Whispering Twilight

by Melissa McShane

  I admit to enjoying Die Zauberflöte, she told him on the fourth evening while Amaya was gone in search of food. The plot is rather confused, but the love of Tamino and Pamina is moving.

  I saw it performed in Vienna, Mr. Quinn said. The lady who portrayed the Queen of the Night had the most astonishing range.

  I envy you your freedom in your travels. All the places I have visited outside England were in the service of the War Office, and I had no time for cultural pursuits.

  But you have seen so much. India, for example.

  Bess lay back on the scrub grass that covered the ground and found it too prickly for comfort. She sat upright again and Spoke, India is a beautiful place, though I was not fond of the climate. Calcutta is hot most of the year, and hot and wet the rest of it. But it is…one cannot help feeling the weight of its years, it feels so much older a civilization than ours. And its art is beautiful. So much of it is a reflection of its religion.

  One might say that of European art as well. Think of Michelangelo’s David, or The Last Supper. Religion seems to move men to celebrate it in creative form.

  That is true. It makes me wonder whether Incan art follows that same pattern.

  You did say they revere the jaguar, Mr. Quinn said. Though whether or not that is religious reverence, I cannot say. It is a pity they do not revere the canary instead. That is not an animal that strikes fear into anyone’s heart.

  Bess laughed. Unless one fears a dramatic pecking!

  Amaya appeared out of the darkness with her satchel. “¿Lo que es divertido?” she asked.

  “Oh, it is not a joke I can explain—es nada,” Bess said. “Yo Hablo con un amigo.” To Mr. Quinn, she Spoke, Amaya has returned. I will Speak with you again soon.

  Sleep well, Miss Hanley—if that is possible.

  Bess smiled at his wry tone and ended the connection. “Yo soy Oradoraro,” she reminded Amaya, using Uturunku’s term for an Extraordinary Speaker, “y yo…yo tengo muchos amigos en mi…” Her Spanish was improving with use, but she had no idea how to translate “reticulum.”

  Amaya nodded. “¿No pueden rescatarte?” she asked.

  “No, they are too far…no saben dónde está.” And even if they knew where she was, they could hardly rescue her if they could not send a Bounder to her location.

  Amaya nodded again. Bess observed her closely. Her brow was furrowed, and she ate rapidly, sitting back on her haunches and scanning the distant horizon. “Are we in danger?” she asked. “¿Estamos en peligro?”

  Amaya shrugged and said something long and complicated. “You mean today is the soonest the jaguar warriors might have found our trail?” Bess said. “¿Los guerreros jaguar encontrado?”

  “Sí,” Amaya said with another shrug as if to indicate it was a possibility.

  Bess’s heart beat faster. “Amaya,” she said, “¿cómo se dice los incas…?” Now, what was the Spanish word for “flee?” “¿Cómo se dice ‘huir’?”

  Amaya was a shadowy figure in the dimness, but Bess thought she looked confused. She tried again. “Gracias es ‘agradiseyki,’” she said. “¿Huir es…?”

  Amaya’s face cleared. “Chinkakapuy,” she said.

  Bess repeated the word. It was a mouthful, but not beyond the capacities of Speech.

  “¿Por qué?” Amaya asked.

  Bess could not think how to explain an Extraordinary Speaker’s weapon, a word of command backed by the force of mental Speech that could make a man, or a group of men, obey without question. If the jaguar warriors came upon them, it might save their lives. “Es un arma,” she said, and Amaya, to her surprise, accepted this non-explanation.

  Chapter 17

  In which Amaya reveals something of her past

  They came out of the mountains and into the foothills the following day. The prickly dead weeds of the ground cover gave way to softer grasses, though they still grew in clumps that gave the ground an uneven feeling. Bess amused herself by bounding from clump to clump, relishing the soft tickle on her ankles, until Amaya pointed out that she was slowing them down. Then she ran without regard for where she stepped except to avoid stones.

