The Girl from Everywhere (31 page)

“It was a good try.”

“Maybe Slate has some ideas? We can go back to the ship and . . .”

“And what?
Amira?
” Part of me was aware he was speaking, but I didn’t answer. I was too mesmerized by the eyes of the general, no longer blank, but glowing with scarlet light.

It faded as the letters faded, but I turned to Kash, flushed with triumph. Swag was still hissing in my ear, and Kashmir’s eyes shone with wonder in the glow of the lamp.

Then the light was ripped away, like a sheet pulled off a painting, as a dark shape screeched out of the shadows and leaped at his throat.

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G
lass smashed, and the sky herring scattered to the corners of the room. A black form crouched on Kashmir’s chest, growling; the thing was almost the size of a man, but it smelled of rot, and the sound it made was inhuman.

Kash’s knife was pinned under his hip. His hands were pressed up under the creature’s jaw as it twisted, wet teeth snapping as it shrieked in fury. With every cry, the herring darted, throwing shadows behind them. Kashmir’s eyes widened, white in the dark: the thing had its claws around his neck.

I drummed the beast with useless fists, but it didn’t even feel the blows. I whirled and yanked the bronze sword out of the general’s grasp, swinging wildly—the flat of the blade connected, but the sword bounced out of my hands. It clanged like a bell on the stone as the thing
howled and arched backward. Kashmir finally threw it off, but it rolled to its feet and turned to me.

I stumbled back and fell under an onslaught of gray teeth. My shoulder hit the unforgiving stone, and then the back of my head. For a moment the world was bright with pain. Then the shadows in my vision blurred with sudden tears, and all I could see clearly were two bloodshot eyes.

I tried to push the beast away, but it clung tight, all bone and sinew under my hands, though the weight of it crushed the air out of me. The creature screamed, and so did I, until its hands closed around my throat. I scrabbled at the bony fingers as my lungs burned and my ears rang; weakening, I stared, face-to-face with the thing. It wasn’t a thing at all.

Then Swag leaped—a gleam of gold in the wavering light. The wild eyes widened and the hands loosened their grip; I was coughing and curling up and reaching out as my attacker fell away and hit the stone with a wet crack. Kashmir loomed over the prone form, raising his knife. In the shadowy light, Kash’s own face looked like a skull.

“No,” I said, wheezing, my breath stuck high in my throat. “No!” I waved my hand like a flag of surrender. “It’s a person. Oh, God, it’s a person.”

Kashmir lowered his hand, then sheathed his knife. Our
attacker lay sickeningly still. I crawled over to push back the stringy hair with shaking hands. Lifeless eyes stared out of sunken wells. My heart thundered in my ears, but even accounting for starvation, those eyes were unfamiliar to me. “It’s not her.” I choked on my relief; I could breathe again, but the air was so sour. “It’s not her.”

Swag was wrapped around the skinny throat like a golden collar, teeth deep in the loose flesh, blood dripping through his coils and spreading in a black pool on the floor below. My palms were wet with it. I wiped my fingers on my trousers and cupped the man’s wasted face in my hands, my shoulders heaving. “I killed him, Kashmir.”

“No,
amira
, it’s all right—”

“It’s not all right. If not for me, he’d be alive!”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not for long.” Kash knelt beside me and put his hands on my arms; they were searingly hot.

“But I could have helped him if—if—” But I couldn’t think of the end of the sentence.

“Amira,”
he said again, rubbing my skin, warming me. I let go of the dead artisan and Kash pulled me against his chest. “Shh,” he said, patting my back as I shook. My head was ringing like a struck bell, and just as empty. “It was going
to happen. His fate was sealed the day the tomb was. There’s nothing you can do.”

With my eyes shut against the shadows and the scent of clove filling my nose, my heart started to slow to the rhythm his was beating. He stroked my hair, and it was hypnotic; my arms were so heavy and his, so warm. I didn’t know how long we sat close together in the tomb—an hour? An eternity? But then something sharp pricked my leg, and I jumped.

It was only Swag, peering up at me and testing the air with his tongue. Abruptly, I straightened up and wiped my face on my damp sleeve. Then I took a deep, shuddering breath, picked up the dragon, and put him back on my shoulders. “Let’s get the soldiers and get out of here.”

The sky herring were schooling in a corner, and Kashmir used his shirt as a net while I scraped soot from the walls above the burned-out lamps. He took the other lamp off the bow of the dinghy and tipped the fish inside. Then he brought the light to where I stood before the general with black and bloody hands.

We marked the foreheads of fifty-four warriors; it seemed like an auspicious number. Their eyes began to glow and their bodies move. Each soldier stood differently: some
slouched, some favored one leg. One scratched his thigh as he waited. What patience, what artistry it must have taken to create eight thousand individual warriors from a changing mold. How many of the artists had pounded their skilled hands on the thick bronze doors at the end of the hall?

Was the man I’d killed one of them?

I shook off the thought. Kashmir was right. There was nothing I could do; it had already been done, hundreds of years before I was born. But I forced myself to take one long look at the artisan lying dead in the corner. I had no magic words to bring him back to life.

Then, with fifty-four pairs of eyes watching, Kash and I stood on the steps leading to our little dinghy and waved the soldiers after us. “Follow me!” I shouted. Thank all the gods, they did.

