Hammer of Witches (14 page)

And like that the conversation was over. Having asserted his authority, Colón entered his quarters, leaving his cabin boy to sputter outside on his own. Smiling, I turned to follow the man inside. A hand clasped around my upper arm from behind.

“You stay away from me,” Pedro breathed into my ear. He roughly released my arm, sending me tripping into the cabin’s outer wall. “And watch your step.”

Pedro’s threats didn’t worry me very much. If dealing with him was the extent of my heroic trials, this journey was going to be easier than I’d thought. I was sure I’d win him over to my side sooner or later. If six weeks of my dumb jokes and stories didn’t turn him into a friend, well, that was his problem, not mine.

I entered the admiral’s cabin, a cramped, dim room with only two meager portholes — one in the door, and one in the back behind the admiral’s desk. The desk itself was a sight to see, not due to its workmanship, but because of the mess of papers that spilled over it. The papers were an expensive luxury, and the bed behind that desk was, too. The rest of the men on this ship would sleep out on the deck in rain or shine.

“Have a seat,” Colón said, gesturing to the chair across from him. A long-barreled gun sat on that chair — an arquebus, I later learned it was called. I moved it to the bed and sat in the now-empty place, listening to the
Santa Marías
bow creak below and beside us.

For a while Colón and I regarded each other in silence. The man was much whiter than anyone I’d seen on deck, and quite sunburned in places from the noonday sun. His bushy gray mane was streaked with the remains of a more youthful strawberry blond — not a particularly Spanish color, to be sure — and many of the papers on his desk had mysterious symbols scribbled in the margins. No wonder the crew questioned the admiral’s origins. Colón was like no man I’d ever seen before.

“So,” the admiral said at last. “‘Martín Pinzón’s Miraculous Jew.’” Colón picked up a nearby quill and rolled it between his fingers. “At least, that’s what that fool thinks you are. Yes, I said, ‘fool.’ Oh, Pinzón’s an able captain, to be sure” — the way Colón grimaced suggested that this was a main point of contention between the two — “but he cannot see past his sails and his tables to the truth. That you are what the stories speak of. A lukmani.”

I caught my breath at the word.

“Yes, I know what you are,” the admiral said, eyes twinkling. “There was talk that your kind did battle in Granada, and although I did not see them for myself, I know it is God’s truth. And that you, who can understand any language, are one of them. Tell me I am mistaken.” The admiral’s pale blue eyes bored into me, reading me as if I were one of his papers. “Do not lie to me, de Torres. I swear I will not harm you.”

I don’t know why, but I believed him when he said it. It could have been the way he held himself or the calm power of his voice. It could have been the way he never seemed to blink. But whatever the reason I trusted this man. There was something straightforward about him, something strong. Maybe Martín was right. Maybe Colón’s calculations
were
incorrect. Maybe we’d all starve to death before we reached Cathay. But right now, if I had to believe one man over the other, I’d choose the one sitting in front of me without question. I would bet this man could get us to the Indies by force of will alone.

So I said, “You’re right, Admiral. I am a Storyteller.”

Colón clasped his hands together on his desk. “I appreciate your honesty. And I will not lie to you, either. So let me be upfront. I would not have chosen to have a sorcerer on my ship. I am a Christian, and some say the lukmani do the work of the Devil.”

I cast my eyes down at his papers. Until now I’d not had time to consider where my Storytelling abilities had come from, but it was common knowledge that witches got their powers from Satan. Everyone knew witches traded their souls and any chance at happiness in the afterlife in order to lay curses on their enemies — or summon demons from the underworld. The sight of Colón’s papers lying before me filled me with unease. Castilian, Portuguese, Aragonese, Latin: I was able to read them all.

It reminded me of a story Father Joaquin used to tell when I was a boy. In ancient times the people of the world could speak the same language, and they joined together to build a tower that would reach up to Heaven. The Lord, seeing this as arrogance, destroyed their tower and made it so they were unable to understand one another’s tongues. The moral of the story, the priest said, was this: The people of the world were not meant to understand one another.

But I could. I could understand them all. Maybe Colón was right about me. Maybe I had sold my soul for these powers.

Colón must have noticed how upset I was, because his
normally-steely voice turned gentle. “My apologies, Luis. I should not have said that. Where your powers come from makes no difference to me. Now that you are here I wish to keep you. When we reach the Indies I will have need for an interpreter, and a lukmani will be a certain boon for us.

“But if you will remain on this ship, you must do two things for me. First I would know what your business is here. It is clear you are no sailor, so that means one of two things. Either you are running to something, or you are running from something. So which is it?”

The answer, of course, was both. “I’m looking for someone,” I mumbled. “I’m trying to find my father.”

Colón’s clasped fingers relaxed noticeably at the answer. “As for the second thing: You must make me a promise. You must vow to keep yourself secret from the men. You must not use your magic. No one is to know you are a lukmani. Not the Pinzón brothers, not your friend Antonio de Cuellar. No one. Do you understand? Should someone learn of your powers, it will spell doom for this mission.”

I couldn’t help but fidget under the word “doom.” It sounded like another of the Baba Yaga’s prophecies. “May I ask why, sir?” I said.

Colón walked to the porthole in the door to size up his men. “They are good men, Luis. Sturdy. Strong. But they are not educated men like us. They are simple people, who live not by God’s word but by the dark whisperings of superstition. And they will fear your powers. I’ve no doubt they will mutiny if they know of them.”

