Whispering Twilight

by Melissa McShane

  Amaya grabbed Bess’s arm with one bloody hand and hauled her along. She shouted something of which Bess understood only “last how long?” Bess did not know the answer to that. She shook off Amaya’s hand and pushed herself to run faster than she had before. The aftereffects of her Speech rang through her like a bell, making her skin and teeth vibrate, and her vision was blurry. She stumbled once, then slowed her steps to keep from stumbling again.

  Then Amaya was by her side again, urging her on. “No ver,” Bess said, pointing to her eyes, but as she did so, her vision cleared and was once again as it had been this whole journey. She sped up, and after a moment, Amaya released her.

  Behind them, the howl sounded again, fiercer and louder than before. Amaya shouted, “Run and no stop!”

  Bess hesitated, afraid Amaya might once more attempt to sacrifice herself to guard Bess’s retreat, but the woman only put her own words into action. Bess reached deep within herself and found reserves she never dreamed existed. She felt the beginnings of a connection and ruthlessly suppressed it. She could not afford to run blind now.

  The landscape flowed by, grey and gold and, to Bess’s right hand, a glinting, dusty blue. The ocean. There were no more howls. Bess pictured silently loping warriors coursing over the headlands after them, who could not afford to turn to see how close they were. Bess would only know it was too late in the moment the jaguar warriors caught them. Her chest ached, her legs were on fire, her eyes watered, and her feet felt as if they had found every stone from here to the mountains.

  The ground suddenly fell away beneath her, sloping downward, and Bess tripped, took several scrambling steps to maintain her balance, and sank calf-deep into flowing water. A river, and one wider than any they had crossed on their journey. Amaya had not stopped, but was already waist-deep in the current. Bess, gasping for breath, slogged after her.

  The water tugged at her legs and waist, but not powerfully enough to carry her away. Wild memories of childhood stories came to mind, of eldritch creatures being unable to cross running water, and she wished with all her heart they were true. But if the river did not slow her down, it would certainly pose no obstacle to their pursuers.

  Bess dragged herself out of the river and up the shallow, slippery bank. Amaya waited for her, hand outstretched. “Fast!” she commanded. Bess suppressed a groan of exhaustion and staggered after her, gradually speeding up until she was running faster than she had ever believed possible. Her soaked under-robe slapped against her bare legs, but she barely felt it in her concentration on the ground before her.

  Something dark loomed ahead, low to the ground and irregularly shaped. Bess could make no more of it than that, but Amaya shouted, “Is Lima!”

  The knowledge sent fresh energy coursing through Bess’s veins. Lima. They were so close.

  She heard running footsteps behind her and instinctively turned to see a dark-skinned warrior bearing down on her, claw-tipped hands outstretched. She let out a shriek and followed it up with a silent one blasted directly into his mind. The warrior threw up his hands to clutch his head, lacerating his own face, and stumbled away.

  Bess took a quick look around. The warriors had, as she expected, not been deterred by the river. They were spread out more thinly this time, not grouped, and to Bess’s impaired vision they again looked like stones cascading across the landscape, impossibly rolling over the flat ground as if it were a steep slope. Bess’s heart sank. She could repeat her attack, but it would not be nearly so effective with the warriors so far from one another. She turned and ran faster, praying she could outdistance them, knowing she could not.

  The distant shape grew larger as they neared it, but Bess still could not make out more than a grey mass so uniform it could only be walls. Bess clung to that thought as she ran: high walls, more than enough to keep the jaguar warriors at bay. But—Amaya was not running toward those beautiful walls; even Bess could tell her path would take them well to one side of the city.

  “Where—¿dónde vamos?” she shouted.

  Amaya glanced over her shoulder at her, dropped back to run beside her, and shoved Bess to one side, making her trip and roll forward. Bess cried out as she cracked her elbow on a large stone and desperately tried to halt her movement. She got to her hands and knees and looked back to where Amaya struggled with a dark-skinned figure, wrestling and punching and clawing. More jaguar warriors approached, slowing as if assessing the situation.

