Crystal Rain

by Tobias S. Buckell

  The tiny waves smoothed out.

  They went back to sweeping.

  “Hey!” The shout echoed around them, bouncing around and skimming over the water.

  “Yeah, yeah, this it.” The boats slowed down, the net wrapping around something large under the water.

  Tito stood and waved an oar triumphantly. The net wrapped around a twenty-foot-long curve of smooth black wood that broke the surface of the water as they tugged the nets up.

  Pepper stood up and shrugged the trench coat off. He pulled the shotgun strapped to his right thigh free, letting his eyes go combat and talk to the gun.

  Colors fell away, replaced by a wash of night-vision greens.

  His skin crawled. His heart doubled speed, his extra veins sang.

  Pepper balanced on the transom of the boat, shotgun aimed at the smooth black wood in the nets, hardly swaying as Adamu jerked the boat forward.

  When they bumped against it, Pepper sprang into the air and landed on top without a sound. There was not a visible joint on the black curves, until Pepper leaned forward and found a lever.

  He pushed it in with one hand, then pulled. The hatch opened, and Pepper ducked over it, shotgun aimed down in first, trigger almost all the way down.

  Back again.

  The kids stared at him. The speed was inhuman, and they were probably wondering what the hell he was.

  “Nothing in there,” Pepper said.

  “We sink it?” Adamu asked.

  “No. I want it.” Pepper looked around at the rows of pillars and dark water. It was out there.

  Now left. Be careful, he told himself. Maybe he could take the creature alive.

  Get information out of it.

  “The Teotl can swim?” Adamu asked.

  “Maybe this one flies,” Pepper said. “Maybe it swims. I don’t know. They come in many different shapes and sizes. Depends on what they were bred for.” Some even went back into pupation to change later in life.

  There was a distant splash, one audible only to Pepper’s ears.

  “It’s coming.” Pepper raised a hand. “Move your boats behind me.”

  They hustled to ship oars and move.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Fifteen minutes of silence on the porch passed for Dihana. She heard her name being called farther down the corridor and ignored it.

  Not right now. Another five minutes, she thought.

  Haidan threw the doors open. The glass pane on the right-hand one shattered, the pieces falling and bouncing off the stone.

  “Haidan!” He froze in place. Dihana folded her arms. First piece of information first. “Anandale and Grammalton aren’t responding to any messages. I think they’ve been cut off. You said we had over a week before Anandale was invaded.”

  “I hadn’t heard that yet.” Haidan grabbed the doorframe. “You sure?”

  “I can reach Harford. That’s it.”

  Haidan bit his lip. “You know my estimate on when they would arrive was a guess. They probably using airship, dropping warrior off in the bush outside them town to cut off the wire.”

  “But do they have enough warriors to attack those towns? Or just cut them off.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” His boots crunched over the glass as he walked over to the railing and swept a hand out at the city. “I want to talk about this curfew you put up.”

  “Bombs, Haidan. They’re trying to take our airships, our food.”

  “I know that. But you compromising things. I have agent there. You asking me where the Azteca is and if they can take a town, but the Tolteca won’t tell me nothing now. We blind and deaf in Tolteca-town. So don’t be surprise I can’t tell you nothing. And by the way, you enjoy telling me mongoose-men what to do too much.”

  “I had to do something. And for all the agents you have, we were still getting hit hard. All those lost airships will hamstring us. And the grain silos they’ve destroyed …”

  Haidan sat down and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I wrong to be so vexed. But things is hazy. You want know how many Azteca marching for we? You want know what kind? The food they carry? Until you shut down Tolteca-town, people there was telling me all that. Now they don’t trust me. We can’t afford this, Dihana.”

  “I know. They’ll hate me. Xippilli won’t talk to me.”

  “Curfew everyone,” Haidan said. “Already I lose one mongoose-man in this. Tolteca and city people beating each other up.”

  Dihana stepped closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

  He bit his lip. “Curfew for everyone,” he repeated. “Not only Azteca-looking saboteur out. You know this, you see who kill the council-them back at that warehouse.”

