Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (78 page)

An incandescent anger transformed Bee’s lovely features. “Did you plot it between
you?”

He wiped his bloody forehead with the back of a hand. “I do not understand you.”

“You understand me perfectly well. I have had a lot of time to think. Was Caonabo
looking for a pretext to divorce me? One that all of you hoped would force me to return
to Europa with the general? Would he have crafted some other reason for me to leave
if this one had not come to hand? From the moment you discovered I walk the dreams
of dragons, you’ve been plotting to use me, haven’t you? You, your brother, your mother,
your uncle: all of you. I thought you were better, that you cherished dreamers, but
the Taino court connives no differently from the rest. You want cold mages for whatever
war is brewing between you and your rivals. If the general won—with my help, of course!—he
agreed to dismantle the mage Houses and give you first pick of the captive cold mages,
didn’t he?”

“First pick!” I exclaimed. “Was he intending all along to hand Vai over to you?”

Haübey took the lantern and dismissed his attendant, leaving us three alone with unconscious
men. “You cannot think the Taino offer aid to the general in exchange for nothing?”

“He’s trading you cold mages in return for your support?” I repeated stupidly.

“Why do you think I came to Europa in the first place two years ago?” Haübey asked.
“Your wars and rivalries do not interest us. I came at the behest of my uncle to learn
about cold mages. Instead I saw people living in unpleasant squalor. Children suffer
hunger while others throw away food they cannot eat and will not share. People die
of diseases any decently trained behique could cure. The streets run with filth, and
there is no decent night lighting. The food is awful. And it’s cold. But the music
and drumming is good, and many of the women are beautiful.” His gaze lifted to capture
Bee’s. He trembled as on the edge of a kiss.

She cut him with an angry frown. “Can it be that even to Caonabo I was nothing more
than a tool to be used? Although I grant you that I was well handled and lovingly
polished.”

Haübey closed his hands to fists, although I could not be sure if it was her accusations
or her insinuation of the intimacies she had shared with Caonabo, ones he had been
denied, that upset him. “You see only the shadows that churn the Great Smoke, dreamer.
You do not know what thoughts trouble a man.”

Elsewhere a man groaned, begging for water. Rain began to fall with a steady drumming,
and water dripped through the many scars in the burned roof to splash onto the wounded,
who could not even cover themselves. In the stall next to us I heard Rory humming
softly.

“Blessed Tanit!” Bee said. “How is it come to this, that I think only of my injured
heart?”

I pulled the cacica’s skull out of the basket. Startled, Haübey took a step away.

“Your Highness, at the request of your uncle and your brother, I deliver your mother’s
head to you. With this cemi, Prince Haübey, your kinsmen give you permission to return
home. They want you back to lead the Taino army.”

He stared, looking first confounded and then pleased. “So I am answered!”

“Just one thing first.”

Digging into the satchel, I pulled out the sewing kit Vai had so thoughtfully given
me. Of course it included a hand mirror, since I could not imagine that Vai could
imagine existence without a mirror. I caught the skull in the reflection as I pulled
the shadows around me. Haübey gasped gratifyingly when I vanished. Spun in my shadow,
the skull shifted to the texture and weight of a living head and met my gaze in the
mirror.

“Honored Cacica, my greetings,” I said.

“My greetings, Niece. You have returned me to my son.”

“So I have, honored one. As I promised.”

She blinked to show her approval. “Your debt is paid, even if I cannot approve how
my brother went about getting his way. We maintain righteousness because we hold to
the law.”

“The world changes,” muttered Haübey. “The old ways no longer protect us. My uncle
understands that, even if you did not, honored mother.”

The cacica had not struck me as an impulsive, emotional woman, but judging by her
glare, she and her impatient, headstrong son had more in common than I had thought.
“Those who cast aside the law will wither like maize under drought. And so will the
land!”

Haübey’s brooding expression was sharpened by lips pressed so tight I wondered he
did not cut himself. “I have something to say about how you treated Caonabo all those
years, favoring me and neglecting him! I always resented it! He will make a noble
cacique, even if you never thought so!”

