Anasazi Exile. Eric G. Swedin

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СКАЧАТЬ “The witch got away.”

      The Center Place, 236th Year of the Master

      The sun had almost reached its highest point in the sky, during this, the longest day of the year. Kartvi lay prostrate on the ground, his nostrils filled with the scent of sand. Three days he had fasted and prayed—his empty stomach craved food, his mouth felt as dry as the sand, and his skin felt hot and brittle. He mumbled the prayer again, searching for the strength from the old gods to do what he must do. Kartvi worshiped the old gods, not the Master.

      The old gods lived in the lower world. They had made the animals out of clay, molding them with their hands. The world of darkness had only animals in it until Spider Woman created all the peoples of the Earth out of clay, a man and woman for each tribe, molding them with her own hands, and teaching them their own languages. Then the Two Brothers led the animals and people to this land of desert and sky, the Fourth World, and the People spread across the land, planting corn and making families.

      Death also came into the Fourth World and the people knew sorrow. The dead went to a new world, except those that stayed as ghosts, too miserable to find their way to happiness. The people honored the old gods, giving them the worship and honor that was their due; then came the Master.

      The Master was a god on Earth, more cunning than any of the old gods, stronger than any man, able to run faster and further than any youth, who saw things in the distance with the eyes of a hawk, and possessed the hearing of a coyote. He was older than the grandparents of the grandparents of any of the People. By his command, the palaces of the canyon had been built, some of them hundreds of rooms large. Few people lived in the palaces. Most of the People lived in huts of sticks and mud and spent their lives laying stone upon stone to build the palaces.

      The Master loved to honor Death. He led his own people on raids against the surrounding villages. The slaves he captured worked until their hands and backs were raw and broken, and then they were sacrificed as food. The Master called it man corn. Kartvi had eaten this flesh, ignoring his stomach’s objections at such obscene meat, and prayed that the old gods had not noticed, or that they would welcome him even if they had.

      The Master often challenged Death to a personal dance. Even Kartvi had seen the Master cut into his own arms and stretch them out above his head, the blood flowing down his arms and staining the feathers of his cloak. Before the astonished eyes of his worshipers, the wounds closed themselves. No man could do that and no stories of the old gods told of such powers. That is why the people obeyed him, built palaces of stone and roads that ran for days to connect the palaces, and willingly offered themselves up for sacrifice.

      The old gods did not ask for sacrifices. The old gods promised a better place for those who died with honor. The Master offered no such salvation—just work—and the opportunity to worship him.

      Last winter both of Kartvi’s sisters had been taken to serve the Master. His sisters, the prettiest girls in the entire village, full of life and laughter, had died worshiping the Master. No one knew what had happened to their bones, so his mother had lain down and refused to eat. Her grief drove her into the embrace of Death.

      Only Kartvi was left; only he could make it right. He and the old gods.

      Finishing his last prayer, he pushed himself up from the ground. He drank water from a pot that his mother had made with her own hands, choking as the fluid stung his parched throat. Fresh squash and dried venison made his last meal.

      From beyond the bluff, he heard the call to worship.

      Kartvi crawled to the lip of the hill. Below him sprawled the Palace of the Master, with a large plaza beyond. Thousands of people from all the palaces and from the villages in the canyon were assembled in the plaza, dancing and chanting, making the air throb with power, asking the Master to honor them with his presence. Over and over, “Master, Master, Master...” The sound was amplified by several muscular youths working on foot drums, like those traditionally found only in kivas, tapping in time with the words.

      The Master had not made his appearance yet. Even though his own village was three days’ walk away, Kartvi had been to two of these celebrations and knew that the Master only emerged when the crowd was completely soaked in sweat from their dancing and their voices grown ragged from the chanting.

      Finishing the last of the water, Kartvi pulled on his sandals, slipped a knife into his belt, and picked up two spears. He was the best hunter in his village and had even taken down a buffalo and a cougar. The white streaks of scars along his rib cage reminded him that a trapped cougar is dangerous prey. But today’s quarry was the most dangerous yet.

      Picking his way down the hillside, he approached the rear of the palace. The curved wall of the building before him reached up five stories. Normally someone would be around at this time of day, even if just children playing. As he had expected, there was no one nearby. Picking up a log that he had placed behind a bush a month earlier, Kartvi placed it against the wall so that it reached a narrow second-story window.

      Juggling his spears, he shimmied up the log, tossed the spears into the room beyond, and wiggled in behind them. The room held baskets of corn. One spear had ripped open a basket, spilling ears of corn onto the rough wooden floor.

      Kartvi listened for a moment, finding only silence beneath the throbbing of the chanting. No hanging covered the door to this room. The room beyond it was dark and smelled of old wood smoke. Using the same skill that helped him remember the intricate twists of thousands of game trials, he had memorized the maze of the palace and its hundreds of rooms. Of course, the group of rooms and great kiva that the Master used for his personal quarters were unknown to Kartvi, and to all but the most precious servants. Those servants and the other members of the household were now out among the chanting crowd, leaving the palace empty.

      Counting the doorways in other rooms with his hand, Karvi moved deeper into the palace, feeling his way in the dark. Sometimes faint light filtered down from ventilation holes set high in the walls to let out smoke, but that was all. Everyone knew that the Master could see in the dark.

      He came to the sixth room and crept inside, where an opening in the wall led to a ladder. He climbed slowly, careful to not bang the hafts of his spears against the ladder. The room above was filled with pottery received as tribute. Kartvi did not need more light to know that these pots were the finest that the people could produce, with the most vivid colors. His mother always had devoted the most lavish care to those pots that she knew would be sent to the palaces.

      The Master disdained the use of guards; tales of his ferocious ability to defend himself kept potential assassins away. A completely empty palace on this holy day only showed how powerful he truly was.

      Karvi passed through dozens of more rooms, some with only two doorways, others with three or four doors—a trail more obtuse than any animal had ever left—and climbed two ladders, one up and one down, before he finally reached a corridor. The soft stone of the floor was well worn from many sandals. The end of the corridor led outside to a large balcony overlooking the plaza; the bright sunlight caused Kartvi to blink rapidly. The chant thundered in the corridor, as if the sound was being channeled down towards the Master’s chambers.

      Moving quickly down the corridor, concerned that his timing might be off, Kartvi stopped a bare dozen paces before its end. The walls here were no longer dressed sandstone, but covered from floor to ceiling with hangings, woven from yucca plants and painted with bright colors. The Master dominated each picture, showing him at repose, at war, slaying his enemies, feasting on them, receiving the worship of the people, taking their daughters as temporary wives to be cast aside and slain.

      Removing his sandals, Kartvi concealed them behind a hanging. He then approached the СКАЧАТЬ