People of the Morning Star (59 page)

Blue Heron frowned, all the while searching the crowd around her. She had a face and name to put on the threat now. He’d disguise himself, of course, paint his tattoos with a thick layer of paint. But now that she knew to look for his eyes, she would recognize him, wouldn’t she? He couldn’t have changed that much in the few years he’d been gone.

“Curse it!” She glanced around. “Now that I really need him, he’s gone!”

“Who? The thief?”

“Oh, very well.” She glanced up at the sun. “But I’m not going tonight. We’ll leave first thing, before dawn. That should get me there by just after midday tomorrow. But send a runner to River Mounds. Have War Duck pre-position porters at the midway to relieve mine when they become winded. I don’t want to be gone a moment longer than I need to.”

“Yes, Keeper.”

“What’s the matter?” She squinted at Smooth Pebble. “You’ve got that look on your face.”

“I just don’t like it is all, Keeper. The scorpion has been ahead of us all along. What if he’s somehow staged this to get you away from Morning Star House, away from the
Tonka’tzi
and Night Shadow Star?”

“We’ve got a name now,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s Lord Walking Smoke. He’s back, and he’s behind all of this.”

“Don’t go to Evening Star town,” Smooth Pebble warned. “You’ll be vulnerable the entire way.”

“Maybe that’s what he’s planning on,” she mused. “But if I go fast, leave even earlier, I can be there at first light before he expects. Once I’m inside Columella’s palace, I’ll be untouchable.”

Fifty-five

At dusk the smoke always thickened in the air as endless fires were stoked or fanned into life for evening meals, or perhaps to provide enough light as a family gathered after a hard day’s labor in the fields.

As Seven Skull Shield hurried down the Avenue of the Sun, he watched the great city succumb to night. The hawkers and Traders had closed up their packs and rolled their blankets, or taken down their small wicker stands. Packs of dogs grew more active, knowing that bones, scraps, and occasional untended plates might now be found in greater abundance.

Parents called for their children, who, desperate for another game with their friends, argued for “just awhile longer.”

The rank smells of latrines and the cloying stench from charnel houses drifted on the long fingers of the evening breeze to mix with the tang of rot and the acrid stink of unwashed humanity.

No sooner would the stench become nearly unbearable than a fresh eddy would replace it, and tease the nose with the mouth-watering scent of baking nut bread, or pit-roasted meat. Sometimes the odors of roasting corn would almost overpower, to be followed by the tantalizing fragrance of a boiling rabbit or fish stew. The drifting scent of sassafras tea, a trace of mint, or berry juice just added spice when mixed with turkey or rosehips.

He passed a constant stream of men and occasional women, hurrying along to beat the darkness and return home. Sometimes they bore packs, other times their arms were full, or baskets hung from tumplines.

Laughter could be heard from around the crackling fires he passed. At other times voices were raised in acrimony. Babies periodically screamed and cried, and singing rose as worshippers melodically thanked the now-set sun for the gift of the day. Dogs barked, and the occasional howl mixed with flute and drum music.

The sky darkened, and stars by the thousands emerged from the deepening blue. The high roofs, palaces, and temples loomed like darker silhouettes, while beneath them, internally lit buildings cast yellow light from doorways, and along cracks in the walls.

Teaming Cahokia was a noisy place at this time of night, with wooden dishes being knocked together and ceramic pots clinking. The conversations around fires and evening meals made a constant, rising and falling cadence as he passed in the deepening gloom.

All this could vanish, torn apart by Walking Smoke and his perversion of the Spirit World.

But a half moon past, the notion would have seemed ludicrous. Cahokia had projected itself as eternal, invincible, and immortal due to its very size, and the sheer momentum of its existence. Like a giant rolling boulder, how could it be stopped? Any obstacle, Spiritual or physical, would be overwhelmed, inundated and smothered by the mass of the population and the flow of goods and energy.

Can Walking Smoke really resurrect Piasa’s souls inside his body?

