People of the Morning Star (58 page)

“I know it, aunt.” Night Shadow Star’s haunted gaze seemed to bore right through the
Tonka’tzi.

“How?” Blue Heron barked. “Did he tell you? Have you seen him? Heard from him?”

She shook her head absently. “I know because, but for Piasa’s Power filling me, whispering to me, I would be the same lost and wretched being my brother has become.”

Spooked as he was, Seven Skull Shield caught the stiffening of Morning Star’s shoulders, the slight narrowing of his eyes as he watched Night Shadow Star. He certainly believed it.

Blue Heron seemed to shake herself. “Getting back to the problem, Walking Smoke has violated the Morning Star’s banishment. He has returned with Tula warriors to murder his own family, and has been playing us for fools.” She snapped her fingers, expressing irritation. “No wonder he’s been so successful. He knows us, knows Cahokia. He could have walked among us at will, his face painted, wearing rags. He could blend in with the crowd, hidden right before our eyes, and we’d never have known.”

“But why?”
Tonka’tzi
Wind demanded. “What did we ever do to him except treat him as the heir to the Four Winds Clan? We covered for that boy, cleaned up after his crimes, gave him everything he ever wanted.”

“Like his brother before him, he discovered he wanted even more than you, or anyone, could give,” Night Shadow Star snapped, a harsh anger in her tone. She was looking hard at the Morning Star. “Chunkey Boy and Walking Smoke? My brothers shared everything. What one had, the other couldn’t stand to be without. They were Four Winds, of the Morning Star House, sons of the
Tonka’tzi
and the legendary Black Tail. They lived above the laws of Power and men.”

She sniffed derisively, her hot glare on Morning Star. “It
could not
have happened! Not to me. The images were spun of something whispered by malignant voices—a fantasy nightmare promoting discord. A nightmare that repeated itself over and over. It woke me shivering from the deepest sleep. I blamed myself, felt ashamed that such vile and sordid images could inhabit my dream soul. I had convinced myself that I was somehow perverted, that my souls bore some pollution that led me to even dream such a disgusting and revolting event. I might have even continued to keep it at bay, but for my brother’s return. It provided the opening Piasa and Horned Serpent needed to pull back the midnight I’d draped around my souls and memory.”

Her fists knotted. “It was real! That happened to me.”

The Morning Star now gave her a cold smile in return. He said in level tones. “I am
not
your brother. But he is.”

A grim set to her perfect mouth, she snapped bitterly, “And I will deal with him. You will
not
interfere.”

Seven Skull Shield heard both
Tonka’tzi
and the Keeper gasp at the order. Apparently one didn’t use that tone of voice with the Morning Star.

The living god gave her the faintest of nods. “He is yours … and your master’s. Presuming you can deliver him.”

“You and I, however—”

“
That
will be for a different day.” His eyes, too, narrowed, boring into hers. “Let us accept,
Lady,
that we serve different worlds, and leave the actions of humans behind us for the moment.”

The very air seemed to vibrate with tension. Both the Keeper and
Tonka’tzi
were cringing, expecting some explosion.

“Agreed,” Night Shadow Star told him through gritted teeth, her rage apparent. Then she relented, a bitter smile bending her lips. “Despite what lies between us, Morning Star, a greater danger must be addressed.” She paused. “You know what he’s going to attempt? Why he’s taken Lace and summoned Sun Wing?”

Morning Star’s nod made the two-headed eagle headdress bob. “And I finally understand Piasa’s interest in you.” He paused, shifting his glance to the cowed Keeper and
Tonka’tzi.
To them he said, “The one called Walking Smoke is attempting to conduct a resurrection. If Lady Night Shadow Star is correct—and he truly believes himself to be the Wild One—he must surpass the achievement of his brother, Chunkey Boy.”

“How?” Blue Heron demanded. “Chunkey Boy’s souls were replaced by your own. How can he surpass his brother’s sacrifice of willingly surrendering his body to you?”

