“You,” Katsuhiro says, narrowing his eyes into slits, “are beneath me. Kill you, yes. The world should be rid of scum like you, but duel with you? Never!”
“Minister Omomomo!” Regis turns imploringly to Shango. “Aren’t you going to defend me?”
“It depends,” Shango replies honestly, “on how this duel is resolved. You see, until it is over, I myself am in a rather ticklish position. If I win, I certainly will deal with you.”
Regis does not seem comforted. “Remember my securities,” he threatens. “Things will happen if I die or am imprisoned!”
Shango looks at him scornfully. “I learned weeks ago where your ‘securities’ are kept and can defuse them when I wish. Did you think that I would suffer to let a madman blackmail me?”
“No,” Eddie says so softly that Aduke hardly hears him, “only let him spread disease and terror for your glory.”
No one else hears his words, but Aduke finds herself strangely comforted to realize that at least one among these peculiar folk has not forgotten how normal people have been used in Shango’s bid for power.
“Do you have your weapons with you?” Katsuhiro interrupts impatiently.
“I do,” Shango says. He unwraps the bundle in the raincoat. “I would like a minute to stretch before we begin.”
“Take it.”
Shango unwraps a beautiful double-headed axe and strikes at the air with it as if to accustom himself to its weight. Katsuhiro also stretches, but Aduke notes that he does not draw his sword.
Oya, now standing beside her says: “To draw the sword is to commit himself to its use. He will wait until the duel begins, even if that gives Shango the advantage.”
After sixty seconds, they stop and take oath at the shrine of Ogun to abide by the terms of the duel. Then Eddie calls them to order:
“Take your places gentlemen. The clock will begin to run when I say: ‘Begin.’ I will call a halt after three hundred seconds. Continuing after that point will be subject the duelist to a penalty from the master of the lists. Failing to halt when the master of the lists so demands will also subject the duelist to a penalty. The master may lay hands on either duelist.
“This duel is to defeat, not death, not blood. If death occurs, the witnesses will vote on whether death was accidental or deliberate and will testify before a senior tribunal of the Accord to that effect. Are there any questions?”
Two terse negatives come in reply. Aduke feels the Grove grow tight with tension as if the gods whose images encircle the perimeter are now watching. Eddie pushes a button on his watch.
“Begin.”
A bolt of lightning crackles from the clear sky, heading directly toward Katsuhiro. Faster than Aduke had imagined possible, the samurai draws his sword and parries the lightning. Part forks out toward Shango, the rest breaks into electric blue lines that course over Katsuhiro, spitting sparks from the jutting black hairs of his beard.
Shango dodges one of the lightning forks, shunts the other aside with one of the heads of his axe. Beneath the tremendous clap of thunder that follows, Aduke murmurs to Oya:
“Are they gods then, to fight with lightning?”
Oya replies, her gaze never leaving the field where Katsuhiro, white lightning outlining his sword blade, is striking at Shango: “You summoned the wind. Are you then a goddess?”
“No!”
The fine hairs on the back of Aduke’s neck and arms are standing on end and, though the college-trained part of her knows that this is merely a reaction to all the electricity in the air, the “bush” part of her feels as if the gods are preparing to punish her for blasphemy.
“No!” she repeats. “But you and I had to make sacrifices and dance for most of a night to get Oya to summon the wind. These two”—she gestures to where Shango and Katsuhiro are sending a gradually reducing lightning bolt back and forth between the wide metal edges of their respective weapons—“call the lightning without pause or consideration.”
“They have had,” Oya says, “a long, long time to practice. When they began, I suspect they, too, needed to focus their powers through ritual and appeal to the naturals through sacrifice.”
“Oh.” Aduke says, wondering just how long a “long, long” time might be. Remembering penalties exacted for fifty-year spans, she suspects it is far longer than one human life span.
