The Spirit Well (Bright Empires), Page 3

  “You followed me.” He did not look at her, but kept walking. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “That place we were just at—where was that? How did we get there? What happened? Was it something to do with the storm?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “Nothing like this has ever happened to me.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “Hey!” she shouted. “I want to know what’s going on. I mean to get to the bottom of this.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Try me,” she shot back.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Then tell me. Make it simple so I’ll understand.”

  “People will think you’re crazy.”

  “So what?”

  Friday turned his broad, weather-creased face to her. He was smiling. “You don’t care if people think you’re crazy?”

  “Do I look like someone who cares?” she demanded. “Give it up. What happened back there?”

  “I already told you.”

  “You said it was what—Zay-ghee-hee?”

  “Tsegihi,” he confirmed. “That’s right.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “In English?”

  “If possible.”

  Friday nodded to himself. “You would say it is the Spirit World.”

  “That was no Spirit World. That was real.”

  “I said you wouldn’t believe it.” He strode on.

  “Okay, I’m sorry.” Cass hurried after him. “Continue, please. How did we get there?”

  “I already told you.”

  “I know, I know—the Coyote Bridge on the Ghost Road.”

  He made no reply.

  “But that is just a—what do you call it?—a myth, or a metaphor, or something.”

  “If you say so.”

  “No, tell me. I want to know. What is the Ghost Road?”

  “It is the way the Medicine Folk use to cross from this world to the Spirit World.”

  “You mean literally, physically cross over.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “If you say so.”

  They had almost reached the mouth of the canyon. She could see the desert beyond and, judging from the long shadows cast by the saguaro and mesquite bushes, the afternoon was waning towards evening.

  “Among my people, there are those who travel to the Spirit World to perform sacred duties.” He paused, then added, “I am not one of them.”

  “So what are you then? A tourist?”

  A faint smile touched his lips. “Maybe so.”

  “A tourist,” she harrumphed. “I don’t believe you.”

  “That is your choice.”

  “Okay, sorry. So you’re a tourist in the Spirit World.”

  “We call one who travels the Ghost Roads a World Walker.”

  “Right, so how do you do it? This world walking—will you teach me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is not for you.”

  Despite her repeated attempts to cajole, threaten, and otherwise bully him, Friday refused to tell her more. In the end she was forced to abandon the attempt and return to the dig to oversee the securing of the site.

  On the ride back to town, Cassandra was preoccupied and distracted—behaviour that did not go unnoticed by her coworkers in the van.

  “You’re a quiet one today,” declared Anita, one of the undergrads the dig relied on for donkeywork.

  “Am I?” wondered Cass. “Sorry.”

  “Anything the matter?”

  “I guess I’m just a little tired.”

  “Tell me about it. Mac had us wrestling bags of rubble all afternoon.”

  “Hmm.” Cassandra gazed out the van window at the passing scenery, all red and gold and purple in the early evening light. “It really is a beautiful landscape,” she said absently.

  Anita gazed at her for a moment. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah, fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “I thought Greenough might have got to you with this news about shutting down the dig.”

  “I suppose so . . .” She returned to her contemplation of the skyline with its monumental sandstone rock stacks.

  A little while later the van convoy pulled into the motel parking lot.

  “Hey, Cass—you going over to Red Rocks with us?” called Anita as the crew disembarked and headed off across the parking lot. Red Rocks served cheap tacos and fizzy beer and was the official digger watering hole.

  “Yeah, later, I guess,” replied Cassandra, walking away. “You guys go on without me.”

  She picked up her key from the front desk and meandered to her room. The King’s Arms motel was a tired old fleapit, but it was inexpensive by Sedona standards. Moreover, it was about the only place in town halfway eager to cater to the diggers. The lobby smelled of damp dog ineffectively masked by Pine-Sol; the result was acrid. This sucks, she thought, not for the first time. To be a poor academic in a resort for wealthy tourists was, contrary to any expectations, no picnic. You couldn’t turn around without being reminded that you didn’t belong and, moreover, were just taking up space that could be better used by paying customers.

  Once in her room, she threw herself down on the sagging bed and stared up at the ceiling, her thoughts whirling in unison with the creaky ceiling fan. She took her time showering and changing, and by the time she arrived at Red Rocks the party was in full swing. The worker bees were celebrating the fact that they had just received at least two, and maybe three, whole days off from the dig. Out of deference to the Native American sensitivities and a wish to avoid confrontation with Senator Rodriguez and thereby deny him a soapbox, Joe Greenough had announced that they would suspend operations over the weekend. After a beer and a handful of nachos, Cassandra called it a night, made her excuses, and sneaked away. She walked back to the motel by herself, outwardly calm, inwardly a raging turmoil of half-formed thoughts and wild speculations.

  She closed the door to her room, picked up the phone, dialled, and pressed the receiver to her ear while the dial tone rang again and again. When no one answered, she hung up and turned on the TV. She sat in bed watching mindless sitcoms for an hour or so, then picked up the phone again.

  This time it was answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, this is Tony—speak to me.”

  “Dad?”

  “Cassie? Is that you? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s me. Does anything have to be wrong for a girl to call her father?”

