Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (24 page)

Lord Marius ran a hand over the lime-whitened spikes of his short
hair. “Let me speak clearly. If you try to escape and refuse to cooperate, we will
have to kill you rather than risk your falling back into the hands of Camjiata. What
baffles me is why the general let you go. He used the dreams of his wife to remain
a step ahead of us in his first war. Any good strategist would keep you close and
use your dreams to benefit his campaign.”

“What makes you think he let us go?” I replied. “We escaped him, too. We do not mean
to be owned or manipulated by any man. Not him, and not any of you.”

The mansa took hold of my chin. His stare was a command demanding I give up my secrets.
I gazed back with all the mulish determination I possessed. He intimidated me. While
Vai had edges made of insecurity and youthful pride, the mansa had the surety of a
man who has never doubted his worth, his high station, or his honor.

“Maybe it is not to be wondered at that the boy believes himself in love with you.
You defied me, and lived to speak of it. He has too much pride. He resented the natural
dislike the other boys felt for him, so he refused to acknowledge their higher station.
When his magic bloomed to its fullness, he forced them to their knees, just to let
them know he could do it. But he never defied me. Never. Not until you did.”

“That’s very gratifying, Your Excellency.”

“Don’t mock me, Catherine. Where is Andevai?”

“He is in the spirit world. I need only look into the mirror upstairs to find him.”

“Can it be done, Bakary?” the mansa asked. “She is not a
djlelimuso
, a woman of craft and words who can bind the threads of power.”

Bakary rubbed his gray beard. “I can see into the spirit world but cannot cross, while
you can do neither, Your Excellency. I was taught that only the dead cross into the
spirit world.” He glanced at Rory as he spoke the words. “Her flesh is living flesh,
like ours, yet she has crossed.”

Did they not know that the hunters of Vai’s village could walk into the spirit world
at the cross-quarter days in order to hunt? I kept silence.

The mansa released my chin. “Very well. Show me.”

I took the skull and tucked it into the basket. We climbed the stairs. A year and
a half ago, I had descended them from the second
floor while Andevai had ascended from the entryway. It was strange to return to the
place where he and I had first looked on each other, face-to-face. Then, I had wanted
nothing more than for him to leave us all alone. Now, I wanted nothing more than to
find him.

I dragged the cover off the mirror.

Illuminated by the dregs of fading daylight and a single sphere of cold fire, the
mirror reflected the seven people gathered on the landing. I had never realized how
my hair writhed as if in a wind blowing off the spirit world. Did my eyes really gleam
in that unexpected fashion, like polished amber? A sleek saber-toothed cat watched,
waiting for my signal. No whisper of spirit-world magic tangled through Bee, but there
was a smoky gleam in her eyes and on her forehead, as if a third eye was about to
sprout there.

Lord Marius examined the mirror with the attention of a man trained to strike at the
opportune moment. He looked exactly as he seemed. Amadou Barry stared at Beatrice.
His visage had an avaricious glint that made him seem less handsome and more selfish.

The mansa’s cold magic chased around him like the currents of many streams. One of
those currents lashed out into the silvery depths of the mirror as the air around
us fell suddenly colder. He was pulling in energy from the other side with which to
weave here, although I had no idea how he was doing it.

Of us all, Bakary’s was the most solid presence in the mirror: an old man with silver-black
hair and a calm gaze.

The glittering chain with which another djeli had bound me to Andevai flowed into
the mirror. I brushed my fingers across its gleam. Magic thrummed like a pulse anchored
to Vai’s heart.

“Catherine? Where are you?” Vai whispered, as if he felt my attention. “Beware, love.
Think with your mind, not your body.”

The tremor of his beloved voice so shocked me that I yanked on the chain.

It moved. Or I moved. Or the world moved.

Past the surface of the mirror, my gaze spanned the depths as if I were an eagle gliding
above and watching the land roll past beneath. Mountains and valleys skimmed by below.
Outside a walled town, peaceful eru worked and laughed and gossiped in the same manner
as ordinary people did in the mortal world, only the eru were creatures of
the spirit world with wings, third eyes in the center of their foreheads, and magic
more powerful than that of any cold mage. The fields they farmed were sown in spirals.
The beasts they shepherded were antelopes whose triple horns were studded by gemstones
and glazed as with silver. A bloated beast like a slothfully blinking airship drifted
past above the black line of a road and the warded triangle of a watering hole. A
clan of tawny saber-toothed cats had gathered to nose at the pool, lick at a pillar
of salt, and lounge in the shade of a tree.

