They told him their story. Talking all through the night, interrupting each other on points of disagreement.
The voice put an end to the bickering. “You sound like brothers. In my country we believe that there are Five Great Relationships—ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, friend and friend. A fortunate man can experience all five. Save your fighting energy. It will seem trivial if you do not make it out of here. Save it for the day that we will need it.”
“What happened to the man in your cell?” asked Jupiter. “Go on with the story.”
“Oh yes, the story . . . One day we were interrupted by the return of the bird. Xiao Pei closed its wings and pulled it gently through the bars. It carried a different message bound to its leg. Xiao Pei smiled. ‘We will be leaving very soon,’ he said to me.”
• • •
Archer had a strange dream that night . . .
“You two, up.” Guards unlocked the cell and led Jupiter and Archer out, down a long corridor.
Archer’s heart beat loud and fast. There was a shaft of light, an opening at the end of the hallway looking out onto a large courtyard where three empty nooses waited to be filled.
Archer stopped, dragging his heels.
“Move,” said the guard, as he jabbed Archer in the side with his club.
Jupiter moved in front of the guard, but they hit Archer again.
“Move now.”
The guards pushed Archer and Jupiter forward. The nooses grew closer. Closer.
“Here.” The guards pushed them to the left of the opening, which led to another hallway with smooth steps and gilded wall panels with jade inlays. They were led up the step and into a room bursting with colors that dazzled the mind with hundreds of Oriental cartoons depicting events, of which they did not know, but which must have been of importance.
“On your knees.” They did as instructed.
A man sat in an ornate wooden chair. He wore long silk robes and smoked from a long, thin pipe. Archer recognized the smoke instantly. His mouth began to water.
“You men fought wars?” asked the seated man.
“Answer him.”
“Yes,” said Archer.
“Did the two of you fight on the same side of the war?”
Jupiter glanced at Archer.
“No,” said Archer. “We did not fight on the same side.”
“You,” the man said to Jupiter. “Your side won, did it not?”
Jupiter looked down. “Yes.”
“And now you are free.”
All of his men laughed.
“You,” he said to Archer, “were on the losing side.”
Archer nodded.
“And you have to live with it every day. I know what that is like. We too must live with losing every day. Looking at the men who beat us in the war, reminded of it every time we see them. It eats at the soul. But you know this, all too well.”
Archer looked up, met eyes with the man.
“Yes,” said Archer.
“Did you lead men? Either of you?”
They were silent.
The man clapped his hands. Two men carried in a large crate, and placed it in front of the seated man. He motioned Archer and Jupiter over to the crate—a mess of what could have once been called weapons, but now was wood and corroded metal, a bunch of loose and unassociated parts.
“This,” said the man, “is what the British sold to us. We had to buy this useless heap. Why? Because after our defeat, we are not allowed to arm ourselves with the best that modern weaponry has to offer. They sell us the garbage of western wars.”
Archer took a closer look at the weapons. Some of them were used by the South. One gun had the letters CSA—Confederate States Army—crudely carved into the butt.
“You men are familiar with these weapons?” asked the robed man.
“We are,” answered Jupiter.
“Good. I need you to repair these weapons. Once you have repaired them, you will teach my men how to use them.”
Jupiter looked at the weapons again. There were plenty of loose parts to put something together, maybe a makeshift pistol.
Archer spoke up. “Sir, we are not engineers.”
Jupiter nudged him. “We will gladly do our best.”
“Good,” said the robed man. “I think you have made the right decision.”
The dream advanced as Archer and Jupiter went about repairing the guns the best they could. Jupiter cobbled together spare parts that he hoped to make into a weapon for his own use. Those that they did manage to salvage, they used to secretly teach the men ways to improve their aim. But a man that Archer did not recognize was displeased with this.
“You are training them,” said the man, “but for what? Didn’t I tell you we would be freed from this place? I never said it would be easy. It may get ugly. You are training these men to be better—to be better at preventing our escape.”
Archer then realized who the man was. “Listen,” said Archer, “that was a nice trick with the bird and all. You send it out, it comes back, we get our hopes up thinking there’s some savior out there. This is the best plan we have. We have our hands on weapons every day, and when the time is right, we’ll use those weapons. Yeah, we are training them how to shoot, but we are not training them well.”
“I see,” said the man. “I guess we all will see.”
The dream continued, advancing rapidly as dreams tend to do.
Archer and Jupiter huddled.
“I think the weak point is here.” Jupiter drew a figure in the dirt floor. “Now if we can go around here,” he drew a semicircle, “I think the men coming at us have a blind spot, and we can take out a lot of them before they have time to come around here,” he drew an arc in reverse, “and come at us from behind.”
“That’s good, but if we can manage to get above this, we can have at least a one-hundred-eighty-degree view,” Archer made an arc of his own, “and we could see either side—whoever’s approaching—and pick them off that way.”
Jupiter looked at his plan, then looked at Archer’s. He had to smile. “How’d you boys ever lose?”
