The Herald of Autumn (Echoes of the Untold Age Book 1) (6 page)

They told of labyrinths of pueblos
hidden beneath the sun-lit land. Memories of sun dances, peyote, and distant,
lost stars sang through his tale. There had been story keepers, one for each
world the people had passed through before coming to this place. Each told
Coyote of a portent, a sign that would precede the next world:

Their four voices blended as one. “We
have seen,
Sinawava,
and we shall show you our visions.”

The man was ancient, older than days.
His voice creaked like an ancient oak. “The next world will come when man
harnesses the power of the sun.”

Then, the boy, young but strangely
wise added, “It will come when one voice can cast its way across the earth.”

The woman stood behind the man with
eyes of obsidian and flame. “It will rise like blood on the horizon when man
learns to speak with light.”

Then, the bird who was also a woman
spoke. “The next world comes when he conquers sky and sea.”

Then, again, they spoke together. “We
will stand at the three doors of bone and blood when these things happen. Once
we pass through, the Next World will be upon us.”

He stopped, regarding me a long
moment. I didn’t know what he saw, but I saw terror. A long moment passed,
thrumming in the air.

“They told me more than that. They
told me that in the north, where the spirits dance in the sky, I would find one
of my answers. They told me I would find a blight that walked upon the world.”
Coyote turned his shrouded eyes to me. His hand trembled the smallest bit.

He admitted, “I found more than I wanted, Tommy. That I did.”

I felt shadows behind Coyote’s story,
whispers of things he wasn’t Telling me. That reflected his nature as a shaman
however. He wove his Tellings with such power that, once begun, he couldn’t
hide the truths that lurked in his tale. Even though he spoke little of the
next leg of his journey, I still saw it.

Painted in brilliance across my mind,
I watched as he traveled to the coast and walked beneath trees so vast that the
sky rested atop their boughs. He passed beneath slumbering titans, mountains
whose fury would cause them to rain down with fire and brimstone, destroying
all who came close.

He spoke with forgotten tribes of the
sea, nameless peoples who could read the future from wind and waves. An old
woman, Sedna, lived among them. She bid him wander further north until the cold
sliced like steel.

Finally, in the distant north, where
the ice never recedes, I saw him seeking the spirits in the sky.

They were wondrous to behold.

They burned like cold fire in the sky
with greens, violets, and deep blues that rippled and cascaded above the
mountains. Coyote sought them, but he could never approach them. Like a
rainbow, they remained ever out of his reach. He wandered for meandering days
with no rest and no food, having only the fire he had stolen from the sun to
warm him.

“I didn’ quite understand what a
puzzle it would be to catch them.” He grinned at me. “I was the Old Man, after
all! I could talk the moon into bed if I wished.” He winked. “Surely, I would
be able to catch them while they danced in the sky!”

But it was not as simple as that. For
three days and three nights, he wandered in the most distant, cold wastes and
never reached them. I felt the cold wind slowly eating the flesh from my bones.
In this land of cold and ever-darkness, hope grew distant.

“Finally, upon the third night, I
seen an old, abandoned lodge hidden against the mountain. I was so cold that my
fur had frozen, so cold that I couldn’t speak without my words becoming ice.”

I trembled from the cold. Each breath
brought the torment of ice burning my lungs. When I reached for the door of the
old lodge, I feared my hand would freeze to the handle.

Inside, I found glorious firelight
and brilliance.

I fell, the heat washing over me in
waves of soothing welcome. I felt hands pull me to my feet, and the door was
shut behind me.

Who was here? The lodge had seemed
abandoned!

I had no time to get the answer to my
question. The
—

“The people helpin’ me weren’t quite
people at all, but I didn’ know that, not then.” He grinned ruefully. “Didn’
matter who they were, all that mattered was warmth. I didn’ right ken how close
I came to freezin’ to death, but they took me. Fed me. Made me warm.”

Not at first, however. No. I slipped
into sleep, the first true sleep I’d had for eternal days. It was a deep sleep,
a dreamless sleep of warmth and darkness. I know they woke me, know they gave
me food, but I don’t remember it. My mind had slipped close to the gates of
death, and I still wasn’t quite right.

I lost a few days
—

“I don’ know how many days I lay in
their lodge, not-dreamin’, sunk into sleep. I only know that when I finally
woke, a woman sat with me.” He grinned. “Most beautiful woman I done seen, boy.
I know yeh fair folke prize beauty, but I ain’t ever seen a woman like this
one.”

She was fair and more than fair. Her
skin held the rippling blue and green of the fire in the sky, and her eyes
beckoned, large and deep.

