by David Walton
Ramos scrambled out. Antonia lay on the road, unmoving. Beyond her, a dozen mounted soldiers thundered toward them, on a path to trample her. Ramos didn't hesitate. He ran straight toward the horses, calling Antonia's name.
He reached her first, and lifted her to her feet. She seemed bruised, but unharmed. He dragged her back toward the carriage, and she complied as always, but without urgency, completely unaware of the pounding hooves getting closer every moment.
The void was destroying the carriage. It grew, swallowing the wood and enveloping the wheels. Elizabeth stood nearby, looking helpless in the simple white dress she still wore. Barrosa ran up to Ramos, dragging the Ignis Dei along behind him. "Run," he said. "I'll buy some time."
Ramos didn't argue. He propelled Antonia as quickly as he could, back toward what was left of the carriage. Barrosa poured salt into the device, but Ramos could see he was too late. The soldiers surrounded him, pointing their weapons and shouting at him to step away.
It was now or never. Ramos faced the void. "I'll go first," he said to Elizabeth, swallowing. "If I survive, you can follow." But he still could not move.
"There's no time for chivalry," Elizabeth said, and hurled herself into the void. It was as if she had jumped into a well. He saw her falling, the shape of her dwindling into the distance far below.
Mortified at her bravery and his own cowardice, Ramos steeled himself. Whatever she was facing, he wasn't going let her do it alone. A shot fired. He felt no impact, no pain, but when he looked at Antonia, blood was running freely down her neck, bright and red, soaking her dress. He grabbed for her as she sank to her knees. Her blood ran onto the ground, staining the dusty road.
There was only one choice. He lifted her in his arms, stumbling with the weight, and hurled her into the void.
Before leaping after her, he took one glance back at Barrosa, and saw something he should have noticed from the beginning. Barrosa had removed the wooden barrier between the salt-soaked pearl and the prism and had used it to block the opening through which the invisible light was supposed to pour. He raised his hands in apparent surrender, but the device was glowing, increasing in intensity.
"No!" Ramos shouted. But it was too late. The Ignis Dei exploded. The flame roared like a living thing, devouring Barrosa, the soldiers, and their horses together, leaping high into the air. Ramos felt the heat rush over him like a burning wind. A few soldiers at the periphery screamed and ran, their clothing aflame, but the Ignis Dei and Juan Barrosa were simply gone.
Ramos bellowed his grief. The edges of the void shimmered, about to collapse. He hurled himself into its open mouth.
He fell for what seemed like miles, deeper than any hole, farther than a jump off any building or cliff. He fell, and then, before he could steel himself for it, a light flashed up from below and swallowed him. He crashed into rocky ground, hard enough to hurt, but not enough to injure.
The ground heaved under his feet. He was dizzy, disoriented. Rain was falling so thickly it was hard to see, and his clothes were soaked through in a moment. The void he had just fallen through collapsed and popped shut with the finality of a slamming prison door.
Strangers pulled at him. "Come on!" they said. "Run!"
He stood and staggered after them. One of the men was bleeding. No, it was Antonia who was bleeding, and the man was carrying her. Elizabeth was there, too, apparently unharmed. Rocks the size of Ramos's head tumbled down the mountainside, one narrowly missing him as it hurtled past.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by the most bizarre creatures he had ever seen: crouched monsters with orange fur, pincers for hands, and hooks where their feet should be. They just appeared out of the air, all around them in a moment. The creatures grabbed onto their clothes with their pincers and lifted them high. Ramos thrashed and screamed for Antonia, but he couldn't get away. The men he didn't know—presumably Matthew and two other colonists—weren't fighting their captors, so Ramos allowed himself to be carried. Where were they going?
It didn't take long to find out. The creatures brought them into a cave, the opening just a horizontal crevice where one jutting rock face overlapped another. Ramos didn't think he would even have noticed the opening, but the creatures and humans squeezed through. Inside, the rumbling of the mountain seemed distant, and they were blessedly out of the sheeting rain.