  “No, no—not at all, honey,” he replied quickly. “It’s just that— do you know what time it is?”

  “Uh-um.” Cass paused. “Is it late? Sorry, I forget about the time difference.”

  “No problem, sweetie. I’m glad you called. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep. Everything’s fine. I’ll call back another time.”

  “Cassandra,” her father said in a tone of voice he used when he was serious. “What is it? I’m here to help.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Dad, ever have one of those days when the whole world turned upside down?”

  “Of course, dear heart. That happened to me last Thursday.”

  Cass could hear him move across the room and settle into his big leather chair.

  “So tell me about it. What’s turned your world upside down?”

  “Not just my world, Dad,” Cass told him. “Everybody’s world. In fact, the entire universe has come unhinged, or disconnected, or—I don’t know what. It’s just so weird. It’s inexplicable.”

  “Well”—his laugh was a soothing sound, gentle and familiar— “you’re going to have to try, or we’re not going to get very far.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know how to explain.”

  “Okay.”

  She could hear him putting on his scientist hat.

  “Don’t analyse anything, just start at the beginnin
g. And don’t skip anything. What are we dealing with?” At her pause, he added, “Don’t think—just speak. Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  “You know the vortexes?” she asked. “The famous Sedona Vortexes?”

  “I’m familiar with the term—from what you’ve told me I assumed it was nothing but a racket hyped up by the locals to bring in the tourist trade—exploitative hooey.”

  “I suppose . . . ” Cassandra sighed.

  It was true; the Sedona Vortexes had been tarred with the tired old brush of New Age claptrap. Whatever the scientific legitimacy—if there was even a molecule of fact in the concept—the enterprise was now the hobbyhorse of aging hippies, earth goddess devotees, wannabe mystics, and assorted kooks, quacks, and fraudsters. Whether they existed or not, vortexes were grand for the Sedona economy: everything from Vortex Jeep Rides and Vortex Helicopter Tours to Vortex Psychic Readings and Vortex Energised Jewellery was to be had for a nifty price.

  “Are we talking about the same thing?” her father asked.

  “Yes, but something happened today—something really weird. I guess you’d call it a natural phenomenon—but of an order I have never seen before.”

  “Excellent!” Before she could respond, he rushed on. “Now, where were you? What were you doing when you observed this phenomenon?”

  She explained about her routine, the dig site, what she was doing, and went on to describe following Friday into the canyon. When it came to what happened next, she faltered.

  “Yes, yes, go on,” her father urged. “Don’t think, just blurt it out.”

  “You know how all your buddies are always talking about those extra dimensions of the universe?”

  “Mathematical dimensions, yes.”

  “Well, what if they weren’t merely mathematical?” She took a breath and then plunged in. “Dad, I think I travelled to a different dimension.”

  This admission was met by silence on the other end of the line.

  “Dad? Still there?”

  “You mean . . . ” he began, then paused and started again. “Exactly what do you mean?”

  “Only that one second I was in the canyon being pelted by sand and wind and rain, and the next I was . . . Dad, I was standing on an alluvial pan of volcanic cinders—no canyon, no cacti, no nothing— only lines stretching to the horizon in every direction.”

  “Define lines,” her father said after a moment.

  “Lines—you know. Like someone had taken a snow shovel and dug a shallow trough through the cinders across the plain, but not arbitrary or haphazard. These lines were absolutely straight, and they went on for miles.”

  Again there was silence. Finally he said, “Was it hot today? I mean, hotter than usual? Are you drinking enough water out there?”

  “Dad,” Cassandra said, exasperation edging into her tone, “I am a seasoned pro—I don’t get sunstroke. Okay? You think I was hallucinating?” Her voice rose higher. “It was not an hallucination or food poisoning or malaria. I’m not having my period. It was real. It happened.”

  “I wasn’t judging you, Cass,” he protested. “I’m on your side. But we have to examine every possibility. Rule things out.”

  “You’re right,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that the more I think about it, the more rattled I get. At the time it was weird enough, but now . . . ”

  “You said Friday was with you. You followed him and met him in this other dimension, and then what?”

  “He said I shouldn’t be there, and he brought me back.”

  “How did he do that?”

  She paused to consider. “He turned us around, and we just started walking . . . the wind kicked up . . . some dust blew in my eyes, and everything got a little hazy . . . I felt the rush of wind on my face . . . and then it started to rain. When I looked up we were back in the canyon.”

  “The same canyon as before?” her father asked.

  “Right. The same one—they call it Secret Canyon,” she said, and paused. “That’s all. That’s what happened.”

  “Any physical symptoms? Anything at all?”

  “I got a little seasick—queasy, dizzy, and a terrific headache. All that passed pretty quickly. Besides getting windblown and spattered from the rain, nothing else.”

  “Was Friday there too?”

  “Yes, he brought me back, as I said,” Cass confirmed. “I tried to get him to explain what happened, but he was very elusive about it. He kept saying it wasn’t for me—I took that to mean for white folk in general, not just myself in particular—and he used all these Native American names for things. He called it the Ghost Road and Coyote Bridge—things like that. He said we had visited the Spirit World.”

