The Native Star (15 page)

“No, I’m afraid you’re wrong there,” Stanton said. He pushed his coffee cup around on the saucer. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it. When he opened it again, he spoke in a quick, clipped tone.

“You recall that Mrs. Quincy made a disparaging remark at the casino—she referred to me as burned. That is the crude colloquial term for an impairment, a defect from which I suffer.
Exussum cruorsis.”
He paused, centering the cup on the saucer with more precision than the action really required. “You see, practitioners are supposed to be like Swiss cheese—full of holes through which mantic energy can be funneled and directed. Much of a Warlock’s formal training consists of manipulating these pathways, the
viae manticum
. While the
viae manticum
are open, they represent a great drain on the physical system. In most cases, they are only opened while a Warlock is actively working a spell and can be closed at will.” He paused again. “In my case, however, I am unable to close them. They remain constantly open, and I am like a lamp that is always kept lit. It’s quite draining. If I don’t keep well fed, I’ll be worse than useless to you.”

Emily absorbed this strange flood of information, blinking.

“Are there many Warlocks with this … condition?”

“It is extremely uncommon,” Stanton said.

“And there’s nothing you can do? There’s no cure, or …”

“No,” Stanton said. “There’s no cure.”

Emily leaned back, crossed her arms, and looked at him.

“Well, I must say I feel sorry for whoever it is decides to marry you. You’ll have her cooking all hours of the day and night.” She paused. “It’s not catching, is it?”

“It’s a defect, not chicken pox.” Stanton frowned. “Training as a Warlock aggravates it substantially. In most cases, the burned relinquish all aspirations to a magical career. If training is discontinued swiftly enough after the discovery of the defect, the opening of the
viae manticum
can be reversed, and the individual can return to his original state of health.”

“But you continued your training,” Emily said.

“Most mantic institutions refuse to train students who are burned, citing a mealymouthed concern with the ethics of it.” Stanton lifted his chin proudly. “But Professor Mirabilis perceived profound advantages in having me attend the Institute. And so I did.”

She shook her head. “But there other perfectly acceptable professions in the world. Why on earth did you go on with magic?”

He looked at her as if he could not fathom the source of such a question. “Because it was what I wanted to do,” he said.

There was a long silence between them.

“Anyway, there’s always Brother Scharfe’s soup kitchens,” Stanton said, raising an ironic eyebrow.

Emily picked up her cup of tea. She placed it on the table. Then she pushed the plate with the little almond cookie on it toward him.

“My pap has a word for men like you, Mr. Stanton,” she said. “Mulish.”

To her surprise, he smiled at her. To her even greater surprise, she realized that he had quite a nice smile.

“Let’s hope that’s the worst word your pap can ever apply to me.” He took the cookie and ate it in one bite. “I’ll go retrieve the horses. You wait here.”

“Wait here?”

“For once, Miss Edwards, please do as I ask.” He dusted almond crumbs from his hands. “It is safer for you here than on the streets. I doubt even the Maelstroms have the manpower to search every chophouse in San Francisco. Here. I want you to keep this while I’m gone.” He pulled the Jefferson Chair ring from his finger and dropped it into her outstretched hand. “If we find ourselves separated, it will be useful.”

“What would I do, pawn it?”

“You wouldn’t get much. It’s index metal—gold alloyed with iron. The iron comes from a special mine and contains a rare mineral called diabolite. The chemical makeup of each ring is unique. Anyone wearing a ring of index metal can be found by a simple magical search for the ring’s particular alloy. If you keep it with you, I can always find you.”

Emily looked at the ring, suddenly wary.

“What about Caul? Can he find us by searching for the ring?”

“Professor Mirabilis is the only man who knows the chemical signatures of all the Jefferson Chair rings,” Stanton said. “If the Maelstroms are able to find us using that ring, then all hope really is lost.”

“So this will help you find me if I go missing.” Emily slid the ring onto her thumb. “But it hardly helps me if Caul spots you riding around San Francisco.”