  Bess staggered to her feet and ran back to Amaya. She could not repeat her trick without catching Amaya in its effect. She could only blast them one at a time.

  The dull crack of musket shot, so familiar to Bess from her time in India, cut across the eerie silence the jaguar warriors ran in. Bess spun around and saw movement from the direction of the city, small running figures. Another shot, and the jaguar warriors turned and fled toward the distant foothills. The one Amaya was fighting struggled free, and Amaya leapt on him as he turned his back on her and drove her claws into the soft flesh at the base of his throat. He screamed and shook her off, not trying to defend himself, and fled.

  Bess found herself on the ground with no memory of falling. Her chest ached from exertion and she breathed in great deep gulps of air. Amaya knelt beside her and said something Bess, in her exhausted state, could not understand. Then the woman jumped up and ran away in the direction the jaguar warriors had taken, but along the coast rather than inland. “Wait! Come back!” Bess shouted, but the wind took her words and shredded them to nothing.

  She heard shouts in Spanish, coming from near the city. She sat up as pounding footsteps neared. Soon a handful of men in blue uniforms trimmed with red surrounded her, calling out questions. Bess looked up and was struck numb at the sight of a musket pointed at her head. “I beg your pardon, but despite appearances, I am English,” she said, slowly and clearly. “Yo soy inglés.”

  The rifle swung away, and the exclamations grew louder. Finally one voice cut across the others and silenced them. “Ella debe ir al palacio del virrey,” he said.

  He offered Bess his hand and helped her rise. Bess peered at his face; it was rugged, and bore an enormous black moustache, but he did not look angry or cruel, and she accepted his arm gratefully.

  As she walked toward the city surrounded by Spanish soldiers, it came into focus, and Bess recognized it as Lima from the snatches of thought she had had from Achik. She wondered if he had seen it in Dream, or with his own eyes.

  She worked over Amaya’s last words to her. Now that she was not so overwhelmed, she could make sense of them: Amaya knew she did not look human, with her protuberant jaw and clawed hands, and did not want the Spanish…Bess did not understand the words Amaya had used, but could perfectly understand Amaya’s reluctance to be captured by the Spanish and treated like a monster. Bess reached out to her friend—for Amaya was a true friend—and Spoke: Amaya, take care. Tener seguro.

  The walls of Lima were high enough to make Bess wonder how they had brought enough stone to build it. Lima was older than the plagues in whose wake the talents had arisen, but perhaps the wall had not been erected until there were Movers to make such a thing trivial. Bess’s escort marched her through a gate as tall as the wall, where several of the soldiers stepped aside, leaving only two to guard Bess, including her mustachioed rescuer.

  The construction of Lima was unfamiliar to Bess, though it bore some resemblance to the Spanish construction she had seen in the Peninsula before her transfer to India. The stone buildings looked older than Bess knew them to be, as if the salt wind had scoured them to an early old age. To her surprise, in addition to the typical smells of hot stone and animal waste, whiffs of freshly growing plants came to Bess’s nose, and she heard the sound of the incessant ocean breeze blowing through leaves. Since she saw no trees, it was a mystery she would have tried to puzzle out were she not so overwhelmed by her ordeal.

  They walked several hundred yards before the street made a sharp turn northward. The new street seemed even older tha
n the first, and was wide enough for two carts to pass abreast. Bess examined the buildings as best she could, but the soldiers kept a brisk pace, and it was all Bess could do to keep up. They walked in such decided silence she was afraid to ask them to slow on her behalf.

  Her initial relief at having been rescued was slowly giving way to dread that she was not a guest, but a prisoner. She eyed the two men, assessing her chances at attacking them and fleeing—but she had nowhere to flee to. Better to control her likely unwarranted fears, and wait to see what happened next.

  Lima was hot and noisy by comparison to the Incan city. The shouts and conversations of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people carrying on with their daily business battered at Bess. Even London at the height of the Season was never this loud. This was like being surrounded by a thousand geese arguing with a thousand bleating sheep, all of it incomprehensible.

