People of the Morning Star (54 page)

The Web

In the darkness, I can see the Keeper’s pipe. She sits at the southwest corner of her palace, her feet at the edge where the mound surface slopes away; her back is against the wall. Someone is with her, though in the darkness, I do not know who. Some old lover, perhaps? I can’t think of anyone else she’d share a pipe with.

The person’s identity is inconsequential. My joy comes from the fact that she’s out here at all. I’ve known her to spend entire nights perched there in solitude, her brooding eyes fixed on the Avenue of the Sun as it heads west-southwest through the cluttered city. I’ve always wondered if, deep in her souls, she’d like to follow the road, just head out and vanish to someplace quiet and small. Perhaps some woods-surrounded farmstead with a creek and fertile fields where no one would demand anything of her.

She only escapes to the seclusion of her mound edge like this when events have taken a turn for the worse, when she’s dispirited, confused, and feeling defeated. To see her so, delights me. I have her completely off balance, reeling.

I now know two things. Bleeding Hawk is dead. And while his capture was unforeseen, I’d nevertheless planned for that eventuality. I’ll probably never know the details of what went wrong; nor do they matter. Any damage is forestalled; the Keeper will be preoccupied trying to work out the details of Right Hand’s treachery, desperately hoping to find the clue that will lead her to me.

“Search, Keeper. Search hard and diligently. Keep your eyes on the east, send your agents to scour the uplands and poke among the dirt farmers for my hiding place.”

The moment I learned that they had raided War Duck’s warehouse, found the red serpent I painted on the back wall, I rid myself of that fool High Dance and hurried here. The Keeper’s agents will be quizzing old War Duck, sniffing around his household, seeking any hint that he’s involved.

“Sniff hard, you little camp dogs. Dig up his garden, piss on his pots. I wish you all the luck as you infuriate War Duck and sting his pride.”

I am reassured. If she had any inkling of my plans, the last place she would be is outside her palace smoking. Tomorrow I will take them all by surprise. My web is now spun. I have my sticky tendrils everywhere I need them. All I have to do is draw in my mired prey.

Well, except for Night Shadow Star.

I expect Power to bring her to me before the end.

I turn in the darkness, my pack-load of smoked fish sending enchanting odors to tease my empty stomach. Even as I pull one of the oily fish from the pack and sink my teeth into it. I stare worriedly at Night Shadow Star’s palace. I can see it just off to the east across the western plaza.

Where are you? What are you doing, my forbidden love?

Is she even in there? I have heard nothing, seen nothing. She should have been at the Council House when Right Hand and Corn Seed were interrogated. She should have been rushing to and fro, her anxiety goaded to a fever pitch by Lace’s abduction. Of them all, I have counted on her quick brilliance and impetuous emotions to goad the confusion, to incite violent efforts to find me.

We have unfinished business between us, love of my life.

Without her, what I am planning simply will not work. Any chance of success hinges on having them all—each and every one of Red Warrior’s daughters. A sacrifice of such importance it will be worthy of the greatest resurrection ever. Before I can achieve the impossible, First Woman must be placated, convinced of my sincerity. The blood poured on her earth must be rich enough to compensate for the disruption I am bringing to her realm.

And there can be no higher sacrifice than the most influential women of the Four Winds Clan.

Time to see what helpless creatures I have stuck in my web. You see, like this fish I now chew, terror can also feed an appetite.

Fifty

As she came swimming up through dreams, the first physical sensation Night Shadow Star was conscious of was hunger.

She stretched—only to find a blanket tucked tightly under her chin. Flopping onto her side, her eyes flashed open as her full bladder demanded attention.

She lay on her bed. The blanket—a wedding gift she’d shared with Makes Three—half strangled her. The remains of a blinding headache lay partially dormant behind her eyes as she sat up and flipped the blanket to one side.

“Rides-the-Lightning said you were coming back,” a weary voice intruded from behind. She gasped and turned.

Fire Cat watched her through knowing eyes. He clutched one of Makes Three’s bows; ill-fitting armor and a helmet on his head completed his dress. A wicked-looking war club her husband had once used lay beside him.

“What are you doing in my room? Why are you wearing my husband’s armor?” She felt the anger rising hard and bitter.

“I’m following your orders to the limit, Lady,” he replied without inflection. “And, since you’ve awakened alive, with a beating heart, unraped and unabducted, perhaps I was successful.”

She reached up, rubbing her gummy eyes, recalling her last order to him. “And the weapons?”

“If anyone decided they’d take you, I planned on making it as interesting for them as I could.”

“You said Rides-the-Lightning was here?”

“Runners have been coming for him for the last half day. Some emergency with a clansman. He left perhaps a hand of time ago. He said he could feel your souls coming back, that the danger had passed.” Fire Cat’s eyebrow arched up under the rim of the leather-and-wood helmet. “Your Spirit journey was apparently filled with fears and terrors. You only really panicked me once, but there were a couple of other instances when things got frantic enough that I grew hopeful.”

“Hopeful?”

“That you wouldn’t be coming back. That my honor would be satisfied.”

Visions spun through her like wind-tossed matting: Piasa, Horned Serpent, Snapping Turtle in the Underworld. The unleashed memories of that day when the Morning Star first summoned her after the resurrection. Piasa’s voice hissed in her head as she relived the horror and disbelief, almost feeling the physical violation.

