Isaura glared at him.
“We know where they’re headed,” he added hastily. “They asked how far it was to Metica City.”
This got a smile out of the Espan. Not a pretty smile. There was no joy in the way Isaura showed her teeth. But at least she’d stopped glaring at him.
Amadi offered his arm to help her from her bed in the healer’s house. “One other thing. The Han—there are only two of them now—weren’t the ones talking at Fort Towlens. An Anglo spoke for them. An Anglo with dirty hair and a handprint on his forehead.”
“Chase?” Isaura asked as she took a tentative step toward the door. She shouldn’t have been standing yet, but Amadi had already loaded the canoe with supplies from the Chata, and she could lie in the front while he rowed.
“Has to be.”
The Espan clenched her jaw and took another step. “You still have his blunderbuss?”
“I do.”
“Then find some shot for it so I can shoot that bastard in the head when we reach Metica City.”
Amadi grunted. If her god afforded Isaura that chance, he’d let her take it. But not until he’d had his own reckoning with the Anglo.
That man had much to answer for.
Chapter Six
Gente Pardes
“Stay with her!” Da barked, shooting up before he remembered the jagged energy lines his sister had just mirrored at head-level. But they were gone, vanished now that Jie wasn’t awake to sustain them. Luckily for him. “I need to get the healer.”
As soon as old Bolin nodded, Da sprinted toward the earthen pyramid. Clods of dirt rained down from the summit like hail, punctuated by the occasional stone or stray blast of titanic magic. And once he was close enough to begin ascending the nearest side, he could hear inhuman shouting above.
Yet he never stopped climbing, scrambling up as fast as he could. He used his jing to coax the pyramid’s many weeds into knotty clumps, hand- and footholds that curled around him to prevent him from slipping—anything to make himself quicker. Because Jie needed help, and the person who could help her was on the summit. So that’s where Da had to go, no matter how close the debris came and his muscles screamed.
Only when he reached the top did he stop for a second, peeking his head over the edge to see what he was up against …
The cart listed to the side, breaking Da’s reverie. He yanked on the reins in disgust.
It was the left rear wheel again. Either another spoke had snapped, or the rim had cracked, or some other infuriating thing had gone wrong. The rest of the cart had been virtually maintenance-free after he’d finished grafting it together in Acapulco, but this cursed wheel … Maybe it was time to rebuild it from scratch.
That would take him hours, though. And they were so close to Metica City. He could see the island metropolis towering above the lake that surrounded it and one of the connecting causeways. Better to patch the wheel quickly and get where they were going.
Especially since Jie was dealing with another illness.
“I’m going to fix the wheel,” he called into the back of the cart, where his sister had lain for most of the day while little Bolin played. Chase snorting was the only response. The puppet spores had made the Anglo pliable, but he still didn’t always show the proper respect.
Hopping down, Da ran his hand along the cart as he walked to the rear. Aside from a generous layer of dirt, the springs he’d spent so long fashioning looked to be holding up nicely. They eased the journey for Jie, absorbing the worst of the jostling when they were forced to abandon a road and make their own path. Sometimes he supplemented by walking barefoot with the oxen and smoothing the way ahead, but he could only do that for so long at a stretch … Yes, the springs had been worth the day’s work he’d put into each one.
This wheel, though. This stupid, infernal wheel—
“I’m letting Bolin down,” Jie announced in a painfully weak voice. “Chase will watch him.”
A minute later, the Anglo rounded the back of the cart, holding up the yearling so that the boy’s feet rested on his boots and taking exaggerated steps. Bolin giggled with each one.
Da grinned despite himself, then squeezed his hands around the wheel’s fractured rim and injected more jing into it. Thankfully, the boy hadn’t come down with whatever Jie had. (She seemed to catch all sorts of things other people couldn’t.) And lately, Bolin had become enamored of Chase, who appeared to return the affection wholeheartedly—especially now that Bolin had stopped bawling every other minute. A red baby doted on by a white man and nursed by a yellow invalid … What a misfit group they were.