The notion was a perversion of everything Seven Skull Shield considered to be right. Even seeing the Morning Star—if indeed that was the reincarnated god—didn’t contradict the inherent wrongness of Walking Smoke’s plan. Morning Star had been born human, or at least human shaped. But the Water Panther? Part lion, part snake, part bird? How did you stuff and entire Underworld Spirit creature like Piasa into a mortal human body?

It smacked of perversion unlike anything Seven Skull Shield had ever known. And, well, he’d known of a lot.

As he passed the guardian posts that marked the boundary of River Mounds City, he touched his forehead with a new-found reverence.

Despite the darkness, he turned off the Avenue of the Sun. He knew by heart the way through the mad warren of dwellings, society houses, granaries, and workshops. His only worry was tripping over something in the darkest shadows. He cut behind the Snapping Turtle Clan charnel house and surprised a pack of dogs that growled over some kind of carcass. They ran at his shouts and clapping hands, dragging their prize away.

Winding among houses and cramped gardens, he rounded River House’s hickory oil warehouses and ducked under their elevated corn granaries. A thousand mice—all right, maybe a hundred—skittered away in the darkness.

He called greetings and waved as he made his way around small evening fires that flickered beneath ramadas attached to craftsmen’s houses, and sidestepped the latrine screens out back. Cutting past a firewood warehouse, he stepped out onto the winding main trail that wound along the levee crest. Enough people passed here, coupled with light from the occasional fire, to allow a quicker progress.

A crackling fire burned outside Crazy Frog’s large, three-room, two-story house. Before it, on one side, in ranks according to status, sat Crazy Frog’s four wives, seven sons, and eight daughters. Across from them reclined no less than six tattooed, athletic-looking men. Oiled skin reflected in the light, expensive aprons on their waists, and their hair was coifed and pinned with shell, copper, and colorful feathers.

These were the lucky chunkey players who had been fortunate enough to be invited to Crazy Frog’s nightly feast. Just behind them, kneeling in the shadows, sat a line of well-dressed and—though Seven Skull Shield couldn’t make out their features—undoubtedly beautiful women. Such attractive and ornamental young females swarmed around successful chunkey players like moths around a blaze. Some could almost be classed as professionals, the others just opportunistic.

“Greetings, all,” Seven Skull Shield called, stepping into the firelight. “The best of the evening and Morning Star keep you.” He produced the chunkey stone. “I have some business with Crazy Frog.”

The oldest of the wives, Mother Otter, a tall woman wearing a white-fox cape Traded down from the far north, rose, studied him thoughtfully, and tilted her head toward the dark passage leading behind the house.

“My husband is in the back. Announce yourself at the storehouse door. You know the way, Seven Skull Shield.”

He touched his chin respectfully, giving her a private wink. For years he’d tried unsuccessfully to wiggle his way into her bed; she’d never given him anything more encouraging than a mocking smile.

Entering into the darkness between the buildings, he cocked his shoulders to clear the narrow walls, and stepped into the back where a small triangular space was bounded by Crazy Frog’s house on one side, his storehouse on another, and the rear of a stone carver’s workshop on the third. The storehouse looked dark, a mere shadow in the night.

Seven Skull Shield walked up to the door, and softly called out his name. Moments later, the door was lifted aside, and a shadowy figure told him, “Step in.”

Seven Skull Shield—his skin prickling with unease—slipped through the door, encountering a thick fabric hanging on all sides while the person who let him in reset the door.

“Here, to your right. You’ll have to slip through the folds of the curtain.”

Almost being led, Seven Skull Shield pushed his way past hanging blankets and into the main room. The walls here were covered with shelving and boxes—essentially the treasure house filled with Crazy Frog’s winnings. As obscure as the building looked from the outside, it had been built like a fortress with two layers of vertically set, thickly plastered, white-ash logs, a stone floor, and solid timber roof overhead. At least two burly warriors were known to guard it at any given moment.

