by D. J. Butler
Then it turned and darted toward the Spanish.
The Aztecs broke into flight. In their charge, they scattered the ranks behind them. Etienne watched with satisfaction as the line of lights stretching back for miles snapped, and then fell apart into a fainter cloud. Shouts of confusion and fear reached him from the far bank.
“Even the serpents fight the chevalier.” Monsieur Bondí chuckled.
“Tonight they do,” Etienne agreed.
Tomorrow, he might need another plan. But tonight, Queen Sarah had kept her promise. He looked up the dark, flat mass of the nighttime Mississippi, and felt happy that the queer-eyed Firstborn witch lived.
Lived and had triumphed, apparently.
He resolved to send her an emissary. And a gift. Perhaps a bottle of good rum.
He looked back at the bridge to find Achebe kneeling at his feet.
“Eze-Nri,” Achebe said. “Eze-Nri.”
* * *
“What’s happening?” Jacob Hop asked.
The actor Wilkes gazed blandly at him and shrugged.
Nathaniel stood with them, but his attention was absorbed elsewhere. He cringed, extended his neck, swatted hands in front of his face, and shuffled from side to side as if he were fighting tiny invisible enemies.
Luman Walters stared into the void and said nothing.
“I don’t know whether we’ve won or lost,” Hop said.
“All in all, I’d rather win, since my life’s work has been to prepare for the return of Simon Sword and defend against him. It seems that Sarah Penn may be one of the Empire’s best bulwarks against his advance. But in either case, I suppose I’m dead.”
“Ja, me too.” Jake laughed.
Wilkes looked around. “What, then? Is there a path to take us onward? Or is this it? Do we stay here?”
“Is this heaven, do you mean?”
Wilkes gestured at the empty rooms, the characters written on the floor. “If heaven is a library with no books in it, then old Bishop Franklin was badly deceived. And he was not one to be deceived easily.”
Jake laughed.
Isaiah Wilkes frowned. “What’s happening with the wizard’s coat?”
Luman’s coat began to glow. It moved, too, flapping as if in a breeze, though the air was still. The space around the magician grew warmer.
“I don’t think he’s in danger.” Jake raised a hand to hold back the other man. “Let’s wait and see.”
The warm golden glow filling the coat suddenly overflowed it. Brilliant blazing fire filled the room and Jake was blinded. He felt submerged, his skin warmed and caressed as if had sunk into a tub of warm water.
No, a vat of warm, sweet honey.
He opened his mouth, tasting the sweetness. He smelled cinnamon and lemons, or maybe oranges. He was reminded of his youth on his uncle’s ship, buying citruses for the sailors at the market in Barbados while his uncle bought sugar cane from the Spanish traders.
His feet felt nothing. Extending his toes experimentally, he couldn’t find a floor beneath him.
Indeed, it felt as if he’d lost his shoes and socks.
Then the light was gone, and the wizard and Nathaniel were gone, and Jake and Isaiah Wilkes stood alone in the palace of life.
* * *
Margaret had caught the Yankee by surprise. Her charge carried him along fifty feet before he could react.
Then he hit her with the ax handle.
He was much stronger than she remembered. Her charge ended in chaos, Margaret tumbling one direction and the Yankee skidding back through the snow until he came to rest at the base of a leafless tree.
Margaret leaped to her feet. The pain in her shoulder, where she’d been hit, made her angrier, and she let the anger carry her into a forward charge again. She would rip the Yankee’s head off. She would tear him limb from limb.
“Leave my family alone!”
The Yankee raised and arm and swung down over his head, as if cracking a horsewhip. He ended the motion with a single finger crooked at Margaret. Something sticky struck her in the face.
She ignored it and jumped, hands extended—
Mot tamutun! the Yankee mind-shouted—
pain engulfed Margaret’s body like fire. She missed her attack and crashed to the ground, sliding through snow.
The Yankee cackled in triumph. Margaret lurched to her feet and wiped at the sticky substance on her face. Looking at it in the palm of her hand in the dim light, she saw only a thick black liquid. It stank of blood, but blood that was infected, corrupted.
