The Black Resurrection

by Nick Wisseman

  “That day when Amadi got away,” she began. “What did you—”

  “Detén el carrito!” Mateo shouted from outside, and a second later, the cart lurched to a stop.

  More yelling in Espan followed. Chase poked his head through the front flap.

  “In or out,” Jie said, meaning it even though her tone was light. “Pick one. You don’t get to hover in between and let in cold air.”

  He smiled. “Sorry. I’ll be right back.”

  The shouting receded once Chase ducked outside. After a few moments, Jie called to her brother. “What’s happening?”

  “A body fell on the road,” he said from the front, his voice sparking with impatience.

  “What? From where?”

  “The mine, probably. Two gravediggers have come to collect the corpse.”

  “They were expecting it?” Jie carefully laid Bolin to the side again and crawled to the front of the cart, poking her head out and ignoring the fact that she’d just admonished Chase for doing this.

  He and Mateo were speaking in Espan to a pair of original men, both holding shovels and gesturing to the other side of the road. At their feet lay a crumpled, half-naked form. Chase walked to where the men were pointing, looked down, and stared at something in horrified fascination. Mateo asked a few more questions, then motioned for the originals to move the body.

  Once they’d done so, Chase swung onto the cart, and the caravan got back underway.

  Jie waited for him to joke about her holding the flap open, but he didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. “What did you see?”

  “A burial.” Chase pointed to the slope above. “Apparently they say mass for any dead miners in the morning and then drop them here. This section juts out enough to make a good landing spot. Not very dignified, but it’s easier than carrying them down.”

  Da tugged the reins and whistled for Lan and Shun, the new oxen, to get moving. “You sound as if you’ve never seen a grave before.”

  “Not a reopened one. They’re running out of room, and dug up an old hole by mistake. The fellow in there is …”

  Jie nudged Chase to continue. “He’s what?”

  The Anglo scratched his bristly jaw. “Mostly bones. I could see through his ribs. His spine was shiny. And wet. There was a puddle of something coating it.”

  “A puddle?”

  “Mercury,” Da said. “The pure stuff is liquid at normal temperatures.” He tugged the reins again. “One of the merchants in Lima said the miners inhale the vapors as they work it.”

  Chase’s eyes widened, and he looked to the upper slopes again.

  Jie imagined he was thinking the same thing as her: The mine fills its workers with so much poison that it pools inside their corpses … and we’re going there willingly?

  But she trusted her brother. She had to. He was the only hope she had.

  So she wriggled back inside the cart, closed the flap, and snuggled her snoozing boy.

  * * *

  “That’s it,” Chase said through the flap an hour later. “Huancavelica. We’re here.”

  Jie gave Bolin the toy she’d been entertaining him with and poked her head out of the cart. They’d reached a small town about halfway up the mountain. Most of the buildings were in the Espan style, and just about everyone she could see was white. “This is the Mine of Death?”

  Da shook his head. “That’s further up. Mateo said it’s on ‘Santa Barbara Hill,’ remember? This is the town that supports it.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  He shrugged his apology. “Regardless, if we’re lucky, this is as high as we’ll have to go. Can you map the boy yet?”

  Jie closed her eyes and searched for the light she’d first seen almost a year ago now, along with the accompanying outlines of a young, gray face. But she found nothing but purple haze. “Your spores are still blocking me.”

  Da scowled.

  “I know you had to do it, that my body would be fading faster if you hadn’t ordered it to try to be healthy.”

  Her brother’s scowl transformed into a flinch.

  “But we’re almost done with this. And I’m tired of feeling so hazy, like I’m always missing something. Couldn’t you call them off and—”

  “It’s too risky. And the boy’s skin is gray. He can’t be that hard to find.” He handed the reins to Chase and hopped down next to Mateo. “Take us to whoever’s in charge here.”

