Empire of Unreason (40 page)

“That’s the place where the Coweta and the Kashita first settled
when they came here from the west, Fixco says. A very old place,
but no one lives there anymore.”

“Why?”

“He says people went bad, there. Some of ‘em started consorting
with—I guess you’d say witches or demons or somethin’. He says
you can still hear their ghosts in there sometimes at night, beatin‘

drums and dancin’.”

Fixco said something else, and laughed nervously, spurring his
mount to a slightly faster walk.

“He don’t want to be here at night,” McPherson explained. “He says
hurry up.”

They passed more of the mounds, some of them of impressive size.

It was a little hard to credit, from what he had seen of Indians thus
far. He had never heard of them building such monuments.

Of course, what he didn’t know about Indians could fill several
books. And those Indians down in Mexico were supposed to have
built some pretty amazing things. Maybe they were building them
again—word from Mexico was that the Indian slaves and peasants
had risen up and conquered their Spanish masters. Yet another
warning to the white people of the colonies, outnumbered as they
were ten to one by Negroes and Indians. The day for playing the
pale sovereign was gone, he was convinced of it. English colonists
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would accommodate themselves to that or die.

Or the malakim would have their way, and everyone would die,
maybe.
One step at a time, Ben,
he told himself.

“You said something about Kashita?”

“Another tribe, but them an‘ the Coweta went in together a long
time ago. Coweta is the red town, Kashita the white. That is—

Coweta is where they make war from and the other is where they
make peace. They have a chief for each, see—one in charge when
they’re at war, the other in charge when they ain’t.”

“Why do we go to Coweta, then?”

“Well, these days they’re mostly at war, I reckon.”

It was nearly dark when they finally reached Coweta.

It was the largest Indian town Franklin had yet seen. Homesteads
and fields sprawled around it for miles, and the heavy-timbered
walls enclosed perhaps a hundred houses. The plaza was
commensurately larger and more grand than the one in Oconee.

The pole in this square was covered, top to bottom, with what he
first thought were horse tails, until, with a bright tingle of horror,
he understood the truth—that he was looking at upward of a
hundred human scalps.

Children were running alongside them, brandishing toy weapons—

at least he hoped they were toys—and shouting what sounded like
threats. Adults stopped what they were doing to watch the
procession arrive. Most were dressed in little more than what God
had given them at birth—the women in particular seemed to have
no truck with shirts, though some men wore chemises of Venetian
or Carolina cloth.

He tried not to stare at the women, but some were more than
passing attractive, and after a moment he realized that they
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probably did not think him rude to look, undress being their
natural state.

The large round building here was
very
large, a virtual
amphitheater. It looked as if it could hold two hundred people. In
front of it were assembled maybe two score Indians, ranging in age
from perhaps twenty-five to one old gent who might be a hundred.

“We’d better dismount here,” McPherson said. “Those fellahs
assembled over near the round house are the ones we want to talk
to. I hope you can hold your tobacco—there’s always a damn lot of
that smoked in these parleys. And we’d best get our gifts out.”

“What’s the chief’s name again, and which one is he?”

“That’s Chekilli—that fellah with the feather cape. That fellah next
to him is probably the Kashita chief—I don’t know him. The others
are likely clan headmen and chiefs of some of the smaller tribes—

like the Oconee.”

“Well enough.”

“And don’t walk straight through that square. Walk sunrise around
it. It’s a superstition of theirs.”

“Those are human scalps on the pole?” Franklin asked, just
wanting to be sure.

“Yes, indeed. Delightful custom, eh?”

“It makes one stop and think,” Franklin replied dryly.

He collected himself, trying to remember the greetings Nairne had
taught him. They froze in his throat, however, before he reached
the chiefs, along with much of the hope in his heart.

Emerging from the round house were a number of quite un-Indian
men in bright red coats and black tricorns trimmed with the white
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rose cockade. With them were four taloi, gleaming like dull, blue-gray beetles in the fierce sun.

Franklin recognized the leader at once.

“Sterne!”

The rangers were quick to react. Even before Franklin had named
the Pretender’s man, their carbines leapt to their shoulders.

McPherson had both his pistols out in the same heartbeat.

About that time some forty Coweta warriors emerged from the
cabins surrounding the square, muskets primed and cocked.

“Mr. Franklin!” Sterne called. “Delightful to see you again! I do
hope you have given the matter we discussed earlier some thought.”

“Idiot,” Franklin snarled. He did not mean Sterne—he meant
himself. He raised his voice, addressing the old man in the feather
cloak. “Chief Chekilli, I am Benjamin Franklin, the ambassador
appointed by the true government of South Carolina to speak to you
on their behalf. I come also with the authority to speak for the
Cherokee, the kingdom of the Apalachee, the margravate of Azilia,
and the true governments of all the English colonies. I hope you
will see your way clear to treat us as ambassadors in your territory,
not subject to the intimidations of our foes.” McPherson translated
that, and Sterne simply smiled as he did.

Chekilli seemed to deliberate for a long time. Then he spoke, and
McPherson in turn made it English.

“He says he didn’t ask you to come. He says he has come to an
agreement with the English king. He says the English are free with
their giving of guns and other weapons, as the colonies have not
been. He has no desire to treat with you or any other representative
of those who are advancing on their land, and especially has no love
for anyone allied to the Apalachee or the Spanish, who have spilled
much Coweta blood.”

