Zadayi Red (33 page)

“He didn’t say. If an old man’s eyes can see, though, he loves you.”

“He should have come to me.”

“Then his mission would have failed. Do you love him?”

Among the Galayi this was a question not ordinarily asked—too close to saying, “Are you crazy?”

“We are passionate for each other. If we have to live in another village, we will. If we have to live in a cave, we will. If he dies, I will throw my life away like a dirty rag.”

Awahi looked at her in fascination. He had not seen a Moon Woman since he was a teenager. That one was a queer old woman with only dogs for companions. Awahi never found out what happened to the man she loved or why she had no family then.

His mother told him that was what love did to you. To Awahi Jemel didn’t seem full of love—more like a buoyant ferocity.

He felt a pang of compassion for her, and great curiosity. “I don’t know what else to tell you, my dear.”

“Where has he gone? When will he come back?”

“I must not speak of his mission. I’m afraid. Today Inaj sent Zanda on Zeya’s trail, to kill him. I hope he survives.”

Jemel felt a stab of fear. Zeya . . . Then she wanted to throw mocking words, but she pulled herself back.
Hope he survives
.
Ridiculous. It made her blood shriek against living like other people.

A-a-a-ark!

Her head shot upward. It was only a buzzard, but they never called out. Then she saw. Something big swung from his talons, swung by its . . . hair. She squelched an awful thought.

The buzzard flapped straight across the village common and dropped whatever it was carrying in the middle. It bounced three times and rolled to a stop.

She sprinted toward it. Somehow she kept from screaming, but dread gushed from her fingertips to her toes.

A head, yes, it was. She fell to her knees and threw up.

Someone ran up beside her and lifted the head by its hair.

The most horrible cry she’d ever heard fought its way out of Inaj’s throat, colored by every ugliness in the world.

Dangling from his hand, the head circled slowly. When it turned its face to Jemel, she saw it was Zanda.

Jemel’s eyes danced with elation. Inaj’s blazed with rage. They loathed each other.

Z
eya was exhausted. He’d been walking for two weeks, and a lot of the time he’d been running. He hadn’t stopped to hunt but had only eaten what berries, nuts, and roots he found. Worse, he’d slept badly. The faces of the men he’d killed floated through his dreams. Though they seemed stoic, their eyes glinted dark with evil. Their lips, floating disembodied, told him at great length how they or their clansmen would take revenge. Zeya heard the words but didn’t understand them.

When he woke up in the morning, he said to himself,
That’s all childish nonsense.
He didn’t need to do anything but hurry to give the feathers to Tsola. If he needed protection, Su-Li would provide it.

But he was never easy, ever weary.

He stood on a high ridge and looked across a wide valley at the Emerald Peak. He was west of the mountain and further west of the Cheowa village at the mouth of the creek. In fact, he was on Thano hunting grounds. He thought,
Dangerous for any Galayi, but not as dangerous as being among my own people.

He was sure that Inaj was having the trail to the Healing Pool and Emerald Cave watched. More murderers.

“Does coming from the back side eliminate the danger?”

Though it wasn’t really meant as a question, Su-Li shook his head no.

“So how do we get there alive?”

He had discovered over the last couple of moons that many times the best thing to do was nothing. Sit and think. Maybe an idea would come to him. Maybe he would see something. He wanted to get closer to do his watching and thinking.

“My friend, would you see if it’s safe to go down this mountain and across into the woods?”

Su-Li raised his wings to lift off.

“Find a cave for to night,” Zeya said. They’d reached an accommodation. Zeya slept every night in a cave, and Su-Li slept in a snag overlooking the entrance.

Su-Li glided downhill.

“I’d be dead without you,” Zeya said to the buzzard’s tail.

This time Zeya wasn’t dreaming the faces of assassins. He was sitting and playing cat’s cradle with Jemel in front of her parent’s house. She laughed when he said something funny, but laughed kind of wildly. Once in a while she would glance off toward the trees. Zeya swallowed hard. One of her lovers was there, he knew that, waiting in the woods for him to go away so he could . . .

Then he realized.

He shushed her.

When they were absolutely silent, he could hear . . .

Whispers!

Whispers? He came half awake. He couldn’t make out . . .

A hand clapped onto his mouth.

His blood rushed. He twisted, broke free, and took a blind swing at the darkness.

“Hold your tongue!” said the low voice.

He swung again.

A hand seized his arm. “Quiet!”

He recognized that voice . . .

