by D. J. Butler
“The audience hall?” Croom asked.
The deer nodded and raced away in long leaps.
Fftwarik led them on, directly toward the pyramid. As he drew closer, Abd al-Wahid’s estimate of the structure’s size grew. He also saw increasingly more detail: buttresses rising from lower levels to shore up higher ones, faces twisted in terror carved into the stone; windows and staircases; columns that appeared to support stone blocks above them as well as columns that looked merely painted on. He saw flaking paint, too—at some point, the entire structure appeared to have been painted in bright colors, but only splotches and flakes remained of that life.
Multiple holes gaped in the lower few levels of the stone pile; Fftwarik and Croom led the mamelukes up a crumbling staircase and into one of the openings. At no point did the beastkind suggest the Franco-Egyptian warriors should dismount.
The interior of the tunnel they entered was dark, warm, and wet. Their horses’ hooves, crisp on the frozen ground for days, now sounded with wet splashes. The tunnel seemed interminable…time passed, the splashing of hooves…and then a light appeared at its end.
A green light.
They emerged into a long hall. Here too, straight tree trunks rose like pillars as far as the eye could see, and overhead their branches grew together. But strangely, in this forest, there was no snow. Leaves filled the canopy overhead completely. Beneath the hooves of the mamelukes’ horses, springy green grass carpeted the ground.
Beyond the trees, Abd al-Wahid saw bees the size of horses. They had barbed stingers and cruel eyes, and they watched the mamelukes advance. Grotesque goats, with staggered pairs of horns sprouting from their shoulders and their backs, lurched from one bramble to the next.
The air was thick with the smell of cinnamon and blood.
The trees grew farther apart, the track rapidly becoming a hall. Abd al-Wahid rode past a broad pool with a stone fountain at its center, spouting tall plumes of water.
He had the curious sensation that there were more people with him now than he had brought with him into the hall. Beyond the trees he saw a white rhinoceros, covered in thick fur. Beside it frolicked a herd of horses no taller than Abd al-Wahid’s knee. On his other side, a creature like an ape, but with a low, rounded head and long nails, slowly crept down the trunk of an immense tree.
Am I riding my horse, or is this horse riding me?
The gigantic bees buzzed; they were distant, but the sound rang in his ear. The hum of the strange pollinators and the warm feel of the sunlight, however green, on his skin, made Abd al-Wahid doze in his saddle until he felt his mount stop. The abrupt bump opened his eyes.
On thrones of green water, flowing, filled with moving fishes, and yet impossibly holding their shape, sat the Heron King and two other creatures. To Abd al-Wahid’s left sat a goat with a sad mouth; to his right, lying back in the throne with his legs up over one arm, sat a man with the golden eyes of an owl.
The Heron King was a giant. He was twice the height of a man and very muscular. Fine feathers that might have been white or might have been iridescent and shining with an array of colors covered his entire body, which was man-shaped, but for his head. Mounted above immense, powerful shoulders, was a head the shape of a heron’s, with impenetrable eyes.
I know the Chevalier of New Orleans. The words pierced Abd al-Wahid’s heart directly, but the look in the Heron King’s eyes suggested that he was their source. I met him. He did not strike me as a giver of gifts.
“And yet he has sent us to offer you that which you most desire,” Abd al-Wahid said. He was standing, as were Ravi, al-Muhasib, and the mambo. He didn’t remember dismounting. Where had the horses gone?
The destruction of the world of men? The Heron King stood; in his hand he held a golden sword as long as a man’s body.
“An heir.”
You’re mistaken. I don’t want an heir. Simon Sword’s body trembled as he spoke.
The mambo Marie spoke up. “Yes, you do. You want an heir who is not Peter Plowshare.”
The bird-giant looked at the mambo with glittering eyes. What do you know of my desires, witch?
“You are a god,” the witch said coolly. “You envy men their freedom, because you can only do the things you were made to do. And the two things you were made to do are destroy and mate.”
