Finally, the fisherman grabbed a pole, planted it on the neighboring boat, and shoved them away from the floating dock. The little yacht glided back into the free waters, the breeze caught the sail, and suddenly they were away with the wind whipping their exposed skin with a freezing salt spray. The fisherman sat on a high seat in the stern, one hand on the tiller, one foot on a cleat, and his pipe clenched in his teeth.
“So how long to Tingis?” Syfax asked.
The fisherman shrugged. “Depends on the wind.”
Shifrah huddled down against the hard seat, which she suddenly realized to be a small trunk with a hinged lid, no doubt full of unwashed fishing tackle judging from the smell. The wet chill invaded her furs and the thick coil of her hair, and she shivered.
A weight fell on her shoulders and she opened her eye. It was Kenan’s arm.
She smiled. Boys.
Day Eight
Chapter 22. Lorenzo
They rode all day from long before dawn until long after dusk. Zaragoza vanished behind them not long after they stopped to eat breakfast, but the mining town of Yesero did not appear until the night sky appeared in full starry bloom. When they dismounted at the little wayhouse, Lorenzo had to grit his teeth against the raging soreness in his legs and back. After a thousand hours of fencing, my arm grows stronger and surer, but after a thousand hours of riding why do I just want to lie down and die?
The grizzled old man at the wayhouse barely glanced at them as he collected Lorenzo’s money and pointed them to a modestly sized room with three modestly sized beds standing side by side. Three beds.
Lorenzo sighed. “Alonso and I will sleep on the floor. You three can have the beds.”
“No,” Taziri yawned. “Shahera and I will share this one. Dante and Alonso can share the second. You take the third. You need the rest if your arm is going to heal properly.”
The hidalgo glanced down at his right arm as though he’d completely forgotten that he owned it. “All right. Thank you, captain.”
“ Taziri is fine.” She smiled.
He kicked off his boots, fell into bed, prayed for Qhora’s safety, and slept.
“Lorenzo?”
The hidalgo jerked awake, cracking his head on the headboard. As he rubbed his new welt, he squinted through the darkness at the misty figure standing in the corner beside his bed. Behind him, he heard the others snoring and breathing deeply. “Sister?”
“You’re almost there,” the dead nun whispered. “I’m sorry I cannot go with you, that I will not be there to see the stone when you first see it. But it will be reward enough to see it when you return.”
“Why can’t you go with us?” Lorenzo lay very still. His back and legs were too stiff to manage sitting up. “I don’t think you need to worry about an errant heat wave tomorrow.”
“It’s the wind.” Sister Ariel gestured to the window and the mountain ridge beyond. “Over the years, I’ve tried countless times to walk these mountain passes, to search for the stone by myself. But the winds are too fierce. They scatter the aether even as the cold gathers it together.”
Lorenzo nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. You should be there when we find it.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, how did you find me so quickly? You always seem to be just a step behind me.”
“It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to be a walking ghost,” she said. “Sometimes my feet carry me where I want to go. And sometimes I simply close my eyes and I’m there already. A church in Ejido, a graveyard in Tartessos, a jeweler’s shop in Toledo. But those are all just places, though they seem a bit random. You are the only person I can find, it seems.”
“You mean you can find me, and only me, anywhere in the world? Like you did in Zaragoza and in Marrakesh?”
The nun nodded.
“Ever since I came back from the New World,” he muttered. “Was my soul so in need of saving that God tied a string around my finger to guide you back to me again and again?”
“Perhaps. Although I’ve often wondered if it isn’t something simpler. We first met in Tartessos, didn’t we? Just after you returned from Cartagena. Hm. Prince Valero gave you several gifts when you returned from the New World, I believe. What did he give you?”
Lorenzo sat up slightly. “My sword. He gave me this sword.” He reached down and picked up the antique espada lying wrapped in his coat on the floor.
The nun only glanced at it. “I doubt I have any connection to that.”
