Darkthunder's Way (34 page)

“Yes,” said the bear. “Of all the Four-footed Tribes yours and mine are most alike, for many of my kind are descended of a clan of your folk who moved to the woods and grew hair upon their bodies. The
Ani-Tsaguhi,
we once were. I am a son of that clan.”

“Then you’re not a true bear?”

“By which you mean a bear which was never a man? No, I am not of that kind. There is still a chief bear, Yanu Tsunega, who dwells in
Kuwahi,
the Mulberry Place, to the north. I have never met him.”

“Then you cannot help me?”

“That depends. I owe you a debt; if I can repay it, I will do so gladly.”

“Well you see,
Ani…Ani
— What was your name again?”

“Names give power, so mine I will not speak until I know you better, but you may call me
Yanu
,
which simply means
bear
in the tongue of this land.”

“Right, okay then, Yanu; I guess I oughta tell you what they call me around here, though I’m not sure I want to.”

“I am listening,” Yanu said gravely.

“Sikwa Unega.”

“White ’Possum, is it?” Yanu laughed (something between a growl and a snuffle). “Truly it suits you. But how came you by a name like that? You do not speak the tongue of Galunlati.”

Ooops,
David thought. That was a goof for certain.

Here he was spilling his guts to this blessed bruin when he didn’t have the first idea he could trust him.

“If I wanted to kill you I would have already,” Yanu said easily.

David started. “Jesus, man—can everybody around here read minds?”

“Only strong ones—those and the images behind your words.”

David shook his head. “Yeah, well, I wondered about that, but every time I try to think about it—what I’m really saying, and all, I get a headache.”

“I could tell you a good herb for that,” Yanu volunteered.

David rolled his eyes. “So if you can read minds, I suppose you know why I’m here.”

“I know the one you call Uki sent you. I know you are on a quest. I would be glad to hear the rest of the tale.”

“Well, it’s like this,” David began, and told the whole story. By the time he had finished the sun was halfway up the morning sky. He was getting fidgety too, anxious to be on his way, anxious to bring healing to Alec. But the bear kept interrupting, kept asking questions.

“So you dreamed of a white bear while in the asi?” he asked once, when David had told of that part.

“Yeah, we all did. But all we got was that damned rabbit.”

“That proves it, then!” Yanu exclaimed. “It was fated that I aid you, and aid I will.”

David glossed over most of the rest, for Yanu was familiar of old with Uki and his sisters, though not particularly well disposed toward the latter.

“The younger sister took my skin, which was fine,” he said. “She asked, and I gave permission, and then they killed me and apologized. But she did not cover my blood in the prescribed way, for when the time came for skinning, it was raining, which is her brother’s province. Thus my blood washed away before it could return to the earth my mother, and so I was lost for ages until you restored me. She was scarcely more than a child then. How is she now?”

“Grown, I guess,” David said, and continued.

“And now you seek Atagahi?” Yanu mused when the narrative was finally over. “Well, that is easy enough to find. Come, follow, and I will show you.”

“I…”

“Hurry, for only at sunset may your kind see it.”

David made haste in gathering his pack, staff, and canteen. And though he was careful not to mention it, he was grateful to be relieved of the weight of bearskin that had burdened him the previous day.

The rest of the forenoon they filled with the easy chatter of two friends getting to know one another. David told as much as he dared of his World and discovered that Yanu knew something of it as well; and then, inevitably, the discussion turned to the riddle of the overlapping Worlds.

“This only I know,” Yanu said. “Galunlati is far younger than the Lying World, and the two once lay much closer. But then your kind came, and the wise among the Ani-Yunwiya grew afraid and restless, for your folk would keep no treaties and honor no words. And so eventually a secret council was held, and the great wizards and witches were summoned, and together they fasted for seven nights and prayed for seven sevens of days, asking aid of Galunlati. But the chiefs of this land were also afraid, and turned a deaf ear on them, and used certain magics they have that not even the wise of your land know, nor these ones you call the Sidhe either, if what you say of these things called Tracks is true, and together they moved the whole land. Now it floats, touching your land but in fogs and the dreams of madmen and children.”

“And there’s still a World beyond this?”

“There is one where the Great Thunders live: Kanati and Selu and their like. They made this place; to them it was that the chiefs of this land appealed when we drew apart.”

“I see,” David said slowly. “Circles within circles.”

“And gods within gods,” Yanu added. “For even Kanati is not his own master.”

“Is Uki a god?”

“That is hard to say,” Yanu replied. “His father was one of Kanati’s sons, but his mother was a woman from the Lying World.”

David frowned. “His sisters too?”

Yanu sighed. “Perhaps I should tell you the whole story.”

“Please.”

“Very well. Years and years ago, in
hilahiya,
in the Ancient Times, before the lands were split, a woman of the Ani-Yunwiya chanced to find her way to Galunlati. She met a man there and spent many nights with him, but one morning she rose earlier than usual and found that he was not a man at all, but a serpent, one of the monsters from the Underworld who had put on man’s shape to trick her. She cried out at this, but nothing could be done, and she was not strong enough herself to kill the snake man, who then escaped her. For the whole next winter she wandered Galunlati demanding justice, but no one heard her, and in the spring she gave birth to one daughter and in the fall to another, both of whom proved wild and unruly.”

“Makes sense so far,” David noted. “But what about Uki?”

