Hammer of Witches (20 page)

“What are you doing?” I choked out. With every breath I was suffocating. “Catalina! Stop it!”

“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Dirty Mary. Well? Go on, Infante! Go on and tell that one again!”

The vines pulled themselves tighter around me. “Please!” I managed to gasp as the black vines crept around my throat. Tears of pain were forming in my eyes. “I’m sorry. Please. Let me go. Catalina.”

The girl blinked as if coming out of a dream. “I release you,” she said, and the vines around me went slack. I fell backward, gasping and rubbing my arms and throat, now bruised from the vines and flecked with shallow thorn-gashes. The eyes of the haggard princess darted back and forth as the specter dissolved into nothing.

“Are you all right?” Catalina said. Worry creased into her face, contrition. She sank to the sand. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was tired and upset. Sometimes I let the spells get away from me. I shouldn’t have. I . . .”

But I took her hands and squeezed them. “Are you kidding?” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could summon things to
strangle
people! That was amazing!”

“Th-thank you?”

“How long have you been Storytelling?”

“I — I don’t . . . My whole life, almost. My wetnurse taught me and my brother. I was about six —”

Six! “So you must know loads of spells!”

“Well, yes, but —”

“Then you’re going to teach me.”

Catalina threw herself to her feet. “Now wait! You wait a second! You sit here, pelting me with demands, yet I know next to nothing about you. Now tell me! Earlier this evening you accused me of working for the Malleus Maleficarum. Why?”

I lounged back on my elbows. “Because they’re after me. I’m a fugitive, you know.”

“And what about that black hawk we saw? The one that attacked you!”

“A demon my father sent to kill me.”

“And that black sea-beast! I suppose you know why it attacked us too!” Catalina crossed her arms over her jerkin and shook her head at the ocean. “No, you’re going to have to tell me everything. From the very beginning, if you please.”

I pinched both of my lips, amused. “Why, Doña Terreros!” I said. “It sounds like you want me to tell you a story!”

The girl pursed her own lips but said, “Yes, Señor Infante. That is exactly what I want you to do.”

An hour or so
later I had finished telling Catalina my tale. As she braided her knotty hair over her shoulder, the icy moonlight gave her an otherworldly splendor. “That was a long story, Señor Infante,” she said. “Would you like some water? I’m deathly thirsty.”

The watery words
F
OUNTAIN
OF
Y
OUTH
appeared in the air, and a marble pool of water shimmered into existence on the beach. Catalina picked up a large clamshell from nearby, blew the sand out of it, and used it to scoop out some water out of the fountain.

She passed me the shell and explained, “It won’t make us youthful, since we’re already young. And even when it works it only keeps a person young for about an hour. But the water is fresh — certainly better than the little we had left on the
Santa María
.”

I sipped at the shell. Indeed, the water tasted sweet and was refreshingly cool. “I guess Martín didn’t have to worry about
us dying of thirst after all. In the end we could have summoned this fountain for the crew.”

Catalina took the shell from me and refilled it. “Yes. Right before they hanged us for witchcraft.”

After we had had our fill of the water, Catalina dismissed the fountain and sat next to me in the sand. “So you have absolutely no idea why your father keeps trying to kill you?”

I wiped the extra liquid from the corners of my mouth. “No. Why? Should I?”

“To be blunt, yes. Consider. The Baba Yaga sends your father to kill an evil being with the potential to destroy the world. Then your father tries to kill you.”

“So?”

“So evidently he thinks
you’re
the evil being foretold in the prophecy! He thinks
you’re
the one who will destroy the world!”

“Me?” I said with amusement. “Come on. That’s crazy.”

“Is it?”

“You’re saying that, when Amir came to my house that night in the summer, he didn’t come because he wanted me to help him. You’re saying he came to my house to kill me!”

“Well, no. That’s not exactly —” Catalina started, but I cut her off, overwhelmed by dark laughter.

“Sure, why not? A great power travels west, who will destroy the world as we know it. What if my father knew something the Baba Yaga didn’t? What if he knew the evil power was me?”

Catalina smirked at the idea. “I don’t mean to offend, Señor Infante, but you don’t seem the world-destroying type.”

“Oh, no?” I said, manic from exhaustion. “You saw what I just did to the Bahamut! That Leviathan I summoned could have destroyed a whole city!”

“The spell was powerful, I’ll admit. But it doesn’t mean —”

I barely heard the rest. All I could hear were the invisible creatures whispering behind us in the forest. Somewhere in that jungle, Amir al-Katib could be waiting, girding himself to destroy his monstrous son.

I threw an angry hand toward the forest. “Hell, maybe that’s why he abandoned me in the first place! Amir must have known I’d grow up to be trouble.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Catalina said. Needless to say I didn’t listen.

“Jinni and the Baba Yaga wanted me to be the hero. But
he’s
the hero! I’m the villain! Everything I go near I destroy. You said before that I ruined your life — and you’re not the only one.”

“Infante, please. That’s enough.”

“Why? Amir’s right! I’m a curse! That’s why the Malleus Maleficarum are after me! That’s why my aunt and uncle are dead!”

“I said
enough
!” Catalina shouted. “Stop it! That’s enough!”

Exhausted, I studied my sandy fingers, waiting for them to steady themselves. They wouldn’t. I rolled them into fists and closed my eyes. “I’m so sick of this. It’s too much. You know?”