  Dihana blinked. He was right.

  She sat down on the ground, away from the broken glass, her back against the wrought-iron curlicues. “Full curfew,” she said. “Full curfew. No one out at night unless accompanied by ragamuffins or your men. No matter whether they are Tolteca, Hindi, Nanagadan, or Frenchi. Patrols during the day as usual to try and catch anything.”

  “And hope we still trust enough by people-them so any strange thing get report.”

  “Yeah. Hope.” Dihana sat for a long second. Hope. “I read those letters you sent.”

  Haidan walked around in front of her. “Interesting piece of history,” he said softly. “What you think?”

  “Your plan north?” Dihana got up, walked over to the railing. The sun had just set and the sky glowed orange. Lights started to turn on all over the city. “Those letters tore me up, Haidan. I understand what you’re pushing for. But you and I both know we just can’t cut our hands off to do this, Haidan. Three airships …”

  Haidan stood with her and looked down at two mongoose-men guarding the doors. The grass had trampled sections on it from the regular patterns they walked around to make sure the building was safe.

  “I ain’t go haggle,” Haidan said. “I ain’t go ask for two airship, then one. Forget any airship. What if I say I got a backup plan?”

  “A backup?”

  Haidan looked over at her with a smile. Of course he would. It was Haidan. There would be plans within plans, no doubt.

  Dihana rested her hip against the wrought-iron patterns. “What is it?”

  “The steamship you told me I could have, the one out in the harbor.” He smiled. “I help all your Preservationist build it. Been hoping to use it to head up coast, spy on Azteca. We design the hull flat, so it could get into shallow water. But, that same hull, I bet you, work real well in the ice.”

  Dihana shook her head. “I’m not surprised. You thought about using it to go north before?”

  Haidan coughed into the arm of his shirtsleeve. “Got a few modification I want make to it, thing to help it when they get into the snow. Thing I been thinking about since the last expedition came back from the north sea and I talked to them all. Could be expensive.”

  “As much as an airship?” Dihana asked.

  Haidan shook his head. “Manpower. I go need to take some of the Preservationist away for a bit.” He grimaced and cleared his throat, dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief that Dihana had been noticing out more and more. “Go remake the ship so they can add treads, crawl over the ice. I seen something similar use up in a lake once, been hoping to make a big one.”

  “Still a big gamble, taking away resources for something so uncertain.”

  “Uncertain?” Haidan grabbed her arm. “The Loa love the idea. They know something up there, always have. Now they scare. Azteca coming, and Tetol coming with the Azteca, and that mean them Loa staring death in the eye. Whatever lying north, whatever this Ma Wi Jung is, it a sure thing, and the Loa know it go help, or they wouldn’t be trying to help we any. Maybe it a weapon of some sort, the Loa ain’t saying nothing yet. But we need this Ma Wi Jung. Our old-fathers needed it in the past and couldn’t get it. We need it now.”

  Dihana grabbed his arm. “Okay. Do it. Get crew. Try to find anyone willing to go that far north and you’ve got half
the battle won. I’ve spent at least two meetings trying to talk scared fishermen back out to sea because they think the Azteca are hiding everywhere.”

  Haidan let go of her and folded his arms. “Don’t you worry. I got a whole other surprise for you there.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Later. When thing settle and for sure. Seen? For now I must send message. Make sure me mongoose ain’t go get ambush out on the tracks. Make sure they get those two bridge between the Azteca and here destroy. You tell everyone you can reach they have to leave them town for the bush.”

  Dihana didn’t answer, and he didn’t wait for one. The door remained open, the shattered glass twinkling from Capitol City’s lights.

  They looked like stars scattered on the ground to her.

  Emil found her after the glass had been cleaned up, stopping her in the corridor with a concerned look on his face. Another Councilman hovered at the end of the passageway, waiting to hear her answer.

  “Prime Minister.” Emil’s voice strained from the pleasantness and familiarity trying to be injected.