Kashmir steered us back down the canal, using the oar as a rudder. We were pushed on a swell of mercury created by the contingent as they marched behind us, waist deep in quicksilver. We stopped before the archways, in the last room on the right. I marked the sailors with soot and scribed a name on the prow of the junk: the
54
. As I led my army toward the
Temptation
, Slate’s face was as pale as the moon above us, and in the sharp shadows of the lantern light, I
couldn’t tell if his expression was pride or fear.

The soldiers swarmed aboard, and Bee and Slate made fast the junk, throwing ropes between the
54
and the
Temptation
and winding them tight around our cleats. Meanwhile, I took the leather case in my hands and pointed Kashmir toward the bronze beach.

He drew up close to the edge, where liquid met solid metal, near a withered pomegranate tree, the red fruit hanging shriveled on the branch. Careful not to touch the shore and risk angering the emperor, I threw the map up above the line of the mercury, just as Joss had asked. Should I call to her? What would I say? Would she even know me? But she was waiting in the dark, and sick. Poisoned. I closed my eyes and put my thumb on the spot between them.

“Are you all right?” Kash said.

“I’m thinking again,” I said irritably, but the thought was gone, and my shoulder was throbbing where I’d fallen. I had done what she’d requested, and the fact she’d been there to ask me to do her this favor was proof it worked. She hadn’t asked for anything more. It was enough.

No. Maybe for her, but not for me. Gingerly, so as not to capsize us, I crawled up toward the tip of the dinghy and unhooked the lantern from the bow.

“Closer, Kash,” I said, but he had already dipped the oar, bringing our skiff near enough for me to lean out, my arm shaking, and set the lamp ashore beside the map.

I watched the lonely pool of light as we rowed back to the
Temptation
, the last lantern to shine on Qin’s final realm. It must have been beautiful when he’d been laid to rest—an underground Eden, full of the fresh scent of fruit and flowers, the jeweled stars glimmering above. Qin thought he’d rest forever in a heavenly afterlife, but the effigy of his empire had faded faster than his crumbling kingdom above. Joss had said it herself. Everything must come to an end. In every myth, paradise is meant to be lost.

Slate helped us raise the dinghy, but he gasped when he helped me over the rail. “What happened?” He reached toward my face.

I pulled away from his hands, not wanting to be touched. “Just . . . fate.” I wiped my sleeve across my cheek—blood, thick and tacky. “It’s not mine.” I clenched my fists, suddenly angry. “What’s the use?” I shouted into the dark, my voice echoing in the cold stars. “Why do we bother if all we do is what was written a thousand years ago? What’s the point if we can’t try to change things?”

“Oh, Nixie.” My father reached out again and I let him; my rage had burned too hot and flamed out quickly. He stroked my cheek with the back of one finger. “I always knew one day you’d understand.”

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B
efore we left the tomb, I emptied out a wine bottle and dipped the mouth carefully into the quicksilver. I knew mercury as a poison, but Qin had believed it was a cure-all, so I tucked the bottle away in my room, just in case I was ever brave enough—or desperate enough—to test it. I left Swag in his dry bucket and sent Kash back to the bilge to wait with the bottomless bag.

Then I took the helm.

The return passage was as gentle as a blessing. The foul air of the city of the dead was pushed aside by the fresh trade winds of the tropics. The still silver sea melted into moonlit waves, and the unchanging diamond ceiling lifted away to reveal the deep black velvet of the starry night. Here we were, back in paradise; Blake’s map had worked after all.

I sighed. Then I licked my teeth and spat. The miasma of rot had left a film all over my skin.
Et in Arcadia, ego.

Slate stood beside me on the quarterdeck as we sailed, his face to the wind, his expression inscrutable. He had said nothing for hours: no instruction, no conversation . . . no praise. Finally I spoke. “Trouble, Captain?”

“What? No.” He clasped behind his back and walked toward the rail to stare at the sea. “No trouble at all. But I wonder . . .” He turned and came slowly back. “I wonder if you really needed that map.” He cocked his head, studying me. “This may be your native time.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kashmir shift on his feet. I blinked. “My what?”

“You were born in . . . well, sixteen years ago or so. You belong in Hawaii. In 1884.”

“I belong here, Captain,” I said quickly. “Aboard the
Temptation
.” The response was almost automatic, and for the first time, something about it rang false in my ears.

“Nevertheless,” he said. “This may be what you find past the edge of every map. The place you return to again and again. This may be your home, whether you like it or not.” He watched me, as though waiting for me to say something, but I had nothing to say. I only stared out over the
prow at the island as we approached. She waited for me, as patient as a mother.

We’d sighted a bay to the south of our position, and we pulled close enough to shore to drop an anchor. The north side of Oahu was lit by nothing but moonlight; if there were people living along the shore or in the deep valleys, they had long since put out their fires.

Somewhere, on the other side of the mountains, Blake was in his bed, his hands still stained with ink from the map he’d drawn. Was it only hours ago that I’d seen him? It felt like centuries.

After the ships were made secure, I stripped down to my underclothes and dove from the bow into the cool blue sea. The waves were silvered by the moon, but so different from the quicksilver sea of Qin’s dead kingdom. Diving in and out of the water, I felt entirely renewed.