Shaxoa's Gift (26 page)

“When the vision left Bhawana, she rushed
back to the village to tell the Elders what she had seen. The
Elders wept at her telling, filled with joy that the Matwau would
one day be defeated, freeing the people from their fear of him and
what he could do. Bhawana pronounced the young man would be the
Qaletaqa, the Guardian of the People, but warned that the dark gods
would oppose him and seek to stop him from fulfilling his
purpose.

“Bhawana charged the Elders to remember her
vision and watch for the Qaletaqa to arrive. She warned that the
Elders would need to aid him in his quest if he was to be
successful. We, the Elders of the Tewa, have had this prophecy
written so future generations can keep our vigil and be ready when
the Qaletaqa comes.”

Kaya set the book down gently. The hush over
the room was palpable. I had to remind myself to breathe again and
again. My mind locked itself away, not wanting to face the details
of Bhawana’s vision. The vision paralleled my dreams exactly. Words
written hundreds of years before my birth had recorded the exact
dreams that plagued me every night.

The fact that I would be forced to face the
Matwau one last time was something I had already come to grips
with. I would still have avoided the creature for the rest of my
life if I had any say in the matter, but I believed Kaya’s
estimation that the Matwau would force my hand by breaking all laws
and capturing my Twin Soul to use her as bait.

Fear raged through me. Not because of the
battle I knew I would fight, but for the last detail of Bhawana’s
prophecy. The Twin Soul bond would form and carry the young couple
away to eternal bliss. Those words froze me with terror beyond
anything I had experienced in the past five days.

I looked at my hands, stained blue from
crushing juniper berries. The only way to sever the Twin Soul bond
would be in my hands by tomorrow morning. Claire promised she was
fighting the bond and waiting for me to return, but what would I
bring her? Could I ask her to cut her bond to Daniel only to have
myself be carried away to ‘eternal bliss’ afterward?

“It can’t be true,” I whispered. I heard one
or both of the sisters shift, but could not look up to face
them.

“Uriah, it really only confirms what we
already knew,” Kaya said softly. “You knew you would have to face
the Matwau again to rescue your Twin Soul.”

Then I did look up. Kaya and Samantha
grimaced. I knew my pain was plainly expressed in my features. “It
can’t all be true,” I said again, more firm than before.

Kaya shook her head, but Samantha put one
hand on her sisters, and the other touched her heart. Kaya saw the
gesture, and understanding fell over her. “Claire,” she said
sadly.

“I can’t give her up that easily,” I said. “I
won’t
give her up, not at all.” My fist slammed on the
table, startling the wide-eyed sisters.

“Claire can bring you here, Uriah,” Samantha
said. “We’ll make the potion again. Everything will be fine.”

“She said that we were ‘carried away.’ What
if I don’t even have enough strength to go back to Claire and ask
her to come to Hano? What if I forget her the second I touch this
girl?” I asked. Defiance struggled with fear to control my
emotions.

“You are stronger than that, Uriah Crowe,”
Kaya said firmly. “You have been through hell to get here, all to
rescue Claire. There is no way you would give her up so lightly.
None. I refuse to believe it.”

“I don’t believe it either,” Samantha said in
support. “Besides, visions aren’t always terribly reliable, not on
the little details at least.”

“True,” Kaya said matter-of-factly, “the
vision already has some holes in it if you ask me.”

I knew they were trying to make me feel
better, but Kaya’s serious tone drew me in. “What do you mean?” I
asked.

“The vision has already missed an important
part of the story. You won’t face the Matwau alone,” Kaya said. At
first I thought she meant that she and Samantha were planning to
help, which was absolute nonsense, but I was quickly set straight
by a powerful thought flooding into mine.

“No, you will not be alone,” Talon promised.
“We will stand with you against whatever odds, and if you even
think of running off with this girl, I will sink my teeth into your
leg and drag you back to Claire. Kicking and screaming if
necessary.”

A faint smile played on my lips. “I will hold
you to that promise,” I said to him.

“What is so funny?” Kaya asked.