Catalina’s pitying face was draped in shadow. “Yes. I know.”

I shifted my weight in the sand. “Then what do you think?”

“About the prophecy?”

“About everything.”

Catalina paused, then looked me stark in the eyes. “I think you may be right. You may be the source of evil the Baba Yaga prophesied. You may destroy the world as we know it.” The girl tossed her braid over her shoulder and shrugged. “Then again, you may not. Amir al-Katib may be right; you may be right. Perhaps I’m right, or all of us are wrong. We might be wrong about al-Katib, for all I know. But it seems to me that al-Katib is after you, and his actions are being determined by the way he interpreted the prophecy. So you need to be on your guard.”

“You’re saying that, even if we figure out who the evil being
really
is, it won’t matter because my father will try to kill me no matter what.”

“I’m saying that the truth, in this case, is irrelevant. It’s your father’s interpretation that matters.”

I picked up a handful of the shadowy sand and watched streams of it seep out from between my fingers. “So I’ll find him and convince him his interpretation is wrong.”

Catalina tilted her head and said, “It’s certainly not the worst plan I’ve ever heard. First you’ll need to sharpen your Storytelling skills so you can better protect yourself against his attacks. Then you’ll need to use your spells to break through his defenses and get close enough to him to talk.” The girl nodded to herself. “Yes. Yes, it could work. Although . . .”

Catalina trailed off and breathed in sharply as she brought her fingers to her mouth. “Although . . . ?” I asked her.

“I was thinking. Ideally you’d be able to talk to al-Katib and convince him he’s in the wrong. But if your father is anything like mine, he may not be open to reason. There are some who would rather die than admit they made a mistake.” The girl sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, you may have to prepare yourself for the possibility that discussion won’t be enough. In the end it may come down to ‘kill or be killed.’”

Kill or be killed. In the back of my mind, I’d always known my story might end this way. But faced with the reality of tracking down my father, confronting him, and killing the man in cold blood . . .

“You can’t be serious,” I whispered. “That’s . . . that’s not an option. It’s not even possible.”

Catalina considered me, then offered me a little smile. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. But it’s not impossible. If it comes down to it, I think you will be able to defeat your father. He may be one of the greatest Storytellers who ever lived. He may have decades of experience on you and a horde of monsters he can summon at will.”

“I’ve got to tell you, Catalina. This is not making me feel better.”

“I said he
may
have those things, but you have something better.” Under the pall of shadow, the girl’s eyes glittered in the moonlight. “You have me.”

I awoke the next morning sweaty and in pain. Catalina had decided to rouse me by kicking my lower back. “Rise and shine, Infante! The sun’s been up for hours.”

“Watch it,” I murmured, opening my eyes. Bits of sand had attached themselves to my eyelashes in the night; I found I could barely see. “What’s the hurry?”

“The hurry is I don’t want to live on this beach forever. I’m going to see if I can find the
Santa María
and the other ships, or perhaps some sign of civilization. You may stay here if you want; that’s your prerogative. But I am leaving.”

Catalina pulled on her boots and started hiking down the shore. I peeled my face off the ground, spit chunks of sand off my tongue, and slapped more sand out of my hair. “Wait!” I called after Catalina. “I thought you were going to teach me Storytelling!”

I stuck my shoes under one arm, quickly rinsed my sandy hair out in the ocean, and ran down the shore in the direction of the October sun. Catalina was currently standing on a sand dune, thumb locked into one of her belt loops as she surveyed the ocean.

“If we’re lucky,” she said, “someone in the crew spotted this island, and Colón’s trying to find somewhere safe to lay anchor.”

Spotted the island? I wondered how could anyone miss it. Shielding my eyes against the white morning, I took in the view of the verdant peaks that rose out of the forest in front of us. The sight was so beautiful I almost ran and embraced it. Oh, green, green! After nine gray weeks at sea I’d forgotten
such a sublime color existed. Crowned by ocean mists, the kingly face of the mountains grinned up at cloudless skies. Three cormorants soared above us before swooping down for breakfast in the sea.

Catalina and I traveled down the shoreline, avoiding washed-up seaweed and jellyfish as we went. “Where do you think we are?” I asked her as we walked.

“Java, perhaps. Or Cipango. Although the lack of pagodas is worrisome.”

“What’s a pagoda?”

“A building with golden roofs stacked on top of one another. Marco Polo spoke of them in his writings on the East. Polo wrote also of an archipelago of inhabited islands off the farthest coast of the Asian continent. If we are on one of them, surely there is someone here who can direct us to the mainland.” Yet I heard a note of doubt in her voice, doubt modulating into despair.

“Why’d you decide to help me, anyway?” I asked her. “Afraid I’d leave you all alone on this island?”

“Hardly! I was simply bored, that’s all.”

I supposed boredom was as good a motivation as any, but I couldn’t help but think there was more to it than that. Maybe she really
was
afraid, foundering in the dark like I was. Maybe she was searching some heroic quest to shape her life, to give it meaning. Or maybe, after nine weeks of keeping herself distant from the crew, she was simply looking for a friend.

I raced in front of the girl and walked backward so I could face her. “What are you going to teach me? Storytelling-wise, I mean.”

Catalina advanced past me, tipping her head toward the sea. “Before anything you’re going to have to build up some stamina. Is it a wonder you almost drowned when you summoned the Leviathan? One must walk before learning to run, Señor Infante.”