Crystal Rain

by Tobias S. Buckell

  Jerome shifted. “What nightmare? What go be so horrible?”

  Troy looked across the smooth, shiny desk at him.

  “I four hundred year old, Jerome. And I had spend most of that time free. I had come to Nanagada and were able to do anything I want. Even after Hope’s Loss, when most of all we technology and machine fall and stop, even then, I could still live here in the island. But imagine if you was trap, trap somewhere for most of all that time, and you was awake the whole time. Can you imagine being in a small room like this here for three hundred year, or even something smaller?”

  Jerome looked around. Just this time in the cavern had been hard for him.

  “Imagine hundred and hundred year of being trap in a small thing, not much larger than this room. That is why you father don’t remember nothing. And I wouldn’t either, if I were him.”

  Troy got up. “I have more, Jerome. But not now. I go let you have this time to adjust, seen?”

  “Seen.” Jerome nodded, shaken.

  Everything around him was changing. His perception of his dad, something that had always been unshakable and set in stone, was now shattered.

  “Okay, good,” Troy said. “Now, put you hand here, on the desk.”

  Jerome did so. The desk flashed and blinked a green square.

  “Now, if Azteca find we, and you need to escape, put you hand on the panel out there, like I had done, and it go let you in now. It didn’t before, but I told it you allowed in. Understand? I want you to stay safe. There a whole bunch of passage in here, place for you hide and escape, okay?”

  Dad was old-father. Dad was hundreds of years old.

  “Okay,” Jerome said.

  What did all this mean?

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Oaxyctl scrambled up a set of ropes, not daring to look down. The steady pace of a blimp was preferable to this. The rope netting under his feet swung loosely, and the whole boat pitched.

  “Hurry, hurry,” the man at the top yelled down at him.

  They said the steamer needed sails to help it along. He didn’t understand that; either they had an engine or they did not. Oaxyctl saw sails and masts only as another mess of lines to trip over.

  “Look him go!” Someone cackled from the other mast. “Slow like the turtle. Be steady, you might win the race yet!”

  Oaxyctl looked down at the deck far beneath him. His feet slipped and he dangled in the netting.

  At this rate he was going to die.

  What else could he do but this? Oaxyctl thought about that question on a number of different levels. He had to stay by John deBrun’s side. This time if a chance presented itself, he would strike. He could spirit John away in a lifeboat, though Oaxyctl knew nothing about sailing.

  The luck of the Ocelotl had struck him with a vengeance.

  Oaxyctl closed his eyes. The ropes burned into his wrists where he hung, and the sun blazed down on his neck.

  “You all right?”

  Someone scrambled down next to him. Another set of feet shook the ropes, and hands grabbed him from either side. Oaxyctl opened his eyes. The man in front of him winked. “We here to help.”

  “Thank you.” Oaxyctl was lifted up. He grabbed the netting, balancing his feet, free once more.

  “No,” said the man. “We here to help you.” He let go of Oaxyctl.

  Oaxyctl understood. The man didn’t look Tolteca, but maybe he’d been raised on the other side. One didn’t have to be brown-skinned to believe in the gods. “How do you know?” Oaxyctl asked.

  “Several god came to the city.” The man pointed at the harbor water. “Came for we. Told we, ‘Be ready, to join this expedition.’ Some of we couldn’t get through, some did. Like you, we ain’t leave the ship since joining. But we was waiting for you. Yeah. We know who you is.”

  “Thank you.” Oaxyctl’s heart dropped. A god? Here in Capitol City? Were they everywhere?

  Any thoughts of trying to give up on his responsibility, even though he was trapped on this boat and almost powerless, dissipated. He was still trapped, he still had the god’s bidding to follow.

  “Hey,” the man said. “What a tlacateccatl is?”

  “A leader of men,” Oaxyctl said. “Like a commander.”

  The man nodded. “That good. I go be a leader of men, with much gold and women for me, when this all done.” He grinned. Oaxyctl wanted to ask his name, but he jumped up the rigging away from him toward the top.

  Oaxyctl followed with a lighter heart. He had hidden allies on board. How many, he didn’t know. Now he had to be aware, come up with a plan, and figure out who was who aboard this ship.