Her hand was shriveling.
Anger pulsed through her. Gripping the nearest tree trunk, she yanked it from the ground in a single motion. The Yankee staggered away, raising an arm in defense, and she threw the tree at him.
He disappeared in a tangle of cracked and splintered wood.
Margaret hurt, but she had to be sure the Yankee was dead. She grabbed the tree and dragged it aside, temples throbbing.
The Yankee rose to his feet.
Mot tamutun! he howled again.
The pain knocked Margaret to her knees. She leaned forward onto one balled fist, sucking in frozen air.
The Yankee stepped closer. You are freakishly strong. Your gift from your abomination of a father. You resist my lord’s spell. But you will die.
She sprang from her knees, butting him in the belly with her head. He didn’t exhale, but the impetus knocked him to the ground. Roaring, Margaret picked up the tree, raised it over her head, and slammed it to the ground on top of him again.
Fire. She needed fire.
She turned and ran back toward the longhouse, the faint orange in the glass windows giving her hope. Her steps were ragged and uneven, and her eyelids dragged heavily downward from exhaustion and pain. If she could get brands from the fire before the Yankee freed himself, she could ignite the wood.
A cracking sound at her heels told her he’d escaped. She was still a hundred feet from the building.
Echabeh esh!
The orange glow disappeared.
Margaret tumbled to the ground, hitting on her knees and then rolling forward over her shoulder before sliding to a stop. Holding her hand before her eyes, she saw it wizened and mottled, as if she were aging by the second.
The Yankee stepped to her side, stooped, and picked her up. My spell will kill you in minutes, but I find I have no patience.
In his hand, the tall man held a longsword. He pulled back the weapon and pointed its sharp tip at her belly to run her through—
Makwa knocked them both down.
Margaret fell to the ground and couldn’t move. Her breath came in slow, strangling gasps, as if her lungs were shrinking. She coughed and spat in the snow, seeing black ichor rather than spittle.
The Yankee stood and Makwa barreled into him again. They rolled together down a gentle slope and into the ditch at its bottom. The Yankee shouted words Margaret couldn’t hear. Nathaniel’s bear-spirit presence rose into the air and fell again, landing heavily on the ground.
The Yankee leaped on him, sword raised high, and then drove the blade down through the bear and into the earth below, pinning the bear to the ground.
Makwa uttered a shriek, a piercing wail, in the voice of Margaret’s brother. The bear’s limbs spasmed and its head trembled, as if it were suffering a fit, or experiencing death tremors.
The light faded from Margaret’s vision.
You are both so obsessed with family. The Yankee looked from one immobilized sibling to the other and laughed. Know that your Serpentspawn deaths will make your uncle happy. Yaas, very happy, indeed.
Rage pushed Margaret to her feet one final time. She saw astonishment on the Yankee’s face, and a hint of fear. Between his spell and her rage, she could barely see. Hurling herself from one shaky footstep to the next, she lunged at him.
He stepped back, tongueless mouth open in alarm.
Then she collapsed. She landed on her knees, her hands wrapped around the hilt of the Yankee’s lon
gsword.
Makwa trembled beside her, warmth leaking from his body.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Rage faded. Strength ebbed. Life slipped away.
Light burst from Makwa’s form. It was more than light, because it was sweet on Margaret’s tongue and smelled of spice and citrus, like some Christmas drink, or an Arab delicacy in a Ferdinandian orange grove. Her skin prickled with sudden warmth and vitality.
The light came out of Nathaniel’s spirit-double. Makwa’s back arched and the bear howled again, this time in surprise and anger.
Sudden strength raised Margaret’s head. Standing, she pulled the Yankee’s sword from the earth, and from her brother. She turned to find her enemy stumbling back, raising his hands to shield his face from the light.
Where the light touched his pallid flesh, smoke rose.
The Yankee shrieked.
Margaret roared and struck the Yankee with his own sword, lopping one arm off in a single blow.
