People of the Morning Star (7 page)

She could love him again, and be loved.

The grief would evaporate; the pain would shimmer away into memory. Her souls would spring to life, wrapping and entwining themselves in his. And they would dance, laugh, and wind their bodies together for as long as Sister Datura allowed.

The voices and the flickers of people and things that appeared and disappeared at the edge of her vision would finally fade away.

The first tendrils of ecstasy began to filter through Night Shadow Star’s nerves, soothing her anguished souls. Only then did she lean forward and stare down into the dark recesses of the well pot.

Well pots were crafted as symbolic re-creations of the world, the upper shoulder and rim representing the Sky World with its four winds. The opening above the rim exposed the contents as they would be viewed by
Hungo Ahuito,
the great two-headed eagle that saw all things as it looked in the four directions. The curve below the bowl’s shoulders—now filled with water like its earthly counterpart—represented the Underworld, and it was through this portal that Sister Datura’s Power carried her.

The reflection of her face on the still water wavered, and her gaze traveled down through the darkness, passing from this world into the eternal.…

Like a reflection, his face formed in the dark haze, the line of his chin growing firm. The familiar nose coalesced from nothingness, nostrils but dots of black. Flickers of light merged in the form of his eyes. Patterns of lines re-created the tattoos that had decorated his cheeks and forehead.

“Hello, my love,” she whispered. “I have missed you so.”

“You shouldn’t do this,”
he told her softly.
“It only adds to your pain.”

“I can’t help it. I need you.”

“You have to be stronger than this.”

“You are my strength, husband.”

“I am dead, my beloved.”
His loving expression shifted to one of concern.
“Sending your souls into the Underworld is dangerous. He’ll use me as a way to lure you—”

“I have no reason to live without you, husband. And in Sister Datura’s arms, I shall Dance to you so that we can be together. Nothing will ever part us again.”

She mustered the smile she’d always resorted to when he chided her. “Come, husband. Reach out. Embrace me. I want you to pull me inside you, make you one with me.”

“Do you understand the risks? Piasa may be closer than you know. He’s tricky, calculating. To sink his fangs into a Four Winds Clan woman? You’d become his, Night Shadow Star, a pawn in his game of death.”

“I
don’t
care! Without you, I have nothing.”

She saw him relent, as he always had. In all their life together, he’d never denied her.

“Is this your wish?”

“Oh, yes. Draw me to you, devour me, husband.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want to be
alone
.”

“Even at risk of the Piasa—”

She almost sobbed. “I can’t
stand
the loneliness.… The grief and pain…”

Eyes closed, mouth open, her heart beginning to dance in her chest, she slipped her naked arms around the smooth sides of the bowl, and shuddered as his souls slipped around hers. In that instant, her body exploded with joy.

“Then you have nothing to lose,”
a strange voice boomed in her head.

Startled, she opened her eyes and stared into a nightmare. The yellow-eyed gaze of a great panther burned into hers. Black and empty it seemed to swell and suck at her. Each burning yellow eye was surrounded by the three-forked design of the Underworld. Furry round ears strained forward, and the beast’s pink nose almost touched hers. Even as she gaped in horror, those bristly whiskers flared, and the mouth opened wide to expose gleaming white fangs.

Before she could fill her lungs for a scream, the terrible beast shot forward; the wide mouth snapped down on her head. Pain speared her as needle-sharp teeth pierced through scalp and bone. Like knives they drove into her brain, stabbed into her mouth and nose. Shrieking in agony and terror, she heard as well as felt her skull sheering between those terrible teeth.

And then came blackness, empty, impenetrable blackness …

Her limp body collapsed onto the well pot. The delicate and thin-walled bowl crushed under her weight. Then she slipped down the water-soaked panther hide and sprawled comatose on the floor.

Three

Riding atop her litter at the head of her small retinue of servants, Clan Keeper Blue Heron was carried across Cahokia’s great plaza. From her swaying perch she squinted up at the spring sun. For the moment it burned hot enough to raise a sheen of perspiration beneath her armpits and where her white-and-red-striped feather cape hung over her shoulders.

She’d been advised to have the slaves bring her sun shade, an affair crafted from shaved buffalo-calf hide atop poles that could be extended to shelter her.

Probably should have listened,
she thought bitterly. But her mind had been absorbed with the problem of her niece, the lady Night Shadow Star. With the exception of the occasional oddity when she’d respond to a voice that wasn’t there, or suddenly glance off to the side and frown as if she’d seen a movement no one else did, the young woman had been progressing nicely—a logical successor to leadership should anything unexpected happen to her aunt, Matron Wind.

Until Makes Three was killed last fall.

It’s not like she’s the first woman to ever lose the man she loved.

Blue Heron made a face. Pus and blood! As if she’d know. For a time in her life she’d gone through husbands at the rate of one or more a year. A few had been able to stand her for less than a moon before they’d picked up their belongings and walked out of her house.

She squinted at the sun again as her litter swayed in time to the porters’ gait. Enough fluffy patches of cloud soared over Cahokia to provide just a taste of relief before they marched on across the pale blue sky. Shadows moved lazily below them, slanting through the smoke-hazy air that forever cloaked the city. She raised her hand to block the blinding light, and estimated the angle. From long practice she guessed she had another five hands before it slipped behind the high bluffs west of the river. Time enough.

Blue Heron tapped her long brown fingers on the litter arms, scowling across the plaza in the direction of Night Shadow Star’s tall wedge-roofed palace. What silliness possessed the woman? She’d been sent no less than three messengers and not a reply in return!

“So help me, Night Shadow Star,” she threatened under her breath, “if you’re moping around, feeling sorry for yourself, I’ll give you some real grief.”