Yet they’d need to add to it in Metica City. First with a doctor for Jie. A real doctor. Not some fool who prattled about “internal alchemy” and suggested she stand in ridiculous poses while drinking expensive “elixirs” flecked with gold and mother-of-pearl and who knew what else. They still had plenty of coin—he’d relieved a corrupt merchant of a large purse in Manila—but his sister’s underlying malady was beyond that nonsense. For her latest surface cold, all they needed was natural, traditional herb medicine. He could improvise the basics himself, but they should have had a professional from the beginning.
They also needed supplies and a guide to replace Bolin—the original Bolin. Backtracking to Metica City without him hadn’t been difficult; they’d passed through it on their way north to the earthen pyramid. But the journey to Huancavelica would be new, and from the sounds of it, even harder.
Something tugged at Da’s leg.
He glanced down. Little Bolin had detached from Chase and tottered over to the broken wheel. The boy clapped his hands to his mouth, then puckered his lips and blew.
“I’ll play the flute in a second,” Da said, squeezing the wheel harder.
Black eggs, how it shamed him to look at the child. But it was still the only way. He continued to believe that. Even though nothing had gone according to plan on the earthen pyramid …
Wu were everywhere.
Two gods dueled on the summit’s center while a charred white man aimed a flaming gun at them. Behind them, a white woman hurled streams of water at an army of half-formed skeletons. And to the side, the master wu and his companion watched as another original man laid hands on a tall Afrii’s bloody stump. A stump which immediately stopped bleeding and started regrowing.
The healer.
That was who Jie had briefly—tantalizingly—mirrored on the plain below, the man she’d seen in her vision all those months ago. That was who she needed.
Da vaulted the rest of the way onto the summit, took three strides in the healer’s direction, and blacked out as a whirling rock the size of a watermelon clipped his forehead.
* * *
When he woke and shook off the dirt that coated him, the first thing Da saw was a cairn. And the first thing he felt—aside from a migraine and dizziness—was panic.
There had been no cairn in Jie’s vision.
But she hadn’t seen this far. The gods were gone. So was the master wu who’d summoned them, along with his farseeing companion. The only people left were the white man, the white woman, and the Afrii. All three lay on their backs. None of them were moving.
But they weren’t buried either. And assuming the most potent wu had lived, that left …
No. Da and Jie hadn’t traveled this far to find their hopes buried beneath a small pile of stones.
Head throbbing, Da staggered to the cairn and began unstacking the stones. He dislodged as few as possible, trying to respectfully carry out what was inherently a disrespectful act. But he had to know. And a few minutes later, he did.
It was everything he’d feared: the healer’s face stared up at him, stiff and still.
Da fought to control his breathing. Jie needed this man, needed him now. But he didn’t respond to a squeeze of his hands, or a pinch of his nose, or a slap of his cheek. Because he was … He was dead, and Da had dishonored him by disrupting his burial.
Slowly, Da replaced the stone
s in the same order he’d withdrawn them. When the final rock was in, he slumped to the ground. Almost a year he’d traveled to get here, dragging his sister over the ocean and then across a new continent. And for what? To be a few minutes late? To come to the healer when the healer was past healing himself? Was this it? Did he really have to go back down to Jie without—
The Afrii. Da’s eyes had wandered to the man, glancing over his leg to see how it had benefited from the healer’s final grace. The Afrii’s missing limb looked fully restored, but the other one was fractured, bone puncturing the skin in several places. A bad break, but a break that was ever so slowly reversing itself.
Not quickly; not as fast as it had regrown when the healer had been alive and active. But as Da watched, the Afrii’s smallest bone shard slid beneath his skin, and the rest seemed to be on their way.
The Afrii was healing himself.
Or maybe it was the healer’s touch lingering even after his death. Regardless, this was something Jie might be able to use. This was hope.