He fled.
She picked up his severed arm. Its fingers contracted as if the arm were attempting to form a fist. She hurled it into the night, after the fleeing necromancer.
Makwa rolled to his feet. The scented, sweet light that had exploded from the bear was fading, and he began to look like a shadow once more. Her own strength had returned; she looked at her hand. Even in the darkness of the night, she could see that it was rosy and healthy.
Her rage subsided.
Makwa nudged her with his nose, pushing her back toward the longhouse. She stared after the departing Yankee for a few seconds. She could pursue him, but did she really want to catch him?
Not tonight, she decided.
She turned back toward the longhouse; Makwa had already disappeared. She had a hearth to relight, and a story to share with her brother.
* * *
Isaiah Wilkes was surprised that he was still in the palace of life.
He met the Dutchman’s gaze and they both shrugged.
Nathaniel Penn entered the palace, smiling. “Thank you both.”
“Is that it?” Wilkes asked.
Nathaniel cocked his head, as if listening to his own ear, or to a sound no one else could hear. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“You don’t mean you can bring us back to life, though, hey?” Jake said.
Nathaniel shook his head. “I’m not that kind of healer. Maybe no one is. But I mean…you don’t have to leave.”
“We can stay in this place?” Isaiah looked around at the palace of life and at the clearing and the woods beyond, and suddenly he knew he had a choice. He could stay. “But to what end?”
“I would like to have your help in the future,” Nathaniel said modestly.
“You could compel us,” Jake pointed out.
Nathaniel shrugged.
“You could remind me of my loyalty to Sarah and order me to stay,” the Dutchman said.
Nathaniel nodded slowly, then shrugged again. “I’d rather not. I’m a healer. I’d rather not do things that way.”
“Sitting around in this palace of life, waiting for you to call us, sounds…dull.” Wilkes found that he wanted to help the young man, for the sake of the Conventicle, and for Nathaniel’s own sake.
He liked the boy.
“And you don’t have to do that.” Nathaniel waved his arms expansively. “Go wherever you like. Explore the realm; you may learn things that are useful to me.”
“I need to find Kinta Jane,” Isaiah said without thinking.
Nathaniel nodded.
“How will you find us when you need us?” Jake asked.
Nathaniel frowned. “I think I’ll be able to hear you. But if not…I can use these.” He showed them two Tarock cards, the Drunkard and the Hanged Man. The cards looked as they had always looked, except that the face of the Drunkard was Jacob Hop’s face, and the face of the Hanged Man clearly showed the features of Isaiah Wilkes.
Jake laughed out loud and produced a deck from his own pocket. “And look, we can find you with this one.”
The Serpent had the face of Nathaniel Elytharias Penn.
“I’ve become a familiar spirit,” Isaiah Wilkes said.
“As you told me,” Nathaniel answered him, “death is not the end.”
* * *
Captain Mohuntubby presented himself in Director Notwithstanding Schmidt’s tent, clicking his heels together and saluting. The Cherokee soldier looked sleepless; they all were, the day after the battle.
His face was also scratched; she hadn’t noticed that the day before.
And his coat was scorched in strange patterns: the burn marks seemed to have the shapes of letters.
Schmidt sighed and set down her pen. Writing was slow and painful in any case, with the shoulder wound she’d received from the Ophidian warrior in the gun-spiking raid. She hadn’t asked Robert Hooke to heal it, because she didn’t want his deathly arts to touch her person.
She was writing reports and correspondence, making an account of the day’s events. The Imperial forces had won the battle, battering down the famed Treewall and entering the city. They’d have taken it, and she liked to think they’d have taken it without the Necromancer’s and the Sorcerer’s aid.
She missed Luman Walters.
She forced the thought from her mind. She couldn’t afford regrets.
Schäfer had care of the surviving Parletts on this end of the connection. In the wake of the battle and its strange conclusion, the Firstborn weren’t pursuing her and her forces. But it was wise to have someone keep an eye on the children, just in case.