“It’s me, Paya. Mind the noise.”

Paya
?

A hand pushed around in the embers of his fire. A twig burst into flame. By its light he could see . . . Paya.

“I thought you were . . .”

The hand clapped back over his mouth.

“Shut up,” Paya said in a wheeze. “We’ve got to get away from here. They’re lying in wait for you outside.”

“Su-Li would see them.”

“Not asleep, he won’t. Let’s go.”

“We’re trapped!”

“Not hardly. There’s a little passage back here. You never learn, and neither do they.”

The passage turned out to be tiny. Zeya had to shove his two bags ahead and slither through on his belly.

Beyond the squeeze and around a corner, Paya lit a torch. They walked and crawled for a long time, waded for a while, and came to one of Paya’s small camps, this one on the bank of an underground stream.

“Want to eat?”

Zeya put an arm around the Crab Man’s shoulders and embraced him. He guessed no one had done that in twenty winters.

“Want to eat? Paya thrust dried meat before Zeya’s eyes. He could see embarrassment on the Crab Man’s face. He took the meat and chomped on it greedily.

“You want the story,” said Paya. Pride filled his voice. “Ain’t hardly no story. I knew a way out. At the bottom of that pool, yes, a way out.”

Zeya shook his head in amazement.

“You mighta guessed that Paya knows every crack and
crevice of this cave. I found that passage, it’s underwater, I found it before. You can feel the water moving and follow it. The other fella, he didn’t feel it, he laid there and died.”

“You swam out the bottom?”

“Yeah, Paya did. And that other fella, if he’d been able to see me or known any way at all, he’d a still laid there and died. Scared to swim down into the blackness, most people. Yes, they are, scared.”

“You’re a good man.”

He’d never seen Paya smile so big.

“How’d you find me?” asked Zeya.

“That was easy. The Seer, she’s expecting you about now, and she looked and looked. That one, she can see every bit of the Emerald Cavern in her mind. You and me, we have to go looking and find each nook and cranny. But not that one. She can see every little piece of it. She told me where you was and to come get you.”

“So we’re in the Emerald Cavern.”

“For certain. This un hardly ever leaves it.”

Zeya resisted hugging him again.

“I saved you, I did done.”

Y
ou have days and days to sleep,” said Tsola. “I’m very excited now.”

She shook him lightly again. Zeya sat up, blinking. She actually kissed his cheek.

“Magnificent,” the Seer said. “Zeya, what you’ve done is magnificent. I see you’ve turned your
zadayi
red side out.”

He gave half a smile. The
zadayi
was an accident. He wondered
if she’d thought he couldn’t bring it off. He wondered if she knew how close he’d come to failing.

The panther got up, padded closer, and curled up next to his mother. Su-Li came along for the ride, rocking up and down on the panther’s shoulders. Apparently, the magical animals were friends.

Zeya gave Klandagi a sour look. “Panther disguised as a nice elderly gentleman, you threw me into the fire.”

“I am a nice elderly gentleman,” Klandagi said in a river-rapids roar, “and that was a good deed.”

Su-Li croaked. Zeya wondered whether the buzzard was saying, “Right!” or “You don’t know how many times this fellow almost messed it up.”

“Su-Li told me what happened,” Tsola said, “and I told Klandagi and Paya.” The Crab Man smiled and lowered his head, embarrassed.

Zeya was glad he didn’t have to go over the story—every bit of him was worn out, even his tongue.

“Have you guessed what’s next?”

“Too tired. My brain’s not working.”

“Then take this thought to the land of dreams with you. You will travel to the Land beyond the Sky Arch and present the feathers to Thunderbird. With them he will make a new cape for the Galayi people.”

“Whatever you say.” Zeya got a pallet, laid it near the fire, and rolled up.

His last glimmer of consciousness was a wish. He’d rather go to see Jemel than travel to the Land beyond the Sky Arch.

Zeya couldn’t tell whether he slept for days and days—how could anyone know, deep in a cave? He sat up and looked around by the faint light of the fire. He did feel rested, even restless.

“Hello, Son.”

It was his mother.

He grabbed her and hugged her.

“A-a-a-ark!”

Zeya laughed. He’d nearly knocked Su-Li off Sunoya’s shoulder in his enthusiasm. “I apologize, Sir Spirit Buzzard.”

“A-a-a-ark!”

He held his mother at arm’s length and looked at her face. It was furrowed and shriveled. She looked ten winters older.

“Mom, what’s happened to you?”