People of the Morning Star (21 page)

“Someone tried to kill the Morning Star the other night.” Bead said it emotionlessly. “The attempt was audacious. From what I’ve
finally
been able to ferret out, it would have succeeded but for the unlikely arrival of Lady Night Shadow Star.”

A band of fear tightened around High Dance’s chest. “I’ve heard nothing of this.”

“No. I suppose you haven’t.” Bead’s voice hinted of indifference. “They’re keeping it quiet.”

“And the assassin?” Though he struggled to maintain an appearance of calm, he could feel fear sweat tingling in his skin.

“Dead.” Bead kept his eyes on the crowd watching the chunkey game. “The corpse was sunk in the river as an offering to Piasa.”

“Who would attempt such a thing?”

“Anyone who wished to upset this sham of a living god,” Bead replied, not taking the bait. “But in this case a man named Cut String. I believe you know him since he’s from one of the Evening Star lineages. Which is why I thought having this little discussion might be worthwhile.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Tickles of terror began to stroke his very bones.
Cut String…? Why?

“No, you do not, Chief High Dance. That doesn’t mean that Blue Heron isn’t going to find herself incredibly interested in Evening Star House. Fortunately, she will find nothing, which will turn her in other directions.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“So that you will be warned.” Bead cocked his head as he watched the Morning Star bowl his stone. “But I also know a great deal about Evening Star House … and its ambitions. In the near future I will have need of a strong House to step in and maintain authority.”

“Are you a madman? Or simply insane?”

“Within the next couple of days, I will give you a demonstration of my abilities. Once we have both made our positions clear, we can talk again.”

High Dance, on the verge of panic, swallowed hard. “What makes you think I won’t go straight to the Clan Keeper and report you?”

Bead chuckled. “It would be tempting. A way to distance yourself from Cut String’s failed attempt. But what would you tell them? Some man named Bead talked of the assassination attempt and vanished into the crowd?”

“What do you want from me?”

“For the moment? Nothing, High Chief. I think, however, that in the next couple of days, everything will be different.”

“Different how?”

“You’ll know. And your greatest fear, Blue Heron, will no longer leave you uneasy in your bed when sleep is difficult.”

“You mean to eliminate her?”

“Her and some others. Let’s call it smoothing the way.”

“And how will I know if you have succeeded?”

“Someone will bring you a plain wooden bead. When you receive it, the messenger will tell you when and where to take it.”

With that, Bead turned and walked casually away, vanishing into the crowd that milled around the stands filled with various goods, sacks of corn, and other Trade the vendors had brought in.

On the chunkey court, the Morning Star had scored his final point, and the crowd roared as another defeated opponent dropped on one knee to offer his head to the living god.

Sixteen

In his youth, the old man had had many names; each was replaced with a new one as he passed through the four ranked societies of Sky Priests. Until he had been chosen as the Sky Flier, the head of his society, he’d been known as Wild Lightning Lance. Now approaching his eightieth year, his grasp of the heavens and their secrets was unparalleled by any of his subordinate colleagues.

His hair had gone white and thin; barely enough remained to pin together into a sort of bun, pathetic though it might be. His face had shriveled into a map of wrinkles more intricate than the night sky itself. Not a single tooth remained in his mouth. Sky Flier’s fingers now ached and burned, the knuckles swollen; his joints were a fiery collection of assorted pains. These days his urine only flowed in dribbles and fits.

Nevertheless, he only needed to close his faded brown eyes and run fingers across the record beads to recall celestial events as long gone as his boyhood. He’d survived the overthrow of Petaga, helped orchestrate the first resurrection of Morning Star, and marveled at Cahokia’s transformation.

He lived in a humble trench-wall house just north of the Avenue of the Sun, behind the Sky Priest temple atop its low mound. The temple—storehouse for the society’s records, sacred measuring strings and pegs, and sighting tubes—itself stood a stone’s toss east of the great circular observatory.

