Crystal Rain (17 page)

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Authors: Tobias S. Buckell

BOOK: Crystal Rain
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Dihana looked up with bleary eyes at Haidan as the office door opened. “Evening.” She pulled her head off the desk. “Getting sleep.”
“You put this one off long enough,” Haidan said.
“I know.” Time to gird herself to face an old set of fears. Her hands trembled a bit as she smoothed her jacket, tucked in the blouse, and straightened the long skirt. The Loa had come up from its temple to see her. Usually they skulked in their temple basements scattered throughout Capitol City, making people come to them. No matter what happened tonight, at least she’d forced one of them to come to her. That gave her a small measure of confidence. “Let’s do it.”
They liked the dark, that she knew. The conference room had been buttoned shut yesterday. The corridors had been modified. Heavy carpeting hung near all the windows and along the walls.
It suffocated her just to walk into here.
Wheels squeaked down toward the conference door, followed by footsteps.
The door opened. Mother Elene pushed a wheelchair in. The Loa inside lolled between the wicker webbing, the large globe of its head held in place by a brace. Just under the papery-thin skin of the Loa’s head, Dihana saw soft cracks in the skull plates. Every year a Loa’s head grew larger, and the skull split and grew aside to accommodate.
“Mother Elene.” Dihana stood. “It is good of you to come.”
It had no legs, Dihana noticed. Pale, pasty flesh sagged in bags under the arms. It fumbled a piece of sliced apple toward its toothless mouth and chewed listlessly.
“Good you finally talk,” Mother Elene said. “Though we know we last on you list.”
“Will you sit?” Haidan asked.
“I go stand here by Gidi Fatra,” Mother Elene said. “I translate.”
“We are hoping for help defending the city,” Dihana said. “The mongoose-men are good, but there are too few of them. We have weapons, and airships, and steam cars …”
Mother Elene raised her hand. Dihana stopped. The Loa hissed. The wicker under its pasty bulk squeaked.
“Gidi Fatra, as all Loa do, think you walk the wrong path.” The Loa strained to move itself, bleary eyes scanning the room with jerks of its fleshy eyelids. “Fatra say we can’t hold the city walls.”
“You want the Tetol to rule us here?” Dihana snapped.
Haidan turned in his chair, a movement she caught from the corner of her eye. Dihana ignored the gentle warning while Mother Elene listened to the Loa.
“We ain’t saying we ain’t go help.”
“What you offering?” Haidan asked, putting his elbows on the table.
“With only you men,” Mother Elene translated, “it don’t look … likely, that we go win a war. Not after we lose Mafolie Pass.”
“We
can
hold them outside the city walls,” Dihana said.
The Loa heaved itself to face her, eyes narrowing. She realized it could understand her. It hissed at her, spittle drooling down off its lower lip.
Mother Elene translated. “Maybe it won’t take a few week them, maybe it go take many year, but without Mafolie Pass them Azteca can take all the time they need.”
Haidan raised his arms and folded them. “Maybe. Or maybe there a few trick up we sleeve still.”
The Loa snorted. Then it looked at Haidan.
“Over the last day or so,” Mother Elene said to Haidan, “you men been buying up fur, can food, and talking to any men who been far north or up the mountain where it cold. You planning a trip north.”
Haidan folded his arms. “I planning something. But not north. Why I go upset the Loa by trying for another north trip? Besides, I need all the fighting men here, not there.”
Dihana glanced at him again. Haidan betrayed nothing but calmness. He kept his gaze on the Loa.
“You ain’t fool we,” Mother Elene said.
“The general is a man of his word,” Dihana said.
Mother Elene smiled. “You go need we help to go north. You don’t have no idea what up there.”
Haidan leaned forward. “You saying the Loa want help we go north? They change they mind after all these years?”
Mother Elene put her hands on her hips. “Loa always got all of we best interest in mind. Always been, always go be.”
To Dihana’s surprise, Haidan leaned back and laughed. He shook his locks. “So what exactly up north for the Loa then?”
“Gidi Fatra, and all the rest of he order, support this thing you planning. They want update every day about it, and more regular talk with you about they place in the city. We go talk further about what we go help you with later.”
“You didn’t answer the general’s question,” Dihana said. “What do you think is up in the north that brings this change?”
Mother Elene looked to the Loa, but it hissed nothing back at her.
“You have our cooperation now,” Mother Elene said. “Information go be shared later.”
It was, Dihana felt, as good a start as any, and she let the matter drop with a quick glance at Haidan. He spread his arms and shrugged.
“That’s it?” Dihana asked.
“For now. That is enough.”
“Okay.” Dihana looked at Haidan. “There have been attacks. Would you like mongoose-men stationed anywhere?” Haidan coughed, disapproving her offer, and she continued, “For protection of the Loa? They are vulnerable without armed men to protect them.”
“No,” Mother Elene said. “That been thought out already. None of the Loa below the street temples. They hiding good. Contact the priestess them, and the Loa will hear what you say.”
“You don’t trust us with your location? Not even if we gave our word to keep the location secret?”
“Your word?” Mother Elene asked. “Not yet.” She walked back to the wicker chair, turned it around toward the door, and wheeled the Loa out of the conference room. She closed the door behind her carefully so it didn’t catch her long, purple skirt.
“Interesting,” Haidan said.
Dihana wondered what they had gained here. An order from the Loa? She wasn’t her father. They weren’t even going to help with the fighting. Frustrating.
“This manuscript you have,” Dihana said. “I want a copy. If the Loa are after the same thing, I want to know everything I can.”
“I go send you a copy, but I told you everything. It a machine. That all I know.”
Dihana reached out and grabbed his forearm. “But I don’t think we can afford taking away any airship just for the Loa to go north. We need them when we start fighting.”
They couldn’t afford another northern trip. The previous ones, although by ship, not airship, had not been successes. No, they would have to wait until they knew what future, if any, Capitol City had.
“You canceling this because we can’t afford it? Or is it just that you refuse to do anything the Loa say?”
Dihana held nothing back. “You might be right about that, but how can we be sure we know what Loa want of us? What are they trying to do?”
“Survive,” Haidan said. “When Azteca coming, that is about all you can do. If they holding back, is because we all building trust. But we need them. Most of this city worship them, you can’t toss that aside.”
True, Dihana thought. But a bad taste lingered still.
In Capitol City, Hindis prayed at their shrines, and Muslims prayed at night toward a constellation they said held Mecca. The Holy Christian Church had churches. In the bush, wary with hunter’s expertise, the normally peaceful Rastafarians honed warriors with the skills that kept Nanagada safe.
But no religion held as many followers in Nanagada as Vodun, for any believer had only to walk to a church to find
the Loa, pale and malformed, giving their scratchy prophecies in a holy tongue only the Mothers could translate.
Haidan was right. Though she
would
find out what the Loa thought was up north. And wanted. But now it was time to talk to Haidan about housing more people in Capitol City, about where to get the money to build defenses around the walls, and how to slow the Azteca down when they arrived.
He asked her if he could put more mongoose-men out in the streets with the ragamuffins, patrolling for trouble. The streets had become dangerous. He had street corners, warehouses, and posts already planned.
 