  “Coucilman.”

  Emil kept his distance and cocked his head. “We have a request, if you have a moment to discuss it?”

  Dihana looked down the corridor at the other Councilman, who avoided her gaze. “What do you need?”

  Emil spread his hands. “We want to be able to move about.”

  “Can’t risk it. There is a curfew at night as well, just in case you were thinking of sneaking out.”

  She watched his reaction, a slight opening of the mouth and glance back to the other Councilman. So they were sneaking out of the building. She wondered how. Bribing ragamuffins? She’d have to follow up on that.

  The secretiveness, again, irked her.

  “We’re setting up a mission to the north,” she told him. “A place called Starport. You know where that is?”

  Emil folded his hands. “An old, old memory. That is where we had come down to Nanagada. I was just a child.” He closed his eyes.

  “We are going for the Ma Wi Jung.”

  “You know,” Emil whispered. “You know about that?”

  Dihana smiled. “The Loa are also interested.”

  “Don’t matter.” Emil shook his head. “No one alive who could work it. Not on this planet. Certainly not you Preservationist, they know nothing. Is just a ship. A ship like the one we come down to Starport on. Nothing special, they say, except that the Loa help we make it. But there none of we that could make it work now. The last one done dead. You understand? We done dead. I got to go.” His voice was soft. “We preparing for the worse now. We know this time might come, but we had always hope not, you know?”

  Dihana let him walk past. “Emil.”

  “Yeah?” He kept walking, his back to her.

  “Don’t leave the building. It’s dangerous.”

  He turned the corner.

  They seemed broken, Dihana thought. They’d seen everything fall as far as it could. From before the time of legend, to the fall of Mafolie Pass, to seeing Capitol City come under direct attack. They were facing their own mortality, something they hadn’t done in a long time.

  She could feel sorry for them. She could lose a bit of the bitterness she reserved for them.

  Dihana left them to send a message to the Loa priestesses, explaining Haidan’s new twist in his planning.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  John had not returned yet, so Oaxyctl washed his hands, threw away the slightly bloodied shirt, and put on his spare shirt. Then he wrapped the ends of a length of rope around his hands slowly, as if he had weights attached to his fingers, and planted himself just by the door.

  He took several deep breaths.

  Several minutes of waiting later, a hard knock on the door rattled it in its hinges. DeBrun wouldn’t knock, Oaxyctl thought. He unwrapped the rope from his hands and slid it between the limp bed mattress and the boards underneath.

  Three men stood at the door when he cracked it open.

  The silver-dreadlocked man in front, a handkerchief held over his mouth, coughed. He folded the piece of cloth back up and put it in his breast pocket.

  “Where is John?” he asked. “John deBrun?”

  “He isn’t here,” Oaxyctl said. “I can take a message for you.”

  “No, that’s okay.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe we can just wait for him?”

  “There isn’t much space in here,” Oaxyctl mumbled. His throat constricted, he could barely breathe.

  “That’s okay. I could come in alone.”

  One of the two men behind him put out an arm. “Haidan …”

  Haidan. The mongoose-general. Oaxyctl looked at the two mongoose-men. He didn’t stand a chance. His world crumbled. The atlatl was too far away, the odds against him. The mongoose-men sized him up as well. Their rifles lay cradled in the crooks of their elbows.

  “Yes, why don’t we all squeeze in,” Oaxyctl said.

  Everyone hesitated a moment. Then Haidan walked in and the two mongoose-men followed. Oaxyctl closed the door behind them.

  Haidan smiled. “So here we all are. And who are you?”

  Oaxyctl didn’t reply. He raised the corner of his shirtsleeve and showed the tattoo. The two guards nodded, but Haidan’s eyes remained neutral. Feeling another slight seed of guilt for again abusing this brothership of the mongoose-men, Oaxyctl walked into the washroom, calm. He turned on the light and closed the door behind him.

