People of the Morning Star (17 page)

Eleven

Someone touching his body brought Fire Cat awake. His first impulse to jerk away died as his muscles and nerves jolted him with pain.

“Hold still,” a raspy voice told him.

Fire Cat blinked, memories flooding into his souls. He’d been following the Spirit form of First Woman, as if through a dream. The men carrying him had climbed a high set of stairs and lowered his body onto a veranda as she vanished into an ornate palace with painted walls and a magnificently carved door.

They’d fed him a meal of cooked venison and allowed him to drink all he could hold. He’d barely been conscious, and delighted enough to fall into a deep repose when they brought him a warm blanket.

Horrible dreams had tormented his sleep, and now? Well, just where, exactly, was he?

He lay on a soft pallet, beside a warm fire, and in the center of a most incredible palace. The high ceiling was smoke-filled. Images of Morning Star, Horned Serpent, Falcon, and Rattlesnake decorated the walls. In the back, to either side of a single door, large wooden disks carved with the four swirling curls of the Four Winds Clan had been hung. Weapons interspersed with trophy skulls, articulated arm and leg bones, as well as shields, war clubs, and quivers of arrows decorated the walls. Each of the benches that had been built out from the walls was intricately ornamented in spiraling twists, or as twining snakes. The uprights extended a man’s height above the benches, the tops of the poles exquisitely sculpted into heads with lifelike faces. Others were topped with spirit images of Eagle, Snapping turtle, Ivory-billed woodpecker, or Hummingbird, all fitted with inlaid shell eyes. The blankets were among the finest he’d ever seen, tightly woven of fine hemp fiber, buffalo wool, or spun human hair.

Also remarkable were the beautifully burnished jars and pots visible beneath the benches. They rested between fantastically detailed wooden boxes inlaid with shell, mica, and copper.

Then he turned his attention to the old man who crouched over him and attended his wounded wrists. The elder wore only a plain brown shirt that hung down in a crumpled fold. The face was positively ancient—a mass of wrinkles that obscured the meaning of long-faded tattoos. His excuse of a nose could be likened to a round knob of flesh; the old man’s eyes were grayed with blindness.

“The salve will heal the skin on your wrists,” he said gently. “I’ve already attended to your ankles. The pain in your shoulders and joints should diminish over the coming days, but in the meantime, you’re to drink willow-bark tea. The lady has enough in supply to last you a half moon.”

“Who are you?”

“Humans call me Rides-the-Lightning. I am known by other names among the dead and the Spirits.”

Fire Cat swallowed hard. “The great Earth Clan healer of Cahokia?”

Then it hit him:
I’m alive!

“Fortunately,” the old man was saying, “you’re both young and strong. I can tell that your souls are firmly anchored in your body, so there should be no long-term effects.”

“Elder?” A melodious voice asked, “May we proceed?”

The old healer looked up, and Fire Cat followed his gaze to the woman who emerged from the single doorway in the back. The sight of her shook him: the woman he’d thought to be First Woman, and a Spirit. Now she was dressed in a vivid blue skirt, a bright yellow cape over her shoulders. Her midnight-black hair was up and secured with a long copper pin that flared into the form of the sacred turkey-tail mace. The sort of thing only worn by a distinguished ruler.

“Who are you?” He tried to think, to make sense of it.

“Your master,” she replied coldly, and narrowed her eyes. “Do you remember your vow, given upon the graves of your ancestors? If not, and your memory is as faulty as the rest of you, you may go back to the square.”

His oath? Of course. But he thought he’d been talking to a Spirit woman. “My memory is fine. Where are my mother and sisters?”

“They belong to the Morning Star and serve the lord’s wishes.”

“He’s not a lord,” Fire Cat forced himself to say. “He’s a man, playing at being a god.”

Her full lips formed into a deadly smile. “He told me you’d say that.”

“Well, he’s right. Whoever he is.”

“Lady?” Rides-the-Lightning couldn’t hide the fear in his voice. “Are you sure you want this one? His mouth is most foul.”