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“What of our earlier agreement?” Franklin asked. “What of the
treaty with Emperor Brims?”

“He was another man, whose name you should not speak, for he
has traveled to the ghost country. The council has met since. The
English king will arm us against our foes. You have been stingy
with us—for fear of us, perhaps, but it is no matter. This is the
result.”

“This man has lied to you. He represents—” He struggled to
remember the words Red Shoes had used. “—
Hattak Okpolhusi.

Evil spirits.”

“That’s Choctaw, not Muskokee,” McPherson said in a low voice.

“I’ll render your meaning.”

Another pause. Franklin was beginning to understand that the
appearance of deliberation was just that—a form and manner of
speaking, a pace of argument—not a sign of indecision. The answer
seemed to bear out his hypothesis.

“I have said what I’m going to say on the matter. The council hears
all of this, and they can reconsider if they want.”

“Let us go, then. These men have no right to kill us or make us
prisoner.”

Chekilli shrugged and said something.

“Sterne claims blood debt against us,” McPherson said. “So do the
Coweta.”

“What? What have I ever done to them?”

“You? Nothin‘. That don’t matter. In their view, any Carolinian can
pay the blood debt of any other.”

Franklin drew himself as tall as he could. “We came here in good
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faith. To attack or detain us is base treachery.”

“Lay down your weapons, or die this moment,” translated
McPherson. He turned aside to Franklin. “They’ll kill us anyway.”

Franklin tightened his lips, looking around. He counted upward of
fifty guns aimed at them now, not to mention the taloi. “If we live,
there’s hope.” He sighed, at last. “Dead, we have none at all. Lay
down your weapons, boys.”

4.

Sinti Lapitta

He heard a sharp crack in the distance, as one of the lead balls
turned into an expanding sphere of flame. Instants later, another.

The reaction from the camp was instantaneous: the Mongols
swarmed like hornets whose dwelling had been shaken by boys. He
heard commands in a strange language and the hiss of arrows into
the underbrush. If the men had any guns or sorcerous weapons,
they were saving them for a foe they could see.

He and Grief began cutting tethers. The horses raised a fuss, of
course, but the scent of smoke already had them nervous, and the
general hubbub of the camp would cover the noise.

Cutting tethers was quick work. Some of the horses were hobbled,
too, and he cut them free, careful about the stamping hooves. Grief
did her own work well and quickly.

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They were almost finished when Red Shoes turned to find that
someone had discovered them—or, rather, discovered the freed
horses. The Mongol, a short, bandy-legged fellow, was staring right
through Red Shoes, who was still hidden by
hoshonti.
The Mongol
began to yell, but was interrupted when Red Shoes buried his
throwing ax in his windpipe. The Mongol gurgled and dropped.

“Let’s go,” he told Grief. He grabbed one of the horses by its
peculiar bridle and heaved himself up.

Fire was visible in the woods now, and more of the Mongols were
thinking of their horses. Red Shoes swatted several of the beasts
within reach with the flat of his ax, but they didn’t need a lot of
encouragement: the scent of the fire was doing its work.

On the other hand, it was dark, the land cluttered with
undergrowth, and the beasts first panicked aimlessly, unable to
decide on a direction, stamping in circles, crashing into each other.

The Mongols, whatever else they knew, knew horses; and despite
the confusion, more men arrived with each heartbeat. Red Shoes
kneed his stolen beast repeatedly, feeling as if he sat in the eddying
shallows of a swift-flowing stream, able to see the waters that could
take him away from his enemies but unable to reach them.

One-eyes were swarming now—not powerful spirits in and of
themselves but dangerous in numbers. Worse, they could herald
the coming of the something truly powerful. A
na lusa falaya,
such
as he had battled in Venice, or the scalped man.

Even as he thought that, he felt something large move in the
distance, a giant waking.

It was not the scalped man. It did not have the feel of a Long Black
Being. What it was, he did not want to know.

Another Mongol came near, reaching for the horse Grief was on,
though she herself was still invisible.

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Red Shoes threw his ax. It hit badly, with its blunt end—but it
struck the man in the head, and he staggered to his knees. By the
time he got back up, screaming and looking about wildly, Red
Shoes and Grief were out of the grove, tearing through thinner
brush. Now, at last, the horses had their heads and clear terrain to
run on, though the smoke from the burning hillside was so dense it
seared the lungs. The ponies dug in to run as fast as they could.

Branches slashed at Red Shoes, raking his face and bare upper
body. A couple were heavy enough to raise bruises, and one low
branch nearly unhorsed him. To his left, he could sense but not see
his companion.

“Let them go where they want,” he called to Grief. “We want—”

He felt it coming only instants before it arrived, a deadly purpose
with no form or shape. It hit Grief first, where his power was
weakest, pulling apart the cloud that bent light around her, and
then, like a dog following a scent, it moved from her to him. Grief
was visible now but alive and well; her own shadow was safe and
tight within her. Those with no power in the otherworld were only
barely susceptible to it.

Red Shoes was another story. It could not harm his body, but it
could grasp the frayed strands of his spirit and pull it apart like a
poorly made cloth, leaving him soulless but alive.

Or worse, hollow him out and wear his skin.

Which was exactly what it tried to do. It seemed to slit his skin open
in seven places, tried to flow into him like black water into a
cracked pot.