Her fists knotted. “It was real! That happened to me.”
The Morning Star now gave her a cold smile in return. He said in level tones. “I am not your brother. But he is.”
A grim set to her perfect mouth, she snapped bitterly, “And I will deal with him. You will not interfere.”
Seven Skull Shield heard both Tonka’tzi and the Keeper gasp at the order. Apparently one didn’t use that tone of voice with the Morning Star.
The living god gave her the faintest of nods. “He is yours … and your master’s. Presuming you can deliver him.”
“You and I, however—”
“That will be for a different day.” His eyes, too, narrowed, boring into hers. “Let us accept, Lady, that we serve different worlds, and leave the actions of humans behind us for the moment.”
The very air seemed to vibrate with tension. Both the Keeper and Tonka’tzi were cringing, expecting some explosion.
“Agreed,” Night Shadow Star told him through gritted teeth, her rage apparent. Then she relented, a bitter smile bending her lips. “Despite what lies between us, Morning Star, a greater danger must be addressed.” She paused. “You know what he’s going to attempt? Why he’s taken Lace and summoned Sun Wing?”
Morning Star’s nod made the two-headed eagle headdress bob. “And I finally understand Piasa’s interest in you.” He paused, shifting his glance to the cowed Keeper and Tonka’tzi. To them he said, “The one called Walking Smoke is attempting to conduct a resurrection. If Lady Night Shadow Star is correct—and he truly believes himself to be the Wild One—he must surpass the achievement of his brother, Chunkey Boy.”
“How?” Blue Heron demanded. “Chunkey Boy’s souls were replaced by your own. How can he surpass his brother’s sacrifice of willingly surrendering his body to you?”
Night Shadow Star’s brittle laughter crackled in the still air. “Aunt, don’t you see? He’s going to sacrifice Sun Wing and Lace and her unborn child in the attempt to resurrect another Spirit being inside his own body. One greater than Morning Star.”
“The Wild One, the real Thrown Away Boy, wasn’t greater than Morning Star,” the Tonka’tzi growled.
“No,” Morning Star told her evenly. He glanced sidelong at Night Shadow Star as he spoke. “We were equal, but opposites. But if Lord Walking Smoke could resurrect Piasa’s Spirit to occupy his body? What sort of triumph would that be for the once-banished and disgraced brother of Chunkey Boy?”
“But that’s impossible!” Blue Heron cried.
“Is it?” Night Shadow Star demanded, spinning around. “But for a couple of mistakes he came close to resurrecting a dead Tula into a woman’s body up in that farmstead on the bluff. Close enough that the Powers of the Underworld fear he might succeed. And then what happens to our world?”
“Vomit and blood,” Seven Skull Shield whispered to himself. “It would be like the Beginning Times, monsters and mayhem everywhere.”
“For once, thief,” Fire Cat muttered through gritted teeth, “you and I agree.”
Fifty-four
Possessed of a sense of disbelief and shock, Blue Heron descended the long stairway. The late-afternoon sun slanted in the northwest, filtering through the low-hanging orange-brown haze created by Cahokia’s thousands of fires. It glistened on the ox-bow lakes that curled around the wide floodplain like lazy shining serpents.
The vista that normally amazed her, and the miracle it represented, paled against the revelations she’d just heard. And could almost refuse to believe.
She glanced sidelong at Seven Skull Shield who descended the steps beside her in an ambling gait. “Well, thief?”
“I’d give a Tunica pot to know what the terrible secret is.”
“The terrible secret?”
“The one between the Morning Star, this Walking Smoke, and Night Shadow Star. Whatever it is, it’s a snap and crack.”
“A snap and crack?”
“Yes. You know. Like you have to do to get at the best and juiciest meat hidden inside a nutshell?”
“You have a peculiar way of talking.”
“You have a peculiar family. Makes me glad that all my children are being raised by men who think that they’re the fathers.”
“I really ought to hang you in a square,” she muttered. “What I want to know is how preposterous this claim really is. Can Walking Smoke actually resurrect the Piasa’s souls into his body?”
“Keeper, I’m not the one to ask. For me, most of this business of Power is just that. Business. A way to be on the take. Oh, sure, there’s storms and seasons and floods, and life and sickness and death. And ghosts, I do believe in ghosts, and forest and river Spirits. But praying and making offerings, and priests and temples and great festivals to keep the sky and earth in line? That’s a way for people like you and the priests to safely separate the dirt farmers from their harvest.”