Light flashed on the horizon. Where the land ended in a long straight shoreline, it
met not water but the ashy ocean that we had traversed in the belly of a dragon, the
Great Smoke. A tide of dark mist washed in, spilling over the land like the sweep
of a broom. Beneath the smoke the land vanished. Only the road and warded ground remained
unmoved and unchanged. My rope of magic held firm, but when the tide receded back
into the smoky churn of the depths, the shoreline had changed.

The once-straight shoreline was now cut by fingerlike bays, as if the Great Smoke
had taken bites out of the spirit land. The bloated air beast had vanished, although
a large animal lumbered over a field of thorns, crushing all under its hooves. Eru
rose in a cloud from the warded walls of their town, but they did not see me. I thought
that maybe I wasn’t even really there, that the chain acted like a hunter’s scent
to lead me toward my prey. Was this chain how Vai could always find me?

A white cliff towered above a lake riddled with icebergs. At first I thought it was
an ice shelf, but as I swooped closer I realized it was a fortress built of crystal.

I slammed right into its wall.

The impact jolted me out of the vision. I found myself back on the first-floor landing
with my right arm halfway into the mirror as if plunged up to the elbow in water,
and the rest of me standing in front of the mirror blinking back tears. The heat of
summer baked like sun on the arm that was thrust into the spirit world, while the
rest of my body shivered in the cold house.

Bakary spoke behind me. “Don’t touch her, Your Excellency.”

“If Lord Marius stabs her with his sword, will she die?” asked the mansa.

Never let it be said I could not throw caution to the winds and just take the leap.

“Rory, take off your clothes. Bee, the mirror is water. You can cross if you will
come.”

“Of course I will!” cried Bee.

I cut my skin. Blood streamed from the gloomy spring chill of the mortal world into
the hot blaze of the spirit world. When my sword’s tip grazed the surface, the mirror
peeled back like an eye opening. Was this part of the power I had as a spiritwalker?
With my blood to seed it, could cold steel open a gate through which others could
cross?

Steel flared at my back, felt on my tongue as the gritty remains of a blacksmith’s
forge. Lord Marius had drawn his sword.

“She can’t be allowed to escape!” cried Amadou Barry.

“Follow me!” I cried.

I fell through, pouring like blood through the gash.

My knees thumped onto stony ground. Black night enveloped me, unrelieved by moon or
stars. As I lifted my sword arm defensively, fire waxed the blade as a shimmering
steel gleam.

“Ah! Something stung me!”

“Bee?”

I held the sword aloft, searching for her in the aura of the blade’s light. Just in
front of me a wall rose into the darkness, its face too smooth and high to climb.
The surrounding land was covered with tall grass as far as the light from my sword
reached. I did not see Bee, but I heard a whine like insects swarming.

“Bee!” I called.

Grass crackled. A huge cat with wicked curving canines and eyes as golden as my own
sprang up to me. He nudged me with his head, then licked my forearm where a trickle
of blood oozed along my skin. The rough trail of his tongue startled me into a laugh.

“Cat?” Bee’s voice rose out of the darkness. I still could not see her, but she sounded
panicked. “Everything hates me here. This wasn’t a good idea! Ouch!”

“Where are you?” I cried.

Rory loped into the darkness. The whining spiked into a shrill buzzing. The big cat
returned out of the gloom with Bee pressed to his side. She was waving an arm frantically
in the air. I made a few cuts of my sword around her. The buzzing vanished as a cloud
of tiny creatures scattered.

She dumped the packs at my feet. “I hope you’re happy, Cat. I didn’t think I would
really cross through. I only meant to pretend to
do so, because I was afraid you would refuse to go if you thought I was in danger.”

“You
were
in danger!”

“At least there I could have thrown myself into Amadou Barry’s arms if I had no other
choice. Here I’m going to get eaten, and you’re going to have to carry all this alone.”

The cat sniffed at Bee, then staggered sideways in a showy manner as if her smell
revolted him.