 
The sleeper car rocked along toward Capitol City at the end of ten other similar square steel cars under the swept column of black smoke pouring from the grimy engine’s stack. In the dark, boxy confines tired bodies hunched along the drop-down sleepers. Dusty streams of early-morning light flicked in through the closed windows, strobing the inside of the car with sudden glimpses of the weary occupants.
Some were mongoose-men making their way to Capitol City. The rest were weary mothers and children, their possessions in packs around their feet. Some whispered that a few people in this car were from Brewer’s Village, and that Anandale would fall within the week yet. Three days of service remained before the trains withdrew and the northern tracks were destroyed behind them by the mongoose-men. The train was crammed with people fleeing up the northern coast toward the city.
Oaxyctl sat on the hard bench seat, looking at John deBrun’s hook hanging loose from the bunk above him. It moved in rhythm with the sway of the car over the tracks.
With each clack Oaxyctl counted off the increasing miles between the advancing Azteca and himself. The farther they got, the more he could relax.
They’d come far in few days. Oaxyctl pushing through forest with no care for leaving tracks in his hurry to keep in front of any Azteca. John kept up with him. Both mute, hardly able to talk when pushing through the jungle, wary and nervous, alert for any strange sound, they kept on until they found the tracks and followed them to a station.
Oaxyctl’s skin itched from sticky leaves, his eyes burned, and he was hungry, but at least he lived. And had his prize. In Capitol City Oaxyctl would find some
quimichtin
contacts posing as Tolteca and get the tools he wanted for this grisly task of pulling the information he wanted from John. They might even find him a soundproofed room.
He had the time, now, to do everything right. The way the god wanted. Oaxyctl relaxed. It will turn out okay, he told himself.
Or unlucky, he thought.
Best not to think about that. Oaxyctl stared at a triangular tear in the upholstery while John snored in the bunk overhead.
 
