Witchy Kingdom

by D. J. Butler

  She lay on a narrow net hammock. Her wrists were shackled together, as were her ankles. Her aura was the color Sarah had come to expect of all her family, but there was a sick patina to it—something was wrong with her.

  Sarah didn’t think her sister was restrained by a spell, but the young woman might indeed be kept deep in sleep by a drug.

  “Margaret!” she yelled.

  Her sister didn’t move. Gripping Luman’s dagger, Sarah poked its tip into the palm of her hand until it bled. “Pharmacum extraho.” She willed her own soul to act like a siphon drawing the noxious substance from her sister’s veins and then her own. Margaret’s aura slowly changed to an acceptable color, like Nathaniel’s, like Sarah’s own. Sarah looked down and saw black liquid the thickness of molasses drip from her own hand into the grass.

  Margaret stirred.

  “Sororem evigilo,” Sarah incanted. Reversing the knife, she stabbed her other palm.

  Margaret shrieked and threw herself forward. The chains on her wrists and ankles limited her movement, but they didn’t fix her in place, and her sudden motion hurled her sideways. The hammock spun and opened, dropping her onto a wooden floor.

  “Margaret!” Sarah shouted. “Margaret!”

  But Margaret didn’t hear her. Margaret had neither her eye, nor her brother’s ear, and she and Sarah were in a one-way contact only. What did Margaret have, then?

  Sarah’s sister lurched to her feet. She tottered back and forth, wrestling with the chains at her wrist and grunting. Sarah gripped the knife in her hands, preparing to help her sister with her chains—

  when she noticed her sister’s hair.

  It was rising. The curly hair slithered upward and outward, until Margaret Elytharias Penn looked like a black-spored dandelion ready to explode on the autumn wind.

  Her face was twisted into a red snarl.

  Margaret gripped the manacle on her left wrist with her right hand. Ripping suddenly, she tore it from her flesh, the iron peeling apart like the skin of an orange. Just as quickly, she yanked off the other manacle.

  She didn’t even stop to waste effort on the chains on her ankles. Leaping forward, she shattered them with the force of her stride.

  With one swing of a balled fist, Margaret shattered the door to her cabin. “Nathaniel!” she roared. “Jake!”

  She didn’t need Sarah anymore, and Sarah had other things to do.

  Also, Sarah was faint from sleeplessness and effort.

  “Visionem termino.” She returned to Wisdom’s Bluff.

  * * *

  Nathaniel sprang upward into the grassy plain of the sky, drumming and singing:

  I ride upon four horses, to heaven I ride

  I ride to seek my father, all iron inside

  A king of the Ohio, a Penn his bride

  O Lion of Missouri, where do you ride?

  He listened first for any sound of the Sorcerer Robert Hooke. The man was away in the west, and near him was the heavy creaking sound of something enormous being moved by cart. Men cursed and whips cracked. In his heart, Nathaniel felt dread.

  Was this an act of healing, or would this journey leave him feeling ill?

  He listened for his father.

  He wasn’t sure what he was listening for, exactly. He tried listening for a voice that sounded like his own. He thought he heard more than one, wisps of unknown family members coming to him from multiple directions over the astral breeze.

  But Sarah had said that their father was near her, in some sense. He listened for Sarah instead. He heard her immediately.

  His horses carried him across the plain quickly, the silver breeze of starlight filling his hair and pooling in his tricorn hat. In the west, at a junction of two creeks, he found a low, rocky hill. Two strangers stood at the bottom of the hill in long coats. One was a woman with long red hair and a saber in her hand; the other was a man with curly dark hair, spectacles, and a trumpet-propelled hymn that leaked from his sleeves and collar.

  Nathaniel rode to the top of the hill and found three more people. Two he knew, or at least, he’d seen them before. His sister Sarah knelt and held an iron ball in both her hands. Behind Sarah rose a tree wrapped in a serpent; a spring bubbled from the tree’s roots and a barefoot woman stood, cooling her toes in the spring’s water. He had last seen that woman mourning alone on a hill—her expression now was one of contentment, like a woman at rest, watching her happy children play.

