by D. J. Butler
One was the Sorcerer Robert Hooke. The other seemed to be a naked child.
“I’d give both my legs for more silver bullets right now,” Cathy Filmer said. She fired anyway, and so did Bill, but if they hit Hooke or the child, the targets gave no sign of it.
“Gentlemen,” Bill said. “This is the end. It has been an honor.”
There was a rumble of general agreement.
Hooke and the child stopped above the scorched, bloodied, and mangled heap of beastkind flesh. Hooke laughed, a dry, rasping sound.
“You still have time to surrender!” Bill roared.
So very droll. Hooke smiled. But my lord shall not give thee the same opportunity. He has come to perform his great sacrifice.
The child had white eyes, and his skin was deathly pale. He spoke into Bill’s mind, Hooke-fashion, and his voice was a grating jangle, as if two church bells were being slammed together to their mutual destruction.
Son of man, can these bones live?
Hooke’s lord? Bill stared at the floating child.
“It’s Oliver Cromwell,” Cathy murmured. “The Necromancer.”
Gazelem spat.
“What you offer isn’t life!” Bill shouted.
The child-Cromwell stared at him, his mouth a flat line. Then he raised one hand, palm-down and level with his own shoulder. Rise, he said in his hideous shriek of a voice. Take up your weapons and walk.
Chikaak stood first. The coyote-headed beastman stared at Bill with flat, lightless eyes, and his canine jaw hung slackly.
Behind him, the other dead beastmen stood. Each picked up his bayonet, and they staggered up the mound toward its last defenders.
“Damn you!” Bill fired twice at Cromwell, and he was certain he hit the boy-Necromancer. The dead flesh showed no sign of the attacks.
Cromwell and Hooke rose together vertically and turned their attention toward the Temple of the Sun. The black fire loomed closer. It was now as tall as the Great Mound. The flames licked in, as if trying to enclose the city under a dome of dark flame.
Sarah’s former beastkind, now dead, charged.
Behind them and almost caught up, rose a wave of Imperial blue.
“Fire!” Bill yelled.
* * *
On horseback, Etienne, Achebe, and Monsieur Bondí rode east of the city. Loud shadows under the moss-draped oaks hinted at beastkind on this side of New Orleans as well, but the two men rode fast and didn’t stop until they arrived at Bishopsbridge.
On the other side of the Mississippi, a string of lights trailed out to the east and south. At this distance, they looked like fireflies, but they must have been fires. Torches and campfires.
“Stay here.” Etienne slipped off the back of his horse and ran up the stone. As he rose toward its height, he hunched down to keep out of sight of whatever approached from the other side.
Behind him, he heard the running feet of his two men. He shook his head at their disobedience, but their loyalty lightened his heart.
Ahead, the clatter of hooves on stone. Two horses, he thought.
Etienne straightened to his full height and raised his chin.
The two men approaching on horseback wore Spanish colors: blue jackets and red trousers. They weren’t lancers, but some kind of scout, armed with pistols and sabers.
“Stop!” Etienne shouted.
The two riders reined in their animals. “Who goes there?”
“I am Etienne Ukwu. Identify yourselves.”
“We are the allies of the Chevalier of New Orleans,” one man said. He was the heavier of the two, and the shorter. With the lights at their backs, Etienne couldn’t see the men’s faces.
If only they were women, the Brides would give him power over them.
“Your accent is Spanish,” Etienne said slowly. “And you say you are the chevalier’s allies, not his servants. Has the Gaspard Le Moyne sold himself to New Spain, then? I believe that would be an act of treason under the Compact. Levying war against the Empire.”
The second rider grabbed for his pistol, and Etienne heard the crack of a firearm at his ear. The rider flopped from his saddle, but one foot remained tangled in his stirrup. When he hit the ground, his horse bolted. The startled animal galloped past Etienne, dragging the dead Spaniard with it.
Etienne kept his eyes fixed on the living rider. The other man didn’t reach for a weapon. Etienne forced himself to trust that Achebe and Monsieur Bondí were behind him with weapons, giving him support.
