Hammer of Witches (10 page)

The dwarfish woman hummed in disapproval as she unbandaged the shawls from her head and neck. “I would have been here when you arrived,” she said, “if only you had arrived on time.” Pressing one of her bent hands against my back, she pushed me farther into the cabin, the tips of her nails pricking me through my tunic as she did. I allowed the woman to push me forward; I moved as if walking through a dream. It was as if I had stepped into another fairy tale — but I wasn’t sure whether it was one about a helpful old wizard or an evil hag who gobbled up visitors.

“Just like your father,” the old woman complained as she pushed me. “No sense of punctuality.”

Her scolding broke me out of my trance. “How can I be late?” I said over my shoulder. “I’ve never even met you before!”

In answer the woman wiped the bottom of her large nose
with one of her curled fingers. She unwrapped the final scarf from her head, revealing white, corkscrewing hair that gave her the look of an elderly medusa. Sniffling, she motioned toward one of the chairs around her table and said, “Have a seat, have a seat.”

I obliged, and she sat in the chair across from me, the dwarf with liver spots on her drooping cheeks. “Are you the Baba Yaga?” I asked her.

“I see you brought the ifritah with you,” she answered, her voice both sympathetic and teasing. “You poor dear,” she said to Jinniyah. “Did Amir leave you behind
again?”

Behind me Jinniyah sat on the ground on her knees, focusing tearfully on a knot in the wood floor. “Please don’t say that,” I said in a low voice to the Baba Yaga. “She’s really sensitive about him. It hurts her feelings.”

When the Baba Yaga laughed, her neck inflated like a frog’s. “Feelings! What feelings? That girl is a figment, my boy! A mere wisp of air, a daydream! Oh, I’ve no doubt she’s
told
you she’s a genie. But she’s not even that. A half-genie. Half-human. Can’t even grant her own wishes.”

The witch’s voice was so mocking, so easily cruel, that I shot right up from my seat. And before I knew what I was saying, I heard myself shout, “Well, you’re not anything special, you jealous old witch!”

Regret immediately took me by the throat and pushed me back down in my chair. Why had I done that? The woman
sitting in front of me was supposedly a master of Storytelling. Who knew what awful spell she was about to cast on me?

But the crone’s sea-green eyes merely flashed at me. “‘Jealous’?” she repeated, carefully weighing the word. “Interesting. Young men usually ask me to answer their questions, not the other way around. Tell me, boy. What is it, exactly, that I am jealous of?”

I didn’t know what would be worse: to answer or not to answer. I glanced back at Jinniyah, cleared my throat, and mumbled, “Her youth.”

The Baba Yaga’s eyes became narrower, and the thin line on her face ticked up into a wide, evil V. “So you are clever, son of al-Katib. Take care that your cleverness is not your ruin.”

In punctuation, a strong gust of wind threw open one of the cabin’s windows and brushed away the light of the nearest candles. “There is a story from my village about cleverness,” the Baba Yaga said. “It is about a king who had three daughters, and on their thirteenth birthday, he asked each of them to make a wish. The first daughter, a raven-haired girl, wished for beauty, and she grew up to be the most beautiful woman in the land. The second daughter, a fair-haired girl, wished for love. When she was older she married a prince and had many children, each of whom loved her more than anything in the world.

“But the third daughter, the scarlet-haired child . . . she was like you, son of al-Katib. She wished for cleverness. When
she was older people would come from all over the kingdom to ask her questions, and she would always have the perfect answer for them.

“One day a prince came from afar, seeking a bride. Every woman he met he would ask, ‘Fair lady, what is the fastest thing in the world?’ Many beautiful women considered the question and gave answers such as ‘a horse’ or ‘an eagle.’ But the scarlet-haired daughter knew the real answer. ‘The fastest thing in the world,’ she said, ‘is the human mind.’ The prince married her then and there, and they enjoyed several happy years together.

“Little did the scarlet-haired princess know that her wish had also been a curse. Soon she realized that, every time she was asked a question, a new wrinkle would appear on her face, and a new spot would appear on her skin. By the time she was married five years, she already looked like an old woman.

