Hammer of Witches (25 page)

“N-no . . .”

“Of course you haven’t! Because that traitor Martín Pinzón has stolen one of my ships in search of some mythological island made up in the heads of savages! So I don’t give a damn what your queen thinks right now! Good day!”

The accountant staggered out of the cabin, only to have the door slam shut behind him. I backed away and said to Catalina, “Maybe we should come back later. Like in a week or two.”

“Oh, stop being a child. If you want, I’ll come in with you . . .”

Her gaze unlocked from my face to follow something in the sky above me. “Turn around,” she said in a low voice.

I did as she said. A black speck was flying from the island to the ship, completely unaffected by the raging winds that churned around it.

“Bal!” Jinniyah called from the front of the ship. “Come here! Hurry!”

Ignoring the flying speck, I ran over to where Jinni was standing. “Look!” she cried, pointing over the rail at Ayití’s shore. “Can you see it?”

On the beach stood a dark, anonymous figure. The blurry edges of its black cloaks fluttered in the wind.

“It’s him,” Jinniyah said, her voice quivering. I couldn’t tell if she sounded more relieved or terrified. “It’s Amir.”

I knew what I needed to do. I sprinted across the deck toward the cabin. “Where are you going?” Jinniyah screamed after me, but the only words that mattered were the ones repeating in my head:
Tell Colón — The storm — A trap
 —

A black blur blasted into my side, knocking me off me feet. Above me al-Katib’s hameh flapped its bloody wings and bared its claws. But what I focused on most were those eyes — yellow, like I’d once seen in my window, uncanny and surrounded by smoke.

The hameh rammed into me. I threw myself down against the deck, smashing the bird’s head into the wood. Pressure and
pain drilled into me as the beast’s talons pierced into the muscles of my shoulder. I tossed myself onto my back and with all my strength heaved the hameh off me.

I heard a shot and felt the sting of sparks on my arms and face. The hameh loosed a rasping crow and puffed into black smoke for an instant. Too soon it returned to its corporeal form. The bird circled above the crow’s-nest, dripping bloody feathers around me. It screeched and streaked back to the shore.

Colón stood before me, his arquebus smoking. He flung the gun to the ground. His face as red as the Devil’s, the admiral hauled me up by my collar and shoved me against the outer wall of his cabin.

“Tell me what it is!” he shouted. “What is it? Why does it attack us?”

Jinniyah tried to tear him off me. “Let him go! Stop it! He’s hurt!”

The veins in Colón’s neck seemed ready to burst. “Admit you have caused this! Admit you have drawn these demons to us!”

I held my shoulder and watched the blood seep through my tunic. Though the wound was throbbing now, I could feel almost no pain.

“Admiral, it’s not his fault!” Catalina told him. “He’s wounded. He needs to be bandaged. He could die.”

“If he does, it is God’s will. This has gone on for long enough. I will have the truth.” Metal scraped against leather
as Colón unsheathed his sword and held it at my throat. “Who is it that attacks us? Tell me, de Torres!”

By this point I was tired of pretending, tired of lying. Perhaps it was because I felt faint, but I was ready for everything to be out in the open. “It’s Amir al-Katib,” I said. “The Eagle of Castile.”

“Amir al-Katib?” I heard Salcedo say as if it were a curse. And Juan de la Cosa said, “That’s impossible.”

Colón blew air out of the corner of his mouth and let me loose. I sank back against the wall, holding my bleeding shoulder. As Catalina ran off into the cabin, the admiral strode across the deck to get a look at the dark figure on the shore. Antonio de Cuellar stood next to him, gazing out over the rail.

“It can’t be him,” Antonio said to the black speck on the beach. “That Moor was killed back in Granada. Everyone knows that. Luis is confused, is all. Amir al-Katib is dead.”

“No, he’s not,” an antsy Rodrigo Sanchez said. “He can’t be dead. He’s just a story.”

The admiral stalked back over to me, his boots thumping heavily on the deck. “Let us assume for a moment you are telling the truth. Let us assume it is Amir al-Katib who attacks us. Why? Who is he to you?”

Catalina ran out of the cabin; she’d stolen some bandages from inside Colón’s desk. She immediately pressed them against my bloody shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding.

“Who is he to you, de Torres?” Colón’s voice was lower
now, and edged with fury. He took a step toward me, dragging the tip of his sword along the deck as he went. “I am warning you. You will tell me.” He raised his sword.

