Cold Fire

23

I gripped my pagne in a fist and hauled the cloth to my knees so I could better stride. “What is your name again?”

My nice admirer had a merry grin and that was something on a cheerless night with anger and fear stalking through the streets. “Bala. This is Gaius.”

Kerchiefed Gaius had a frown like a barge.

“I’m perfectly harmless,” I said, daring Gaius with my gaze to say otherwise.

Gaius snorted. “If yee say so, Sweet Cat. Yee have that man strung on a leash, or else he have yee strung likewise, I’s not sure which.”

“I do not! I am a perfectly respectable gal. It is not my fault I was married against my will.”

“That is one rumor we have heard,” said Bala. “Hearing it for true lend a new smell to the rose, don’ it?” he added, to his friend.

“If yee call that a rose,” Gaius muttered.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” My fingers tightened on Bala’s arm. He was a bigger man than I had thought, a full head taller than me and with shoulders that might bear the world on their breadth. His friend with the Roman name and a mass of hair in locks under the kerchief was almost as tall but stockier. For an instant, I wondered if I was safe with them, but then I reflected that should they trouble me, they would have to answer to Aunty Djeneba, Uncle Joe, and the rest of the neighborhood. “Sometimes people say I talk too much.”

Gaius made a noise like a choked-off laugh.

Bala said, “Yee have a lovely voice, Sweet Cat. Now, gal, shall we meet wardens in the street, yee shall stand back and let us take care of them.”

I removed my hand from his arm. “I can take care of myself in a fight. Do you doubt me?”

“There is the tongue,” said Gaius to Bala. “So I told yee.”

“We shall walk quickly and keep silent,” said Bala with the smile of a man seeking to keep the peace.

I fumed as a thousand wickedly cutting barbs of splendid insults came and went unspoken on my tongue. The Speckled Iguana lay about fifteen blocks away, on the other side of the Passaporte market, whose stalls and grounds lay empty but for the winking eyes of rats bold in the darkness and the leavings of crushed shells that had not been swept up. Clouds veiled the sky, making the intermittent noise of struggle seem both far and close, hard to gauge.

As we skirted the edge of the market, Gaius spoke in a low voice. “Yee meant it, did yee not, Sweet Cat? That yee would fight. Is it true, that story about yee and the shark?”

“Why would I have told it otherwise? Do you think I am a liar??”

Perhaps my voice rose sharply. Bala touched my arm. “I see many a shadow at guard.”

Belatedly it occurred to me that the wardens might have staked out the Speckled Iguana, if they knew it for a haunt of radicals and troublemakers. Instead, the local men had staked out their ground, flanking the area with clusters of men bearing muskets, pistols, and machetes, the favored blade of the countryside. Lamps burned on the porch and in the windows of the inn, by which I knew Vai was either not there, or was dead.

I ran up onto the porch, colliding with an older man who was no taller than me but twice as wide. A patch covered his right eye, and a horrendous starburst wound had turned his right cheek into a pitted and scoured puckering of ropy white scar tissue. He yanked me to a halt.

“I’ll be smited by Bright Reshef if you aren’t the daughter of Lieutenant Tara Bell. For you look very like her, but for the hair and the color of your eyes.”

“Ja, maku,” said Bala, who with Gaius loomed behind me. “What is with the hand on the gal?”

“Is the maku bothering yee, Cat?” asked Gaius.

I stared at my interlocutor. My mind seemed caught in a roof-shattering gale. He saw the stamp of my mother’s face in my own. I wanted to demand of him how he knew her, but as I tried to focus the splintering spray of my thoughts, I hung on to one concept: Tell no one. Keep silence.

“Drake is here,” he said, as if he had gleaned my mind with a rake and pulled forth a nugget. “He’s in the back room with the wounded. He has been wondering where you fetched up.” He looked over my companions, unimpressed by their stature. “I see you found protectors.”

“Let me go.”