“You return to us.” She wiped my
brow. “We worried for you, Illarri. We thought you might pass beyond.”

“I did the only thing a man
should
do when he’s back from the dead and next to a pretty girl.”

Her lips felt cool, not cold. She
trembled against me, but while I was daring, I did not push or force. Then, her
arms wrapped around me. She pushed herself against me, nubile, her skin
flushed. She
—

“Let’s leave off that bit, O Herald.”
His grin turned mocking. “I wager yeh understand jes’ fine.”

The dancing folke had watched as
Coyote-Illari had sought them, casting prayers into the sky and beseeching them
to share their wisdom with him. Yet they could not.

“We are the spirits of the last
world, Illari. Our place is not upon your soil. We could not have come to you,
no matter how we wished it. This is why we brought you to us.”

“Their lodge wasn’t exactly like any
other place yeh’d seen, Tommy. It’s not quite
in
the world.” He smirked.
“But, as yeh can see, it doesn’t lack for comfort.”

My eyes grew wide. “This? This is the
lodge of the dancing folke?”

He shrugged, the image of
nonchalance. “Not exactly. The river doesn’t belong to a man, but he may
understand how it is used. This place, that place, they are the same, in a way.
The dancing folk have endless numbers of doors, and once I understood the knack
of it, I did as well.”

I thought about the way he had opened
the door into his lodge, how the door itself turned somehow sideways to the
world.

Coyote truly was a man of secrets.

“They feasted me for three days and
three nights. We drank a musty beer-brew that was fermented berries and
reindeer piss. It was awful.”

I knew he wasn’t lying. Siberian
shamans drank urine from reindeer as well. The animals ate plants, which gave
visions, and passed the gift to the wonderworkers who were bold enough to taste
it.

On the third night, after I had
spoken with remnants of the world before, the youngest of the dancing folke
came to me. She was as beautiful as any of them, and naked as night, but she
wasn’t here for play.

“Illari.” I could see the wonder in
her, the innocence. “Would you have me show you what you are seeking?”

I didn’t exactly feel ready. I was
full-stomached and half drunk on berries and reindeer water. But there was no
denying what I was there to do. Every crossroads on my journey had pointed me
this way.

“I am.” I looked her in the eye
—

“I looked her square in the face,
Tommy.” Coyote visibly paled, just a touch, as if the mere memory were
haunting. “I told I her was as ready as I would ever be.”

“But what do you say?” I could feel
terror capering at the edge of her and knew the answer before she spoke. It was
the first time I ever saw fear in any of the dancing folke.

“No, Illari. No one is ready for what
comes.”

“Now, like I said, their lodge—”

Their lodge was doors within doors
within doors. The dancing woman
—
Ses’kia
—
led me through many of them, opening
into times and places of wondrous mysteries. I do not have words for all the
strange things I saw. The final door led out of a small building, in the middle
of a tiny town, lost in the vast cold nowhere.

“Quiet.” She held me hand, pulling me
forward.

“What are we looking for?” I was
still a touch drunk, befuddled and confused from the journey.

“Nothing.” Her eyes grew sad. “We are
looking for blighted nothingness, darkness that walks.”

At her words, I couldn’t help but
think of the not-fetch. In the middle of Coyote’s Telling, my thought added to
it, swirling the not-fetch into his tale, for the briefest of moments.

…broken, hollow, and mad.

It screamed. The sound was rage and
fire and rusted blood. Its fingers ended in talons from another age. Its arms,
slender gangles, each had two elbows.

Its empty eyes wept blood and bile.

“Yes.” His ancient, wise eyes locked
onto mine. “You ken it now. You see where it all goes.”

“There are more of them?” Then,
immediately after, “What are they?”

He held up a single finger. “You will
know all that I know, Tommy. Sit on yer dinner and listen.”

We wound our way through the shadows
of the small town, avoiding being seen. I could feel the wrongness, taste it on
the wind. The people wandering about didn’t seem to realize they were dying.
The blight had sunken deep inside them with strong roots, slowly driving them
mad.

“What’s wrong with them?” I should
have whispered but did not. “Can’t they
feel
? Don’t they know?”

“The blight takes root behind the
poetry in their hearts.” Her voice despaired. “The very part of them that could
find the wrongness of it all is silenced first. From there, they rot from
within.”

The darkness tainted most of the
townspeople. It manifested in a thousand tiny cruelties. Discomforts flared
into anger, and love gave way to selfishness.

The darkness fed upon their glamour.

“As yeh must know, these creatures
feed upon a person’s Medicine. Everywhere I looked, I saw the people slowly
dyin’. We walked among the town until all were abed, until the town was empty.”
He gave me a dark look. “That’s when we saw it. Saw
her.”

