Cold Steel

10

After everything I had done and seen, I really thought it was too much that I could still be surprised. However, good manners always bridge an awkward chasm.

“Honored Ones! I stand before you like a daughter, who asks for your blessing.” I caught the eye of the man who looked oldest and smiled winningly at him, for the smiles of young women could often soften the hearts of old men. He did not look amused, so I quickly retrenched. “I have arrived unexpectedly here, not knowing what you want of me.”

“We want justice,” said the head of Queen Anacaona. “You allowed the hunter who rides at the behest of the foreign courts to cross the Great Smoke and raid into our country, resulting in my death. Answer, maku.”

I recollected Keer’s questions, coming at the debate sideways instead of head-on. “You shouldn’t have invaded Expedition Territory.”

“Do you scold me, child? The Council of Expedition broke the First Treaty, which their ancestors and ours swore to uphold. That gave the Taino the right and the obligation to invade, to protect our people from diseases like the salt plague.”

Here was an opening I could exploit! “It’s true that Expedition’s Council violated the terms of the First Treaty. But the Council no longer rules Expedition. The people of Expedition replaced the corrupt Council with a new Assembly. It is not justice to punish the Assembly for actions they did not commit.” I surveyed the gathered ancestors. They were patient, as the dead can be, but I had an idea they were not going to be patient for long. I had to strike quickly. “Furthermore, you had no right to quarantine me on Salt Island, because I was clean. I was never infested with the salt plague. Isn’t that true? Wasn’t I clean?”

Queen Anacaona’s brown cheeks suffused with natural color, as if blood pumped through them even though she had no heart. “You were clean. And Expedition does indeed have a new government. But both those things are beside the point, as I believe you know. Is it true, or is it not true, that a pack of maku spirit hunters crossed the Great Smoke and raided into our country?”

“What is the Great Smoke?”

“Do they teach the young nothing in your country? The Great Smoke is the ocean of all existence. It embraces all things, just as the ocean of water in the mortal world embraces all lands. It is not easy to cross the Great Smoke, for Leviathan guards it. But it can be done. Long ago, behiques wove a spirit fence around Taino country precisely to keep out the spirit lords from other territories in the spirit world because we did not want them to walk into our lands and disturb us. So let me ask you again. Did the maku spirit hunters cross from your land to ours on a road made of your bone and blood because in your nature and living body you partake both of the spirit world and the mortal world? Was it your presence, your body, that cut a gate in the spirit fence with which we protect ourselves? Did the Hunt enter the land because of you? Speak the truth, maku. Be warned. In this country, lies are knives you wield against your own flesh.”

The ancestors’ gazes pressed against me as if they were invisible blades waiting to cut my flesh to ribbons. I had to tell the truth, but not because of the knives. I had to tell the truth because this was a court of law. One did not lie in such a place.

“The Hunt did enter your country because I cut a gate in the fence. The Master of the Wild Hunt compelled me to lead him to the dragon dreamer, to my cousin, Beatrice. I never knew there was a spirit fence around your country. I never knew I could cut through it, and that cutting through it would leave your lands vulnerable. For that, I am truly sorry.”

Her gaze had a shine that was not like living eyes but more like polished wood beads. I could almost see my reflection in it. “Who turned the eyes and will of the hunter onto me? Who was the instrument of my death?”

I straightened my shoulders. I was not proud, but neither was I ashamed. “I was clean, yet the noble cacica would have killed me as a salter if I had not asked the Master of the Wild Hunt to kill her first. I acted in self-defense.”

A gust of rain washed through the hall, dissolving the roof and beams and floor and the ancestors themselves. Wet, I found myself standing ankle-deep in clumps of dirt in a field of young cassava plants. A sandy path snaked away into the forest’s canopy, where one tree’s crown rose above the others like a tower. Beside me, Rory sank down on his haunches.

The head of Queen Anacaona still rested in my arms. The way she watched me, unblinking, made me shift my feet restlessly, but I could not run away from what I had done.

“What happened to the hall? And the ballcourt?” I asked.

“The lords who sit at the court of justice have released you. You told the truth.”