Inside was a cavern, larger than he expected, with more of the strange creatures, and two women. The creatures set them on the ground. One of the women leaned over Antonia, tilting her head forward and pouring water into her mouth. Ramos crawled to her. There was a lot of blood, her dress stained red with it, but he could see no wound. The bullet must have struck her in the neck, but there was nothing. To his shock, Antonia sat up and looked around, apparently unharmed.
"She'll be fine," the woman said. "It's the quintessence water; it's healed her already."
Ramos wiped water out of his face and eyes. "Barrosa," he said. He could hardly speak. The image of his friend burning himself to death overwhelmed his mind.
Elizabeth caught his arm. "What happened to Barrosa? Is he coming?"
Ramos shook his head. "Dead," he managed to say.
"Ramos?" Elizabeth said. "Where are we?"
CHAPTER 22
ALVARO de Torres was astonished that the manticore creature could speak. And not only speak, but insist on discussing the terms of an alliance, as if they were equals. He hadn't heard of such a thing happening since Baalam's donkey spoke on the road to Moab. He would catch one of these manticores and bring it home with him, if he could. A talking animal would cause quite the stir at court.
Though it was fitting that the language the creature spoke was English. Torres had always considered the English people little more than animals themselves, so the language probably came more naturally to it than Spanish or Latin. In his one visit to London, Torres had been astonished by the lack of civilization. The English had no sense of art or sculpture, and what little they displayed had been imported from Spain or Italy. Their entertainments were brutal and uncouth. Bathing seemed to have been a lost art form, if they had ever discovered it. And their women hadn't the least sense of proper manners or gentility. In short, they were barely progressed beyond the Celtic savages they had displaced. If they had found common ground with animals, Torres was not surprised.
He had instructed his men to bring this creature, this Rinchirith, onto the deck of La Magdalena. From here, they could see the conquistadors on the beach, drilling. He didn't yet know what strength the manticore might have, but it seemed practical to intimidate him as much as possible, to get the meeting started on the right footing. If Rinchirith could lead him to where the remaining colonists were hiding out, or assist him in finding and gathering the valuable goods he had been sent to procure, then it would be worth playing the game of collaboration and alliance.
Torres had been to the settlement. He had seen the melted remains of what must have once been grand buildings. He had also seen the defense that even a single colonist had been able to mount to evade capture. If all of the colonists could run like the wind and cast blinding light from their bodies, they would be formidable opponents. Already apostate, they had apparently made a pact with the devil to gain unearthly powers, with the consequence that the powers had come back to destroy them. That was always the way with sin. It seemed so good at the time, but later, it destroyed your life. Buried memories clawed for the surface of his mind, but Torres shoved them back down again.
It didn't matter. What mattered was this moment, this meeting. An officer who spoke English stood by to translate their conversation.
The manticore's gray fur rippled in the breeze. It snapped its pincers open and shut. "Greetings," it said. Its tails moved in a complex way that made Torres feel faintly nauseated. "I am called Rinchirith." The translator stumbled a bit over the pronunciation of the name.
"What can I do for you?" Torres said.
" I believe you can help me, and in return, I can help you.
I wish to unite my people into one tribe," Rinchirith said.
"I see," Torres replied. "With yourself as chief, no doubt."
"I have many who follow me. But many more do not. If I am seen to have the friendship of the human people, more will join me."
"No doubt."
"I have seen a vision of the future. I have seen your people coming here in great numbers, relentless. I used to think we should destroy you, but you are like the cacari that lives in our forests. If we cut off your arm, another grows in its place. Instead of fighting, I wish to join my power with yours."
"And what do you suppose that you can do to help me?" Torres said.
"I will fight with you against your enemies, both human and manticore."
