by D. J. Butler
Hands poked repeatedly down from the earth above and up from the earth below to grope at them. She ignored them, but Luman punched them with both his fists, until his knuckles were skinned and bleeding.
She was glad she had him along.
“This is my fault,” he said.
She laughed out loud. “In a pig’s eye.”
“I summoned Hooke.” He punched at a groping hand. “I didn’t mean to, but when I was with the Imperial Ohio, I cast a spell and he came.”
Sarah felt tired. “You didn’t mean to.”
“But it’s still my fault. How can I make amends?”
“You’re holding the Priest trump?” she asked him.
“In the palace of life, I am.”
Sarah took a deep breath and drew power through the Orb. Wherever she was—and with Cromwell’s and Hooke’s appearance, she feared she was knocked off the trail of her ascent, and risking a terrible and permanent fate—she could still reach into the Mississippi Ley.
“You’re gonna help me work a little gramarye. Sacerdotem quaeso.” Touching Luman with her other hand, she reached through him to grab the Priest trump. She fixed that trump—burnt hole and all—in her mind as her navigating star, then sailed down the great river, looking for Etienne Ukwu.
“Sacerdotem quaeso,” she incanted again.
She had to hope he was close to the Mississippi. Probably anywhere in New Orleans would be good enough, but she doubted she could reach any great distance over dry land.
She found him on the river itself, standing in the middle of the water and staring off to the west. To her surprise, he stood beside three dark-skinned women. One was scarred and whip-thin, with a look of rage in her eye; the second was young, shaped of soft curves, and smiled flirtatiously; the third was heavy, with long gray hair.
“Will you come with me?” she asked them.
The women smiled. Each of the three put a hand on the houngan, and he fell into their arms. Sarah joined them. Lifting together, the four women carried Etienne back into the ditch.
The earth chamber had grown in Sarah’s absence. Its ceiling was now high enough that she, the three women, Luman, and Etienne could all stand. Luman continued to punch and kick at hands that tried to pierce the chamber and grab Sarah. With each hand that broke through, more cool dark dirt piled up on the chamber floor. The room became larger and more shapeless.
The scarred woman looked at the hands, snarled, and drew a wicked, hooked knife. She leaped into action at Luman’s side, slashing at the bodiless hands and driving them back.
Etienne Ukwu now wore a gray cassock with a charcoal smudge across the chest. He opened his eyes and looked down at himself in surprise. Then he looked at Sarah.
“Sarah Carpenter,” he said. “And I am to be cast in the role of your father confessor. What is his name? The Ohioan, Thalanes.”
Rage welled up in Sarah, at Thomas Penn, at Oliver Cromwell, and at the Heron King. She swallowed it.
“Father Thalanes is dead, and I have need of a priest. You’re a houngan, and I figure that counts.”
Etienne nodded. “I will be what help I can. Remember that you already owe me.”
The gray-haired woman touched Etienne’s shoulder. He turned to her and sucked in a sharp breath. “Mother.”
Her smile was proud and sad. Etienne took her hand in his and knelt, kissing her knuckles.
“If I don’t survive this,” Sarah said, “I’ll be in no position to do anything. If I do survive, I will do my best to repay you.”
Etienne looked up to his mother. She nodded. He stood and turned to face Sarah.
“And I am in great need of help right now.” The houngan’s face broke into a weary smile. “Though I do not know how you can possibly be of any aid.”
Sarah hesitated. How to explain? “I need a token.”
“A token of what?” Etienne frowned. “You mean a sign?”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know. Here—and where is here, you’ll want to ask me. I don’t know exactly. But I will tell you this: I entered the Temple of the Sun with the intent of ascending the Serpent Throne, and I found myself on a twisted road full of strange characters who try to trick and bully me.”
“La diritta via era smarrita,” Etienne said.
“What?”
“Dante,” he told her. “The Divine Comedy. The road of trials that leads to heaven.”
“I guess.”
