Terrified? But why? By whom?
Her anxiety built as she climbed up on her dais and settled into her litter chair. High Dance, rigid as a log, stood just this side of the fire, a tall and muscular man beside him. She thought the man’s face had been painted to resemble Water Panther’s with its yellow circles around his eyes surrounded by a three-forked design in black. What seemed to be whiskers streaked his cheeks, pale red on his nose.
The design unsettled her even more. Humans didn’t meddle with or mock Piasa. The Underworld Lord was a dangerous and Powerful Spirit Creature. Anything that hinted at calling, or representing, his Power could bring disaster.
She met the newcomer’s eyes, shocked to find them filled with amusement, almost insolent in their challenge. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with a spare body that suggested he might be a warrior, stickball player, or runner. Something about his face harkened to the familiar, as if, but for the Piasa face paint, she should know him. Then, a flickering finger of fear tickled her heart as she glanced back at the warriors in the rear.
His warriors. But … is this the enigmatic Bead?
“Very well, High Dance.” She forced her voice to sharpen. “Perhaps you can start by explaining why I have strange warriors in my palace?”
Her brother looked ashen, his hands almost trembling. A spear of panic shot through her as she stiffened on the litter.
“My friend, here, has asked to deliver a message to you.”
She forced herself to relax, to control her rising panic as she met the man’s gleaming, almost triumphant eyes. “Let me guess, you’re the one who calls himself Bead.”
“Among other things, great Matron.” He tapped his fingers insolently off his forehead, a mockery of the gesture. “Recently I’ve called myself White Finger.” He made a face. “But I really didn’t like that. White Finger?” He seemed to be rolling the words over his tongue. “It doesn’t have … how would you say, fire? Spirit? Energy? Is that the word I’m looking for?”
“You said you had a message? Could you, perhaps, find the fire, Spirit, or energy, to finally deliver it so that I could be rid of you?”
He chuckled as if to himself as he placed a foot on the bottom step of the dais.
“That is far enough!” she snapped, extending an arm. “One step closer and I shall call for warriors to remove you!”
His lips flickered, which made that cat-painted mouth seem to sharpen in anticipation. Then he pursed them, as if to stop the smirk from forming. After elaborately and obviously composing himself, he said, “You at least have the presence and character to be a matron. Yes, indeed! You are Four Winds.”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at High Dance. “I’ve begun to worry about him. He’s more like, oh, let me think … soggy clay? The kind you can push and poke and then squeeze through your fingers?”
“Get out of my palace now!” A desperate fire began to rise in her breast.
He grinned and stared into her eyes, meeting her anger with amusement. “Don’t you want to hear my message first?”
“No!”
“That stings me, Matron Columella. Cuts my very souls.”
“Your souls are the least of my concerns.”
He made a tsking with his lips, then sighed and straightened as he backed away, raised his hands, and gestured.
Four warriors leaped forward as Columella rose to her feet, crying, “What is the meaning of this?”
High Dance looked panicked, his arms out as he cried, “Bead? What are you doing?”
As the warriors raced up and grabbed her by the arms, the man called Bead laughed like a cackling grouse.
“Let me go!” Columella shouted as the warriors easily lifted her and carried her, kicking and screaming, to the wall benches on the palace’s side.
“Go!” Bead ordered the rest of his warriors. “Check the rooms in back. See if that nasty little dwarf is here.”
They just stared at him. He made a deprecating wave of the hand. “I’m getting ahead of myself, silly me.” Then he barked out a series of commands in the guttural tongue that Columella recognized as Caddo. The warriors sprang like foxes, searching the rear. Meanwhile her hands were tied behind her, and she was seated on the bench with her ankles bound to one of the support posts.
High Dance stood impotently, his hands hanging. Disbelief and amazement filled his face as two warriors escorted him over and shoved him down beside her.
Enraged and terrified, she watched Bead climb lazily onto her litter and seat himself insolently, one leg dangling off the side.
She just glared, sputtering, until she could say, “Tell me that there are no more of them. That the warriors I see here are all of his company.”