“The chevalier has returned to bring order to his city,” the Spaniard said.
“The chevalier left, and the city has found order without him,” Etienne said. “You may tell the chevalier and his other allies that the Le Moyne family is no longer welcome in the City of New Orleans.”
The rider hesitated. “Who are you?”
“I am Etienne Ukwu,” Etienne said again. “Gaspard will know my name, since he had my father murdered, and also destroyed the cathedral in which my father and I both served. I am the Bishop of New Orleans, my father’s successor. I hold this bridge in the name of the Bishopric and the city of New Orleans and the Empire. You and all your slaves shall not pass.”
The rider snorted. “There are three of you.”
“That you see.” Etienne was bluffing. Where would he get additional troops to hold the bridge?
Or could he destroy the bridge? Where could he find enough gunpowder to blast Bishopsbridge to rubble? It wouldn’t stop the Spaniards, but it would slow them. Or if he couldn’t find the gunpowder, would Maitre Carrefour destroy a stone bridge for him?
After a brief hesitation, the Spanish scout nodded, wheeled his horse around, and rode back to the torches.
“There must be thousands of them,” Bondí estimated.
“How you long to count,” Etienne said.
“I didn’t know there were that many Spaniards in the world,” Achebe added.
“There will be Aztecs among them,” Etienne said. “Apache scouts. Conscripts from Jamaica and Haiti. Celestials. Mercenaries from elsewhere in their empire, or from around the world.”
“What do you intend to do?” Bondí asked.
Etienne sighed. “Stop them.”
* * *
The highway led Sarah to a clearing and the bank of a river.
The sun still lay on the horizon, directly ahead of her, but the sky—without her noticing it—had become a bright crimson. The smell of cinnamon and citrus had grown stronger.
“I’m not intimate with the Tarocks,” she said to Luman, “but there’s a River, isn’t there?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “There’s a River. And it appears to be in the right place.”
“You mean the letter framing the trump card appears next, or in the next group, in the palace of life.”
“That’s right.”
“In the…wherever it is you and Nathaniel and the others are.”
“Wherever it is is all the language I have to describe where I am, too.” Walters shrugged, and then smiled. “But it seems to be working. We’ve climbed to a second story in the palace of life, for one thing. At the end of the day, working or not working is really all there is to magic. At least, to the magic I know.”
“Really?” Sarah asked. “To me, magic is one damn surprise after another.” She exhaled and looked at the River.
Its muddy waters moved fast and swirled around jagged rocks. It looked nothing like the clear freshet she had stepped across to enter the Highway; could these be the same waters?
A haze obscured the far bank, but Sarah saw the green of trees and bushes, and also flashes of something large, opaque, and white. It flashed in the light like a wall made of quartz.
“You see a city over there, Luman?” she asked.
“On the other side of the river? I only see haze,” he said. “But on this side, there’s a corpse.”
His words made Sarah start. Turning, she saw Luman standing beside a gallows. The gallows was a simple one, tall, and built o
f plain, thick wood. Notches were hacked into the gallows a hand’s length apart. From the gallows hung a noose. The rope was coiled around the neck of a dead man who hung there, swaying slightly, as if there were a breeze, or as if he had been hanged so recently he hadn’t yet come to rest.
His eyes were puffed and bulging and his tongue hung from the corner of his mouth, but there was something familiar about the hanged man’s appearance.
Beyond the gallows prowled lions. Were they hungry? But they watched in silence, and didn’t advance.
“This man, too, is a trump,” Luman said gravely. “And this trump also appears to be in the correct place.”
“You’re doing a good job not sounding too smug about being right,” Sarah said.
“I can’t feel smug.” Luman laughed softly. “I’m much too busy feeling astonished.”
* * *
“Wait a moment,” Jacob Hop said.
Isaiah Wilkes looked over the other dead man’s shoulder. Hop was shuffling the suit of coins in his hands. “Wait, for what?” the Franklin asked.
