Ghostcountry's Wrath (7 page)

Calvin's reply was no more than a whisper. “It was.”

Uki's eyes flashed fire.
“Was it then
you
who by this showed the men of the Lying World things they should not have seen and let them know things it is not good for Galunlati that they know?”

Calvin could not reply. It was true. All of it, the bad with the good—and almost as much bad as good. Indeed, had he not overstepped his bounds the first time, though for a good cause, none of the rest would have happened.

“Was it?”
Uki demanded?

“It was. I…wish it wasn't—but it's true.”

Uki did not continue, but Calvin saw him exchange glances first with the Red Man, then with the Blue and Black.

“Well,” he said at last, “whatever errors you have made, you are nevertheless a great warrior, and by a warrior's name should you be known. Therefore, you shall bear the name—”

“
—Nunda-unali'i:
Friend-of-the-Sun!” Asgaya Gi-gagei interrupted. “This shall you be called in Galunlati!”

“
—Utlunta-dehi:
He-Killed-Spearfinger!” Uki countered. “That shall be his name in the Lying World!”

“And may warriors in both Lands hear that name with dread!”

And as one Asgaya Gigagei and Asgaya Tsunega strode down from their mounds and caught Calvin between them. Each presented an atasi, one red, one white. Each clapped him on the back.

—Whereupon he realized why David had flinched and Alec had cried out, for that touch bit into his flesh like the hottest fire or the coldest ice. It was like being branded, or stung by hornets, or pressed by sub-zero metal. But as quickly as it came it vanished, leaving an itchy tingle.

“Iaaaii!”
Uki and Asgaya Gigagei whooped as one.

“Iaaaii!”
Calvin echoed. “Know, all of Galunlati, that I am Nunda-unali'i and likewise that I am Utlunta-dehi!”

“And that you are all great warriors!” the chiefs of the Quarters roared together.

So what happens now?
Calvin wondered, as he watched Uki return to the top of his mound. By tradition there ought to be celebrating: singing, dancing…feasting—certainly that, after a day-long fast.

And perhaps there would be, for the drumming commenced again, and this time he saw who did it. There at the limits of the square ground a host of shadowy figures stood, each no taller than his waist, each dark-skinned and black-haired, clad in skins and feathers. Mostly he saw bright eyes and the flash and flicker of hands that beat with uncanny speed upon small drums.

“Iaaai!”
came matching female whoops behind him, and Calvin turned to see Sandy and Liz rushing toward them to gift them first with hugs, then kisses.

“Yuk,” Liz grunted, as she released David abruptly. “You're all—”

“—greasy,” David finished with a laugh. “It's—”

“Warriors!” a shout broke in, from the South. Calvin looked up from smooching Sandy to see Uki once more at the top of his mound. “Warriors! Hear me! Tradition demands we celebrate.
Tradition
demands we feast; it demands we dance and sing, smoke and drink the White Drink! And yet that cannot be!”

“Warriors!” cried Asgaya Gigagei, from the East: “Many fine deeds have you accomplished, and much have you done to be admired. Yet these things have not always served Galunlati; some have threatened it! And this is
not
cause for celebration!”

“Warriors,” echoed Asgaya Sakani in the North. “Gifts we have given you, as was your right. Yet gifts we withhold as well, and the chiefmost gifts we withhold are twofold. The first is that for a year you are all forbidden to come to Galunlati. If during that time you act as warriors and honor the trust we have given you by bringing you here, we will call you here again for the celebration that is due.

“And,” he went on, “the second thing we withhold is our involvement in your affairs. You have all been gifted—some would say cursed—with knowledge few in your Land possess. Edahi, you in particular have access to arts none of your kind can claim—which you have used more than you should. That knowledge, and that power, could do great damage should they fall into unwise hands—of which there are very many in the Lying World. You must be accountable for both—without recourse to Lands beyond your own.”

“Know therefore, Edahi,” the Red Man took up again, “that you must be much more careful how and to whom and of what kind you make promises. Know that you must be lord of your own mind and acts, and accountable for your own thoughts and deeds.”

“And know, most particularly,” Uki continued, “that the gift I made you of the scale of the great uktena, by which you are able to shift your shape, may not be used indefinitely. It permits but a certain number of changes, and none can know that number. Be warned, then, that if you continue to put on the shape of beasts, you may find yourself one forever.”

“Therefore, warriors,” came a final voice, though not a shout but a whisper: the whisper of the Black Man of the West. “Therefore, I say, we send you from our fire laden with gifts, but hungry; though with hope you will return in triumph.”

“And therefore,” shouted all four at once, as they raised their hands above their heads, “we bid you good fortune, and bid you—”

“—BE GONE!”

Or those were the words Calvin thought he caught the beginning of before four bolts of lightning sent them first into brightness, then into blindness, deafness, and pain, and then oblivion.

*

The sun was setting when they awoke, sprawled on the ground now, but once more facing the outcrop behind David Sullivan's barn. All still wore the garments of Galunlati, and the boys still clutched their new weapons.Their mundane clothing was with them, too, down to Sandy's watch and Alec's earring.

Of the effigy of David that had strode from the rock face the only sign was a pile of pebbles mixed with sand.

“I'm…hungry,” Alec gasped nervously as he found his way to his feet. “I wonder if there's anything left from the reception.”

“I wonder if Darrell's sober yet,” a very pale David added.

“And I wonder how long we've been gone,” Liz inserted with a shiver.

“A couple of hours, looks like,” Sandy managed, glancing at the sun. “And me…well, I just wonder.”

Calvin was silent, but thoughtful, as he fingered his uktena scale.

They changed clothes in the barn.

They ate very well that night.

And a year passed marked by nothing stranger than growing up.