This was really too much! I broke in. “The cacica is a wise and perspicacious woman!
Do not speak to her so disrespectfully.”

“How can Juba hear and speak to her when I cannot, except in the spirit world?” Bee
asked.

The cacica turned her gaze from her son to me. “To the dreamer give my greetings,
Niece. We who have ears can speak to our ancestors, that is why. A pity my brother
connived with my sons to send her away. She was a proper influence. Yet what troubles
you, Catherine Barahal? For I see a shadow in your heart.”

“I beg your pardon for my abrupt manner. James Drake has stolen my husband. Can you
tell me in which direction they have gone?”

“When a rot grows within the crop, it must be cut out quickly before it spreads its
taint. Let me see.” A thread spun away into the darkness of the mirror. She first
whispered words that sounded like the drizzle of rain and the moan of wind, then spoke
again in the language I could understand. “North they ride. Straight north.”

North
. Drake was going to use Vai to sow terror and death through his Ordovici homeland.
Dread opened a gash in me through which all my fears poured. But I remembered my manners.

“My thanks to you, honored queen,” I said, even if my voice shook. “Have you any other
words you wish to say before I release you to your son?”

“Let my dead son know that I understand the tide has already washed this shore. What
is done cannot be undone.”

“As I am reminded when I look on you, honored one,” I said politely.

“May the Good Great Spirit walk with you, Niece.”

“
Taino-ti’
, honored queen. May the Good Great Spirit walk with you.”

I lowered the mirror, tucked the skull into the basket, and offered it to Haübey.
He took it gravely, but it was Bee he looked at.

“Come back with me, dreamer. You will live in a better place than this, honored among
the Taino as a noblewoman. And if not for my sake, then for my brother’s. I happen
to know he feels true affection for you although he is not a man to say so.”

“No.” Her hand clasped mine firmly, even if her voice trembled. “My home is with Cat.”

“We have to go,” I said. And so we did, gathering Rory as we left.

“Where are the cold mages being held prisoner?” I asked an orderly, who directed me
to a sergeant, who informed me they were being held in custody at the rear hospital.
It was too far away; we didn’t have time; we couldn’t save everyone.

We walked north along the Cena Road to Lutetia. Bee’s honey voice talked us through
the barricade because they recognized her from her work with the radicals. How long
ago it seemed that I had fled Two Gourds House and Vai had come to the inn looking
for me. What if we had separated in anger, and had never spoken again?

“Cat, dearest, let me help you.” Bee steadied me as I stumbled.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Bee.”

“I’ll always be with you, dearest.”

We reached the forecourt gates of Two Gourds House at daybreak. The compound was surrounded
by armed citizenry, not hostile but definitely vigilant. In the forecourt mage troops
stood guard. Their captain made us wait on the entry steps in the morning sun. The
mansa of Four Moons House himself appeared with his djeli at his side and his repugnant
nephew dogging his heels as if hoping for a scrap of meat. The mansa had sustained
a gash on his chin. His left arm was in a sling. Yet he looked imposing in a formal
indigo robe whose sleeves swept the ground as he strode down the forecourt steps and
grasped my hand, speaking to me with his own voice.

“Catherine! Explain yourself!”

“I told you the village boy meant all along to betray us,” broke in the nephew, in
a sour tone. “He is probably dining with General Camjiata right now.”

“People do not sit down to dinner in the morning,” I snapped.

“Silence, boy!” said the mansa to his nephew before turning to me. “Catherine, please
disabuse yourself of any belief that I am angry at Andevai. He saved many lives yesterday.
If the tide of fire magic grew too strong for one of the others, Andevai would pull
it into himself by the craft he learned from the Taino. He risked more than anyone
else.”

The nephew hunkered down as if enduring a rancid smell, his mouth shut for once.

“Was it Andevai’s storm that quenched the fire that would have burned the city?” I
asked.

The mansa’s voice was hard, his manner impatient and proud. How like Vai he seemed,
although I could not tell what emotions surged beneath the garment of his arrogance.
“Andevai is not the only powerful cold mage. That was my storm, in concert with Mansa
Viridor. But I must ask, was it all a ruse? Did you plan this victory with General
Camjiata? I regret I could not recognize Andevai’s worth until it was too late to
bring him to trust me.”

