Snowbear’s head trembled.
Dogrib knelt beside him, gripped his chin, and forced Snowbear to look at him. “Where’s Dzoo? Her tracks vanished halfway up the trail. What did you do with her?”
Dogrib’s mouth kept moving, but Snowbear couldn’t hear his words. A glittering silence had descended.
Warm fingers touched his throat.
Snowbear saw his precious spear point pendant swinging before his eyes. Dogrib wanted to make certain he saw it, for it swung there for what seemed an eternity before his enemy ripped it from Snowbear’s neck and cast it as far out into the mist as he could.
Cold filtered through Snowbear’s arms and legs, numbing them. Finally it seeped into his face. As his vision went gray, he realized Dzoo was looking at him from across time and space. The last thing he saw was her two luminous eyes pulsing with bright bloody trails … .
Cimmis sat in his usual place in the Council Lodge, behind Old Woman East. His attention had begun to wander a hand of time ago. The session was dragging on forever, and he could have cared less about who would occupy which lodges at Wasp Village. His gaze drifted absently over the lodge. The largest structure in Fire Village, it spread ten body lengths across and was decorated with exquisitely painted hides and beautifully woven sea-grass blankets dotted with shell beads. On either side of the door stood lineage poles the height of a tall man. The lines of descent had been masterfully carved, one for each of the four clans. He swore that every time he sat here, the eyes of Cougar and Bear stared right back at him.
Old Woman North tapped the hearthstones with her walking stick and said, “Old Woman South and her family should occupy the lodge closest to Mother Ocean. The sand will make it easier for her to walk.”
Old Woman South smiled in agreement. She had bad knees. Walking across pebbles was agony for her.
Old Woman East raised a hand and said, “My son wishes that lodge! He will be the one who gathers crabs and fishes for us. He should have that lodge!”
Cimmis held his tongue. Who would squabble over such things when tomorrow or the next day the world might tumble down around them? More than anything, this kind of idiocy demonstrated how far the North Wind People had fallen.
He shut it out, seeing the afterimage of dentalium shells ringing Old Woman East’s neck as he closed his eyes. What wealth, and most of it came through Rain Bear and Sandy Point Village. Ecan should have been there by now.
A faint smile crossed his lips as he speculated on how that meeting had gone. One of the joys of his brilliance was concocting schemes such as this. If it worked out one way, Ecan was already dead, his body mutilated and desecrated on the way to one of the Raven People’s most holy ceremonies. If so, Cimmis was well rid of Ecan and his constant trouble. Further, Rain Bear and the peace coalition would take a serious blow to their prestige. The recriminations for Ecan’s murder would destroy any chance that Rain Bear might have to create an alliance among the squabbling Raven clans.
If it worked out the other way, Ecan would be allowed to pass, and carry out his plan. That way, too, would discredit Rain Bear. The rival clans would blame him for allowing Ecan to pass and commit his evil deed. Better, one of the Raven People’s pillars of faith would be cracked at worst, broken at best. The symbology was masterful.
Then, a moon from now, when he was no longer necessary, no one would raise an eyebrow to discover Ecan’s murdered body lying in his new lodge at Wasp Village. His death would obviously be blamed on some Raven assassin, the result of what Ecan had done to their ceremonial.
Perfect symmetry, balance, and poise in politics. Cimmis reveled in it.
Hushed voices sounded beyond the lodge, and the Council went silent.
A woman called, “Kstawl, daughter of Chief Cimmis, would speak with him!”
Cimmis sighed and clapped his hands to his knees. “Forgive me. I’ll return as soon as I can.”
He hurried to the door and stepped outside into the gray veil of dusk. High up on Fire Mountain a whirlwind careened back and forth, whipping the red cinders into the air where the hot soil had melted yesterday’s snow.
Kstawl wrung her hands and said, “Please come, Father. It’s Mother. She’s—she’s biting at me like a dog and foaming at the mouth! I don’t know what to do!”
Politics had symmetry; his life didn’t. He hurried after his daughter, heedless of the staring slaves.
Cimmis sat on the floor, Astcat limp across his lap. As Kstawl anxiously worried her way around the lodge, firelight cast her shadow in huge relief against the walls and painted shields. The faces of Killer Whale and Wolf seemed to recede when she crossed in front of them, only to leap out again as she passed.