Rail thin, she looked like nothing
but skin stretched over dry bones. Her hair was withered, falling out in
clumps. Her arms reached for me, awkward and spindly, and her eyes bled madness
and despair.

I feared as she roared at me. It was
exactly as it had been at Jillian’s tree. She sensed me, somehow. She hungered
for my Medicine. She felt me, even as the dancer-woman and I watched from
hiding.

She skittered toward me like an
insect, moving in strange jerks and twitches. In moments, she was on us,
tearing at me with those strange claws.

“I wasn’t afraid
enough
,
Tommy. That was my problem. But why should I have been? I, who stood on the
front lines as yer kind arrived from across the sea. I, who fought the
Thunderbird with nothing more than trickery and words.” He paused to evaluate
my reaction. “Why should I have been afraid?”

“I wasn’t afraid either.” My voice
sounded hollow. “I thought it posed little enough danger; I was so much quicker
than it was.”

“There’s nothing more dangerous to
our kind, Herald.” His grey eyes peered through me. “We are what they consume.”

I was there, in the cold street, with
Ses’kia. The creature lunged toward us, as if it had somehow scented us on the
wind. I tried to push the dancer behind me, even as she was trying to drag me
away.

“You cannot, Illari. She is too
strong.” She begged with tears in her eyes.

I would not listen. I was a fool.

I brought forth my spear, constructed
of stories and songs. I called to my armor, woven of little more than secrets
and whispered words. With the kind of bravery held by children and the mad, I
strode forward to meet the woman.

(To meet the Wendigo)

“The Wendigo.” I was stunned, feeling
the word hidden behind Coyote’s story. “Is that what they are? Wendigo?”

He shook his head. “Thought so m’self
for a time. They fit the mold well enough. Wendigo is a ravenous spirit, a
cannibal. At the time, I thought to myself that ‘ravenous’ was a perfect
description for the half-starved creature.” He watched the dancing fire.
“Hungry it was, but Wendigo it was not.” He drew a long breath. “Ses’kia’s folk
called them ‘Shaediin.’”

Her strength was incredible.
Everything I threw against her, she drank into herself. The shine of my spear
darkened whenever I struck her. My armor rotted where she grasped at me with
talons of darkness and cold.

The pain outshone anything I could
have imagined.

She was the emptiness, the rot that
was at the core of every man, woman, and child in the town.

“Illari!” Ses’kia’s voice pleaded.
“You cannot defeat her. Not here and now!”

I was stubborn, however. Though my
attacks fell to naught against her, I defended against her strikes. We sparred
our way around the town, with her empty, hollow cries boring into the shadows
of my mind.

She toyed with me like the Jaguar
with her prey. Soon, her cries began driving into my mind, splinter after
splinter of pain and madness. I could feel the nothingness that she was begin
to take root. The very sound of her wail grasped inside me with cold fingers
and tore at my heart.

The fire in my spear dimmed even more.

“Illari!” Ses’kia panicked.

So did I.

A strange, hollow, sucking noise
tumbled from her gaping mouth, I fought to pull away from her. I could not, as
if I were somehow held.

She drank, and horror washed over me.

I felt myself
diminish
. She
drank from me stories of old, taking memory, Medicine, and secrets only I knew.
She ripped them from my mind and heart, and they screamed like living things as
she took them. They sank claws into me, clinging as she pulled, as if they
could hold fast onto me and not be taken.

I cannot even give name to the things
I forgot.

I staggered, awed by the strength of
her pull, by the draw of the hollow emptiness within her. I felt fear. I felt
fear the likes of which I had never known.

I had no doubt. This woman-thing
could kill me. Could gorge on everything I was and be hungry for more.

“Illari!” Ses’kia hefted my spear in
her hand though I hadn’t even known I had dropped it. She swung with all she
had and struck the side of the ravenous woman’s head.

Her soundless screams clawed through
my mind. They echoed through all of the worlds that were and ever could be.

She was hurt. Hurt, but nowhere near
slain.

I knew the sound wasn’t
real
; it was something from the
dreaming-lands, not quite true. Her mouth actually gasped, an inhale made all
the more horrifying by its quiet wheeze.

We had a moment then. The creature
reeled from the strike. She wasn’t dead, not by a long stride. I had no doubt
now that, whatever I hurled at her, she would take into herself. She drank
Medicine and could easily devour Ses’kia and me both.

A long moment passed where the Old
Man fell silent. The fire’s orange light danced deep within his grey eyes. When
he turned back to me, he only had two words to say, words woven with shame and
fear that cut like the winter wind.

“We ran.”