Three times during Sky Flier’s life, he’d seen the observatory expanded from twenty-four, to thirty-six, and finally—under his supervision—to forty-eight posts. Each time the Sky Priests had been able to refine their observations of the living heavens. Now they marked the rising and setting of Father Sun, the eighteen-and-a-half year cycles of the moon, and the movements of the constellations. Slowly, surely, the secrets of the Sky World were being unraveled, and with them, an understanding of the miracles of Power.

Sky Flier was surprised therefore, when one of the young initiates appeared at his door around midday, bowing, and announcing, “Forgive me, great Sky Flier. Lady Night Shadow Star has arrived. She requests an audience at the temple.”

“Right now?” he demanded, rising painfully from his pole bed. “I’m taking a nap!”

“I’ll tell her you are indisposed, Sky Flier.”

“You’ll tell her no such thing,” he said with a sigh. “She’s Morning Star House, boy. Young, yes, but steeped in Power and authority.”

In their younger days, she—and her wild siblings—had been no end of trouble for Sky Flier. That Night Shadow Star came to him? And after rumors of her soul-flying in the Underworlds?

That had portents even the stars would have trembled to contemplate.

He struggled to his feet, reaching out with a thin arm to brace himself on the bed as he tottered for balance. From a storage box, he retrieved his simple black tunic with its dots of stars portrayed by shell beads; they’d been sewn onto the fabric in the pattern of constellations.

To the initiate, he said, “Find the venerable Day Keeper. Have him pull down the Morning Star House box from the temple shelf where it rests. Tell him I need the record string for Night Shadow Star’s birth.”

“Yes, Sky Flier. Do you need your litter?”

“No. I’ll walk.” He belted his tunic about the waist, irritated by his forever-full bladder. He dared to take enough time to relieve a bit of the pressure.

Two young men of the Day Society, finely dressed in their capes and feathers, waited to take his arms and assist him as he toddled around the mound to find Night Shadow Star. She waited, tall and stately in a brilliant blue skirt, a raven-feather cloak about her shoulders.

Even through his blurry vision, she looked magnificent.

“Greetings, Lady.”

“Greetings, Sky Flier.”

She offered something to one of the Day Priests who waited on one side. The man bowed and touched his forehead, indicating that whatever Trade it had been, it would be more than satisfactory compensation for whatever Night Shadow Star wanted.

“And what can I do for you?” Sky Flier fought to control his balance.

She stepped close. “I would speak to you in confidence.”

“Ah, that, then.”

“You already know?”

He indicated the great circle of the observatory, its forty-eight finely carved posts rising to create a ring; the midday shadow’s shortening length marked the progression of spring. “Through the observatory, I learn many things.” He gave her a wide, toothless grin. “But everything else I learn through listening, thinking, and drawing simple conclusions.”

The Day Keeper exited the temple, descended the short stairs, and bowed as he handed a beaded record string to Sky Flier.

“All of you, leave us, please.”

Touching their foreheads, the others departed.

Sky Flier glanced at Night Shadow Star. “Could we sit on the step? These old bones, not to mention the rest of me, could collapse at any moment.”

She took his arm, steadying him as he sat, then lowered herself beside him. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

He bent his rickety neck as he fingered the patterns in the beads, refreshing his memory. “Perhaps you should have indeed. I can hear the worry in your voice, feel it tensing your body.” He snorted. “Odd, isn’t it, that in all of Cahokia, you can only come to me?”

She stared at the ring of tall, carved, effigy posts that made up the observatory. Elbows between her knees she rubbed her hands together in nervous agitation. “We caused you a lot of trouble. I’m sorry for that.”

“Your brothers may have been more at fault than you.” He raised a finger. “Though you joined in with wild abandon. Took us nearly a quarter moon to reconstruct the measuring cords, get the knots right.” He shook his head. “That Chunkey Boy, he was a bad one. So many of the things he and his brother got away with were nothing less than evil. And what he did to that poor Fish Clan girl and her family…?”

