“No, Bal!” Jinni exclaimed in a whisper. “No one knows that scroll is about you. It could be about anyone. The scroll says Baltasar Infante, remember? But everyone thinks you’re Luis de Torres!”
The hairs on my arms settled slightly at her words. “Still. The scroll was in my bag. If anyone on this ship suspected me of being a Storyteller, now they have proof.”
I scanned around me, studying the faces of the forty sailors sleeping on the Santa María’s deck. Antonio, Salcedo, Bartolome, Pérez. Any of them could have taken the scroll. Any of them.
“Bal.” Beside me Jinniyah had gone rigid. “Bal, my nose is tingling like crazy.”
I removed my hands from my bag, trying to puzzle out what the girl said. “You mean someone’s using magic? Here?” I took hold of the girl’s hands far too tightly. “Where?” I said in a harsh, urgent tone. “Tell me, Jinni! Where is it coming from?”
The fake boy recoiled from me. “That’s tricky, Bal. There are so many people on this ship, and they’re all so close together. I don’t know if I can —”
“You have to! You have to find him! Whoever’s using that magic . . .” I trailed off, my imagination racing. What if al-Katib wasn’t in the Indies at all? What if he’d been hiding on this ship all along, waiting to attack? And Diego had said that, for all their talk about the wickedness of Storytelling, the men of the Malleus Maleficarum weren’t above using magic when they needed it.
“Please, Jinni. I’m begging you.”
Jinniyah sucked at her upper lip, her eyebrows knit with worry. At last she took my hand in hers. “Come on.”
Jinniyah led me around the main deck methodically, stopping here and there to adjust her course. Nearby a few sailors watched us, wary, but only Rodrigo asked us where we were going. “Running an errand for Colón.” I ran off before he could ask any more questions.
After another minute of wandering around the crowded deck, Jinniyah stopped and let out a breath. “Here,” she whispered to me. “I think the magic is coming from here.”
We were standing in front of the cabin door.
“Colón . . . ?” I whispered. “He’s the one using magic?” I rose up on my toes to see what was happening on the aftcastle. No, Colón was up there after all, so deep in conversation with the helmsman that he didn’t notice me lingering around the entrance to his cabin.
But if Colón was up there, then . . .
I shaded my eyes as I peered through warped glass that covered the tiny porthole in the cabin door. “No one’s there,” I said, disappointed and relieved. All I could see inside was a blurred image of the admiral’s desk, dimly lit by candles.
“Bal, let’s go,” Jinniyah said, looking nervously around her. “Someone’s going to see us. I made a mistake. Let’s go back to sleep.”
But I couldn’t. I had to know what was in that cabin. “You go, Jinni. I’m going inside.”
Jinniyah didn’t move. I steeled myself and reached out to open the cabin door.
It wouldn’t budge. I jiggled the handle a few times more. Nothing. The door was locked.
“Ali Baba,” Jinniyah whispered behind me. “Have you heard it?”
“You’re talking about a story. A Moorish story?”
Jinniyah whispered quickly, “One day Ali Baba found a group of thieves hiding in the woods. He tracked the thieves to this cave, which was their hideout, but it was locked. The cave would only open if you said the right word.”
“You’re saying Colón locked his cabin with a magic password?”
Jinniyah slapped me lightly on the arm. “Baltasar, sometimes you are the silliest person! I mean someone locked the cabin with a regular key, but you can use a magic key from the Ali Baba story to open it. I saw Amir do it once before. Ali Baba’s key will open any door you want to open.”
Summon a key, hmm? Tapping the sides of my legs, I paced in front of the cabin door. “I don’t know.” I hadn’t used magic in weeks now, plus Colón was right there, mere yards from where I was standing.
Then again, it was only a key. And I had to know what was inside that cabin.
I closed my eyes.
The Ali Baba story. Though I’d never heard it before, it seemed familiar all the same. After all, how many stories had I heard over the years about magic words? Even Diego’s golem came to life with the word ameth. And using a magic word to open a door . . . wasn’t that almost the same as using a magic story to open one? I’d bet my life that this Ali Baba character was a Storyteller — or at least the person who jinxed the cave door in the first place was.