  The third person was a warrior. He was a tall man with sharply Cahokian features—a long nose, a complexion the color of china, and long, black hair. He wore a Cahokian tunic and cape, boots rising to above his knees, with crossed pistols on his belt and an empty scabbard at his hip.

  He looked like Sarah and Margaret. And like Nathaniel.

  Sarah looked at Nathaniel and smiled. “Welcome, brother.”

  “Thank you for freeing me.”

  “Can you find our father?”

  “He’s standing right beside you.”

  Sarah shivered. “I don’t see him.”

  “He sees you,” Nathaniel said. “He’s smiling.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  Nathaniel considered. He held out his hand and Sarah took it, putting away the iron sphere she carried and rising to her feet. Then he held out his other hand to his father.

  Kyres Elytharias, the Lion of Missouri.

  Kyres took Nathaniel’s hand. A tingle of life and energy rushed through his arm. The feeling made him want to leap and run for joy. It startled him so much he almost dropped his father’s hand.

  Sarah’s mouth dropped open. Then she extended her free hand—

  and Kyres took it.

  “Father,” she said.

  ~What did your mother name you?~ the Lion of Missouri asked.

  “I’m Sarah.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Sarah Elytharias Penn. I was raised as a foster child by Iron Andy Calhoun.”

  “I’m Nathaniel Elytharias Penn,” Nathaniel said. “I was fostered by Earl Isham of Johnsland. Noah Carter Isham.”

  Kyres Elytharias nodded. ~Good men.~

  “You have a third child,” Nathaniel added. “She’s with me.”

  “Margaret Elytharias Penn.” Joy shone in Sarah’s face, and pride in being the bearer of a welcome message. “She grew up as a Catalan, with Montserrat Ferrer i Quintana.”

  ~Another friend,~ the Lion said.

  Far away, Nathaniel heard a rumbling sound. It resembled thunder, only it had a basso note of wickedness and despair. He frowned.

  “I have so many questions,” Sarah said.

  ~I can try to answer them,~ their father replied. ~But, living or dead, I am but a man. And there are some questions I can only answer in the right time and place.~

  Sarah laughed, a sweet rolling sound with a bitter note in it. “Alzbieta Torias said a similar thing. And it turned out, she was mostly bluffing. She knew very little of the royal secrets.”

  ~I only ever knew very little of them myself,~ Kyres said. ~In life.~

  “And now?” Nathaniel asked. The line between life and death had come to seem thin and arbitrary to him. If the dead knew vastly more than the living, could Nathaniel access that information?

  ~Some limitations fall away with the mortal coil,~ Kyres said. ~Time. The veil of ignorance.~

  “Were you ever King of Cahokia?” Sarah asked.

  ~I was crowned and anointed by the Metropolitan in the Basilica, in full view of all the city and beneath the Lady’s doves. In a sense, that crowning and anointing was a lie.~

  “The lamp in the Basilica is a stand-in for the Serpent Throne,” Sarah said. “A symbol, a proxy. Being crowned and anointed in the presence of that lamp is a statement to the kingdom that you have ascended the Throne and sat on it.”

  ~Say rather that it is a promise to the people that you will ascend the Throne.~ Kyres’s voice was sorrowful.

  “Only you never did.”

  Kyres shook his head. ~I never was crowned and anointed
beneath the Lady’s ravens. My failure didn’t matter in the eyes of the other Electors, or the Empress. For the secular world, I was the King of Cahokia.~

  “And for the goddess?”

  ~I was Her Beloved. But I never became more than that.~

  “You were a great king,” Sarah said. “You’re a legend.”

  ~I worked hard to make up for my failure. If I couldn’t put myself into the proper place in the cosmos, I could put other wrongs right. I fought for justice. I sacrificed for peace. I do not regret my failure to be anointed.~

  “How could you regret anything?” Sarah asked. “You did so much.”

  ~I should have forgiven more.~

  Sarah looked surprised. She was silent for a moment. “Do you mean Bayard?”

  The Lion smiled. ~In death, I have forgiven Bayard. In life, I had nothing to forgive him. I mean my brother Thomas. I mean my wife Hannah. I mean myself. I mean everyone. Forgiveness is eternal life.~

  “Your people miss you,” Sarah said.

