People of the Morning Star(176)

This way! Piasa had whispered in her ear. And directed her to this slit of a gully eroded into the steep bluff. A trail of sorts existed here. People, after all, constantly scrambled up and down the bluff face from the river. Portions of this one, however, proved treacherous in the falling rain; a rivulet of muddy brown water was already rushing in the bottom.

“You did this,” Walking Smoke told her angrily. “It’s the same as when you stuck your finger in my eye when we were little!”

She caught a flicker of Piasa as he crept effortlessly down the slope to one side. “You did it to yourself, Brother.”

“It won’t stop me, you know. It’s only a matter of time before I succeed.” He flipped his head the way he had as a boy when it was wet. “How did you know about the escape tunnel beneath Columella’s bed?”

“Piasa told me.”

He shot her a measuring look from where he climbed down, one hand clutching an old root; whatever tree it had once belonged to was long gone. His naked body was a colorful mess of smudged paint and mud, all running in the rain. His eyes had become black stones in a mess of black and yellow.

“Piasa told you?” His voice mocked her. “He’s mine. Mine! And I’m going to bring him to this world in the end.”

“All right, fine. Why do you think I’m doing this? Pus and blood, Spud! You haven’t changed. You’re still a spoiled, whining little monster.”

“And what are you?” He shot her a look as he slid, caught a foot on a piece of sandstone, and edged sideways in the gully to a better hold. “I heard. Moping. Soul-flying to the Spirit World. Grieving because Makes Three got himself killed up north?”

“Don’t use his name. Ever. Or I’ll—”

“Fly off to the Underworld and weep for him to return?”

She flicked the mud from her fingers. “I hate you, you know. What you did to me that night? I’d managed to lock it away, hide it down deep inside. My husband proved to me, allowed me to actually believe, that men weren’t all like Morning Star … like you.”

He paused blocking the narrow defile, water splashing over the foot he’d wedged in the drainage bottom. “That night? He was no longer your brother. That was just Chunkey Boy’s body. Morning Star can claim any woman he wants.”

“I’ve made my peace with Morning Star. Though not to his liking.” She tossed her wet braid aside, and glared down at him. “You had no excuse, Brother. It was incest and rape. And for that, I’ll never forgive you.”

He gave her a mocking grin. “We’re not like other people. The same rules don’t apply to us. Call it a bond, a special celebration of Morning Star’s happy return to us. Seeing you and him? I just had to see what it was like to follow a living god.”

“He hurt me. You betrayed and humiliated me!”

“Forget it, Sister. The world’s changed since that night. I have, you have. The voices were right when they told me to take you. They whispered in my ear that as good as it was for me, it would be just as good for you. Oh, it was good indeed! The final proof that I was the Wild One. And you know what else? I realized that night that I loved you more than I’d love any woman ever. The voices told me that you’d come to understand eventually, that though it might hurt you for the moment, it would make you stronger in the end. And they were right. That’s why you came to me, why I let you lead me out of that fire.”

“I just want you dead.”

“You had the chance, Sister. You could have shot me down when you first walked into the palace.”

“Oh, I wanted to. Believe it. He kept whispering in my ear to wait, to hold. Even as my muscles weakened.”

“He? Piasa?”

“He said it was a test. I only begin to understand.”

“Understand? You mean how we’re going to change the world again?” He paused. “Oh yes. We unleashed a spinning series of events that night. I’d always loved you, dreamed of you. No woman could ever live up to you, Sister. I knew that as a boy … that I’d always try and measure other women by your standards. And then, when I sneaked in, and saw him between your legs?”

“If you really loved me, couldn’t you have told him to stop?”

“It was like being hit by lightning!” he cried. “I saw how it would all work! The voices, you should have heard them! They began singing, laughing, crying, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! This is the way!’”

“Nothing exists beyond your needs, does it?” she asked sadly as the cold rain trickled down her face and dripped from her nose.