“That’s Brown Bear’s sleeping bench,” High Dance barely whispered. “He’s responsible for my family’s—”
“Their safety, yes. I know. You might want to replace him. Old Brown Bear Fivekiller sleeps too soundly these days. It’s terrifying enough that Fast Thrower might just ‘misplace’ his chunkey stone. At least he awakened the next morning to find it missing.”
High Dance swallowed hard, a runny sensation of unease deep in his guts. He took the chunkey stone out of Fast Thrower’s bed! This man walked into my palace and stood over my son’s sleeping body?
Bead’s triumphant black eyes had fixed on him, reading every thought while a knowing smile began to curl his lips. In the shaft of light spilling through the door, High Dance could see that the man’s face bore a thick layer of brown, as if to obscure the broad planes of his face.
“Ah, yes, High Chief. You’re not as thick-witted as your sister thinks you are. And just between the two of us, I really don’t care if Evening Star House ends up running Cahokia, or if you ascend the tonka’tzi’s chair.”
“Who are you?” High Dance’s souls were awash with a sudden and cold fear.
With an icy smile, Bead added, “There, now. Doesn’t matter. We’ve managed to put the mutual threats behind us so we can get on to the real problem: killing the Morning Star. It is going to be so much harder and dangerous than either of us thought. Let’s put our heads together and really think this through. Blue Heron has to go, that we already know. But now, this Piasa thing? It starts to make sense. My dead assassin Bobcat was chopped up and thrown in the river. Last night when I tried to call him back, his life-soul didn’t appear where it was supposed to. I know the ritual. I’ve done it twice before in the south, called dead souls into new bodies. It’s not that hard, mostly a matter of purity, blood, and sacrifice.”
Bead stopped short, his expression going slack, as if he were listening to something.
“Oh, yes.” Bead glanced at High Dance, revelation in his suddenly pained eyes. “They tell me Piasa wouldn’t free Bobcat’s soul. That somehow Lady Night Shadow Star…?”
He cocked his head again, struggling to hear something. After a slight nod, he looked as bereft as a man kicked in the gut. “But of course. I understand. Nothing comes free. She’s the ultimate sacrifice, the price I have to pay. But how can I stand the pain? I lost her once before, and it nearly…”
His face contorted. “Can I do that? Stand that?”
An instant later, his animation returned. “But it won’t be forever. I can call her souls back from the dead! Find her another beautiful body, and it will be just like it was.”
The chill in High Dance’s souls deepened. “Your warrior’s life-soul? You tried to call it? But, I mean … call it where?”
Bead gave a slight shrug. “Into a young woman’s body. Bobcat was only a Tula, mind you. But maybe the failure was due to my trying to call a male soul into a female body? But … No, no, no! It shouldn’t matter. I’ve done it before. The ritual should have worked! You should be able to call a dead soul to any place, and into any body you want to!”
High Dance tried to control his incredulous expression. “So … what happened?”
Bead sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, sandaled toe scuffing the packed clay. “I did everything correctly. Bathed her entire body in the blood of the farmer and his family. Sang with the appropriate vigor. When dawn came, Bobcat’s soul should have taken over her body. When I pulled the gag out of her mouth, all she did was sob and scream like a maniac. She couldn’t understand or speak a single word of Tula … Couldn’t tell me any of the things Bobcat’s souls would have known.”
“And the girl?” High Dance asked, his skin crawling as he slowly backed toward the door.
“I was so enraged … that sense of absolute frustration! You understand that, don’t you, High Chief? By the time I stopped hacking and slicing, well, there just wasn’t enough left to satiate that lust I felt while I was washing her.”
Then a slow smile spread across his lips. “Well, that’s for another day. Now, what are we going to do about Blue Heron?”
“I think it would be best if we each went our separate ways, Bead.”
The man’s knowing smile cut through High Dance’s souls like a winter gale. “Oh, no, High Chief. You have other children. Fast Throw’s younger brother White Stem and his sister Two Leaf are just as vulnerable. And then there’s Columella’s children. But for this silly rule the Morning Star instituted concerning the Four Winds Houses, they are the true heirs of Evening Star House. It’d be a terrible shame if anything happened to even one of those children, don’t you think?”