Night Shadow Star’s brittle laughter crackled in the still air. “Aunt, don’t you see? He’s going to sacrifice Sun Wing and Lace and her unborn child in the attempt to resurrect another Spirit being inside his own body. One greater than Morning Star.”

“The Wild One, the real Thrown Away Boy, wasn’t greater than Morning Star,” the
Tonka’tzi
growled.

“No,” Morning Star told her evenly. He glanced sidelong at Night Shadow Star as he spoke. “We were equal, but opposites. But if Lord Walking Smoke could resurrect Piasa’s Spirit to occupy his body? What sort of triumph would that be for the once-banished and disgraced brother of Chunkey Boy?”

“But that’s impossible!” Blue Heron cried.

“Is it?” Night Shadow Star demanded, spinning around. “But for a couple of mistakes he came close to resurrecting a dead Tula into a woman’s body up in that farmstead on the bluff. Close enough that the Powers of the Underworld fear he might succeed. And then what happens to our world?”

“Vomit and blood,” Seven Skull Shield whispered to himself. “It would be like the Beginning Times, monsters and mayhem everywhere.”

“For once, thief,” Fire Cat muttered through gritted teeth, “you and I agree.”

Fifty-four

Possessed of a sense of disbelief and shock, Blue Heron descended the long stairway. The late-afternoon sun slanted in the northwest, filtering through the low-hanging orange-brown haze created by Cahokia’s thousands of fires. It glistened on the ox-bow lakes that curled around the wide floodplain like lazy shining serpents.

The vista that normally amazed her, and the miracle it represented, paled against the revelations she’d just heard. And could almost refuse to believe.

She glanced sidelong at Seven Skull Shield who descended the steps beside her in an ambling gait. “Well, thief?”

“I’d give a Tunica pot to know what the terrible secret is.”

“The terrible secret?”

“The one between the Morning Star, this Walking Smoke, and Night Shadow Star. Whatever it is, it’s a snap and crack.”

“A snap and crack?”

“Yes. You know. Like you have to do to get at the best and juiciest meat hidden inside a nutshell?”

“You have a peculiar way of talking.”

“You have a peculiar family. Makes me glad that all my children are being raised by men who think that they’re the fathers.”

“I really ought to hang you in a square,” she muttered. “What I
want
to know is how preposterous this claim really is. Can Walking Smoke actually resurrect the Piasa’s souls into his body?”

“Keeper, I’m not the one to ask. For me, most of this business of Power is just that. Business. A way to be on the take. Oh, sure, there’s storms and seasons and floods, and life and sickness and death. And ghosts, I do believe in ghosts, and forest and river Spirits. But praying and making offerings, and priests and temples and great festivals to keep the sky and earth in line? That’s a way for people like you and the priests to safely separate the dirt farmers from their harvest.”

“Such a skeptic, are you?”

He gave her a half-lidded thoughtful look. “If half of what the priests and people believe was really true, I’d have been blasted by lightning or swallowed by the earth years ago. The easiest place to rob is a temple. No one guards the shell or copper, figuring any thief would be charred to ash just touching the sacred holies.”

“So you think this is all a sham on Walking Smoke’s part?”

“Sham? No.” He screwed his face up as he thought it through. “He’s killing people, Keeper. And no matter what I think, Lady Night Shadow Star and Morning Star, they think he can do it.”

“Now you’re an expert on my niece and the living god?”

“I’m pretty good at spotting liars, Keeper. Being not such a bad one myself, if I do say so.”

“Apparently you do.”

He gave her a measuring glance, his normally deceitful eyes unveiled. “She believes it. And so does Morning Star. He’s good that one. He just gives off the faintest of tells, the quiver at the corner of his lips, the slight narrowing of his eyes. Sometimes it’s just the barest change in his posture, or the squaring of his shoulders. He likes playing the living god.”

“Maybe because he
is
the living god?” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her tone.