“I am a houngan asogwe of the Société du Mars Vengeur, and I know something of such roads of trials. I am also a Christian priest—this is a recent development, since you and I met—and at least one of those apparently is relevant. Tell me about the tokens so far.”
Sarah considered. “There was a drunkard at a fork in the road. I gave him wine and he gave me a token.”
Etienne stroked his chin. “And which turn did you take?”
“Neither,” she said. “I calculated that the fork was an illusion. To go forward, I had to step into the woods where there was no path. And there I found a highway.”
“A highway and a drunkard?” Etienne asked.
“You know the Tarock? Apparently, it has something to do with this road of trials. It’s a kind of a map. There were birds at the fork, too.”
“I’m from New Orleans. I know Franklin’s Tarock.” Etienne nodded. “Go on.”
“The Highway took me to a River. And there was Simon Sword, and he told me I had no right to continue.”
“Did you believe him?” Etienne asked.
“I did. But I told him I had been shown the destination before, and even though I had no right, I had hope I would be allowed in.”
“And he accepted this?”
“He disappeared. I swam the river. A Hanged Man on the other side gave me a second token.”
“These tokens,” Etienne said, “what are they? Something like a masonic grip?”
“Coins,” Sarah said. “And the road seems to be mapped by half the Major Arcana, but also the suit of cups, if that helps. And the Major Arcana piece seems to be also mapped out on Cahokia’s palaces of life, if you know what those are.”
“I don’t,” Etienne admitted.
Sarah took a deep breath. Etienne might not be able to help her, after all.
“And then?” the houngan prompted her.
“Three trials,” Luman said.
“Who are you?” Etienne asked.
“Luman Walters.” Luman stomped on groping hands. Dirt fell onto his shoulders. Behind him, the scarred woman crouched to plunge her knife repeatedly into the floor of the chamber.
Still hands came on, and still the earth collapsed.
“He’s one of my guides,” Sarah said. “Like Dante had Virgil.”
“Naturally,” Etienne agreed. “Three trials. What happened in the third trial?”
“This is it,” Sarah said, “I think. Only I was supposed to climb the steps of the City and talk to the Priest, and my best guess is he was supposed to give me the token.”
“Although the cards suggest that maybe he was supposed to give it to her in a ditch,” Luman added.
“You are now in the ditch, and you have summoned me to give you a token.” Etienne smiled. “What happened to the other priest?”
“One of the final trumps in the sequence was the Revenant,” Sarah said. “A Lazar. And Robert Hooke and Oliver Cromwell appeared and killed the Priest.”
“That sounds as if the rite is not following its ordinary course.” Etienne whistled. “You play a game with high stakes, Sarah Carpenter.”
“I didn’t choose it,” Sarah said. “But I’m playing to win.”
“I wish I could help you,” Etienne said. “But I do not see how. I have no coins; I know no passwords; I am unfamiliar with this liturgy.”
Sarah tried very hard not to look down at her feet. She was not going to die. She wouldn’t let herself. She owed it to her siblings, to her father, to Thalanes, to Iron Andy Calhoun, and to her mother. She took a deep breath and
looked into Etienne Ukwu’s sorrowful eyes. “I understand. If I live, I will do my best to repay you the favor I owe you.”
“I do have one observation to make.” Etienne wove his fingers together and held them before his face—a contemplative gesture. “Yours is a road of three trials, as there are three worlds.”
“Yes,” Luman said. “Dante again.”
Etienne continued. “Speaking not as a houngan asogwe, but as a Christian priest—if a very bad one—I would suggest that you should see your first trial as a trial of faith. To advance, you had to step beyond the visible path, will yourself to take the action for which there was only evidence of goodness, and not proof.”
“The evidence of things not seen,” Sarah said. “Hebrews.” She furrowed her brow; was it possible?
Luman had stopped punching the attacking hands and openly stared at Sarah and the houngan.
Etienne nodded. “Your second trial, even in your own words, was a trial of hope. ‘We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.’ St. Paul’s words. You hoped to be admitted into the glory, and in that hope you advanced.”