“He also gave me this.” Lorenzo pulled the holy medallion from his shirt and held it dangling from its slender chain. The three interwoven links of the triquetra gleamed dimly in the starlight.
Ariel swept closer, her smoky outlines wavering as she moved. “Look closely at it. Is there a discolored patch of gold on the lower edge?”
Lorenzo didn’t have to look. He’d stared at the strange dark gold countless times, wondering if the medallion had once been mended with bronze. “Yes. Do you know it?”
“It was mine,” she said. “The one I wore in life. I’d always thought it was buried with me, but it would seem some poor soul saw the need to pocket it before I was interred. And then it found its way into the Prince’s coffers. Maybe the abbess gave it to the tax collector the year I died. Did you know they taxed the abbeys in my day?”
“No.” He stared at the little patch of dark gold, rubbing it gently. “Are you drawn to anything else you knew in life?”
“No, not even the nunnery where I was buried. You would think I would have a stronger connection to my own bones than that medallion.” She smiled. “Well, mystery solved, I suppose, though it doesn’t explain why I can travel to those other places so easily. Rest now. You have a long day ahead of you.”
The hidalgo laid his head back down on the cold pillow. “Good night, sister.”
When Lorenzo awoke, he prayed that Qhora had slept as well as he, and got up. He found the common room bustling with the morning rush. Half a dozen middle-aged men sat at the trestle table, quietly eating their porridge and drinking their tea. The hidalgo collected his own bowl of steaming gray mush from his host and said, “I’m heading up into the mountains today. Do you suppose you could ride with me to help me find the trails? We’d be back by nightfall, and I can pay you for your time.”
The old man grinned. “I’d love to, young sir, but I’m afraid my riding and hiking days are behind me.” He reached down and knocked on his wooden leg. “Where exactly are you looking to go?”
Lorenzo produced his journal from his jacket pocket and flipped to the page with the silk bookmark. He scanned the page. “Here. I want to take a look at the north face of Pic Blanco.”
The old man frowned. “Pic Blanco. You want to look at the old silver mine? No one goes out there anymore. Not since they shoved that Mazigh demon into the mine.”
“Demon?”
“Steam drill. It was supposed to make us all rich. All it did was collapse one of the best silver veins in the area, and the only thing of value on Pic Blanco. But that was thirty years ago.”
Lorenzo nodded. “So no one knows the area now?”
The man shrugged. “Well, you could always ask the goblin queen.”
A smattering of chuckles rose from the men eating their breakfast. Lorenzo glanced at them and then asked his host, “What do you mean, goblin queen?”
“He means my sister,” said a voice behind him.
The man winced. “Sorry, Nina, I didn’t know you were there.”
Lorenzo turned to see a woman in the doorway about his own age dressed in heavy, dirty leathers. Her black hair was tied up in a careless bun to reveal a face that was no doubt quite beautiful before the years working underground had etched the lines around her eyes and mouth so deeply. The hidalgo stood up as she entered the room and he saw she was as tall as him, and when she tossed her coat on the bench to get her breakfast, he saw the muscles of her arms straining against her threadbare shirt.
“Your sister?”
“My litt
le sister Mirari. She lives in the old silver mine, or what’s left of it. The number six shaft where the steam drill burst apart and collapsed the tunnel.”
He moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “I don’t mean to pry, but why do they call her the goblin queen?”
“It was a hard birth. Mirari’s head was too large and she almost didn’t make it out alive. Her ears were mangled and they healed badly.”
“That’s all? She has misshapen ears?”
“Well, that, and she’s not quite right in the head. Talks to herself.”
Lorenzo chewed his lip. “I see. Well, maybe you can help me. You seem to know the area.”
“Not especially,” Nina said. “I’ve never been past the silver mine, certainly not to the north face. Are you looking for another ore vein?”
“Something like that. Then do you think your sister can help me?” he asked.
She nodded. “Sure, Mirari’s the one you want. Don’t worry, she’s not dangerous. Just a little odd, that’s all, which was more than most folks around here could stand.”
