“You are mistaken if you think I intend to let you have her.”
“That is what Tara Bell said to me when I told her she would bear a girl child who would grow up to serve me. Why do you bother to resist, when you know how that turned out?” In a melting flash of shadow he changed to become a saber-toothed cat larger and more powerful than Rory. He roared, the threat reverberating through the air.
“Stand behind me, Bee.” I raised my sword. There was a great deal I did not know about the spirit world, but what I did know, I could use. I spoke the words the footman who was an eru had taught me the first time I had crossed into the spirit world. “Let those who are kin come to my aid. I call to you, Rory’s kinswomen, and I ask respectfully for your protection.”
Head down, ears flat, Rory slouched up to join me in confronting our sire. I admired his courage; he was clearly terrified. I was quaking, too, but my sword arm stayed steady.
“You’ll have to get through us first,” I added. “I do not fear to stab you, even if it means harming myself.”
He lashed his tail in warning. I looked past him, for the first time truly taking in our surroundings. We stood on the stone pavement of a monumental plaza. In the distance, to both the right and the left, rose other wards, each with a pillar formed of glass, a glittering crystal tree whose leaves tinkled in a cold wind, and a fountain spilling sleet as an icy breath. In the center of all, far away, stood a white stone palace. Ribbons of silver and gold shimmered along the top of its wall, caught in a wind we could not feel down here. My father had written in his journals of an old folktale that mentioned a palace like this one, with four gates.
In the plaza, shadows and bursts of light coalesced, marking the arrival of the Hunt. Crows flapped down to perch on my sire’s back, and what should have looked ridiculous instead heightened the aspect of his power. Lean hounds padded up beside him. A cloud of wasps circled over his head, while a pack of huge gray dire wolves drew muzzles back to show their teeth.
He roared again, the sound so loud the crows took flight, cawing.
A second roar answered.
My sire looked around as if startled.
A pride of tawny saber-toothed cats flowed into view, halting to mill around Rory and me. Not even the Wild Hunt dared rashly charge in against a pride of saber-toothed cats. They dipped heads, rubbed; one of the smaller females nipped at Rory, and he nipped back. The one I recognized as his mother boxed him across the head with a paw. He growled, and she batted him again. His ears twitched, then flattened.
Satisfied, she turned with the others to stare hungrily at Bee.
“Aunt! I pray you, listen to my words. The Master of the Wild Hunt seeks to harm me and mine. Bee is my cousin and will not harm you. Just as your son has been forced to serve his sire, so has she been forced to serve those you call the enemy. Please help me stand against him.”
Tentatively I extended a hand so she could sniff my palm. Her beauty dazzled me, as did the sheer force of her physical presence, with its power and majesty and, of course, those teeth.
She reared up to balance her weight on my shoulders. Her gold eyes met mine unblinkingly. She could have ripped off my face with one lazy yawn. Her breath was hot, laced with a carrion scent, and yet it did not disturb me. Predators had these cravings.
She made a sound something like a meow and something like a query.
“The Master of the Wild Hunt mated with my mother as he did with you. He had no affection for my mother. He only wanted to make a child he could command. Now he’s stolen my beloved. Please, Aunt, I can only request your help as your stepdaughter, bound to you through my love for your son Rory. Please protect my cousin Bee so the Wild Hunt does not eat her. I will take her away from the spirit world as soon as I can.”
She heaved herself down and prowled over to Bee.
Standing as rigid as a statue, her gaze fixed on me to remind me that if she was eaten it would be my fault, Bee endured being sniffed. I wasn’t sure I would have had that much courage, but she did.
Last the big cat sniffed delicately at the cacica’s head. The two queens eyed each other as might rulers who are not sure whether they are destined to become rivals or allies.
Without warning, my sire sprang.
I spun and thrust.
My blade caught him along the right shoulder, a mere scrape. Pain flamed across my own shoulder, but I knew it was coming so I hardened myself. I heard Rory’s mewl, and most importantly the cry of every creature who attended him. Because hurting him hurt them, they were momentarily unable to attack.