“Charity is next,” Sarah said. “This is a trial of my charity.”
“‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’ I believe this is a trial of your charity. Of your capacity to love.”
“Capacity to love ain’t exactly my strong suit,” Sarah grumbled. “Capacity to keep goin’, capacity to fight back, capacity to be a cantankerous beast as never says die, sure. Love?”
She had chosen things other than love. She had driven Calvin away, choosing not to love him.
But was that entirely fair? She had chosen her own hard roads for the love of family. Love for the Elector Calhoun and respect for his sacrifice, love for her unknown siblings and her mysterious parents.
She had been driven by love at every turn.
Forgiveness, her father had said. He wished he had forgiven more.
Forgiveness is eternal life.
Etienne shrugged ruefully. “I wish I had more to tell you, Queen Sarah. Go with God, and with all the loa.”
Sarah nodded.
Etienne and his three women disappeared.
Sarah had tried to choose love, and her enemies had responded only with hatred. Her own uncle had killed her parents out of hatred. The Necromancer Cromwell and the Sorcerer Hooke, on Cromwell’s orders, had tried to kill Sarah and her siblings out of hatred. The Chevalier of New Orleans, Gaspard Le Moyne, had tried to force her into marriage and had then attacked her out of hatred, and had taken her sister prisoner. Bayard Prideux had murdered her father out of hatred.
But was that really true?
“Sarah,” Luman Walters said. “We’re running out of time.”
Hands dragged him left and right. Dirt cascaded down around his head and hers.
Bayard hadn’t hated her father. He’d been desperate for money, and ordered by a superior.
And the chevalier didn’t hate Sarah. He didn’t respect her, he saw her as a means to an end and an inferior, but he wasn’t acting out of hatred. Pride, maybe. Ambition. She just happened to be in his way.
And Cromwell? What was Cromwell doing?
Was it possible that Cromwell was acting out of something like love? That in this case, too, Sarah had the bad fortune to be in his way, but that he maybe saw himself as a benefactor, as a person of good will?
Life, Hooke had said. Cromwell wanted to bring life to all mankind, and Sarah was standing in the way.
Was the Necromancer acting out of love, even if badly misguided?
“Sarah!” Luman disappeared in an avalanche of moist dirt.
She reached into the earth, found his coat (her coat, which he was still wearing), and grabbed it. She would have liked to touch the Orb of Etyles, but she only had two hands, and didn’t want to drop her staff.
“Inimicum quaeso!”
She leaped upward.
Hands dragged at her and she pushed forward. They clutched at her ankles and she beat them back with the Elector’s staff.
“Inimicum quaeso!” she shouted again, dirt filling her mouth.
Hands tore Luman from her grip. She reached for him again and couldn’t find him. Hands clawed at her face and throat and she tore them away by force.
“Inimicum quaeso!”
Then suddenly, she was standing at the top of the quartz stairs, face to face with the boy-Cromwell. Cromwell stared at her, surprised, and then he grinned.
Thou hast opened my road, Unsouled hag. I thank thee.
She embraced him.
She did it quickly, before he could react or she could change her mind.
“I don’t hate you,” she murmured.
He tried to pull back, and she squeezed him tight.
“I don’t understand you,” she continued, “but I don’t hate you. I forgive you.”
She willed it to be true. She reached down inside her heart, as if she were reaching into the Orb, and looked for her capacity to love.
Her staff, the horse-headed staff carved by Iron Andy Calhoun, burst suddenly into green leaves.
Witch! Cromwell shouted, and struck her in the face.
“You believe that you are seeking good in the world.” And it was true. It was easy to see death as Cromwell’s great weapon, but it was more true to see it as his great enemy. Sarah continued to hold on to him, turning her face aside and closing her eyes. The leaves felt cool to the touch. “I do not hate you.”
He struck her again. As she rocked back from the blow, she found a place inside her heart where she truly did not hate Oliver Cromwell.