Lurching up, Da wobbled to the Afrii’s side and tried to wake him. But despite his leg’s steady progress, the man didn’t rouse.
And what if he did?
The Afrii was almost a foot taller than Da and muscled like a warrior. Da wouldn’t be able to overpower him if it came to a fight. And it was doubtful the Afrii spoke Mandarin. There would be no quick, easy negotiating.
Which only left the spores.
Da hadn’t tested them on another person yet, but he was suffering no ill effects himself; he seemed to have fixed the flaw. And with any luck, he wouldn’t need to command this man for long. He was only borrowing the Afrii’s free will. He didn’t want to own it.
Kneeling, Da lowered his head to the Afrii’s and parted the man’s lips. When it seemed the Afrii was about to inhale, Da breathed out a purple mist of spores. “Wake,” he said after giving the spores a minute to work through the Afrii’s body. The man wouldn’t understand the word, but the tone should translate.
Yet the Afrii didn’t stir.
“Wake up,” Da tried again.
The Afrii still didn’t move, but someone else on the pyramid did—the white man. He was sitting up, eyes staring at Da and fingers groping for one of the dragon-headed blunderbusses scattered about the near area.
Da was faster. Still dizzy, but he’d had more time to recover. Before the white man had finished shaking the cobwebs from his scarred head, Da was on him, tackling him away from the gun and landing blows to either temple.
But the white man refused to sleep again so soon. He fought back more fiercely than Da expected, pulling him into a wrestler’s embrace and rolling them both toward the pyramid’s edge. The white man might be slower, but he was bigger. He’d win their brawl if it lasted more than a few minutes.
Given the chance, Da would have spored him. But he’d just used a dose on the Afrii—who was still out, damn him; it would have been nice to have the warrior’s help. And the spores would take another half hour to replenish.
So Da settled for dirty tricks.
A jab to the kidney. A bite of the scarred neck. Combined, the two cheap shots made the white man pull back enough that Da could land a solid punch to his jaw. The strike unbalanced him, and a quick shove stole the rest of his equilibrium and sent him tumbling down the pyramid’s side.
In a direct line towards where Bolin still watched over Jie.
“Black eggs,” Da breathed, remembering how the white man had splashed fire about with one of his guns earlier on the pyramid. If he survived the fall and decided to take his vengeance out on the next Han he saw … “Bolin! Take him down!”
In the distance, Bolin raised his head and immediately marked the rolling white man.
“Make sure he doesn’t have any guns!” Da shouted.
Bolin glanced behind him at Jie, then hopped on his horse and galloped towards the white man, who’d just finished rolling to the bottom of the pyramid. Even mounted, though, Bolin was almost a minute away. And something glinted on the white man’s belt—a pistol?
The white man’s right hand twitched, and Da knew he couldn’t take the chance. The Afrii remained prone; hopefully he’d still be that way in a few minutes. For now, Da had to sprint down the steep slope and trust to his jing to steady him. That and luck.
Neither was enough.
Halfway there, Da’s right foot smashed into a stone, flipping him onto his face and sending him somersaulting and sliding the rest of the descent. His aim remained good, though. He tumbled into his target just as the white man began fumbling for his pistol. The impact dazed them both, giving Bolin enough time to close the distance, leap off his horse, and knock the white man out with a brutal punch.
Da breathed a sigh of relief and found that, while bruised, none of his ribs seemed to have been broken by the fall. The rest of him was in the same basic condition: scraped and aching—his head most of all—but not seriously damaged.
“Now what?” Bolin asked. “Did you find the healer?”
Da grimaced. “He’s dead. But there’s another on the pyramid that might help. I need to go back up.”
“No,” Jie said. “We need to flee.”
She’d come back to herself enough to climb aboard the cart and drive it over to them. It was good to see, and wonderful to hear her voice sounding reasonably strong. But … “Why would we flee now? There’s still time to—”
“Look.” She pointed to her eyes, where something other than her pupils flashed and danced. Da hauled himself up and stepped onto the cart to get a closer view. Her eyes were filled with the same sorts of images that had animated them last year when she’d had her first vision.
