Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  I smacked my lips. “I hope your dreams don’t taste as nasty as this air does. How can we possibly cross that?”

  Smoke rushed up from the shoreline exactly like a big wave crashing in. Sulfurous fumes engulfed us. Coughing, I sucked for breath. Surely this was what lungs full of hot tar felt like! Beneath my sandals the ash of the shore hissed. A current like the blast of a furnace dragged at my body. I staggered, boiled off my feet, but the chest anchored me to Bee. She was immovable.

  As quickly as it had poured in, the wave of smoke drained away.

  I blinked gritty tears out of my eyes. Tufts of mist like the dregs of cigarillos bubbled off my limbs and drifted to the sand. We hadn’t moved, but the beach was now smoldering. Fat balls of greasy smoke puffed along its length and rolled downslope into the sea.

  “We should have gone with General Camjiata,” said Bee.

  Gagging, I licked a stink of rotting eggs off my lips. “I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake by listening to the opia.” I took a step back, but Bee stayed put, tugging me to a halt.

  “No, wait, Cat. Listen! There are voices in the smoke.”

  Movement chased through the swirl of the Great Smoke. Shapes flashed beneath the surface, but the churning gray fog obscured their features. All I heard was a bass humming like a hoarse man with a very deep voice singing a single tone.

  A sweep of color washed through the smoky sea.

  “Is it the tide of a dragon’s dream?” I croaked, incandescent with terror. I groped for my sword, but it was as inert as lead.

  Bee’s tone was more breath than voice. “It’s a dragon.”

  Night swept down. Lights like fireflies twinkled against a black sky. The sea surged, lifting like cloth raised from beneath by a hand. A bright shape emerged, smoke spilling off it in streams.

  The dragon loomed over us. Its head was crested as with a filigree that reminded me of a troll’s crest, if a troll’s crest spanned half the sky. Silver eyes spun like wheels. It was not bird or lizard, nor was it a fish. Most of its body remained beneath the smoke. Ripples revealed a dreadful expanse of wings as wide as fields, shimmering pale gold like ripe wheat under a harsh sun. When its mouth gaped open, I knew it could swallow us in one easy gulp.

  We had come to a place we ought not to be.

  Awe deadened my heart and silenced my voice as I waited for the leviathan to devour us. Because wasn’t that what they did? Eat foul little creatures like me?

  Bee’s voice rang out. “Greetings, Mighty One! I suppose you are one of those whose dreams I am obliged to wander on my restless nights. It’s very disconcerting. I must say, I could not appreciate that vision of my dearest Cat embracing a man so enthusiastically. There are some things I really do not care to see, and that is one of them. But be assured! I do as I am told. I’m very obedient! Furthermore, I should like to remind you that my cousin and I at great risk to ourselves unearthed a nest of hatchlings in the spirit world. I must suppose that any hatchlings who survive will grow to become such resplendent creatures as you.”

  I gaped as the filigree crest flared, tightened, and widened again. Colors flashed through the dragon’s skin like spears from a rainbow.

  Bee went on as in answer to a reply I had not heard. “So, if you please, Honored One, as a favor, and possibly because we have done you a service beforehand, could you please convey me and my cousin here and that cat over there and everything we carry safely across the Great Smoke to the shores of the land we call Europa?” She dipped a courtesy. “If you would be so kind.”

  Down its head came like the inexorable fall of fate when the unsuspecting victim’s eyes are at last and too late opened to her doom.

  “Don’t run, Cat,” said Bee. “Never run. Stand your ground. Look them in the eye. You were right for us to come here. And now I’m right. Trust me.”

  I was so scared that I was actually afraid I was going to pee myself. That was the only reason I didn’t run, because I knew if I ran I would lose all my dignity and be very sticky afterward.

  The dragon rested its head on the burning sands. The head alone was as big as a cottage. Its jaw opened to reveal a pale pink tongue. Instead of teeth, its upper mouth was rimmed with what looked like white, hairy combs as long as I was tall.

  “It doesn’t have teeth,” said Bee. “How interesting! So you see, Cat, it can’t eat us.”

  I found a croak. “It can still swallow us.”

