The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [40]
“You swam very deep,” she said.
“I swam until I found air,” Red Shoes replied.
“Most never find it. Others find it quickly, far short of this place. Only a few can come this far.”
She stepped closer, and he felt the snake in him again—a sudden anger, a flare of vicious hatred that was in no way human.
“Ah, I see,” she said. “You have the scent of one of my children about you. I did not know mortals could do that. Be careful with him; he sleeps in you, but is not dead.”
“Your children? Who are you?”
“Give me a name. I am a mother to many things. I bear them in darkness. Some even say I bore you, you human beings, down here in my dark womb. I think perhaps I did, before Hashtali took you from us, dressed you in that clay. Mother Dead. That is what I have been called.”
“You summoned me here.”
“Perhaps I did. I felt you coming, and was curious. These are strange times, even for me, who has been here for so long I no longer remember what is real and what isn't.”
“What are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I have kept company with many shamans from other tribes. I have spoken with the philosophers of Europe. All of us, when we come here, to this place behind the world, we see something different. We see what our eyes are accustomed to seeing.”
“Yes. Your eyes are clay, and can see only clay, or the image of clay. But there is the spark in you that is more, that came from us, else you could never come here at all. What am I? What I said: a mother. Not a thing made of flesh and blood— no more than my son, whom you swallowed, was a snake. We are the eldest, those Hashtali sent into the world to create it. And once here, we took it from him. He made you to get it back. That is why we really fear you, you know—my brother, my children and nieces and grandnieces—he clothed you in clay to take you from us, to let you work where we could not, after he turned the world inside out and made us ghosts.”
“Must we fight, then, as I fought your son?”
“No. Let Hashtali have the world back. I wish to be free of it. I wish—there is a human word, redemption. That is what I wish. But what you must understand, Red Shoes, is that I am nearly alone in that. My brother is my enemy, and all of his children. And most of my own have turned against me as well. Things go badly for me.”
“The Sun Boy?”
“Yes. He is the key, though even I cannot say exactly how. He is doom or salvation.”
“But is he my enemy? And are you my friend?”
She shrugged. “I cannot answer that. I want the Choctaw to live and multiply. I want to preserve humanity in all its varied forms.”
“How can that be done?”
“The sky must be broken and mended. The world must be turned upside down again.”
“But that is what the Sun Boy wants. It is what your son, the Antler Snake inside me, wishes.”
“Yes. And no. I do not know the final answer, Red Shoes, only the vague shape of hope. You creatures of clay are the ones made to find it.”
“I will find it then. But you—are you in danger, Mother Dead?”
“I am hidden where they cannot find me. I wait. Only you and one other have found me, and both of you are mortal. Given time, my enemies will find my spoor, follow my trail, and then I will die. I stay quiet here, waiting, hoping, watching. Giving what help I can. Some of my children are still loyal, but they fall even as we speak. They plunge from the heavens like burning stars, and I can only weep.”
She turned her back on him. “Go. Leave no trail.”
“Can you tell me nothing more?”
“Only that I will be there if I can, when the time comes. That is all. Now go.”
Red Shoes reluctantly returned to the water; the trip back seemed longer. When finally he reemerged in the dark tunnel,