Ignoring the conversations around them, the two warriors concentrate on their duel, double-bladed axe against katana. Each is a master of his weapon, each can fight with lightning and thunder as well as by more mundane means. Neither yet has so much as scratched his opponent. Aduke, who had been certain that Katsuhiro Oba would win, now has her doubts.
She watches as if the very intensity of her gaze might affect the battle, dodging as if the double-bladed axe is coming at her, flinching when lightning crackles from the sky or from Shango’s hand, feeling the pump of adrenaline fill her blood with uncontrollable energy.
Then, through the crackle of the lightning, almost drowned out by the rumbles of thunder, comes a sound so mundane, so regular, that Aduke nearly dismisses it. Even when her brain registers the gunfire for what it is, she first looks to the combatants, certain that one of them must be the source.
Neither of them have so much as paused in their trading of blows electrical and otherwise, yet over to one side Regis is falling, his body shaken as if by kicks from an invisible giant. Aduke’s mind, open now to the wonder of gods fighting with lightning a few paces away, seems to have difficulty grasping the very mundane realization that Regis has been—is being—shot. Even so, she is the first to cry: “There’s someone out there with a gun!” She hears her voice, high and shrill with panic, the words tumbling over each other in their haste to carry the news to the ears of someone who can do something about it.
The duelists do not pause. Dakar does not move from his place as marshal of the lists, nor does Eddie spare more than a worried glance, but Oya and Anson run over. The Changer merely nods as if Aduke’s announcement is expected.
In mid-stride, Anson tosses something in the direction Aduke still points, her arm as rigid as a signpost. Nothing leaves his hand—nothing that Aduke can see—but when she looks at the fence a portion is covered by a heavy white veiling, like a spider web.
“Damn!” Anson says. “Missed whoever it was.”
“Teresa,” says the Changer calmly, his gaze now returned to the duel. “I thought you knew that she had been following you.”
Anson hesitates, then a smile lights his face. It seems incongruously happy given the man bleeding to death on the ground before him, the fevered heat of the duel behind him.
“I did,” he admits, “but I didn’t know what she planned to do. Did you?”
“No.”
Anson kneels next to Oya. “How is he?”
“Dead or dying,” she replies. There is no sorrow or shock in her voice, only a calm relating of information. “A quicker death than he deserved.”
“So now we don’t need to trouble ourselves with him.”
Oya glances at Anson. “Is that why you let Teresa follow you, ancient? Did you put her up to it?”
Aduke finds herself holding her breath, waiting for Anson’s reply. Somehow, she doesn’t want to learn that the cheery Spider could be so calculating.
“No,” Anson replies to her infinite relief, “but I think it all to the best. Teresa has been driven mad with grief and rage. This death by her hand may free her to return to sanity.”
Oya nods, and Aduke finds herself nodding as well. The Spider rises to his feet, dusting off his trouser legs—Taiwo’s trouser legs—with quick, businesslike motions.
“I’d best go after her,” he says, “before she does more harm to herself or to others.”
Then, though Aduke had believed herself immune to wonder, she feels her heartbeat quicken as Anson’s arms grow longer, or is it that he himself has grown smaller? All she knows for certain is that within two clashes of the sword and axe, where a man who had
looked like her husband had stood there is now a brown monkey. The monkey slips out of the heap of clothing, swarms up the fence, and jumps over into the nearest tree before vanishing into the bush.
Aduke watches him out of sight. When she turns Oya is studying her, concern on her broad features.
“Aduke?”
“He turned into a monkey,” Aduke says, bending to pick up the clothing from the ground. “Like something from an old market woman’s tale. Amazing!”
Oya hugs her around the shoulders, wordlessly congratulating the human for her calm. Then as one, they return their attention to the duel.
23
And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, “I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did—to yourself?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Katsuhiro hears the gunshots from one corner of his mind, but he cannot spare any attention. Fighting for his honor—and quite possibly for his life—Shango is giving the Japanese the best battle he has had in several centuries.
