The Horns of Tatanka

Part 1

There would be no wargaming in Trinity's belly this day.

"Need a hand ?"

The hiss of pneumatics, the clangor of couplings releasing, prompted Commander Mallory's offer.

"Thanks, but no. I'm good." He'd forgotten Mallory awaiting patiently in the corner shadow, stone faced.

Stepping out his EXO's clutches, Elijah reached for and unplugged the synaptic link. There was a special compartment to house it on the tidy desk console which fronted the only window in his quarters over-looking the Trinity complex east to west. Fully garbed in standard olive drab officer issue, he still felt naked as an infant out of the cradle without the electronic implant that not only drove his EXO but connected him intimately, and at will, to the entirety of the Project Protectorate through its main frame at NORAD.

"Give me a few minutes," he said, walking gingerly over to the console to secure his synaptic link, his leg muscles acclimating with a tingling residue.

"We have time to spare yet, sir."

The link installed and blinking green, he stood before the window watching the dawn sun burn off the fog tendrils of Trinty's lower most lattice of hover canals and armor pathways, considering the scav trek that lay ahead and how it was yet another milestone in the entwined history of his life and service to the Project.

Then there was the hidden, personal, boon of meeting and negotiating with his counterpart, the Scav leader. To be facing this freshly minted scav treaty challenge rather than the lingering grey clouds of grief over losing his wife to the wasting plague only a few months ago. For her he could only offer words of comfort that in no way changed the final outcome. On the other hand, the words forged this day with Akbar of the Seven Nations could very well spell the best chance for a future free of the looming Mangodai invasion out of what was once known as Asia Minor, and the wasting virus, their first salvo from afar.

Sure the truce was a gamble. Then again, what wasn't. The Project Protectorate itself surviving the war years following the outward expansion from NORAD and restoring what was left of the Air Force Academy between Colorado Springs and the Denver ruins. Every step of the way was a gamble risking threadbare lives on the jagged edge of any hope for resurrecting civilization to some semblance of a pre-collapse level, however remote. His own rise from squad leader to General, to succeeding Hammond's leadership, to building Trinity itself, so very far from the snow clad Rocky Mountains, clear across the treacherous waters of the great southern gulf and into the blistering Berlize jungles.

And always the chorus of naysayers dogging whatever new undertaking was brought forward. That such and such was just another road to techno damnation, they'd say. And this proposed treaty with the Seven Scav Nations had its fair share of virulent opposition.

"Sir, for what it's worth, I believe you are doing the right thing," said Mallory, his trusted subordinate, who had made first contact with the Seven Nations, almost 2 years past, during the Central American Expeditionary foray for the secret pre-collapse factory and it's stockpile of hydrogen power plant chassis.

Mallory's utterance stirred Elijah out of his rabbit hole of unbiden memories.

"Doing the right thing ? About what, my friend ? Shedding the Exo, my synaptic link, going to the Yuwippi ceremony without an armored column escort or the truce treaty itself ?"

"All the above," Mallory said, without hesitation.

Elijah sat, command console to his back, facing Mallory, half his face lit by the morning sun.

"Inspite of most of my cabinet's luke warm support, I'm sure within myself. And, mind you, I'm not blind to the real possibilty of having my head lopped off like John the Babtist and served up at Trinity's main access gate on the next moonless night."

Mallory shook his helm-less head side to side. A liberty he took for granted having made total candor a condition of service and the Project's commander and chief in total accord with that.

"Akbar is a man of honor and under a flag of truce you can be sure no harm will come to us. You know I know his measure first hand."

Elijah bear-pawed his chin before speaking.

"I don't doubt your judgement but chit happens. For all we know, as we speak, or before we arrive or even while there in the midst of negotiating, Akbar could be ousted as chief of chiefs. In any of those scenarios all bets are off as to keeping my head attached to my neck."

"True enough, but unlikely. I have seen, and owe my life, to the powerful bonds of honor between the war chiefs of the Seven Nations and Akbar. He is truly revered and only his passing into the Great Mystery will unseat him."

"Time will tell. See to the truck's readiness yourself, my friend. I'll be done here shortly and will meet you at the Western Depot."

"I will, and I'll double check our basic kit as well. Akbar's Seer was clear the landscape would present some hardship before we reached our destination."

"Hardship... ? As long as it doesn't include that ceremony you told of with the piercings through chest muscles, I'm in good shape to handle most rigors of the trail, don't you think ?"

"You'll be fine. That other is only for traditional carriers of the Horns of Tatanka who have achieved the status of Moondancers."