If the world were as Cromwell wants, my mother would be alive.
“I love you,” she said.
Light and heat blasted past her. She opened her eyes.
Sarah stood in the open doorway. She was no longer embracing the shorter Cromwell, but a man who was taller than she was. Without relinquishing the embrace, she turned to look outside the walls.
Cromwell and Hooke stood in the full light that flowed through the open gate of Eden. It struck their forms like fire, burning their flesh, but they didn’t flee. Rooted in place, mouths open, they howled without words.
In seconds, the light and heat reduced them to ashes.
Seconds later, the light burned away the blackness of the tainted sky, coloring it gold. The entire sky became a single blazing sun, joyous, triumphant, life-giving.
Luman Walters stood halfway up the quartz steps. The light of Eden burned away the dirt that still clung to the blue dragoon coat he wore, purifying him.
He took one step forward, then stopped.
He smiled at Sarah, but shook his head ruefully.
And took off her coat.
She nodded back at her guide. Without relinquishing her embrace, she managed to climb out of her borrowed coat and let it drop. She stood wearing just the white linen dress and the noose about her neck.
When Luman’s garment hit the ground, Luman himself disappeared, along with both coats.
The man embracing her spoke. “What is your name?”
“Sarah.”
“And what is your family name?”
“I am Elytharias,” she said. “And I am Penn.”
“And by what token do you seek admittance into Eden?”
“By the three tokens of faith, hope, and charity,” she said. “And the greatest of these is charity.”
Her embracer withdrew, keeping an arm around her shoulders. She looked up into the man’s face and saw that he was her father; and he was Onandagos, the great prophet-leader of her people; and he was Adam, father of all mankind.
“Welcome home,” he said. Turning, he gestured inward, toward a garden of light, perfume, and honey.
In the center of the garden, a mighty tree.
And as Sarah stepped within the gates of the garden, leaves began to sprout from her body.
* * *
Bill backed onto sacred ground, knowing his mere presence was a desecration. He hoped Sarah’s goddess would forgive him.
Or take Her wrath out on the walking dead who pushed him back, desecrating the hallowed ground even more foully.
But if She was going to act, either against Bill or against his undead foes, She showed no immediate sign of it. His pistols emptied and his powder gone, Bill lurched back one step at a time.
The wounded Firstborn soldiers were little help. Once their powder was gone, futilely spent plugging lead balls into dead flesh without noticeable effect, they were virtually defenseless. Injured and unable to run or fight, they were cut down as Bill’s former soldiers crawled over the lip and onto the top of the mound.
Chikaak, eyes dead and one arm hanging detached at his side, tore a screaming Cahokian warrior’s throat open with his teeth.
“Damn you, Sergeant!” Bill shouted.
But of course, it wasn’t Chikaak anymore.
The Catalan pirate fought fiercely at Bill’s side, with a saber in one hand and a long knife in the other. Gazelem Zomas, whom Bill had thought to be a kind of spy or assassin, proved quite able with a long spear.
They gave ground slowly. Had Sarah failed?
Had Cromwell and Hooke found her inside the Temple of the Sun and killed her already? Was Bill backing toward a greater enemy even as he was backing away from lesser foes?
He could accept death, an old foe he had known for many years.
But death for Cathy was a thought that chilled his heart.
And death without seeing his son or wife again?
“Cathy!” he called to her.
No answer.
“Cathy?”
He wanted to turn and look at where he expected her to be, but the hulking wave of dead crashed against him again, knocking him off balance and forcing him to expend his precious attention on his enemies.
“There!” Gazelem shouted. He hurled himself toward the edge of the mound. Bill was able to strip a moment’s focus from his foe and with it he saw Cathy, unconscious—dead?—being dragged away by Chikaak.
“Damn you, Sergeant!” he howled again, uselessly.
They had feared that some magic, or something as simple as silver applied to their skin, would turn Sarah’s beastkind troops against her. Instead, the work of Oliver Cromwell had turned them against life itself.