Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

They had to get back to their bodies; one task remained.

  As Dake began to plummet, his flailing, collapsing wings utterly useless, Juan and Anthony leapt to either side. The Hierophant Air whooshed them closer together and then swept beneath them and hovered, slowing their fall, slowing their fall, easing them toward the ground with the last of their waning strength. The boys blinked at each other, seemed to understand.

  A thud marked the collision of Dake with the hard surface of the stage. His body already broken from the sudden rupture of all those unnatural structures within himself, now it burst into a splatter of blood and near-flattened flesh as dark waters enveloped everything in a burbling deluge.

  Nearby, the River fell to his knees, water gushing forth from all his orifices. He collapsed, his filthy robes emptying out in seconds as the mud overtook him. Fortress thrashed to either side at nothing at all, like their mind had somehow gone before any of the rest of them. Then they were on their knees, flailing, flailing, suffocating as the power that had kept them going long past their expiration date seeped unendingly away and away and away.

  But now something was moving, shifting, where Dake had fallen. A thick translucent arm emerged from the mire. That fool’s cursed spirit.

  And the Hierophant Air didn’t have any time left.

  “Drop me,” Anthony said. “I got this.” He had felt the whooshing presence of Air around him, the sudden cushion. And anyway, there was no more time.

  “Yeah,” Juan said. “We got this.” Juan was merely boasting through terror, but the boy Anthony’s grim determination spoke of a moment long waiting in the wings.

  Below, a trembling spirit fought its way out of the newly birthed swamp. Dake’s wretched phantom, now part man, part beast, all monster, shimmering and enraged.

  Anthony slid his hand into his pocket as Air released him. It glinted in the pale moonlight as he fell.

  The phantom Dake looked up with a snarl just in time to see Anthony plummeting through the air, blade raised over his head, and then it was too late. Anthony brought both his hands down as he landed, slicing through Dake’s glowing form and then splashing into knee-deep dark water. He slashed and stabbed over and over as swamp thrashed around him and the last tattered shreds of Dake vanished in the breeze.

  Juan landed with a splash of his own a few seconds later, gaped at what his friend had done. “The knife … from the …”

  Anthony smiled, eyebrows raised. “Palmed that shit when they knocked me down.”

  “Genius!” Juan yelled, and they began sloshing their way to safety.

  Safety.

  The Hierophant Air fluttered through the crowd, desperate as this last gasp at life, at existence, flickered toward nothingness. Any wrong move was certain death, and even the right ones might not do it. Scattered along the ground: the Deck of Worlds. All the houses were gone now, all the suits wiped out. All that remained was the grinning face of Death on each card.

  Beyond the stumbling, cawing crowd, through the tall grass, the Cadillac awaited. Air flushed toward it, away from the crowd.

  Up ahead, two men huffed and puffed, jogging toward the car.

  The car where their bodies were.

  It was over then, probably. Neville was nowhere to be seen.

  Ka-blam! A shot rang out, sending one of the men sprawling as a splash of blood splattered outward into the gray sky. The other whirled around, terrified, and then a tall blur burst out of the weeds and collided into him.

  Uncle Neville.

  Fading, fading, with barely anything left at all, the Hierophant Air surged forward, past the tangle of limbs, Uncle Neville on top letting loose one downward punch after another, and into the back seat of the car, and there they were, those two beautiful bodies that knew each other so well, that loved each other so hard, that now would never be the same again, and the Hierophant Air streamed along their skin and found that familiar seat of warmth and flesh within, and then Tee opened her eyes with a gasp and turned immediately to Izzy, who was blinking and coughing and shaking her head, and they pulled each other close, both alive, through the fire and wind and impossible world, still there, still very much there.

  My daughters, María Cantara whispered softly.

  Sierra was the first to get to her feet. She helped her mom up, and together, they took in the room around them, the forest beyond it, the two spirits facing them.

  “You’ve kept all the stories,” Sierra said, squeezing her mom’s hand. “All our stories.”

  I have, m’ija.

  “I … I thought they were gone forever.”

