People of the Lakes(298)
“You are the most alluring woman I’ve seen in years, Star Shell. That’s what’s been driving me half insane. I’m sure that Tall Man knew that I’d want you—and somehow, he’s baited the trap so that I’ll be destroyed by the very wanting.”
She tapped the branch on the dirt. “You’re sure he’d do something like that?”
“Positive. If he’d ruin my wife, turn her against me like he did—and I told you the undecorated truth—he’d find a way to strike one last blow.”
“He never mentioned you.”
“I just can’t figure it out. He has to know that I’d be suspicious.”
“Maybe that’s just what he was counting on. That you’d be wary enough to see me through the dangers.” Star Shell jammed her stick into the fire and rubbed her eyes. “Pale Snake, let’s get the Mask to the Roaring Water. We’ll pitch the thing over the edge, take a deep breath, and then sort all this out. Who knows? Maybe by that time, you’ll realize just what a trial I can be and you’ll have lost any interest.”
He studied her, a wry smile on his lips. “Tell me, do you think it will be that easy?”
She shook her head and glared at the humped pack. “The Mask isn’t going to allow us to just walk up and fling it into oblivion, is it?”
“I doubt it.” He frowned and closed his eyes. “I haven’t used Power in a long time, and I’m a bit rusty, but when I search for the Mask’s soul, I can feel it, waiting. It’s as if it’s biding its time.”
“What would it try?”
He remained silent for a moment, then blinked lazily before his expression sharpened. “What would it try? Anything that would help it to survive.”
Star Shell looked at Silver Water, now only a small mound under her blankets. “No matter what, Pale Snake, I won’t let it have my daughter. Do you understand?”
“I do indeed. She’s a good girl, Star Shell.”
“I … I want you to promise me something.”
“What might that be?”
“That if the Mask makes a move and I have to die to stop it, you will make sure my daughter is safe. Will you do that?”
He rubbed his hands together, his pensive thoughts on Silver Water’s sleeping figure. “If I can, Star Shell. And if Silver Water is the trap?”
“How could she be?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. And it scares me half to death.” He rubbed his arms briskly, as if suddenly cold.
Otter’s flute music carried on the evening breeze as Pearl walked down to the curling, knee-high breakers on the white sand. The new moon barely streaked the top of the waves that rolled along the long spit of sand and dashed together in patterns out in the open water.
Traveling down the north shore of the Upper Lake, they had come to this place. But for the patterns of the low waves and the oppressiveness of the dank odor, she could almost believe she looked out upon the southern Salt Sea. This, however, was not the beach of her youth, but a point of sand that extended out like a giant fang into the heart of the water.
Otter’s music rose and fell in a haunting melody. It drifted soft and soothing on the cool night. Her feet dimpled the sand as she walked out to the tip of the point.
“Like the bow of a canoe, isn’t it?” Black Skull crouched there, his club over his shoulder. He gestured at the living waters.
“You can almost see the land sailing out into the waves.”
“I’d think you would have had enough of sailing.” She settled down beside him, tucking her knees to her chest and clasping them with her arms. “You’ve looked pensive for the last couple of days. Still thinking about the Wenshare girl?”
Black Skull nodded. “It’s at times like this that I try to remember who I was. Was it a dream, Pearl? Did I really kill my mother? Was I the most feared of warriors? Did the Copena tremble at the mention of my name?” He laid his war club aside and drew a diamond in the sand. “It’s as if the City of the Dead—and the man that I was—never existed.”
A log floated by in the water, little more than a bobbing line that the waves slid over. Two gulls perched atop it, sound asleep. “People change, I suppose.”
He scooped up a handful of sand, looking at the white crystals.
“Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t die in that storm. Maybe this is my ghost.” He raised his head toward the sliver of moon.
“All of this, it’s the afterlife. Black Skull really died out on the water that night. When I woke up the next morning with my head in the fool’s lap, it was as a Spirit.”