“No!”

Jinniyah jammed herself between us, raising her skinny arms for my protection. “Amir al-Katib is his father! He’s Amir’s son! Don’t hurt him!”

If I hadn’t been bleeding, if I hadn’t had to close my eyes against the dark spots winking at the outer corners of my blurring vision, I might have cared about the way the crew whispered at this new revelation. But I didn’t care. I was done with secrets.

“Does anyone else feel that?” Rodrigo Sanchez said. “In the floor?” A hush fell over the
Santa María
as we listened to the deck vibrate below us.

“Admiral, look!” Antonio de Cuellar shouted.

We did. Menacing gray clouds had formed above our ship, a malevolent whirlpool of wind and vapor. Directly under the eye of the storm a creature grew out of the bay. It was a watery giant, made of wave and mounted atop a gargantuan, dripping steed. Created from the bay’s churning waters, the monstrous man boasted few discernible features other than the pointed helmet atop its head and a dripping smile. Its waters drummed down on the bay, sending up clouds of mist and creating a tumult that blocked out the screams of the crew.

I took the bandages from Catalina and held them against my shoulder. From far away I could hear Jinni’s voice, covered
with a pillow of sound. “It’s Uqba, Bal!” she screamed right in front of me. “Remember? The warrior who wanted to conquer the world!”

I remembered. “‘Allah, if it were not for thy oceans, I would conquer the Earth.’”

“Amir’s trying to sink the ships! We’ll drown!”

The ship lurched sideways, and the mists muffled Jinniyah’s screams. I clung to the rail and watched as Uqba raised a watery sword from under the ocean’s surface. He swung it over us. It was longer than the entire length of the
Santa María.
Blobs of rain beat down on the crew, washing over the sounds of Colón’s orders and the men charging across the deck.

“Look out!”

Jinniyah yanked me and Catalina backward. Ahead of us the foremast moaned and plunged into the roiling seas, sending waves crashing over us.

The waves sent a handful of sailors flying overboard. Jinniyah shrieked as the waters collapsed on her. “Jinni!” I cried out to her, but there was nothing I could do. When the wave receded I saw she had fallen on the deck, burnt to a crisp and gone unconscious.

“What’s happened to her?” Catalina said, going pale.

“She’s made of fire. The water hurts her.” I shook the burnt girl. “Please, Jinni. Wake up!”

Colón shouted to the rest of the crew, “Ready the rowboats! Non-essential personnel abandon ship immediately! Someone hold that wheel!”

Arabuko sloshed over to me across the flooded deck. “You must leave. Use our canoes. I will give you time.”

Arabuko removed one of the necklaces from around his neck, one bearing a stone amulet that looked like a round face with mad eyes and a whirling mouth. Around the face were two S-shaped arms also made of stone. Arabuko quickly tied the necklace to his forehead. He knelt in a graceful position as a low, droning song came from his mouth:

“I call on you, Guabancex, Lady of the Winds. With Guatabá, your herald, unleash your mighty powers!”

Storm-force winds blew from Arabuko’s raised hands. They shot out in a violent gyre, whirring across the bay and up at Uqba. The watery king swatted at it with his sword-carrying hand, but the wind spell blew his arm into droplets. The winds spun back and forth around him, taking Uqba apart, piece by piece. In less than a minute, Guabancex, lady of the winds, had dispersed Uqba and his horse into formless rain.

“We must go now, Captain!” Arabuko shouted to Colón in Castilian. “My spell has weakened the creature but not killed it!” Arabuko motioned out at the bay, where the waters were slowly reassembling themselves into the form of Uqba.

Colón bellowed, “All hands abandon ship!”

Catalina hefted the unconscious Jinniyah over her shoulders. With her free hand she pulled me to my feet, and the word
S
IREN
appeared before her. Two silver-faced mermaids with needle-sharp fingernails and golden tails burst onto the deck. “Save our men!” Catalina ordered them.

They shrieked and dived overboard into the bay, skimming across the waters. To me Catalina said, “We need to go.”

But Colón cut in front of us with his sword. “No. Not you.”

“What are you talking about?” Catalina cried. “You heard Arabuko. We have to go before we sink!”