“Her husband, the prince, was a wise man too. He knew it would not do for a king to have a crone as his queen. So he banished his wife to the forests, to a crumbling old hut where she would never be seen again. And the villagers called her names and told stories about her, and she became a wicked witch to live up to their stories.”

It took a moment for me to understand what the woman was saying. Then, realizing, I said, “You were that girl.”

The old woman removed one of her shawls from the back of her chair and wrapped it back around her shoulders. “You children! When you are young, oh, you ask so many questions! But as you age, you have fewer and fewer of them. Before long all you have is answers.

“But those who wish to be wise are forever plagued with questions, questions that eat their flesh from the inside out. ‘How should I live?’ ‘Why must we die?’ ‘What is right, and what is wrong?’ Whether or not they look so on the outside, the wise age quicker than most, and their lives are filled with heartache.” The Baba Yaga adjusted her shawl around her. “You came here to ask me a question or two, I think.”

I gulped down my fear and said, “Jinniyah said you’re a powerful Storyteller. She said you would know where Amir is, and where I need to go. To be honest I have no idea what I’m doing. I know I have to leave Spain. Diego said so. But I don’t know what to do next. I don’t —”

“You are so like your father,” the crone said, bowing her head deeper into the candlelight. “I saw him a few weeks ago. He came in through the door in North Africa. He was much older this time. On the run. In search of direction.” The Baba Yaga reached under the table. “I used the tarot.” The old woman brought up a deck of decaying cards from the floor and spread the cards faceup in front of her. Spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts . . .

“Playing cards?” I said, disbelieving. “I thought Jinniyah said you were a Storyteller.”

The Baba Yaga gathered the cards in a neat stack and placed it in the center of the table. “The cards tell a story, son of
al-Katib. If you know how to read them properly, you can summon images: of what has passed, of what you seek, of what will befall you in times to come. Over the centuries Storytellers have consulted the cards to discover the direction in which they must travel. Shall we consult them now, Baltasar ibn Amir?”

The name sent a shiver dripping down my back. All the same I nodded. With shaking but nimble hands, the seer shuffled the deck of cards three times. Then she dealt the top card between us.

“This is you,” she said.

I examined the card. “It looks like the jack of spades.”

“Impertinent boy. The jack of spades is a
symbol.
It
symbolizes
you.” She placed a curled hand on top of the card, which began to glow red underneath it. A near-transparent image flashed up above the card: a shadow in the shape of a young page striding toward an unknown future.

“The jack of spades,” the Baba Yaga explained. “The symbol of a young man seeking information from afar.” The crone removed her hand from the card, letting the ghostly image fade above the table. “It also means someone who talks too much, doesn’t listen. Each card, you’ll see, has several significances.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Is one of those significances the jack of spades?”

“One who talks too much,” the Baba Yaga repeated, leaving a hint of a smile on her withered face. She dealt a few more
cards and placed both of her hands over them. The image of an opening book appeared between us. “An unknown past, recently revealed.” The image of the book swirled in the air and shifted into the shadow of a flame-haired girl. “New meet-ings,” — here the Baba Yaga’s gaze jumped to Jinniyah — “new losses.”

The silhouettes of Diego and Serena darkened the air in front of me. They screamed in silence before shriveling into nothing.

“Losses,” I repeated to myself. “So my aunt and uncle . . . they’re . . . they’re definitely . . .”

The Baba Yaga’s face filled with sorrow. “They have gone to a place you cannot follow.”

I turned away from her toward the fireplace. Deep inside me I’d known it was true. But I’d been keeping a grain of hope they’d somehow escaped that fate.

And now that grain was gone. For some reason I imagined Amir al-Katib cackling at the knowledge.

The Baba Yaga removed another card from her pile — the eight of hearts — summoning the image of three ships racing across a choppy black ocean. “This is your present. The shedding of familiar things. A journey to an unknown land. This card is a heart, Baltasar: the suit of water and the west.”

“A journey by sea to the west,” I said to myself. “So I was right to seek Antonio de Cuellar.” To the Baba Yaga I continued, “If that’s the story of my present, then what about my future? What about Amir al-Katib? And the Malleus Maleficarum! Even if I find Antonio de Cuellar and travel west, who knows if they’ll try and follow me? And what am I supposed to do once I reach Cathay? Will I be safe there? What language do they even speak in Cathay?”

