People of the Morning Star(165)
He gestured with his hands as he explained, “When I’m finished, it will surround the sweat lodge, don’t you see? I’m making a vulva, the opening from the womb of the earth. A path for Piasa’s soul to follow when I offer Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies the final sacrifice. Lace and her baby, of course, had to go at the bottom, which is where I started. The top will be there, on the other side of the sweat lodge next to the fire.”
He pointed to the sides of his imaginary circle. “Your pieces will go here. And I will fill out the rest of the curving sides with High Dance, Columella, and their delightful children.”
“And who’s at the top,” she asked, fascinated despite herself.
“Ah.” He rubbed his hands and grinned, the expression changing his painted cat-face. “That I save for Night Shadow Star. You know how at the top of the sheath, just below the bone, a woman feels the most wondrous sensations? That I’ve saved specifically for Night Shadow Star.” His eyes sharpened. “She’s the erotic one, you know.”
Across from her, Columella called, “You think this will work? Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies will strike you down! What you’re doing? Sacrificing your sisters and relatives? This is perversion! Evil. A twisting of Power that will end in disaster for the whole world!”
He raised a hand as two of the Tula took steps toward Columella. He barked an order in Caddo. The two Tula nodded, collected ropes from Lace’s litter, and closing on Columella, muscled her into submission and began tying off her arms and legs.
High Dance just sagged in his bonds, cringing. The children whimpered and huddled in on themselves.
“Cousin,” Walking Smoke told Columella, “I’m doing nothing that the laws of Power prohibit. Hunga Ahuito wouldn’t have created the world, divided it into the three realms, or allowed souls to travel between if he hadn’t anticipated, expected exactly this outcome. It’s a fulfillment, don’t you see?” He almost giggled. “I’m setting the world free.”
“Your souls are going to be destroyed.” Sun Wing struggled to find something, some bit of reason. She cried, “You won’t know that you’ve succeeded, brother. Piasa will devour your souls! You’ll cease to be in an instant.”
A sadness filled his eyes as he walked over and studied her. “Do you think it’s easy to be me? It’s not. Chunkey Boy was the chosen one, the one born correctly. I’m the Wild One, Thrown Away Boy, the discarded child. At first I didn’t realize it, little sister. I played my part, just like in the Beginning Times. I had to fit in. I had to live up to the responsibility. We all did. Me, my brother, and dear Night Shadow Star. Even when the voices first started whispering to me, I knew—but I didn’t yet understand.”
“Understand what? You had everything!”
“No matter what I did, what kind of trouble I talked the other two into committing.” He laughed mockingly. “Nothing was ever wrong, little sister. I learned that you can rape, and kill, and steal, and defame. And no one cares!”
“I care,” she whispered, clinging to fraying hope.
“I think that’s a lie.” He leaned forward, pressing his painted cougar-face close to hers. “What will you do? How will you make the pain go away? How will you keep them from mocking me behind my back? And what Chunkey Boy—or Morning Star, as he called himself—and Night Shadow Star did together? I saw them! How do you fix that? I loved her!”
He rocked back on his heels, stood, and began pacing in circles, his hands flexing and twitching in unison. “If it was good enough for him it had to be good enough for me! And Night Shadow Star! Oh yes, good enough for her, too!”
His smile was a delicate and fleeting thing. “The question remains … Were those screams of joy that burst from her lungs? Was that passion I wrung from her? Was she struggling in a fit of exploding delight?” He glanced at Sun Wing, as if desperate for the answer.
When she just blinked in confusion, he chuckled, voice lowering. “Or was she just disgusted? Ecstasy? Or disgust? She’d just lain with a God! Wasn’t Thrown Away Boy good enough?”
His entire body seemed to vibrate, his eyes pressed closed, and he bellowed, “And for that they bundled me away and banished me?”
At the violence in his voice, she cringed back, horrified to realize that she could no longer feel her arms, and her legs had gone numb and senseless.
For long moments he stood like a wooden carving, muscles knotted, back arched, his head tilted up to expose his corded neck.
Some of the Tula had dropped to their knees, expressions of worship on their beaming faces.