“Stop that!” She smacked him on the nose. “You may find your puerile jokes amusing,
Rory, but I don’t!”

A cry like that of a rabbit being disemboweled shrieked out of the darkness. Bee leaped
backward, only to slam into the wall. Rory pounced in front of her as his tail lashed.
Wings fluttered in the grass. The scrape of a sword being drawn shuddered the air,
followed by a leaden thump, a squawk of anger, and a battering like a body being beaten
to death.

A figure lumbered out of the darkness.

“Bright Jupiter! What is this cursed Tartarus? Where are we?”

Amadou Barry thrashed out of the grass and into the circle of light made by my sword’s
gleam. He had his military hat in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. The blade
was coated with a viscous fluid to which white feathers clung.

“What attacked me?”

Rory opened his jaws to display his teeth. Amadou raised his sword.

“The cat is our ally,” I said sharply. I looked up, hearing the flutter of wings.
“
Down! Get down!
”

Of course he did not comply. Why would a patrician Roman legate who was also a Fula
prince listen to a bastard girl whose mother was a northern barbarian and had been
an Amazon soldier in the army of his most hated enemy besides?

A creature with a human body and the head and claws of a harpy struck, claws closing
on his shoulder. Hat and sword fell as he shouted in pain and shock. The beast lurched
upward, trying to carry him away, but his mortal weight brought it to a crashing halt.

I lunged. My focus narrowed to the beast’s emotionless face, for it looked not like
a woman but like a creature wearing the mask of a woman. The tip of my blade pierced
its golden eye. Its howl shuddered
down my blade. I pulled back. My blade slid free as ichor sprayed. In a thunder of
wings it sprang into the air and vanished from sight, bleats fading as it flew away.

Bee dropped beside the legate, who lay facedown on trampled grass.

“Bee, is he dead?” I demanded.

“I’m not dead.” Amadou sat up with a wince. His fancy cape was shredded. Blood stained
his tunic.

Ghastly cries chittered out of the darkness. Huffing heat as of a steam engine chugging
stirred the wind. Perhaps my tone was harsh, but I had no patience for ridiculous
displays of masculine pride. “Next time you should listen to me, Legate. The spirit
world will kill you.”

“Legate?” said Bee gently. “May I help you rise—?”

“I do not need your help.” He shook her off and rose with a grunt of pain.

“You’re just angry that she spoke those truthful words to you which you do not want
to hear and aren’t accustomed to hearing,” I retorted, for I could see Bee’s expression
twist as she pretended not to be hurt by his curt rejection. “Why were you so stupid
as to follow us?”

“To take Beatrice back. You may remain in black Tartarus for all I care.”

Bee gasped, but I forestalled her retort.

“How do you intend to take her back, Legate? You have no idea where we are or what
to do here. Your steel won’t cut the creatures here, although you can beat them with
the hilt until they eat you. That creature would have killed you just now if Rory
and I hadn’t fought it off.”

Rory’s tail lashed in agreement.

“Rory, if there are more creatures gathering out there to kill us, lick your right
paw.”

He stared at me with a look I was sure was one of reproach for the inanity of the
question. Then he licked his right paw.

“Why are you talking to a monstrous saber-toothed cat as if it can understand you?”
asked Amadou Barry. “Where are we? With what magical illusion have you confounded
my eyes?”

I ignored him. “Bee, take the head of Queen Anacaona out of the basket.”

“How can a skull help us?” Amadou picked up his sword from the
ground and brandished it in what I supposed he thought was a manly way. “You two girls
need protection. That’s why we must return to the house and the mansa.”

“In the spirit world, the head of Queen Anacaona is not a skull,” I snapped, really
exasperated now. “Please be polite.”

“My apologies for the rude handling, Your Highness,” Bee said in a choked voice as
she wrestled open the basket. I could hear how humiliated she was, and how hard she
was trying to hide it. “We are hoping your wisdom and experience may aid us.”

I was watching Amadou Barry, astounded that the man was too blind to comprehend that
he was no longer in a world where his patrician rank or military training meant anything.
When Bee lifted the living head of Queen Anacaona out of the basket, he recoiled a
step, then pulled himself up short, staring as the cacica blinked to get her bearings.