  The Espan nodded and walked towards the town. He looked thicker through the shoulders than he had a few days ago, probably the result of more work with Da. Her brother had barely slept since Lima, going off with Fara and a rotating subset of mercenaries each night. When asked, Da had said he was making them strong enough to fight Amadi. Jie had left it at that. With Haru gone, it was comforting to see that Fara and the mercenaries seemed bigger after each session with Da. Everyone was wearing cloaks now, so the details of that strengthening weren’t clear. And Jie wasn’t sure she wanted them to be.

  But she was glad her brother had prepared for all outcomes.

  “Do you even know his name?” Chase asked as their party entered the town.

  “The boy’s? No. I’ll recognize him, though.” Jie pointed at the Anglo’s hands. Both were trembling. “Is that the cold or the ague?”

  “Probably a combination,” he admitted, then forced a grin. “At least this time, the fever and sweating might feel good.”

  Jie doubted it. He grew weaker with every malarial cycle.

  “Bad timing, I know,” he said. “Hopefully it runs its course before—”

  She kissed him.

  It wasn’t a long kiss: just a brief, wonderful second. But it was enough to return heat to his cheeks.

  Chase stared at her. “What was that?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  She’d surprised herself too, but she didn’t regret it. He was right: many things were going to end here. Best to start some new ones while she could. “That was good timing,” she said, nodding towards Da’s turned back and slipping inside the cart. “Now keep your eyes on the road.”

  * * *

  Mateo and his wooden nose took them to the far side of town and stopped in front of a small but lavishly appointed building.

  “This is the headquarters for the guild that runs the mine,” Chase translated after Mateo had explained where they were.

  Da followed the Espan inside, along with Fara. A few minutes later, they reemerged with another Espan—a reedy, bearded man with glazed eyes and purple foam on his lips. Perhaps he was the guild master?

  “Does he know where the boy is?” Chase asked, huddling deeper into his cloak. “Or Amadi and Isaura?”

  Da leapt back onto the cart. “He doesn’t know a damn thing except that all the originals are up at the mines.”

  “So we still have to go there.”

  By way of an answer, Da turned the cart around and made for a road that wound further up the mountainside. “Tell the mercenaries to keep an eye out for Amadi and Isaura. We’re early, but that doesn’t mean this will be easy.”

  Chase nodded and translated the order. “Tallyho,” he muttered when they started ascending the slope again. “To the Mine of Death we go.”

  * * *

  “That’s the mine,” he said a half hour later, and there was no doubting it this time.

  A cavernous pit stretched down, down, down to the right of the road, as if a giant had reached into the mountainside and chunked out a massive piece. The sides looked soft and unstable, ready to shed debris at a moment’s notice. Jie couldn’t see the bottom from the cart, but based on the muddy legs of the original men struggling up the pit’s lone path, the base was probably at least shin-deep with icy water.

  Jie rubbed her hands together for warmth. This wasn’t weather you wanted to be wet in.

  And yet, despite their half-frozen, malnourished appearance, the originals on the right looked better than those on the left. These men emerged sweating from a tunnel—it must be hotter under
ground. Many of them were using their ponchos to carry the ore they’d dug up below, and the chill wind whipped mercilessly against their glistening chests. Several were coughing, hacking up enough blood to stain the rags tied over their mouths and noses, and Jie saw at least two with bluish tints to their skin. Was that from pneumonia? Or lack of good air? Both?

  “God in Heaven,” Chase murmured. “I’ve seen hard plantations, but this is …”

  Da nodded, gazing at the point where, before stumbling back to their respective holes, both lines of originals merged to set their bags or empty their ponchos in front of a squat building with multiple chimneys. “That must be the refinery,” he mused softly.

  Chase’s teeth were chattering now. “We don’t have to go in there, do we?”

  “I wasn’t planning to. It’s likely the worst part.”

  Jie pictured ovens heating the ore so that the mercury melted out for collection into … what, barrels? How did you transport liquid metal? Regardless, she didn’t want to go anywhere near the refinery.

  “Mateo,” Da called, his return to normal speaking volume jarring Jie more than it should have.