“If I’m not back in three hours, you’ll have to find a way to get to New York on your own,” Stanton said. “Get to the Institute and tell Professor Mirabilis everything.”

“Get to New York? On my own?”

“You’d find some way,” Stanton said. “You’re very resourceful, and you’ve shown that you can be entirely ruthless if required.”

When he was gone, Emily toyed nervously with the gold ring. Sliding it off her thumb, she examined it. A phrase in Latin was inscribed on the inside of the band.
Ex fide fortis
. From faith, strength. She looked down at the cookie crumbs on the saucer. Stanton had to keep fed, at least until they got to New Bethel and got some money in their pockets. She reached up and felt the hair sticks, the smooth cold weight of them.

Ruthless. Yes, she thought, she could be ruthless.

She went to the man behind the counter.

“How far is Mason Street from here?” she asked.

Stanton returned to the chophouse two and a half hours later. An expression of alarm crossed his face when he didn’t see her waiting for him, even though she was sitting in exactly the same spot. He looked around for a moment, rubbing his chin. She stepped forward and thrust her hand out to shake his.

“Good evening to you, sir,” she said, in a lowish voice.

He blinked at her. She watched the wariness in his eyes transmute into horror, and knew that her disguise was completely successful.

“Miss Edwards?” he fairly choked on the words. “My God, what have you done to yourself?”

After Stanton had gone, Emily had ascertained that Mason Street was not a far walk, and she’d hurried down there, keeping to the shadows along the way. Mason Street was garishly lit and bustling, even at three in the morning, and Emily had no difficulty finding a buyer for her extraordinary hair. She had squeezed her eyes shut as the large scissors flashed over her ears, snicking cleanly through her thick braids. Afterward, the man offered her another sawbuck for her silver hair sticks and the amethyst earrings, but she declined. The hair she could grow back. The inheritances from her mother could not be replaced.

Her next stop was a small, untidy secondhand shop. After prolonged fingering of the material and exceedingly close scrutiny of Mrs. Lyman’s handiwork, the pockmarked old rag merchant said he’d take her poplin dress in trade for a suit of men’s clothing. Unfortunately, the only suit small enough to fit her was made of a screamingly loud plaid that mingled the colors of cherry red, peacock blue, and apple green in a way they had no business being mingled.

The rag merchant told her she could change in the back room, pointing to it with his thumb in a bored way as if women changed into men’s suits in his back room every hour of the day. Perhaps they did; on her way back he handed her a folded length of wide white linen.

“You’ll need this,” he said.

She could not imagine why he thought she’d need the fabric until she discovered exactly how narrow the jacket was through the chest. Using the white linen to subdue her remaining female endowments wasn’t easy or pleasant, but eventually she succeeded in molding her torso to fit the garment. When she came out of the back room, the rag merchant presented her with a pair of brown gloves in a brown felt hat.

She wedged the hair sticks securely up into the tall crown of the hat for safekeeping, then fitted the hat onto her head. Jauntily, she touched the brim to the man as she walked out into the cool night.

She felt exceptionally pleased with herself as she strolled back to the chophouse to wait for Stanton. Indeed, she felt quite manly and direct.
Ruthless
, that had been Stanton’s word. She felt keen and ruthless. She felt like buying a cigar and smoking it with one thumb tucked under her suspender. Instead she tucked her hand into the jacket pocket and found, to her surprise, that the suit’s previous owner had left a fine linen handkerchief there. She pulled it out, examined it. It was embroidered with the letter “M.” For Mike probably.

Ruthless Mike, that’s what they’d call her.

Now, however, standing in front of Stanton she felt somewhat less ruthless and somewhat more ridiculous. She reached into the pocket of her vest and pulled out a folded wad of greenbacks.

“Twenty dollars for the hair,” she said. “That’ll feed you to New Bethel, at least.”

“Your … hair?”

“I’d appreciate a thank-you.” She frowned at him. “You needn’t look so shocked.”

Stanton said nothing. His eyes were trying to negotiate a peace with the suit, with no apparent success. He gestured to it hesitantly.

“And this?”

