Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (14 page)

“Where are we?” I whispered, for I was afraid.

“We have reached the Great Smoke, where the old ones bide. In the
mortal world, in the language spoken in Expedition, it is called the ocean.”

“Have you tricked us? We have no ship on which to sail the ocean.”

“’Tis no trick, for here in the spirit world, it have a different substance,” he said
in another man’s voice.

We looked onto the face of a man I had never before met. He was Taino through and
through, no mixed-race Expeditioner. He had the long black hair and regular features
typical of the Taino. His commanding gaze had a hard measure, but a softness in the
line of his mouth suggested that kisses pleased him. He was older than I expected,
about the same age as the Europan radical leader and pugilist Brennan Touré Du, whom
I would have guessed to be in his mid-thirties, a man in his prime. He also looked
vaguely familiar.

“Have we met before?”

“We have not. Yee killed me before we had that chance.”

“I did not kill you! You aren’t one of the salters I killed on Salt Island…” I trailed
off, watching the promise of his mouth tighten to disapproval.

“I’ve seen you!” cried Bee. “I met you, the first time I went to Sharagua! But you’re
dead!”

Had the sun come up at that moment, I would have said that dawn broke upon me. “You’re
the cacique! Queen Anacaona’s brother, the one she was keeping alive. You’re Caonabo
and Haübey’s uncle.”

The crow’s-feet at his eyes deepened as he smiled. “A smart gal, too.”

“No need to mock me. How comes it that you ruled the Taino kingdom and yet speak the
language spoken in Expedition Territory, which is but a trifling place compared to
the expanse of your noble and mighty empire?”

“Yee’s got a mouth on yee, gal, that do grate at times. Yet I reckon that man yee
seek have the means to keep yee quiet when he get weary of yee talking. If those kisses
was anything to go by.”

“A strong man does not need a silent wife,” I muttered as my face flamed.

“Kisses!” exclaimed Bee. “When was there kissing?
Cat!
”

His grin had a taunting flavor. “I lived in Expedition as a lad for some years. It
happen that me uncle, him who was cacique before me, favored a cousin as heir instead
of me. Me sister Anacaona deemed it
prudent to keep me out of sight while she played the music she needed to at court.
When me cousin died, I was recalled.”

“You’re younger than Anacaona?”

“By fifteen years. She was the first child born to the honored mother who carried
us, and I was the last. I reckon that is why she always thought she could give the
orders. Here is what yee don’ know. Me sister and me own self never did agree about
which of her sons was best suited to be cacique after me. She wanted me to choose
Haübey because she always favored him. But I wanted him to serve in the army. Caonabo
was my choice for cacique all along because he is the steadier man. But me sister
the noble cacica is a stubborn woman. She would never see one single change to the
law. I respect the ancestors as much as she do. But there come a time when change
must happen. We have contained the salt plague with our behiques, and now we have
wars to fight elsewhere. I need Haübey back from his exile.”

“He’s gone ahead to Europa with a small advance party,” said Bee.

“He’s a scout gone to Europa, that is certain. Yee shall take the cacica’s head to
him and he shall make of it a cemi. With the cemi of Anacaona in his possession, he
shall be allowed to return to the court of Caonabo. War shall come, from the west
or the north, from the Purépecha Empire or the Empire of the Comanche. I’s not sure.
Caonabo shall administer. Haübey shall fight.”

At the cave mouth, the big cat put his ears back. The hair on the back of his neck
was all a-bristle. Wind spattered burning sparks of sand all the way up the tunnel,
so hot Bee and I had to shield our faces. When we lowered our hands and turned back
to the cacique, the opia was gone.

“We’d better go.” I picked up my end of the chest.

Bee stared at the spot where the cacique had been standing, then grabbed the other
handle. With the chest swaying between us, we emerged out of the cave onto a beach.

The sky was as gray as northern slate, and the sea was a churning boil of smoke. Currents
and swells roiled the surface, and wind kicked up spills of mist like choppy waves.
Whitecaps flicked into existence and vanished. The strand that ought to have been
sand was red coals and smoking ash. Only the sandals Vai had gifted me with protected
my feet, for although common sense told me the leather ought to be burning, it did
not. Bee wore boots. Rory sat in the cave mouth, ears flat, not coming out.