At least two minutes remain, and Katsuhiro is having a wonderful time.
He chases a fresh lightning bolt down Kusanagi’s blade, but Shango catches it with the broad part of his axe, dispersing the electricity into the elaborate runes etched in the middle. They sizzle and fizz blue-white, and Katsuhiro fully expects his own power to be sent back at him.
Shango, however, absorbs it into himself, growing stronger and perhaps a bit larger, then dances back a few steps out of the range of Katsuhiro’s sword.
Expecting another lightning bolt, Katsuhiro is taken aback when his opponent breathes fire. He drops and rolls to avoid being burnt. True to his samurai training, though, Katsuhiro rolls toward Shango rather than away. Shango’s next blast passes over him. When Katsuhiro come out of his roll, he is nearly touching Shango’s legs.
About a minute left, Katsuhiro thinks. Time to end this.
He surges to his feet and back a step or two. Again Shango breathes fire, this time directly into Katsuhiro’s face. Ready now, Katsuhiro beats back the fire with a blast of his own storm wind. There is a smell of burning hair as the fire gutters out, and Shango belches like a boy who has swallowed air.
Now!
Katsuhiro makes a quick slice, and Kusanagi lays open the left side of Shango’s face—not a pretty cut like a dueling scar, but an ugly thing that exposes the bone, leaving meat and skin hanging in a palm-wide swatch.
Shango screams and Katsuhiro feels blood patter like warm raindrops against his skin. Without pausing, he brings Kusanagi down in a hard, sweeping cut. All the power of his formidable strength is behind the sword as its blade shears through skin, muscle, bone, and tendon, severing Shango’s leg cleanly through the middle of the right thigh.
Katsuhiro freezes, breathing in smoke and a fine mist of blood, sword poised to defend.
For the merest instant, Shango stands balanced upon the severed member. Then, greased by the blood that gushes from severed veins and arteries, the thigh beneath the sword cut slips loose and the lower leg tumbles, knee bending in grotesque parody of homage, falling slow motion to the sodden ground.
Shango wails. Lightning crackles from the sky, a single white-hot bolt that cauterizes the wound. Then, reeking of cooked meat, the defeated athanor collapses to the blood-soaked earth.
Louhi cringes as she sees the tawny red coyote trotting down the aisle toward the front of the room. Gods! After everything they’ve discussed, don’t these people realize that the little beast is dangerous? Why are they letting her run free? Why doesn’t someone stop her!
She squeaks despite herself, trembling where she sits on the table in front of Arthur. Her bowels release, leaving a little puddle of urine and a few brown flecks on the towel they have set her on. Embarrassed, Louhi flicks her tail nervously, but still they let the coyote approach. She takes little comfort in the fact that the gathered Cats of Egypt are watching closely. Who can trust a cat to guard a mouse?
But Shahrazad stops a few feet away from the table where Louhi trembles and gradually Louhi realizes that the lolling jaws are not a sign of her imminent demise, but a canine smile. Everything looks so different from this perspective.
When Shahrazad turns her amber gaze on Louhi, her eyes are as big as those of a dragon. Then, to Louhi’s surprise, she hears a voice in her head. It is feminine but not female, the inflections of one quite unaccustomed to speech involving words—even thought words—rather than scents and ear flips and little noises. It is, she realizes, Shahrazad’s voice.
“So, do you like being pissed off all the time?” Shahrazad asks.
Louhi bristles at the importunity of such a query, then realizes that the coyote is not being insulting. She’s just calling the shots as she sees them.
“I didn’t know I was,” Louhi counters, also using thought speech. “Right now, I’m just scared.”
“You’re not,” the coyote says confidently, “not deep inside. You’re angry. Angry you’re a mouse, angry you’re little, angry you have to ask for favors. Angry. Do you like it?”
Louhi considers. No one else can hear this conversation and if she keeps the little beast talking, maybe someone will grab her and lock her up.
“I never thought about it,” she offers.