“I couldn’t ride in a dress,” Emily said. “And you have to admit, it’s a perfect disguise. The Maelstroms will be looking for a man and a woman, not a man and a—”

“Tablecloth?”

Emily crossed her arms and looked at him coldly.

“I know I’m hardly a plate of fashion,” she said, “but one must be ruthless when exceptional odds are arrayed against one. You said it yourself.”

Stanton took a deep breath, then let out a heavy sigh. He took the wad of greenbacks between thumb and forefinger as if they were soiled.

“At least they could have paid you in gold,” he muttered. Then he fell silent, shaking his head. There was a look on his face, a look that was both sad and amused. It was a look that she didn’t quite understand and didn’t particularly like.

“What?” Emily snapped, uncrossing her arms.

He was silent for a long time before he spoke. Then he fished in his pocket and pulled out the ten-dollar coin she had given him. He pressed it into her hand.

“Your hair was very pretty,” he said, finally.

CHAPTER TEN

Basket of Secrets

They wasted no time riding out. Dawn was approaching and they wanted to squeeze whatever advantage they could out of the cover of darkness. They did not, however, ride down to the ferry terminal at the end of Market Street. Instead they rode along Second Street until they reached the silent, jagged wharves. Full-bearded, heavy-bodied men arriving for their day’s work regarded them curiously.

“One of the men at my stables has a brother who’s a stevedore on China Basin,” Stanton explained in a low voice. “He has made arrangements for us to cross tonight on a freight barge.”

They led the horses down an old, rickety-looking pier, where the aforementioned brother hailed Stanton, his subdued call sounding abrupt and out of place in the predawn silence.

They and the horses were loaded onto a flat black scow that brooded on the dark water. Grunting, monosyllabic men pointed them to a cargo hold, where Emily and Stanton were left to make themselves comfortable among piles of burlap bags and rough wooden crates. Romulus and Remus whuffed discontentedly, nosing at the sawdust that covered the floor.

“All right, I’m ready for an explanation,” Emily said. “Somehow you managed to save my money, which means you didn’t pay your stabler. But he was still willing to ask his brother to smuggle us aboard a barge?”

“Oh, I paid him,” Stanton said. “You’ll never guess what he wanted.”

“What?”

“Apparently, there’s a certain young lady who works in a shop up the street from his stables. He asked if I could fashion a charm that might help win her affections.”

Emily squealed with sudden laughter, and despite the tightness of her linen bindings, it felt surprisingly good. “You mean he wanted you, Dreadnought Stanton, the great Warlock, to make him a love charm? So what did you do?”

“I braided together a straw poppet for him to give to her. I imbued it with some general powers of attraction. I was careful not to make it too strong.”

Emily thought of Dag, and sobered abruptly. This unhappy turn of events meant that it would be weeks—at best—before she could return and remove the spell. And what if the worst happened? What if they were captured or waylaid or betrayed again? What if, by some horrible machination, she was never able to return to Lost Pine? Contemplating the sad fate this would mean for Dag, she came to an abrupt understanding of the sad fate it would mean for
her
. Coldness suffused her. What if the man … or men … who were after them were willing to
kill
to get the stone?

She swallowed hard, aware of an unpleasant lump in her throat. Stanton would help her. He’d protect her, and …

…
and what if he gets hurt, or even killed? There’s another man’s fate on your conscience
.

Three times what thou givest returns to thee
.

She was hardly aware of her hand plucking at the frayed edge of some sacking, until she saw that it was trembling. Stanton must have noticed it, too, for he clapped her on the shoulder in a particularly manly way.

“Buck up, Elmer,” he said. “Always darkest before the dawn.”

Whether it got darker or not Emily could not confirm, for she drifted off into an uneasy sleep and when she woke, the sky over the misty wharves of Oakland was bruised purple and orange. After retrieving the horses, they rode about an hour into the little town of Walnut Creek, where they stopped to purchase supplies. To Emily’s dismay, she found that her money bought less than she had hoped it would.

