“Dead.” Bead kept his eyes on the crowd watching the chunkey game. “The corpse was sunk in the river as an offering to Piasa.”
“Who would attempt such a thing?”
“Anyone who wished to upset this sham of a living god,” Bead replied, not taking the bait. “But in this case a man named Cut String. I believe you know him since he’s from one of the Evening Star lineages. Which is why I thought having this little discussion might be worthwhile.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Tickles of terror began to stroke his very bones. Cut String…? Why?
“No, you do not, Chief High Dance. That doesn’t mean that Blue Heron isn’t going to find herself incredibly interested in Evening Star House. Fortunately, she will find nothing, which will turn her in other directions.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So that you will be warned.” Bead cocked his head as he watched the Morning Star bowl his stone. “But I also know a great deal about Evening Star House … and its ambitions. In the near future I will have need of a strong House to step in and maintain authority.”
“Are you a madman? Or simply insane?”
“Within the next couple of days, I will give you a demonstration of my abilities. Once we have both made our positions clear, we can talk again.”
High Dance, on the verge of panic, swallowed hard. “What makes you think I won’t go straight to the Clan Keeper and report you?”
Bead chuckled. “It would be tempting. A way to distance yourself from Cut String’s failed attempt. But what would you tell them? Some man named Bead talked of the assassination attempt and vanished into the crowd?”
“What do you want from me?”
“For the moment? Nothing, High Chief. I think, however, that in the next couple of days, everything will be different.”
“Different how?”
“You’ll know. And your greatest fear, Blue Heron, will no longer leave you uneasy in your bed when sleep is difficult.”
“You mean to eliminate her?”
“Her and some others. Let’s call it smoothing the way.”
“And how will I know if you have succeeded?”
“Someone will bring you a plain wooden bead. When you receive it, the messenger will tell you when and where to take it.”
With that, Bead turned and walked casually away, vanishing into the crowd that milled around the stands filled with various goods, sacks of corn, and other Trade the vendors had brought in.
On the chunkey court, the Morning Star had scored his final point, and the crowd roared as another defeated opponent dropped on one knee to offer his head to the living god.
Sixteen
In his youth, the old man had had many names; each was replaced with a new one as he passed through the four ranked societies of Sky Priests. Until he had been chosen as the Sky Flier, the head of his society, he’d been known as Wild Lightning Lance. Now approaching his eightieth year, his grasp of the heavens and their secrets was unparalleled by any of his subordinate colleagues.
His hair had gone white and thin; barely enough remained to pin together into a sort of bun, pathetic though it might be. His face had shriveled into a map of wrinkles more intricate than the night sky itself. Not a single tooth remained in his mouth. Sky Flier’s fingers now ached and burned, the knuckles swollen; his joints were a fiery collection of assorted pains. These days his urine only flowed in dribbles and fits.
Nevertheless, he only needed to close his faded brown eyes and run fingers across the record beads to recall celestial events as long gone as his boyhood. He’d survived the overthrow of Petaga, helped orchestrate the first resurrection of Morning Star, and marveled at Cahokia’s transformation.
He lived in a humble trench-wall house just north of the Avenue of the Sun, behind the Sky Priest temple atop its low mound. The temple—storehouse for the society’s records, sacred measuring strings and pegs, and sighting tubes—itself stood a stone’s toss east of the great circular observatory.
Three times during Sky Flier’s life, he’d seen the observatory expanded from twenty-four, to thirty-six, and finally—under his supervision—to forty-eight posts. Each time the Sky Priests had been able to refine their observations of the living heavens. Now they marked the rising and setting of Father Sun, the eighteen-and-a-half year cycles of the moon, and the movements of the constellations. Slowly, surely, the secrets of the Sky World were being unraveled, and with them, an understanding of the miracles of Power.
Sky Flier was surprised therefore, when one of the young initiates appeared at his door around midday, bowing, and announcing, “Forgive me, great Sky Flier. Lady Night Shadow Star has arrived. She requests an audience at the temple.”