Something heavy fell into my hand, and I opened my eyes to see the words ALI BABA gleaming in Arabic across the door. A golden key inlaid with rubies lay cold against my palm.
Aha. I stuck the key into Colón’s door and turned it. With a near-silent click the lock relented. I tossed the key into the air, caught it, and stuck it in my pocket. “Stay here and keep watch, Jinni. I’ll be right back.”
I skulked into the cabin and let the door close itself behind me. A few lit candles warmed the room’s disheveled interior. Other than the dark, the place looked exactly as it did the last time I’d been inside.
I took another step forward. No, nothing magical in here, as far as I could tell. Of course I’d have to check the desk to make sure. Maybe there was some kind of magical artifact hiding somewhere among the clutter.
I walked over and began rummaging through the admiral’s papers.
A sharp pressure drove up against the small of my back. “Don’t move,” said a voice behind me. “That pain you are feeling is a sword. Now put up your hands and turn around — slowly.”
I did exactly as I was ordered. And when I turned around, I found myself facing Pedro Terreros — and, indeed, he was holding a sword. Though the young nobleman stood perfectly still, his tawny curls shivered around his forehead. Evidently the cabin boy had been hiding behind the door when I entered. He waved the tip of his sword at my face, wearing his usual expression of disgust.
“How did you get in here?” he asked me.
Conjuring up that key must have temporarily sapped my Storytelling abilities, because I couldn’t think of a story, true or false, to answer Pedro’s question. I backed against the nearest wall and said, “You can put down that sword, Pedro. Listen. I can explain.”
But Pedro drove me against the wall. His knee pounded into my gut, and the hilt of his sword pressed hard against my throat.
“Oh, you will explain, Luis. Explain: How did you get in here?”
“How did I —? Through the door. Listen, I don’t know what you’re —”
Pedro applied some extra pressure to my windpipe to cut my yammering short. “I’ve heard quite enough of your stories, Luis de Torres! The cabin door was locked, and you know it! Now tell me the truth! What were you looking for in the admiral’s desk?”
“N-nothing!”
“Liar!” the cabin boy snarled. “Who are you working for?”
“Me? I’m not working for anyone! You’re the one working for the Malleus Maleficarum!”
Pedro’s whole body jerked back at my accusation. “The Malleus . . . ? How could you possibly think . . . ?” A fearful expression contorted the cabin boy’s features. “Who are you?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer. Just then the door to the cabin banged open as Jinniyah barged inside. “Bal — I mean, Luis! Come quick!” When she saw that I was being held at swordpoint, her voice went quizzical. “Pedro?”
Outside, the ship had erupted into a flurry of sound. “Do you see that?” I heard someone cry.
“Salcedo! Get the admiral!”
“It’s another demon!
“I told you! This mission is cursed!”
Juan de la Cosa’s voice buzzed through the ceiling above us. “It is naught but a whale.”
Admiral Colón, also above us on the aftcastle, added, “By Saint Fernando! Everyone back to your posts!”
Pedro tossed his head over his shoulder to get a glim
pse out the cabin door. “What in the world . . . ?” he said to the voices outside, and he loosened his hold on my throat.
This was my chance. I threw Pedro and his sword off me, tossed a pile of Colón’s papers at his face, and made a run for it.
“You come back here!” Pedro screamed after me. “You coward! You come back here at once!”
I raced out the door, ignoring the men gathered around the starboard rail, and galloped three steps at a time up the aftcastle stairs. Pedro followed close behind, but before he could reach me, Colón stepped between me and the cabin boy’s sword.
“What is the meaning of this?” the admiral demanded.
“This boy has been spying on you!” was Pedro’s wild reply. “He sneaked into your cabin when it was locked, and —”
Colón took a step toward his cabin boy. “Locked? Why was my cabin door locked, Pedro?”
Pedro stammered a few words. With his free hand he adjusted his cape around his neck. “That is beside the point, Admiral,” he said at last. “That bird — that black hawk — gave chase to him, and him alone! He mysteriously speaks foreign tongues, and now he’s breaking into your quarters in the middle of the night! It all adds up to one truth: This boy isn’t who he says he is!”
