Word & Void 02 - A Knight of the Word (21 page)

He looked at her. “Do you know what is wrong with us, little bird’s Nest? We are homeless. It is a bad way to be in the world. But that is how we are. We are adrift, tiny boats in a large ocean. Even those of us who have land and houses and friends and neighbors and some sort of life. It is a condition indigenous to our people. We bear a legacy of loss passed down to us by our ancestors. We bear the memory of what we had and what was taken. It haunts us.”

He shook his head slowly. “You can be homeless in different ways. You can be homeless like those of my people you see here, living on the streets, surviving on handouts, marking time between the seasons. But you can be homeless in your heart, too. You can be empty inside yourself because you have no spiritual center. You can wander through life without any real sense of who you are or where you belong. You can exist without purpose or cause. Have you ever felt like that, little bird’s Nest?”

“No,” she said at once, wondering where he was going with this.

“Indians know,” he said softly. “We have known for a long time. We are homeless in the streets and we are homeless in our hearts as well. We have no purpose in the world. We have no center. Our way of life was changed for us long ago, and it will never return. Our new life is someone else’s life imposed on us; it is a false life. We struggle to find our home, our center, but it is as faded as the Sinnissippi. A building is a home if the people who inhabit it have memories and love and a place in the world. Otherwise, it is just a building, a shelter against the elements, and it can never be anything more. Indians know.”

He bent close to her, pausing. “There are others who know this, too. A few, who have been uprooted and displaced, who have been banished to the road and a life of wandering, who have lost any sense of who they are. Some of these are like us—men and women whose way of life has been taken from them. Some of them are looking for a way back home again. Maybe you even know one.”

Nest stared at him in silence.

“Do you still have your magic?” he asked suddenly. Caught off guard by the question, she fumbled for an answer. “I think so.”

“Not sure, are you? Perhaps it has changed as you have grown?” He nodded his understanding. “It may be so. Everything changes with time’s passage. Only change itself is constant. So you must adapt and adjust and remember to keep close what is important and not to forget its purpose. Remember when we sat in the park and watched the spirits of the Sinnissippi dance?”

She did. On the Fourth of July weekend five years earlier, at midnight, she had gone into the park she had grown up in, the park that Pick warded, to see if the spirits would speak to her. The spirits had come on Two Bears’ summons, and they had danced in the starlit darkness and shown to Nest in a vision a secret her family had hidden from her. It had been the catalyst for her terrifying confrontation with her father, and it had probably saved her life. She had not understood it that way at the time; she had not understood much of what had happened to her that weekend until much later.

“We were searching for truths, you and I—me, about my people, and you, about your father.” He shook his head. “Hard questions were needed to uncover those truths. But the truths define who we are. They measure our place in the world. That is why they have worth. We search and we learn. It is how we grow.”

He looked out over the bay. “Do you think this country has changed much since we spoke last, little bird’s Nest? Since you were a girl, living in the park of the Sinnissippi? This is a hard question to answer, but the truth it masks needs uncovering. As a country, as a people, have we changed? On the surface we might appear to have done so, but underneath I think we are still the same. Our change is measurable, but not significant. We remain bent on destroying ourselves. We still kill each other with alarming frequency and for foolish reasons, and we begin the killing at a younger age. We have much to celebrate, but we live in fear and doubt. We are pessimistic about our own lives and the lives of our children. We trust almost no one.

“It is the same everywhere. We are a people under siege, walled away from each other and the world, trying to find a safe path through the debris of hate and rage that collects around us. We drive our cars as if they were weapons. We use our children and our friends as if their love and trust were expendable and meaningless. We think of ourselves first and others second. We lie and cheat and steal in little ways, thinking it unimportant, justifying it by telling ourselves that others do it, so it doesn’t matter if we do it, too. We have no patience with the mistakes of others. We have no empathy for their despair. We have no compassion for their misery. Those who roam the streets are not our concern; they are examples of failure and an embarrassment to us. It is best to ignore them. If they are homeless, it is their own fault. They give us nothing but trouble. If they die, at least they will provide us with more space to breathe.”

