes, the tablet showed a decapitation but it wasn’t supposed to happen like that.
Was it?
“Celestino, the tablet,” Franklin said, shaking him. “Did you see it?”
“No,” Celestino finally said.
“Oh,” said Franklin, sounding disappointed.
“But I know where it is.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
LIVVY SANK TO her knees in the soft dirt and then dug her fingers into the soil. She could have kissed the ground but didn’t dare to turn around and look down the way they’d come.
She felt SK’s hand on her back.
“You’re getting pretty good at that,” he said, standing next to her.
“I’m never doing that again,” she said, even though the second part of the climb had been easier than the first.
Above the ledge, the footholds had quickly led them into a crack in the cliff face. It had been like an empty elevator shaft. In some places, the footholds had been like an actual staircase. Then again, they had to be, since the cliff had gone nearly vertical. She shuddered at the memory.
“Never,” she said.
She looked up at SK as she sat back on her ankles. “However we go back, it’s not going to be that way.”
“Agreed,” he said.
The trip back made her think of Dale.
“I hope he got down all right,” she said, glancing in that direction.
“Me too.”
Livvy got to her feet and massaged her hip but was careful to step away from the edge of the canyon as she did. Despite the pain from the climb, the plateau was a relief. Not just from the lack of deep vistas but it was awash in moonlight. High white cirrus clouds had drifted over the area. Reflections from them seemed to create even more light–certainly more than there’d been in the shadowy canyon. Up here, maybe because her eyes were dark adapted, it was almost like colorless day.
But it didn’t take any extra light to see the place Leon had told her about. He’d said it was small but by small he must have meant small city. The ruins stood out as a silhouette against the horizon.
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