Around us our fellow sailors looked at one another, whispering in skittish agreement. Pedro pushed past Colón. “Now you come back here!” Pedro shouted at me, and he swung his sword in a reckless arc in my direction.
I dodged out of its way.
But the moment I did, I heard a deafening bang as something smashed into the Santa María. The force of it threw me off my feet.
“Bal!” I heard Jinni shriek.
But before I could recover my balance I tumbled over the rail. I grasped at the air, trying to grab a hold of something. The dark waters of the Atlantic rushed up to meet me.
I crashed into the ocean. The icy water pricked at my skin. Salt clawed at the back of my throat. My mind blacked out momentarily at the sight of that infinite abyss below, and I thrashed toward the sound of the screams above me.
I broke through to the surface. In those few moments of terror, the current had carried me far beyond the reach of the ships. From back here I could see what had hit the Santa María: a humongous black animal, smashing its body against the ship’s bow. A whale, Juan de la Cosa had called it. He was wrong.
That thing wasn’t a whale at all.
“Bal!” Jinniyah was screaming above me. Waves were pummeling me on all sides. “It’s Bahamut! Isa saw it in the story! It supports the heavens! And it’s his, Bal! It’s his!”
The Bahamut. Although most of its body was submerged in the raging waters, I could tell that it was larger than all three ships combined — an enormous black creature with seaweed-covered spines that shot up from its ridgy black backbone. The beast leaped out of the water so it could send a wave crashing against the Santa María. Before it plunged back under the surface, I could see its empty black eyes, sharp fins, and the twenty-foot-high curving needles that were its teeth.
The Bahamut.
No. Not the Bahamut. His Bahamut. Amir al-Katib’s Bahamut. Now there was no question. My father wanted me dead, and I had to stop him.
“Bal!” I heard Jinniyah cry. I could barely understand her. “Something something!” she seemed to be saying, but the waves gushed into my ears, pushing the words out before I could grasp them.
Something something.
Something something . . .
“Summon something,” I mouthed, as the black waves pushed me up and down. I had promised Colón that I wouldn’t — but Colón and the others would be dead soon, the way things were going. The Bahamut was focusing on the Pinta now, making smaller loops to crash into it at a faster rate. The Santa María swayed drunkenly beside it, looking moments away from capsizing.
Summon something. I would — but what? Titivillus was useless against a creature that large, and I doubted a golem could swim.
“Think!” I said aloud, spitting salty water back into the sea. Oh, think, you idiot, you fool!
As I berated myself, I thought I heard Colón’s voice joining in: “How dare you question me, Job? How dare you question the one who created and bounded the seas? I am the one who created the skies and the earth, the one who made the sea beast Leviathan!”
The Leviathan.
Yes, the Leviathan! Of course! If anything could defeat a world-carrying sea-beast, it would be him, the armored dragon of Biblical times.
The Bahamut raised its barnacled tail and whacked it against the ocean’s surface, sending white waves arching over the Niña. I took a deep breath, treading in the swaying water. If I was going to summon the Leviathan, I would have to do it now.
So I closed my eyes and thought of the story of Job. It was about a man, a Jew who questioned the Lord. And the Lord questioned him back, lecturing him about the Leviathan, a dragon.
The story was about words. That I knew. With a few words, Job earned the fury of his maker. With a few words God put Job — all questioners, really — back in their place. Colón made me tell him the Job story too, using my own words against me to scare me into submission. These words alone were more than enough to cow me, just like Gonzalo’s were back in Palos. In an abandoned monastery a priest’s words made me betray my family. Each time, like Job, I let myself be bullied by words.
So that was it, the moral of the story. I was Job. Job was pathetic, like me.
But I wondered.
In the story God used words to frighten Job. But why? Job was pitiful, a broken, mortal man. And God was God — omniscient, almighty. Why would God waste his breath lecturing a human? Why would the creator of all things care what one of his creations had to say?