Lorenzo went back to the room to wake the others. He’d only meant to collect Alonso and tell the others where he was going, but they all got up, dressed, and ate breakfast with every intention of joining him.
“You’ve already ruined my holiday and nearly killed me a dozen times,” Dante muttered to no one in particular. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss out on this treasure hunt of yours. It’ll probably be the only profitable thing about this whole disaster.”
The miner woman introduced herself as Nina Velasquez, a prospector with three stakes on the east face of Pic Verde, where she would be returning in a few weeks when the weather began to warm. Shahera instantly struck up a conversation with her about life in the mountains, mining disasters, and the harsh winters in the Pyrenees.
When everyone was ready to go, they followed Nina on foot along a thin winding track up into the hills above Yesero, quickly climbing into the rocky ravines where sheer cliff faces peered down at them from their snowy crags.
“How did they ever get a steam drill up here?” Taziri asked.
“In pieces,” Nina answered.
The ravine widened into a small box canyon. A huge black hole in the north wall gaped at them, its stone jaws propped open by ancient frozen timbers set there decades ago by the first miners to strike the silver vein. From the mouth of the tunnel a thin trickle of bright water traced a meandering path across the stone floor and vanished into a crack on the far side of the gully.
“Mirari!” Nina peered into the mine. Over her shoulder she said, “I hope she’s home.”
Lorenzo frowned at the tunnel. What sort of person would choose to live in a cave? “Look, maybe this wasn’t a good idea. I do have an old map and I doubt this mountain has moved around much recently, so I think we’ll just find our own way.”
A faint whisper of a voice echoed up from the tunnel. “Nina?”
“It’s me,” Nina said. “I have some visitors for you.”
“Visitors?”
In the darkness of the mine, Lorenzo saw a shadow move. The figure shambled and tottered as it came forward to the edge of the light. The cold air caught in his throat.
She has horns.
Huge ram’s horns curled on either side of her head.
Horns. Nina said mangled ears. She said ears, not horns. What in God’s name is going on?
The figure stepped out into the light and the horns snapped into focus, as did the filthy sheepskin draped over the girl’s head. Lorenzo exhaled and blinked, and grinned his embarrassment away. A quick look at Alonso told him that he wasn’t on the one who had thought of the old fairy tales of iron imps and spirits in the earth.
The girl stumbled out of the mine with a yawn and a stretch. “It’s so early.”
“Morning’s half over.” Nina embraced her sister. “Are you eating all right?”
Mirari nodded. “I found a sheep. He slipped on the rocks and fell. His belly burst when he landed. I ate him.”
Nina nodded thoughtfully as she lifted the ragged skin and horns from the girl’s head. “I see that.”
Mirari leaned around her sister’s shoulder to look at her visitors, and quickly hid behind Nina again. “They’ll see me. See my ears. Will they hit me?”
“No, no, sweetie, they won’t hit you. They came to ask for your help. They want to see your mountain.”
Mirari peeked out again. “There’s a boy, Nina.”
Nina glanced back. “What’s your name?”
Alonso blinked. “Who me? Alonso. My name’s Alonso Ramos de Zaragoza. It’s very nice to meet you.”
“His name is Alonso, and he’s a very nice boy, and he needs your help,” Nina said. “Can you help them? Just show them the paths and trails for a few hours, that’s all. Can you do that? They’ll pay you and then you can buy some food and new clothes.”
“Can’t buy food, can’t buy clothes,” the girl stammered. “They hit me.”
“Shh, never mind that, I’ll buy them for you. Will you help Alonso and his friends?”
“No, he’ll see me!”
Lorenzo sighed. “Miss Velasquez, I appreciate your trying to help, but we do need to be moving on.” He strode across the gravel floor of the gully toward the two sisters. “I give you my word as a hidalgo and as a faithful servant of God that no harm will come to you as long as you are with us.” He froze. Now standing only a few feet away, he could see the girl’s face clearly. Before he had thought the strange hue of her skin had been a trick of the light, a glint from the stone walls and gleaming ice. But it wasn’t a trick at all.