Luman Walters was distracted in some conversation with Sarah. Nathaniel Penn had gone quiet, too; he was also communicating with his sister, apparently. That left the two shades to discuss.
Hop held up the one of cups. It depicted a woman entering a forest. “She entered a wood, a forest, hey?”
“Yes.”
Hop showed the two of the suit, portraying the same woman walking a twisted forest path, pushing aside a bramble and a low-hanging bough. “She walked a tangled path?”
“I think so.” Wilkes jogged the hedge wizard’s elbow. “Luman, pay attention.”
Walters shook his head and focused on the two cards. His eyes opened wide. “Yes.”
Hop showed the three of cups. “A junction of three paths. And look, one of the cups is in the path, away from all the others, which are up in the tops of the trees.”
“What’s next?” Luman asked.
“Maybe the page.” Hop showed the page of cups. “See, he’s holding one cup in his hand.”
“You think the page meets the traveler at the junction of three paths and delivers one token,” Luman Walters said.
“I’m not seeing what you see inside the temple,” Jacob said. “What do you think?”
“I think the Lightning Bishop knew much more that he was credited with.” Luman Walters turned to look Isaiah in the eyes. “What do you have to tell us about this?”
Isaiah shook his head, a flood of emotion nearly overcoming him. “This is new to me. Franklin…my old master…organized his Conventicle as a secret alliance to support the forces that would need to stand together upon the return of Simon Sword. I knew he created the Tarocks, and many have speculated that they contain secret information encoded in their images or their sequences, but…this is a surprise.”
“What’s next?” Luman asked.
“In the minor arcana, there’s a clearing, then a…I don’t know, is this a bridge?”
“Or a boat?” Luman asked.
“Or a balcony?” Isaiah shook his head. “It just looks like a handrailing.”
“And then six is a single tree. And look at the six. The tree. Again, there are two cups at the base of it.”
“And the knight of cups?” Isaiah asked.
Hop showed the card. “Holding one cup in each hand.”
“You think someone is going to appear at a tree to give Sarah a second token,” Luman said.
Hop shrugged. “I think the cards say that.”
“Only there is no tree,” Luman said.
Hop shrugged, and Wilkes did the same. “Wait,” Wilkes said. “What are the possibilities now for the major arcana?”
Hop tucked the minor arcana into one pocket of his brown coat and dug the major arcana from another. He ran through the next three rooms of the palace of life, Wilkes and Luman trailing behind, staring down at the cards. When he stopped, he raised his voice in an abrupt yell.
“Warn her!” he shouted.
“What of?” Luman asked.
“Simon Sword!” the Dutchman cried. “I fear the next trump is Simon Sword!”
Nathaniel, who had been quiet, as if his thoughts were focused elsewhere, snapped out of his reverie. “This is the same deck?”
“Yes!” Hop looked frantic.
“What’s wrong?”
Nathaniel took a deep breath. “We may have…put the real Simon Sword into that card.”
Hop dropped the other cards, gripping the Simon Sword trump with both hands. He tore at it, but it didn’t rend. Grunting, he tore again—
the card burst open, green light blazed from it—
a presence like a giant—but smelling of river moss, mud, and bird feathers—passed through the room, knocking all four men to the ground.
And then disappeared.
“Oh no,” Luman Walters said.
* * *
The Heron King burst from the trees, iridescent, muscular, and enormous. He shattered branches in passing, throwing leaves and bark around him in an arboreal cloud.
Sarah staggered back and raised her staff defensively, then relaxed.
Simon Sword was a trump, a card in the Major Arcana of the New World Tarock. This wasn’t the real Simon Sword.
Simon Sword couldn’t possibly be part of the Cahokian ascent rite she was experiencing. Could he?
And could the Heron King possibly have entered the Temple of the Sun, other than as conqueror?
Or did his presence indeed mean that Sarah’s people were defeated, and victory belonged to the rampaging beastkind?