She took a deep breath. The breeze came from the southwest, carrying the damp scents of wood smoke, cooking corn, and boiling meat. Spring grass, so recently crushed by the stickball games that had culminated the Planting Ceremony, gave off its characteristic odor.

Her porters avoided the carefully manicured chunkey courts where young boys sprinkled the clay with water. They carefully tamped down the old lance impacts with their bare feet before they rolled the surface smooth with a perfect cylinder of oak log. When finished they would either sift clean white or red sand over the surface depending on the court. This, too, would be carefully smoothed to eliminate the least imperfection.

These were the Morning Star’s personal chunkey courts and the finest in the world. The gravity with which the boys worked was almost comical to her.

She cast a sidelong glance up at the Morning Star’s palace where it rose skyward atop the great black mound. As usual, a crowd thronged at the base of the stairs leading up the south-facing ramp. The giant construction dominated the northern edge of the plaza. Behind the walls of the first terrace, the second rose against the northern horizon; its white-walled palisade was studded with intricately carved and painted guardian posts. Each depicted and concentrated the Power of one of the Spirit Animals from the Creation. Among them were Crawfish, Vulture, Eagle, Mother Spider, Horned Serpent, and the Piasa. There, too, were the Spirit creatures of war: Falcon, Snapping Turtle, Woodpecker, and Rattlesnake.

The great lightning-scarred World Tree pole—the highest point in Cahokia—rose like a lance into the sky. Behind it, the roof of Morning Star’s palace with its graying thatch cut the heavens like a great ax. Even as she watched, she could make out tiny figures of men suspended on ropes as they worked on the thatch. Given the immense height of the palace, its huge wedge of roof was constantly savaged by wind and storm.

On the stairways a steady stream of people, like brown dots, were coming and going. Here and there a speck of color denoted a noble or high-ranking individual. She grunted to herself at the similarity to an ant pile.

“Did you think of something, Elder?” Smooth Pebble, her aide asked. She was
berdache,
a woman born into a man’s body. A distant cousin, Smooth Pebble had come to Blue Heron’s attention more than two-tens of winters ago and had worked her way up to become Blue Heron’s most valued advisor, administrator, and confidant. Now in her forties, Smooth Pebble wore her graying hair in a bun pinned at the back of her head with an ornate shell comb. A black skirt embroidered with chevrons, bits of mica, and shell hung from her too-narrow hips. An opossum cloak was thrown back on her broad shoulders out of respect for the warm temperatures.

“No,” Blue Heron answered. “We’ve just enough time to fetch Night Shadow Star. May Horned Serpent take us if we’re late to the Morning Star’s reception. It’s that new emissary from Yellow Star Mounds. Some war chief, what the Kadohadacho calls an
amayxoyo.
Frantic Lightning is his name.”

“Assuming Night Shadow Star has remembered the reception,” Notched Cane grumbled. He, too, was a cousin “appointed” to her by an errant relative who’d committed one too many infractions. Blue Heron had originally kept him as a hostage, but had come to rely on his skills at keeping her house in order. The man had a way with the slaves, somehow ensured that food—agreeable to her tastes and properly cooked—was on hand, swept the place clean, and managed to keep the bedding, matting, and roof in repair. Under his watchful eye, the fires always had an ample supply of wood, and the water pots were filled.

“Watch your tongue, old friend,” she warned. Then she shot Clay Ball and Fire Temper, her two guards, a meaningful, slit-eyed glance. Both warriors responded with the slightest of nods. Over the years they’d learned to keep things to themselves. Especially
family
concerns. Like Night Shadow Star hearing and seeing things that weren’t there.

Two Beads cleared his throat suggestively, nodding toward the tall, flat-topped pyramid that rose just to the northwest of the chunkey courts and on the other side of the Avenue of the Sun, the thoroughfare that marked the great plaza’s northern boundary. Atop it stood the clay-plastered walls of Night Shadow Star’s thatch-roofed palace. It’s supporting mound dominated the northwest corner of the great plaza, while the Wind Clan House itself lay off to the west, in line with the Great Mound and separated from Night Shadow Star’s by the Western Plaza. The
Tonka’tzi
’s imposing palace on its larger mound stood midway down the western edge of the plaza. There, Blue Heron’s elder brother, Red Warrior, resided in opulence. His front step provided him with a perfect vantage to watch activities in the plaza.

Blue Heron remained painfully aware of Two Beads’ dour expression. Also in his forties, toothless, and skinny, he served as her recorder. Among his duties he saw to the dispatch of messengers, read and produced bead mats, and ensured that she was updated on events, comings and goings, and generally informed.

“Blood and pus,” Blue Heron muttered as she inspected Night Shadow Star’s palace. No doubt about it, her niece’s entire household was lounging on the veranda, shaded as it was by the sloping extension of the roof. Some of Night Shadow Star’s servants, like Blue Heron’s, were Four Winds Clan who had been volunteered or conscripted into service. The others were slaves.

At Blue Heron’s approach they began to rise, watching her with worried eyes. The way they stood, shoulders slumped, hands fidgeting, feet shuffling, all suggested trouble.

Blue Heron gave a hand signal, and her porters lowered her carefully to the ground. She rose from the litter chair and climbed the wooden steps leading up the ramp on the mound’s eastern side; her breath began to labor as she neared the top. She felt one of the squared timbers rock underfoot.

“Watch that one.” She pointed. Not good. The old Night Shadow Star had never allowed
anything
to fall into disrepair.

As she cleared the top and stepped onto the flat before the palace, Night Shadow Star’s household staff looked everywhere but at her, dusting off skirts and blankets as they coughed nervously and tried to hide embarrassment.

To Smooth Pebble, she said, “Stay here.”

“Yes, Clan Keeper.”

She fixed on Field Green, Night Shadow Star’s aide, and barked, “That loose step needs fixed. See to it.”