  We couldn’t let that happen.

  Sierra scrunched up her face. “Are you going to do like Mama Carmen did and disappear now that we’ve finally found you?”

  Cantara Cebilín laughed softly. No, mi amor. Your grandmother had to go into hiding amidst the ocean. She was already halfway into a new realm when you reached her, and there was no turning back. That was different. She was always hardheaded, that one. Never did anything halfway for very long.

  “That’s for sure,” María said.

  Sierra laughed. Suddenly it was all so … normal somehow — there they were hanging out with their long-dead abuelas, and it made perfect sense.

  Carmen made the mistake of thinking if she ignored the Deck and its evils, it would just go away. This is why the burden fell to you, Sierra. I’m sorry it did, but I see you were up to the challenge.

  “Barely,” Sierra said. “And I gotta see how my friends made out. There’s a whole other war going on in Jersey.”

  They are safe, María Cantara said, and Sierra felt some of her tired muscles unclench. They fought hard, and they are safe. And another story will be added to our history.

  Sierra looked again at the map sprawling across the floor. “This is El Yunque, isn’t it?”

  Mmhmm.

  Cantara Cebilín stepped forward, a slight smile on her face, and pointed toward the center of the map, where a tiny version of the palace could be seen. The palace was built at an ancient junction of two trade routes, and this tower marked the middle point.

  “The crossroads!” Sierra said. “Like from the song.”

  “Ven a los cuatro caminos, a los cuatro caminos ven,” María sang softly. “Mama Carmen used to sing it to me when I was little.”

  This is the original crossroads that the song refers to, María Cantara said. There have been many others over time, of course, but this was the first.

  There was so much history, so much lore, so much magic, Sierra realized, somewhere between reeling and swooning. And it all could’ve been lost….

  “Sierra?” a gruff voice called from somewhere below. “María?”

  “Tío Angelo!” María yelled back. “We’re up here! The tower! We’re coming down.”

  “¿Están bien? Gah! What the hell is this … ¿Qué puñeta es esto? ¡Angelito, mira! ¡Se acabó la fea esa por fin!”

  “Can you come home with us?” Sierra asked.

  Cantara Cebilín stepped over to María Cantara and they stood beside each other, smiling as sunlight poured in around them and lit up the room, the map, the whole world. We can do anything we want, María Cantara said, now that the Deck is destroyed and La Contessa gone for good. We are as free as the wind, m’ija. As free as the wind.

  Once, not so very long ago, when the streets of San Juan still blazed with piano riffs that danced lovingly against a deep and ancient tumbao, and young poets still dreamed of revolution, Death came collecting.

  Way out in the depths of El Yunque, three shimmering specters made their way through the trees toward the ruins of a once glorious palace. They came from opposite directions on the island, united at the gates of their old home. Together, they floated past warning signs and barbed-wire fences, beyond spirit wards powerful enough to keep even Death at bay; and then silently they glided deep within the crumbling walls to where something gigantic seethed amidst the shadows.

  Mother, the Sorrows said as one. You are not well
.

  This was quite an understatement. La Contessa had recently completed her transformation into the spiderform after an agonizing span of decades, as bones and flesh rended and grew and sizzled and burst. She was haggard, exhausted, and still throbbed with intense pain. Plus, that dead woman in the tower, as she now referred to the daughter she had murdered, was still siphoning away at her power.

  Mother, what can we do?

  The old woman shook her huge, shriveled head, sending her great jowls swishing back and forth like sails. She blinked all eight eyes thoughtfully and scowled, revealing hideous and hairy fangs.

  The Sorrows collectively took a small swoop backward from their beloved mother. Let us destroy her, Mother. Together, we can do it.

  We have grown strong, said Septima.

  — wise, added Veinalda.

  — in our time away, finished Angelina.

