People of the River(167)

"Will she come out of it soon? How long will Sister Datura control her soul?"

"Five or six more hands of time. I doubt it will be longer than that." Wanderer's voice had dropped to a reverent whisper, and his eyes squinted curiously—as if he saw something faint and frightening moving in the wavering firelight around Nightshade.

"Wanderer, listen," Badgertail implored him. "I'm going to need her. I may have to surrender to Petaga. Nightshade is the only person in Cahokia that Petaga might believe if she brought him such news. Can you wake her sooner?"

"No," Wanderer said mildly and lowered his head to gaze at Lichen's blood-streaked face. "Sister Datura will release Nightshade in her own good time. . . . Badgertail, I must hurry. I'll be in the Sun Chamber, where the firebowls will give me enough light. Will you help me? I must cut a hole in Lichen's skull to release the evil—or she'll die. I'll need tools and herbs. Can you assign two of the Starborn who know where the supplies are in the temple . . . and see that no one disturbs us?"

Badgertail frowned at the little girl in Wanderer's arms. Such a beautiful child. Her heart-shaped face, full lips, and button nose had the perfection of an expertly carved cedar doll. Could someone so young really be traveling through the Underworld to speak to First Woman?

"I'll ask Kettle and Thrushsong—and I'll post a guard outside the temple door." He glanced at Orenda. "Wanderer, you know spiritual matters. What should I do with Orenda? The people ... if they find out . . . they'll consider her polluted. They'll demand her death. How can I—"



"Wait. Let Nightshade handle it. She'll know what to do." Wanderer started across the floor, careful not to jar Lichen. Vole walked close behind him, her fear-bright gaze shifting from Tharon's brutalized body to Nightshade to Lichen.





Forty-one


Nauseated, trembling. Vole sat on the raised altar beside Lichen and held her daughter's hand. As her eyes drifted over the magnificence of the temple, with its spokes of radiating firebowls and abundance of seashells, she felt oddly detached, as though she were watching this spectacle from somewhere far above—too far away to help.

"Are you all right. Vole?" Wanderer asked. He knelt on the other side of Lichen. His old face had grown a thousand more wrinkles in the past hand of time.

"Worried. That's all."

Wind roared as it battered at the thatched roof.

Wanderer squinted at the bits of cattail duff that floated down like sunlit dust, then turned back to their daughter. Lichen lay on her back, her hair spread in a wealth around her head. Her eyes were sunken in twin black circles, and though her heartbeat was strong, her chest barely moved. The claw marks showing through the tatters of her green dress enraged and terrified Vole.

I wish you were alive, Sun Chief, so I could kill you myself.

Kettle and Thrushsong bustled about, gathering the things that Wanderer had asked for. Clangs and thuds rang out as they pulled tools from hidden niches around the altar. All the while. Wind Mother blasted the temple with her fury, making the structure creak and moan.

Wanderer leaned forward and gently moved his hands through the long strands of Lichen's blood-encrusted hair while he muttered half-sentences to himself. "Well, it's not as bad . . . but the bone is cracked. Yes, yes, that's what that is. A crack. I wish . . . but there's no sense wishing."

"What?"

"Oh, her skull is fractured. We'll have to be very careful. We can't drill too near the crack for fear of worsening it, but we have to drill close enough to let the evil Spirits trapped there escape. They always cluster around the wound. Like wolves around a butchering fire."

Beaver root boiled in a pot propped over a firebowl in the middle of the altar. The Spirit of the beaver root was renowned for driving away the evil that caused convulsions. Its rich, earthy fragrance filled the temple.

"Vole," Wanderer asked softly, "could you get a bowl and dip out one of those rags I put in the beaver root? Don't wring out the liquid. We'll need all of the plant's Spirit before this is through."

Tenderly, Vole squeezed Lichen's hand and went to do as Wanderer asked. As she used a stick to pull the cloth out of the boiling mixture and drop it into a bowl, she watched Kettle deliver a hafted chert drill and an array of obsidian knives and flakes. Kettle laid them out on the blanket at Lichen's side.

"Thank you." Wanderer smiled tiredly at the frightened priestess. "You've helped a good deal, Kettle. Why don't you sit down and rest?"

"No, we—we want to Sing for her. Wanderer ... if that's all right."

"We would greatly appreciate it, Kettle. Thank you."