Hammer of Witches

by Shana Mlawski

  But when I turned back to her, two hands crashed into my throat and threw me onto my back. I screwed my eyes against the pain. Then I noticed who was strangling me.

  “Cat . . . ?”

  But Catalina’s eyes were now red like the ghulahs’, red as the blood dripping down her leg where the ghulahs had scratched her. She bit her lip as her fingers tightened around my windpipe. With both legs I kicked her off me, and her nails raked against my face.

  I held my stinging cheek, then looked down at the lines of blood on my palm. “Damn it,” I said to those lines of blood. The ghulah’s scratch had turned Catalina into one of them. And now Catalina had scratched me.

  I knew what would happen next.

  I blinked. And when I opened my eyes again, the world changed. Everything was red now. I felt a new strength coursing through my veins. Suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to do. Amir al-Katib had been a distraction. This woman was my enemy. She had been my enemy all along! Now I knew why she had followed me all of those times before — into the ocean, into the forests of Ayití. She was using me, trying to take my glory! I would show her who was in charge here.

  I would kill her.

  I pounced at her. Now we were on the ground, wrestling with jaws clenched. Her teeth were gleaming with saliva as she wheezed air between them. I snatched a handful of sand from my side and threw it into her eyes. With a screech she flew off me. I smirked and buried my teeth into her neck.

  Catalina threw me off her and summoned her sword Excalibur. With a drunken movement she swung the sword at me. I leaped out of the way. She growled, adjusted her grip on the handle, and came at me again. I managed to dodge the sword just as it swept past. Catalina tripped and went flying into the sand. As she made impact with the ground I stomped on her sword arm and held her head down with my elbow. I twisted the sword out of her grasp with my free hand as she thrashed beneath my shoe.

  Now I had her. Slowly I raised the sword over my head. Good-bye, Catalina Terreros.

  “Bal!”

  My grip loosened around the sword, which wobbled behind my head as my wrist went slack. “Jinni,” I said, remembering where I was. The world quickly went back to its normal coloring. I swung my head over my shoulder. Below my dune, I could see Jinniyah’s hand and half of her face sticking out of the sand.

  “Bal, help me!” she cried. “Get us out of here! BAL!”

  More green hands shot out of the sand around her. They smothered her and dragged her down into the earth.

  I pushed Catalina over so I could see her face. Tears were streaming from her eyes — from the sand I’d thrown at her, I guessed. A ring of red teeth marks glared at me from the side of her neck. Trying to ignore them, I shook her. “Catalina, wake up! It’s a mirage! The ghulahs put us under a spell! Please! I need you to get us out of here!”

  Catalina kept squirming under me, her eyes inflamed, savage, and red. Oh, how had she broken out of my Eden before? If I could do the same thing, I could break us out of this desert prison.

  “How did I break out of your Eden?” Catalina had said in the forest. “You just need to figure out why you don’t belong there.”

  And once she’d said, too, “You’ll find that most female creatures in myths are extremely frightening. Apparently men find us very scary.”

  At once I knew what the story of the ghulahs was about. And I yelled so Amir al-Katib could hear me, “This is a story told by a man who’s afraid of the desert, just like he’s afraid of women.” I looked down sadly at Catalina and said, “Just like some people are afraid of men. And I can’t blame you for it.”

  I went on, much louder, “But it’s a mirage, Amir! And I won’t be afraid of mirages! Maybe this desert is your prison, but it’s not ours! We don’t belong here. It’s only a story! It’s not real! So if you don’t mind, we’re leaving. And next time you want to summon the desert, leave me and my friends the hell out of it!”

  A whirlwind of sand spiraled up toward the sky. I covered my head and held Catalina tight. Over the sound of wind, I could hear the ghulahs shrieking. Then the wind stopped, and I fell forward onto my knees as the sand disappeared under my feet.

  I stood and looked up. The red sky of the desert had given way to the rocky ceiling of the Cave of the Jagua. We were back in Ayití, in the dark.

  The sound of coughing drew my attention back downward. “Catalina!”

  I helped her sit. She was shaking wildly, breathing gasping, shivery breaths. “What happened?”

  I held her and said, “Nothing. A mirage.”

