“Such a skeptic, are you?”
He gave her a half-lidded thoughtful look. “If half of what the priests and people believe was really true, I’d have been blasted by lightning or swallowed by the earth years ago. The easiest place to rob is a temple. No one guards the shell or copper, figuring any thief would be charred to ash just touching the sacred holies.”
“So you think this is all a sham on Walking Smoke’s part?”
“Sham? No.” He screwed his face up as he thought it through. “He’s killing people, Keeper. And no matter what I think, Lady Night Shadow Star and Morning Star, they think he can do it.”
“Now you’re an expert on my niece and the living god?”
“I’m pretty good at spotting liars, Keeper. Being not such a bad one myself, if I do say so.”
“Apparently you do.”
He gave her a measuring glance, his normally deceitful eyes unveiled. “She believes it. And so does Morning Star. He’s good that one. He just gives off the faintest of tells, the quiver at the corner of his lips, the slight narrowing of his eyes. Sometimes it’s just the barest change in his posture, or the squaring of his shoulders. He likes playing the living god.”
“Maybe because he is the living god?” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her tone.
“Not my decision to make,” Seven Skull Shield admitted as he lowered his moccasin-clad feet from step to step. “But for those of you who do believe in such things, your charming Walking Smoke is going to cut Lace’s throat and then Sun Wing’s, just like he did with those dirt farmers. And if he makes his ritual work this time, he’s going to call one really mad Piasa to inhabit his body.”
“But what does that mean?” she demanded. “For all we know, if Walking Smoke actually succeeds, Piasa might just tear the body into bloody chunks, strew the meat and bones around, and dive back into the Underworld.”
“And there’s another concern. I’m hazy on it, but you might want to ask that Lightning Rider—”
“Rides-the-Lightning.”
“That’s him. Now, if an element of Piasa’s Spirit is already whispering to Night Shadow Star—an element we’ll assume is some sort of dream-soul, a projection of Power, or whatever it is—what happens when the whole Water Panther’s Spirit takes complete possession of Walking Smoke? Does he then control Night Shadow Star? Or does it jerk Piasa right out of her like ripping out a piece of her souls?”
She gave him a horrified look. “I have no idea. It’s … It’s…”
“Breaking all the rules that govern Power?” He spread his arms wide.
“Or it might break those barriers Night Shadow Star was so concerned about. Create an imbalance between the Spirit Worlds that empowers witchcraft, disease, upsets in the weather, spawns tornadoes, makes things fall from the sky … who knows?”
He led the way down onto the Council House terrace. “In the Creation story Hunga Ahuito separated the Powers of the three worlds, making them balance. Morning Star was a terrestrial being once, he and his brother. Only after he ascended to the Sky World on eagle wings, did that status change. So, calling him back into a human body isn’t an abomination.”
He raised a cautionary finger. “Messing around, bringing Piasa’s Spirit fully into this world? Putting the Spirit Beast’s souls in a human body? What kind of abomination is that? Such a deed could lead to complete chaos.” He winced. “If you believe in these things.”
She nodded at the guards as they left the Council House palisade gate and started down the last flight of stairs to where her litter waited on the broad roadway. She could see her porters where they lingered in the crowd. Pilgrims were watching her descent, pointing, talking back and forth, amazed that right before their eyes, here came the Four Winds Clan Keeper.
“I’ve never cared for all this,” she muttered to herself. Then louder, added, “Thief, we really have to find Lace. And Sun Wing if he’s got her, too. You understand the hurry now, don’t you?”
He nodded, leading the way down to the Avenue of the Sun, waving away the crowd as they sidled closer. “She can’t be far. And knowing the kind of man your Walking Smoke is—”
“Seven Skull Shield!” A thickly muscled man, his forearms scarred, pushed forward, calling, “By the droop-balled Spirits, you look like a man who could play chunkey.” He grinned, mouth wide in his round face. Three peglike teeth remained standing in his jaws. “A good friend sends you this. Says with it, you can change your winnings.”