  Now we have come home, they said together. Let us join forces and —

  NO! La Contessa Araña croaked mustily. You silly children. Even together, we will be destroyed. Your dead sister has been gathering her strength all this time. I don’t know how, but … it doesn’t matter. She has. And ours is on the decline, do you not see? Are you so busy trying to be me that you ignore what is in front of you? Our power is on the wane. The Deck of Worlds crumbles as these petulant shadow-worshipping devils run amok in the world. And great change is afoot … No. You will not destroy her. Nor will you stay here …

  Together, the Sorrows sighed. Mother …

  Enough. She silenced them with a wave of one of her long, hairy arms. She had endured the quiet of the palace crumbling gradually around her as her cursed daughter’s ghost rambled on and on and on. Now the Sorrows would endure her quiet because, as happened at least once a day now, the memory of that last night of her freedom surfaced and made an echoing calamity within her mind.

  María Cantara had simply walked into her own death and then, freed of her mortal body, had kept walking straight past all that carnage and up into the tower before anyone could stop her. La Contessa’s tower. The center of her power. Almost immediately, the enemy had unleashed hell on her forces, but La Contessa knew what had to be done. That shadow monster was up to something and whatever it was must be contained instantly, otherwise, all was lost.

  As explosions erupted outside and the screams of the dying echoed through the courtyard, La Contessa grabbed a vial of a spider essence she’d been working on for years and then scaled the outer wall of the tower. The threat would be kept at bay. The ghost of her daughter would not escape. More than that: She would use this moment as an opportunity. Already, the essence was taking effect — she felt her fingers grow long and sticky as she climbed, felt the noxious grind of transformation begin to churn within her.

  María Cantara wouldn’t escape this time. That was the most important thing. The urgency still pulsed through La Contessa, all these decades later. She wound the invisible strands of her power around and around the tower. She had siphoned energy from the Hierophants, her own daughters. Sure, it had weakened her troops, but resources had to be delegated. The carnage below was a single battle. Up there in the tower, she was about to win the war, for once and for all.

  Around and around and around she went until there was no escape, no hope for escape, and the tower was impenetrable to any spiritual power, even Death.

  When that was done, she flung her strands outward, far out into the world. Tingling and shining with the sorcery of the Deck of Worlds, the strands became a web — a vast, interconnected network of information, power, ritual. She linked her strands to the Sorrows, to the Hierophants, to the Deck itself. And of course, to her own seething, transforming abdomen.

  When she was done, the battle was well underway down below. Her troops would probably be routed, yes, but the palace was safe, and anyway, she was tired. She crawled through a window into the tower stairwell. Up above, her prey was trapped, utterly trapped, and for the first time since María Cantara had been born, La Contessa had the upper hand.

  Surely she did, she thought, as she folded her long arms and legs into herself and became a trembling ball in a shadowy nook on the underside of the stairs. But a murmur slid into her wincing mind as she drifted off to sleep. It was so quiet — barely audible beneath the din of battle, but it was definitely there, tinkling down from the top room in the tower above: a single laughing voice, speaking to no one at all in the middle of the night.

  Bah! La Contessa sputtered, trying to shake away the memory.

  Except it wasn’t a memory, not really, because the voice had kept up its incessant babbling all through the decades, on and on and on, and even now, an endless rattle of barely intelligible jibber-jabber, until La Contessa was unsure if she had been the one to imprison her dead daughter or the other way around. They were prisoners of each other, it seemed, trapped forever in an ongoing duel, like the sun and the moon.

  You will take the Deck of Worlds and relocate to New York City, La Contessa said to her startled daughters.

  But —

  THERE ARE NO BUTS. The shadowshapers are heading there next, and once they arrive, they will endeavor to set up a new power base within its boroughs. You must counteract their work. You must bring Lucera over to our side. She will join you, or she will be destroyed. If she replaces herself with a new Lucera, then that is who you will bring into the fold. The Sorrows must be complete once more for us to regain dominance.

  All three sisters bowed. Yes, Contessa.