Night Shadow Star exhaled through her nostrils, head dropping. “They’ve had their comeuppance: one consumed by Morning Star, the other dead somewhere in the south. That leaves me. Power has seen fit to exact pain for pain.”

His fingers traced out the patterns in the beads again. “Word travels that you have become intimate with Piasa and the Powers of the Underworld.”

“Word is correct.” She chuckled. “Reconciliation of opposites, Sky Flier? My clan is aligned with the Powers of the Sky World. But my dream soul has been devoured by Piasa, one of the Underworld’s greatest Spirits. Now he whispers to me at odd hours of the day. I catch glimpses of him in the corner of my eye.” She gestured toward the record strings with their patterns of beads. “Was that foretold at my birth?”

He held up the record strings. “I had forgotten the signs on the night of your birth. Twenty years you’ve been alive, Lady. All that was prophesied from the constellations. I myself counted the falling stars that night. Twenty.”

“Am I to die soon?”

“That, I cannot tell.” He laid a fragile hand on her arm. “Nor can I tell if those twenty years referred to the length of time you had before your wandering soul was devoured by Piasa in the Underworld. If so, you now manifest yourself only as an element of his Power. Night Shadow Star is gone. Piasa’s creature remains. Think of Piasa’s presence inside you like a shadow cast from afar. And drawing from its Power, you might live for decades more. It could also be that from the moment you fell under the spell of Underworld Power, your auspices could no longer be read among the stars.”

Her laughter was bitter and self-mocking. “For the greatest Sky Flier to have ever lived, your ability to prophesy seems to consist of picking and choosing possibilities.”

He laughed in return, making a tsking with his lips. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Lady. Nevertheless, since Power now surrounds you like a cloak, I will share a secret with you. After a lifetime of dedicated study, I can tell you that the more I learn, the more I am disheartened to discover that even more mysteries lie beyond the horizon of my comprehension. Some prophesy is easy. Some, like yours, impossible to scry.” He paused. “You are at the center of a whirlwind, Night Shadow Star. One I cannot see through.”

She took a deep breath. “When I danced with Sister Datura and sent myself into the Underworld, it was with the intention of joining my husband’s life-soul. I was tired of the pain, of the heartbreak. I can’t even sleep without nightmares.… They fill my souls, so explicit, disgusting. They shame me.” She rubbed her face. “No wonder Piasa devoured my soul.”

“I hear you have taken the Red Wing war chief.”

“Pus and blood! Why did the Water Panther demand that of me? Saving the Morning Star, allying with the living god against the assassin, yes. But the Red Wing?” Her fists knotted. “He
killed
my husband. The very sight of him sickens me. Having him close? It’s torture. All I want to do is drive a stake through his heart and burn his corpse.” Her voice broke. “Were my misdeeds as a youth so atrocious that I should suffer so, Sky Flier? Is that the meaning of your prophecy?”

“I do not mean to dissemble, Lady. But what we read in the sky the night of your birth is an enigma. Power obscures any prophesy beyond twenty years.”

“I am so weary and confused, Sky Flier. And yes, I’m afraid. No matter what disguise I adopt, down deep, my bones are trembling with fear. Sometimes I’m so scared I want to throw up.”

She sniffed. “I don’t want to be Night Shadow Star. I just want to stop hurting all the time. Is that too much to ask?”

“Power wouldn’t have called upon you if it didn’t think you possessed the necessary strength. Whatever the evils you and your brothers committed before you became a woman, and in spite of the grief you bear for your husband’s death, you are born of Morning Star House, of the Four Winds Clan.”

“Brave words Sky Flier. Why is it that all I want to do is flee?” She wiggled her fingers in a running gesture. “Escape. Run away.”

“The greatest among us live in constant fear. You won’t flee.”

“You know that?”

“I know that you’ll reach down inside yourself and pull up whatever strength you need for the situation at hand.” He smiled in the midday sun. “I think Piasa knows that, too. And this darkness descending upon us? I think you had better beware.”