You’re wrong. I do not mate. I breed.
“But to create an heir is to create Peter Plowshare, who will destroy you. For this reason, you have held off assailing Cahokia, and have instead fought her estranged sister in the woods.”
Abd al-Wahid marveled at the witch’s words. They must be informed by intelligence from the Chevalier. Or perhaps from her dark Africk gods?
Zomas is ever a thorn in my side, the Heron King insisted. It is a thorn to my father as well, when he reigns, though it is a thorn he coddles and tolerates.
“You fear the Serpent Queen, Sarah Calhoun. You fear her, and you are attracted to her.”
Enough! The Heron King sprang down from his throne and leaped among the mamelukes. With a single blow of his golden sword, he sliced al-Muhasib in two, from top to bottom. Without drawing a weapon, maybe without even seeing his death coming, the mameluke collapsed to the ground in two bloody halves. Make your offer, witch. I will accept, or I will kill you all.
Abd al-Wahid trembled, shocked. Al-Muhasib’s death had happened too quickly for him to even react, much less defend his man. Now he feared the Heron King’s words would be an irresistible lure to Ravi, who would respond with a joke, the timing of which would result in their immediate deaths.
But Ravi held his tongue.
This new world was blighted by its wicked gods.
“I am the gift the Chevalier sends you.” The woman held her head high. “And I am no slave; I offer myself of my free will. I have come to bear your heir, a son who will not be a child of the river and will not carry within him the taint of Eden. My womb is hexed and ready, O King, to bear you the child you wish to have.”
You cannot survive such a feat.
The mambo turned her chin upward. “My loa have given me great fertility magic, and have assured me that I will live to see the child born. This child…and its father…will save my people.”
The Heron King nodded slowly. Abd al-Wahid found that his hands were shaking. This is indeed a gift. And there was a message, you said. Perhaps an indication of what the chevalier would wish to have in return?
The witch nodded. “He invites you to invade New Orleans.”
* * *
Nathaniel and Margaret found a house that would take them in. They looked at an inn called the King Canute, at first—Nathaniel wanted to get in out of the cold, especially for Margaret’s sake, who would be left behind with Nathaniel’s body while Nathaniel went looking for Jake—but then Margaret wondered out loud whether the innkeeper would give them up to any Imperial soldiers who came asking.
They considered space in a half-filled stable alongside the King Canute, too. The bodies of horses, dogs, and one cow filled the stable with enough warmth to make the evening comfortable, if redolent. But at the last moment, Nathaniel worried that a traveler on the road might stable his horse here and find them.
Including a traveler who might be an Imperial officer.
Or someone in the pay of Temple Franklin.
Franklin had said he had an informer in Johnsland. Who could that be? The earl’s godi? One of the earl’s farmers? His pig-keeper, Murphy?
They trudged through snow to a farm a mile off the track. Margaret’s teeth were chattering loud enough by the time they reached the long farmhouse that Nathaniel had resolved to make this location work, even if meant using their stables. As it happened, the woman who answered the door heard Margaret’s teeth and admitted them at once.
Which turned out to be good, in that there were no separate stables. Three children dozed under furs on a wooden platform against one wall, and furs on a second platform were likely where the farmer and her husband slept. The h
ouse was a single long room, with the far end given over to two horses, two cows, and about a dozen chickens.
“My name is Sigrid Andersdottir,” the woman said. “My man there is Sören Håkansson.”
The man sat beside a hearth full of coals that lay on the short wall of the house, effectively heating both piles of sleeping furs.
“Thank you,” Margaret said.
“Chicago German?” Nathaniel asked. Sigrid and Sören both looked like the stories told of Albrecht von Wallenstein might be told of them instead. He thought that a small puppetlike sculpture of a man riding in a goat-cart, that sat on the mantel above the hearth, might represent Thor. If he was to the Chicago Germans what Thunor was to the Cavalier followers of the old gods, then he was here to bless the house and the marriage and the farm.
