The moment Fire Cat’s fingers closed on the pole supporting the kukul, Waxaklahun Kan’s brutal Power recoiled and withdrew.
“He is safe,” Night Shadow Star cried with relief and sagged. She looked down where she held the ancient-looking crone’s hand, and let go. As she did, the image of Fire Cat faded.
She felt rather than saw the Sky Eagle as it swooped down from her center pole, shedding its Power across her courtyard in defiance of the Piasa and Horned Serpent guardian posts at either side of her walk.
Piasa’s angry hiss mixed with a cougar’s rage as the Spirit Beast symbolically lifted a taloned foot and struck upward.
“If the Sky World hadn’t sent the eagle when it did,” Bundle—now in the form of a mature woman—reminded, “the Itza would have won. It broke the stalemate, allowed our Power to prevail.”
An exhausted Night Shadow Star lowered herself to the soft mud, dropping her head into her hands. Sister Datura’s strong arms tightened around her as if to suffocate her hopes and desires. She’d given everything. Poured the essence of her souls into the shared vision with Bundle as Piasa whispered each of Red Copal’s coming moves into her ear.
I saved Fire Cat. Saved Cahokia.
“What is that worth to you, woman?” Snapping Turtle asked from where he’d burrowed into the mud, his hostile round eyes watching disdainfully.
“Anything,” she whispered, exhausted and fading. “Everything.”
“Your life for his?”
She couldn’t summon the energy to shoot Snapping Turtle so much as a sidelong glance. “If that’s what it takes to save him.”
Pus and blood, she didn’t want to go back. Not if it meant life with Thirteen Sacred Jaguar. In Bundle’s shared vision she’d seen Fire Cat’s mother and sisters in Blue Heron’s company. Perhaps if Night Shadow Star were dead, the Keeper would take Fire Cat in. The man was already an overnight hero from the chunkey match. After besting the Itza warriors, he’d be legend. So popular he could dictate his own terms.
As long as he kept his mouth shut about the Morning Star and didn’t precipitate his own assassination by one of the living god’s agents.
If only she didn’t feel so tired. “I don’t care what happens to me,” she said ever so softly, her souls starting to drift with Sister Datura.
“That exhausted sensation? That is your body dying back in your palace in Cahokia. For the moment, the Bundle is tying you to that last faint spark. If you choose to give up now, drift away, you will not awaken again,” Piasa told her. “The Bundle will sever the last thread. Snapping Turtle will devour you as I once did, and you can float among the souls of the dead for eternity.”
As if from a great distance, she heard the Bundle’s voice say, “The War Serpent is only temporarily distracted. As long as the kukul exists in Cahokia, its terrible Power will continue to sow discontent and violence. You felt Waxaklahun Kan’s hunger. It feeds on blood and souls. It’s weak, having only been nourished by the blood of our dead Cahokian warriors. Had it been strong, we would not have triumphed. But if it should seduce another Four Winds high chief? Perhaps Green Chunkey, War Duck, or one of the high-ranking Earth Clans chiefs? If it is allowed to strengthen, dispensing its favors to someone who feeds it ever more human beings, it will forever alter Cahokia.”
“I am just so … tired,” she whispered.
As the light began to fade into an eternal gray, she felt her chest expand, a familiar distant voice calling, “Lady? Come back to me.”
“You know there is a price, Night Shadow Star,” Piasa reminded. “If you heed his call, he can never go free.”