She clamped her eyes, fighting back tears, shaking her head in an attempt to clear her sight.

“Here,” he said softly. “Take this.”

To her surprise, when she opened her eyes, he offered her a cup of still-steaming black drink. Anxiously she drank it down; the bitter brew refreshed as it hit her empty stomach.

He stood, pointed at the chamber pot, and said, “I’ll be back in a bit. Food should be ready. If it’s not, I’ll have to bruise a couple of Clay String’s bones just on principle.”

“He’s Four Winds, a cousin,” she murmured.

“So he reminds me periodically. As soon as they catch you alone, the whole lot of them are going to demand you put me back in a square so they can pay me back for the last couple of days.”

“Couple of days?” She rubbed her face, trying to massage away the wooden feeling. “That’s how long I was in the Underworld?”

He nodded, hesitated. “The scorpion—that’s what they’re calling the assassin—he’s abducted your sister, Lace. The Keeper’s been turning the whole city upside down looking for her.”

“Lace?” She shuddered. “Of course. He’s going to want us all. Sun Wing, mother, even the Keeper if he can get her.”

“Do you know where he’s taken Lace? What he’s after?”

She nodded. “Now go. Grant me a moment of privacy, and bring me back whatever we have to eat. Piasa knows what kind of corn gruel they’ve kept burning, but I’m past complaining.”

And to her surprise, he shot her a crooked grin. “I’ll see what we’ve got.”

Then he was gone.

Wearily, stiffly, she climbed down and squatted over the chamber pot. Past her door she could hear Fire Cat snapping out orders, heard the quick assent of her slaves and servants. Not even Field Green, on her best day, had commanded that kind of respect.

When she had finished she set the pot outside, and peered around the door post. The place smelled of roast venison, cattail bread, baked squash, and steeping black drink. The great room appeared neat, blankets folded, the matting swept, everything in order as if for a visit from the Morning Star himself.

Her servants were glancing sidelong at her, a plea in their eyes, before they shot worried looks at the Red Wing where he crouched in his battle armor and filled a wooden plate with steaming food.

Retreating back into her room, she opened a box, withdrew a black dress with white lightning zig-zags down the sides, and hesitated. Counting the time she’d been in the Underworld, nearly four days had passed since she’d bathed, but her body was clean and smelled of yucca—a luxury imported from the western Plains.

Rides-the-Lightning, of course. He would have insisted. She slipped the dress over her shoulders and belted it with a leather strap. She then took a moment to refold the blanket and lay it on the bed.

Then the Red Wing was back, his eyes fatigued. Makes Three’s old helmet was pushed back on his head at an insolent cant. She seated herself. Famished, she dove into the food, almost burning her fingers on the hot venison. He stood, back braced against the door frame, muscular arms crossed on the armor breastplate.

“What else did I miss?”

“Your aunt’s pet thief caught one of the Tula. Apparently one of the men who tried to kill you that night.” He grinned. “The thief once told me he didn’t fight clean. I hear he spit tobacco in the Tula’s eyes, then mauled him like a mad bear. Bit the man’s lip off. Then smuggled him to your aunt’s palace in a canoe.”

“And what did the Tula tell them?”

“The word I got is that the scorpion had something on a Deer Clan chief named Right Hand. Used him and his sister to put pressure on Cut String to try and kill the Morning Star. Right Hand and this Corn Seed managed to swallow enough water hemlock to … Well, you know.”

She glanced down at the squash, nodded, and fingered it into her mouth. “The scorpion? Not inappropriate I suppose. He would have known Right Hand had never forgiven Chunkey Boy. He was probably part of the maiming.”

“Not the nicest of people, this brother of yours.”

She felt a dead emptiness inside, a hollowing that no amount of food would ever fill.

“No,” she whispered. “Not nice at all.” Memories, unvarnished, rose behind her eyes. Piasa whispered, causing her to glance to the side, as if she’d see him in the corner of the room. The flicker of his movement kept vanishing at the edge of her vision.

She ordered her thoughts and said, “The world would have been a better place if Mother had taken us one by one as we were born, and drowned us in the river.”

“That’s a bit extreme.”

She swallowed hard, took a big bite of succulent venison, and shook her head as she chewed. Swallowing, she washed it down with black drink, and told him, “We were doomed from the moment we took our first breaths. And along the way, so many others were going to have to suffer, bleed, and die because of us. If I hadn’t been allowed to live, Right Hand would be alive now, unmaimed, and probably a happy man. Perhaps my brother wouldn’t be crazed with Spirit voices as he seeks to destroy us all and become an even greater monster than he is.”

“What’s this? An admission of the truth about your beloved Chunkey Boy?”

She glanced at him, eyes fixing on his. “Chunkey Boy? He was the mild one. Your scorpion? I learned his identity in the Underworld. His name is Walking Smoke. My
other
brother. He’s the one driven insane with jealousy and rage, the one the voices are telling to destroy Cahokia, and sacrifice us all.”

“I thought he was dead.”

She felt the quiver of fear around her heart. “No. And, cunning and twisted as he is, it’s up to me to find a way to kill him before he can do more harm.”

*   *   *

The sick feeling in High Dance’s stomach had nothing to do with bad food. In fact he’d barely touched his breakfast that morning. As he strolled across the Evening Star town plaza, he tried to look relaxed, but the broken half of a bead in his palm felt as poisonous as unprocessed coontie root.