Sören grunted. “We could be. If we were in Chicago.” He laughed at his own joke with great merriment, despite the fact that no one else joined him.
“We were both born in the old world,” Sigrid said. “We came thinking we’d go to Waukegan, but once we landed, we found people who spoke our language right here in Pennsland. It was just easier to stay.”
“What about you?” Sören asked. “You speak with the long vowels of the Crown Lands, but she’s from the gulf and you both look like Yggdrasslinga. Are you married? You look alike, but they say that happens to married people over a long period of time.”
“It doesn’t,” Sigrid said. “If it did, you’d be handsome.”
Sören laughed even longer at Sigrid’s joke than at his own.
“Besides, look at them,” Sigrid continued. “They can’t be older than twenty. There is no long period of time with these children.”
“We’re sister and brother,” Nathaniel said. “But we were raised apart.”
Sören raised his eyebrows. “Raised that far apart? It’s an interesting family that has the resources to do that. Or is that broken.”
“We’re orphans,” Margaret said. “But a friend of the family recently found us both.”
“And musicians?” Sören pointed at Nathaniel’s drum. “Or some kind of clown that wears his clothing the wrong way?”
“That’s exactly right,” Nathaniel said. “A clown.”
That seemed to end Sören’s curiosity. At the same moment, he finished sharpening the ax. He stood, hung the ax from pegs on the wall, and stretched his back. “I rise early. It’s the cows. They have no mercy, and they don’t care what the weather is. But it means I must a-bed now.”
“Please,” Sigrid added. “We have milk and bread to share, and this humble bed will keep you warm. Sören and I will sleep with the children tonight.”
Nathaniel wanted to protest the hospitality, which seemed too much, but the truth was that he thought the bed would do very nicely for what he needed.
“You stuff these guests with bread and milk,” Sören said, “and I’ll go explore that queer little building behind the long house. We can eat them when I get back.”
Margaret laughed politely. Nathaniel feigned nervousness while Sören laughed.
“I’m joking,” the tall man finally said. “We don’t eat children. Anymore.”
Nathaniel and Margaret drank the warm milk with bread dipped in it and lay down directly. Nathaniel fought fatigue to stay awake; with his injuries still healing, it seemed even harder.
Where was the wiindiigo, the Yankee sorcerer who served the Necromancer and had attacked him in Johnsland, tonight? Could he possibly be Temple Franklin’s spy in Johnsland? That didn’t seem likely.
Soon the Germans had settled under the covers with their children. Within moments, one of them was breathing deeply and regularly, and fifteen minutes hadn’t passed before Nathaniel heard two adult snores from the shifting pile of arms and legs.
“Margaret?” he whispered.
“I’m awake,” she whispered back.
“I’m going to go find Jake.”
She had come to terms with the strangeness of this suggestion. Perhaps she connected it with her own experience of seeing Jake and Nathaniel in a dreamlike state and being freed from her bonds by them.
“There’s going to be a bear,” Nathaniel warned her.
“I’ve seen it.”
“His name is Makwa. He is…part of me. He is me. I don’t think he’ll hurt you, because I wouldn’t hurt you. But he’s there to defend me while I…look for Jake, so be careful.”
“Understood.”
Nathaniel drew his drum close by his side. With gentle fingers, he drummed a rhythm and sang:
I ride upon four horses, to heaven I ride
I seek my lost companion, a friend who’s died
I can ride two worlds, I will not be denied
I ride upon four horses, to heaven I ride
The seven-stepped ladder descended through a ceiling that faded into stars. Nathaniel sprang up the steps on horseback and found himself on the starlit plain.
He listened for his friend Jacob Hop, and heard nothing.
Terror stabbed him in his heart. Sarah—her city under siege, her life at risk—was counting on him to find a dead man and enlist his aid. And he was counting on Jake to help him interpret whatever he could learn from Isaiah Wilkes.
Thinking of the second man, Nathaniel held still and listened for Wilkes.
Nothing.
Panic seized him. Was Wilkes dead also?