The Imperials had won the military engagement, unequivocally. An honest record would reflect that.
But Director Schmidt had no use for an honest record, not in this case. An honest record would make Sayle out to be a successful artillery commander and general who had been defeated by an unexplained act of sorcery on the part of the defenders, an act so powerful, it appeared to have destroyed Oliver Cromwell himself.
Appeared, Schmidt reminded herself.
In such an account, Schmidt would be a valiant underling to a bold man who happened to be defeated. Instead, she would be certain that the record indicated that Sayle failed. That he did not defend his famous guns, that in the final analysis, he failed.
She must also not give credit to Hooke or Cromwell, who had disappeared. The battle had been won by the brave men of the Imperial Ohio Company and the Imperial Army, but the victory transformed into defeat by the failure of supporting magicians. The fact that all the shambling dead had been obliterated by the blast of yellow light that had brought an abrupt end to the battle would help the story. That was a moment that would only grow in the telling, from mouth to mouth.
If victory belonged to the Imperial Ohio Company by right, then it also belonged to the company’s director on the field.
To be certain the history was written her way, Schmidt had spent this morning, the morning of the day after the battle, sending dispatches and writing letters to every friendly Memphite, Ohioan, Pennslander, and Appalachee news-paper she knew.
The fact that the Twelve Apostles were now perched on top of trees would support her account of the battle. But Sayle would commit his own version to paper.
She hadn’t seen Sayle since the breaching of the wall. At that point, she had accompanied Ohio Company irregulars within the wall, where, following the information her informant Voldrich had given her, she and her men had excavated Voldrich’s fortune out of the wall of a warehouse cellar.
Voldrich had accompanied them as a guarantee of the truth of his information. As the battle had turned, he’d tried to run.
Schmidt had shot him herself, in the back.
“Captain Mohuntubby,” she said. “Surely you haven’t come back to report failure.”
“No, Madam Director,” Mohuntubby said. “Nearly three hundred men collected.”
“Happy to be alive and paid, I take it?”
“Happy to be in the employ of the Imperi
al Ohio Company.”
Mohuntubby and his men had been rounding up fleeing Imperials. Schmidt had sent Voldrich’s gold with him; he was to pay the fleeing men and remind them that they worked for her. If they returned, well and good.
If they persisted in fleeing, that was an act of desertion, and Mohuntubby was to kill them.
“Have you had to shoot many?”
Mohuntubby looked briefly troubled, but shook it off. “Very few.” He pointed at the scorch marks on his coat. “One had some kind of arcane shield. It exploded, and your charm saved me.”
Luman’s Himmelsbrief. Schmidt nodded. “Is the money all gone?”
“We still have cash.” The Cherokee captain took a deep breath and plunged ahead, cutting off more questions from the Director. “We’ve found Sayle. He’s dead.”
Schmidt considered. Should she order Mohuntubby to burn the body and make no official report? The resulting ambiguity and rumors would make Sayle a figure of suspicion and doubt. But she decided she wanted to see for herself.
She mounted and followed Mohuntubby into the woods. The Imperial Ohio Company camp, as Schmidt was rebuilding it, was twenty miles from the Mississippi, and located on a small river whose name she didn’t know. Soon, she would write dispatches to the agents she had installed in the Hansa towns along the Ohio, requisitioning water, draft animals, and wagons, sending out foraging parties; for the moment, the river and their existing supplies were enough.
Three miles’ ride brought them to a small clearing around a single tall tree. Sayle dangled there by his neck from a noose that wasn’t exactly a rope. Schmidt squinted at it.
“Riding crop?” she asked. “Wrapped around his neck…and the handle jammed into that branch?”
“That’s what it looks like to me.” Captain Mohuntubby nodded solemnly.
“And what happened to General Sayle’s coat?” The front of the artillerist’s coat, and the shirt beneath, were scorched and burned away.
In peculiar patterns. That seemed to have the shapes of letters.
Mohuntubby shrugged, his face totally blank.
“I see.”