Lightning Shell--A People of Cahokia Novel, page 14
His most placid smile mocked her in the night. “No, you couldn’t. Not even if you walked right up to that warrior guarding the tonka’tzi’s stairs and told him to. He’d grab you up and tote you off to Spotted Wrist before you could turn, and by then I’d be nothing but flying feet pattering off into the distance.” Another chuckle. “No, what I was getting at was the stories.”
“Huh? What stories?”
Seven Skull Shield extended his arm, waving in a grand gesture to take in the Great Plaza with its World Tree Pole, the Morning Star’s mound, the society and charnel houses, the stickball field and Earth Clans mounds to the south that stood along the Avenue of the Moon. “All of this. Your illustrious ancestors laid it out as a reflection of the Sky World on Earth, a celebration of the lunar minimum that happens every eighteen and a half years. A symbolic home for the reincarnated Morning Star. But it’s all about the stories.”
“There you go again. What stories?”
“The ones set in the Beginning Time.” Seven Skull Shield paused, turning his attention back to where torches were being lit at the foot of the stairway leading up the Great Mound. “Morning Star and the Wild One. Don’t you remember? How after they played chunkey with the giants and won, they cut off the giants’ heads, and used Power conjured from them to bring their father back to life?”
“Of course I remember. Get to the point.”
“Morning Star and the Wild One never agreed about anything, Keeper. And all around them was chaos, monsters; the world they created is the one we live in today. White against red, wisdom against creativity, death against rebirth, peace against war, wisdom versus passion, you name it. All in a perpetual need for balance. But the biggest balance is Sky World against Underworld.”
She shifted the pack on her shoulder, uttered a snort of irritation. “Are you going to take all night to tell me what you’re talking about?”
Seven Skull Shield had fixed his gaze on Morning Star’s palace. “In the stories you heard when you were a little girl, it was all about making rules out of chaos. Do you remember how the stories all ended?”
“Of course. In the end, the Wild One, or Thrown-Away Boy, as he was sometimes called, was banished. And, having won, Morning Star was carried up into the Sky World where he became the actual star in the sky. And there he stayed until Black Tail—through an extended ritual—called Morning Star’s Spiritual essence down from the Sky to inhabit Black Tail’s body.”
Farts had dropped on his butt to scratch behind his ear.
Blue Heron felt the slightest unease. “What are you hinting at, Thief?”
Seven Skull Shield was still fixed on the high palace. “It was seeing Whispering Dawn and her baby this morning. You know that baby is Morning Star’s child from when she was in his bed. Remember how she poisoned him? Got his soul sent to the Underworld? Even when he was bedding her, he knew the risks. Had foreseen that she’d try to kill him.”
“Gods don’t always make sense.”
“People say that. But why wouldn’t they? You just have to think like a god.”
“Well, I’m delighted that you can think like a god. Now, it’s dark. I’m hungry. So why don’t you turn your divine thoughts to getting us supper and a place—”
“He’s tired,” Seven Skull Shield said as if in revelation. “He’s been here too long.”
“Excuse me?”
“Morning Star’s bored, Keeper. He doesn’t care anymore. I wouldn’t. Not if I was hauled up to that palace, given anything I wanted. Day after day, play a little chunkey? Feast? Women lining up for my bed, desperate that I plant a child in them? Think that’s worth waking up to the same roof overhead, the same fawning faces? Think having to listen to all the platitudes, the whining complaints, sitting in judgment over the petty jealousies is fun? After all this time, if you were Morning Star, would you want to be endlessly pestered by sycophants, bombarded by pleas for favor? What about all those conniving politicians? The ones desperate to manipulate you for their own gain? Knowing it was all about them and never about you?”
She pursed her lips, turning to stare up at the high palace, the faintest glow illuminating the soaring building behind the mound-top palisade. Someone had started the bonfire behind Morning Star’s World Tree Pole. Its light was shining on the palace with a warm yellow glow.
