She could love him again, and be loved.
The grief would evaporate; the pain would shimmer away into memory. Her souls would spring to life, wrapping and entwining themselves in his. And they would dance, laugh, and wind their bodies together for as long as Sister Datura allowed.
The voices and the flickers of people and things that appeared and disappeared at the edge of her vision would finally fade away.
The first tendrils of ecstasy began to filter through Night Shadow Star’s nerves, soothing her anguished souls. Only then did she lean forward and stare down into the dark recesses of the well pot.
Well pots were crafted as symbolic re-creations of the world, the upper shoulder and rim representing the Sky World with its four winds. The opening above the rim exposed the contents as they would be viewed by Hungo Ahuito, the great two-headed eagle that saw all things as it looked in the four directions. The curve below the bowl’s shoulders—now filled with water like its earthly counterpart—represented the Underworld, and it was through this portal that Sister Datura’s Power carried her.
The reflection of her face on the still water wavered, and her gaze traveled down through the darkness, passing from this world into the eternal.…
Like a reflection, his face formed in the dark haze, the line of his chin growing firm. The familiar nose coalesced from nothingness, nostrils but dots of black. Flickers of light merged in the form of his eyes. Patterns of lines re-created the tattoos that had decorated his cheeks and forehead.
“Hello, my love,” she whispered. “I have missed you so.”
“You shouldn’t do this,” he told her softly. “It only adds to your pain.”
“I can’t help it. I need you.”
“You have to be stronger than this.”
“You are my strength, husband.”
“I am dead, my beloved.” His loving expression shifted to one of concern. “Sending your souls into the Underworld is dangerous. He’ll use me as a way to lure you—”
“I have no reason to live without you, husband. And in Sister Datura’s arms, I shall Dance to you so that we can be together. Nothing will ever part us again.”
She mustered the smile she’d always resorted to when he chided her. “Come, husband. Reach out. Embrace me. I want you to pull me inside you, make you one with me.”
“Do you understand the risks? Piasa may be closer than you know. He’s tricky, calculating. To sink his fangs into a Four Winds Clan woman? You’d become his, Night Shadow Star, a pawn in his game of death.”
“I don’t care! Without you, I have nothing.”
She saw him relent, as he always had. In all their life together, he’d never denied her.
“Is this your wish?”
“Oh, yes. Draw me to you, devour me, husband.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Even at risk of the Piasa—”
She almost sobbed. “I can’t stand the loneliness.… The grief and pain…”
Eyes closed, mouth open, her heart beginning to dance in her chest, she slipped her naked arms around the smooth sides of the bowl, and shuddered as his souls slipped around hers. In that instant, her body exploded with joy.
“Then you have nothing to lose,” a strange voice boomed in her head.
Startled, she opened her eyes and stared into a nightmare. The yellow-eyed gaze of a great panther burned into hers. Black and empty it seemed to swell and suck at her. Each burning yellow eye was surrounded by the three-forked design of the Underworld. Furry round ears strained forward, and the beast’s pink nose almost touched hers. Even as she gaped in horror, those bristly whiskers flared, and the mouth opened wide to expose gleaming white fangs.
Before she could fill her lungs for a scream, the terrible beast shot forward; the wide mouth snapped down on her head. Pain speared her as needle-sharp teeth pierced through scalp and bone. Like knives they drove into her brain, stabbed into her mouth and nose. Shrieking in agony and terror, she heard as well as felt her skull sheering between those terrible teeth.
And then came blackness, empty, impenetrable blackness …
Her limp body collapsed onto the well pot. The delicate and thin-walled bowl crushed under her weight. Then she slipped down the water-soaked panther hide and sprawled comatose on the floor.
Three
Riding atop her litter at the head of her small retinue of servants, Clan Keeper Blue Heron was carried across Cahokia’s great plaza. From her swaying perch she squinted up at the spring sun. For the moment it burned hot enough to raise a sheen of perspiration beneath her armpits and where her white-and-red-striped feather cape hung over her shoulders.