I stretched my neck to get a better look out the window. There was the carpenter Antonio de Cuellar, joking with some of his sailor friends. Uneducated? Maybe. But I would hardly call him “simple.”

All the same I said, “I won’t tell them, Admiral. You have my word.”

“Good,” Colón said, and he smiled a real smile. “I think we’ll get along fine, you and I. Something about you. It reminds me of my son.”

The conversation apparently over, I got up to leave. But before I could reach for the cabin door the admiral’s voice rose up hesitantly. “There was one more thing I was meaning to tell you, Luis. Have you ever heard the term ‘Malleus Maleficarum’?”

I stopped reaching for the door and brought my hand back to my side. “I see that you have,” Colón went on. “Back in Spain your Queen Isabel told me she was concerned that we might run across lukmani over the course of our travels. Officially the Malleus Maleficarum is not supposed to exist. But your queen intimated that she might send a man from that organization on this voyage to report on magic use abroad.”

My inquisitor’s lizard teeth glinted at me in my memory, and the heretic’s fork in his hand.
You think you’ve won, lukmani! But we will find you! We will find you!

“I do not want to worry you unnecessarily,” Colón said, “but there may be a spy on this ship. I thought perhaps you should know.”

I looked back out the cabin window. Outside, dozens of sailors were ambling across the deck, ready to begin their watch. How many men lived on this ship now? More than forty, if I had to guess, and nearly forty more on the
Niña
and
Pinta
combined. That made eighty men. Eighty men who could be my assassin.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and I left the cabin with eyes unfocused. The Malleus Maleficarum. They were here, waiting to capture me and punish me for my sins. The shadow of the mainsail fell coldly over me, and I looked up to see Pedro Terreros resting against the ship’s rail. He tilted back his head, and his brown eyes flashed red in the summer sun. Then my body started shaking from top to bottom, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“What?!”

Jinniyah and I had locked ourselves down in the damp, creaky hold, having come here so she could pray in privacy before dinner. Tons of supplies had been stuffed within the room’s bowed walls: barrels of water, crates of trade goods, a hodgepodge of plain-sheathed swords. Off to one side a thick ladder, eroded in places by years of climbing hands and heavy boots, led up to the hatch that opened out onto the main deck. Jinniyah and I had been sitting here, legs dangling over one of the hold’s stale-smelling barrels, when I’d made the mistake of revealing what Colón said to me in the cabin.

“There’s a
spy
?!” Jinniyah exclaimed, and she flew up and around me so she could shove me off my barrel. “Well, that settles it! You’re going to learn to be a Storyteller. Right now.”

I waved her away with a halfhearted swat, then picked at my half-eaten bowl of lentils with a piece of hardtack. Of course Jinniyah would demand I learn magic now, mere hours after I’d sworn to Colón that I wouldn’t. Even more importantly, I had promised myself.

“But you have to learn to protect yourself!” Jinniyah insisted. “Go on. Make a creature — quick, quick!”

Her words barely registered. I was still lost in an ancient world of collapsing towers. “You heard what I said at the Baba Yaga’s. I’m not interested in being a Storyteller.”

“Why not?” Jinniyah said, and I found I couldn’t answer. Why not? Because Colón was right, that was why not. Because sorcerers were evil beings who got their powers from the Devil. No, I hadn’t actually made any pacts with Satan, to the best of my knowledge, but that didn’t mean that my powers weren’t demonic, somehow.

Why not, indeed. “Come on, Jinni. Haven’t you read the Bible?”

Jinniyah crossed her arms and looked down on me, her eyes mildly scolding. “Oh, right,” I muttered. Jinniyah was a Moor — a fact I had to constantly remind myself of.

I pointed my piece of hardtack at the girl. “Well, I’m sure it says the same thing in
your
Bible. Doing magic is a sin, and I’m not going to do it.”

Jinniyah glided closer to me and plucked a hair out of my head. “But
I’m
magic,” she said with a tone of mischief. “Do you think
I’m
a sin?”

I rubbed my head. “That’s completely different.”

“Exactly the same,” Jinniyah all but sang. “Lots of people
think genies are evil, you know. They say we’re all sinners, that we’re demons, blah, blah, blah. But we’re not! At least, not all of us. It’s the same thing with Storytellers. Storytelling can be good or bad, depending on how you use it.”

I shrugged, and the girl glided onto my barrel. “I’m sorry, Bal,” she said more quietly, “but you don’t have time to waste! The Malleus Maleficarum is here, and they’re coming after you whether you like it or not. You have to learn how to defend yourself against them! Or would you rather die?”

It’s funny to say so, but I didn’t know how to answer that question. Would I rather die than go against my religion? Yes, I decided. Yes, of course I’d rather die! I would be a martyr like Jeanne d’Arc, like Saint Stephen — hell, like Jesus Christ himself! I would . . .

I would . . .

I sighed. Who was I kidding? “All right. What do I have to do?”

Jinniyah crossed her legs in front of her, grinning one of her lupine grins. “Well, first you need to think of a story.”

A story. For some reason, the first one that popped into my head was a fairy tale my aunt had told me when I was young. “There’s always the story of the unicorn, I guess.”

“Ooh, what’s that?”

“A kind of white horse with a horn growing on its head.”

“Like a karkadann,” Jinniyah said. “It has a horn on its head too. But it’s not a horse — more like a mix between a lion
and a rhinoceros. And also it eats people!”

As usual, she sounded a little too excited when she said that. I made a face and went on, “The unicorn doesn’t do that. And it only lets girls ride it for some reason.”