“Seek the same blood!” The words boomed inside her skull and her vision shimmered into a silvery gray.
Dazed, she came to, the room spinning out of fragments of the vision. The choking odor of Piasa’s hot breath surrendered to the scent of blood and death.
To her surprise, it was Fire Cat who steadied her, supporting her weight where she leaned weakly against him.
“Piasa,” she murmured hoarsely.
“What just happened, Niece?” Blue Heron demanded as she stepped forward, hands clasping Night Shadow Star’s shoulders as if to stabilize her.
“I was there again … being eaten alive.”
“What? In the Underworld?”
She blinked, scrubbed at her eyes, trying desperately to understand. Piasa stirred somewhere deep in her souls. “Seek the same blood, that’s what he said.”
Blue Heron turned her attention to the crimson gore covering the corpses and bedding. “He took some of their blood? Is that what it means?”
Seven Skull Shield pointed at the serpent on the wall. “Perhaps he did and then painted another of those someplace in the city.”
Night Shadow Star took one last glance at her father’s body. His horrified eyes were wide, dry, and gray in death. His mouth, blood-filled, hung open. The lips were pulled back to expose teeth stained crimson. Trickles of blood had run from his nostrils and left trails across his tattooed cheeks.
“I have to leave,” she almost cried. “Now. Take me home. I’m going to be ill.”
“I’ve got her,” Fire Cat insisted, supporting her weight as she struggled to walk. Grief and horror, mixed with the flickers of visions of the Underworld, left her so weak she couldn’t even protest help from the man she hated.
Who is doing this? Will I be next? The questions kept echoing in her head.
Now you begin to understand, Piasa’s voice reverberated hollowly inside her.
Twenty-one
Climbing the long flight of wooden steps to the high mound top on which Night Shadow Star’s palace stood, Seven Skull Shield looked back at the crowd. People ebbed and flowed in the Great Plaza as they watched the tonka’tzi’s palace burn. A line of warriors kept them back; Traders and vendors, always alert for advantage, were working the fringes, offering food, trinkets, and keepsakes.
A somber disbelief lay over the crowd—that sense of shared awe at being in that place, at that time, to see the last earthly remains of the Great Sky Red Warrior’s presence go up in thick black wreaths of smoke.
Walking among them had been Seven Skull Shield’s idea, and the conversations he’d overheard had tickled something in his souls. He’d always been one of the mob—as eager as the next person to catch a hint of gossip about the doings of the high and mighty. That he was on the inside—and knew the truth—while the poor clods around him had no clue titillated him something fierce.
From under his cloak, he produced the small loaf of goosefoot bread he’d stolen. The Hawk Clan woman who’d baked it had laid a whole selection of breads out on a blue-and-white blanket. She’d focused her entire attention on the Snapping Turtle Clan woman who hawked pottery in the spot next her, saying, “If you ask me, the tonka’tzi’s sudden death is nothing more than the divine justice of the Sky World for his transgressions.”
The Snapping Turtle Clan woman had shrugged and said, “It’s a lesson. Death comes to us all.”
“But to go so quickly?” The Hawk Clan bread Trader snapped her fingers. “That’s Power taking its retribution, I tell you. There’s something dark about the Four Winds people making the changes they have. I miss the old days under Petaga. And the tonka’tzi, he was as crafty as they come. I heard that he prefers to share his bed with other men!”
“Why would anyone care if he’s berdache?” the potter asked.
“Mark my words. It’ll come out. The tonka’tzi had indiscretions. These kind of deaths, they’re drawn to indiscretions, I tell you!”
So the tonka’tzi had indiscretions? What normal man didn’t? Though he’d never met the Great Sky in life, Seven Skull Shield had taken umbrage. The man he’d seen had been murdered sleeping with one of his wives! And besides, Seven Skull Shield more or less worked for the Four Winds Clan now. Stealing a loaf of the old woman’s bread was no more than retribution for her slight, not to mention a chance to keep his fast hands in practice.
After leaving the crowd, he’d retreated to the veranda fronting Night Shadow Star’s palace. The Avenue of the Sun ran along the southern edge of her mound where it stood at the northwest corner of the Great Plaza. The Morning Star’s palace atop its towering mound dominated the view to the east. Looking south across the Avenue of the Sun, he had a clear view of the roaring yellow fire as it consumed the tonka’tzi’s palace. A billow of black smoke rose in a slanted column from the crackling timbers.