No. He was in the Tarock. If Luman and Jake and the others were right—and so far, they seemed to be—then she could reasonably expect to encounter him in this place. And maybe Peter Plowshare, for that matter.
That would be interesting.
But something was wrong. Simon Sword strode toward her, growing larger and larger. He raised his hands, and in them he held the Heronsword that Sarah had given him. In her hands it had been a manageable sword, the size such that any child of Adam might wield it. In the hands of Simon Sword, it seemed twelve feet long. He raised the blade above his head.
This was no riddle; this was an attack.
“Watch out!” Luman Walters shouted.
Sarah leaped aside, but too late. The gigantic golden blade rushed down—
all she could think, in the impossibly long moments during which the blade descended toward her, was what a mistake she had made at the Serpent Mound, arming one of her worst foes with the weapon he most desired—
the blade struck her shoulder, and rebounded.
Simon Sword flew backward into the trees in an explosion. The coat she wore—the coat she had borrowed from Luman Walters—split open and golden salamanders leaped from it. They swam in a stream of golden light, light that smelled of citrus and cinnamon and filled her mouth with the taste of honey. Bees, too, seemed to swarm around her, and the cloud of reptiles and honey-spinners hurled Simon Sword into the trees with a sound like a thousand gongs rung together in perfect harmony. She heard words in the chord, though she could not decipher them. The bees buzzed around her for a moment longer while the salamanders scampered into the woods, and then were gone.
The music lingered for long seconds afterward.
Luman rushed forward to catch her, but she waved him off, leaning on her staff.
“Angels in your pockets.” She laughed. “In my pockets, then. And I’m glad I had them. And you were right, it worked. But what the hell was that, Luman?”
Luman shrugged. “Whatever it was that troubled Jacob Hop…memories? A demonic residue? Contamination? Hop and your brother Nathaniel put it into the Simon Sword trump of their deck. And I think it just escaped and attacked you.”
“Is it defeated now?” Sarah asked.
As if in answer, Simon Sword emerged again from the woods. He was tall, but this time tall as a tall man might be, rather than tall as a giant. And in his hands, he held no weapon.
Sarah held her staff up again. “What are you doing here, demon?” she challenged him.
“Say god, rather.” This Simon Sword spoke with vocal cords, and not with the mind-voice she had heard in the Heron King’s hall. “But demon if you will, because even in calling me demon, you acknowledge this: that I am alive.”
What was this?
“If you have a token, I demand it,” Sarah called. “Of right. Otherwise, stand aside.”
Simon Sword laughed. “What right do you have, witch? You have been crowned queen by a faithless zealot who reckons the Serpent Throne a thing of naught. Do you believe that anointing will carry you over the river and into the walled garden of the goddess? No, you have no right. Stay with me and choose life.”
Sarah tightened her grip on her staff. This was not the Heron King. This was some sort of riddle, or trial.
She was reasonably sure.
“I have the right from my father,” she said. “He was king before me, and his father before him.”
“His father was godless entirely. He let the destroyers run free in the kingdom, wore a Christian shell to appease John Penn, and made his entire kingdom forsake the language of their fathers for mere English.” Simon Sword snorted. “And your father never sat on the Serpent Throne, not by right and not even by audacity. He was a king to the outward world only.”
The words stung, but Sarah knew they were true.
Did she have any right at all?
“I am the Beloved of the goddess,” she said. “I was chosen by Her.”
“And yet Unfallen Eden does not lie open before you, does it?” The Heron King sneered. “You are Her Beloved, and yet you wander the same choked trails as all the children of Adam. Your father was Her Beloved, as well. Did that bring him to the Serpent Throne?”
It had not.
Sarah’s heart fell.
“Stay with me,” Simon Sword urged her. “Choose real life, the life that lives by eating other living things, not the perfect vision of a life no mortal flesh can ever have. Mortal life is red and hot and violent, and it is yours, if you want it. You have become a mortal queen. Be that queen.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Luman whispered. “He’s a liar.”