“You should try,” Shahrazad returns. “I did. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be angry at you, even though you scared me, even though you hurt the Changer.”
“He hurt me!” Louhi’s reply rises too quickly, always a problem with mental conversations.
“How? He’s a good parent, even when he bites.”
“He bites?”
“Of course, how else is he going to tell me when I’m wrong?”
“He could explain.”
“To a pup?” The coyote’s voice fills with merriment. “Pups don’t think. I still don’t think, much...”
“The Changer bites you.” The thought is a new one. Louhi had always known that the Changer bit, that he was dangerous, but somehow she’d always imagined Shahrazad’s upbringing as an idyll.
“Yep. Bites, thumps. When I wouldn’t hunt, he let me get hungry until I learned stillness.”
“So he gets angry,” Louhi says, steering the conversation back to Shahrazad’s original gambit.
“No. Not at me.”
“But he hurts you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“He left you when you were bad.”
“That’s right,” Shahrazad sounds abashed. “You know about that. Yeah, he left me. I think it was a new type of biting. I kept waiting for him to pull me out of trouble, like he always did before, even when you hurt him for it. I had to learn to be careful. Did hurting him make you feel better?”
“No.” Louhi is surprised by her own honesty. It doesn’t make her feel any better, either. In truth, it makes her feel rather sick. “No, it didn’t, but he never cared for me like he cared for you. I wanted him to.”
“So you bit out his eye and made him bleed.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Shahrazad says, memories of many times that coyote love made her bleed, “or would if you weren’t angry when you did it.”
“You know. I almost get your point.”
“They’re going to turn you back into a human. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to work with Lovern for a year. You used to be angry with Lovern a lot, too. Are you going to like working with him?”
“Not really, but it’s the best deal I could get.”
“So you’ll stay angry.”
“I never said I was angry!”
“Then why are you shouting?”
“Okay. I’m angry. I’ve been angry for a long time. Why shouldn’t I be? My father abandoned me. I don’t remember my mother. I’ve had power, but men only use me for it and go their way. So I learned to make deals, to gather more power, to make enchantments. I had the Head for a while, then even he enc
hanted me and I still want to vomit when I think how he used me.”
“Vomiting is good when it gets the bad stuff out. You just keep it inside. No wonder you’re always angry.”
Louhi twitches her whiskers. “It must be great being what—six months old? Everything must seem very simple. I don’t think I ever remember being six months old.”
“I’m seven months old.”
“I’m more than seven thousand times seven month old.”
“That’s more than I can count,” Shahrazad responds, awed. “And you’ve been angry all that time?”
“Leave off the anger, would you?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Why should you care?”
“Because,” says the coyote with a happy wag of her tail, “I’m going to turn you back. I think you have a point about not wanting to be a mouse, and if you don’t want to work with Lovern for a year, I don’t see why you should have to.”
“You’re going to turn me back?”
“That’s right. Get ready to grab that towel, okay? I can’t do clothes and humans are funny about these things.”
“But I’m your enemy!”
“Why?”
The simple question floors Louhi, leaving her mentally silent, not just speechless.
“Because you turned me into a mouse!” she answers at last.
“No, you were angry before then. I remember how you glowered at me in the yard of that place where you tied me to a tree. You were angry at me before you met me.”
“I suppose I was angry at the Changer.”
“For not biting you when you were small.”
“I...” Louhi frowns. “I still think he is my father.”
“Then I’m your sister. You can’t be the Changer’s daughter unless you’re Shahrazad’s sister.” The coyote tail wags. “My sisters are dead now. I think I’d like to have one.”
Stubbornly, Louhi persists in what Shahrazad must be made to recognize is deep and abiding anger. “I still think a father owes his children something.”
“Do they?” Shahrazad twitches an ear. “Depends on the animal, I think. The Changer cared for me because coyotes do, but if I had been born a fish or something, he might have tried to eat me. What were you born?”
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