"Well then...", said Elijah, putting his hand on the synaptic link winking green beside the console screen, not entirely sure if there was enough common ground to bridge his instinctive distaste for such an act of self-mutilation to no discernable advantage, and the vastly different beliefs it sprang from, to forge a genuine and lasting alliance with the Seven Scav Nations.

"If you haven't noticed, I've removed mine as well. I know what you're feeling Elijah but I'm sure you won't regret it."

Elijah gave a tight lipped grin in agreement.

"I'll grab a hover but even so, the tail end of our journey will likely be a rough ride. See you at the Western Depot at 0800, sir."

Part 2

Chandar tousled the mane of his father's pie-eyed pony, tethered outside the council lodge. That his father was riding his hunting pony and not his armored war trike was yet another gesture of good faith towards Mal-of-Ory who helped bring about todays Treaty Council with the Mekka leader Eli-jah .

"You are to ride alongside him."

The Seer's steps were sly as ever but Chander made a point to not let on he'd been caught unawares.

"It is rightfully your place as Seer, is it not ?"

The Seer gently stroked the pony's withers and it snorted, satisfied with the affection.

"That has been my honor but it is time to pass it on. It is appropriate. Your time is here."

Chandar bristled at the vieled suggestion but kept calm.

"You know my path remains forked, undecided one way or the other."

The old man smiled at the youths rebellious spirit reigned-in with a natural grace and genuine respect.

"Indeed, Chandar, only too well. All the more reason to accompany Akbar as his Watcher."

Chandar's nimble mind tried to uncover the Seer's meaning but quickly decided a simple question was better than misinterpreting in silence.

"How so, Seer ?"

He would make a fine chief, or seer, someday, the old man thought to himself which was nothing new as far as insights.

"Till such a time as your path unfolds clearly before you like a boar trail to a water hole... you must place yourself where you are not yet comfortable. Indeed, the more against the rivers current the better. Only by such challenges will you call forth what is your true destiny. Can you see that ?"

The Seer's wisdom was clear and Chandar nodded assent.

"Good."

Then the tanned boar hide flaps to the Council Lodge parted. War chiefs exiting first and lastly Akbar in his finest buckskins, warrior bonnet, silver smithing turquois bracelets and raven feathered pendant necklace.

Chander untethered his father's mount from the sapling and handed the reigns to the grey bearded Seer.

"You do the honor. I'll go fetch my mount and join you and my father shortly."

Chander rounded up his pony, the pack mule loaded with provisions and their ceremonial accoutremounts and walked them over to where the Seer stood with Akbar already atop his pony.

Akbar looked at his son, and concealing his pride, simply signaled that he mount up.

"My first born you will always be, Chander, but today you must first be a Watcher for our people. Do you understand ?"

"I do, my Chief."

Akbar turned to look upon the Seer.

"Mitaguyasin, old friend."

The Seer raised his right palm in acknowledgment, wondering to himself if the Mekka leader Eli-jah would live up to Mal-of-Ory's accounts and manage to make it all the way to the treaty council site, the great caldera's basin.

Akbar reined his steed toward dawn and stared at the sun's blood welling horizon. Chandar and the Seer abided these eternal moments in silence till alas the chief of chiefs spoke:

"It is a good day to make peace or look death in the face..... Let's ride, Watcher."

A cloud of dust trailing behind, they cantered off toward the caldera's eastern rim, a distant smudge awash in Grandfather's fire. The Seer followed them till they became motes on the horizon, then vanished.

"May the Great Spirit be with them." A simple prayer, but enough.

Part 3

The first downpour struck them a kilometer out of Trinity. Sheets of water like cisterns being over-turned from up on high. In a second wave, rain became hail the size of knuckles making them uneasy about the windshield shattering.

"Good thing I'm not superstitious. I'd take this for a bad omen or, at least, a not so promising beginning," said Elijah.

Keeping the hover steady under these conditions posed many challenges but Mallory felt he had to say something.

"Well sir, I am. Superstitious that is, and I don't see it that way."

The windshield held up through the hail's pelting but the hair line cracks would spread like a web work soon enough. What had them more wary than glass crashing all over the cab and their unprotected faces, were the thunderheads lingering, flashing the occasional muffled bolt of lightning, making of morning as if nightfall were strangely closing in noose-like.

"It's not idle curiosity, my friend. Honestly, how do you see it ?"

Taking advantage of the calm between nature's outbursts, Elijah rolled down his window. Steering one-handed, Mallory followed suit, relishing the ozone infused electric breeze like a heady elixir.

"You follow your true heart and pay the piper, come whatever. Putting failure on this, that, or some other is pure bull chit."