  When the Espan reached the cart, Chase translated a series of orders from Da: “Tell the guild master to summon all the boys to the cart for Jie to inspect. Post sentries to watch for Isaura and Amadi. Be ready.”

  Jie watched as Mateo relayed the first instruction to the glassy-eyed guild master, who passed it on to an overseer. Then the overseer told more overseers, and eventually the directive rippled down the lines of originals.

  Lines her brother now controlled.

  “We should end this,” she told Da. “After we’re done here. Make the guild master free the workers and shut down the mine.”

  He shook his head. “It won’t make a difference. New Espans will come, and they’ll get new originals.”

  “Maybe, but we could at least—”

  “Ma Jie?” a little voice interrupted from the cart.

  Any other day, she would have smiled. Her Bolin wouldn’t allow himself to be left out of anything for long. But just hearing him reminded her that she could only tackle a single problem at a time, and that despite her nagging doubts, only one thing mattered right now.

  “We’ll talk more about this when we’re done,” she said to Da. “I’ll be inside with Bolin until you’ve gathered the original boys. Chase, would you help me back into my brace?”

  The Anglo blushed, and her brother frowned, but she didn’t care. Because the months of failures, the years of pain—they’d all be over soon. And then she’d live to hear “Ma Jie” for decades to come.

  * * *

  Except she didn’t recognize any of the boys.

  “He’s not here,” she told Da after Fara had helped her walk up and down the newly formed line of young, confused miners.

  Her brother was holding a squirming, heavily wrapped Bolin and looking none too pleased about it. “You’re sure?”

  “Do you see one with gray skin?” The wind picked up, blasting her with cold air—and she had a blanket to shelter under. The boys wore little more than rags. “You should let them go back.”

  “Not yet.” Da pointed at Chase. “Have Mateo ask them if they know a gray boy who can do magic, change the properties of things.”

  The Anglo narrowed his eyes as if remembering something. He’d known what the boy could do at one point, but had Da made him forget again? It was hard to keep track.

  “Do I need to get Mateo myself?”

  Chase shook his head. “He’s circling the mine, setting up sentry posts. My Espan’s good enough now. I’ll ask them.”

  “Then get on with it.”

  The first attempt produced nothing but shrugs and blank stares.

  Da scanned the mountainside, but there was no tall black man or red-haired white woman to be seen.

  Yet.

  “Tell them that whoever provides what we want to know will win his freedom. We’ll have the guild master arrange it.”

  Chase tried this. Still nothing.

  “Tell them that, if no one helps us, Fara will break them each in half.”

  Chase blanched—or was that the ague making him even paler?—looking for a moment as if he might not translate the threat. But what else could he do?

  And after he put the words into Espan, and pointed at hulking, silent Fara, one boy stepped forward.

  “He says there is a boy like that,” Chase summarized. “With the powers of a ‘huaca,’ whatever that means. But he doesn’t come out of the tunnel.”

  Da scoffed. “You must have garbled it. Call for Mateo.”

  Chase raised his hand, spoke further with the informant, and turned back to Da. “I didn’t hear wrong. The boy we’re looking for? He lives in the Mine of Death.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jabeca Ovens

  From her hiding spot behind the refinery, Haru gasped along with Jie. How was it possible for someone to live in La Mina de la Muerte?

  Da nodded slowly. “What’s his name?”

  Chase asked the informant, but his response was drowned out by war cries, the whistle of arrows and an explosion—Isaura had sprung the ambush.

  The plan had been to wait until they had a clear shot at Da, and the mercenaries on the perimeter had been dealt with quietly. But the Han was still holding Shoteka, and it had probably been optimistic to expect Isaura to restrain herself for any length of time. Not when her son was within reach.

  So Haru sprang up and charged.

  She made it halfway to Da before anyone noticed her. Partly because she was fast. But mostly because Huitaca had given her a patchwork cloak whose sections were threaded together with “knots of concealment.” It didn’t make its wearer invisible, but it helped Haru blend in with her surroundings, especially while she’d lain still.