“Does that mean I’m free?”

Her stare bored into me. “My throne is shaken. My sons are scattered and weak because I was torn from the Taino court at an inauspicious time. My brother the cacique was healing in slow measure and would have survived, but instead he took his last breath. My body is dead because of you. Knowing that, do you feel free?”

Even knowing I’d made the only choice I could, and that I had truly acted in self-defense, I did not feel free. I did not want to be the kind of person who would.

“Why are you still with me, Your Highness? Is there some task I may perform for you? Somewhere I may carry you? It seems rude to just… plant you here.”

“Take me to my son.”

“To Prince Caonabo in Sharagua?” My heart beat faster with excitement, for if we traveled swiftly enough we might reach there in time to spare Bee the ignominy of Caonabo’s casting her off.

“I am obliged to lend my power to the one who will become cacique.”

“I’m angry about his treatment of Bee, but I know how young men hold their honor high. He seems competent and levelheaded to me otherwise. He certainly honors his relationship to you. So I don’t understand why you don’t think he’s worthy of becoming cacique.”

“It is the same as tossing me onto the dirt to speak to me with such disrespect.”

Prudence dictated retreat. “My apologies, Your Highness. If I am to take you to your son, how do we return to the mortal world and Sharagua?”

“I am always surprised by maku ignorance. This garden is the first garden. That is why the ancestors gather here. As for the worlds, the tree links all.”

Of course! The tree.

Dried blood matted Rory’s thick coat. He circled me once, then sniffed at the cacica’s head.

“Yes, this is the head of the noble cacica, Queen Anacaona. She will be traveling with us until we can deliver her to Prince Caonabo.”

He gave a low rumble, not quite a snarl. Even injured, he was intimidating, huge, graceful, and deadly. But then he nudged me with his big cat head as if impatient with the sword I’d lashed so awkwardly to his back, and suddenly he was just an annoying older brother whose needs weren’t being met quickly enough for his liking. I took back my sword. A slug of rum from the flask Uncle Joe had provided shot right down through my flesh as a brace of courage.

I settled the cacica’s head in the crook of my right arm, facing her forward so she could see where we were going. We headed under the shadow of the forest along the path. Birds with bright yellow-and-red plumage flapped away into the foliage. I heard the toa toa croaking of frogs.

“Where is the fire bane?” she asked. “I am surprised he is not with you. He possesses something more valuable than power.”

“Good looks?”

She actually chuckled, and I was pleased I had made her laugh. “Young people are too easily swayed by sex. Let them dance at areitos. It is best for elders to sort out marriages between clans. A shame he was wasted on you.”

Her words pricked me like thorns. “Did he turn down an offer to become one of your many husbands?”

Perhaps she did not hear the sarcasm in my tone, because her reply was as considered as if mine had been a perfectly reasonable suggestion. “He is an unusually powerful fire bane. For that reason a challenge I would have savored.”

“You told General Camjiata there was no fire bane you could not control.”

“Ah! You think I meant to enslave him. That is not what I meant. The people of Expedition call such as me a fire mage.”

“Yes, I know that,” I retorted, for she had stung me by saying Vai was wasted on me. “I’ve met other fire mages, like James Drake.”

“Fire mages are not like James Drake. He is a criminal, whatever you may have thought of him.”

“I didn’t like him much, no matter what it may have seemed.”

“I could see the nature of your regret developing on Salt Island. You were foolish.”

“I was scared.”

“You were ignorant.”

“All right, then,” I replied grudgingly, because it seemed churlish to argue over such a fine point with a woman who was dead because of a choice I had made. “I was ignorant and scared and foolish. Maybe being all those things was also an excuse to do something I was curious about but wasn’t honest enough to admit wanting.”

Birds fluttered in the trees, plumage flashing through patches of light. My feet crackled on drying leaves. Rory’s breath warmed my back.

“All of those things,” she agreed, “but it appears you can learn. Yet you are not my kinswoman to be offered to eat from the platter of my knowledge. However, I will not allow you to think I meant to enslave the fire bane who is your husband. This much I will tell you. When we weave, we are not weaving fire, we are weaving what the Hellenes call energy and the Mande call nyama and others call the living force. One way it can manifest is as fire. Such dispersal of living force will kill the fire weaver unless she has a way to cast it off.”

