Chapter Seven
THIS LORDS, as Lela called them in her broken English, were positioned around a massive rectangular slab of gray slate about a foot thick set upon four stumps. I say positioned because I immediately saw that each side of the table hosted a unique group.
These were the leaders of the three tribes that occupied the Tulim valley, and as a group they looked as imposing as the scarred man who’d plucked me from the sea.
I couldn’t shake the certainty that I was walking directly to my death. The script was already written and I was only following the same path many others had taken before their demise.
I should run now. I should spin and flee into the jungle to face whatever fate awaited me there, beyond their reach.
And yet I walked confidently. One foot in front of the other, captive already in a world that offered no escape.
I stopped at the edge of the thatched roof. To a man, they stared back at me. It was as if I were not only in another world but in another dimension altogether, a newcomer to an alternate reality.
My head swam with a sense of déjà vu and my heart, beating quickly already, slowed to heavy beats.
Maybe this was all a horrible nightmare. An illusion that was swimming through my head as I slept peacefully in the white sailboat, still in calm seas. Perhaps at a single prod from the captain, or at my son’s fussing, I would wake to find all well.
Lela gave me a gentle nudge. I looked at her. The plain reality of my predicament returned, free from illusion. But of course I’d known the full certainty of it already. My mind, so strained by terror, had offered me a moment’s reprieve, however absurd.
She gave me an encouraging smile and glanced at the one side of the table that was unoccupied. I faced the council and edged forward into a yellow glow provided by the fire pit in the middle. Smoke drifted up to the blackened ceiling high above.
Each group consisted of five men, four of whom stood on the ground or sat on rocks behind their spokesman. Another twenty or thirty warriors from each tribe stood idly in the dark beyond the structure, peering in with interest.
They were all fully clothed in their own way. That is to say they were naked except for woven bands around their thighs, arms, waists, and heads. Piercings graced their nasal septa and earlobes, some accented with pieces of bone, fangs, or claws. They all wore headdresses of colorful feathers or animal carcasses—bird heads, fox-like heads, boar heads. Each of the men in the group to my left wore a human skull on his back, suspended between his shoulder blades on a cord.
I stood in my own near-naked glory, trying to present myself as beautiful and fertile and worthy of bearing a child. According to Lela, this was my only hope for survival, and I had no reason to doubt her.
I stood quivering, trying to be strong and failing miserably. The spokesman to my left began to speak, a long rumbling sentence that sounded dismissive. He wore a thick bone through his nose and was missing three fingertips at the first knuckle. Bright yellow feathers fanned out above his head. I thought he must be the master of ceremonies here.
Head bowed, hands together in a praying position, Lela stepped forward and addressed the speaker, stopped immediately when he interrupted, and then continued in a similar fashion through several exchanges, which ended with a collective mumble from a number of the men.
The scarred warrior who’d taken me from the sea was seated cross-legged on a flat rock behind the speaker. Around him squatted three other warriors, but none with shoulders squared or jaw fixed to display the same authority as he. My captor wore a human skull on his back and the top half of a boar’s head on his head. As soon as my eyes met his, I was convinced that he was indeed one of the princes and I felt compelled to look away.
The three groups launched into a short but pointed discourse that ended with all three staring at me. I looked down at Lela.
“Miss, this lord wish to know if it is true, what I have said.”
I cleared my throat. “What did you say?”
“As we have spoken,” she said. “You must not be ugly spirit.”
“Yes. I mean, no. Tell them I am not a spirit. I am a woman from America.”
She spoke to them and the first speaker scoffed.
“This lord says that all peoples is spirits. You are white and this must be evil spirit.”
“Tell him he is wrong. Where I come from nearly everyone is white and they are not evil spirits.”
Lela’s eyes grew at my request. “You cannot say this is wrong, miss. This is lord.”
“You tell this lord what I said, you hear me? I am not an evil spirit.”
The speaker followed with a command that I took as agreement. Tell me what she said.
Lela faced the council and spoke, this time with some trepidation. I looked around the council with more boldness, realizing that after days in their possession, I was finally in a position to be heard. That I was as free as I might ever be. That standing before the council might be my last opportunity to be fully human here in their realm.
When Lela finished, the man snapped back his response, which she quickly interpreted.
“He says that you are wam and can know nothing.”
“And he’s a savage!”
She blinked. “What is this?”
I rethought my remark, grasping for something that might give me an advantage, however slight. The courage I’d found helped me rise from the immobilizing fear, and I clung to it.
“I will only tell them who I am if I know who they are.”
She looked confused. “This is lords, miss.”
“Who are lords? All of them are lords?”
“All this people is lords.” She pointed to the group on my left, my captors. “This Warik clan.” Then to the tribe on my right. “This Impirum clan.” Then to the tribe directly across from me. “This Karun, the keeper of this spirit. There is three princes, one from Warik, one from Impirum. One from Karun tribe.” Her eyes drifted to a figure to one side and behind the Karun tribe and I could see immediately by the fear on her face that she was afraid of the man.
“This Karun tribe has shaman,” she whispered.
I followed her glance. Behind the Karun clan, just beyond the fire’s brightest reaches, stood an old man with wrinkled flesh covered in glistening black pigment or grease. He wore a darkened mask made from plaster or mud with large white pig’s tusks that jutted from the mouth and deep holes drilled for eyes.
The deep pits in his mask seemed to look through me.
For a moment I found myself swallowed by those black holes. I was suddenly so terrified that I couldn’t move. It was as if they were sucking me into an abyss of horror deeper than my fear for my own life.
What kind of evil hid behind his eyes I could not know, and I forced myself with great difficulty to avert my stare.
It took me a moment to settle my mind. I had just found some courage. I couldn’t afford to lose it so quickly.
Three tribes, three princes, one shaman. I wanted nothing to do with the last.
“Tell them I must know who’s the most powerful among the three princes,” I said.
“I think this is not good.”
And yet I knew most leaders to be brokers of power above all else, and I knew that if my father had found himself in an argument among three powerful men, he would have played them against each other until he saw some weakness to exploit.
“It’s the way of my people,” I said. “I can only address the most powerful when telling my secrets.”
The speaker demanded to know what was going on and Lela gave them an answer. They discussed the matter briefly.
“Did you tell them?” I asked.
“No, miss. I only say that you have very important secrets.”