She asked herself. “Gods know, there’s been times I’ve had my fill of the self-gratifying weasels trying to worm some advantage out of my approval. But I always had Cahokia to fight for. Preservation of the Houses.”
Seven Skull Shield gestured at the palace. “What’s he got to fight for? He asks, it’s given. He can’t go for a walk without an escort, the dirt farmers would mob him, tear the very clothes off his back for a souvenir.”
“Maybe even pull his hair out by the roots for a keepsake,” she agreed. “They’d love him to death.”
“That’s why he sent Night Shadow Star off to the east. She’s always saved him, one way or another.”
“Her or the Red Wing,” Blue Heron agreed. “Assuming she ever found Walking Smoke and managed to kill him.”
“Puts a whole new meaning on the old turn of the tongue, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, a coldness in her heart. “You mean the one that goes: ‘Morning Star always plays a deep game’?”
“I do, indeed.”
“What game this time, Thief?”
“I think he wants out. Wants out bad enough, he’s ready to die if it means getting out of that palace.”
Twenty-two
Wind—once Matron of the Four Winds Clan and now the nominal tonka’tzi—had gone to bed late. Her slaves and servants had helped her to remove her copper headdress with its feathers and the forehead-mounted Spirit-Bundle box. She’d watched them place the piece on its rack, had allowed her slave to carefully wipe the red and blue face paint from her cheeks. Then White Rain had helped her to undress, had folded her cape and fine black dogbane-fabric skirt and placed them on one of the intricately carved storage chests against the wall.
Then White Rain had blown out the small hickory oil lamps as Wind crawled under her thin blanket. The wool was woven of the soft under hair curried from a winter bison hide. Not that she needed it in the warm summer night, but it kept the mosquitoes off.
In the darkness, she rubbed her brow, trying to think of a way, any way, that didn’t lead to disaster. In the end, all she could come up with was assassination. Not that she had a chance of that. The pus-licking Clan Keeper had his warriors maintaining a constant guard and watch on Wind’s every waking moment. No way she could summon anyone—not even Rides-the-Lightning—for a conference that wasn’t overseen by one of her pus-dripping guards. Everything she said when she had visitors was promptly reported to Spotted Wrist.
Blue Heron would have known how to get around this constant surveillance.
Gods, but she missed her sister. Blue Heron had always been the practical one when it came to getting one’s hands a bit bloody. As Keeper, she’d had the network of spies, informants, and, when necessary, assassins who could slip in under dark of night and empty a pouch full of water hemlock into some unsuspecting person’s teapot.
Wind clamped her eyes shut against the grief. Spotted Wrist’s warriors had made no secret about how it had been done. How they’d blocked Blue Heron’s palace door, doused it with oil, and tossed burning coals onto the fuel.
So, she died. Her and Smooth Pebble.
Grief? Rage? They all roiled in Wind’s tortured gut.
She stiffened, thought she heard sniffing, like some animal. Then came the sound of something like teeth grinding on bone just outside her door.
But the only thing with a bone in it was the deer haunch that had been brought in by her guards. According to plan, her people were supposed to set it to roast over the central hearth coals first thing in the morning. That way the meat would be slow-cooked and tender for the warriors to feast on by tomorrow night. The manner in which she and her people were treated, one would think they were Spotted Wrist’s menials.
Oh, and if she were good, they might throw her a few scraps.
How long is this going to last?
Not long, she supposed. As Spotted Wrist was pushed further and further into a corner, she suspected the man was going to have to make some accommodation with High Chief Green Chunkey down in Horned Serpent House. Spotted Wrist had already promised Green Chunkey that he would be the next tonka’tzi. That had been the price of Horned Serpent House’s loyalty to Rising Flame and Spotted Wrist. The offer that finally bridged the two Houses’ rabid dislike of each other.
Because of it, Wind understood that her tenure as tonka’tzi was only supposed to be temporary, a figurehead of normality until Spotted Wrist could completely subdue the city.
But now that he had failed to take Evening Star Town? And with the coup at River House reeling, elements in the city openly calling for Round Pot and War Duck’s return?