“You ask many questions, son of al-Katib, but never the right ones. The Malleus Maleficarum, Antonio de Cuellar — these are pieces in a much larger game. Your true quest is far more dire than you imagine. I do not need to read the cards to know that the winds are shifting. They move west, bringing with it a terrible force. A force more powerful than I have seen in my lifetime.”

The ancient woman spread her hands over the meaningless arrangement of cards between us. The candles around us shrank and darkened, and the wind from the open window shivered across my skin.

A black shadow towered over the playing cards, a horned colossus wearing a cape that billowed malevolently over the table. The horned man grinned as he picked up a globe and crushed it in his hands.

“What does it mean?” I asked the Baba Yaga.

“It is a prophecy,” the old woman said. “A great power travels west: a being who will destroy the world as we know it.”

The vengeful eyes of the hameh flashed in my memory, and the fiendish warriors from Jinniyah’s tale.

“This is my future?”

“No. This your quest. The same quest foretold in your father’s reading.”

That made Jinniyah jump up from her seat on the floor. Before she could speak, I asked, “What did Amir say when you told him the prophecy?”

The Baba Yaga leaned back in her chair. “Exactly what I expected. Your father vowed to travel west, to find this being and destroy it.”

Jinniyah flew over to me as the Baba Yaga bit down on her last syllable. “Bal, that’s it!” the girl cried. “It all makes sense now! Your father goes to the Baba Yaga from Africa. She tells him his fortune. Then he comes to Palos to get you! Don’t you see? He must have wanted us to come with him out west so we could help him find this evil being and destroy it together! It’s the only thing that makes sense!”

Between me and the Baba Yaga, the horned man let the pieces of the globe sprinkle to the ground before dissolving into nothing. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Jinniyah was right. Her story did make sense. Except . . .

I swiveled around in my chair to face Jinniyah. “Except why would Amir al-Katib come to my room if he needed help?
He’s
the great warrior. What would he need me for? I don’t know anything about destroying evil spirits.”

“He came to you because you are one of us,” the Baba Yaga interrupted. “One of the people of Story.”

I swiveled back around to face the Baba Yaga. “You mean I’m a Storyteller. But I didn’t even know that until yesterday. How could Amir know?”

“He knows because you are his son.”

Oh. That.

“I can’t help him,” I murmured down at the table. “I know I summoned that golem, but I don’t know how I did it.”

“You will learn.”

I turned away from the Baba Yaga’s humor-filled eyes. “Look,” I said, as delicately as I was able, “I didn’t come here to learn about any prophecies. I need to know how to get away from these Malleus people. That’s it.”

“You seek escape, Baltasar. But there is none. You wish to run from your shadow, but a shadow will follow you no matter where you turn.”

A shadow?

What did she . . . ?

No. Enough of this. I had better things to do than listen to some batty old woman who thought she knew the future. There were people after me. Real people, not shadows. I pushed back my chair with my feet. “Come on, Jinni. We have to go.” I fumbled in my coin purse for some of the copper coins Diego had given me and tossed them on the table. “Thanks for your help.”

The Baba Yaga bubbled up with laughter. “I do not require money, Baltasar! I tell you this for your own sake. For the sake of the world.”

“Right, the world. The thing is, the world doesn’t really interest me right now.” I picked my coins off the table and put them back in my pocket. If the woman didn’t want them, I wasn’t going to let them go to waste. “I know that probably sounds unfair, but my life is kind of complicated right now. Maybe when everything settles down a little, I’ll be able to help you.”

I took a step backward and bumped into one of the woman’s piles of books, knocking several onto the floor. “Sorry,” I said automatically as I replaced them on the pile.

“I am sorry too, Baltasar,” the Baba Yaga said. “It is unfortunate that you would leave without allowing me to answer your original question. You wanted to know the story of your future, did you not? I have told you your past, your present, your quest, your fears. But I have not yet told you about your future.”

I wrapped my hands around the back of the chair I had been sitting in, my heart beating syncopation in my fingers. “Go on, then. Tell me.”

The Baba Yaga pressed her hand against the final card in the top-right corner. The shadow of a tall, stately man with a pointed beard and a crown rose up in the air above her fingers. “Your future: the king of spades.”