  Amaya steered them wide around one hill in the early afternoon. “Es un pueblo,” she told Bess. A village. Bess almost asked why they could not enter the village, perhaps eat something more substantial than uncooked potatoes and beans fresh from the pod, before it occurred to her that they would leave behind them witnesses who might tell the jaguar warriors where they had gone. Or, she told Maria, the warriors under Uturunku’s orders might destroy the village in retribution for whatever help they think it might have given us.

  As the sun sank in the west, casting their shadows behind them, Amaya did not call a halt. When Bess finally asked why they had not stopped, the sun had set and she was beginning to stumble. Amaya returned to Bess’s side and gathered her up to carry her. She said something, a long string of Spanish words, that Bess’s weariness made almost impossible to decipher. So Amaya had a bad feeling that their pursuers were near? Bess hoped they would find a safe place to rest soon.

  The moon had just crested the distant mountaintops when Amaya set Bess down and urged her forward. The Shaping on her eyes had worn off, and Bess could see their destination only as a huddle of stones or fallen beams that smelled musky, as if it were some animal’s home. She ducked inside the hovel and only then realized how chilled she had become, because it was warm and close, though not close enough to make Bess uneasy. The stink of animal was even greater within, though Bess could not identify which animal. It reminded her of her father’s stables back home, but ranker.

  Something shifted as she brought her foot down on it, and she squeaked and shied away. Immediately she felt embarrassed at her reaction; it had been a flat stone or piece of pottery, nothing dangerous. She knelt and patted the ground until she found it. Definitely pottery, with sharp edges where it had broken from something larger and a smooth, slick surface that curved slightly. A dish, or a large bowl.

  “¿Qué es esto?” she asked, hoping Amaya knew what this place was.

  “Es una antigua granja,” Amaya said. “Por llamas.”

  Bess did not know what llamas were, but she understood it was an abandoned farm of some sort. “El olor nos esconderá de los guerreros,” Amaya went on. She squatted beside Bess and handed her a potato. It seemed she would not hunt for food that night. Bess ate her potato hungrily and tried to ignore the musky smell that came from everywhere. She could easily imagine, as Amaya said, that it would hide their own smell from the jaguar warriors. It should have occurred to her that they might hunt by smell as well as by sight, if they altered their bodies to be similar to a predatory animal.

  She finished her meal, such as it was, and curled up under her robe. Soon she would Speak to Mr. Quinn, as was her new habit. Her eagerness to Speak to him disturbed her slightly. None of her other close friends in her reticulum were male, and none of them were strangers to her outside the reticulum. She really ought not form such a close connection to a man to whom she was not related; there were those in the Speaker community who objected to men and women Speaking frequently if they were neither related nor engaged to be married. Her own friend Mrs. Grantham was one of them.

  Bess thought such objections ridiculous, especially since she would have been unable to function in the War Office under those restrictions, but a tiny quiver of doubt at its appropriateness had taken up residence in her heart. And yet…had she not been John’s dear friend, despite their not being engaged? Why should she not cherish her friendships regardless of whom they were with?

  Mr. Quinn, she Spoke, I hope I am not disturbing you.

  Mr. Quinn did not respond immediately as he had every other time they had Spoken, and it frightened Bess even as she told herself he was safe in England and could not possibly be in danger. She was about to address him a second time when Mr. Quinn replied, I apologize, Miss Hanley, but I am occupied. We will Speak another time.

  The end of the connecti
on was so abrupt it left Bess blinking into the smelly darkness. It felt like a slap to the face. Of course he was occupied. It was only good fortune that he had been free to converse with her all these days. He was no doubt a busy man, and this was a socially active time of night, if her understanding of the time difference between Lima and England was correct. But it hurt nevertheless.

  Her attempt to contact Clarissa met with nothing but trembling emptiness. Clarissa was occupied as well. Bess tried not to feel abandoned. She rolled onto her back and squirmed to find a more comfortable position.

  “Bess,” Amaya said, startling her, “¿Cómo se dice ‘moldeador’ en inglés?”

  “Oh? It is ‘Shaper,’” Bess said.

  “Shaper,” Amaya said, her accent clearer in English than it was in her own tongue. “I am Shaper.”

  Her unexpected acquisition of English surprised Bess, and she said so. “Yo no sé…usted hablo inglés.”

