Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (11 page)

A man strode out to greet me. “Reckon yee don’ know me, gal. Yee saved me from under
a boat.”

I’d only briefly caught a glimpse of the frail old man I’d helped rescue from beneath
a boathouse during a hurricane. This man was younger, all sinewy flesh and muscle.
He looked like a person who might know how to play batey.

“My thanks.”

He grinned in a likable way, then whistled. More men and women trotted out from the
shadows to join us. One introduced himself as Aunty Djeneba’s deceased husband; others
were the deceased relatives of the household or kin of people I had a friendly relationship
with in Expedition. They were all the spirits of dead ancestors. I knew it because
they had no navels. I thanked them and shook their hands in
the radical manner. The more recently dead received the gesture with smiles while
the older ones were puzzled, for it was a manner of greeting they’d never before seen.

The opposing team assembled. A man pushed to the front like a captain coming to lead
his troops. He looked exactly as my husband would have if he had been stripped down
to the short cotton loin-skirt worn for batey by men. I stared, my mouth gone quite
dry.

He had no navel. Could he be my sire? Was that the trick?

I whispered into the ear of the dead boatman. “He can’t be the opia of my husband,
for my husband isn’t dead. Is he a maku?”

“He smell of cohoba and tobacco, like a Taino lord might. I know not who he is. Peradventure
he have taken a dislike to yee and mean to distract yee.”

I could play that game! I took a moment to admire how well the opia had transformed
himself into Vai’s skin, for his bare shoulders and chest and thighs really were quite
admirable, so I admired them with a lift of my eyebrows that made his lovely eyes
narrow as if he were bracing for me to cast a spear that he must bat aside.

“You don’t frighten me,” I said. “Quite the contrary.”

He grinned a challenge.

Thunder raised a feathered scepter. A ball dropped into the game. The spirit lord
who appeared in the form of Vai tapped it up and down on his knees, never letting
it touch the dirt. It was no rubber ball. It was a head with black hair tied into
a club. Its waxy features stared.

We were playing batey with the head of the cacica, Queen Anacaona, the mother of the
twins Prince Caonabo and the exiled Prince Haübey, called Juba.

But I was the hunter’s daughter. I had to admire their ruthless maneuvering.

Let it begin.

I dashed in and caught the head on my elbow, stealing it away from the spirit lord.
As I passed the ball to the boatman, I caught the lord’s ankle with a sweep of my
leg and tripped him. He fell as I dodged past. He grabbed my ankle, yanked me down
hard, and rolled us over so I had my back to the dirt and his weight and attractively
bare torso pressed on top of me.

“You’re not going to play fair, are you?” I demanded.

With his lips a breath away from my own, like Vai about to press a kiss onto my mouth,
he spoke. “Where do yee think this shall end?”

“Not with you winning!” The pulse of the game made my heart race and my blood burn.

Voices surged like the sea around us. The footfalls of the running players made a
constant tremor, shivering out on all sides through the beaten earth of the court.

I kissed him. His lips were dry; mine were dusty. Surprised by my riposte, he forgot
himself, and another face spilled through Vai’s features too quickly for me to recognize
before it settled back into Vai’s form. It was definitely not my sire.

I dug a knee up into his groin and shoved him sideways while he was yelping. As I
scrambled up, I scanned the ballcourt. The ball was flying back right at me, the dead
face frozen in a grimace. I struck the head with a flip of my hip and angled it toward
Aunty Djeneba’s husband. Then we ran, never letting the head drop. The ebb and flow
of play meant that the head bounced between sides. Here in the spirit world, the players
were too good ever to let the ball touch the ground.

You would think they did nothing but play across the ballcourt of eternity, and maybe
that was all they did. I wouldn’t mind doing that. A gal could play batey all day
and lose all track of time if her limbs never grew weak and her throat never croaked
with thirst. My cheeks were flushed, and my heart was singing.

I caught sight of the face of the man who wore the features of my husband. He was
smiling arrogantly in exactly that triumphant way Vai had when he knew he’d bested
you.

Noble Ba’al! They meant to distract me by gifting me with the ability to play well
enough to keep up with them. I could lose myself in the play for a hundred years and
forget everything but the thrill of my pounding heart and my gaze fixed on the ball,
seeking an opening. I had to concentrate.