  But before you go, you must handle another order of business. The Deck too is still incomplete. There are five Hierophants, you know. I have resisted filling the final slot, because I do not trust Death, but we are too weak to continue without his help. I am … depleted. That creature of darkness has sapped so much of my light, dear children. As long as the final Hierophant remains vacant, the Deck will be incomplete, and I will eventually waste away. You must give this role to Death. He is the only one strong enough to withstand this duty, to fill the role of the Reaper. Do you understand?

  Yes, Contessa.

  Meet him somewhere away from here. If we let him within the boundaries of this palace, he will destroy me and free María Cantara’s cursed spirit. She shook her head. This is what it had all come to. Now go.

  The Sorrows bowed. They hovered away amidst the never-ending murmur of their long-dead sister.

  Up in the tower, María Cantara walked a slow circle around the room and gazed out the window, along the strands of thread leading off into the world. There, in his wooden house not too far away, Angelo read from his book of shadowshaper folktales to his young nieces, María and Rosa. She spoke the scene aloud, added it to the ever-growing fabric of stories that filled the room around her.

  Farther off, in the bustling city of San Juan, Carmen and her husband, Lázaro, packed their suitcases and talked quietly about the future. Who would join them? What did this new life have in store for them? They held hands, then held each other, shook their heads at the hugeness of what was to come.

  A few blocks away, Cantara Cebilín sat at her spot by the window, watching the avenida slowly pass by. She sipped her cafecito and took in the warm afternoon sun, the bombastic strains of a new salsa hit coming from the restaurant around the corner, the wild cackle of bochinche from the other viejas on the block.

  She didn’t have to look up to know that Death now sat across the small fold-out table from her, in the shadows of her apartment.

  That morning, Carmen and Lázaro had told her they were moving to the mainland. Brooklyn, they’d said, a little apologetically, as if that would make it alright somehow. But it was alright any old how. It didn’t matter where. It was time for them to go, and Cantara Cebilín knew it as well as they did. And she knew, even then, that it would be time for her to go pretty soon too. She was, after all, very old, and she’d lived a very long, very beautiful life. She had had lovers and she’d even loved some of them. She’d woken up some days, some years even, as a man, and lived tha
t way, and other days, other years, as a woman. And sometimes as neither, and she’d lived that way too. And no one, but no one, could tell her otherwise or make her feel any way about it except ecstatic to be exactly who she was in that very moment.

  She’d fought hard and outmaneuvered the Sorrows at every turn, mastering the Deck of Worlds and beating them at their own game, time and time again. She hadn’t acquired the Deck itself, but she managed to keep Shadowhouse on top and deprived the House of Light of any real power beyond possession, thanks to La Contessa’s shortsightedness all those years back. And she’d helped a new group of young warriors rise who were inspired by those long-ago mountain men’s desperate struggle against the Yankee invaders.

  After Láz had left to pick up the girls from Tío Angelo’s spot out in El Yunque where they’d been staying, Cantara Cebilín had led her daughter into the bedroom. Carmen had known this was coming; there was no teary conversation the way there had been when María Cantara had performed the ritual on that desperate, fiery night. Carmen sat on the bed, waiting expectantly for what was about to happen, barely able to contain her own excitement.

  Good, Cantara Cebilín thought. She loved how excited her daughter was about the tradition, about the power she wielded and all that was yet to come. She wanted to give a grand speech the way María Cantara had, to pass on some wise and prophetic wisdom, but she found there was nothing to say when she searched herself.

  That Lázaro is a real piece of shit, she blurted out instead. Keep an eye on him.

  Carmen had rolled her eyes. Ay, Mami, por favor …

  Alright, alright. Cantara Cebilín sighed, putting her palm against her daughter’s forehead. Ya tú sabes.

  And now, hours later, Death sat across from her, grinning that never-ending Death grin. She pulled a filterless Conejo from her pack, offered him one. Death just stared at her. Suit yourself. She shrugged, lighting hers.

  It’s time, isn’t it, she said, after a few minutes of smoke and salsa and bochinche and seagulls and car horns had passed. Don’t answer that, I know. She grinned her own eerie rictus, which she’d been told many times had a certain creepy mystique to it. She enjoyed that. It was a good little ploy, my mami’s, no?