He raised his eyebrows as if to suggest I was being overly dramatic, but he let go. “Do not say you shall deny whose daughter you are? I fought beside Lieutenant Bell.” His Iberian lilt pitched out like the ring of a trumpet. “In the Parisi campaign, when we took Alesia.”

Blessed Tanit, how my heart wished to hear the tale! But I was too cunning to reveal myself to him! I drew myself up, matching him eye to eye.

“I came for a drink, for the walk has made me uncommonly thirsty. Bala? Gaius? I quite forgot my coin, so you shall have to buy me a shot of rum.” I swept past the man and into a spacious common room crammed with noisy, sweaty, angry men.

“Yee stick close by us, Cat,” said Gaius as Bala pushed to the bar. “I don’ like this crowd. Yee should be getting home and not drinking any more, for I reckon drink make yee reckless.”

The situation would have struck me as amusing-my admirer and his skeptical friend turned into watchful guard dogs-had I not just then seen a flash of bright red hair where a door opened behind the bar.

The old soldier came up beside me and raised a hand to draw James Drake’s attention. “He shall want to talk to you, lass. I hear you may be carrying his child.”

I slapped him.

He grunted, but although I had slapped him hard, he’d barely been staggered.

I thought: That wasn’t very effective. So I slugged him, right beneath the curve of his ribs. He doubled over, gasping and-strangely-gurgling as with choked amusement. As a shocked murmur spread out like a ripple, he said, “Your mama taught you to hit, did she? Oof?!”

His laugh was a booming chortle whose mirth made me want to strangle him. Gracious Melqart! James Drake! If he had seen me, he would come out. I did not want Vai humiliated by the whole world-or at least every man now staring at me-seeing me with Drake. When in doubt, attack.

I shoved up to the bar, heedless of the men I elbowed aside, and tweaked Bala’s sleeve. “I have to go back and check the wounded. Wait for me. I don’t want to go home alone.”

His interested smile sharpened gratifyingly, and I smiled, for he really was an appealing fellow, but I had to get past that door before James Drake walked out of it, so I hopped over the bar, grabbed a shot glass clear with white rum and drank it down in one swallow, then sidestepped the surprised bartender and thence past him through the still-open door. I shut the door behind me to see a long room filled with shapes lying all a-tumble on the floor or atop long tables on which, on kinder nights, folk might dine and chatter on about politics and batey. Tonight I heard only moans.

By lamplight, Drake bent over a man whose stomach had been opened by a gash, its gaping lips revealing the moist mire of intestines. An old woman with blood splashed across her apron and a serious-looking Taino man whose age I could not guess worked side by side at another table, she sewing shut a gaping shoulder wound with needle and thread while he pressed the ragged flesh together with steady hands. For a moment, I was sure I saw sparks trembling at his lips and a smear of ember light, but when I blinked, I realized I was just reeling. I braced myself with a hand on the door, in case any cursed fool tried to barge in after me.

“This one can’t be saved, for I give you my oath his spirit is already one step out of his flesh,” Drake said.

The Taino man said, “Take him, then. How many can you save with him?”

“One, for certain.” He indicated a man whimpering with the bleats of a person trying to be stoic in the face of unrelenting pain. What appeared at first glance as a kerchief was a leaking mat of blood and, beneath it, the white flag of exposed skull. Drake spread fingers over the wound.

Heat swamped the room, sticky and sumptuous, like sweet pudding that coats the lips until you must lick them clean for the sake of your craving. A kernel of desire swirled in my gut. I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a sighing exhalation.

The woman glanced at me, then at Drake. Blessed Tanit! A skin of glowing fire, not flames but a gleam like coals, washed down the body of the man with the belly wound. His chest arched up, although his mouth made no sound. Drake’s hand, on the other man’s bloody scalp, turned white-hot, and then I blinked, for it was too strong a light. Had I only imagined it? The first man now lay as if dead, life burned out of him.

Drake removed his hand. “He will live.”