 
Oaxyctl had never been to Capitol City. He sat by the window, craning his head. The walls stood higher than the tallest sacrificial pyramids in Tenochtitlanome.
Mothers stirred children awake, telling them they had arrived. People shoved beds back up into the walls and moved their belongings out from under the seats.
“This we home now, Ma?” a boy several seats over asked.
“Just for a while, sweetie. Just for a while.”
Next to Oaxyctl, John looked over at one of the other trains parallel to them, moving slowly out of one of the tunnels into Capitol City. Great spikes and mounds of dirt menaced the train from either side of the tracks. Defensive measures, earthworks. Oaxyctl counted ten roads leading out of the city along with the northern and southern tracks.
Now he understood why it was said that all roads this side of the Wicked Highs led to Capitol City.
“We’ll need to find a place to stay,” Oaxyctl murmured. “I have some money with me in my pack, but not much.”
“You work for the mongoose-men,” John said. “I heard someone in this car saying there’s temporary lodging for them all around the city.”
“Yes.” Oaxyctl smiled. “But after all that time in the jungle, it would be nice to find a better room. It would be quieter.”
“Okay.” John extended his good hand. “I owe you my life. I don’t know how to thank you enough.” The train slowed. “I have no money to help or repay you with. I’m going to join the mongoose-men and fight, though. Hopefully all the way back to Brungstun.” John grimaced. “I hope we meet again. And that I can return the favor.”
“Room with me,” Oaxyctl suggested. If not, he’d have to hunt John down again later tonight.
“I was hoping to look up some friends …”
Friends? The last thing Oaxyctl needed was John’s friends. “I insist.” Oaxyctl fidgeted with a corner of his shirt. “At least this first night. We’ve only just arrived. You’ll have somewhere to clean up and come back to if you can’t find your friends. I’ll go down to a mongoose station tomorrow. If you come with me, we can sign you up then.” Then, Oaxyctl thought, he could tie John up in the room and get started on this.
The train chuffed to a stop inside the tunnel by the platform. John stood up, along with all the other passengers. “If it’s no trouble?”
“It’s no problem at all,” Oaxyctl said, and picked up his pack.
 
Oaxyctl found himself bewildered. People of all skin shades wearing bright clothes packed the streets. Their various accents echoed off the sides of the tall rock by their side.
“If I remember,” John said, “there are rooms over into the middle a bit more towards the harbor. Near Tolteca-town. Cheaper.”
Tolteca. The closer to Tolteca the better. “Yes, let’s try that,” Oaxyctl said, as boxy wooden vehicles zipped quietly along the street next to him. Donkeys laden with baskets plodded along the sides of the streets, their bored eyes fixated on the ground. Crowds of people and goods shoved and trickled toward the streets.
Oaxyctl held his atlatl at his side as they walked on, spears strapped in a tight bundle with cord. Two men with muddied feet leading a brown donkey away from one of the train’s cars looked him over and frowned. He nodded back at them, but they refused to meet his eyes.
A lady with a wicker basket of clothes on her head spat at the ground when she saw him. Something bleak and angry hung in the air. He looked around, surrounded on all sides, and felt unprotected, unsafe. John walked ahead, oblivious. Oaxyctl hurried forward.
A rock struck the side of his head hard enough to blur his vision. Oaxyctl staggered.
Five men, previously inspecting fruit on a table, walked forward and surrounded him. “Where you going, Taca-man?”
Oaxyctl stood his ground and itched to let a dart fly. “I’m a mongoose-man. Strike again, and you will have a problem.”
“Our only problem you,” they said. “Get back on the other side of the mountain and leave we all alone.”
Oaxyctl walked forward. They didn’t spread apart. When Oaxyctl stepped between them, they threw their shoulders forward to stop him. The young man on the left punched Oaxyctl in the belly. Oaxyctl crumpled. Several lightning-quick kicks and punches disoriented him.
He hunched over his atlatl darts and yanked one from the bundle.
“Hey!” John yelled as he turned back around. The group paused, unsure who he was. John walked forward. In a single motion he raised his hook and snaked it around the nearest man’s neck, the point resting just a hair away from the man’s Adam’s apple.
“What this?” the young man asked. He kept his hands out in front of him and shifted from foot to foot.
“My hook,” John said, “on your neck. This man you’re
beating is a mongoose-man. He spends most of his time out in the bush protecting you from the Azteca.”
“Fine job he doing,” someone yelled from the road.
“Shut up,” John yelled. He pointed at the four other men. “Hit that man again, I cut your throats. He saved my life. Let him go. Now.”
They swore and let Oaxyctl go. He stood up. “Thank you.” Oaxyctl gasped for air. “Let’s go.” He replaced the dart, glad not to have to kill anyone in such a public place.
John removed his hook. The men walked off, cursing and swaggering as if they’d achieved something.
“Hey.” A mongoose-man walked toward them. “Hey, you.”
Oaxyctl and John both stopped. “I’m sorry,” Oaxyctl said. “We—”
“It okay,” the mongoose-man said. “I hear you say you was a mongoose-man. I here giving directions to all the mongoose fresh off the train. You have proof?”
Oaxyctl pulled his shirtsleeve up. A blue-green caricature of a mongoose, the long, thin mythical animal that hunted snakes, coiled around his arm. It was new, and still angry bright on his skin.
The mongoose-man looked suspicious. “It a bit new.”
John stepped in. “That man saved my life. He is not a spy. Trust me.”
“And you is?”
“John deBrun. Maybe you all remember from the—”
“Northland expedition!” The mongoose-man clapped John on the shoulder. “Yeah, man, I remember you.”
Oaxyctl relaxed.
“Okay,” the mongoose-man said. “You can clear that up tomorrow.” He pulled out a small rectangle of stiff paper, which had his signature on it. “This scrip for a room in the city tonight. Temporary. Address for the nearest command station on the back. Wait till next morning before reporting in,” the mongoose-man advised. “They getting full trying to process everybody already.”
Oaxyctl took the parchment. “Thank you.”
The mongoose-man nodded and looked down the street at the backs of the band of men who’d taken after Oaxyctl.
“Least I can do. We been ordered to hand them out to any returning mongoose-man we meet.”
John took the piece of paper and looked at it. Wind swirled up street dust and fluttered the edges. “I know where this is.” He looked around the street. “But let’s take a less conspicuous route.”
Oaxyctl agreed.
 
