People of the Morning Star(182)

She wasn’t breathing, but placing his hand on her breastbone he could feel the slowing beat of her heart.

“At least I’m practiced.” He set himself, throwing his weight against her chest, watching water surge from her mouth.

“Come on, Lady. You wouldn’t want me walking free, now would you? You and I, we’ve got a lot of hate left. Can’t go wasting it by slipping off to the Spirit world, now can you?”

Again and again he pressed down. Almost capsizing the canoe, he got his knee under her rump and pressed again, hearing her throat gurgle as air passed.

“That’s it.”

He climbed on top of her, supporting her neck, pinching her nose, and placing his mouth over hers. Then, as he had in her quarters, he breathed his soul into her body.

For how long, he ceased to know or care. But her heart kept beating, and periodically she’d breathe, her cold exhalations on his cheek.

When the moment finally came, he’d just filled her lungs, then used his right hand to press it out of her. Once again he had placed his mouth to hers, blowing her lungs full of air. He raised his head, pressing on her chest, to see her eyes open and fix on his.

Then she coughed, water bubbling out of her mouth, and coughed again. As if her souls had finally returned to her body, she began to shiver, the spasms increasing until her whole body was wracked.

In relief, he dropped his head, panting as if he’d run for a hard day.

Awash in rainwater, his body atop hers, he collapsed limply and let the river carry them where it would.





Sixty-six

Bright sunlight shot a shaft of yellow through the Morning Star palace’s large doorway. Its glow helped to illuminate the magnificent great room with its spanning roof. So, too, did the crackling fire in the central hearth. Light reflected from polished copper and gleamed on brightly painted and carved wood. The stunning reliefs on the walls around them almost seemed to pulse with life and Power.

Blue Heron sat appropriately on the right of the fire, or from Morning Star’s perspective, on the left. Beside her were Columella and the dwarf, and then Sun Wing. Her niece, clothed now, might have been partially soul-dead. And who knew, perhaps Walking Smoke had completely scared the souls out of the young woman’s body. Finally, in that first rank, Tonka’tzi Wind sat, her head down, expression thoughtful.

In the rear were High Dance and Columella’s children, hardly at any kind of ease, and still traumatized. For all they knew, given their panicked young minds, they might have just been plucked from the stew pot and thrown headlong into the cook fire.

Still missing were Night Shadow Star, Walking Smoke, and the Red Wing. And that, Blue Heron mused, was curious indeed.

Smart man, that Red Wing. He’d been clever enough to either burn to death or vanish.

And if I’d had the sense of a head-struck duck, I’d have kept the thief in sight.

As they’d made the long march back to the Morning Star’s tall mound, Seven Skull Shield had been there one minute, plodding along, looking absolutely exhausted. And the next he’d disappeared, the warriors marching along the flanks apparently having completely missed his departure.

“Go with Power, thief.” She smiled grimly, delighted that cunning Seven Skull Shield had read the nature of their “escort” correctly.

“Why are we here?” Columella asked out of the corner of her mouth. “I didn’t do anything wrong. More to the point, my children are innocent of absolutely everything.”

“No, they’re not,” Blue Heron whispered back. “They were born into the Evening Star House. Taken to the palace where Walking Smoke tried to raise the Piasa’s souls in his own body and destroy the world. Sometimes, Matron, as you well know, that’s all it takes to be condemned.”

Columella closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the kind of action someone stilling a racing heart and trying to find balance would do.

“Why are you here, Keeper?” Flat Stone Pipe asked, his pitched voice low. “Were you part of this, too?”

“I’m guilty, all right. I didn’t catch him in time. Didn’t stop him from committing his atrocity. My niece was sacrificed at Walking Smoke’s hand.”

“You use his name. You think he’s still alive?”

“You heard the runner. They found no bones in Columella’s burned quarters. The door to your access tunnel was found open.”

Columella, voice tight, began, “Night Shadow Star—”

“Serves Piasa,” Blue Heron snapped. “If she’s with Walking Smoke, I’d stake my life that it’s for the Water Panther’s reasons and not her own.”

A conch horn was blown. A line of recorders entered from outside, walking along the west wall and seating themselves. From boxes and baskets, they began withdrawing their pots of various colored and shaped beads.