I groped behind me for the latch, for I wanted nothing more than to get out of this room with its ashy stench of death and hope. But Drake was as fast and determined as a shark. One moment he stood halfway across the room with his gaze turned to me, as if to decide whether I was worthy prey, and the next he had crossed the space between us and taken hold of my hand. The candles flared. The other two looked up, but none of the wounded men did, and I thought: Maybe they’ve been drugged so they can’t know some men are being killed to save others.

“So here you are. I have been looking for you for weeks now, Cat.”

I twisted my hand out of his. “I haven’t been looking for you!”

“Why, Cat, I think you are drunk.”

“I don’t like you, Drake. I just came here to say that.”

Was that twitch amusement or anger? “That’s not what you said before.”

“I was drunk before.”

A curling warmth crept up my arm as he smiled. “Where are you staying?”

“Why do you think I mean to tell you?”

“You had better tell me after all the trouble I’ve gone to for you!”

All the burning wicks snapped out. Just like that.

“ Ah,” whispered Drake, and he smiled.

Out in the common room, the buzzing conversation ceased as if it, too, had been doused.

The Taino man cursed against the darkness, and a single candle feebly wavered to life, just as, beyond the wall, men started talking all at once and in heightened voices.

I pressed my free hand against my blouse, feeling for the locket’s curve. I found the thread of him along the chains that bound us. He was nearby on the street, and it belatedly occurred to me that he had gotten home and they had told him where I had gone and this was the inevitable result.

Drake still had hold of my elbow, pouring into me a fierce forceful need that was the fire of his magic. Never let it be said I lacked ways to extricate myself from any awkward situation, for I knew exactly what Bee would do in this one.

“I’m going to throw up!” I pretended to gag.

Drake released me and jerked back.

I hauled open the door, slipped through, and slammed it shut. Men were cursing, trying to make light. With a sweep of my cane, I cleared every mug on the long counter, sending them crashing to the floor as I jumped over.

“Wardens!” I shrieked. “ Run!?”

They were not stupid men in the Speckled Iguana. Not many panicked, but enough did to stir the big room and make it hard for them to get order. That made it easy for me to wrap shadows around myself and weave my way unremarked through the clamor and out the doors.

He had paused across the street, hidden by the night. Of course he saw me, although others did not. I raced across the street.

“We have to go!” I whispered hoarsely, trying to grab his arm but missing entirely.

He began walking so quickly I had to trot to keep up, me wrapped in shadow and him hugging the darkness until I wondered if he was using illusion to mask himself, for none of the men loitering nearby took the least notice of us.

I said, “Just think! We could sneak around all over the place and no one would ever see us.”

Men looked around, gazes questing like those of scenting dogs.

“Did yee hear that?”

“I see no one.”

Vai took hold of my hand and we ran until I was breathless and laughing as we slowed to a walk in the deserted market.

“Catherine, all the shadows in the world will not hide you if everyone can hear your voice.”

Catching him by surprise, I shoved him against the wall of one of the empty market stalls. Someone sold spices here during the day. The rich perfumes of cinnamon and nutmeg lingered, and I licked my lips to savor them. “Have I ever told you you’re uncanny handsome?”

“Catherine, you are drunk.”

He tried to step away from me, but I leaned into him. The rise and fall of his chest caressed me. I was enchanted by his glower.

“I could just eat you up,” I murmured in what I hoped was an intimate whisper.

He turned his head away, so my lips brushed the prickly hairs of his decorative beard; he gripped my elbows. “Catherine, if you cannot respect yourself enough not to throw yourself at me while swilled in rum, then could you please respect me enough not to treat me as if I were a man willing to take advantage of a woman who is drunk? Because I am not that man.”

I nuzzled his throat. “You wish you were that man.”

“No, I don’t wish I were that man.”

I ignored his frosty tone in favor of rubbing against him. “Your body wishes you were that man.”

He shoved me away so hard I fell flat on my backside.

He muttered a curse, extending a hand. “I didn’t mean for you to fall. My apologies.”

I giggled as I reached for him. “You’re only angry because you’re aroused.”