Elijah couldn't help but let out a laugh. Mallory, knowing him well enough to tell the difference between mockery and appreciation, joined in.

The hover started angling upward and Mallory shifted into the highest air cusion and brought his speed down a couple notches. Smooth glideing ended when the ride had them whipping about like rag dolls in every direction, restraints digging into chest and collar bone, as Mallory tacked side to side navigating around deeply gouged earth and rock outcrops that would surely have torn up the under chassis and props. Then, after a couple kilometers, the ground became a flat lichen expanse with none of the previous hazards so Mallory steered true. Before long, a wavering curtain of milky opalescence confronted them. Visibilty was not so much diminished, as the phenomenon distracting for its beauty.

"We're gonna drive through that at this speed ?," asked Elijah.

"Well, maybe I should slow down some more," which he did, to a creep.

Up they continued into the mist blanketed flank of the caldera, aiming for its unseen plateau.

Casting a bobbing side-long glance, Mallory read Elijah's taut jaw as a stoic gutting-it-out which prompted him to pass on the old Seer's reassurance; the caldera's rim would become visible well before they could roll over it blindly.

"Is there a limit to your trust or is it unconditional like a mother's love for her child ?"

Memories of two worlds surged through Mallory like white water rapids. Then in a breath, by some mindful discipline now second nature, he drew back into the present moment like a calming tide.

"I am of them, of their generations, that cannot be altered by neural implant, EXO, years ripped apart or my Project training. In time, if the treaty becomes reality, you'll see for yourself." He paused then as if cutting himself short, thought Elijah.

"Go on, I can tell when you have something more to get off your chest."

That little encouragement was all Mallory needed.

"Just this, I'll add. We are our word. There is no other road to honor and life without honor is pathetic to no end."

Elijah first heard Mallory speak to this scav honor when he stood defiantly before the High Council reporting on the events of the last Southern Expeditionary Force, which he commanded, before the Trinity initiative was born. Back then Elijah didnot ask Mallory to elaborate. He would not again let the opportunity pass to address the distinction that adled him still:

"Isn't that the same intent of our words honesty and integrity ?"

Mallory took a deep breathe, clenched his teeth, then delved deep within for the truest words, and at last, as a sculptor striking chisel to granite with confidence, he spoke to it.

"There's over-lap for sure but there's more to it. Through honor we seek power within ourselves and over ourselves alone. Not over others, or their destiny, simply because we must die and know not when or cannot deal within our own being with shame or humiliation."

Elijah pondered on the divergence of life-ways, granted Mallory had a point, kidded him about missing his calling as a speaker on the High Council and then added:

"Maybe someday I'll know the difference as well as you."

As unexpected as the morning storm, the opalescent veil parted in a swirl of serpent wisps, the jagged rim some thirty meters ahead.

Mallory cut the engine, coasting slowly to a crunching halt, the air cushion stirring a final plume of dust. Dust not mud, for on this side of the mist the ground was desert dry and the light of midday as it should be though the sun was still blocked.

Standing outside the hover, scanning from left to right they caught sight of the two pie-eyed mustangs, and a mule, slackly tethered just shy of the drop-off, each with a feed bag, tails flicking back and forth. Carefree they munched and Mallory, to avoid spooking them, advised Elijah to step surely but lightly as they began to close the distance on foot.

"Are those for us ?"

"Yes and no."

They reached the rise, some paces aside the critters, who paused in their meal, whinnied and then shuffled back a step, to better keep a wary eye on the strangers who smelled nothing like their usual mounts and care givers. If the need to bolt arose, those loose tethers would pose little resistance.

"Is that a riddle, my friend ?"

Odd, thought the Project leader, how the mist clung to the slope on either side of the crown, leaving just the curled ridge with about twenty to thirty meters of scrub, dirt and crumbling limestone exposed. The perimeter ring itself had the shinny appearance of fused stone, likely the result of volcanism, and was many kilometers in diameter, but that was just a guess. It was hard to judge because the view to the far end was obstructed by the bed of mist itself mushrooming upward at what he took for the middle. It was a spectacle more rightly seen way up in the sky during sunset; cloud billows reminiscent of mountain fortresses or, at their most intricate, celestial cities. He wondered how a VTOL would fair flying above this crater. Could it navigate well enough through the hyper thermals, the likely instrumentation disruption, to manage a birds-eye-view above that middle mushroom. From such a vantage you might see below to the very bottom landscape, what he imagined an earthen bowl. But in truth whatever the basin was would remain a mystery till they reached it on foot.

"Not at all. Thinking aloud. Sorry."