. . . Archer awoke in the cell, excited about the possibility of escape. He looked around the cell, at Jupiter still asleep, and at the bare floor where a plan should have been. Nothing was there. Reality set in, the excitement faded, and Archer went back to sleep.
• • •
Jupiter and Archer were slapped awake and snatched from their cell. Yerby’s men led them through the jungle. They were silent until they reached a clearing. They walked to the edge of a precipice and looked down: hundreds of sun-bleached bones. They heard Yerby approach them. “Who is Barrett’s connection in Shanghai?”
Jupiter felt something cold and hard press against the back of his neck. It was a strange relief from the island sun. “I don’t know,” said Jupiter.
The gun went off, triggered deafness, and then a ringing in his ears. He must have been shot. Jupiter waited for the world to go black. When it did not, he checked himself for injuries—there were none. He looked at Archer, kneeling over the savage boneyard; he hadn’t been shot.
“Who is Barrett’s contact?” Yerby asked again.
“I do not know.” Jupiter’s head jerked back. Yerby stood over him. The gun barrel came into view and pressed against his forehead.
“I won’t ask again,” said Yerby.
“I—”
“Not you.” Yerby looked at Archer. “Tell me or I will pull the trigger.”
“We don’t know,” said Archer.
Jupiter closed his eyes.
Yerby pressed the barrel harder. A bead of sweat fell from his brow and met with Jupiter’s. He pulled the gun away. A ringed island of raised flesh appeared. Yerby knelt and kissed him on it. “I be
lieve you.”
• • •
Yerby’s men tossed them back into their cell.
“You are still alive,” said the voice in the other cell. “I was not worried. I am just reminding you.”
Jupiter and Archer remained silent.
“I can finish my story now,” said the voice.
“No one’s in the mood for stories,” said Jupiter.
“No, you need to hear this. One night, Xiao Pei woke me. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked. I heard nothing at first, and then the drums. ‘It is time,’ said Xiao Pei. For what? I asked. The drums grew louder. For what? I asked again. The drums grew louder still, and then the cell wall was blown open. ‘For that,’ said Xiao Pei. There was smoke and dust from the cannon fire.
“When the smoke and dust settled, I could see out into the night air, the silhouette of mountains, the glimmering sea. ‘Down here,’ Xiao Pei said. I looked out over the edge. A lone figure was twirling something on a rope. He let it go—it soared, and caught the edge of the cell. It was a grappling hook. ‘Come, let us be like the bird,’ Xiao Pei said as he went down. . . . That was the last I ever saw of him.”
“That’s it?” said Archer. “That’s your story of escape—a fairy tale?”
“It all happened as I say,” said the voice.
“Then why are you still here?” said Jupiter.
“Because at the time I believed escape was impossible—even when the chance to be free presented itself, I did not believe it. I hesitated and these walls rebuilt themselves before me. Xiao Pei was free forever, while I remained imprisoned.”
Jupiter rested his head in his hands. “Escape is impossible. You were right.”
“I knew that before his story,” said Archer.
“No, do not say that. You said you would help free me. It was improbable, but not impossible. I need you to see that if we are ever to escape this place.”
53
Liberia
Sebastian neared the end of his routine. They were dazzled by his sleight of hand when he started, but now he could sense that they had grown weary. “Is this your card?” he asked the young woman in the front row. She nodded, and everyone clapped politely. To close the show he needed something astounding. He would display the powers of telepathy through mind reading and mentalism. This was usually done by the manipulation of language and the validation of what the person already believed, but as he looked at the stoic faces of the audience, he was unsure if he had overstayed his welcome.
The most beautiful woman in the house sat in the first row. He already knew her name. Mary. It was no accident that she was there. He walked over to her and stared in her eyes. “May I call you Mary?”
“Yes,” she whispered. The audience was silent.
He held her wrists gently. “Mary, have we ever met before?”
She looked at the vigilant mulatto in the corner. “No.” She was truthful.
“Mary, I am receiving a message from beyond. I am going to tell you details about your life. Are you willing to listen?”
“Yes.”
“Good, Mary.” He closed his eyes and brought her hand to his temple, the audience stirring a bit as he did so. His eyes danced under their lids as he received the song from Beyond. “You came here after slavery.”
“Didn’t we all?” someone joked.
“No,” continued Sebastian. “You were freed on a man’s deathbed. The conditions were that you leave and come to this new Paradise of the Negro.”
Mary gasped. “Yes.” He felt her fingers tense.
“Lucky guess,” said the same heckler.
“You don’t miss the pain of slavery, but you do miss the sweet smell of Georgia air. You dream of peaches, do you not?”
“Yes.”
“And you dream of the red clay beneath your feet. The friendships you had there, you wonder what happened to the people that were dearest to you. You wonder, especially, about one person in particular, don’t you, Mary?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You wonder, Mary, you wonder whatever happened to Sonya.”
Her eyes welled up. The tall mulatto approached and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Darling, do you want me to stop this?”