  ~They have you now,~ he answered. ~They are much the better for it.~

  “It was your lack of knowledge of the royal secrets,” Nathaniel said. “That’s why you never ascended the Throne.”

  Kyres nodded. ~I looked long and hard. I gathered scraps of old poetry. My mother taught me what she could. She was never the Beloved, but her husband had been in his youth. And therefore she knew very little, too. Her husband, my father, came to manhood under the influence of the Metropolitan. He was a man who hated the goddess and all Her gifts. He did everything he could to destroy the royal lore wherever he found it.~

  “And now?” Sarah asked. “Now that the veil of ignorance has fallen away, do you know the royal secrets?”

  Kyres nodded.

  “Will you teach them to me?”

  ~When you reach me, I will,~ Kyres said. ~In the right time and place.~

  “At the Throne,” Sarah said.

  ~At the Throne. You will need two guides to bring you to me there, across the forest of the world and over the abyss of hell.~

  “You’re my third guide,” Sarah said. “Three worlds, three guides. Luman Walters was right.”

  Kyres nodded.

  “How do I cleanse the Throne?” Sarah asked. “It’s polluted. Things have happened.”

  ~The Throne was attacked and deliberately befouled.~

  “Because the Serpent Throne is the goddess,” Sarah said.

  ~Yes. You have the power to do what I could not. You can enclose the space again, make it sacred. Draw the veil.~

  “I have the Heronplow.”

  ~I entered Peter Plowshare’s kingdom and asked to borrow it. As I rode my borders, dispensing justice, I was also riding his. In his old age, he was weakened, and his grip over the beastkind was slipping, so I was his great ally in the Missouri. There are other rites, older rites, that could consecrate the Great Mound, but I didn’t know them. I knew the golden plow could do the work, but Peter Plowshare wouldn’t relinquish it.~

  “I thought he was the great giver of gifts,” Sarah said. “Dispenser of civilization and all that. Seems stingy not to share the plow a bit.”

  ~He was too weak to come plow the bounds himself. And he was afraid that if I gave him the Heronblade in exchange, he would die holding the sword.~

  “Empowering his destroyer son-self.” Sarah’s shoulders drooped. “Father, I…”

  ~I know.~ Kyres gripped both their hands fiercely. ~I know. You did what you had to do. You did the right thing. It wasn’t a perfect choice, because there is no perfect choice, but you restored the starved Treewall and the desecrated Sunrise Mound. You became the Beloved. You fed your people.~

  “I walked through a tree root, too,” Sarah said. “Kinda proud of that one.”

  ~So am I.~

  “I’m afraid if I just run the plow around the Great Mound now, it will be…wrong,” Sarah said. “And dangerous. Like, I should be enclosing sanctity, but instead I’d be enclosing a pollution.”

  Nathaniel felt awe at his sister’s words. He found himself barely able to follow the conversation with his father, much less contribute to it. Sarah, on the other hand, seemed completely comfortable with all the talk of sanctity, ritual magic, enthronement, desecration, and divine rebellion.

  He felt proud of Sarah, too.

  ~The Serpent Throne is cleansed by sacrifice.~

  Sarah was so still she seemed not to be breathing. “I’ve heard…rumors. You don’t mean a blood sacrifice? I don’t have to kill someone?”

  Kyres shook his head. ~The goddess doesn’t call you to kill. You must decide your sacrifice. And as what you ask is great, what you give must be great.~

  Sarah looked thoughtful. “I understand. And…two guides?”

  ~I cannot help you.~ Kyres shifted and looked into Nathaniel’s face. His father’s eyes were deep as time itself, and at the bottom, stars twinkled. ~But Nathaniel can.~

  “I don’t know any royal secrets,” Nathaniel said.

  ~The royal secrets never go away,~ Kyres said. ~To say that they are lost only means that those who should know them do not. But they are dispersed in the world, and lie buried under fallen logs and written in flaming letters on the hilltops. Who has ears, can always hear.~

  “You mean they’re hidden in plain sight,” Sarah said.

  “Jacob Hop,” Nathaniel said.

  “The Tarocks?” Sarah’s astonishment showed on her face.