  “Rory!” she called, ignoring my perfectly rational observation. “We’re leaving.”

  He began to pad away into the darkness of the cave.

  “Rory!” I was suddenly more afraid of losing him than of the dragon. “Come. Here. Right. Now.”

  Head down, he crawled over to us as if I were dragging him on a leash. Maybe I was. Perhaps I had inadvertently leashed him to my service, just as I had been chained by my sire.

  When he reached me, I extended a hand. He hissed.

  “Don’t you dare bite me!” I slapped his nose. “You’re coming with us whether you want to or not.”

  His answering growl was more of a pathetic moan.

  “Trust me, Rory.” I set a hand on his big head.

  The dragon’s silver eyes had ceased whirling and now, like mirrors, reflected all that lay before it. I saw myself bedraggled, with the basket over my shoulder and my locket and sword like dull lumps of stone. Rory had fluffed out his fur to make himself look bigger than he already was. Bee shone like a queen, as radiant as a lamp.

  I met her gaze in the mirror of the dragon’s eyes. I nodded.

  She exhaled. “Not every young woman gets to march into the gullet of Leviathan.” The crack in her voice betrayed her: She wasn’t quite as sure of herself as she meant to sound.

  The dragon’s breath huffed over us, not rancid but sweet, like the aroma of coconut milk as it bakes through a rice pudding. It pushed out its tongue over the ridge of its lip to make a bridge.

  Never let it be said my courage had failed me when put to the test.

  I tightened my grip on the loose skin of Rory’s neck. Together we walked up the slope. The tongue was oddly firm and dry beneath our tread, not at all slimy. Rory again gave that moaning growl as the tongue shifted beneath us. To keep our balance Bee and I set down the chest and held on to it, and I grabbed Rory, as the creature pulled its tongue back inside.

  We slid backward into the smoke. The jaw closed.

  Darkness fell as a smothering blanket. Strange noises like drones and squeaks drifted at the edge of my hearing.

  Bee and I sat on the chest, clutching each other. Rory leaned against us as if he wanted to climb inside either the chest or us. His trembling shuddered through me. I rubbed his head.

  From my oldest, sleepiest memories I scoured out a song. It whispered in my mother’s raspy voice, scarred by war and pain. I sang in a low voice.

  Sleep, sweet child, as the twilight falls

  As the bright day takes its rest.

  Let the Wild Hunt search, let the Wild Hunt cry,

  I shall hide you at my breast.

  “Cat, are you crying?” Bee whispered, pressing her cheek to mine. “What is that lullaby?”

  “My mother used to sing it to me.”

  The creature moved in a gentle undulation. The air stirred with a rhythmic pulse, in time to the slow drum of its heart, like the breath of secrets untold. Atop it floated a sound like a bell’s resonant ring drawn out as a thread is spun out of a mass of wool. I trembled, struck by such an upwelling of fear at being trapped inside a living beast that I took a slug from my flask of rum for fortitude. The only way to battle the fear was to talk.

  “Bee, how could you think I would go with Camjiata? He probably meant to throw me overboard once we were out of sight of land.”

  She tensed. “It’s not that simple. He told me you’ve never given him a chance to properly explain. He got you exiled to Salt Island to protect you.”

  “To protect me?” I snorted. “How can he say these things? And with
such sincerity! It’s like a disease with him. Protect himself, he means, since he believes I will be the instrument of his death.” Rory gave a rumble and nosed against me as I went on. “ ‘Where the hand of fortune branches, Tara Bell’s child must choose, and the road of war will be washed by the tide.’ The general thinks my choice will be to kill him. But I already made a choice on Hallows’ Night at the ballcourt. I was the instrument of the cacica’s death, not his.”

  “That’s not what he thinks.” Bee’s tone wound like darkness, mellow and soft. The heat made me yawn. “He thinks it’s the choice you made between Andevai Diarisso and James Drake, between cold mage and fire mage. James Drake has an ugly, unpredictable temper that might have been soothed by the love of a good woman.”