PART TWO

Shadowed Warrior

Chapter IV: Divination

(east of Whidden, Georgia—Thursday, June 14—11:35 P.M.)

Don Scott wondered which he was going to run out of first: endurance, nerve, or blood.

The latter, at present, seemed most likely, as he paused in the moonlit forest trail to slap his cheeks and forearms for the third time in as many minutes. He supposed he'd learn one day that the 'skeeters in his neck of the south Georgia woods considered his own special blend of O-positive the equivalent of an inch-thick sirloin from McDevitt's Grille down in Whidden. Or, more accurately, like that grade-A 'shine old man Gilmore ran off in his still out in the swamp—the stuff his latest stepdad, Robert Richards, had let him sample exactly once, the day he'd turned fifteen.

But why in the world did they have to choose him? He was just a skinny burr-haired kid, shorter than most of the guys in the ninth grade at Whidden High, and nothing special any other way except that his little sister's friends said he had great eyelashes.

Make that his
late
little sister, he amended, as a lump rose in his throat. She'd been dead four days shy of a year now, Allison had, and—

No!
He couldn't deal with that—not now, not here. Awful though his sister's death had been, horrible as the ensuing week had become, a far worse thing had happened to him that night—something so terrible he refused to even think about it until he had no choice but to think about it, which he wouldn't let himself do until time and place were perfect.

So
terrible it had made him sneak out of his mom's rural ranch house in the middle of the night to try to set it straight.

If nerves and fatigue didn't get him first.

Actually, he wasn't much worried about the latter. Or wouldn't have been except that for the last month or so he'd been having trouble sleeping, and felt tired and yawny all the time. His mom had noticed it, of course, and had doubled his dose of vitamins and threatened to take him to the doctor if he didn't perk up—which he hadn't. It wasn't that he felt bad, though, more that he simply didn't
feel.
It was as if he was in a fog all the time, and more than once he'd found himself having to concentrate to answer even the simplest questions, as though speaking was no longer pure reflex. Anxiety, one of his mom's friends had opined. Stress. Nerves. Yeah, sure.

Whatever it was, the effect was that a fairly short trek through the woods to Iodine Creek was making him as tired as an all-day Boy Scout hike. He was even
panting,
dammit! (Sweating went without saying, in south Georgia in the summer). And this route had never made him do that.

Maybe it
was
nerves. Maybe it was the fact that if he relaxed control even a fraction he could easily scare himself silly.

God knew the woods were enough to accomplish that by themselves. Oh, sure he'd lived in them all his life, had trod every deer trail and logging road for five miles roundabout, and camped by every creek and river. But tonight it all seemed different. Perhaps it was the moon: impossibly heavy and yellow, and so bright he could read the Nike logo on his sneakers without bending over, and pick out Dexter Holland on his red Offspring T-shirt without squinting. Or possibly it was the breeze—steady in spite of the tangle of palmettos, deer berries, and thorny wait-a-minute vines that grew so close among the sprawling live oaks they came close to walling in the trail. Certainly that was part of it, because even the slightest stirring of the air made the tendrils of Spanish moss that festooned every limb and twig sway like the ghosts of the Yamasee Indians who'd lived here until they'd walked into the Okefenokee and disappeared, or the Spanish soldiers who'd died at Bloody Marsh a couple of counties over.

Unfortunately, he very much feared that…
difference
was because it was close to the anniversary of
that
night, and perhaps because
this
night knew he was going to attempt some magic.

But he wouldn't think about that either—until he got to
that
place. If he thought about it—destination or intention, either—he might chicken out and have to spend another day getting re-psyched, never mind having to sneak out all over again.

Sighing, Don gave his arms and neck a final quick swatting, added his bare legs for good measure, then resettled his backpack and started off once more. Fortunately, the trail was straight here, and wide enough for the moonlight to reach the ground, so he decided to jog. Maybe it'd help burn off his case of nerves; perhaps if he focused on his pulse, his breathing, and the pounding of his feet on the sandy soil, he could forget.

And for five minutes actually managed to. Which, unhappily, only hastened his arrival—and then he
had
to recall.

He paused to catch his breath and steel himself one last time. Iodine Creek lay ahead. He could already smell its brackish, tannin-dark waters, and now caught the faintest glimpse of its surface glittering among the cattails along the farther bank. Between him and the nearer shore was only a thin screen of palmettos and a pair of live oaks that framed the trail like a gateway. He hesitated there, feeling the soil soft as flour beneath his sneaks. Once again a lump rose in his throat, even as a chill danced across his body—for his subconscious had already reacted to what his eyes only then acknowledged.

It was still there—sort of—between the right-hand oak and one of its water-bound kin: the lean-to he and his best friend, Michael Chadwick, had built two summers back so they could camp out all night and not be rained on.

The one where they'd talked about school and parents and sex, where they'd wrestled and had tickle fights and compared hard-ons and drunk stolen beer on the sly, where they'd discussed forestry school and video games and CD's and
Dungeons and Dragons
and which girls of their acquaintance were most likely to relieve them of their troublesome virginity.

The lean-to where Michael had died.

No!
Don corrected.
Where he'd watched Mike be murdered.

Almost he bolted at that, for the memory pounced upon him with the stealth of one of the panthers that were supposed to be extinct in Georgia and were not. Shoot, if he squinted a little, he could still see it! That pile of palmetto bayonets could easily be old Mike in his sleeping bag. And that broken branch lodged beside the shelter could almost be
her:
that old witch his friend Calvin had called Spearfinger, who had lulled him into paralysis with that eerie song of hers, holding him thus immobile while she calmly stuck her preposterously long finger into Mike's side and with casual deliberation slowly picked out his liver a tidbit at a time and ate it raw. Mike had never awakened from that. And though Calvin had killed Spearfinger a day later, Don had never truly awakened from it either.