I flung myself into him and together we crashed sideways onto the ground. The fur of his shoulder smeared into a new form. I was lying on top of Vai, who had his arms caressingly around me. He was naked, and aroused.
Pain was nothing compared to my disgust.
I shoved off him and scrambled back, keeping my gaze averted as I got to my feet.
“Blessed Tanit!” cried Bee.
“You’re a monster. You’ll never defeat me, not in this way, not in any way!”
Bee sucked in a harsh breath. The saber-toothed cats had arrayed themselves around her. They faced outward, ears flat, mouths open to show teeth. Every cat had her hair fluffed up to make herself look bigger.
My sire rose to his knees as his body sprouted the wings of an eru. His skin brightened to a sheen like brass. His long black hair stirred as if, like his limbs, it could grasp and strangle his enemies. His wings were feathered with silver. He now wore a kilt woven out of disks. The glittering amulets made me blink from the shine.
He stared at me with eyes the same amber color as mine. But he had also a third eye, a mass of cloudy veins in the center of his forehead. What sights that bloody eye could see I did not know, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to find out.
“This is your true form,” I said.
“Change is my true form. But the one who gave birth to me had an eru’s form when I was disgorged. So it is the form to which I return most naturally.”
“No wonder the eru called me Cousin,” I muttered.
When he opened his wings to their full span, they exhaled an icy mist. He was magnificent. “You must be what you are, little cat. That is why I sired you. Do you not wonder why you can kill without regret, escape certain death, and prowl like a tomcat among males who attract you?”
“I might be able to do those things even were you not my sire.” Waves of pain like hot knives still stabbed through my right shoulder. I wondered if I could bring myself to stab him again, even though my first attack had proven successful in forcing the Hunt to retreat.
His stance remained relaxed and confident. “Do you ever ask yourself how it is you can command the loyalty of others? Why they do your bidding at your word? It must be so, because my blood is your blood. Those I command are yours also to command.”
“There are better reasons for people to be loyal. People give back to you what you give to them. You may say it is blood or birth that binds servants to masters and plebeians to their patrician lords, but that is only another word for force. The Council in Expedition ruled because they had wealth enough to keep themselves in power. But I watched the people of Expedition speak out in protest. I watched them fight. They took the opportunity to govern themselves. They did not wait for it to be given them. They did not say that their demands for new laws and for justice must cede to the prerogatives of blood and birth.”
“Yet blood binds all.”
“Does it?” I demanded. “Do you command every creature in the spirit world?”
He said nothing, but he blinked.
I was breathing as hard as if I had been running, or maybe it was just my aching shoulder that made me dizzy. “I think you only command the Wild Hunt, not one creature more.”
A smile cut his face. Before I thought to retreat, he folded his wings forward to cage me in their web of ice. His clawed hands pulled me close, not in an amorous way but as if he had decided to dismember me and rip off my h
ead. His voice had the shiver of a bell when a rod is drawn across it to make it vibrate.
“Hear my words, little cat. A prince among slaves is still a slave. The courts bind him with blood in the palace where those without blood cannot walk. You are bound because he is bound.”
“I don’t care what you say! I will free my husband!”
He let go, opened his wings, and launched himself into the sky. I staggered back. Bee, Rory, and the cats shook free as if chains had been loosened.
“Cat!” Bee grabbed my hand. Rory shoved his head up under my free hand.
My shoulder really hurt. I took in short breaths to get through the sting of pain.
Over the palace the eru caught an updraft and spiraled up until he became too small to see.
The pain ebbed enough for me to think straight. “Bee, how did you know it wasn’t Vai?”
“That was easy. First, he met us here. I was here all alone for about ten throbbing heartbeats before you came through after me. When he asked where you were, he referred to you as “Cat.” Andevai never calls you Cat. He calls you Catherine. I don’t understand why your sire didn’t kill me immediately, but I suppose he would want to save me for the next Hallows’ Night sacrifice. Did he say something to you when he imprisoned you in his wings?”