Several hickory lamps burned brightly, adding their sweet odor to the warm air and casting the room in a yellow glow. Crazy Frog sat on a tripod chair, his legs out before him, arms resting on large, intricately carved wooden boxes to either side. Stepping in behind Seven Skull Shield was one of the guards; the other—the man who’d let him in—took up position on his right.

Crazy Frog cocked his head and narrowed an eye as Seven Skull Shield lifted the chunkey stone, and said, “Thanks for sending this. I could use a little luck about now.”

“You may not like what I have to tell you, old friend.”

Seven Skull Shield grinned humorlessly as he hefted the stone disk. “If what I already know is the way of things, there’s not much good news to go around.”

Crazy Frog, his dark eyes shining in the light, smiled warily. “Have you identified this assassin?”

“Word came straight from the Underworld. Or so I’m to believe. If my source is right, the assassin is Lord Walking Smoke himself. The old
tonka’tzi
’s son. The brother to Chunkey Boy and Night Shadow Star.”

“What’s he here to do?” Crazy Frog played his fingers like dancing spider legs across the chest’s carved wood. He had his hair up in a bun, pinned with polished copper that caught the light. His lips were pursed.

“He’s here to destroy the Four Winds Clan, old friend. If we can trust one of his Tula warriors, he wants to rip Cahokia up by the roots and cast it away. Apparently his ultimate goal is to resurrect the Piasa’s souls inside his human body. Some mad scheme about unhinging the Spirit worlds and plunging Cahokia into a massive chaos.”

Crazy Frog stiffened; his normally blank face and placid demeanor tensed. “That’s heresy and … That’s … That’s…”

“About as crazy and insane as a man might be?” Seven Skull Shield tossed the beautiful red stone up and let it smack into his hand. The thing had perfect balance. “Normally, I’d agree with you, say let him try, and see what it gets him.”

“But you don’t think that’s such a good idea?”

Seven Skull Shield shook his head. “Some people—who know a whole lot more than I do—actually think he might pull it off.”

Crazy Frog’s spiderlike fingers flipped over in a questioning gesture. “It might bring even more players to Cahokia, more people to try their skill on our courts. The games might be even more challenging than they are now.”

“Assuming you avoid the riots, vengeance killings, and open religious warfare Walking Smoke is hoping for, you’ve still got one major problem with that, old friend.”

“And what is that? A lack of faith?”

“No.” Seven Skull Shield tossed the stone up and caught it, his eyebrow lifted. “Piasa would kill Morning Star and break the Four Winds Clan … all of it. Destroyed. To do that he needs that civil war, turning sky clans against the earth clans, rekindling old feuds among the dirt farmers, and unleashing Underworld Power. But let’s say he succeeds without a bloody and devastating war that depopulates half of Cahokia. Now, old friend, your worst fears come true. You see: Piasa, being all snarly and Underworldly,
doesn’t play chunkey.
”

Crazy Frog leaned forward, rubbing his hands thoughtfully together. His expression was pained. “When, my friend, have you cultivated such a persuasive eloquence?”

“I assume you sent me this stone for some other reason than just to chat about the Piasa?”

Crazy Frog chewed at his lips for a moment, eyes narrowed. “What if I’d located the Lady Lace and knew where you could find this Walking Smoke? What would that be worth to the Keeper and the Morning Star?”

“You could probably name your reward. Maybe your own private tower to watch the matches on the Grand Plaza? I’d be tempted to suggest the Morning Star would throw a couple of games for you. Let the other guy win so that you’d collect on the odds. But I’m not sure he’s that grounded in the subtler strategies of gambling for profit.”

At that Crazy Frog chuckled. “No, I imagine not. Do I have your word that this Keeper of theirs will remember me fondly when this is all over?”

“My word may not be what you should be depending on when it comes to Four Winds politics and decisions, but my growing understanding of the Keeper is that yes, she’ll be most generous with her gratitude. Assuming, that is, that this whole thing can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Our charming Lord Walking Smoke has managed to turn Morning Star House upside down, and the Keeper would like to put it back up right before clans are turned against clans, and there’s rioting, burning, looting, and other unpleasant mayhem.”