  “I hope he did not really say that, and in those nauseating words.” I took another slug of rum. “The point is, the general could have entirely misunderstood his wife’s words about Tara Bell’s child. She wrote down her dreams in garbled poetry. He interprets everything as having some relationship to him. I’m quite sure the dream has nothing to do with me choosing between two men… what a tired story that would be!”

  Yet what if it referred to the same choice my mother had been forced to make? What if my sire meant to force me to sleep with him to save Vai’s life, as he had forced my mother to have sex with him to save the lives of Daniel and the other men in the Baltic Ice Expedition?

  “Cat, why are you shaking? I’m sorry I said anything.”

  I swallowed a huge gulp of rum. Some things I refused to speak of even to Bee. “The point is, James Drake has stayed alive this long by murdering unwilling people as catch-fires. Beggars, the rootless poor, people no one will miss. Salters and dying men. Meanwhile, the general means to allow Drake to go on killing people as long as it helps him win the war he means to wage in Europa. That’s why Drake obeys him, because he knows Camjiata will turn a blind eye to his crimes. Who will miss enemy soldiers who perish in war? So how can we trust Camjiata, knowing he employs a criminal like James Drake?”

  “Listen! After Caonabo divorced me, I went to the general. I really didn’t have anywhere else to go, as you can imagine. Of course I demanded to know what his intentions are toward you. He promised me that you have nothing to fear from him. Your life is his life. As long as you are alive, he knows he is alive. The general has offered us employment as spies and couriers in his army.”

  “I’m not spying for the general!”

  “How do you plan to eat? In what bed do you plan to sleep with your handsome husband? Do you have any money at all, Cat?”

  “No,” I admitted sullenly. I groped for the flask, but Bee had hidden it. “Didn’t Caonabo give you a dower, some pittance from the Taino treasury?”

  “Why, yes, he rewarded me very generously. I was granted the right to collect taxes from two towns on the northern coast of Kiskeya. It’s a fine income, but one I have no access to. I received also several thousand cowrie shells, which make me quite wealthy in the Taino kingdom but are worth nothing in Europa. A chest full of exceptionally fine cloth, as well as several crates of excellent tobacco. All of which are on the ship you and I were meant to sail on, together with Vai’s other chests. We’re destitute, Cat. We haven’t a single sestertius to our name. All we have is the gear that is in this chest, which fortunately is the one Luce packed for you.”

  I crossed my arms fumingly. “I don’t even know how I’m going to rescue Vai.”

  “I do have some gold jewelry I can sell,” she mused. “The dash jackets can be sold. We won’t starve, not for a while. But those things will run out. At least hold the general’s offer in reserve, just in case we need it.”

  Every road led away into darkness, and while normally I could see unusually well in the dark, my eyes could not penetrate the future. I yawned again, eyelids drooping. The heat made me sleepy. Rory was sprawled out like a big warm comforting purr. He snored in a catlike way with little huffs between times as if he was dreaming of chasing down plump deer. Bee and I leaned against his belly. The rocking motion of the beast had a soporific effect.

  I rested my head against hers. “Whatever happens, I love you, Bee. Always.”

  “Always,” she whispered, holding my hand.

  My eyes closed. I sank into sleep.

  As in a dream, I bucketed through the heavens on the back of a horse whose coat was as black and sticky as tar. I braced the butt of a spear against my booted stirrup. My arms were bare, the skin marked with blue coils like the ink-painting common among the Celts. With a hawk’s sight I saw our prey running, a girl with long hair streaming out behind her. Her blood smelled of smoke and dreams, and as we galloped up alongside her, I thrust my spear into her back and brought her down. With my hands gripping the spear, I swung off the horse. She was thrashing, trying to crawl, trying to live. I pressed a foot onto her back to trap her and wiped my fingers through the blood pumping out of the wound. Brought it to my lips.

  The blood was redolent with the fragrant bloom of powerful cold magic as mouthwatering as spice. But it was not mine to drink. I owed it to my masters. The chain that bound me to them dragged me back toward their presence.

  A voice was murmuring, honey words luring me away from the kill. Vai’s kisses sweetened my lips and warmed my flesh. His hands measured the map of my body, fingers tracing each curve as he rolled me over on the bed he had built for us.

  I stirred, eyes opening as my hands reached for him.