  “No. Hablo…I speak you say. Hear and say,” Amaya said.

  “You mean you learn from what I say. Aprende que yo digo. You must be a natural. I do not believe I could do that.”

  “¿Cómo?”

  Bess translated that into her halting Spanish and heard rather than saw Amaya nod. “¿Cómo se dice ‘De dónde está’?

  “It is ‘Where do you come from?’”

  Amaya nodded again. “Where do you come from, Bess?”

  “From England. Devonshire. It is in the southwest of my country.” Bess decided to broach what might be a difficult subject. “Where do you come from, Amaya?”

  Amaya let out a deep breath. “Un pueblo sud y este. Fue destruido por hombres.”

  Bess had guessed as much, that Amaya’s home had been destroyed by the Incas. “Why did they—por qué los Incas no matar?”

  Amaya shook her head and spoke at length, then repeated herself more slowly when Bess protested. “Not the Incas,” Bess repeated. “Other—otros hombres. And the Incas rescued you. Salvamento tu.”

  “Sí.” Speaking as slowly as she might to a child, Amaya explained: she had hidden from the attackers, and the Incas had come upon her destroyed home and taken her in. “I become Shaper, they make me guerrero jaguar,” she said.

  They rescued her and, when she proved to be a Shaper, made Amaya a jaguar warrior. She must have lost her family when she was quite young. “Es no Uturunku, quien salvo tu.” Bess could not imagine Uturunku rescuing anyone, even a child.

  “No, se convirtió en líder hace tres años.” So Uturunku had not had charge of the jaguar warriors until three years ago.

  “Then…are you Spanish, or Incan?” Bess asked.

  Before she could translate this into Spanish, Amaya said, “I am me. No Inca, no español—Spanish. No have home.”

  She said it so frankly Bess did not at first recognize how terrible a statement it was. “But—¿dónde vas a ir?” she asked. Where would Amaya go when Bess returned to Lima? She could not go back to being a jaguar warrior, her original home was destroyed—if she had other family she might live with, she might be unable to find them.

  “Yo no sé,” Amaya said. Bess couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “No te preocupes, Bess,” Amaya added. “Todavía tenemos que llegar a Lima.”

  It was good advice. Better to worry about reaching Lima before their pursuers caught up with them. “Are we not—that is, ¿Nos pueden atrapar?” Surely they had too much of a lead for the jaguar warriors to catch them.

  Amaya was silent for so long Bess might have thought her asleep except for the relative rapidity of her breathing. “Espero que no,” she finally said, in a tone of voice that belied her words. Bess shuddered at the memory of the warriors bearing down on her in the plaza, the cries that sounded like hunting animals, their sleek, muscular bodies and powerful jaws. She and Amaya had to stop at night because Bess could not see well enough to run, and presumably also because Bess, despite the alterations Amaya had made to her body, lacked the stamina that seemed to come so naturally to Amaya. Bess had no difficulty imagining the jaguar warriors running almost ceaselessly, loping along following the trail they had no doubt left…she, like Amaya, hoped they had outrun the warriors, but that hope seemed a thin thread to hang their fates on.

  Bess slept fitfully, jerking awake every few hours imagining she heard the snuffling of animals outside, or the cries of beasts coming from human throats. Mr. Quinn never addressed her, nor did Clarissa. When Amaya finally shook her awake just before dawn, she felt groggy and in need of another several hours’ rest. You can have that in Lima, she promised herself, and ate the handful of nuts that was the last of their supplies.

  They ran faster now than they had in all the days previous, Amaya leaping like a deer, her long, powerful legs flashing beneath the robe. Bess struggled to keep up, but her long under-robe, which helped keep her warm during the chilly nights, hampered her stride. Amaya kept glancing over her shoulder as if mentally urging Bess to run faster. Finally, she stopped and grabbed Bess by the wrist, hauling her to a standstill. She crouched and took hold of the hem of Bess’s under-robe, pulling it taut, then held up one hand as if preparing for a killing stroke with a knife. Bess just had time to see sharp claws extend from Amaya’s fingertips before her arm swept down, tearing a long slice in the soft cotton.