She was silvery blue.
“Her face,” he whispered.
Nina looked at him. “She’s been drinking the water in the mine. I told her not to, but she did. Has been for years. It’s the silver in the water that dyes the skin.”
The hidalgo nodded. He could see the twisted and pointed tip of the girl’s right ear, too, but that seemed the least of her strangeness.
Still, what others have broken with cruelty maybe I can heal with a little kindness.
He swept his wide-brimmed hat from his head and bowed. “Senorita Mirari, would you be so kind as to be my guide today on your mountain?”
The silver-skinned girl straightened up a bit, her expression suddenly softer and her eyes clearer. She curtsied clumsily. “It would be my honor, sir.” But then she looked at Alonso again and turned back into a nervous little creature, her eyes fixed on the ground. “I don’t want him to see me. The pretty boy. He can’t see me. Can’t see my face. Not him. No, no.”
Lorenzo blew out a hard sigh and looked from Nina to his own companions for some help.
“Oh!” Shahera started forward and slung her shoulder bag down so she could dig through it. “I have it, I have just the thing!” She continued rummaging, shoving clothes left and right and then digging at the lining before finally pulling out a bright white mask with painted red lips and black-rimmed eyes. She held it out to the girl. “You could wear this. It’s Italian. Brand new.”
Mirari hesitated only a second before taking the mask and inspecting it as she turned it over in her hands. She nodded. “Brand new. A brand new face. A pretty face. I can wear a pretty face for the pretty boy. Then it will be all right.”
Lorenzo exchanged a look with Nina as the woman helped tie the mask over her sister’s face. She stepped back and said, “Are you all right?”
Mirari straightened up again and said, louder and clearer than ever before, “By all means, let’s be off. These good people have work to do and I have a day’s wage to earn. Thank you, Nina, I’ll see you later. Take care, dear sister.”
The sisters embraced and then Nina left, giving Lorenzo one last warning look as she passed. “Stay close to her.”
“She’ll be fine,” he said.
“I’m not worried about her.” Nina winked and set off down the trail.
The masked girl said, “Mirari Velasquez, a
t your service. And you, sir?”
“Don Lorenzo Quesada, at yours.”
“Don Lorenzo, please follow me.” Mirari turned and set out along the edge of the wall of the gully and pointed out a natural stair in the stone. “We’ll follow the old goat trail to the high paths. Where exactly did you wish to go today?”
Lorenzo looked at her masked face, still a bit stunned by her sudden transformation. “The north face of Pic Blanco. I’m looking for a certain cave or pit. We should know it by the heat in the rocks, as though from a hot spring, but not from a hot spring.”
“You wish to see the burning gold?”
He swallowed. “You’ve seen it?”
“Just once. Just for a moment.” Mirari turned and began to climb the stair. “But then the basajaun chased me away and I never went back.”
“The what?” Lorenzo started up the stair after her, not sure he had heard her correctly. “What chased you?”
Chapter 23. Taziri
The wind screamed against the western face of Pic Blanco. Taziri shuffled along the narrow trail behind Lorenzo with one hand on the rocks to her right and the other hand clutching the high collar of her coat around her face. At first the wind would slice through her clothes, penetrating her heavy leathers and wools in defiance of all reason and stinging her skin with the freezing air or worse, the freezing rain. And then the wind would batter her like a ram, shoving her off balance and slamming her into the rock wall.
She wore her aviator goggles over her eyes, which protected them from the stinging ice but required constant wiping and cleaning or else they would quickly fog up with steam and then crust over with frost.
Whenever she passed into the lee of some stone pillar or blasted tree, Taziri would glance back at Shahera and Dante, each time finding them as miserable but as dogged as herself.
Her mind ran over and over the last week, trying to sort out where everything had gone wrong.
What was the first wrong decision? What could I have done differently?
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