Read The Second Ring of Power for Free Online

in the clay slabs.
    "Why did you make the floor red, dona Soledad?"
    "That's my color. I am red, like red dirt. I got the red clay in
the mountains around here. The Nagual told me where to look and he
also helped me carry it, and so did everyone else. They all helped me."
    "How did you fire the clay?"
    "The Nagual made me dig a pit. We filled it with firewood and then
stacked up the clay slabs with flat pieces of rock in between
them. I closed the pit with a lid of dirt and wire and set the wood
on fire. It burned for days."
    "How did you keep the slabs from warping?"
    "I didn't. The wind did that, the north wind that blew while the
fire was on. The Nagual showed me how to dig the pit so it
would face the north and the north wind. He also made me leave
four holes for the north wind to blow into the pit. Then he made me leave one
hole in the center of the lid to let the smoke out. The wind made
the wood burn for days; after the pit was cold again I
opened it and began to polish and even out the slabs. It took me over a year to
make enough slabs to finish my floor."
    "How did you figure out the design?"
    "The wind taught me that. When I made my floor the Nagual had
already taught me not to resist the wind. He had showed me how
to give in to my wind and let it guide me. It took him a long
time to do that, years and years. I was a very difficult, silly old woman at
first; he told me that himself and he was right. But I learned very
fast. Perhaps because I'm old and no longer have anything to
lose. In the beginning, what made it even more difficult for me was the fear I
had. The mere presence of the Nagual made me stutter and
faint. The Nagual had the same effect on everyone else.
It was his fate to be so fearsome."
    She stopped talking and stared at me.
    "The Nagual is not human," she said.
    "What makes you say that?"
    "The Nagual is a devil from who knows what time."
    Her statements chilled me. I felt my heart pounding. She certainly could
not have found a better audience. I was intrigued to no end. I
begged her to explain what she meant by that.
    "His touch changed people," she said. "You know that. He
changed your body. In your case, you didn't even know that he was doing that.
But he got into your old body. He put something in it. He did the same with me.
He left something in me and that something took over. Only a devil can
do that. Now I am the north wind and I fear nothing, and no one. But before he
changed me I was a weak, ugly old woman who would faint at the mere
mention of his name. Pablito, of course, was no help to me because he
feared the Nagual more than death itself.
    "One day the Nagual and Genaro came to the house when I was alone.
I heard them by the door, like prowling jaguars. I crossed myself; to
me they were two demons, but I came out to see what I could do for them. They
were hungry and I gladly fixed food for them. I had some thick bowls
made out of gourd and I gave each man a bowl of soup. The Nagual didn't seem to appreciate the food; he didn't want to eat food prepared by such a weak
woman and pretended to be clumsy and knocked the bowl off the
table with a sweep of his arm. But the bowl, instead of turning
over and spilling all over the floor, slid with the force of the Nagual's blow
and fell on my foot, without spilling a drop. The bowl actually
landed on my foot and stayed there until I bent over and
picked it up. I set it up on the table in front of him and told him that even
though I was a weak woman and had always feared him, my food had
good feelings.
    "From that very moment the Nagual changed toward me. The fact that
the bowl of soup fell on my foot and didn't spill proved to him
that power had pointed me out to him. I didn't know that at the time and I
thought that he changed toward me because he felt ashamed of having refused my food.
I thought nothing of his change. I still was petrified and couldn't even look
him in the eye. But he began to take more and more notice of me. He
even brought me