I waggled my hand to show I did not mean to answer where my sire might hear, and she nodded, then glanced past me. Her eyes flared as her mouth turned down. Rory’s mother coughed a warning. Shapes like fanged butterflies fluttered toward us in a zigzag way that made my skin prickle. The Master and his Hunt had departed, but other denizens of the spirit world had come calling, attracted by Bee’s scent.
“You have to leave, Bee.”
“Your jacket is wet. What is that?”
I rubbed at my shoulder but I could tell it was a shallow scrape. Rory also had a scratch along his right shoulder, oozing the golden liquid that was his blood.
“Nothing as important as getting you back to the mortal world. Bee, give me all the bottles. And leave the hammer. I’ll take Vai’s tools.”
Her high color suggested she had known this moment would come. “I sorted the packs in Adurnam already. I never thought I’d be able to come into the spirit world with you, Cat. I knew I would just get in your way here.”
“Rory will go back with you.”
He protested with a coughing grunt.
“Rory, you know perfectly well it’s not safe for Bee to travel Europa alone. Don’t argue. Queen Anacaona will stay with me. Find a troll maze to hide in if Hallows’ Night comes before I return. We’ll meet in Havery, at the law offices of Godwik and Clutch.”
“Yes,” she said. “Havery.”
Rory’s mother snarled. A swirl of bright leaves swept up as on a blast of icy wind, congealing into a monstrous beast with a lizard’s length, a silky coat of pale hair, and a snake’s jaws. Two of the cats charged at it, but its claws drove them back. I leaped forward and cut its open mouth with my sword. The beast disintegrated into a thousand shards that clattered to the ground with a noise like chimes.
“Go, Bee! Through water.”
“I love you, Cat.” Chin lifted, Bee smiled bravely at me.
My look had to speak for me, because I could not produce words. The big cats prowled the perimeter of the warded ground to give Bee time to get away. Shards littering the ground stirred to take on the monstrous shape of a fluttering harpy with teeth like obsidian knives. Four wolves loped up, tongues lolling and breath steaming. More winged creatures appeared in the distance, arrowing our way.
I leaped forward to confront the wolves. “Hurry! Rory, go with her!”
She plunged into the little pool and fell away from us as if running down invisible steps. I smeared a drop of blood from my shoulder onto my boot and stuck the foot in the water to create a gate for Rory. The instant Bee’s head vanished beneath the waters, with Rory behind her, the spirit beasts tested the air for a smell that was no longer present. In ones and twos, they trotted away.
18
I had to let go of my unshed tears so I could concentrate on the task that lay before me. By scratching each cat on its big head, I calmed myself. I ought to have been scared of them. Any, except possibly the half-grown littlest, could have ripped me to pieces, but they shouldered their bodies around mine in a way I found so charmingly affectionate that it sucked my tears quite dry. They heartened me.
“My thanks to you. No need to accompany me any farther. Run as far as you can before he comes back.”
Yet the cats waited as I retrieved the head of the cacica from the ground where Bee had perforce left her. “Your Highness, you have been generous in aiding us. I feel obliged to confess that I am taking you to Haübey, not to Caonabo.”
She regarded me unblinking with a stare I was glad I had never had to face down while she sat on the duho, the seat of power. “Explain yourself.”
“Your brother the cacique made a bargain with me. He said he would get me to Europa if I would take you to your exiled son Haübey. I accepted because reaching Europa was the only chance I had to get my husband back. The cacique promised me that Haübey will take you back to Sharagua, and thus to Caonabo.”
“I wondered when you would tell me. I can see we do not travel in Taino country. My brother is a persuasive man, and you are young, so I cannot fault you for giving way to his conniving. What is done cannot be changed. In truth, I have seen sights I would not otherwise have witnessed, so my gourd of knowledge becomes weightier. Was that winged creature who attacked us the one who commanded my death?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Well, then, you did well to defy him as much as you are able.”