  Inside the cupboard lay his tools, the ones he’d just now unpacked from the canvas bag. Serums, scalpels, knives, Oaxyctl packed them all tightly into a small leather bag. Then he sat on the privy and took more deep breaths.

  He might have to kill all these men to get John. He might die trying. They might just leave. Or not. But his god had given him a quest, and that was to get the codes to the Ma Wi Jung. This he had to do, any way possible.

  Oaxyctl was nervous. If he did die, he would have failed the god …

  To go to your death is a release, he whispered to himself. To meet your gods is an honor. To give your body to the earth is your destiny.

  At least, that is what they say. Oaxyctl was more worried about the things the gods could do to him while still alive, and would do, if he failed.

  The door outside creaked open, muffled from Oaxyctl’s position inside the bathroom.

  “John,” the mongoose-general said.

  “Haidan?” Oaxyctl heard John reply.

  Oaxyctl took one final deep breath and opened the door.

  All eyes fastened on him for a second. John put down a paper bag of groceries. A wad of celery stalks tied with blue string stuck out of the top and leaned over.

  “What’s going on?”

  Haidan walked over. “We need you, John.”

  John sat on the bed. The boards underneath it creaked and settled. The two mongoose-men moved back to stand by the sides of the door. “I’m not flying to the northlands. I’m staying to fight.”

  Oaxyctl sat down at the small table.

  “It most likely you go die,” Haidan said. “Eventually. You ain’t that good a fighter, you only got one hand.”

  “Then I will die,” John said.

  “Come, man,” Haidan hissed. “You ain’t one to give up. You a fighter. I know this. I seen you push through the jungle before.”

  John shook his head. “That was a different time.”

  “You scared?”

  “Scared?” John raised his hook and looked at the light playing off it. “No. Tired, lost. My family is dead. And I left them there.” He hit his chest with the side of the curved steel. “Haidan … there’s nothing left for me.”

  Haidan sat on the bed next to John. The boards protested as the cheap bed pushed down. Oaxyctl held his hands steady over the table, but every muscle in his body tensed.

  “John.” Haidan pulled out the stained handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out. “If anyone go die here, it go be me. You and I know I
been sick ever since you pull me out that swamp in Hope’s Loss and this here damn cough had start.” Haidan dropped the rust-colored cloth to the ground. “I need someone who ain’t go give up now. I need someone strong. I need you to go all the way north for me. I know you can lead men. I had talk to sailors who you lead back to the city. You the man for this. I know it.”

  Haidan stood up, and Oaxyctl let out a held breath.

  “John,” Haidan said. “You want revenge? You want to make Azteca pay?”

  Oaxyctl scratched at his left index fingertip.

  “Them bastard kill you family, they kill Shanta,” Haidan continued. “They kill we friend in Brungstun. You want blood, I go give you blood, man: Ma Wi Jung.”

  Oaxyctl jumped in place, startled. Those words. Did these people know about his god’s quest?

  “Leave him.” Oaxyctl’s voice broke. “He’s been through enough.”

  “Why you test me?” Haidan asked, turning around. “You mongoose, true, but I don’t know you, and you tattoo new. Don’t cross me.”

  John stood up between them. Oaxyctl kept his hands still on the table’s rough wooden surface. If he shoved hard enough, he could feel a splinter poke into his palm. The pain helped center him.

  “Give him slack,” John said.

  Haidan coughed. Blood flecked his lips. He wiped at it with the back of his forearm.

  “Fine. Listen, John, I could get you the greatest revenge. You want bust the Azteca back? Then you go north. You go north and you find something, something from we old-father time, and you use it to smite the Azteca. That is true revenge. I can give you this.”

  John’s back slumped forward. “Tell me more.” It was an act of surrender, Oaxyctl realized.

  “By steamship, with you the captain.”

  “With some ragtag crew? Made of fishermen, right? I did that once before.” John paused, and everyone in the room hung on every movement of his back, his shifting feet, a sniff. “Maybe. If I captain the boat.”

  Haidan nodded. “Then I say you the captain.”