Yanu cleared his throat and continued. “Now one of the Thunder Boys, who are Kanati’s sons, saw this, and feared both for the woman and for Galunlati; for he did not know what sort of mischief the snake girls might cause when they were older. So one day he came upon the baby girls where they slept and tattooed their faces so that men might know them for what they were, and set some of his spittle in their mouths so that they might become more like him—and then himself visited the woman in the shape of a handsome man and begat another child on her, who was born the next year. That child is the one you call Uki, and he is set to rule Wahala, but more importantly, to watch over his sisters, the snake women, and see that they not grow too powerful or too wicked. Mostly, I am told, he has succeeded.”

“Yeah, well, it all kinda falls together now,” David said.

“Though I still don’t quite know what’s up with him and the weather.”

“This only I know,” said Yanu. “As I said, this land is young compared with yours and parts of it are yet unfinished. Perhaps Uki’s magic is needed to make the rain until Galunlati can bring forth its own.”

“Maybe,” David said, and threw a stone into the water. The ripples, he thought, were like Worlds—and so, too, were the leaves on the surface, and the pebbles beneath.

*

Lunch was persimmons washed down with stream water, and in mid-afternoon Yanu found a honey tree, and David helped himself, sucking the sweet stuff off his fingers, then chewing the waxy comb like it was gum. He had, truth to tell, almost forgotten the gravity of his mission.

Toward late afternoon, though, he began to become apprehensive. The sky was darkening, veiled by high, thin clouds, and the wind was growing more chill. The woods were growing denser, too: with black-trunked pines crowding out everything else, the odor of their blue-green needles masking even the high thick musk of Yanu’s coarse fur.

Abruptly, Yanu stopped. David halted beside him, and sank down gratefully on a large boulder. Beyond them was a vast, open mud flat overgrown here and there with reeds and short grasses. Far on the opposite side more mountains showed dark beneath a westering sun. It was hot there; heat devils shimmered in the heavy air above the exposed earth. David squinted into the glare—and then his eyes began to burn exactly as they did in the presence of Faery magic. He winced, rubbed them furiously. Was it possible? He strained his vision, tried to summon the Sight—and caught a shift in the air, as of a veil of half-visible breeze swept aside.

The sun touched the roof of the mountains and suddenly it was there:

He stood not at the edge of a plain at all, but on the shores of a vast lake that glowed ruddy in the waning light.

Where grass had sprouted, now ranged cattails and rushes; and where silence had reigned, now was a veritable symphony of bird calls: ducks, mostly, but the honks of geese and the chirps and warbles of countless others as well. He dashed forward, and saw a whole regiment of mallards wing skyward, then glanced sideways, and saw waddling toward him what could only be the awkward shape of the extinct great auk.

“Behold Atagahi!” Yanu said. “It shows itself to you without my intervention, a wondrous thing that. Surely you must be an
adawehiyu
.”

“No,” David whispered. “I’m only a boy with a very sick buddy.” And with that he unscrewed his canteen and filled it to overflowing.

Chapter XX: Shifting Scales

“You have what you came for,” a voice growled behind him. “But that does not mean you will take it away.”

David leapt to his feet and spun around, still clutching the precious canteen. Six feet away was a bear—but not the familiar roly-poly Yanu, who was now cowering beneath the eaves of the wood. No,
this
bear was white and at least half-again as tall as his recent companion.
A polar bear
, he thought in panic.

Except…except… Weren’t polar bear heads more pointed than this one’s, which was rather round? And of course there was the question of what a polar bear might be doing so far south…

The bear stayed where it was, but sat back heavily on its massive haunches, still staring at him with its little pig-eyes, while it clicked its fine black claws together across its bulging stomach. David thought of making a break, but knew that the beast could be on its feet quicker than he could imagine, and that even if he could reach the nearest trees, which were several yards away, they would do him no good because bears could climb.

“I agree,” the bear drawled. “Running would not help. But it would help
me
a great deal if you would explain why you have come here. This is a place for my wounded kin, and you are no kin of mine.”

A quick sideways glance showed David that Yanu had crept back a little closer and was shaping sounds with his mouth without giving them voice. David cocked his head and frowned uncertainly. But suddenly an image came to him: a white bear shambling through the woods; and the words
I come, I come, I come.

And this
was
a white bear. Maybe…

He took a deep breath. “Then why did you answer our summons, oh Great White One?”

The white bear flopped forward, which brought its muzzle within bare inches of David’s face. Its breath smelled of fish and watercress.
“You!”
it roared, showing David a mouthful of curving white fangs. “You it was who called but did not wait! Truly I should eat you now, for not only have you stolen from my lake, but you have stolen from my time as well, and made me an object of laughter!”

David swallowed hopelessly. “It was Tsistu. He…he tricked us. He said you were coming too slowly and had sent him ahead to meet us.”

“You are a double fool, then: to come here, and to listen to fools. Did you not know Tsistu was a famous trickster?”

A helpless shrug. “Not at the time.”

“You do now!”

“I’m…I’m sorry, sir.”

“Sorry is not enough!” the bear growled, rising to its feet. “You owe me twice! Once for your theft, and once for your impatience that cost me great trouble.”

“No, oh Grandfather,” Yanu interrupted suddenly. “He owes you but one time. For I am one of your people and he has restored me to life.”

The white bear swung its head toward his smaller counterpart. “And who are
you
,” it asked, “who wear the fur of the West?”

“I am—” and here Yanu gave a name that truly sounded like the grumblings of a bear.

The white bear stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Very well, since you have given me your name, I will accept your word.” He turned back toward David. “You owe me your life but once, now. Is there a way you would prefer to die?” He cocked his head inquiringly and sat back again, waiting.

David had no idea what to do. Was this
it
? Was he going to snuff it here by the shores of a magic lake of healing? He gazed once more toward Atagahi, felt his eyes burn—and suddenly an idea occurred to him.