  Huancas in similar camouflage leapt up all over the mineworks. Some moved stiffly at first—they’d been holding their positions in the cold ever since the scout in the village below had sighted Da’s cart. But their aim wasn’t affected. Several overseers and mercenaries fell to bowshots and knot bombs within the first seconds.

  Sadly, the Han had better luck.

  No arrows flew at Da—Isaura had forbidden any shooting near Shoteka. And Chase used his graft-hardened forearms to deflect a sling stone that would have taken Jie in the eye.

  “Stop them!” shouted Da as he handed Shoteka to Jie, scooped them both up in his wiry arms, and fled toward the cart.

  Chase and Fara—had the Afrii somehow gotten bigger?—stepped up to intercept Haru and Isaura, who was sprinting in from the side.

  “Let me pass!” the Espan yelled, hurling javelins of water and ice at Chase. But he blocked them with fire, painting jagged streaks of it in the air with his pistol.

  Fara raised his massive club as Haru drew close. She feinted at him with her bone-naginata. He swung. She dodged and struck at the back of his leg, hoping to drop the giant without killing him.

  But he countered almost instantly, and before her blow could land, she had to throw herself backwards to avoid a caved-in skull.

  “I know you’re spored,” Haru said in Espan as she reassessed the big Afrii. He was faster than he looked. “But I have no quarrel with you. Da’s commands aren’t inescapable. There are ways around them if you look. Find one for long enough to let me by, and I’ll kill him for you.”

  Fara’s response was to shed his cloak. And for the second time in as many minutes, Haru gasped.

  The Afrii’s already-immense back was further swollen by gobs of grafted-on muscle and sheets of bone. His arms were just as engorged, as were his legs, and now that Haru looked closely, she could see his fingers ended in points. Were those claws? Fangs?

  A glance to either side suggested Da had enhanced his mercenaries too. The ones Haru could see were also deformed, albeit more subtly. “Well,” she said as Fara approached. “It’s a good thing I have some tricks up my own sleeve.”

  He lunged at
her in a rush that would have made a bull look slow. She had a better sense of his speed now, though, and this time her low slice struck home … only to bounce off the back of Fara’s calf.

  “You’ve got extra bones there too?” she muttered, trying to flank the big Afrii and wondering if it would be easier to beat him in a footrace to Da.

  “Haru,” the Han called, as if anticipating her new strategy. “Return to me!”

  It was meant to be a command, an order she would have followed if the spores had been active. Instead, she laughed. “Sorry, Da,” she said, holding up her hand and flashing Jaxat’s tattoo towards the Han. “I’m still under a star’s protection.”

  He cursed, which made her smile.

  Until Fara rushed her again and didn’t stop.

  He must have been gauging her speed as well. And now it was everything she could do to elude his whistling club. She landed a few more hits, but they barely drew blood. Had Da reinforced Fara’s skin at every weak point?

  This was like fighting Amadi, but worse, because her humming didn’t make her faster. Maybe she shouldn’t have taunted Da about what a good thing it was that Jaxat’s star ward remained in place. Yet if she somehow managed to get rid of it, she’d lose the fight anyway, because she’d immediately start kowtowing to the Han again.

  No, she had to do this without being wu. Time for that footrace.

  Haru bent around another savage swing from Fara and took off in the other direction, back towards the refinery. It burned to run away from Da and let him hide in his cart, but she couldn’t get around the big Afrii. Yet.

  To her right, Isaura still dueled Chase in a fog of heat and steam. Haru couldn’t tell who was winning, but the Anglo had looked feverish earlier. She doubted he could withstand Isaura’s fury for long.

  The overseers and mercenaries, even with their modifications, didn’t seem to be faring much better than Chase. There were too many Huancas lobbing arrows, spears, and knot bombs, or flicking whips with bladed tips that extended farther than they should have, or wielding other string-enhanced weapons. And the miners were joining in, coughing as they turned their picks and shovels on their oppressors.