It was laughable, really. This creature probably had a dozen warriors fighting with sticks and clubs, and he wanted to ally himself with the most powerful empire in the world. Torres glanced out at his six hundred armed conquistadors marching on the beach. "Yes?" he said. "And how many fighting men can you contribute to this cause?"
"There are thirty thousand manticores who have pledged their lives to mine," Rinchirith said. The translator spoke the words with no emotion, but Torres got a sense of barely suppressed rage from the manticore's tone and body language.
"Thirty thousand!" Torres laughed. "Quite a number. Can he corroborate that?"
There was some back and forth between the translator and the manticore as the meaning of the word 'corroborate' was discussed. Rinchirith bared his teeth.
"He says he can show you," the translator said.
Rinchirith gave a piercing shriek, and all around him, more manticores appeared, literally springing into reality out of thin air. They covered the deck, surrounding Torres and his men, and clambered all through the rigging. On shore, they appeared as well, a host of them all around his men and continuing back into the trees as far as he could see. There were, indeed, thousands of them. Many were the same gray color as Rinchirith, but others were white, orange, brown, and black. The manticores began to snap their pincers together in eerie unison.
Torres tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go that was not covered with manticores. All these thousands had been there, invisible, all the time. His heart thundered in his chest. He was not ready to die. The manticores leaped up and down into the boat's hold by passing straight through the deck, as insubstantial as air. Yet it was clear that those pincers could cut and those teeth bite if they wanted to attack.
"Do we have an agreement?" Rinchirith asked.
"Of course," Torres said. He took a deep breath, got control. "We would be glad to help you fight your enemies in return for your assistance fighting ours. We grant you exclusive trading rights and agree to support you over any rival leadership, in return for which you will furnish us with those goods we wish to take home to our masters."
Rinchirith bared his teeth again, and Torres wondered if it was a grimace or a smile. "Agreed," he said. "As a sign of good faith, we will show you where the human vermin are hiding."
Torres smiled uncertainly. This was good progress, wasn't it? He had barely landed, and already he was on good terms with a powerful local chieftain who would help him find and kill the English. He got the impression, though, that Rinchirith would just as readily apply the term 'vermin' to Torres himself.
MATTHEW had never been so happy to see a crowd of red manticores materialize out the air around him. He wondered if Parris had called them through his bond with Tanalabrinu. The manticores lifted them and carried them through the storm until they arrived at a hidden cave entrance and slipped through. Inside, they found Blanca and Joan Parris waiting for them. Parris ran to his wife and embraced her.
Three people had come through the void from England, one man and two young women, and only now was Matthew able to get a good look at them. He had never seen the Princess Elizabeth before, and at first glance, he wasn't sure which of the girls was her. Both were young, bedraggled, and dirty. One was shaved bald, and the other was covered in blood.
Blanca went immediately to the injured one and gave her a drink of quintessence water from a flask at her belt, healing her wounds and washing the worst of the blood from her face and neck. The injured one was younger, Matthew could see now, which meant the one standing, whose head was shaved, was the princess. She looked like a girl, disoriented and clearly frightened by her surroundings.
Joan Parris was the first to kneel. "Your Grace," she said. Elizabeth extended a delicate hand in what seemed like an automatic gesture, and Joan kissed it.
Matthew and the others rushed to imitate her. Whatever, she might look like, this was Elizabeth, the Protestant princess and the hope of England.
Her hair had been shaved off for her execution, of course, and the simple white dress she wore was dirty with the dust of the road, but Matthew was surprised he had not realized at once who she was. She held herself erect and moved with the grace and bearing of a queen. The man with her, presumably Ramos de Tavera, seemed just as dazed. He gripped the hand of the first girl, who must be his niece, Antonia.
"Where are we?" Elizabeth asked. She looked as if she were trying not to cry.
"This is Horizon Island," Parris said.
"Horizon?" She looked at Ramos. "How is that possible?"
Blanca reached out and took her hand. "You're safe now, Your Grace," she said. Matthew hoped it was actually true.