“You’re mirroring the seer again?”
“A little. Do you see yourself?”
He peered into her eyes while Bolin whistled in astonishment. A tiny figure was climbing the pyramid by her pupil. “Yes.”
“Watch.”
The tiny figure was met at the summit by a larger figure, who ripped the tiny figure in half. “You die if you go back up that hill,” Jie whispered. “I’ve seen it three times. One of the god wus destroys you.”
As if on cue, a massive roar rippled down from the pyramid, followed by the crashes of smashing stones.
Da shrugged, trying to look stoic. “If it gets you a cure …”
“It doesn’t. If you go up there, the god wu comes down to find your companions.” The larger figure in her eye began descending the mini-pyramid toward a mini-cart.
Black eggs. “There’s an Afrii up there,” Da insisted. “He’s not the healer, but the healer’s touch is on him.”
“No. Keep watching.”
The pyramid faded from Jie’s eyes, and in its place a series of images chased each other across her gaze. Himself lifting a toddler from the boy’s bed. The white woman and the Afrii holding hands. The Afrii and a gray-skinned adolescent holding Jie’s hands. Jie in front of a mine entrance, running and jumping without her braces.
“There’s another way,” she murmured. “The toddler is the key.”
Da remembered to breathe again. “Who is he?”
“He was at the center of the master wu’s cloud images.”
“What cloud images?”
“The ones the master wu projected into the sky.”
“About an hour ago,” Bolin noted. “You didn’t see them?”
Da shook his head. “I was unconscious.”
“Ah.” The older man nodded—he’d probably wondered why Da had been gone so long.
“The boy,” Da said, pivoting back to Jie, “he’s the master wu’s son?”
It was her turn to shake her head. “I don’t think so. I saw an image of a white woman holding him. I think he’s hers. And maybe the Afrii’s; I saw them kissing, and the boy looks like a half-breed.”
“Can you map him?”
“The boy? … Yes. He’s close. Maybe half a day away. Are we going to him?”
Da considered this. It seemed
desperate. But they were desperate, and the god wu was still bellowing and breaking things on the pyramid. “I guess we do. The Afrii and the white woman will probably be headed there soon. If they survive.”
Bolin nudged his foot against the still-unconscious white man. “And this one?”
“I saw him too,” Jie said. “In the back of the cart.”
Da frowned. “Then I guess that’s what we do with him. But bind him first. If he gets a gun, he can call fire from it.”
Bolin nodded and fetched a rope from his horse’s saddlebags.
“Hurry,” Jie whispered when the god wu fell silent. “We need to leave.”
Da hesitated. His head still swam, and their new plan seemed vague and uncertain. But so had their last one, and Jie’s first vision had come to pass exactly as she’d foreseen. He might as well keep trusting her sight.
“Let’s go,” he finally said …
“Is that your child?” asked a stranger’s voice in Mandarin.
Da let go of the wheel—as fixed now as it was going to be—and turned to eye the speaker. The man was Han, but an ax dangled from his belt, despite the laws that prohibited most non-whites from carrying weapons in New Espan. The men around him were also armed, sporting blades as diverse as their ethnicities: various natives, Afriis, more Han, and a Hindoo or two. This must be one of the gente pardes Bolin the elder had mentioned, the colored militia who worked for the Espans in exchange for an exemption from tribute. They were probably headed back to Metica City after a patrol.
“Is that your child?” Da said, pointing to the smallest member of the group, a slender Han woman—no, not Han: Nippon—who didn’t come higher than any of the other soldiers’ shoulders.
He cursed his impulsiveness as the Han axman bristled. Spouting foolishness at warriors when there were too many to spore. What madness was this?
But the little Nippon only smirked and waggled her polearm’s unusually long blade at the axman. “His wife is too ugly for me to be his daughter.”
The Black Resurrection Page 6