“As is the rest of him, old friend.” Her expression hardened. “He is a means to an end, a tool to be used, and nothing more. Let’s see if this
thing
is what I was told to expect, or if it’s a distraction.”

Thing?
“Lady, if that’s how I address you—”

“It is.”

“Then know that I am Fire Cat Twelvekiller, of the Red Wing Clan, of the Moon Moiety, and whatever vow and promise I made, my word is my life. My memory is impeccable. You took me from the square, and having given my word, I’ll serve you to the best of my ability.”

She stepped closer, saying, “The beast speaks brave words, doesn’t he?” Then she added, “Very well, beast, you will hold still. You will not cry out or resist in any way.”

“What are you doing?”

“Determining if you, and what’s left of your clan lineage, will live or die.”

He was looking into her eyes, reading her hatred and loathing.
What have I bound myself to?
“I will follow orders.”

“Then do so,” she said coldly as she knelt beside him.

With a belly-twisting fear, he watched as Rides-the-Lightning handed the woman a small blade of stone: obsidian. Its glassy surface glittered in the firelight.

“Keep your arms out,” Rides-the-Lightning suggested. “This will sting, but nothing like what you’ve been through.”

“What are you doing?”

She positioned the thin sliver of obsidian in her long fingers, a slight frown of concentration lining her forehead. “How much?”

“Just a small piece from the crucial areas. Top of the head first.”

She shifted, and Fire Cat’s heart began to pound. “If you’re—”

“Be
silent
! If you’re this much of a coward, I’m better served to slit your throat and be done with it.” Then to herself, she added, “On your souls, husband, I am sorely tempted.”

At the disgust in her voice, Fire Cat stiffened his body, clenching his teeth. No woman called him a coward.

She fingered through his hair at the top of his head, and began softly singing. The words made no sense, but at her touch a tingle ran through his head, as if Power sparked from her long fingers. A spear of panic shot through him.
Ancestors, she’s going to scalp me!

Muscles rigid, expression like a mask, his guts twisted as the sharp sting at the top of his head announced her cut.

“That’s good,” Rides-the-Lightning said.

Fire Cat tried to swallow past the fear in his throat, but she had only taken a bit of scalp smaller than a fingernail. Still singing, she studied it and the attached hair, and handed it to Rides-the-Lightning.

From a little pouch the priest removed what Fire Cat recognized as a rattlesnake fang. Singing in the same incomprehensible voice, the old man pierced the bit of scalp with the fang and dropped it into a small black ceramic pot. The vessel’s sides had been engraved with the sinuous forms of Tie Snakes.

“What are you
doing
?”

She ignored him while her deft fingers sliced a pinch of skin from each of his shoulders. As she continued to sing, she handed them to Rides-the-Lightning, who pierced each one with a rattlesnake fang before dropping it into the pot.

Fire Cat’s terror built, and he felt trickles of blood leaking from the small wounds. Rigid as a board, he battled the growing horror. The words of her incomprehensible song hit him like blows to his souls.

Horrified, he channeled all of his courage into the struggle to keep from flinching each time she touched him, took a pinch of skin, and sliced it away. She cut a tiny bit from the inside of his elbows, a bit from the palm of his hand. Pinching each breast above the nipples, she sliced more bits of him away. Then from his belly, thighs, and feet.

The old man continued to pull snake fangs from his pouch, carefully pressing each through the piece of skin she handed him.

Fire Cat watched with wide eyes as she reached for his penis. He trembled as she grasped and pulled his foreskin taut. With a deft and stinging slice, she removed yet another tiny bit.

He couldn’t control the whimper in his voice as he asked, “What are you
doing
?”

The woman leaned back, her large eyes glistening. His blood stained her fingertips as she placed her hands on her knees, and lifted her face toward the ceiling.

The old man’s singing stopped. Holding the black rattlesnake pot so that the opening faced Fire Cat’s mouth, he said, “Blow into it.”

