“Nanabozho,” Mildred echoed. “Isn’t that the time of the Algonquian trickster and cultural hero?”
Joe shrugged. “I believe so. Myth is woven so tightly around the cavern, it’s almost impossible to untangle truth from legend. The primal energy of creation is believed to still pulse deep within the heart of the cavern, and the Guardian is the warden of the vast powers.”
“Who is the current holder of that title?” Ryan asked.
Joe’s face darkened a bit with anger and sorrow. “That is the cause of this conflict, Ochinee. The last Guardian was a shaman named Towasi. I was his student. He had no son, so I proved myself worthy of his mantle by going out into the world and destroying all the remains of the predark evil. I was on that path when you met me. When I returned to Ti-Ra’-Wa, I learned that Towasi had died, without officially passing on his knowledge or title.”
“You said he had no son,” Krysty said. “He had no other children?”
“One. You met her, Ochinee, that night in Amicus.”
“Sisoka?”
Joe nodded grimly. “She has no more knowledge of how to enter the cavern safely and manipulate the energies there than I, but she claims the title. Over a period of months the people of Ti-Ra’-Wa broke into factions. The brotherhood of Cavern Keepers, of which I am a ranking chief, seized this, the main village. Sisoka organized our military, the Wolf Soldiers, and settled some miles from here, around the entrance to the cave.”
Ryan sighed, shook his head. The story of Ti-Ra’-Wa seemed too incredible to believe, almost like stories he had read in books as a child, back at Front Royal. A long-hidden valley, holding the relics of an ancient civilization in North America, a valley from which all Native peoples, all life itself, had sprung, a valley where wild beasts were on the same footing as humankind.
“Surely,” Doc said, “there is more to this conflict than a mere disagreement over who is the rightful heir to a largely meaningless title.”
“Meaningless?” Joe repeated scornfully. “Perhaps it seems so to you, but whoever holds the title of Guardian holds the future of the world.”
Mildred blinked in surprise. “I don’t understand.”
With an almost fanatical intensity, Joe whispered, “The energies pent up in the cavern are the same as that which were released at the moment of creation, when this planet, perhaps the entire universe exploded into existence. My ancestors tended to these energies, worshiped them, knew how to manipulate them to various degrees. You’ve seen evidence of that, and the use of these energies helped Ti-Ra’-Wa stay hidden for so many centuries. I and my brotherhood wish to manipulate those same energies again, to use them as they were used aeons agoto reshape, to remold, to heal the Earth.”
Everyone stared at Joe in shock. He was evidently accustomed to such incredulous reactions to his pronouncement, because he continued speaking quickly, giving no one time to interpose a question about his smity or lack thereof.
“The world is an abomination,” he said, “populated with unnatural monsters and spiritually dark people. The waters are poisoned, the sky full of deadly gases and radiation. All that can be reversed, Sisoka and her faction say my dream is only a power mad ambition, that I am tampering with the natural order. I say the natural order has already been tampered with. It’s been turned upside down, and it must be set right. The future of Grandmother Earth is at stake here, the future of humanity itself. Can we turn our backs on our Grandmother without turning our backs on the high laws themselves?”
Shaking his head vehemently, black tresses flying, Joe answered his own question. “No, we cannot. Not when we have the means and power to transform Deathlands into a mirror image of Ti-Ra’-Wa!”
Despite his growing doubt and suspicion, Ryan couldn’t help but feel sympathy for Joe’s burning passion. It was a wonderful dream, to turn the clock back, to transform the horror of this world into an Eden and vanquish all the demons spawned by the skydark. He also realized the magnetic power of the man, the innate leadership that had enabled him to overcome his followers’ fears of breaking tribal tradition.