“You still don’t understand him, Mansa. He respects you more than he will ever express
to you. He was able to look past the scorn and contempt he endured and admire your
strength and consistency in
your rule over Four Moons House. Not every mansa would have educated the village boy
with the sons of the mage House. You didn’t do what you ought to have done to stop
their cruel bullying, but you did not force him to stand at the end of the line when
he had earned the right to stand at the head. That is why he fought for the mage House
as well as for the sake of his village. And, I admit, for his own pride, which as
we both know is as vast as the heavens. Will you help me get him back?”

His gaze no longer frightened me because I understood him better now: He was a man
who saw the world purely through the lens of his birth and his House.

“Where do you think he is?”

“James Drake has deserted General Camjiata’s army and taken Vai prisoner. I believe
Drake is going home to the Ordovici Confederation to get revenge on his family. Vai’s
cold magic makes Vai a powerful catch-fire. Imagine how powerful he will make Drake’s
fire magic.”

Bee took hold of my hand. “Do you really suppose Drake can defeat Andevai? Were I
a betting woman, I would put my money on Andevai.”

“So would I, were it a duel between the two of them. But Drake has surely taken the
most loyal of his fire mages with him to do his bidding. If I were Drake, I would
have fire mages pouring backlash into Vai day and night to keep him incapacitated.
Even Vai can’t fight all of them. And he’ll try to protect whatever other catch-fires
Drake may have in his keeping.”

The mansa gestured toward his steward. “I am not willing to sit idly by while Four
Moons House is insulted in this egregious manner! But we have only a handful of horses
left in this compound and they are either wounded or broken down from being overworked
yesterday. I am told that General Camjiata has taken every able-bodied horse off the
field. And since we magisters are trapped here, the citizens of Lutetia have no doubt
rounded up the rest.” He laughed in a manner that annoyed me. “There is your revolution
for you. Trapped in our own House and yet not one word of thanks from the local citizens
for the death and injury we took on ourselves that spared the city of Lutetia from
being burned to the ground and ravaged. Rather, they treat us as if we are the ones
who assaulted them and started this war!”

Bee glanced toward the compound gate. “I can negotiate with the citizens’ council…”

A full-length mirror hung opposite the main doors in the entry hall.

“I have a better idea,” I said. “But first, may we change out of these clothes and
wash and eat something? Before we depart?”

Though in mourning, the residents of Two Gourds House treated us with every courtesy
and were expeditious in bringing wash water and food. I did not inform them that I
was the person who had killed their master. I didn’t want Bee to know. I almost wept
when a steward brought me the spruce-green skirt and resewn cuirassier’s jacket, cleaned
and ironed. I demanded provisions be brought. Back in the entrance hall the mansa
and his attendants and soldiers had gotten into their riding clothes and uniforms,
for they believed we would be traveling on horseback.

“If you will, Mansa, can you give me a tiny bit of cold magic?”

He raised an eyebrow interrogatively, but he obeyed with alacrity, plucking a spark
of cold fire out of the air. My sword woke; I drew the blade into daylight. Folk did
gasp and murmur, but the mansa frowned as he glanced toward the mirror and then back
at me.

“Can you walk after him through the spirit world? Surely not, Catherine. You might
vanish for weeks or months…” He trailed off.

In a silence weighted by every gaze following me, I approached the mirror. With so
many cold mages in the entry hall, magic rippled in its depths. Rory’s reflection
shifted back and forth from cat to man. Bee stared fixedly, her dreaming eye alight
on her forehead. As for me, my own reflection glared back at me. Was this the face
Andevai had seen and fallen in love with the day I had walked down the stairs and
he up them to where we had first met on the landing? Hard to imagine! I looked as
if I meant to bite someone.

I would find him! And I would make James Drake pay!

I nicked my skin to draw blood, its smear bright on the blade. I thrust my sword into
the mirror, up to the hilt. The cold steel cut a gateway between the mortal world
and the spirit world. I parted the lips of the gate as I might part a curtain. A murky
night hid the spirit world from my eyes. But I still had my voice.