I had rarely received a compliment that pleased me more. “My thanks, Your Highness. Since we’re here, will you drink?”
“Your manners are improving. Yet is it safe to drink here?”
“Here on warded ground, from this water, it is.”
“Then I will do so, for I wish to taste the waters of these springs.”
I cradled her in my hands so she could lap, rather like a dog, but it went well enough. I drank to satiety, filled the bottles, and stowed them in my pack. My sire’s whispered words nagged at me, but I dared not discuss them aloud with the cacica lest unseen ears overhear. Had he been taunting me, or warning me?
“We must go to the palace,” I said.
“In Sharagua, such a central compound would be the cacique’s domain. That suggests the palace is the home of the spirit courts of Europa. We can discover what lies within by entering.”
Buoyed by this truism, I advanced, with the cacica’s hair clutched in my right hand and my sword in my left. We walked at least a mile, if one could measure distance here as in the mortal world, and I was pretty sure one could not. I was pretty sure distances might expand and contract. How else could the cats have reached me so quickly when I called to them? They paced alongside, escorting us. The littlest several times bumped into me on purpose, until I finally swatted her with the flat of my sword.
“Little beast! No wonder Rory finds you annoying!”
She sulked away so like Bee’s spoiled little sister Astraea that I laughed. The adult females coughed in what I imagined was shared amusement.
Strange to think that laughter brought us to the walls.
White walls like seamless ceramic rose to the height of ten men, so high I could not hope to climb. A massive sea-green door promised an entry, but it was closed tight. Fortunately, warded ground formed the tongue of the gate, with a smooth pillar, a spring of water rising in a stone basin, and a sapling ash tree. Standing safe between the wards, I examined the huge doors.
The lintel was carved of jade in the form of two eru with hands braced against each other’s, their lips about to meet in a kiss that would never be consummated. Did the entrance always look like this, or was it formed this way to taunt me? The doors had neither ring nor latch. When I pushed with a foot, neither budged. The cut on my forearm was still oo
zing, but a smear of my blood wiped onto the jade did nothing.
Frustrated, I murmured my sire’s words. “ ‘The palace where those without blood cannot walk.’ ”
“The dead have no blood to offer,” said the cacica. “Perhaps the dead cannot cross.”
“I could go forward alone. But it seems wrong to leave you behind. I should have sent you with Bee.”
“Hers is not the responsibility. You can hang the basket from the tree and return to get me.”
“What if someone steals you, Your Highness? What if I can’t return this way? Or get out at all?”
“If you are unable to get out, I will be lost regardless.” Her clear gaze measured me. “I do not fear you will abandon me. You have proven yourself loyal.”
“My thanks, Your Highness.” Her praise startled me into an unexpected spike of optimism.
I returned her to the basket, hung the basket from a branch, and from the spring drank my fill of water so cold it numbed my lips.
This time, when I smeared blood onto the jade, the stone parted as easily as curtains. As I pushed through, my first step took me into light so bright it blinded me. My second step brought me to the brink of an impossibly vast chasm. The silence made me wonder if I had gone deaf.
An entire world fell away from my feet like a bowl with tiers. Each of these tiers marked a landscape as wide as continents, and each landscape was surrounded by the Great Smoke. I looked down as might a star, hanging so high that the whole of existence lay exposed as I watched the surge and flow of the spirit world. Tides of smoke swept up from the waterless ocean to engulf swaths of land, then rolled back into the sea. Everything the tide touched was changed, except for the steady gleams that marked warded ground, the straight lines of warded roads, and a few patches that might have been briny salt flats.
According to the story of creation told by the Kena’ani, Noble Ba’al had wrested land out of ocean in his contest with the god of the sea. The sages of my people said that the world was created out of conflict. Was this not similar to what the troll lawyer Keer had told me? “At the heart of all lie the vast energies which are the animating spirit of the worlds. The worlds incline toward disorder. Cold battles with heat. When ice grows, order increases. Where fire triumphs, energies disperse.”