“No!”

“I told you he was a coward,” the woman said disdainfully. “A coward and a liar.”

“I
don’t
understand!”

She fixed him with dark, eternal eyes that only added to his fear. “You are
mine.
Do as the elder orders you.”

Summoning his courage, Fire Cat blew into the pot.

“Now spit,” the old man ordered.

Mouth dry as sunbaked leather, Fire Cat managed a dry attempt at spitting into the pot, and as he did, he couldn’t help but look inside. To his dismay, only an impossible black infinity met his gaze, as if there were no bottom to the little vessel.

The old man raised the pot high, offered it to the four cardinal directions, and finally touched it to the floor. With careful fingers, the old shaman withdrew a snakeskin sack from his pouch. He pulled the sack around the little black pot and tied off the open end.

Fire Cat could see the fear in the old man’s eyes as he struggled to his feet, saying, “I will attend to it as you ordered, Lady.”

She exhaled, as if from tension, and nodded. “I thank you, old friend.”

Some curious communication passed between them, and to Fire Cat’s eyes, while she’d called him an “old friend” Rides-the-Lightning just didn’t look like he wanted to be anywhere close to her.

The priest gave Fire Cat one last dismissive stare, his blind gray eyes narrowing. “I hope he is worth it.”

“We all do,” she whispered, and rose to her feet.

“What have you done?” Fire Cat cried, suddenly dizzy as he gasped for air. It felt as if some part of him was draining away. He fought to keep the room from spinning.

She turned those dark and eerie eyes on his. “Your oath may be sufficient for what’s coming, but I had to be sure. Now, I have claimed both your souls and your body as mine.”

And with that she turned on her heel and followed the old man outside.

“I am taken by a witch,” he managed through gritted teeth, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

He reached up, the movement agonizing to his arms, and scrubbed at the tears, hardly aware as a man padded in on bare feet and knelt beside him. With a damp cloth, the man scrubbed at Fire Cat’s little wounds, wiping away the blood.

“Forgive me if this hurts.”

“I … I’m a warrior.”

“Not anymore. You are whatever the lady says you are.”

“Who
is
she?”

The man gave him a solicitous look. “She’s the lady Night Shadow Star, first daughter of the
tonka’tzi,
of the Four Winds Clan. The woman whose husband you killed.” He paused, no sympathy in his expression. “I have no idea why you are still alive given the grief she’s suffered on account of you. Whatever you do, I wouldn’t disappoint her. Not if you value what little life you have left.”

Twelve

A warm spring sun burned down on the plaza; wisps of mist rose from the trampled grass on the stickball field. As the sun burned away the last traces of the rain, Blue Heron delighted in the warmth. She reclined on her litter, her attendants clustered around her. She’d come to think, to watch the stickball practice—and to get an informal word with Night Shadow Star.

She glanced around at the crowd that lined the field, mostly older people with spare time on their hands. Here and there, pots, shell, pieces of copper, blankets, sacks of corn, and other goods had been wagered on the two teams’ practice scrimmage. Odds were on the team wearing flaring black skirts.

To the north, Morning Star’s soaring temple seemed to pierce the sky where it dominated the great mound’s heights. A throng of people congregated at the bottom of the ramp that led up to the first, walled terrace. There, in the Council House,
Tonka’tzi
Red Warrior was already holding audiences with the endless line of chiefs, councilors, Traders, and messengers.

Better him than me.
Blue Heron had always preferred the deeper, more intricate games of deception, move and countermove, and the subtle intrigue that went with them.

But I missed Cut String’s attack on the Morning Star.

How? Nothing she had heard had sent so much as a prickle of premonition through her.

Who could have planned it?

Matron Columella? Cut String was one of the Evening Star House matron’s cousins several times removed, and the wily Columella was more than capable of plotting such a strike. But had Columella done so, she would have prepositioned herself to take advantage of a successful assassination. Something that in retrospect would have given her away.