Shaking my head, I said, “Nothing, Talon was
just reminding me of how sharp his teeth are.”

The sisters nodded, most likely taking my
words as a comment on Talon’s fighting prowess. “You will have help
from the desert animals, which Bhawana didn’t see. Perhaps there
are other details of her vision that are open to interpretation as
well.”

“Your future is your own, Uriah,” Samantha
said. “You cannot be forced to take a certain path any more than
you can be told the exact results of taking such a path. You could
leave the girl to her fate and never face the Matwau if you choose
to. I know you won’t, but nothing is set in stone, nothing that
can’t be chiseled away and written again.”

Her words were firm and clear, but I couldn’t
help doubt them. I was definitely not about to bow down to a
prophecy made centuries before I was born, but the idea that the
prophecy could be wrong in some details led me to wonder whether it
could be wrong in the larger details as well. If I could resist my
Twin Soul, could I also lose the battle against the Matwau?

“This is a fairly common problem with
prophecies,” Kaya said. “Most of the time the prophecy is about the
event happening, not always about the particular details of how,
why, or when. You shouldn’t take the prophecy for anything more of
a foretelling that you will face the Matwau to rescue your Twin
Soul. I am certain you will beat him, but as I said before, the
other details may not be completely accurate.”

“What prophecies,” I asked.

“There was a prophecy made in the days before
the Tewa settled in New Mexico that the Tewa would be conquered.
The shaman said that they would be forced to give up their heritage
and that the Tewa people would be lost forever,” Kaya said.

“Oñate did conquer the Tewa in 1596, but the
pueblo people refused to abandon their beliefs, not completely
anyway. Some did convert to Christianity, but even many of those
still held with their tribal traditions and beliefs. The shaman was
wrong about the Tewa being lost,” Samantha added.

“Most likely, the shaman saw the conquerors
come and overwhelm the Tewa, and drew her own conclusions about how
the Tewa would come out of it. It is possible that Bhawana, seeing
that you came to rescue your Twin Soul and succeeded, merely
assumed that you would carry your Twin Soul away to a future filled
with happiness. How could she have guessed that you would be the
only man in history to have already found true happiness and turn
away from fate?” Kaya said. Her smile touched on motherly
pride.

I deeply appreciated her optimism, even if I
felt she might be grasping at straws.

There was so much uncertainty in my future. A
few days ago I had approached the Elders, sure that the plans
Claire and I had made would be met with little resistance, and then
only from her father. One more night, and I would race back to
Claire with her only hope of freedom, not knowing how long I would
have with her before being pulled away once again.

Kaya and Samantha had given me so much more
than I had ever expected, but I needed more still. I stared at the
books, doubting that there would be much more in them that would be
helpful to me. Talon was very intelligent, more than any of the
other animals, but his knowledge of the Matwau seemed to be
restricted to how dangerous the creature was, and that he was bound
to protect me from him.

“Kaya,” I said, a question stirring in my
mind, “when you saw the vision Quaile had seen, what were you
seeing exactly?”

“What do you mean, Uriah?” Kaya asked.

Samantha leaned forward eagerly. Her
curiosity spiked when it came to what Kaya could do. If there was
anything that passed between the sisters that was not based on
mutual friendship and love, it seemed to be an irritation for
Samantha that she did not possess Kaya’s talent for foretelling.
Even if she couldn’t share the talent, she was determined to
understand how it worked.

“Were you only seeing what Quaile saw, or
were looking into my future?” I asked. I wasn’t sure myself if
there was any difference, but as I thought about the conversation
Kaya and I’d had before the experiment, it made me consider that
there might have been some difference.

Kaya smiled appraisingly. “You are a very
quick study, Uriah,” she said. “There is a difference, though it’s
very small. When I saw the vision yesterday, I was only trying to
see the exact vision Quaile had seen. I had a very specific topic
in mind, and that was what I sought. That was all I asked
permission to see. Most people don’t want to know what the years
ahead will hold for them, and frankly, I don’t like knowing it any
more than they do. The first thing the last shaman taught me was
how to seek a specific vision and nothing more.”