“That’s why you use fire banes as catch-fires. People sell them to you as slaves.”

If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was holding a severed head in my arms, I could have believed myself talking in an ordinary manner with a woman who found me a little tiresome.

“The fire banes who serve me are not slaves.”

“Prince Caonabo said murderers are sometimes punished by being forced to become catch-fires. Anyway, why would anyone volunteer to do something so dangerous?”

“Fire banes can take into their bodies the energy I release. They throw it into Soraya, which is the name we give to what you call the spirit world. Were I to pour the backlash of my magic into a single fire bane, I should kill her. Even if she is only a funnel, she cannot take all without some spilling into her flesh and burning her up. Over many generations, my ancestors taught themselves how to split these wakes into more than one thread and weave them through more than one fire bane. Thus, all are protected.”

“So the more powerful a fire mage, the more fire banes she needs? I saw the threads of your magic that night on the ballcourt. You wove them through a dozen fire banes. It seemed your net of magic spanned the entire island of Kiskeya and kept your dying brother alive.”

“Interesting. You can see within both worlds, something few can do.”

“I never saw anything like what you could do. It was… impressive, and to be honest, Your Highness, it was rather intimidating.”

This compliment she let pass without blinking. “It is not that other fire mages do not have access to the lakes of energy which I can tap. Many stand at that shore but cannot or will not wade into the deep. My particular skill lies in the quality and precision of my weaving. There is no fire bane I cannot control, no matter how many threads I weave into the whole. But let me assure you, your husband was at no risk from me. I do not take what is not offered, and he did not offer himself. To be honest, the man talked so much about you that at times he became tedious. I expect you would have found his words gratifying.”

A strange, smoky feeling scorched my heart. It was not so easy to wave away responsibility for her death when I was talking to her. It wasn’t that I regretted saving my life or Vai’s life or Bee’s life. It was that I regretted the whole situation we had been forced into. Regret has a way of creeping through flesh and mind the way blood returns to frozen limbs and makes you hurt. If I’d known more or things had fallen out differently, she might have become my ally.

“What the fire bane has is the same way of thinking I have. He is precise. Methodical. Meticulous. Disciplined. I was astounded that he had the means to douse my weaving. I should like to ask him how he did it. Where is he? For I would have thought he would stay with you.”

Now that she and I were so closely bound, I saw no reason to hide the truth. “The Master of the Wild Hunt stole him from me.”

“The maku spirit lord drank my blood, and then stole the young man. An intriguing strategy. You must ask yourself what the spirit lord wants.”

We came to a wide clearing. At its center rose a ceiba tree whose steepled roots flowed like ridges from a massive trunk. Baskets hung from the big thorns that adorned the lower roots. Some were filled with rotting fruit or with animal flesh turned green and putrid with decay. Others gave off a pleasing scent of herbs and flowers. One was filled to the brim with fresh yam pudding that smelled so sweet and tasty that I licked my lips and barely restrained myself from scooping with my fingers and eating it all up. In one, a tiny little creature with a downy coat of feathers slept, curled up all cozy for a long eternity’s nap.

I found an empty basket and pulled it off the tree. “With your permission, Your Highness, I’d like to place your head in this basket so I have my hands free to climb.”

To my surprise she smiled, not in a friendly way but in the way a rich woman smiles when a servant brings her just the gown she wanted in the morning. “It is a proper place for me to rest.”

I wove grasses to make a nest that would keep her face angled up, for it seemed undignified to smash her facedown into the basket. A leather cord laced closed the lips of the basket. I fixed its strap around my body alongside the two flasks. Rory licked his foreleg.

I put a hand on the coarse fur of his neck. “Change into your man form as soon as you can. That’s how we’ll know we’ve crossed back into the mortal world.”

He looked up the thorn-ridden bole of the tree as if to ask me how we were meant to climb, with the lowest branches out of my reach and him with no hands able to grasp.

