The midday heat might have bothered the Cahokians, but for Swirling Cloud, coming as he did from the Father Water’s lower valley, the warm muggy air almost seemed a relief. It reminded him of home, of desperate chunkey matches, of sparring with his cousins on the bright red-orange courts. He had honed his skills there, playing in heat like this. Not just honed, but prevailed.
He had been trained by the best, and he’d practiced in hopes that one day he would stand here, on Cahokia’s most famous court: the Morning Star’s. Around him a huge crowd had gathered, come that morning to see the Morning Star play, only to be disappointed when the living god hadn’t appeared as was his wont for the daily game.
Nor had there been any reason given for his absence.
All the better for Swirling Cloud. He had not only defeated every player to challenge him, but Wet Bobcat and several of his warriors now stood guard over a huge pile of winnings.
The first game had been close; the Four Winds lord known as Black Toe had been no mean player. Word was he had once come within a whisker of beating the Morning Star, scoring seventeen out of the twenty necessary to win.
Three points.
A lot could happen when a match was that close.
Unless one actually hit the stone, which immediately won the game.
According to the common wisdom, Black Toe had been the local favorite by huge odds. The Natchez foreigner was known only for beating a slave by five and taking his clothes.
Swirling Cloud had stripped half of the furnishings from Night Shadow Star’s palace and had them carried down as his bet. The gullible Cahokians had taken the bait, wagering a staggering amount of wealth against the newcomer.
And lost.
Thereafter, challenger after challenger had stepped up in the desperate hopes of beating the Natchez and claiming the vast spoils.
Now Swirling Cloud was ahead nineteen to Marble Mace’s seventeen. This final match had proven the toughest of the day. But here it would be decided. Swirling Cloud could feel the Power running through him. This was his day. The Hero Twins, playing against the giants of the Beginning Times, might have felt the Spirit within them as he now did.
In the tradition of those mythic heroes, this was an epic chunkey match. The stuff of legends for which he had prepared his entire life.
The Morning Star might not have appeared that day.
But Swirling Cloud had.
He was about to take down the last of Cahokia’s fabled Four Winds Clan players. And he was doing it on their court. In the heart of their Power.
He cupped the stone, taking deep breaths, a rising confidence filling him the way a full draught of black drink might. The sunlight, the roar of the crowd, the narrow clay track before him—everything was right.
Marble Mace, standing beside him, might have been but a shadow of reality. A nonentity.
Picking his target point, Swirling Cloud launched, each foot driving him forward. On the fourth pace, his arm dropped, body twisting from instinct. The release felt perfect. Two strides. Shift the lance.
The stone was running straight and true, and from the speed, he picked the spot on the clay where it would stop.
Penalty line coming up.
Arm back, balance, whip it forward.
The lance left his fingers, sunlight gleaming on the polished wood. He thundered across the penalty line, shouting in exultant joy as the lance slipped through the air. Beside it, Marble Mace’s lance followed its own gentle arc.
“Home!” Swirling Cloud bellowed. “Ancestors, Sacred Sun, guide my lance! Seal this city’s fate!”
As he’d anticipated, his lance thudded into the court no more than a forearm’s length short of the stone when it toppled onto its side.
An instant later, Marble Mace’s lance nosed into the clay a hand’s length behind his own. No cord would be necessary. The results could be seen from the sidelines.
A huge groan seemed to swell, uttered by a thousand throats, as Marble Mace stumbled to a stop to stare stupidly at his lance. So close. But still farther away from Swirling Cloud’s distinctive Natchez-style stone with its hole through the middle.
“No,” he whispered.
“You read the stone’s track perfectly,” Swirling Cloud told him. “The cast was just short. You could not have won. Not today. I am blessed by the kukul’s Power.”
He turned, raising his voice and bellowing, “It’s over! A new Power has come to Cahokia. The one true Power! The Morning Star knows it. That’s why he didn’t appear today. Didn’t dare to challenge Swirling Cloud and wager his life!”
A gasp rose from the crowd, people shooting speculative glances up at the high palace. The staircase was vacant.