Elijah, not the least bit annoyed, attended Mallory in silence. Gathering himself, Mallory continued:

"The animals were left behind for a couple reasons, I believe. First, in case we were unsure of making the descent on foot. Second, to let us know."

"Know what ?"

"That they await us below and that they saw fit to make the final passage under their own power and packing on their backs what the muled carried to this point."

"Sounds like something of a test."

"Indeed, one of a few I dare say we'll face as we continue to the basin. More of the spirit than the body, be assured, though it may seem otherwise."

Elijah took it in but in no manner could these words prepare him for what yet lay ahead. Mallory sensed his friend's trust without words and supposed that none of this would have been possible without such at the heart of both these leaders. Of course there was a substantial contingent on the Project High Council who were hardened cynics and whose support was gained in the end appealing to their baser instincts. In essence, what was there to lose by hedging our bets against the common Mangodai threat. How Akbar convinced his dissenters, for surely there were those whose suspicions of the "Mekkas" ran deep in the blood, Mallory had no clue.

"Sir," Mallory held out his hand with a small brown satchel, "take this. It is an offering. I have one as well. Just follow my actions when the time comes."

"An offering ?"

"As we spoke about at Trinity, there will be a purification ceremony before your treaty council with Akbar. Some details I reserved for when we stood on this sacred ground for then there would be a gut connection not just words. Yuwippi it is called and these bundles are a token of respect offered to the ancestors that they bless the proceedings to come with good will all round. They are also a reminder that whatever is decided this day must also hold good for seven generations to come."

Elijah was touched deeply by the genuine consideration for the world the unborn would inherit.

"I see. I share those beliefs and that is a great deal of common ground. That said, any more suprises ? Scratch that. Let it be as it may. Your loyalty is all I need be sure of here and now. May we continue ?" Elijah made a gesture of pointing open-palmed to the crater's interior clearly indicating Mallory take the lead.

"Yes, let's. But first I'll grab our canteens and kit."

The incline began fairly steep for a good distance and Mallory showed Elijah the side-wise jog technique, much like a scampering shore crab, that allowed for a more controlled descent at this severe incline than a straight, headlong stride. Eventually the slope tapered gently as they approached the second layer of mist and the brightly painted eagle totem. Beautiful and fearsome this wood-working, thought Elijah, before uttering a much more practical concern.

"We'd best get another compass bearing before we cross this threshold or we could end-up walking in circles, no ?"

Mallory shook his head and said:

"Ordinarily true enough but our compass needle spins useless here."

"That's hardly reassuring, not to say strange."

"Strange as in rare, I agree, but the laws of physics still apply. There is much to tell of this crater going back to an age when our ancestors scurried about weaponless trying to out-wit predators, red in tooth and claw. But that's for another occasion. You might look it up in our history-base back at Trinity under 'Alvarez', a late twentieth century astro-geo-physicist slash paleonthologist, or something like that, if I recall. As for our safe passage through this ground hugging cloud to the Yuwippi lodge, we'll be fine. Guides will lead us on the true path of the sacred hoop."

"Guides ? Have you seen some sign I missed that the Seer and Akbar will meet us here ?"

"No. As far as I can tell they await us still at the lodge below. The guides I speak of are called Thunderbeings. Come, you'll see."

Crossing into the second band of mist was like stepping into an inferno without flames. Both men were drenched in sweat within seconds, their garments chaffing, compelling them to shed shirt and trousers to continue bare chested, clad only in briefs. If the ground had not been brittle-sharp like sandstone, and scalding hot to boot, they would have gone barefoot as well.

Elijah's breathing become labored and he began to feel the air sucked out of his lungs. It was as if the mist itself was suffocating them, squeezing the life out of them.

"Stay calm. This will pass." What Mallory didn't say was that to panic would be certain death, a drowning on dry land. Instead what he added was:

"Can you smell that spicy, smoky, scent ?"

Elijah had caught a whiff of something he couldn't place.

"Yes. What is it ?"

"Sage, burning in a fire pit not far."

Mallory could hear his leader's breathing become more regular, the dire gasp subsiding and wondered if they had chosen to ride the mustangs from the ridge would the animals have crossed into this inner hoop of near scalding mist. He let go that question to focus on Elijah's wellbeing.

"Try to recall a past experience that brought you pure contentment, bring it to the fore and relive it in your heart."

Elijah turned inward back to his youth and that shining moment when he asked and she assented, while he cupped her graceful hand in his bear paws.

"We'll get through this. It is as the Yuwippi ceremony that awaits us below in many ways. I can understand what the Seer meant now."

(to be continued)