“Sir,” Sebastian interrupted. “Do not interrupt my concentration. It could be very dangerous. We are in communication with the Other World. Our minds, your wife and I, are linked. Mary, shall I continue?”
Mary nodded.
“You wonder if she survived, if she made it through the hell of war. Did her mind break free of the shackles of slavery, you wonder. Is she forgotten in some unmarked ditch?”
Mary began to tremble.
“You wonder, Mary, why you have been so fortunate. You wonder, why you and not her. You wonder if she ever thought of you after you left.”
Mary sobbed. “It’s true. It’s all true.”
The crowd grumbled.
“I do wonder. I do.”
Mary’s husband snatched her hand away from Sebastian. “Sir, I demand that you stop this madness at once.”
“It’s all right, Robert,” she said, stroking his face.
“Madam,” said Sebastian, “I now know why I was drawn to you, why I felt such a pull. I have no control over the information sent to me from the Other Side. It merely materializes when the connection is made with the mind of the other person.” He stared at her husband as he reached for Mary’s hands.
His posture stiffened, but the husband looked on.
“I hate to see you in such a state, but I can only reveal what is true, not what is easy or convenient.”
“It was such a long time ago,” said Mary as she brushed away a tear. “But I do think of her often.”
“I know that you do. I can tell you from experience, Mary, that thoughts are not just thoughts—thoughts are wishes, thoughts are real. They are very powerful and they have protected her. Sonya is alive and she is here.”
“What?” Mary looked around the room.
“No, Mary, not here in this room, but in this country. It is true.”
Previously, on the Orpheus . . .
Sebastian listened at the door. No one approached. He opened Sonya’s bag and looked through it. The first objective in magic, and in seduction, is to gather information. In order to cast the appropriate spell, he needed to seem to know more about her than she was willing to reveal. Clothes, money, a book of poems by Phillis Wheatley, a wooden soldier for the boy, a locket . . . and letters.
Sebastian read them. A clearer image of Sonya emerged. He learned of the manumission of and separation from her friend Mary. He learned about Jupiter and the truth about Jacob.
“Will you teach me another trick?” Jacob asked him, later that evening.
Sebastian rolled over in his bed. “I think I’ve taught you enough tricks. It’s time for you to seek out things on your own—the same way I did.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said, and I have kept my promise. I taught you some things that others would die to know. Now you go out and add to the knowledge I’ve given you.”
“But—”
“I can’t teach you everything I know—it’s not my job to. I’m not your father. If you want to learn some new tricks then go ask your mother. She’s quite good at crafting illusions.”
Those were the last words Sebastian said to Jacob before leaving the Orpheus. He hoped for a chance to not have those words weigh upon his conscience.
• • •
“That was quite a show you put on at my house the other evening.” Robert was one of Liberia’s wealthy merchants, the son of a Dutch merchant and a Negro woman. He had connections that most of the Negroes in Liberia did not have.
“I hope there are no hard feelings,” said Sebastian. “I was only doing my best to showcase my talents.”
“And you succeeded,” said Robert. “I am sure that some members in the audience were persuaded to invest in your playhouse.”
Sebastian thought he detected a smirk under the dense brush that was Robert’s mustache. “Well, whatever becomes of it, I thank you for allowing me to perform in your home, and providing me an audience with Liberia’s finest.”
“Don’t mention it. I am sure something will come of it. My wife was quite taken with you—and she is adored by some of Monrovia’s most respected families. But surely, you must have known that.”
“How so?” asked Sebastian.
“Well, by your performance of . . . mind reading. You knew things that my wife has only confessed to me in darkness and the warmth of our bed.”
Sebastian became aware of how hot it was. He swallowed. “It was merely a trick, Robert. Nothing more.”
“Don’t feign modesty. It was certainly more than a trick. However, I’m sure that whatever becomes of your ambitions, Liberia will find a use for your talents.”
There was a long silence between them. Uniformed men marched past Sebastian and the merchant as they strolled along the town’s main road. “Liberia’s armed forces,” Robert said to Sebastian. The troops stopped in the plaza and continued their exercises. They lacked cohesion, thought Sebastian, and they were a motley group ranging in age from sixteen to sixty. “Mind you, it’s all for show,” continued the merchant. “All designed to make us feel safe. Who knows what we would do if another skirmish were to erupt right now. They may be holding the entirety of our arms. The armory is as bare as a pauper’s pockets.”
Sebastian looked confused. “We have no weapons?”
“Not many, but we have debt. You’d be surprised to know how difficult it is for a black republic to buy weapons though the legitimate channels. It’s all very convenient, mind you. It was not that long ago that we found French naval officers trying to make deals with the native chiefs along the coast. They plied them with all sorts of temptations and bribes—iron, rum, and, of course, guns. When we appealed to our fathers and uncles in Washington and London, the French eased. But why did they do it? They were looking to claim most of Liberia for themselves—the precious bays and coves—and they will make deals with the natives to get what they want.”
The Abduction of Smith and Smith Page 18