His smile was bitter. “Our war continues, the war we fight with one another, the war we wage against ourselves. It has its champions, good and bad, and sometimes one or the other has the stronger hand. Our place in this war is often defined for us. It is defined for many because they are powerless to choose. They are homeless or destitute. They are a minority of sex or race or religion. They are poor or disenfranchised. They are abused or disabled, physically or mentally, and they have forgotten or never learned how to stand up for themselves.

“But you and me, little bird’s Nest, we are different. We have advantages others do not. We have magic and knowledge and insight. We know of the ways men destroy themselves and of the reasons they do so. We know the enemy who threatens us all. Because we know these truths, we are empowered and we can choose the ground we would defend. We have an obligation and a responsibility to decide where we will stand.”

He paused. “I chose my ground a long time ago, when I returned from the Nam. I did so because after I died and came back to life, I was no longer afraid. I did so because even though I was the last of my people, I was made strong by the fire that tested me, and I was given purpose. You have been tested and given purpose, as well. You have been made strong. Now it is your turn to choose where you will stand.”

Nest waited, impatient for the rest, guarded and edgy. On the sidewalk in front of her, close by the railing, the schoolchildren shrieked as a seagull dove over their heads in a wide sweep and soared away.

Two Bears locked her eyes with his. “Let me tell you a story. It is just a story, but maybe it will speak to you. A long time ago, a servant of a very powerful lady carried a talisman to a man who had agreed to become her champion. This man was conscripted to fight in a good and necessary cause. He was to wield the talisman as a weapon in an effort to help turn aside an evil that threatened to destroy all. He was fearful of his responsibilities, but he was determined as well. He took the talisman from the servant and bore it into battle, and for many years he fought bravely. His task was not easy, because the people he fought to protect often acted badly and foolishly, and by doing so they did harm to themselves. But he remained their champion nevertheless.

“Then something happened to him, and he lost faith in his cause. He abandoned hope; he gave up his fight. He became one of those who are homeless in their hearts. He despaired of who he was, and he thought to change everything about himself. He ran away to find a place to start over.”

Two Bears looked around speculatively. “He might even have come to a city like this. This is the kind of city a man might flee to, if he were looking to begin again, don’t you think, little bird’s Nest?”

Her heart was hammering in her chest.

“Now the lady who had sent her servant to give this man her talisman was very disappointed in his failure to keep his promise to her. Shhhh, listen now, don’t interrupt. Ask yourself what you would do if you were the lady in question. Your talisman is in the hands of a man who will not use it, but cannot give it back. A talisman once given cannot be returned. The magic does not allow for it.”

He smiled. “Or so the story goes. At any rate, the lady sent someone to talk to this man, a young woman. As a matter of fact, she was someone very much like you. She was the man’s friend, and the lady thought she might be able to persuade him of the danger he faced if he continued to ignore who he was and what he had promised. The lady thought the young woman was his best hope.”

His eyes glistened. “Picture how this must be for the young woman. She is faced with a difficult task. She must find a way to help her friend, even though he does not wish her help. She must help him, because he has no one else and no other hope. The young woman is like you, little bird’s Nest. She has magic at her command, and she has been tested by fire. She has a strength and purpose lacking in others.”

He paused. “And so she must decide where she will stand. Because of who she is. Because, as with you and me, she has an obligation and a responsibility to do so.”

Nest shook her head in dismay. “But I don’t know what …”

A big hand came up swiftly to cut her short. “Because, if the young woman does not help him,” he said carefully, his rough voice leaning heavily on each word, “he will be lost forever.”

She nodded, her breath tight in her throat.

“Because, if the young woman fails, the lady has made other arrangements.” Two Bears leaned so close that his broad face was only inches from her own. His voice became a whisper. “She cannot allow her champion to serve another cause, one that would be harmful to her own. She cannot allow her talisman to fall into the hands of her enemies.”