A blasphemous thought took hold of me then. Could it be that, in the story, God was afraid of Job? That Job’s questions made God anxious, because He didn’t have any good answers? That would explain why God ranted at Job. He got nervous, so He puffed himself up by referring to past accomplishments.
In my mind the invisible Lord transformed into Gonzalo. He puffed himself up too, tromping around Palos as if he owned it. Maybe Gonzalo was scared of me, too. After all, I had won a kiss from his precious Elena Hernández, a feat even Gonzalo couldn’t achieve. In one move I had made him look a child, a fool. Stupefied, terrified, he punched me in the jaw.
My mind’s image of Gonzalo morphed into the Malleus priest in the abandoned monastery. This man must have been frightened of me too. Why else would he want to burn me, unless he was scared of my Storytelling powers? Finally the priest’s actions made sense. He had ordered me killed because he was afraid of what I could do to him.
In my mind the priest transformed into Colón. The graymaned admiral was more frightened than all of them combined. He had spent so much time petitioning the queen to allow him this voyage, and now it looked like he was going to be deposed by a mutiny and a fourteen-year-old sorcerer.
I had to laugh. So Gonzalo was scared of me, and the priest and admiral, too.
Hell, why not Amir al-Katib? Why else would he send a monstrous Bahamut to kill me, his scrawny son, when any small creature would do? It didn’t make sense.
Unless, for some reason, he was terrified.
Far below me the earth grumbled, and two colossal walls of water shot up in front of me. The spray hung in the air around the Hebrew word LEVIATHAN, and a metallic dragon surged out from the depths. It was the Leviathan, the serpent of Biblical times, coiled above the ships and the Bahamut.
The dragon’s iron scales were locked into one another like a phalanx; they glistened like diamonds in the moonlight. Its white eyes cast a beam of blinding light down at the Bahamut sending up clouds of vapor as it burned through the water. I heard a sound like thunder as the Leviathan’s belly began to swell with fire. Then it unleashed holy flames on the pitiful creature below.
The Bahamut shrieked and squirmed in pain in the water. One move, and the Leviathan had already won.
I shoute
d at the Bahamut, “Swim back home, you coward! Tell Amir he should be afraid! Tell Amir I’m coming for him!”
The Bahamut did as it was told. It surged toward the southwest, in the direction of Amir al-Katib, his master.
“I release you!” I yelled to the Leviathan, which broke into white pieces above me. Summoning the dragon had drained me, and I found I barely had the energy left to swim. I made one more attempt to get back to the Santa María, but my vision grew blurry as I watched someone dive off the ship. The last of my energy was gone.
The last thing I heard before I slid under the surface of the water was a splash and muted screams from afar. Then the current rushed back into my ears, and I could hear nothing at all. Eyes and faces with the luster of pearls loomed before me in the cloudy waters. One of those faces seemed to be Pedro Terreros, but at the same time it wasn’t his face at all. That Pedro’s face would be the last thing I’d see was a sweet irony. My laugh was morbid as the current took me.
The first thing I was aware of was salt. I could feel it, gritty, on the back of my teeth, and it burned as it dried over my lips. Next came sand, crunchy bits stuck in my molars, between my toes, under my elbows. I opened my eyes. A sliver of a moon illuminated an empty blue shore. On one side the black ocean lapped gently against unspoiled sand. On the other hundreds of palm trees swayed in a balmy breeze.
“What the hell?” I said aloud to the ocean. No sooner had I started believing that I would never see land again, that I’d be stuck in that coffin of a ship till the end of time, than I washed up ashore on some empty beach in the middle of nowhere. I let my head sink back onto the sand.
At least I was still alive.
I didn’t have much time to wonder at the thought. Because just then a mumble — a human mumble — pushed its way over the hushed roar of the wind and waves.
I searched through the blue night to find the mumble’s source. A figure was splayed on the sand behind me. I wiped the sand off my cheek and crawled over to it.
“Jin —” I started to whisper, then stopped. It was someone else. Even in the dark of night, I could see the reflective pallor of the person’s skin, the tawny wet hair. I reviewed the figure’s sharp chin, lightly-freckled nose, the barely-parted lips. And I had to come to an incredulous conclusion.
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