How long before Spotted Wrist and Rising Flame got around to realizing that good old Wind was no longer an asset?
She made a face, convinced that she heard the shearing of jaws, the slapping sounds of jowls as something was gulped. A thumping sounded just outside her door.
Here? In her palace?
Impossible.
And where were the guards? Surely they, along with her servants sleeping out in the great room, would have heard any intruder.
She was on the verge of throwing her blanket back when something stirred in the hallway. Her door was lifted, set quietly to one side. Just the faintest shift of shadow in darkness, and she could feel the stirring as someone stepped into her room.
Perhaps Spotted Wrist had made his decision?
“Who’s there?” she demanded, hand searching around for the long-bladed chert knife she kept hidden where her bedding met the wall. If this was Spotted Wrist’s assassin, she wasn’t going to go without a fight.
“Shhh!” a low voice hissed.
Another, barely audible, called, “Farts! Here. Over here. That’s a good dog.”
More movement, then the faint tang of fresh venison came to her nose. Something heavy flopped onto the matting beside her bed, and any doubt about a beast chewing, ripping, and gnawing was removed.
“By pus-dripping Piasa’s balls!” she gritted. “Who are you? What in all that’s…?”
“Shhh! Quiet, sister,” a familiar voice whispered as another shadow moved by her door.
“Blue Heron?” she almost squeaked. “They told me you were dead!”
“Will you stop making such a racket? I can’t be dead. No way I’d be this pus-dripping hungry and tired … and my hip wouldn’t hurt this bad.”
Wind had pulled herself up in bed, was staring as her heart beat desperately. “What? How? I mean…”
Blue Heron’s shadowy form picked her way around whatever creature was happily thumping, gnawing, and licking the deer haunch on her floor. “The thief got me and Smooth Pebble out. She’s staying with kin down in Horned Serpent Town until this is all settled.”
Wind placed a hand to her heart. “Pus and rot, I can’t tell you what a relief this is. It’s like I had a hole ripped in my heart. But how did you get in here? There’s warriors all around—”
“They got sloppy,” the thief’s voice informed from the door. “Figured the threat was over, that Morning Star House had gone soggy as acorn bread in water, and there wasn’t much use watching the back. When this is all over, you really should see to fixing that thatch over the storeroom.”
“You got in through the roof?” Wind tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
“Not me,” Blue Heron answered. “I’m not that young and limber. Thief did that. Me and Farts, we walked in the front door after they’d all nodded off … along with the help of a jar of nightshade juice the thief added to the warriors’ tea. The only worry was crossing the great room with all the servants sleeping along the walls.” A pause. “What idiot left a deer haunch by the fire? Try being quiet with a deer haunch just lying there in front of a mongrel mutt as big as a—”
“He’s a Spirit dog,” the thief corrected. “Hush. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
On the floor, a snapping long bone sounded like a loud clap of the hands, only to be followed by spine-grating crunching.
“We’re here to rescue you,” the thief added. “Grab what things you need, and we’ll have you safe and out of sight by—”
“No!” Wind snapped, struggling to keep her voice down. As if that was needed when it sounded like a grizzly was rendering a buffalo carcass on her floor. “If I’m gone missing, Green Chunkey will be the tonka’tzi by nightfall. I don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s a mess down at River Mounds City. Someone—”
“And an accursed splendid mess it is, too. Glad to have had a hand in cooking it up. Fine entertainment watching our new Clan Keeper getting a finger poked in his eye for once.” Blue Heron had that smug tone in her voice, the one that used to drive Wind half-insane. “We’d love to have known what was said when Spotted Wrist was called back to the Council House yesterday.”
“I was there. A figurehead to be sure, and mostly I kept my mouth shut. Mostly. Rising Flame is enraged, worried, and not a little frightened. My suspicion? She’s regretting a lot of things these days. Including Spotted Wrist’s appointment as the Clan Keeper. Unfortunately, she’s stuck with him for the duration.”
