Kavio

Even though Kavio expected it, his father’s contempt stung.

“Who will cast the first stone?” asked Father.

The men and women in the tiers shuffled, whispered. Most of them removed their masks from their sweat-drenched heads, and a few went so far as to fan themselves.

A woman in amber necklaces removed an orange eagle-feathered mask before she rose to her feet. She was an elder from Father’s generation, his brother’s wife and Father’s bitterest political rival. As a child, Kavio had nicknamed her “Auntie Ugly.”

“I will cast the first stone on behalf of the accusers,” Auntie Ugly said with ill-concealed relish. “Kavio committed the most serious crime of which a Zavaedi dancer is capable. He concocted his own Pattern, a dance unknown to our ancestors. He cannot name the teacher that taught it to him, nor the society who held its secret. That is hexcraft.

“That in itself would be reason to discipline him. But on top of that, he used this Pattern for the vilest of purposes, to harm the community that bore him and to deprive his neighbors of their very livelihood.”

Kavio glanced involuntarily at Mother. He had never seen her so ashen. Though a part of him wanted to spit in Father’s face, the knowledge that he had disappointed Mother burned like chili pepper in his mouth. But no matter what happened, he’d be cursed before he’d show how he felt in front of this assemblage of vultures and jackals. Or in front of his father.

He lifted his chin and faced his accuser with his most insolent smile.

As he’d known it would, his smile infuriated Auntie Ugly. She jabbed a bony finger at him.

“Three days ago, Kavio, you went into a room here in the Labyrinth and performed a hex that diverted a part of the river upstream from the Valley of the Aelfae. By doing so, you have lowered the water level in the fields, making it possible that not enough silt will be deposited by planting season.

“As witness, I call my own son, Zumo the Cloud Dancer.”

Kavio’s cousin, a young man of similar age, build, and height, stood. He removed his mask of blue shells. While Kavio seethed inside, Zumo repeated the lies that had led to this trial in the first place. Not that anything Zumo testified was false; his deception lay in what he didn’t say.

After Zumo, a second witness repeated the story of having found Kavio dancing alone in a kiva in the Labyrinth.

“Thank you both,” Auntie Ugly said smugly after the second witness sat down again. “Kavio, do you deny these charges?”

“I don’t deny what I did,” he said. “I deny that I invented the Pattern, I deny that it was hexcraft, and I deny that it was intended to harm our people.”

When Auntie Ugly sneered at him, the anger that had been pummeling his belly these last days bettered his sense, and he added sarcastically, “I do not deny that there are times I wish I had let you all drown.”

He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. The masked Tavaedies and Zavaedies hissed and shouted.

“Zavaedi Kavio’s guilt is plain,” said Auntie Ugly. “I cast my stone with justice. I call for Kavio’s death!”

She glided to the pottery jar and pulled out a smooth, gray stone, then tossed it on the black mat.

Big surprise there, thought Kavio. You’ve always hated me, you old toad. I never even understood why.

“Zumo?” Auntie Ugly asked her son.

More slowly than his mother, Zumo picked a stone. He threw it on the black mat. He had to walk by where Kavio knelt on the adobe floor to reach his seat again. Just as he passed, Kavio looked up and met his eyes.

“Is that what you really think I deserve, cousin?” Kavio asked in such a low voice that only Zumo heard him. “For what crime? The lies you told here or because I know the truth about you?”

Zumo flushed, whether with guilt or anger, it was impossible to tell.

“No one will listen to anything you have to say now, Kavio,” Zumo replied, also too quietly for anyone else to hear. “They’ll know you’re just clawing at worms to try to save your own hide.”

He stomped back to his seat, where he replaced his mask.

Auntie Ugly had sentenced the son of her rival to death; all eyes now fell upon Father to see if he would defend his son.

Father’s heavy shoulder blanket seemed to weigh him down as he walked to the jar to pick up a stone. He stood there a long while, turning the rock round and round in his hands.

“I would like to speak,” he said finally, looking straight at Kavio, “on behalf of the accusers.”

Surprise stirred the onlookers. Kavio just smiled grimly. He wasn’t surprised at all. He’d known from the day his father had called for the trial that Father would put political need above family sentiment. Sure enough, Father gave a pretty little speech, distancing himself from his son. He locked his jaw when he finished and clutched his fist around his stone. “I too must cast my stone with justice, even if it means the death of my own son, my only child.”

He threw his rock on the black mat. He met Kavio’s eyes without flinching, but when Mother gasped, Father would not look at her.

Mother stood up next and pleaded on Kavio’s behalf. Even she would not declare him innocent. Instead, she simply begged for mercy—exile instead of death. Mother picked a stone out of the jar and placed it on the orange mat.

Kavio felt his face burn with shame. He wouldn’t beg for his life himself, and he didn’t want her to crawl for him either. Besides, death would be easier than exile. He didn’t think he could bear the humiliation of wearing ash. Exile meant fleeing his home like a vole from a prairie fire. Exile meant scorn would meet him wherever he went. Exile meant he would not have the opportunity to finish unraveling the puzzle he had discovered in the heart of the Labyrinth, the only magic he still cared about.

Far, far better to die.

One by one the rest of the Zavaedis came to cast their stones for either exoneration, exile, or death. Some spoke to the assembly of their reasons why, others simply placed the stone according to their choice.

Unfortunately, his mother’s plea moved many people to pity him. When all the rocks had piled up, the orange mat held the most stones.

Exile.

Kavio swallowed hard to conceal his reaction. You have murdered me all the same.

Father pounded the rain stick.

“Kavio, you have been found guilty of the most heinous of crimes—hexcraft. Though you remain a member of the secret societies that initiated you and are therefore spared death, nonetheless you are forbidden to enter the Labyrinth, to take with you anything from the Labyrinth, or to study with any dancing society of the Labyrinth. Do you understand and acknowledge your punishment?”

“I understand it all too well,” Kavio said through gritted teeth. “But I will never acknowledge it as just.”

“So be it,” Father said tonelessly. “Bring the pot of ashes.”

Two warriors hefted a ceramic pot from where it had rested in the shadow of the tall platform. They forced Kavio to lean back while still on his knees. They smeared him with a paste and rubbed in the gray-black powder. His bare chest and clean shaven face disappeared under a scum of grey crud. Humiliation itched, but like poison ivy, he knew it would be worse if he scratched it. He forced himself still as stone while the warriors slapped on more mud.

“You must wear mud and ash for the rest of your days,” the Maze Zavaedi concluded. His voice broke. “I am ashamed to call you my son.”

Kavio struggled to his feet. The warriors escorting him surrounded him with a hedge of spears. Did they fear him, even now?

“You never could just trust me, could you, Father?” Kavio asked.

Father’s jaw jutted forward. A muscle moved in his neck. Otherwise, he might have been rock. “Escort my son out of the Labyrinth.”