“If we ride hard, we can make it back to the Miwok settlement by nightfall,” Stanton said, slicing himself a chunk of dry sausage to eat in the saddle. “I’m sure Komé will give us shelter and allow us to rest the horses.”

Emily nodded. “And I have a few questions to ask her regarding acorns.”

Emily was glad when they finally glimpsed the smoke from the Miwok camp. She wanted nothing more than a place to stretch out and sleep—the cramped dugout now seemed a paradise of luxury, and a bowl of stewed raccoon meat didn’t sound half-bad either.

But as they dismounted and led their horses into the camp, her eager anticipation of food and rest was buried under a sense of gathering dread. Everything was different. There were no children or dogs playing now, no sounds of industry or amusement. A leaden pall seemed to have quenched every hearth fire. The air smelled of tears. No one greeted them; in fact, most stared with dark belligerence. The man in the black felt hat, the one who had cared for Stanton’s horses, spat at Stanton’s boots as he passed.

In front of Komé’s longhouse, they found a large group of women clustered together, slumped. The women rocked, moaning softly; their heads were powdered with fine white ash.

They sat in a loose circle around a jumbled bed of mesquite tinder. On the unlit pyre was laid a small human form, bound tightly in deerskin.

Lawa knelt before the swaddled body, carefully arranging charms, chanting in a broken voice. Emily’s legs trembled, and she had to catch herself against Romulus’ side to keep from falling to her knees.

“Mother,” she whispered, the word passing from her lips involuntarily.

Lawa’s eyes jerked up, glittering.

“How dare you come back here, devil?” She fairly spat the last word.

“I am … I am sorry … we were … not knowing …” Stanton’s stumbling grammar grated on Emily’s ears. But Stanton was not speaking English. He was speaking Miwok.

“Komé is dead?” The words rolled from Emily’s tongue in clear Miwok. Stanton blinked at her, but Lawa’s lips twisted in a bitter mockery of amusement.

“Yes, you can speak now, can’t you? Now that you have taken my mother’s tongue.”

“I … I didn’t take anything,” Emily said.

“You took her spirit,” Lawa keened, her voice echoing. She wrapped her hand around the smooth wood of her mother’s feather-tipped staff, pulled herself up its length. Thus supported, she was able to stand almost upright. “And a body cannot live long without a spirit.”

“The acorn,” Stanton muttered in English. “She must have done the same thing that Haälbeck did with his doors. Metempsychosis. Spirit transfer.”

But Emily didn’t need Stanton to tell her. The terrible truth of it was clear. She stepped forward, into the circle of mourners, coming to stand face-to-face with the girl.

“Why did she do it?” Emily had to force herself to stare into Lawa’s eyes, to remain upright against the hatred in them. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Ask her yourself,” Lawa hissed, shooting out a hand and striking Emily a hard blow on the chest, where the acorn rested in the silken pouch. “She said nothing to me, her true daughter. She left me with nothing more than a body to burn.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily whispered.

A small, bitter smile twisted Lawa’s lips.

“You will be sorrier, Basket of Secrets,” she said, her voice exultant and despising. “Sorrier than you can possibly imagine.”

Emily and Stanton did not speak for a long time after they rode out of the Miwok camp. They rode in silence as sunset gilded the flanks of the high, jagged Sierra and the waning half-smile of the moon crept slowly up the northern horizon. As night gathered, Stanton rode a little ahead, kindling a magical brand to light the way. She heard him whistling absently to himself.

After midnight they stopped in a sheltered copse well away from the main road. It was cold, and Emily sorely missed her buffalo coat. It wasn’t safe to light a fire, so all she could do was wrap her arms around her knees and shiver.

“Here.” Stanton dug into his saddlebag. He unscrewed the top from a small silver flask and handed it to her. Sniffing it, she discovered it contained whiskey.

“Strictly medicinal,” Stanton said. “It will help keep the chill off.”

Emily lifted the bottle to her lips and took a drink. It burned like hell going down, but it was a better class of spirit than she’d tasted before. It warmed her from the inside out and blunted the edge of her weariness.

“Not too much.” Stanton took the flask from her when she went to raise it again. “Medicinal, remember?”