“Where’s Morning Star in all this?”
“No clue. Five Fists was at the Council House for the meeting. Not sure how he fits in. Claims he was just there to observe at the Morning Star’s insistence. But he said nothing in the name of the Morning Star, only offered his own advice. Old bent face made it pus-rotted clear that he was only talking for himself.”
“What did he say?”
“Told Spotted Wrist that he’d lost the advantage, that the time had come to make amends with Columella. That pursuing any kind of military solution would lead to disaster. I think it had an impact on Rising Flame. But I’d say the import of it flew past Green Chunkey’s and Three Fingers’ ears like a lark on the wing.”
Blue Heron said, “The last we heard was through a beaded message. Came from Mallard. Said we didn’t fight alone, and that we needed to keep to the shadows.”
“But you’re sure it was from Morning Star?”
“Mallard wouldn’t send a message like that on his own.”
“Work from the shadows?” Wind rubbed her brow. “That’s cryptic.”
“Morning Star never tells you the rules when you play his games, let alone what the end goal is.” Blue Heron sighed. “But, sister, I’m getting tired of it.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
A pause. “You sure you don’t want to come? Help me fight from the shadows?”
“No.” But, spit and piss, she was tempted. “Ultimately my fight is here. And, Spirits know, I might hear something, be in a position to act when the time comes.”
Wind reveled in the old familiar sight of Blue Heron pulling at the sagging wattle under her chin. Having thought her sister dead, it brought tears to her eyes.
Blue Heron said, “Might be that you will. All right. You hang on here. Me and the thief, we’ve got nothing to lose. If Spotted Wrist or Rising Flame catch either one of us, we’re going to die a lingering death, so what’s the point of waiting for them to find us? Better to hit them before they know I’m alive.”
“You be curse-rotted careful.”
“You, too, sister. But be ready. If it looks like Spotted Wrist is going to replace you, the roof is loose over the back corner of the storeroom. Just don’t break your leg when you jump down.”
“They’re going to know something’s wrong when this deer leg is missing in the morning.”
It was the thief who said, “Well, tell them that you were hungry. Everyone likes a middle-of-the-night snack on occasion.”
She thought of sticking him with her long chert knife, but the man’s howl might have awakened half of Cahokia.
Twenty-three
In the bow of the canoe, Fire Cat used his paddle to steer them into the fast water. He perched high, partially braced by his pack, filled as it was with his armor, weapons, and chunkey gear. Behind him, Winder paddled, then Night Shadow Star’s box of Trade rested neatly between the gunwales, followed by Blood Talon and Shell Hook, who steered in the rear.
Three days on the river, and from the villages they’d passed, the people he’d called to on shore, he knew she was ahead of him. Now, it was only a matter of time.
If he closed his eyes, he could see her. The image, almost ghostly, hovered above the dark water. The late-afternoon beams of light shooting through her spectral form as she floated above the roiling and sucking current.
An instant later, the golden beams vanished, the sun cut off behind the high ridge to the west.
“We’ve only got a couple of hands of daylight,” Winder observed from where he paddled behind Fire Cat. “Not much between here and Willow Swamp Village, as I remember. While there’s daylight we might want to pick a place where we can make camp. Get a fire going.”
On the verge of agreeing, Fire Cat hesitated. Long shadows reached out from the willows and cottonwoods lining the bank. And, in that moment, he would have sworn he saw a faint blue gleam. Something shining down in the depths, almost like a reflection, that matched their pace.
Reflexively Fire Cat shot a look at the darkening sky above them, would have sworn he heard the faint rumble of thunder in the cloudless sky.
And when he glanced back at the shadows, he could still see it: the weird blue glow slipping along beneath the surface. Cocking his head, he studied it, shifted his gaze. No, this wasn’t a curious reflection cast by their hull. From the angles of the shadows, the way the cerulean light shifted slightly from side to side, this was no refracted light from above.
“Piasa is here,” he whispered to himself.
“What?” Apparently Winder had overheard.
