Red Prophet Page 0,96
out here in the middle of the wilderness, when the center of the world is Europe, great wars are fought there and I have no part in them!"
Ta-Kumsaw didn't need to translate - the boy understood from Napoleon's tone and expression. "He's so dangerous because he makes people love him without deserving it."
Ta-Kurnsaw felt the truth in the boy's words. That was what Napoleon did to White men, and it was dangerous, dangerous and evil and dark. Is this the man I rely on to help me? To be my ally? Yes, he is, because I have no choice. Ta-Kumsaw didn't translate what the boy said, even though Napoleon insisted. So far the French general had not attempted to cast his spell on the boy. If he knew the boy's words, he might try, and it just might capture Alvin. Ta-Kurnsaw was coming to appreciate what the boy was. Perhaps the boy was too strong for Napoleon to charm him. Or perhaps the boy would become an adoring slave like de Maurepas. Better not to find out. Better to take the boy away.
Alvin insisted on seeing the cathedral. One priest looked horrified to see men in loincloths come into the place, but another rebuked him and welcomed them inside. Ta-Kumsaw was always amused by the statues of the saints. Whenever possible, the statues were shown being tortured in the most gruesome ways. White could talk all day about how barbaric it was, the Red practice of torturing captives so they could show courage. Yet whose statues did they kneel at to pray? People who showed courage under torture. There was no making sense of White men.
He and Alvin talked about this on their way out of the city, not hurrying at all now. He also explained to the boy something of how they were able to run so far, so quickly. And how remarkable it was for a White boy to keep up with them.
Alvin seemed to understand how Red men lived within the land; at least he tried. "I think I felt that. While I was running. It's like I'm not in myself. My thoughts are wandering all over. Like dreaming. And while I'm gone, something else is telling my body what to do. Feeding it, using it, taking it wherever it wants to go. Is that what you feel?"
That wasn't at all what Ta-Kumsaw felt. When the land came into him, it was like he was more alive than ever; not absent from his body, but more strongly present in it than at any other time. But he didn't explain this to the boy. Instead he turned the question back to Alvin. "You say it's like dreaming. What did you dream last night?"
"I dreamed again about a lot of the visions I saw when I was in the crystal tower with the Shining - with the Prophet."
"The Shining Man. I know you call him that - he told me why."
"I dreamed those things again. Only it was different. I could see some things more clearly now, and other things I forgot."
"Did you dream anything you hadn't seen before?"
"This place. The statues in the cathedral. And that man we visited, the general. And something even stranger. A big hill, almost round - no, with eight sides. I remember that, it was real clear. A hill with eight straight sides to it, sloping down. Inside it there was a whole city, lots of little rooms, like in anthills, only people-sized. Or anyway bigger than ants. And I was on top of it, wandering around in all these strange trees - they had silver leaves, not green - and I was looking for my brother. For Measure."
Ta-Kumsaw said nothing for a long time. But he thought many things. No White man had ever seen that place - the land was still strong enough to keep them from finding that. Yet this boy had dreamed of it. And a dream of Eight-Face Mound never came by chance. It always meant something. It always meant the same thing.
"We have to go there," Ta-Kumsaw said.
"Where?"
"To the hill you dreamed of," said Ta-Kumsaw.
"There is such a place?"
"No White man has ever seen it. For a White man to stand there would be - filthy." Alvin didn't answer that. What could he say? Ta-Kumsaw swallowed hard. "But if you dream of it, you have to go."
"What is it?"
Ta-Kumsaw shook his head. "The place you dreamed of. That's all.