“I serve Ahau Oxlajun Chul B’alam. Lord Thirteen Sacred Jaguar. He serves the kukul! The Power of the great War Serpent flows through him. Through me! And with it, we are going to return Cahokia to the true ways, make right the corrupt interpretation of Beginning Times, and reveal the truth of the Creation.”
He lifted his arms, aware that he had the crowd’s full attention. He could feel their skepticism wavering, could read it in their faces, see the growing disappointment as they looked up at the Morning Star’s high palace. The fools were expecting the living god to appear decked out in his finest, face painted, his copper lance gleaming in the sunlight as he trotted down the stairs to answer this outlandish, heretical challenge.
For what seemed a breathless eternity, the entire world seemed to hang in the balance, and then it passed. Swirling Cloud could feel the crowd’s resolve crumbling.
“Is there no one to challenge me?”
Arms lifted high, he faced the grand stairway. At the top, on either side of the Council Terrace Gate, the two guards seemed oddly incongruous, symbolic only of impotence instead of might.
“The living god doesn’t answer,” he shouted, feeling the crowd’s spirit finally break. This was the critical moment.
“I am Thirteen Sacred Jaguar’s champion. Cahokia’s best are vanquished! Look at the sideline. The wealth of the Four Winds Clan lies there, guarded by Thirteen Sacred Jaguar’s Natchez guard. But no one steps forward. With the kukul’s Power flowing through me, I am invincible! No one can beat me at the Morning Star’s sacred game!”
He clenched his fists, shaking them up at his sacred sun, founder of his family, his people, and his Nation. The exultation of victory exploded within him.
He’d won the crowd. Convinced them.
As he watched their expressions, read their reluctant acceptance, an image of Night Shadow Star’s remarkable body formed between his souls.
With Thirteen Sacred Jaguar gone for the day, what better way to savor his triumph over the Morning Star and the Four Winds than by enjoying their highest-born—
“I can beat you!”
The voice shattered his reverie.
A whisper, like a wave, ran through the crowd. Mutterings and gasps of disbelief rose as people craned their necks.
The figure that stepped out at the head of the court was dressed only in a hemp-fiber shirt. His hair hung down his back unrestrained like a girl’s. At his side stood a battered-looking dog, and an absolutely ancient woman with a pack on her shoulder.
It took him a moment to recognize Fire Cat. When he did, he threw his head back and laughed, great peals of it, silencing the crowd.
“You, slave? What have you to bet? You’re my master’s property. Leave.”
“I am bound to Lady Night Shadow Star. You are a liar and the murderer of your predecessor, Nine Strikes. You are a cheat and a weasel, serving some rogue god whose name you can’t even pronounce. And if my words aren’t true, Hunga Ahuito can be the judge. Here. On this court. Before all the world.”
Wet Bobcat appeared at Swirling Cloud’s elbow. “Little Sun, would you like me to deal with him? We could just surround him, take him away. He can’t fight us all.”
“Do it. Get rid of him. No sense in … Wait.” He smiled. “He’s the key to this. Destroying him here, in front of all these people, after he’s bragged about serving Night Shadow Star? The loud-mouthed fool has just handed us Cahokia.”
Fire Cat stood with his lance at the ready, a pack of what had to be his armor on the ground at his feet. His copper ax was thrust in his rope belt. The breeze teased his long hair, and his face remained impassive.
The crowd waited. In the thousands, some climbed up atop vendors’ booths to see; others were lifted by their friends as they called down descriptions.
“You have nothing to wager, Red Wing!” Swirling Cloud gleefully announced. “I took everything you owned last time.” He pointed at the daunting pile of spoils. “What have you got that will equal the value before us?”
“My life, and all that I own, against your life and all that you own.”
The crowd gasped as hundreds drew breath.
“Come on, you Natchez maggot! You just told the whole world that the Itza’s kukul makes you invincible? I wager my life, the Power of Hunga Ahuito, Piasa, and Horned Serpent against you and your foreign god.”
Under his breath, Swirling Cloud whispered, “I could kiss you, you stupid clod of dirt.”
Then he shouted, “What is this? Cahokia’s champion comes in the form of a slave! Is that what this city has left? Very well, it will have its proof! Me and the Red Wing! I only beat him by five last time. How many points will I take him by this time? And then, how shall I dispose of him? Make him my slave? Or hang him in a square for all to see?”