“I can see why it’s called the Great Smoke.” Bee wiped her eyes. “Do you think that
could be the mist I walk through when I dream?”

I smacked my lips. “I hope your dreams don’t taste as nasty as this air does. How
can we possibly cross that?”

Smoke rushed up from the shoreline exactly like a big wave crashing in. Sulfurous
fumes engulfed us. Coughing, I sucked for breath. Surely this was what lungs full
of hot tar felt like! Beneath my sandals the ash of the shore hissed. A current like
the blast of a furnace dragged at my body. I staggered, boiled off my feet, but the
chest anchored me to Bee. She was immovable.

As quickly as it had poured in, the wave of smoke drained away.

I blinked gritty tears out of my eyes. Tufts of mist like the dregs of cigarillos
bubbled off my limbs and drifted to the sand. We hadn’t
moved, but the beach was now smoldering. Fat balls of greasy smoke puffed along its
length and rolled downslope into the sea.

“We should have gone with General Camjiata,” said Bee.

Gagging, I licked a stink of rotting eggs off my lips. “I’m afraid I made a terrible
mistake by listening to the opia.” I took a step back, but Bee stayed put, tugging
me to a halt.

“No, wait, Cat. Listen! There are voices in the smoke.”

Movement chased through the swirl of the Great Smoke. Shapes flashed beneath the surface,
but the churning gray fog obscured their features. All I heard was a bass humming
like a hoarse man with a very deep voice singing a single tone.

A sweep of color washed through the smoky sea.

“Is it the tide of a dragon’s dream?” I croaked, incandescent with terror. I groped
for my sword, but it was as inert as lead.

Bee’s tone was more breath than voice. “It’s a dragon.”

Night swept down. Lights like fireflies twinkled against a black sky. The sea surged,
lifting like cloth raised from beneath by a hand. A bright shape emerged, smoke spilling
off it in streams.

The dragon loomed over us. Its head was crested as with a filigree that reminded me
of a troll’s crest, if a troll’s crest spanned half the sky. Silver eyes spun like
wheels. It was not bird or lizard, nor was it a fish. Most of its body remained beneath
the smoke. Ripples revealed a dreadful expanse of wings as wide as fields, shimmering
pale gold like ripe wheat under a harsh sun. When its mouth gaped open, I knew it
could swallow us in one easy gulp.

We had come to a place we ought not to be.

Awe deadened my heart and silenced my voice as I waited for the leviathan to devour
us. Because wasn’t that what they did? Eat foul little creatures like me?

Bee’s voice rang out. “Greetings, Mighty One! I suppose you are one of those whose
dreams I am obliged to wander on my restless nights. It’s very disconcerting. I must
say, I could not appreciate that vision of my dearest Cat embracing a man so enthusiastically.
There are some things I really do not care to see, and that is one of them. But be
assured! I do as I am told. I’m very obedient! Furthermore, I should like to remind
you that my cousin and I at great risk to ourselves unearthed a nest of
hatchlings in the spirit world. I must suppose that any hatchlings who survive will
grow to become such resplendent creatures as you.”

I gaped as the filigree crest flared, tightened, and widened again. Colors flashed
through the dragon’s skin like spears from a rainbow.

Bee went on as in answer to a reply I had not heard. “So, if you please, Honored One,
as a favor, and possibly because we have done you a service beforehand, could you
please convey me and my cousin here and that cat over there and everything we carry
safely across the Great Smoke to the shores of the land we call Europa?” She dipped
a courtesy. “If you would be so kind.”

Down its head came like the inexorable fall of fate when the unsuspecting victim’s
eyes are at last and too late opened to her doom.

“Don’t run, Cat,” said Bee. “Never run. Stand your ground. Look them in the eye. You
were right for us to come here. And now I’m right.
Trust me.
”

I was so scared that I was actually afraid I was going to pee myself. That was the
only reason I didn’t run, because I knew if I ran I would lose all my dignity and
be very sticky afterward.

The dragon rested its head on the burning sands. The head alone was as big as a cottage.
Its jaw opened to reveal a pale pink tongue. Instead of teeth, its upper mouth was
rimmed with what looked like white, hairy combs as long as I was tall.

“It doesn’t have teeth,” said Bee. “How interesting! So you see, Cat, it can’t eat
us.”