  “Bal!” Jinni yelled from across the room.

  “Jinni!” I cried. “You’re okay!”

  At the other end of the cave, Jinniyah balled her hands into tight little fists, and her hair cast black light around the room. “Bal, I hate ghuls!” she said. “They’re dirty and ugly, and I hate them!”

  I helped Catalina stand and said, “Catalina and I didn’t love them, either. But they weren’t too hard to deal with, once we figured out the story . . .”

  I trailed off at the tail end of the word. In front of us, by the scar in the cave wall, bits of lightning were shooting out of the ground. A wind from nowhere gushed through the cave, and I felt the floor shuddering like it had when Amir had summoned the ghulahs. Over the deafening rumbles that reverberated out of the floor, I yelled, “What’s he doing now, Jinni?”

  The wind swept up a cloud of dust from the cave floor. But through the dust I could see parts of the beast appearing in front of us. Out of its broad, bullish face grew an ivory horn, long and sharp as a jouster’s lance. The beast threw its head back and roared, revealing razor sharp, saliva-wetted teeth. It trained its glowing red eyes on us, kicked up its hooves, and came at us.

  Catalina and I dived in either direction. The monster was pure muscle, and as it barreled past us, the earth shook with the force of a hundred horses. But pure muscle is difficult to stop. The beast plowed into the cave’s back wall. It shook its head against the blow and snorted in frustration.

  From my place on the floor I looked up to make sure Jinniyah had escaped being trampled by the beast. I found her about twenty feet above us, hanging onto one of the closer overhanging stalactites, wrapped around it so tightly I guessed she might have dug her toenails into the rock. I ran over while the beast was still in its dazed state.

  “Jinni!” I yelled. “What is that thing?”

  “It’s a karkadann, Bal!”

  A karkadann? Oh, yes. The unicorn with the taste for blood. But this beast looked nothing like any unicorn I’d ever imagined. This karkadann was almost fifteen feet tall with a body more bull than horse. Its fur was a coarse brown, not white, and its tail whipped against the cave floor so hard that stalagmites cracked apart.

  “Is there a way to beat it?” I shouted up to Jinniyah.

  Jinni shook her head into the rocky spine. “I don’t know! I heard some warriors killed a karkadann once, but I don’t know how they did it!”

  The beast was currently shaking its head and whipping itself with its tail as if to spur itself on. “Look at the wall!” Catalina exclaimed. “This cave is falling apart. One more hit like that and the whole thing will collapse on top of us! We have to summon something and stop it — quickly!”

  She was right. Where the karkadann had hit the wall, a thin but ominous fissure had formed. It slowly crawled up the wall toward the ceiling.

  “Golems!” I shouted back, and I quickly outlined the story for her. “Jewish protectors made of clay. Ameth makes them live, meth makes them die. Quick, Cat!”

  Catalina muttered something under her breath, and a golem grew out of the earth beside her. In an instant my own golem grew next to hers. Though Catalina’s golem was black and mine was the color of clay, both were thick and angry, with eyes made of burning coals.

  Seeing the golems, the karkadann shook out its bull head and snuffed in anger. I climbed onto my golem’s back, and Catalina’s golem raised her onto his. “Careful, Infante,” Catal
ina said. Giants though they were, our clay protectors were little more than half the size of the karkadann.

  The karkadann lowered its head, trained its beady red eyes on us, and charged at our two golems. At the last second before impact my golem stepped aside, letting the karkadann smash into his clay arm. Catalina’s golem added more buffets on the karkadann’s other flank. One final, mighty blow sent the unicorn sliding across the cave on its side, tossing up stalagmites and stones as it whisked past.

  I climbed higher on my golem’s back to peer over its shoulder at the fallen karkadann. “Is it dead?” I asked Catalina.

  The karkadann answered the question by letting loose an earth-shaking roar and trotting to its feet. It threw itself at my golem and smashed its horn in the golem’s pottery gut.

  “This isn’t working!” I shouted over to Catalina. “I’m going to summon something else!”

  “No, wait!” she shouted. Her golem brought down its fists on the karkadann’s skull. “With two golems, the fight is a draw. But with three . . .”