An icy curl of wind kissed my nose as he pulled back his hand without touching mine. “You may think with your body, Catherine, but I. Think. With. My. Mind. I am going home. Are you coming with me, or are you returning to your friends at the Speckled Iguana? Because you can be sure I will not stop you from going where you wish.”

He walked away. It took far too long for his words to filter through my muddied brain and then longer still to remember how to get to my feet. I ran after the harried rhythm of his steps. He said nothing as I stumbled up beside him. By the set of his shoulders and the nip of the air pooling around him, I knew he was furious. Aroused and furious, certainly a bad dish to be served.

“I’m sorry about Drake,” I said. “I really am. I was drunk.”

He did not answer, but I felt his thoughts as if they were knives. Very cold edgy knives.

“I mean, he got me drunk.”

“I can now see how well that would have worked out for him.”

“Ouch! That was unkind!” I waited, but he fumingly said nothing, so I went on. “Anyway, I had just washed up on that place we’re not supposed to talk about. I was so scared and confused.”

His anger veered off me and slammed elsewhere. “As I suspected, he took advantage of you. Or worse.”

“He saved my life. Or maybe he didn’t. I’m still not sure who to believe about that. Do you know what? He uses dying people as catch-fires to heal people who have a chance to live. That seems wrong to me but what if it is right? If they’re already dying, I mean?”

“Lord of All, that is a grim tale,” Vai murmured. “Fire mages seem rank upon the ground here in the Antilles.”

His words caused my thoughts to gallop down a more interesting path, one whose peculiar contours I ought to have surveyed before now. “Vai, what’s wrong with you?”

“What makes you think anything is wrong with me?”

“When you’re angry, shouldn’t there be hammering waves of cold? Shattered iron? For one moment there at the ball court, weren’t rifles killed and flames extinguished? Yet then didn’t a pistol go off?? Given you are a rare and potent cold mage, how can you sit in the courtyard and not extinguish Aunty’s cook fire? What is going on with your magic? Is it you? Or is it this place?”

He said nothing. We walked a ways in a calm resembling truce.

At length, he spoke. “I’m wondering how you are able to walk unseen. I weave cold fire to form false images. You truly veil yourself from the sight of others.”

“From everyone but you.”

“I will always know where you are. Maybe you will tell me how you manage this magic.”

“You think I will tell you because I am drunk.”

“The drink does loosen your…control.”

I staggered away from him as the abyss that was my future yawned before me to coax me into its chasm. “No, what am I thinking? It’s impossible. I have to hold on.”

“Why should it be impossible, Catherine? Hold on to what?”

“How can it not be impossible? Haven’t we already had this conversation? Aren’t I already bound-?” The wind was tearing at the clouds, and in a rent appeared the masked white face of the moon, its light a talon dug into my throat. I halted as if I had slammed into a glacial cliff.

He took two steps, then turned back to take my hand. “Catherine?”

I was a statue, with a statue’s grindingly hoarse whisper like a chisel chipping away at my very soul. “ What makes you think he will ever let me speak??”

The calluses on his fingers made his touch a little rough, and yet thereby their very ordinariness settled his presence over me like balm. “Tell me who ‘he’ is, Catherine. We will find a way to unchain the binding.”

In a rumble of thunder I heard the warning boom of his voice. I broke away from Vai. I hurried, for I was sorely afraid, and I was not truly sure what scared me most: that I would never be able to speak or that I would. I came to the closed gate first and scratched at it.

When Aunty Djeneba answered, I lunged forward to kiss her. “Aunty! I missed you!”

She stepped back to let us in with a look at Vai that would have scorched wood.

He was not intimidated. “She’s drunk. Did you let her go out this way?”

She smelled my breath and recoiled. “I did not know she had imbibed quite so much rum.”

He sighed. “I found her precipitating a riot at the Speckled Iguana.”

“I never! I was with Bala and Gaius. They were guarding me.”

Aunty set hands on hips and looked at Vai. “I can see yee would have believed yee had to remove her from that situation.”

“I went there to look for you,” I said to Vai, to reassure him. No need to mention Drake!

