Shadows in the Cave by Meredith and Win Blevins Page A

“father.”
    Shonan looked over his daughter’s head at the two guards. “Why are you dallying with these enemies?” he asked. His speech got stilted when he was ill at ease.
    “Ada, these are the furthest thing from enemies. These are my friends.” She mentioned names Shonan didn’t make out.
    Shonan looked at the two young men with hard eyes and barely inclined his head. Aku nodded to them and said, “I am Aku.”
    “Oh, Ada, I’ve been coming out here with them each night, hoping you would show up. They said you wouldn’t. They were worried that you might come later with an army—they wouldn’t have grabbed me if they’d known I’m Galayi. But if you followed right away …” She hugged him hard again. “Oh, Ada, I was so scared.”
    “I think there’s a lot to be explained.”
    “In the village. You’ll be treated as special guests—they’ll give a feast for you. I’ve told them about my father and my brother.”
    She let Shonan go and hugged Aku. In the last of the light he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. Then she took both their hands and danced, pulling them gaily toward the village. Shonan kept glancing back toward the guards. He didn’t like having them behind him.
    “Ada, these are wonderful people. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not true at all. I’ve met a wonderful man. He’s a shaman.” She turned to Shonan, took both of his hands, and held his eyes with hers. “I’m going to give you grandchildren by him.”
    Shonan kept rotating his head in every direction. “But they stole you. They’ve stolen lots of women. And none of them were ever seen again.”
    “That’s because they’re living in the Brown Leaf village, married to good Brown Leaf men, bearing children and living happily.”
    Shonan knifed her with his eyes.
    “Ada, your doubt hurts me. I know what I’m doing. And you’ll see. It all has to do with a revelation…”
    Warriors rushed out from every tree in the forest. From behind, the guards tackled Shonan and Aku. In an instant they were on their faces in the dirt, their hands being tied behind their backs. Feet bore down between their shoulder blades. Their weapons disappeared into the crowd.
    Shonan twisted his head to the side and looked up at Salya. From the edge of his mouth, he squeezed out, “What’s going on?”
    “It’s classic, Father. You’ve been betrayed by a woman.”

12
    “M ake them face each other,” said Salya, “so they can see each other’s pain.”
    Aku fought his fear—he had to understand. He looked into the evil in Salya’s face, a fire that consumed everything good. Her eyes were his, and they made him teeter on the abyss of his own darkness.
    A man of authority nodded to his warriors, and they sat Aku and Shonan, firmly bound, face to face. In the dark they could hardly see the hundreds of people gathered around, a pack of hungry dogs at a slaughter.
    “It is worse than terror,” Salya said. “You are father and son. Each of you will feel the other’s agony more than his own.” She made a sound that mixed cackling and chuckling. “Until pain floods the mind to oblivion.”
    Even through the waves of dread Aku understood. In the council lodge guests were greeted. Here on the dance ground enemies were tortured. Salya stood next to a thick post sunk into the middle. On one side of her stood a white-haired man of great beauty and dignity. Aku did not need to see his headdress clearly to know that he was the chief of chiefs. On her other side gangled an enormous man, hooded, and robed in a cloth rubbed black with ashes. A shaman, presumably, thoughAku had never seen a costume like that and couldn’t imagine the face of a holy man beneath that cowl.
    Father and son held each other’s eyes. Though men were building a fire to hold the darkness away, there was little else the two could see, and nothing else in this world they wanted to see.
    Salya touched the elderly man on the hand. “This man who condemns you to death is