  My lips parted. “With three . . .”

  Our golems barged across the cave. “Jinni!” Catalina and I screamed. “Jinni!”

  I reined in my golem right beneath Jinniyah. “You have to summon a golem, Jinni! It’s the only way!”

  The girl shook her head and hugged her spiny rock tighter. “I can’t, Bal! I’m a genie, and genies can’t be Storytellers! I can’t even grant wishes!”

  “Exactly! You’re a half-genie, which makes you half-human! Arabuko said any human can be a Storyteller, so you should be able to summon a golem!” Sure, he also said it would take training and work, but I had to hope Jinni could figure it out.

  My own golem lumbered forward and cuffed the karkadann on the ear with one of its clay fists. Doing my best to hang on as he pirouetted around the beast, I shouted, “You already know the story of the golem, Jinni! Now just figure out what it’s about!”

  Jinniyah sobbed back, “Why does it have to be about anything?”

  Catalina’s golem rammed headfirst into the karkadann’s front legs, sending it hurtling off course. The karkadann tumbled across the room and lay there, stunned. Catalina hung onto the back of the golem’s neck and called up to Jinni, “You can do it, Jinniyah! Please try, at least!”

  I said, “I’ll help you, Jinni! It’s a story about a protector. The golem and its master share a bond, like me and Diego! Or like God and the Jews!”

  If anything that made Jinni despair even more. “Oh, Bal. What do I know about Jews?”

  On the back of my golem, I wiped my face with one hand. “Forget the Jews. The bond the golem has with its master is the same bond you have with your god. That’s the truth of the golem. That’s why you have to write ‘truth’ to make the golem come alive. Ameth —”

  Catalina’s golem cut in front of me. “No, don’t listen to him, Jinniyah! The story is about life and death! You write ameth to make it live, because the Word is life. But to make it die, all you need to do is take away the A, remember? Ameth: life. Meth: death. That’s the truth of it: the truth that life and death are only a letter away from one another. And that’s why the golem is made of clay: ‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, clay to clay,’ and so on?”

  Typical Catalina. Of course she had to read the story in the most depressing way possible. “Not every story is about death, you know!” I shouted over to her.

  “This one is!” Catalina retorted. By now the stunned karkadann had managed to get itself on its feet, and it shook its head again as if to clear it. Before long it would charge at our golems again, and this time I wasn’t sure if our clay monsters would survive the attack.

  Maybe Catalina’s right. Life and death are only a letter apart.

  And it hit me. “Jinni!” I shouted as my golem knelt below her. “Listen — we’re both right! The story is about life and death — and it’s about protection! The golem protects the Jews because they have the power of life and death over him. The Jews created him, and they can destroy him just as fast. With nothing more than a word, Jinni! Remember what you said to me back in the forest? About genies and Allah?”

  Jinniyah turned slowly from her stalactite. “When you create something out of nothing, you’re allowed to destroy it when you want to! Oh, Bal, you’re right! It’s the same! Me and the golem . . . We’re the same! It’s the same story!”

  A beam of light shot out of the rock near Jinniyah’s head. Then two more light shafts blazed out from under the two golems.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  Catalina pointed at the ground. “Infante, look!”

  What I saw filled me with terror. Our golems were melting into pools of clay.

  For once I didn’t need to think. I made a mad leap off my melting golem and shouted, “Catalina! Run!”

  We sprinted across cave, as the three lights surged down the floor toward a point in the center of the room. When the beams met they exploded into a blinding white flame. Shielding my eyes, I pushed Catalina behind a stalagmite.

  Catalina gasped for breath. “Infante . . . you . . . listened to me. About the story.”

  “I know. I’m as shocked as you are.”

  The ground shook. Catalina peeked around the stalagmite, and her mouth fell open.

  In the middle of the cave the puddles of clay that our golems had melted into combined into one large pool. The pool began to thicken and grow, first into a mound and then into a mountain of clay maybe fifty feet tall. Arms grew out of the mountain, and legs, and finally a head. It was a golem — a new, enormous golem.

  “Did Jinni do that?” I asked, amazed.

  Catalina answered, “I think all of us did.”