I ran up beside the boatman. “I need to score a goal,” I said.

He nodded. “We shall position yee up to the western eye. Yee must manage the rest,
gal.”

I raced sideways to the west flank of the ballcourt, marked by carvings of owls, as
he worked my teammates down the court with the ball between them. So had I helped
him once, risking my life for no
benefit except that it was the right thing to do. Every time one of our opponents
would catch the ball on knee or elbow or hip, my team would steal it back.

The head spun to me at exactly the right speed and angle. A slap with my elbow sent
it flying through the hurricane’s eye, a stone circle.

The ballcourt dissolved around me into a swirl of angry mist as the helpful opia fled
laughing and my opponents cursed and shrieked.

I stood in a Taino house large enough that it easily sheltered many serious-looking
men and women dressed in white cotton and adorned with feather headdresses, beaded
collars, and jade bracelets. The roof was lost in shadow far above, sprinkled with
lights like stars. Vines grew up the huge wood pillars that held the roof. From the
ceiling beams hung painted gourds as vast as ponds and sloshing with fish. A mound
of young cassava plants surrounded me. I stood with my sandals in the dirt; leaves
tickled my calves. A saber-toothed cat slouched into view behind the seated personages,
my sword tied over its back. He turned aside to drink from a pool of water.

“Rory!” I cried. “Never touch food or drink in the spirit world!”

He raised his head to remind me he was a spirit creature. His tail lashed.

A round object hurtled through the air right at me. Reflexively, I caught it as it
thumped into my chest.

The head of Queen Anacaona had fallen into my arms.

Her dead gaze met mine in a most disconcerting way. “Speak truth, maku. Speak now
before the ancestors. Who is responsible for my death?”

After everything I had done and seen, I really thought it was too much that I could
still be surprised. However, good manners always bridge an awkward chasm.

“Honored Ones! I stand before you like a daughter, who asks for your blessing.” I
caught the eye of the man who looked oldest and smiled winningly at him, for the smiles
of young women could often soften the hearts of old men. He did not look amused, so
I quickly retrenched. “I have arrived unexpectedly here, not knowing what you want
of me.”

“We want justice,” said the head of Queen Anacaona. “You allowed the hunter who rides
at the behest of the foreign courts to cross the Great Smoke and raid into our country,
resulting in my death. Answer, maku.”

I recollected Keer’s questions, coming at the debate sideways instead of head-on.
“You shouldn’t have invaded Expedition Territory.”

“Do you scold me, child? The Council of Expedition broke the First Treaty, which their
ancestors and ours swore to uphold. That gave the Taino the right and the obligation
to invade, to protect our people from diseases like the salt plague.”

Here was an opening I could exploit! “It’s true that Expedition’s Council violated
the terms of the First Treaty. But the Council no longer rules Expedition. The people
of Expedition replaced the corrupt Council with a new Assembly. It is not justice
to punish the Assembly for actions they did not commit.” I surveyed the gathered ancestors.
They were patient, as the dead can be, but I had an idea they were not going to be
patient for long. I had to strike quickly. “Furthermore, you
had no right to quarantine me on Salt Island, because I was clean. I was never infested
with the salt plague. Isn’t that true? Wasn’t I clean?”

Queen Anacaona’s brown cheeks suffused with natural color, as if blood pumped through
them even though she had no heart. “You were clean. And Expedition does indeed have
a new government. But both those things are beside the point, as I believe you know.
Is it true, or is it not true, that a pack of maku spirit hunters crossed the Great
Smoke and raided into our country?”

“What is the Great Smoke?”

“Do they teach the young nothing in your country? The Great Smoke is the ocean of
all existence. It embraces all things, just as the ocean of water in the mortal world
embraces all lands. It is not easy to cross the Great Smoke, for Leviathan guards
it. But it can be done. Long ago, behiques wove a spirit fence around Taino country
precisely to keep out the spirit lords from other territories in the spirit world
because we did not want them to walk into our lands and disturb us. So let me ask
you again. Did the maku spirit hunters cross from your land to ours on a road made
of your bone and blood because in your nature and living body you partake both of
the spirit world and the mortal world? Was it your presence, your body, that cut a
gate in the spirit fence with which we protect ourselves? Did the Hunt enter the land
because of you? Speak the truth, maku. Be warned. In this country, lies are knives
you wield against your own flesh.”