There was no mistaking his meaning. It was the same message the Lady had given Ariel. If John Ross succumbed to the Void, he would be killed. But how did you kill a Knight of the Word? Who was strong enough? Who had a weapon more powerful than his?

Two Bears rose abruptly, and she with him. They stood close, looking out over the bay. The wind blew in chilly gusts off the water, causing Nest to shiver.

“As I said, it is only a story. Who knows if it is true? There are so many stories like it. Fairy tales. But the young woman reminded me of you.” Two Bears folded his massive arms. “Tell me. If you were the young woman in this story, what would you do?”

She looked up at him, tall, broad-shouldered, and implacable. She was suddenly frightened. “I don’t know.”

He smiled at her, and the smile was warm. “Don’t be so sure of that. Maybe you know better than you think.”

She took hold of his arm. “If this is only a story, then it must have an ending. Tell it to me.”

He said nothing, and his smile turned chilly. Her hands fell away. “There are many endings to this story. They change over time and with the teller. The stories of the Sinnissippi were all changed when my people perished. The endings would be different if they had survived, but they did not. I know this much. If you make the story your own, then the ending becomes yours to tell as you wish.”

He was leaving, and when he did so she would lose any chance of gaining his help. She fought down the desperation that flooded through her. “Don’t go,” she begged.

“Our paths have crossed twice now, little bird’s Nest,” the Sinnissippi said. “I would not be surprised if they were to cross again.”

“You could help me,” she hissed, pleading with him.

He shook his head and placed his big hands on her slender shoulders. “Perhaps it is for you to help me. If I were the lady in the story, in the event all else failed, I would send someone to take back the talisman from my fallen champion, someone strong enough to do so, someone who knew much about death and did not fear it, because he had embraced it many times before.” He paused. “Someone like me.”

Nest’s throat knotted in horror. Images of the past flooded through her mind. In Sinnissippi Park, on the Fourth of July, five years earlier, when he had appeared so mysteriously and done so much to help her find the courage she needed to face her father, she had seen nothing of this. She stared at him in disbelief, unable to give voice to what she was thinking.

“Speak my name,” the big man said softly.

“O’olish Amaneh,” she whispered.

He nodded. “It sounds good when you say it. I will remember that always.”

One hand pointed. “Look. Over there, where the mountains and the forests and the lakes shine in the sunlight. Look closely, little bird’s Nest. It will remind you of home.”

She did as he asked, compelled by his voice. She stared out expectantly at a vista of white and green and blue, at a panorama that extended for miles, at a sweep of country that was so beautiful it took her breath away. Ferry boats churned through the bay below. Sailboats tacked into the wind. The late afternoon sun beat down on the foaming waters, reflecting in bright silver bursts off the wave caps. The forests of the islands and peninsula were lush and inviting. The mountains shone.

Two Bears was right, she thought suddenly. It did make her think of home.

But when she turned to tell him so, he was gone.

J
ohn Ross had told Nest he had already been warned of the consequences of his refusal to continue as a Knight of the Word. What he hadn’t told her was that the warning had been delivered by O’olish Amaneh.

As he rode the trolley back up to Pioneer Square and the offices of Fresh Start, thinking through everything Nest had said, he recalled anew the circumstances of that visit.

It was not long after he met Stef and before they started living together. He was still residing in Boston and auditing classes at the college. It was just after Christmas, sometime in early January, and a heavy snow had left everything blanketed in white. The sky was thickly clouded, and a rise in the temperature following a deep cold spell had created a heavy mist that clung to the landscape like cotton to Velcro and slowed traffic to a crawl. It was the perfect day to stay indoors, and that was what he was doing. He was in his apartment, finished with his classes, working his way through a book on behavioral science, when the door (which he was certain he had locked) opened and there stood the Indian.