“We came in through the roots,” I said, “so we go out through the roots.”

I smeared the last moist dregs of his drying blood onto my fingers, then pricked my forearm on one of the thorns. Its sting burned into my skin. As we crept into the dark hollows beneath the vast architecture of roots, I wiped our blood on the bark.

Deep in the pit of the tree the shadows melted away into steps ascending. He went first. It quickly grew so dark I had to keep a hand against the curving trunk. My shoulder ached, less sore than before. The grim implication dogged my steps: I could never attack my sire with cold steel if it meant I would harm not just myself but Rory and every other servant of the Hunt.

“Pah!” said Rory, as if he were spitting something out.

“Rory!” My fingers spread across the skin of a muscular back.

“Ouch!” he added. “Don’t you think it’s strange that it hurts so much when no blade touched us?”

I carefully felt along his shoulder. Where he had been shot a scar had already formed. “At least we’re back in the mortal world.”

He hissed. “Shh! I smell people. I hear them, too.”

We crept through a maze of shallow, stagnant pools, scum slicking our feet. The air was thick with a scent similar to the one I imagined the ancient wrappings of Kemet mummies would have if you were so unfortunate as to be forced to unwrap one in order to clothe yourself. I probed with a foot, my sandal tapping rock.

He whispered, “I hate it when I have no shoes and the ground pokes my feet.”

“I brought sandals. Put them on.”

“You’re such a good sister. Always thinking of my comfort!”

“My comfort, too. Put on these trousers and singlet first!”

“Clothes are so confining. I understand why you wear them when it’s cold, but I see no need for them in a warm place like here.”

“In human society you are meant to clothe yourself except when you are in private.”

“Yes, it would be difficult to pet if one had to wear clothes!” He pressed a hand to my cheek. “Your skin is hot, Cat. Are you feverish?”

“It’s called blushing. Is the wound on your leg bleeding? No? Then put your trousers on!”

When he had dressed, we moved on. A salt-sea smell tinged with smoke tickled my nose. Light filtered in, too constant to be torchlight and too bright to be candles. We groped along a rock wall on which figures had been drawn in poses of dancing and eating as at one of the festivals the locals called an areito. It was at such a festival with its dancing and food that Vai had won my heart. I could almost hear the ghost of that night’s music in my ears, until I realized I was hearing singing, drums, and the rattle of shaken gourds. A rocky incline dusted with drifting sand gave way to a cave mouth. Its ledge overlooked a massive hollow fitted out with gaslights. From the height of the ledge we gazed across the hollow and through a monumental arch built from massive beams of wood. Through the archway could be seen a magnificent city whose major thoroughfares were illuminated by gas lamps. Right in the center of the city lay the straight lines of a ballcourt and next to it a plaza with high-roofed buildings like administrative offices and palaces. Beyond the city, a full moon glimmered over a flat sea. Masts filled a harbor, and bloated shadows moored to short towers marked airships. The distant jetty was strung with globes, their golden light awash over the dark waters. The entire city seemed to be out celebrating.

It was the view Bee had drawn in her sketchbook, only without us in it.

In the hollow below, an areito let loose in full rhythm. People stamped out a dance in lines of men or of women. Revelers stared as we descended into the hollow. A few offered drink or food as if to see if we were solid. I tested several smiles, trying to seem friendly and harmless. We made our way around the edge beneath the gleam of gas lamps. The hollow had once been a cavern, but its roof had long since collapsed. We struggled through the crowded celebration. I grabbed hold of Rory’s jacket and tugged him to a halt as I searched for a route up the other side.

Away across the crowd, I saw the man wearing a terribly dashing dash jacket in a gold-and-orange brick pattern. He smiled in that aggravating way that made my heart melt, the way he’d smiled when he had said, “How could you not want me, Catherine?”

My limbs turned to stone as he arrowed toward me. Even when a surge of laughing people cut off my view, freeing me from the chain that linked our gazes, I could not move.

Then there he was, standing right in front of me, looking exactly like Vai except that he was not wearing shoes or even sandals. The bare feet were a dead giveaway.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “What do you want?”