"Why are we in a cave? Is your settlement nearby?" Elizabeth said.
Matthew explained to her, with comments inserted by his father and Blanca, of the destruction of their settlement, the arrival of the Spanish ships, the uneasy relationship with the manticores, and the coup by James Ferguson. She asked many questions—how many the Spanish were and how far away, what Ferguson was like, what resources they had. She had been transported thousands of miles from her home and dropped in an unfamiliar land among strangers, and yet her questions were precise, aimed at defining her situation and making plans. She was a survivor, Matthew realized, raised in a political environment where her life was always at risk. She had grown up in luxury, but she knew how to cope with peril. Despite the fact that they were nearly the same age, Matthew felt as if she were an adult with the wisdom of experience and years, while he was only a child.
"When Ferguson threw you out, we went to the manticore village looking for you," Blanca said. "Tanalabrinu knew what had happened, of course, and he had already mobilized this group to find you and bring you back to stay in their village. When the earthquake began and it started to storm, they brought us here instead."
"I'm sorry," Matthew said to Elizabeth. "We have no food to offer you, and no true shelter. If we had salt, we could create some food, produce a fire, and protect ourselves, but we don't even have that. I'm afraid you have escaped one desperate circumstance only to arrive at another."
"That's where you're wrong," Ramos said. He stood and began to untie his tunic.
"You don't believe me?" Matthew said.
"I meant, you're not as short on salt as you might think." Ramos pulled off his tunic to reveal a crude set of leather straps slung over his shoulder. Hanging from these were sacks, fat and heavy with their contents. Ramos reached into one of these and pulled out a handful of translucent crystals. "I came prepared," he said.
There was a combined cry of astonishment from the colonists at the sight of all that salt. Matthew laughed and clapped Ramos on the back. "I can't tell you what this means to us," he said. "Ferguson kept it all for himself, to solidify his power. With this, maybe we can take control again."
"It will be of no benefit to attack your fellow colonists," Elizabeth said. "There are precious few Englishmen on this island, and none to spare."
Matthew looked at the floor, embarrassed. "What then?"
Elizabeth's expression was serene. "We must convince them to join with us."
WHEN the rain had stopped and the ground settled, they emerged from the cave. Ramos was struck by the alienness of the land around them. Dar
k clouds covered much of the sky, but not enough to hide the sun, which was too large by far. It dominated the sky, boiling everything in its heat and giving the air a tropical feel. He knew from speaking with Matthew, but could scarcely believe, that it would grow larger still as it sank toward evening, driving men and beasts to seek shelter from its rays. Then, once mercifully set, it would rise the next morning as tiny as a pinprick in the distant east, leaving a chill in the air.
They stood on a rocky promontory on the edge of a mountain, its base surrounded by forest, but the trees were not the elm and oak and ash he recognized. They were taller than seemed appropriate, their tops wreathed with a mossy fluff instead of leaves. Those leaves he did see were the wrong shape: round, or else stretched into long strips that fluttered in the breeze. He even saw a tree with only one enormous leaf lofted high in the air that caught the wind like a kite and collected sunlight far above its bare trunk.
The rocks were more familiar, but even they seemed different, a darker color than he expected, with here and there a jagged stone that shone a glossy black. The air smelled fresher than London, of course; that was to be expected, but there were new smells, too, scents he couldn't identify. He followed the others downhill, toward the forest, and when they entered the trees, he was struck by how differently it sounded than an English forest. When the wind blew, it didn't whisper through the trees so much as crackle, as the lower, dead layers of mossy foliage rattled against each other.
According to plan, Elizabeth, Joan, and Blanca split off in a different direction. Ramos stayed with the other men, leading Antonia by the hand. Before long, they could see a clearing in the trees ahead. Ramos heard people talking and smelled the smoke of fires. They emerged to see about a hundred people, many of them working to erect several buildings out of stone blocks and wooden beams. It was a moment before Ramos recognized what he was seeing.