What would Nathaniel do?
He assumed he’d find it as easy as it was to locate a living person. He’d spoken with the shade of Charles Lee, for instance.
But he hadn’t tracked Charles Lee. He’d found him because Charles was with the Earl. Nathaniel pondered the implications. If he was going to find deceased spirits, he was going to have to learn a new skill.
But to start with, he could try looking for Temple Franklin.
He listened.
Quickly enough, he heard Franklin yelling. Behind the Lightning Bishop’s grandson, Nathaniel heard the cry of a gull. Franklin was still aboard the ship.
Nathaniel followed the sound. He quickly descended a steep bluff onto white sand, and there he found Temple Franklin. The Emperor’s advisor stood on a raft, floating in a large pond. Three Dutchmen stood on the raft with him, holding a body. Franklin was cursing out the Dutchmen.
~I understand failure, Captain!~ Franklin snapped. ~What I don’t understand is your decision not even to try!~
The body was Jake’s. His eyes were open, but they darted back and forth and rolled wildly in his head.
The captain remained calm. ~I don’t answer to you and your Emperor. Maybe one day I will. But in the meantime, I am happy to explain to the Board of Directors that, in light of all the damage that young woman caused to my ship and crew, I made what I thought to be the prudent decision, and let them leave.~
Franklin shouted wordlessly and stomped off to the far corner of the raft.
The Dutchmen threw Jake into the pond and poled the raft away.
Jake stood. Water poured down his face and soaked his clothing, but he didn’t seem to notice. Whatever he was looking at was entirely invisible to Nathaniel—his eyes shot and rolled in all directions, and he whimpered.
What was wrong?
Nathaniel took a deep breath. First, in case Wilkes was in fact dead, Nathaniel should learn as much as he could about death from Jake. He turned his head slightly and listened as hard as he could.
The same background harmony that he heard on earth filled his ear here. He focused and tuned it out.
He heard Jake’s whimpers. There was something strange about them. He listened closer. He heard an echo when Jake made noise. He heard something else, too…
No, something was missing. Some piece was taken out of Jake’s voice, as if certain timbres had been suppressed.
The world harmony. Nathaniel relaxed, listened again, and realized what he was hearing. Jake’s voice was fading into the harmony of the world. That made it less distinct, but only across part of what Nathaniel heard. The mid
dle part, the part that normally gave Jake’s voice its character. If Nathaniel listened to the high parts, and also to the low parts of Jake’s voice, he heard the Dutchman just fine.
He took another deep breath and relaxed further.
Stepping back, he listened experimentally for Isaiah Wilkes. He’d heard the man’s voice only a few times, but for whatever reason—maybe it had to do with his ear—Nathaniel had a wonderful memory for sound. He listened for the chiming high tones and the rolling baritone underpinnings, and he heard Wilkes.
The other man was close.
Nathaniel saw a stream that fed into a pond. Not far away, just up a slight slope, Wilkes sat in that creek, rocking himself backward and forward and singing Elector songs.
The German duchies are sisters three
Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee
The Earl of Waukegan and the Knight of Green Bay
Five Electors speak High German today
Nathaniel would deal with Wilkes in time. First, he had to help Jake.
He drew close to his friend, hip-deep in water. Though they stood nose to nose, Jake didn’t respond to his presence at all.
Jake was seeing something else.
His spirit was here. Nathaniel was interacting with his spirit.
What was causing him to see something else, then? His mind? His eyes? His memory?
Six Electors from the people of the longhouse
Six great sachems from Erie’s shore
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga
Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora
Six Electors from the people of the longhouse
Six mighty nations forevermore
Jake said he remembered another life, other lives. Lives that weren’t his, lives in which the Heron King, as the reaver Simon Sword, wreaked great destruction. After death, he was still experiencing those memories. Now—perhaps because his physical flesh was no longer softening the impact of the memories?—the memories were incapacitating him entirely.
But what could Nathaniel do about memories?