On the walls, the thlatsinas watched and listened, their painted bodies reflecting the sunlight that flooded the room. Webworm studied them warily. People said they were holy, but Webworm felt only evil coming from those masked figures. The Wolf Thlatsina had his fangs bared, his ears pricked, his yellow eyes wide and alert. No matter where Webworm moved in the chamber, Wolf tracked him, as though distrustful of Webworm’s presence.
He glared at the gaudy thlatsina. Though the bestial figure had a wolf’s head, his body was human, the lower arms and legs painted black with white spots. His chest shone pure white. If I were Chief, false god, I would replaster the walls over the top of you, burying you forever. You would never look at anyone that way again.
Wolf’s eyes glimmered, and a faint smile seemed to turn up the corners of the thlatsina’s muzzle. Or a snarl?
Webworm’s fingers tightened around the deerbone stiletto tied to his belt.
“In beauty it is begun,” Sternlight softly Sang. “In beauty it is begun.”
Sternlight walked around the dying Chief, sprinkling cornmeal to the four directions. Despite his forty-three summers, the priest looked remarkably young. He had bathed at dawn and left his waist-length hair loose. Against the pure white of his long shirt, it glinted blacker than black.
Soon, Webworm promised. Very soon. I will expose you for the witch you are, cousin.
After Wraps-His-Tail’s death, Webworm had searched everywhere for Sternlight, without success. The Buffalo Dancers had seen him leave the Chief’s chamber, but he had not been in his room when Ironwood ordered he be found. Half a hand of time later, Sternlight had walked up the trail from the wash, humming pleasantly, his white shirt blazing in the starlight.
And had the audacity to say he had not even heard the commotion!
“He’s waking,” Night Sun said.
She sat in the northwestern corner, her graying black hair twisted into a bun on top of her head. Her triangular face with its long eyelashes had gone deathly pale. She wore a scarlet dress fringed with seashells.
“No, he’s not, Mother.” Snake Head sat on the floor beside her. Starkly handsome, he had a perfect oval face, large dark eyes, and full lips. A priceless purple shirt decorated with copper bells and macaw feathers draped his tall body. “It was just a deception of the light. A cloud moved across the face of Father Sun. That’s all.”
Webworm had to bite his lip to keep it from twisting in disgust.
Snake Head’s haughtiness grated on him like sandstone on raw flesh. The man had never suffered, not in his entire twenty-four summers. He had been treated as delicately as a precious Green Mesa pot. Because of that, he remained a boy in a man’s body. He was intolerant and quick to judge. As Snake Head gazed upon his dying father, he showed no emotion at all. He might have been gazing upon a dead rabbit—or been a dead rabbit himself. The youth cared for nothing. No … Webworm shook his head. That wasn’t quite true. Snake Head cared very much about his own enjoyment. More than anything, Snake Head relished watching people die.
Webworm peered out the doorway at the sunlit plaza and fervently prayed for Ironwood’s return.
People had emerged from their chambers and begun their daily duties. Slaves with water jugs walked down the dirt path that led to the wash. A few women had tumplines around their foreheads, bearing the weight of the cradleboards they wore on their backs. The whimpers of an infant carried on the air, high and breathless. Two old men, white-haired and hunched over, crossed the eastern plaza with small square looms and balls of cotton yarn under their arms. Webworm could hear their laughter.
Then he saw his own mother, Featherstone, roaming around outside the town. Wearing her best cape, made of buffalo fur and macaw feathers, she looked regal—like a woman on her way to a grand ceremony. And, perhaps, that’s where she thought she was. Webworm’s heart ached. Dark gray hair lay tangled around her withered face. She used her walking stick to tap the dusty ground, then hobbled around in a circle, her lips moving in words too distant to hear. At times, she could be completely lucid, loving, and funny … but she had bad days. Days when she didn’t even recognize Webworm, and begged over and over for him to tell her his name.
Love swelled within his soul. Featherstone had once been very Powerful. At the age of ten summers, she had been chosen by the priests of the Straight Path nation to be Sunwatcher. Then she had been captured by Fire Dog raiders, and they had clubbed her in the head so often that many of the cords which tethered her soul to her body had been severed; it hung by a thin thread now—sometimes in her body, other times gone.
Featherstone tripped over a rock and staggered. Webworm went rigid, fighting the impulse to rush to her, but she did not fall. She had fallen two summers ago and snapped a bone in her wrist. It still hurt her on cold days.