  The Lion of Missouri said nothing.

  “But who else?” Nathaniel’s mind raced. Ma’iingan, maybe, the Ojibwe man who had rescued Nathaniel and set him, with the help of Ma’iingan’s own manidoo, his personal guardian spirit, on the trail of transformation and healing?

  Or Ma’iingan’s manidoo, perhaps?

  “Thalanes?” Sarah’s face was hopeful. “Our mother? You don’t mean…Zadok? The Metropolitan?”

  Kyres shook his head patiently, and he looked into Nathaniel’s eyes again. ~You will find your sister’s guides.~

  “I’ll do it,” Nathaniel agreed. Could Kyres be referring to their third sibling, Margaret? That didn’t seem likely.

  Temple Franklin? He shuddered at the thought.

  The thunder-like sound cracked again, louder this time, and Nathaniel shrank at the horror of it, nearly losing his grip on his father’s and his sister’s hands. “What’s that?”

  ~The goddess is under attack in Her own city,~ Kyres Elytharias said. ~She needs you.~

  He released their hands and stepped back.

  The feeling of energy flowing through Nathaniel’s body vanished, and he gasped. Sarah looked as if she had been struck.

  “Sarah?”

  “Go,” she said. “You and Margaret, get yourselves off that ship.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Save my city.” Sarah smiled. “Only really, I think all I can do is hold out until you figure out who my guides are supposed to be.”

  “What about the Luman Walters person you talked about?”

  “Maybe. Only the Lion said you would find the person.” Sarah shrugged. “Someone hidden in plain sight, I guess. Let me know when you figure out who it is.”

  With a heart heavy with doubt, Nathaniel turned and raced his horse-drum across the starlit plain.

  * * *

  Bill’s heart sank. The end was approaching.

  Sarah hadn’t returned. The food supplies were beginning to run low. Now the Imperials had cannons.

  And not just any cannons.

  The guns were long and elaborately carved. Even looking through a spyglass, Bill couldn’t make out the writing around the guns’ mouths, but he knew it was there. The weapons and their inscriptions were as famous as their commander.

  General Theophilus Sayle had been an artillery captain in the Spanish War. In the retaking of New Orleans, he had been frustrated by a series of gun misfires, and had ordered a new cannon cast. To give it more power, it was said, he had had a New Testament verse forged into the gun’s metal: I will giv
e unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

  Some men understood that inscription as an act of magic, or of faith. To Bill, it looked like a soldier’s joke—Captain Sayle had been ordered to get inside the City of New Orleans. Lacking a key, he forged himself one.

  Not that the city of New Orleans was often mistaken for the kingdom of heaven.

  Regardless, since the Bible verse in question was (apparently) a reference to St. Peter, the gun came to be called the Peter. Before the siege was over, he had forged the James (he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder) and the Matthew (there shall not be left here one stone upon another).

  Now all Twelve Apostles stared at Bill, lined up on the eastern city of the city, all laid at the eastern wall.

  “Our own guns don’t have the range to touch them,” Jaleta Zorales said.

  Bill sighed. “Thank you.”

  “They’re beyond the Necromancer’s screen of black fire,” Sherem added. “I don’t think we can penetrate that shield with an arcane attack.”

  “And thank you,” Bill said.

  “The cannons arrived with a mob of reinforcements,” Valia Sharelas said. “Those trenches are packed with Imperial troops.”

  Bill couldn’t force himself to utter another word of thanks. Instead, he grunted.

  “I have ordered boats built of all available wood,” Maltres Korinn said. “If our soldiers can give our people cover in a sustained volley from the western wall, we can put as many of our people as possible in the river to escape.”

  “I do not like running away,” Bill grumbled. “And there are the beastkind. But I prefer it to certain death.”

  “The other priests and I are all fasting and praying for deliverance,” Zadok Tarami said.

  Bill turned from surveying the enemy to glare at the priest. “As little as I like hearing bad news, I prefer it to useless air.”

  Tarami frowned. “Do you find God—”

  “Get down off the wall,” Bill growled, “or I’ll shoot you.”

  “Help may yet arrive,” Cathy said softly. “Messengers did get through the cordon.”