Aunty Djeneba made a noise suspiciously like a choked laugh. By the light of a single candle over the bar, other forms moved. It took me a moment to realize it was not a burning candle but a glow of cold fire that had been illuminated, no doubt, all the while he had been gone.

Uncle Joe called softly, “Is that Vai and Cat, safely back?”

“Yes, and not going out again this ill-omened night,” said Aunty Djeneba in a voice none dared argue with. “Kayleigh and Luce, yee go up to bed. The gate is barred.”

Vai shaped a second floating bauble to light the family members to their beds, but he and I remained by the closed gate, him unmoving and me swaying to the surge of the waves and the voice of the wind. They were living creatures, calling me. My sire had raked his fingers through my heart and heard its singing. Now he was sending his minions to cut off my tongue so I could never betray who I was and how he had made me. Maybe this was his way to stop me from saving Bee!

Vai said, in the arrogant voice which meant he was strangling a powerful emotion, “After what you’ve drunk, I daresay you need to go pee, Catherine.”

“How clever you are, Vai. I do!”

He accompanied me to the washhouse, waiting outside. I did what I needed to do and afterward admired the fixtures in a glow of cold fire and yanked on the pulley three times because it worked so cunningly well with water running out and in.

From outside, he said, “If you do not come out now, Catherine, I will assume you are in trouble and come in.”

I hurried out and wrapped my arms around him. “After a year and a day has passed,” I said, finding in this thought a glimpse of sun. “Then I can do what I want without being chained by it.”

He squirmed out of my embrace. “What can you possibly mean by that?”

“Who would have thought it, the Thrice-Praised poet spitting words as crude and unpleasant as an adder’s? Can adders talk? Do they spit venom? Or just bite?”

“I’d like to know which Thrice-Praised poet. It’s a common epithet.”

I opened my mouth to tell him, for I ought to have told him beforehand about what I had learned from the head of the poet Bran Cof. I had meant to, hadn’t I? I opened my mouth, and there were no words there. Bran Cof??’s master was my master. I could not speak of him.

“You are tired.” He steered me upstairs and into the room. “Kayleigh, put your cot across the door so she can’t wander out. She’s that kind of drunk.”

“What kind of drunk?” Kayleigh obediently dragged her cot to the open door, where he stood poised to escape me.

“Vai,” I said urgently. “Why are you leaving?”

“A lecherous drunk,” he said.

“Why are you leaving, then, Brother?” asked Kayleigh in a tone whose sneer I could not like.

“Don’t you mock me,” he said to her, “or shall I have to remind you-”

“I can’t be a lecherous drunk,” I protested, having finally worked through his comment. “Lechers are male.”

She snickered. “This must be very difficult for you, Vai.”

He shut the door.

“I recommend a bucket of cold water or a touch of cold magic if you dare,” she called, but he was gone.

“You have a mean streak,” I remarked, very wisely I am sure.

“No worse than you teasing him the way you do! Come here. Go away. Kofi says you’re two-faced like a star-apple tree.”

I sat down on my cot. “How can a tree have two faces, when it doesn’t even have one?”

“I don’t understand, Cat. If you don’t want him, then why don’t you stay away from him?”

“How can I bear to stay away from him?” I whispered. Lying back, I found that the room, the building, or perhaps the entire island pitched and rolled like a ship at sea.

“I hope you’re not going to throw up,” muttered Kayleigh from her cot at the door. “Because you have to clean it up if you do.”

“I feel fine.”

I fell into sleep. Or so I supposed, because a crow flew in through the shuttered window, stirring the air with black wings. Salt poured onto the roof as though ground from a bottomless mill. A rhythmic shaking danced through the room like a procession of invisible drummers at an areito. People were talking, but I couldn’t understand their words. They were suckling fruit, the scent of guava in the air. A bat hung from the rafters, its eyes obsidian as it spoke to me in a voice like a rasp. “ Yee should not have defied him. He is angry because yee tried to talk. Now yee shall feel the lash of the master’s power. ”