“There are no secrets,” Sisoka declared. “Therefore, no initiation rites.”
“Touch-the-Sky believes there are initiation rites, and secrets to learn.”
“We know what he believes,” Pizi growled. “The vainglorious fantasy he built up around the valley and the cavern wouldn’t allow him to believe anything else. Nor does he understand that Ti-Ra’-Wa acts as a balance between the high and low laws, achieving a balance between the heavens and the earth. He doesn’t know enough about us to even begin to realize he doesn’t know enough.”
“Didn’t his ancestors live here?”
“According to some,” Sisoka said, a note of amusement in her voice, “everybody’s ancestors lived here, tens of thousands of years ago.”
“So he has no real tie to Ti-Ra’-Wa, no valid claim to the guardianship title?”
“He has nothing but a rabble-rouser’s abilities,” Pizi replied. “He convinced some of our people young ones, mostlythat a wonderful magical gift lay buried in the cavern and Sisoka wanted it all to herself. He persuaded a few warriors, a few dreamers, that with the gift, he could transform the entire world into a mirror image of Ti-Ra’-Wa, and the planet would be restored to its state before the whites ruined it. As chief of the Wolf Soldiers, and uncle to Sisoka, I supported her against his accusations. We didn’t expect him to mount an attack against us and drive us from our own city.”
“When he left here,” Sisoka said, “Blood-sniffer and I shadowed Touch-the-Sky on the plain. He then went to Amicus and we followed him there, where Blood-sniffer saw you and your friends. He had an instinct about you.”
Ryan glanced at the wolf. The animal was stretched on its side, evidently asleep. “An instinct?”
“That you and his kind were kindred. He tested that instinct when you dreamed.”
Ryan exhaled a deep breath. “He was my animal spirit guide. My totem. That’s why he didn’t kill me, even when you ordered him to.”
“And that’s why you didn’t kill him, even when you were ordered to.”
He looked again at Pizi. “I know what Touch-the-Sky believes about this place. What do you believe?”
A flame ignited in Pizi’s dark eyes. “Our forefathers cultivated Ti-Ra’-Wa, but the forest city was ancient even in our oldest histories. Yes, much of the old knowledge has been lost, but we do not mourn it. Nor has this valley always been a land of peace and plenty. Anger, greed and jealousy made Ti-Ra’-Wa run red with blood more than once. For many years human and animal sacrifices were made to the Grandmother, but she was offended by the taking of lives and it ended.”
“For centuries we have dwelt in peace. Tribes fleeing the white government found refuge here, and never spoke its location, even when they were tortured by the whites, the Spanish, the French. Ti-Ra’-Wa endured the purification and it will endure until the Grandmother Herself perishes.”
“And the intelligent wolves? How do you explain them?”
Pizi shrugged, as if the matter were of no consequence. “Our brothers were always here.”
“And the senders? Where did they come from?”
“Again they were always here,” Sisoka answered. “The technique of their use was taught by the first Guardian, Nanabozho.”
“Who made the senders?”
“The First People,” Sisoka replied. “They vanished many, many centuries ago.”
“Where did they come from? Where did they go?”
Pizi answered Ryan’s question with a long, convoluted story of dark and mysterious matters, of Nanabozho conjuring magic from the catacombs of the cavern. Ryan wasn’t interested in old legends, but he listened anyway, realizing the cavern still exerted a terrible elemental power over the people of the valley. It filled their whole lives, a strange obsession that had shut them off from the rest of the world.
When Pizi paused for breath, Ryan asked quickly, “What I wanted to know is what you believe is the cavern’s secret.”
“There is no secret, like I said,” Sisoka answered. “The heart of the Grandmother beats there, the life force of the world.”
“What does it look like?”
“I have never seen it. I know it is there. That is enough.”
Ryan resisted the impulse to shake his head in exasperation. He remembered the Trader telling him that out of mules, women and spoiled children, Indians would win the award for obduracy any day of the week.