I found a croak. “It can still swallow us.”

“Rory!” she called, ignoring my perfectly rational observation. “We’re leaving.”

He began to pad away into the darkness of the cave.

“Rory!” I was suddenly more afraid of losing him than of the dragon. “
Come. Here. Right. Now.
”

Head down, he crawled over to us as if I were dragging him on a leash. Maybe I was.
Perhaps I had inadvertently leashed him to my service, just as I had been chained
by my sire.

When he reached me, I extended a hand. He hissed.

“Don’t you dare bite me!” I slapped his nose. “You’re coming with us whether you want
to or not.”

His answering growl was more of a pathetic moan.

“Trust me, Rory.” I set a hand on his big head.

The dragon’s silver eyes had ceased whirling and now, like mirrors, reflected all
that lay before it. I saw myself bedraggled, with the basket over my shoulder and
my locket and sword like dull lumps of stone. Rory had fluffed out his fur to make
himself look bigger than he already was. Bee shone like a queen, as radiant as a lamp.

I met her gaze in the mirror of the dragon’s eyes. I nodded.

She exhaled. “Not every young woman gets to march into the gullet of Leviathan.” The
crack in her voice betrayed her: She wasn’t quite as sure of herself as she meant
to sound.

The dragon’s breath huffed over us, not rancid but sweet, like the aroma of coconut
milk as it bakes through a rice pudding. It pushed out its tongue over the ridge of
its lip to make a bridge.

Never let it be said my courage had failed me when put to the test.

I tightened my grip on the loose skin of Rory’s neck. Together we walked up the slope.
The tongue was oddly firm and dry beneath our tread, not at all slimy. Rory again
gave that moaning growl as the tongue shifted beneath us. To keep our balance Bee
and I set down the chest and held on to it, and I grabbed Rory, as the creature pulled
its tongue back inside.

We slid backward into the smoke. The jaw closed.

Darkness fell as a smothering blanket. Strange noises like drones and squeaks drifted
at the edge of my hearing.

Bee and I sat on the chest, clutching each other. Rory leaned against us as if he
wanted to climb inside either the chest or us. His trembling shuddered through me.
I rubbed his head.

From my oldest, sleepiest memories I scoured out a song. It whispered in my mother’s
raspy voice, scarred by war and pain. I sang in a low voice.

“Cat, are you crying?” Bee whispered, pressing her cheek to mine. “What is that lullaby?”

“My mother used to sing it to me.”

The creature moved in a gentle undulation. The air stirred with a rhythmic pulse,
in time to the slow drum of its heart, like the breath of secrets untold. Atop it
floated a sound like a bell’s resonant ring drawn out as a thread is spun out of a
mass of wool. I trembled, struck by such an upwelling of fear at being trapped inside
a living beast that I took a slug from my flask of rum for fortitude. The only way
to battle the fear was to talk.

“Bee, how could you think I would go with Camjiata? He probably meant to throw me
overboard once we were out of sight of land.”

She tensed. “It’s not that simple. He told me you’ve never given him a chance to properly
explain. He got you exiled to Salt Island to protect you.”

“To protect me?” I snorted. “How can he say these things? And with such sincerity!
It’s like a disease with him. Protect himself, he means, since he believes I will
be the instrument of his death.” Rory gave a rumble and nosed against me as I went
on. “ ‘Where the hand of fortune branches, Tara Bell’s child must choose, and the
road of war will be washed by the tide.’ The general thinks my choice will be to kill
him. But I already made a choice on Hallows’ Night at the ballcourt. I was the instrument
of the cacica’s death, not his.”

“That’s not what he thinks.” Bee’s tone wound like darkness, mellow and soft. The
heat made me yawn. “He thinks it’s the choice you made between Andevai Diarisso and
James Drake, between cold mage and fire mage. James Drake has an ugly, unpredictable
temper that might have been soothed by the love of a good woman.”

“I hope he did not really say that, and in those nauseating words.” I took another
slug of rum. “The point is, the general could have entirely misunderstood his wife’s
words about Tara Bell’s child. She wrote down her dreams in garbled poetry. He interprets
everything as having some relationship to him. I’m quite sure the dream has nothing
to do with me choosing between two men… what a tired story that would be!”