Her answer was comforting. “Can you see more
if I asked you to?” If she could see further into my future, she
might see what would happen beyond confronting the Matwau. If I
could know that I would return to Claire’s arms afterward, facing
the creature would hold considerably less fear for me. I had beaten
him once already and faced him twice more. The real fear in facing
him again was that I would be giving myself over to a fate worse
than losing my life.

Kaya’s hands snapped together, twisting
around each other. “Are you sure you want me to do that Uriah?” she
asked. “People have come to me, knowing that I have a strong talent
for foretelling. They want me to tell them the exact details of
whatever situation they’re worried about, but it rarely works the
way they want it to.”

“How do you mean? The vision of me facing the
Matwau is very specific, why would the rest of my future not be as
clear?” I wondered.

“The vision of the Matwau was very different
from what I usually see,” Kaya said. “I rarely see anything like
that, only when a human’s future tangles with the workings of the
gods. Most people don’t fall under that category. You’re the first
one I’ve ever met.”

Wonderful, I thought, one more reason to make
me stand out when all had ever wanted was a quiet life with Claire.
“So how are your usual visions different?”

“Every human has free will.” Kaya paused when
I snorted, but she continued with a meaningful gaze. “And because
of free will, it is very difficult to know a person’s future. When
I have done viewings before, I’ve seen … well, it’s hard to
explain, but they’re like images that flicker in and out. They are
possibilities
only
. Often I can advise a person about
whether a choice may bring harmful consequences or help them decide
between several options, but I rarely see anything more concrete
than that.”

Disappointment crashed down around me. All I
needed was a little reassurance. Possibilities. I already knew what
the possibilities were. I knew what I wanted to. That thought took
hold of me. I imagined that most of the people who came to Kaya
didn’t know what they were looking for. They wanted her to tell
them what to do. I knew without a doubt which future I would choose
if I was given the opportunity to make my own choice. That had to
make a difference.

“I want you to try.”

Kaya nodded. “Okay, Uriah, I’ll try.”

I held out my hands and she took them gently.
“Will I see it too, like earlier?”

“It’s your choice, but I’ll warn you that it
will be difficult to understand any of it. It has taken me a very
long time to pick out the important details from the swirl of
images,” Kaya said. “Are you ready?” I nodded. She took a deep,
calming breath as she closed her eyes. I closed my eyes as well,
and waited.

The seconds ticked by as Kaya’s slow breaths
continued. I nearly snatched my hands away when the tidal wave of
images swept over me, but at the same time the wave crashed down
Kaya’s hands gripped mine tightly, and I could not move them. I
clenched my teeth and searched for what I was desperate to see.

The images changed before I could even
register what most of them held. I bent every ounce of focus toward
the pictures. My sheep. A small child running across a wooden
floor. Me clutching my head in agony. Fields. Talon covered in
blood. A beautiful woman hid behind shimmering white cloth. More
and more hints and suggestions flew by as I struggled to grasp even
a hundredth of them.

I felt beads of sweat roll down my face. I
pushed my focus to a finer point, and then everything was gone. I
gasped. My eyes opened, but it took several long seconds before I
really saw anything. Kaya’s hands were clasped together, but it did
not stop them from shaking. Her face was a mask of fear and
surprise. I saw my own hands still reaching out for hers and pulled
them back immediately.

“What did you see?” I asked in a voice I
barely recognized as my own.

Kaya lowered her hands and blinked furiously
to keep tears from falling.

“Kaya what did you see?” Samantha asked. Her
voice and manner were insistent. She hated not knowing anything,
but even more than her curiosity I saw the concern in her eyes for
her sister, and in a quick glance to the side, for me also.

“Kaya?” I asked.

“There was so much pain,” Kaya said as she
wiped away a stray tear and smiled, “but so much happiness too.”
Kaya closed her eyes and a sense of calmness seemed to settle over
her. “I’m sorry, Uriah. I don’t usually turn into a sobbing mess
when I do this. I have never experienced anything like that
before.”