  After several minutes of walking, they came out of the street into a wide open space not as large as the Incas’ plaza, paved and smelling of hot stone and cool water. Intrigued, she followed her nose to the source of the water, an elaborate fountain that sprayed Bess with a fine, wet mist. It was so incredibly civilized Bess wanted to weep.

  The mustachioed guard called out a command to her to follow him. He glanced at her bedraggled gown and her bare feet now and then, looking away quickly when Bess met his eyes. She watched the other guard, who by contrast stared straight ahead as if she were not there, but stiffly enough that Bess was certain he was conscious of her presence. His pretended inattention made her feel more uncomfortable than the other soldier’s quick, furtive glances.

  Bess left the beautiful fountain behind and let the soldiers lead her across the square to a pale grey structure that flashed in the afternoon sun. What appeared to be awnings stretched the length of the structure. Bess squinted at it and discovered the flashing came from dozens of windows lined up in a row across the façade. More hallmarks of civilization.

  She walked toward the palace toward a rectangular doorway twice as tall as she was. The mustachioed soldier held the door open for her exactly as if she were a grand lady attired appropriately for a palace—this had to be the viceroy’s palace they had mentioned. It was not actually as grand as she might have guessed, with a plaster façade rather than one of stone to match the building on her right, but it bore enough of the hallmarks of Spanish architecture she felt herself transported to the Peninsula.

  The soldiers followed her through the doorway and into an entry chamber taller even than the door. It was dim, with few windows to let in the bright afternoon light, and markedly cooler than outdoors. One of the soldiers waved at Bess in a “wait here” gesture and walked away, disappearing into the gloom. Bess glanced at the other soldier, the mustachioed man. He stood casually at ease and did not look at her. She clasped her hands in front of her to still their shaking before realizing that they were shaking, and then her legs trembled, her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor, unable to support herself.

  The mustachioed soldier glanced toward her, then knelt beside her, saying something in Spanish Bess could not understand. “It is…I have run a long way,” Bess said. Her mind was a muddle of thoughts and memories, of fleeing in terror and of the jaguar warriors bearing down on her, and she had to wrap her arms around herself to still her trembling.

  The soldier stood and took a few steps away, casting about as if looking for help for this strange Englishwoman dressed like…she did not know what conclusions they would draw from her appearance. Bess was certain no one knew of the secret Inca Empire, if one could call it that, hidden in the mountains.

  Bess rested her cheek on her knees and closed her eyes, too weary to immediately Speak to her reticulum. Did she have a duty to conceal Sapa Inca’s people from the Peruvian government? They had kidnapped her, had intended to use her to commit murder…and yet Bess thought of Quispe and Inkasisa and of all the ordinary people who had nothing to do with Sapa Inca’s plans, or with Achik’s. She thought of the Incan city overrun by Spanish soldiers intent on destroying those ordinary people, and thought of Spanish villages destroyed by the jaguar warriors, and did not know where her duty lay.

  She heard footsteps crossing the varnished floorboards she sat on and opened her eyes with some difficulty; the lids felt leaden and her eyes ached as if she had stared into the bright summer sky for too long. “¿Quien es este?” someone asked.

  The person’s voice was pitched high enough that Bess could not tell if the speaker was male or female. She raised her head and observed a man dressed not in a blue and red uniform, but in civilian clothes she might have expected to see on an English gentleman preparing to pay a call on his solicitor. He wore his black hair slicked back from his face and long enough to brush his collar. He looked down at Bess in some consternation and raised a quizzing glass to one eye. “Una campesina,” he said, sounding perplexed.

  Bess did not know what campesina meant. “I beg your pardon, but I am English,” she said. She tried to rise and discovered her legs still would not support her. “Yo soy Inglés.”

  “English?” The man sounded even more perplexed. “You are not English.” His accent was strong and musical, and combined with his high tenor voice, it made Bess’s language sound like birdsong.

  “I assure you I am,” Bess said. She tried again to stand and was able, with some assistance from her hands, to get to her feet. “I know my appearance is unusual, but I have been…” Too late, she realized she had not given any thought to an alternate story that would explain her condition without implicating the Incas. “I was shipwrecked some miles north of here and have made my way to the city as best I could.”

