more before they made their departure across the prairie. Three burly men in red turbans stormed out of the storehouse, one carrying a torch, the other two cudgels. Before Lloyd could scramble to his feet, they were upon him.
CHAPTER 2
The Blinking of an Eye
MCGITNEY’S GUARDS PLUCKED LLOYD FROM THE MOON-SOAKED mud and hauled him inside the storehouse like a sack of spuds. For all his fearsome intellect, the boy was powerless in their hands. When he recovered from his shock, he was standing, forcibly propped between two turbaned men on the perimeter of the candles that he had been observing moments earlier, with the face, or rather the dense red beard and glittering eyes, of Increase McGitney poking down at him.
“Who are ya, boy?” the Quist headman demanded.
“He’s a spy!” a woman cried out.
“I’m Lloyd Meadhorn Sitturd,” the boy answered, and shook the big hands off his shoulders with an authority or an arrogance that made McGitney pause.
“Am I to know that name?” McGitney asked, hoping to raise a chuckle among his agitated congregation.
Lloyd instantly regretted proffering his name, but as he could not retract it he let the statement stand and sent his eyes out around the group.
“What brings a lad like you out so late, then?” the Quist leader tried, concerned about this disruption in their ceremony but not afraid. He doubted that any terror gang would send so young a child to scout them.
Lloyd ignored the question, in part because he did not want to have to explain about trying to sleep in a coffin. Instead, he reached out with his hand for the nearest of the thin wooden tablets.
The gray-bearded man who held it pulled back in alarm, but not quite fast enough. As the boy’s hand brushed the bark, the luminous glyphs pulsed with brightness.
“I know those markings,” Lloyd announced. “I’ve seen the likes of them before.”
“Are you … a Quist, then?” McGitney sputtered. “Because naught but the Quists has ever laid eyes on the sacred Headstones.”
Lloyd again refused to answer—he was too enthralled by the shimmering writings. He reached out his hand again toward the bark section the bearded man held close to his chest, and this time the fluorescence illuminated the whole of the man’s face, as if he were clasping a lidded lantern from which the light wanted to escape.
“My Lord!” a woman on the other side of the storehouse cried. “Look!”
One of the other tablets started pulsing more intently, too. Then another. Murmurs and moans spread throughout the storehouse. McGitney sensed some impending crisis of authority in the presence of this boy and the uncanny effect he seemed to have on the Headstones. But he was curious, too.
“Take out the others,” he directed his assistants.
The remaining Headstones were produced from the strongbox and all were now beaming brilliantly, casting their runic mysteries upon the faces and the walls like magic-lantern pictures. The Quists let out a collective gasp and then turned their frightened, composite scrutiny on the boy.
The Book of Buford had promised that there would be another prophet—a true messianic figure to lead the tribe forward into the light of the future and their destiny as spiritual pilgrims and prosperous citizens in the new America that was to come. It was one of the crucial points of the revealed doctrine that McGitney had unquestioning belief in. He knew in his heart that he was but a chieftain of the moment—a trailblazer to spur them westward. He had no private delusions (or “affinity with divinity,” as he called it), however shrewdly he played upon his role to achieve the ends he deemed best for his flock. Now here was an undeniable call from beyond, in the sect’s own terms. It could not be brushed aside.
“How are you doing this, lad?” he asked, in as calm a voice as he could muster. He was relieved at Lloyd’s reply.
“I don’t know that I am doing it—or doing anything. I just know I’ve seen these kinds of markings before.”
The Headstones sparkled in response, as if emphatically agreeing, triggering more exclamations and whispers.
“Where?” McGitney demanded. The Quists’ claim to be a chosen people hinged on the uniqueness of the Headstones. And yet, had not he, their own leader, always harbored the belief that there was more to the glyphic codes than the Book of Buford had disclosed? Was not the very hope upon which the Quist religion was founded—their fundamental tenet of faith—that revelation was not just real but continuing? The ancient wisdom embodied in