  The karkadann saw the new golem and snuffed with disdain. It roared, reared up, and stampeded with all its might at the golem’s massive leg.

  A smash rang through the cavern as the karkadann’s horn shattered against the golem’s foot. With one giant hand the golem scooped up the de-horned unicorn. The golem considered the karkadann for a moment before lobbing it across the cave. It smashed against the cave’s back wall and shattered into a million tinkling pieces.

  It took a second for my mind to accept what had happened. It was over. The karkadann was gone.

  “I release you from my service,” I said to the golem. The clay beast turned slowly to look down on Jinni and Catalina.

  Catalina said, “Maybe since we all created it together, we all have to send it away at once. I release you, golem.”

  Jinniyah soared down from her stalactite and flew in front of the golem’s face. “Thanks, golem! You can go home now.” The golem’s angry clay mouth turned up into a smile as he disappeared from sight.

  “Bal, I did it!” Jinni exclaimed. “Did you see? I helped you summon that golem!”

  “That’s great, Jinni. Now come on. Let’s go before Amir summons something else.” I felt for the dagger Rodrigo Sanchez had given me and started running across the cave.

  “Slow down!” Jinni said, starting to follow me. Before she could reach me, a boulder the size of the karkadann’s head slammed down between us.

  “Jinni!” I screamed.

  “Don’t worry!” she exclaimed from behind the boulder. “I’m all right!”

  Catalina ran over to her and cried, “We have to go! The cave is collapsing!”

  I whirled around. Through the light of Jinni’s hair I could see the thin fracture that the karkadann had made when it hit the wall earlier. The fracture had widened and was currently snaking up the rock face. The floor trembled beneath me. I had a feeling that even if I did succeed in bringing my father out to Caonabó and Anacaona, they wouldn’t be happy that I’d pretty much destroyed their holy place. I hoped the main part that the shamans used survived our fight with the karkadann.

  “Watch out!” Catalina cried, looking up with horror at the ceiling of the cave.

  I threw myself out of the path of a stalactite that fell and crashed before my feet. The fissure in the
wall was growing faster and faster, zigzagging up the cave wall to the ceiling. The rocky spines that dotted the top of the cave shivered and rained down on us from above. I dodged the spears of rock as they plunged down in front of me and dived into the scar in the rock wall.

  I heard Jinniyah scream, “Bal!” as an elephant-sized boulder fell between us, blocking the entrance to the tunnel. I could hear more falling rocks rumbling beyond the boulder, but I could no longer hear Catalina or Jinni.

  “Jinni!” I called, banging on the boulder with a fist. “Jinni! Catalina! Can you hear me?” There was nothing. “You two get out of there,” I called, probably to no one. I held my knife tighter and said, “I’ll try to find another way out.”

  I swallowed and walked down the rocky passageway, in the direction Jinni said would lead to my father.

  I let my fingers trail along the walls of the tunnel as I made my way through. They were damp and cool. A chill breeze blew through the passage, carrying sea spray. There was a river nearby, or a waterfall. I could hear its roar.

  The tunnel emptied me into a circular room crowned with spiny thorns. Dusty afternoon light filtered in from a stony window and wrapped itself around the stalagmites, shaping them.

  A flapping sound. My head shot up.

  Not far from me the hameh circled above a stooped figure partially hidden by the shadow of a tower of stone. The figure wore a black cloak with gold embroidered edges, which was held in place by a silver brooch. Underneath that cloak the man wore a long silk robe, with buttons leading down from a high collar to a silver belt. The hameh settled on the man’s shoulder, let out a mild squawk, and ruffled its feathers to shake away the dampness of the cave.

  I wet my lips. Amir al-Katib. Not a legend. A man. The cloaked man bent in shadows before me.

  I had come here to talk, but what was I supposed to say? “I’m Baltasar Infante, your son. Please stop trying to kill me”? He could run me through before I could get out a word. My eyes flicked up at the hameh. There was that bird to deal with too. My shoulder spasmed at the thought. I could summon the sleeping princess, have her tie al-Katib to one of the spiny rocks. And I could take down the hameh with some flying creature. A rukh, maybe. Or Catalina’s Furies. Or —