  “Extraordinary.”

  “You do believe me—don’t you, Dad?”

  “Of course I believe you, Cass,” he said, his voice full of confidence and assurance. “What is more, I think this worthy of more extensive investigation. I think I’d better come out there.”

  “Dad, you don’t really—”

  “We need to test it, document it. I’ll bring some instruments.” He paused. “I wish your mother were here. She would be in her glory.”

  Cass could hear him thinking.

  “Can you find this place again?”

  “Sure, no problem. But, listen, I was thinking that—”

  “Good. Don’t do anything until I get there. Not a thing. I’ll catch a flight out tomorrow afternoon. Can you get me a room where you’re staying?”

  “Yes, but—Dad, I’m not sure this is such a good idea—”

  “It’s settled then. I’ll see you soon, sweetie. Now, don’t mention this to anybody. Okay? You haven’t, have you?”

  “No—just you.”

  “Thing is, dear heart, the last thing we need is a bunch of amateurs and nutcases poking around, making things difficult. From what you tell me Sedona is full of those.”

  “Do you really think—?”

  “Good-bye, Cassie. I’ve got some phone calls to make. Don’t do a thing until I get there. Love you!”

  Click. The line went dead.

  “Love you too, Dad.” She held the phone for a moment, then closed the cover and tossed it on the bedside table.

  “Great,” she muttered. Then thought, Well, you dolt, what were you expecting? You wanted to be taken seriously—what did you think that would look like?

  CHAPTER 3

  In Which Kit Contemplates a Miracle

  The cold seeped up through the frozen ground into the very marrow of his bones as Kit lay shivering in the snow. He had the feeling that he had been curled in a slowly chilling heap for days, if not longer—though it could only have been a few minutes at most. Move, he told himself, or freeze where you lie.

  Slowly, slowly Kit rolled onto his side and looked around. His head ached and his muscles were stiff, and he was back: back in the forest clearing, back in the dead of winter, back in the prehistoric past. The sky was overcast and dark; silent snow sifted gently down from the low, heavy clouds, softening the contours of the Bone House. Constructed entirely of interlocked bones—great, curving mammoth tusks; the antlers, spines, and pelvises of elk, buffalo, antelope, and pigs; at least one rhino’s skull; innumerable ribs and leg bones of lesser creatures; and who knew what else?—all intertwined in a crazy jigsaw pattern that formed a gently mounded dwelling that was somehow more than the sum of its disparate parts.

  Set in the centre of a circular clearing deep in the forest, the odd igloo-shaped hut exerted an undeniable force—an earthy, primitive power like magnetism or gravity, subtle but palpable. The mere sight of the structure brought the vision back in all its splendour: he had seen the Spirit Well, and in some way he could not yet fathom, nor even begin to describe, he knew his life had changed.

  He closed his eyes so that he could relive it all again from the beginning. First, he had been inside the Bone House, holding the ley lamp and feeling it grow warm in his hand as it became active; he saw again the little lights shin
ing blue and bright in the weird half-light of the Bone House. Then, inexplicably, he had plunged through the snowpacked floor and into a realm of dazzling light and warmth, a realm of breathtaking clarity where even the smallest objects possessed an almost luminous radiance. His first impression was of a world of such beauty, peace, and harmony that it sent a pang of longing through his heart. Reeling from the almost intoxicating tranquillity, Kit had stumbled along a path lined with plants and trees of exquisite proportion in colours so vivid it made his eyes ache. Every leaf of every tree and plant seemed to shimmer with vitality, every blade of grass radiated the same energy of unquenchable life. Kit walked through this lush and verdant woodland garden in a state of rapt wonder, eventually reaching the edge of a lake unlike any he had ever seen before: an expanse of translucent crystalline fluid with a slightly viscous quality, like that of olive oil or syrup; it gave off a faintly milky glow, its smooth ripples shimmering with the restless energy of living light.

  He remembered reaching out to touch that miraculous substance . . . and then . . . something had happened . . . What?

  The creak of a nearby branch, cold and bending with snow, brought him back to the present reality of ice and cold and prowling predators; brushing clots of snow from his furs, he stood and shuffled forward, dropped to his hands and knees before the tunnellike entrance of the bony hut, and crawled inside. The interior was sunk in gloom, but relatively warm—at least warmer than the clearing outside—due no doubt to the radiating presence of its sleeping occupant. On impulse, Kit reached out to the reclining form of En-Ul. The aged primitive was warm to the touch and stirred under his hand. The Old One was still alive, and still dreaming time.

  The term was Kit’s attempt to translate a concept that he could not exactly define—a sort of mystical meditation or prophetic journey that involved time in some way. Then again, maybe it was something else altogether.

  Kit settled himself beside En-Ul and tried once more to reconstruct what had happened to him. After dropping through the floor of the Bone House and making the leap into the unknown, he had followed a sunlit, leafy trail through the paradise world as through a garden of delights, eventually discovering the Spirit Well. Something had happened there. At the mystical pool he had seen Arthur Flinders-Petrie and . . . something so incredible that even now it seemed to cast a magical glow over him—if he could only remember what it was.