He tipped the flask to his own lips, then returned it to the saddlebag. Then, taking one of the horse blankets, he came to sit down next to her, his side pressing against hers. He wrapped the blanket around them both. She basked in his warmth, ignoring the fact that the horse blanket smelled, without a doubt, far worse than the buffalo coat ever had.

“Not exactly proper,” he said. “But propriety won’t do us much good if we freeze to death.”

Emily suddenly remembered Mrs. Lyman’s words about not drinking anything Stanton gave her. And Mrs. Lyman certainly wouldn’t have approved of Emily cozying up under a horse blanket with him. Emily blushed at the thought. She was suddenly very aware of the feeling of his body against hers. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. All in all, more pleasant than she would have expected. She put her arm through his and curled closer. Just to avoid freezing to death.

Stanton cleared his throat, but made no move to remove her arm from his. “Well. Let’s review. You are in possession of an acorn into which a Miwok holy woman has transferred her spirit. You’ve also gained a complete mastery of the Miwok language, which almost certainly is not coincidental.”

“Indeed, it is one useful little nut,” Emily said. The whiskey and Stanton’s warmth were already working in tandem, making her head heavy with sleep. Her hand drifted to the silk pouch around her neck, to touch the hardness of the acorn there. How could something as large as a soul be encompassed in such an infinitesimal place? “Do you really think that Komé’s spirit is … here? With us?”

“I don’t think Lawa was being metaphorical,” Stanton said, after some consideration.

“But she was alive when we left,” Emily said.

“Bodies and souls are surprisingly autonomous things,” Stanton said. “Some men can live a long and healthy life without any soul at all.”

Emily pondered this, then discarded it as not particularly pertinent.

“How long can she stay in there?” Emily said.

“The acorn is alive,” Stanton said. “The tiniest spark of life, but life nonetheless. She can live as long as the acorn lives. A few months, a year perhaps. But the human spirit, especially the spirit of a powerful practitioner like Komé, is far too large to fit inside an acorn for long.”

“And then what?”

“Then she dies,” Stanton said.

“But couldn’t she go to another acorn?” Emily asked. “Or into a flower or a tree or something?”

“She could,” Stanton said, “but it is dangerous magic. Repeated metempsychosis results in terrible degradation, both intellectual and moral. The more times a spirit is transferred between vessels, the more of itself it loses.”

Emily stared at him blankly. He rubbed a thoughtful thumb against his lower lip and tried again.

“Once a spirit is emancipated from the body to which it was originally bound, it loses much of its sense of … well, of responsibility, I suppose. The commonplace morals and ethics that guide us in our human lives become meaningless. In the most extreme cases, an emancipated spirit may lose all sense of right and wrong and become a Manipulator.”

“A what?”

“A Manipulator is an emancipated spirit that transfers itself from body to body, heedless of the damage it causes to the vessels it inhabits. They are the worst kind of criminals. They are, thankfully, quite rare.”

“So Komé is stuck in an acorn,” Emily said, “because leaving it could cause her to lose her humanity?”

“Close enough,” Stanton said.

Emily sighed. “Since we’ve dispensed with propriety for the moment, why don’t you dig that whiskey back out?” If her head was going to be addled anyway, at least the addling could be of a more pleasant variety.

“I don’t think we’ve dispensed with propriety quite that far.” Stanton looked down at her. “Sleep will help more. And you might be able to do that more comfortably if you put your head on my shoulder.”

Emily doubted the offer would be extended twice, so she laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

“Sangrimancers willing to kill us to get the stone,” she said. “Indian holy women willing to die for it. I’m beginning to think, Mr. Stanton, that this stupid mineral is more important than either of us guessed.”

“I believe you’re right, Miss Edwards.” Stanton leaned his head back against the tree and tilted his hat down over his brow. But he did not close his eyes, not until long after.

When Emily woke again, the first thing she was aware of was how cold she was. Her cheek was pillowed against the rough horse blanket. Stanton was sitting on a broad shelf of granite a little ways off.