“Not my decision to make,” Seven Skull Shield admitted as he lowered his moccasin-clad feet from step to step. “But for those of you who do believe in such things, your charming Walking Smoke is going to cut Lace’s throat and then Sun Wing’s, just like he did with those dirt farmers. And if he makes his ritual work this time, he’s going to call one really mad Piasa to inhabit his body.”

“But what does that
mean
?” she demanded. “For all we know, if Walking Smoke actually succeeds, Piasa might just tear the body into bloody chunks, strew the meat and bones around, and dive back into the Underworld.”

“And there’s another concern. I’m hazy on it, but you might want to ask that Lightning Rider—”

“Rides-the-Lightning.”

“That’s him. Now, if an element of Piasa’s Spirit is already whispering to Night Shadow Star—an element we’ll assume is some sort of dream-soul, a projection of Power, or whatever it is—what happens when the whole Water Panther’s Spirit takes complete possession of Walking Smoke? Does he then control Night Shadow Star? Or does it jerk Piasa right out of her like ripping out a piece of her souls?”

She gave him a horrified look. “I have no idea. It’s … It’s…”

“Breaking all the rules that govern Power?” He spread his arms wide.

“Or it might break those barriers Night Shadow Star was so concerned about. Create an imbalance between the Spirit Worlds that empowers witchcraft, disease, upsets in the weather, spawns tornadoes, makes things fall from the sky … who knows?”

He led the way down onto the Council House terrace. “In the Creation story
Hunga Ahuito
separated the Powers of the three worlds, making them balance. Morning Star was a terrestrial being once, he and his brother. Only after he ascended to the Sky World on eagle wings, did that status change. So, calling him back into a human body isn’t an abomination.”

He raised a cautionary finger. “Messing around, bringing Piasa’s Spirit fully into this world? Putting the Spirit Beast’s souls in a human body? What kind of abomination is that? Such a deed could lead to complete chaos.” He winced. “If you believe in these things.”

She nodded at the guards as they left the Council House palisade gate and started down the last flight of stairs to where her litter waited on the broad roadway. She could see her porters where they lingered in the crowd. Pilgrims were watching her descent, pointing, talking back and forth, amazed that right before their eyes, here came the Four Winds Clan Keeper.

“I’ve never cared for all this,” she muttered to herself. Then louder, added, “Thief, we really have to find Lace. And Sun Wing if he’s got her, too. You understand the hurry now, don’t you?”

He nodded, leading the way down to the Avenue of the Sun, waving away the crowd as they sidled closer. “She can’t be far. And knowing the kind of man your Walking Smoke is—”

“Seven Skull Shield!” A thickly muscled man, his forearms scarred, pushed forward, calling, “By the droop-balled Spirits, you look like a man who could play chunkey.” He grinned, mouth wide in his round face. Three peglike teeth remained standing in his jaws. “A good friend sends you this. Says with it, you can change your winnings.”

Blue Heron was on the verge of calling her guards to have them deal with the ruffian, but Seven Skull Shield raised a restraining hand as the man offered a beautifully crafted red-granite chunkey stone.

Seven Skull Shield took it, glanced at Blue Heron, and said, “Give my good friend, here, a nice piece of Trade, Keeper. I think I’m off to try my skill. If this stone changes my luck, I may have something for you.” He actually winked at her in a most conspiratorial manner. Then he was off, almost pounding his way through the crowd as he headed west on the Avenue of the Sun.

The arm-scarred brute was looking at her as if he’d never seen a noble in his entire life. Maybe he hadn’t. She gestured as Smooth Pebble and War Claw appeared at either side. “Give the good fellow a piece of copper, will you? And thank him for his service.”

“But, I…” Smooth Pebble touched her chin, adding, “Yes, Keeper. But I’ve received a message. A runner, almost spent, arrived as you were coming down the stairs. Lady Columella requests your presence in Evening Star town. She informs you that she’s discovered some very unsettling information, unsettling enough that she will only disclose it to you in person.”

“How soon does she want me there?”

“Her messenger said immediately.” Smooth Pebble’s brow lined with worry. “Keeper? With everything else that’s going on, do you dare leave?”