The ancestors’ gazes pressed against me as if they were invisible blades waiting to
cut my flesh to ribbons. I had to tell the truth, but not because of the knives. I
had to tell the truth because this was a court of law. One did not lie in such a place.

“The Hunt did enter your country because I cut a gate in the fence. The Master of
the Wild Hunt compelled me to lead him to the dragon dreamer, to my cousin, Beatrice.
I never knew there was a spirit fence around your country. I never knew I could cut
through it, and that cutting through it would leave your lands vulnerable. For that,
I am truly sorry.”

Her gaze had a shine that was not like living eyes but more like polished wood beads.
I could almost see my reflection in it. “Who turned the eyes and will of the hunter
onto me? Who was the instrument of my death?”

I straightened my shoulders. I was not proud, but neither was I ashamed. “I was clean,
yet the noble cacica would have killed me as a salter if I had not asked the Master
of the Wild Hunt to kill her first. I acted in self-defense.”

A gust of rain washed through the hall, dissolving the roof and beams and floor and
the ancestors themselves. Wet, I found myself standing ankle-deep in clumps of dirt
in a field of young cassava plants. A sandy path snaked away into the forest’s canopy,
where one tree’s crown rose above the others like a tower. Beside me, Rory sank down
on his haunches.

The head of Queen Anacaona still rested in my arms. The way she watched me, unblinking,
made me shift my feet restlessly, but I could not run away from what I had done.

“What happened to the hall? And the ballcourt?” I asked.

“The lords who sit at the court of justice have released you. You told the truth.”

“Does that mean I’m free?”

Her stare bored into me. “My throne is shaken. My sons are scattered and weak because
I was torn from the Taino court at an inauspicious time. My brother the cacique was
healing in slow measure and would have survived, but instead he took his last breath.
My body is dead because of you. Knowing that, do you feel free?”

Even knowing I’d made the only choice I could, and that I had truly acted in self-defense,
I did not feel free. I did not want to be the kind of person who would.

“Why are you still with me, Your Highness? Is there some task I may perform for you?
Somewhere I may carry you? It seems rude to just… plant you here.”

“Take me to my son.”

“To Prince Caonabo in Sharagua?” My heart beat faster with excitement, for if we traveled
swiftly enough we might reach there in time to spare Bee the ignominy of Caonabo’s
casting her off.

“I am obliged to lend my power to the one who will become cacique.”

“I’m angry about his treatment of Bee, but I know how young men hold their honor high.
He seems competent and levelheaded to me otherwise. He certainly honors his relationship
to you. So I don’t understand why you don’t think he’s worthy of becoming cacique.”

“It is the same as tossing me onto the dirt to speak to me with such disrespect.”

Prudence dictated retreat. “My apologies, Your Highness. If I am to take you to your
son, how do we return to the mortal world and Sharagua?”

“I am always surprised by maku ignorance. This garden is the first garden. That is
why the ancestors gather here. As for the worlds, the tree links all.”

Of course!
The tree.

Dried blood matted Rory’s thick coat. He circled me once, then sniffed at the cacica’s
head.

“Yes, this is the head of the noble cacica, Queen Anacaona. She will be traveling
with us until we can deliver her to Prince Caonabo.”

He gave a low rumble, not quite a snarl. Even injured, he was intimidating, huge,
graceful, and deadly. But then he nudged me with his big cat head as if impatient
with the sword I’d lashed so awkwardly to his back, and suddenly he was just an annoying
older brother whose needs weren’t being met quickly enough for his liking. I took
back my sword. A slug of rum from the flask Uncle Joe had provided shot right down
through my flesh as a brace of courage.

I settled the cacica’s head in the crook of my right arm, facing her forward so she
could see where we were going. We headed under the shadow of the forest along the
path. Birds with bright yellow-and-red plumage flapped away into the foliage. I heard
the
toa toa
croaking of frogs.