“I’ve heard enough from you, girl! Save my men with your witchcraft, but do not question my orders. You and the Indian take the servant and go. Luis stays.” Colón looked me right in the eye. “Luis will fight. He is the one who has caused this attack, and he is the one who will save my ship. You must ask yourself, de Torres, are you a coward or are you a sorcerer? Is this not why I kept you aboard my ship, despite the fact that you’ve brought nothing but curses upon it? Or have I sold my soul to the Devil for nothing? Save us now, Lukmani! Save us, or I will die with my ship knowing that this is the Lord’s judgment!”

“He’s hurt! Don’t you see that?” Catalina cried. “He can’t summon now! Let me do it! I will save your ship!”

I wished that she could have, but I saw the sirens heaving drowning sailors out of the water. “You can’t,” I told her weakly. “You’d have to end your siren spell.”

Arabuko gesticulated wildly toward the rail. “We must go now! We can return for the ship later!”

I looked past him, past the few remaining sailors on the
Santa María,
who clambered down the ladders and onto the one remaining Taíno canoe. Above them Uqba was reforming. Colón was right. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened. I had to end this.

“Arabuko, Catalina, go,” I grunted, pressing the bandages harder against my shoulder. “You have to save Jinni and the men.”

Colón said to Arabuko, “Take the girl and the servant to the canoes and lead them to shore. The boy stays with me. If I am to go down with this ship, he is coming with me.”

Arabuko glanced at me, looking for a different answer, but he ushered Catalina in his direction and took Jinniyah from her. Catalina scooped up Tito, who was wet and cowering inside the cabin, gave me a final look, and fled onto a canoe with Arabuko. The three of them were the last to leave the ship. Colón and I were alone on the
Santa María.

Uqba had reformed but appeared to be weakened. He swayed over the bay, and his dripping smile had shrunk into a giant wet frown. In this state a sea creature could defeat him easily. A sea creature like the Leviathan, if I had the strength to summon him.

“Well?” Colón asked me. “Are you going to save my ship or not?”

It looked like I had no other choice. So, bedraggled as I was, I closed my eyes and thought of the story of Job. When I was a child back in church I had always pitied the poor, innocent man, a good person tormented by a bullying God. And here I was now, being tormented by Colón, my own personal
god who was forcing me to do his bidding.

But I wasn’t poor and innocent. Colón said I’d brought nothing but curses on this voyage, and he was right. I drew the hameh to the crew. I was the reason we were now fighting Uqba. I wasn’t innocent — far from it. And maybe Job wasn’t innocent either.

Job was a heretical Jew. So was I. I dared to interpret the stories of the Bible the way I wished to create my own infernal creatures. That was what the Church and the Malleus Maleficarum meant when they called magic the art of the Devil. Storytelling was blasphemy, as bad as Job’s questioning the Lord. No. Come to think of it, it was worse. Job didn’t create monsters — I did. Only God was supposed to have such power. Only God was supposed to create dragons.

Far below me the earth grumbled, and the Leviathan surged out from the bay. But it wasn’t the same dragon I had summoned weeks ago. This dragon’s scales were black and dull, and its eyes were a sallow green. A horrendous shriek cut through the air as the Leviathan bucked over the bay’s surface, tormented by some affliction. The anguished dragon aimed its head at me, and a white fire formed in its open mouth.

I stumbled backward. “What did you do?” Colón shouted at me.

“Nothing! I did exactly what you said. I —” I caught myself and shouted at the Leviathan, “Don’t look at me! Uqba is your enemy, not me! Destroy him! Him!” The dragon shook its head
and beat its body against the bay. “Listen to me! I made you! You have to listen to me!”

Screaming in anguish, the Leviathan reared up and cast a white beam at Uqba. The ray sliced through Uqba’s watery body, turning him into cloud of vapor that billowed to the sky. Bucking and keening, the Leviathan coiled around itself to face the shore where Amir al-Katib was waiting. The white ray shot through the bay, exposing shoals of sand and sharp coral. The dark figure that was al-Katib saw the fires coming. He ran and dived into the forest behind him.

I rested against the rail. The spell-casting had drained me of the little energy I had left, and my shoulder was still throbbing. But at least I had saved the ship.

Or had I? I looked up, bleary-eyed, from the rail and saw the damage the Leviathan had inflicted on the bay. Jagged sections of coral reef, now completely exposed, stuck out in front of the
Santa María.
“Admiral!” I shouted with as much force as I could muster. “Turn the ship! We’re going to hit!”

Colón was up on the aftcastle, throwing his body against the wheel. “What do you think I’m doing, de Torres? You worry about that dragon! Call it off before it kills us all!”