  Amaya repeated the gesture on the other side of the robe and then tore the cloth further until the sides of Bess’s under-robe were slashed nearly to her hips. Amaya grunted in satisfaction and took Bess’s wrist again to hurry her along.

  “Wait,” Bess said, fascinated despite her sense of urgency. She took Amaya’s hand and held it close to her face, examining it. Amaya’s nails were thick and came to a sharp point, and as Bess watched, they slid out from the nail beds, extending like a cat’s to vicious claws. Bess touched one and it nearly broke her skin.

  “See it?” Amaya asked. “We run now.” She broke free of Bess’s grip and darted away. Bess followed her.

  They ran on through the morning and into the afternoon. Bess’s conversations with her reticulum were short; her eagerness to reach Lima distracted her, and she found it difficult to concentrate on her friends’ concerns. She had just begun to smell salt air and water when Amaya said, “El océano,” and waved off into the distance. Bess’s vision was still limited to her very near surroundings, but she imagined she could hear the surf, and her heart lifted. She turned when Amaya did, to follow the coastline…that meant they were traveling south, just as she had done all those days ago when she was shipwrecked. She had almost completely lost track of directions on their journey, but no matter how roundabout a way Amaya had chosen, if they were near the coast, they had to be close to Lima. The knowledge gave Bess new strength.

  Behind her, an eerie howl went up, followed by another, and another.

  Bess spun around, praying it was just an animal, knowing in her heart it was not. Amaya shouted something in Incan, then said, “Run, Bess!”

  Bess turned and sped off, following Amaya. She did not know where they were going and hoped Amaya had a plan that was not simply the two of them being torn to pieces by their pursuers. The smell of salt water was stronger now—could she retreat into the sea? The Incas lived in the mountains; they could not possibly know how to swim.

  “Es Lima, Bess!” Amaya shouted. “Too far!”

  Bess had forgot everything in the world except running. It was not too far, she refused to believe it, and they would reach the safety of its walls, assuming it had walls. Then she passed Amaya, who had stopped, and ran a few dozen paces more before coming to a halt herself. “Amaya, no!” she cried. She ran back to Amaya’s side and grabbed her arm. “Don’t stop!”

  “No. Sigue corriendo, Bess, los detendré,” Amaya said through clenched teeth. Bess felt the muscles of the arm she held growing larger and tauter.

  “You are not permitted to sacrifice yourself for me,” Bess said. She let go of Amaya and turned to face the jaguar warriors. They were too far away for her to see th
em as anything but rapidly moving blurs, but the wind blew their scent toward her, rank and sweaty and thick enough to cut. There were so many of them that even had she had full vision, she did not think she could make them out as individuals.

  Bess drew in a deep breath and let it out. Beside her, Amaya shouted something, but Bess had already fallen into a meditative state and could not even tell what language Amaya had spoken. She drew in another deep breath. She had done this only once before, and did not know what the upper limit was to how many people she could affect, but at this point, anything she could do would help them.

  The jaguar warriors were closer now, moving like stones tumbling down a hillside, accelerating with every step. Bess drew in one final breath, closed her eyes, and in a Voice that felt as if it came from the depths of her soul, both mentally and audibly called out, “Chinkakapuy!”

  Chapter 18

  In which Bess demonstrates an Extraordinary Speaker’s power

  Instantly a cry arose from dozens of throats, but where before it had sounded like an animal’s wail, this was entirely human and completely terrified. The accelerating warriors skidded and tumbled over one another in their attempt to turn and run in the other direction. One slid to a halt almost at Bess’s feet; his eyes showed white all around the dark iris, and his breath came in harsh, sharp pants. He scrabbled at the ground with hands and feet, trying to find purchase, and then Amaya was on him, bearing him to the ground and slashing with those razor-tipped claws.

  “No, Amaya, let him flee!” Bess exclaimed, but it was too late; the warrior’s throat and chest were a bloody mess, and Amaya let him fall. Bess’s gorge rose, and she swallowed, breathing heavily to prevent herself vomiting. Dizziness threatened to overcome her. She took a few staggering steps back. “Are they gone? ¿Todos huir?”