The entry to their room was in the alleyway. Laundry hung overhead in the air, out to dry. A pair of women argued from their windows about clotheslines.
Inside, Oaxyctl limped over to lie down on the slatted bed while John washed his face in the tiny washroom. The sound of trickling water made Oaxyctl thirsty.
“It’s tense here,” John said. “I’ve never known anyone to assault someone on the street like that.”
“What do you expect?” Oaxyctl looked up at the paint peeling on the ceiling. His stomach hurt. And his lower back. He’d be pissing blood tonight. He touched his jaw and sucked his teeth. “They know Azteca coming. I look Azteca. Everyone is stressed.”
What could he have done? Killed the men right there on the street? It would have screwed the entire thing up. Ragamuffins would have jailed him, and the local mongoose commanders would have done the same. No, he’d chosen the right course of action. Any longer, though, and he would have had to fight from sheer desire to live.
He couldn’t stand up without pain.
He would have to take care of John now.
Now? He wondered if he could quickly subdue the wiry man. Oaxyctl had noted how quickly John had wrapped his hook around that boy’s throat. In this much pain thanks to the beating, Oaxyctl wasn’t sure if he could avoid that hook at close quarters.
“That doesn’t make it right.” John sat down on a small chair by the bed. “You and the Tolteca here have just as much to lose.”
“Or more.” The Tolteca were the worst form of traitors. They would die slowly when the Azteca army came over
the walls. Oaxyctl sat up and untied the bundle of atlatl darts. It rolled open, and he put his hand on one.
John stood back up. Oaxyctl watched his motions. Strong, determined. If he waited until John took off the hook, or fell asleep, he’d have a better chance. Oaxyctl was weak right now.
John leaned over and tightened his bootlaces.
“Where are you going?” Oaxyctl asked. John paused and stared at him. Oaxyctl swallowed. He had to be careful about the tone of his voice. “I’m sorry, I’m hungry, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to go out on my own.” Oaxyctl opened his pack by the corner of the bed and fished out silver coins with the Triangle Tracks emblem stamped on the front.
“I have a friend out by the harbor. I want to see if he’s still there.” John caught the coins Oaxyctl tossed at him. “I’ll bring something back. But it might be a while.”
“Okay.” Oaxyctl kept his face straight. John seeing a friend. Not good. John seemed well-known around here. Someone was bound to come looking for him after a few days of silence if they knew he was in the city. But it gave Oaxyctl time to go find the things he needed from the spies in the city, and then rest when he got back.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of Oaxyctl’s face. John had gone out of his way to save Oaxyctl on the street. He wondered what it would be like to face John when the man realized what Oaxyctl really was.
But such was living for the gods. He dare not disobey. There were worse things than death. The sun had to rise every morning, the crops needed to grow. And it was blood that gave all these nourishment.
The war gods proclaimed the Azteca to be the fiercest human warriors in all of time. The gods had chosen to bring the Azteca into this world to capture prisoners for sacrifice. Thus the world remained fertile.
Sometimes doubt surfaced in Oaxyctl’s head. He saw the heathen Nanagadans and all their varying religions on this side of the mountains, and their crops grew well without any blood sacrifices.
But the Nanagadans would fall soon. The Azteca could not be stopped. The gods would rule everything. So doubt didn’t matter. It would be over soon, and Oaxyctl could live in a city and put this behind him.
Far
behind him.

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