  The man continued to look down at her; he was considerably taller than she and had a beaky nose that gave him an air of concentration on whatever he looked at. He tucked the quizzing glass away and said, “Shipwrecked?”

  “Yes, the Mary Peirce, en route to Panama—have not others of her crew arrived?”

  “No one of that ship has come to us,” the man said. His gaze scanned Bess more slowly and paused on her hands, once more clasped in front of her. His eyes widened fractionally. “It is many days since the tragedy? Where did you find shelter?”

  “Oh…the people along the coast were most kind,” Bess said. She looked at her hands and felt her heart plummet. There, plain as could be on the thumb of her left hand, was Sapa Inca’s serpent ring. She resisted the urge to cover it; that would surely draw attention to it, though it was obvious the man had already seen it.

  The man’s gaze traveled to Bess’s face. “I am Salvador de Mendoza y Valdez,” he said. “Secretary to José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa, Viceroy of Peru.”

  Bess bobbed a curtsey and used it as an excuse to wind the damp wool of her robe around her thumb. “My name is Elizabeth Hanley, and I am an Extraordinary Speaker from England.”

  Mendoza’s eyes widened further. “Un Orador raro. You are most welcome, Miss Hanley. Have you yet contacted someone who can convey you home?”

  Home. Relief at having reached safety, at being so close to returning home, swept over her. “I will Speak with the War Office soon, yes. Until then, can you direct me to…I beg your pardon, I know so little of your country, but is there a British embassy, or diplomatic presence of some kind?”

  “We have nothing like that,” Mendoza said. “Allow us to give you hospitality. You are exhausted and perhaps in need of a physician?”

  “No, I am quite well,” Bess said, “but rest would be appreciated.” Could a doctor tell her body had been Shaped? There were not so many Extraordinary Shapers in the world that one might be able to go unnoticed in the wilds of Peru.

  “Come with me, then,” Mendoza said, offering his arm. Bess took it gratefully. He looked once more at the serpent ring, but said nothing.

  “Perhaps you have Bounders who might return me home more directly?” she asked.

  “I fear not,” Mendoza said. “Our Bounders know only the signatures of places in Spain
and in its colonies. It is better you contact your War Office.”

  “But—”

  “Rest first,” Mendoza said. “Please, allow me.”

  The first floor was warmer than the entry hall and smelled dusty, as if no one had cleaned it recently, though it looked tidy enough. Bess expected Mendoza to hand her off to a servant when they reached the first floor, but he led her past a number of doors to one at the end of the hall, which he opened and gestured for her to enter. It was a bedchamber, opulent to her eyes after three days with the Incas and a week in the wilderness, and Bess moved toward the bed as if drawn there by an inexorable force.

  “Someone will find a change of clothes for you,” Mendoza said, but he made no move to leave. Bess stopped near the bed, reluctant to lie on it while he was present. The secretary added, “Where did you receive aid? We should reward them for their help.”

  “Oh, it was—there were several villages,” Bess said. “I am certain it would embarrass them to be rewarded.”

  “And you said…along the coast? Not inland?” He took a few steps toward her until he was close enough to touch.

  “Yes.”

  Mendoza regarded her with that intent gaze. “The pattern of your robe,” he said slowly, “comes from the mountain region. It is unusual to find it in the lowlands.”

  Bess faced him down unflinchingly. “Is it?” she said innocently. “I had no idea. I was simply grateful not to have to wear my ruined gown.”

  Mendoza’s gaze flicked once again to the serpent ring, then back to Bess’s face. He smiled, a pleasant expression that made him look almost handsome. “Rest well, Miss Hanley,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

  Bess immediately shucked her damp woolen robe and, after a moment’s thought, folded it into a bundle and set it on a nearby chair. Her under-robe was ruined, between the river water and Amaya’s emergency re-tailoring, but she did not like the idea of sleeping naked in a strange house, so she climbed under the heavy counterpane and began to doze off immediately. No. She could not sleep until she had Spoken with Clarissa.