  The basket gaped open and empty across my lap. I blinked, trying to focus, for I was back in the belly of the beast. Its comblike teeth shone with a phosphorescent gleam.

  By this light I saw Bee talking to Queen Anacaona. The dead flat shine of the cacica’s eyes had deepened to a warm brown.

  “I’m not sure I understand, Your Highness. Is the Great Smoke the ocean of dreams through which I walk in my dreams?”

  “Yes. The Great Smoke is the ocean of all existence. The currents which we call past, present, and future mingle together in the sea of mist.”

  I was so hungry and hot. I was not meant to journey through the ocean of dreams. My senses rebelled at the stink and the threat.

  The dragon’s smoky breath trawled me under, back into sleep. I plunged into the slippery dance of the old ones, the most ancient Taninim. Their intertwining movements created currents that streamed through the smoke like rivers. A ripple caught me, pulling me into a dream so vivid it did not seem like a vision but rather like my body and sight cast into another time and place.

  General Camjiata stood with his hand on a door latch. Behind him, the view out an attic window overlooked a town square and a stone castle tower rising above green trees. His hair was tied back with an incongruously bright-green ribbon that matched the old-fashioned bottle-green dash jacket he wore, its cuffs trimmed with lace. He addressed me with a serious look that quite disarmed me. Who would offer such a direct and confiding gaze to an enemy?

  “I need you to kill him. You’re the only one who can.”

  Golden spears of late-afternoon sunlight lanced into my eyes, blinding me as he opened the door into a lamplit chamber beyond. Darkness smoked up on all sides.

  I did not want to be a killer. If only the Master of the Wild Hunt had not been my sire, I would not have had such dreams. Yet if he had not sired me, I would not be what I was. If I had not been what I was, I would not have escaped the mansa. I would have been dead long before I had been forced to make the choice that had killed the cacica. We are bound to our ancestors and to those who made us, whether we want to be or not. What matters is what we make of what we are.

  I opened my eyes, back in the belly of the beast. Bee and the cacica were still conversing.

  “Do you wish Caonabo had thrown away his honor merely to please you?” Queen Anacaona spoke not with anger, not with pity, but as if pressing Bee to find the answer to a riddle.

  “I didn’t say that! But he ought not to have gone after Cat in that way. He shouldn’t have cooperated wit
h James Drake and the general.”

  “Open your eyes, selfish girl. It isn’t about you. There are greater battles awakening in the world. Those who have developed a thirst for blood cannot easily be turned aside from their insatiable appetites, no matter whom they harm. The old ones move slowly, but they fight to protect their young.”

  “You speak in riddles,” Bee said. “What does that all mean?”

  I slid into the fog of dreams as if in the belly of Leviathan I, too, became a dragon dreamer. Streaming rivers of mist welled up from the deep, currents flowing in vast circles that penetrated close to the gleaming surface before pouring away into darker, smokier depths. Swimming shapes brushed me, hot and cold by turns, rough to the touch and then slickly smooth like eels slithering in coils around and around me.

  I startled awake, shuddering, to find myself lying in Vai’s arms on the bed he had built for us. His embrace was so strong and comforting that I could have reclined in its orbit forever and not missed the world.

  “Catherine,” he murmured in a drowsy, contented voice. “You were dreaming and mumbling. It sounded like ‘There are greater battles awakening in the world.’ What is it, love?”

  The feel of his body stretched the length of mine, his skin to my skin, made me want to purr with simple pleasure. “I dreamed I was swallowed by a dragon. And now I have to pee. Do you think those two things are related?”

  Chuckling, he kissed me on the lips. After stroking a hand along the length of my torso, he kissed me again, and then longer and with more concentration, until I really did have to get up even though he clearly had other activities on his mind. He rose with me.

  “We’ll go the washroom,” he said, swinging me up into his arms. My hip pressed against his belly. “We both need a wash.”

  I giggled, for the night was warm and the room stuffy despite an open window, and we were both sweaty. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “All the better. No one to disturb us.” A pinch of light sparked into existence. Cold fire swelled to a fist-size bubble whose light dappled the clothes strewn over the floor beside the bed.