  When Oaxyctl reached the top of the mast, three men lounged around the steel crow’s nest. “You make it.”

  “Come in.”

  As Oaxyctl crawled over the strips of metal, he saw a skiff approaching. It was decorated with ribbons and bright yellow and red paint. “What’s going on?”

  “I think it getting time for we launch this boat for real,” they said. “That the minister boat.”

  The man closest to Oaxyctl, the same one who had helped him up, looked out over the water. “Look at them.” He pointed with his head.

  Oaxyctl followed the nod, puzzled. A huge flotilla of dinghies, small sailboats, and barges filled with people were approaching them.

  “Who are they?”

  Everyone shrugged.

  Below them Oaxyctl saw the minister getting out, a lady dressed in red. Behind her others climbed out, including John deBrun. John deBrun wore a new blue uniform, had an extra step in his stride, and his hook had been polished so that the sun seemed to strike it and flash at every opportunity.

  He was in John deBrun’s world now, Oaxyctl realized. It would be a hard journey.

  But Oaxyctl had the gods on his side, he realized, looking up at the sun and the man by his side. And he was a strong man. He would triumph here, and honor the gods.

  He would obtain the secret codes from John deBrun. He could still do this and bring them back to the god.

  Oaxyctl believed it. He hung on to it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Dihana accepted two crewmen’s hands to help her up to the ladder and small stage floating by the steamship. La Revanche, she whispered.

  “Are all these boats out here for the christening?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Haidan replied.

  John, looking every bit the captain he was, walked down the deck, inspecting everything, nodding at various crew who stood to attention.

  Just over twenty years ago she’d first met John deBrun when he’d headed off to the northlands. He’d even made land, before being forced to turn back for lack of food and supplies. He’d left with two hands and returned with one. He left Capitol City for Brungstun after that to rest and recover and never came back.

  “Wish I was going,” Haidan grunted. He wore a beige trench coat that flapped in the wind. Dihana noticed the pair of guns in leather holsters on each hip. “You know I put my best mongoose-man on this trip?” She chose not to say anything. “My notes. My expedition. Hard to let go, you know?” He spit over the side, then wiped his lips with a handkerchief.

  John walked back down toward them.

  “What exactly are we doing today?” Dihana asked.

  “We have a quick affair.” John grinned. “Haidan objected to the long one. Too many people off and on the ship.”

  “We should proceed, then,” Dihana said.

  “Yes, let’s.”

  John walked aft to where the steering wheel loomed out of the deck. A protective wall of wood and steel boxed in the area, though she noticed holes had been set at the bottom to allow water to drain.

  Three men circled him. John introduced them in turn. “Barclay, my commander.” The tall man in a blue uniform nodded and shook Dihana’s offered hand. “Harrison, lieutenant commander.” Dihana shook another hand. “And our mongoose major, Avasa.” Avasa, a thin Hindi, gave a short bow. Haidan spoke highly of the man’s
fighting skills. He would lead the fifteen mongoose-men aboard.

  A lot of shouting ensued, from all sides. John started, the crew took it up. People moved ropes and the three stacks belched smoke. The moorings were tossed away, with sailors keeping a careful eye on where the ropes floated.

  For these few moments Dihana was just an observer. No one even looked at her; everyone had their own duties to take care of.

  She watched them all get the ship under way. It picked its way around the harbor, dodging anchored fishing vessels and large, bobbing mooring balls.

  Haidan walked up the side and sat far up toward the front of the ship. Dihana walked along the deck, careful not to let her feet hit any of the menacing toe-height cleats on the deck. She grabbed the railing, the varnished wood smooth under her hand.

  “Amazing ship,” she said.

  Haidan looked out over the shiny rail at the harbor water.

  “Hopefully amazing enough,” he said.

  Dihana sat next to him on the roof of a cabin, not far from a large hatch and set of stairs built into the side of the cabin.

  “It isn’t our only hope, Haidan. We have defenses, the city walls. The Azteca will die of disease in their camps. It will take a year for them to breach the city.”

  “We just buying time. Maybe if we hold out long enough the Azteca go give up. But if they never gave up trying to get over the mountain-them, what make you think they go give up here? How many will they sacrifice to wait we out?”

  Dihana folded her arms against the faint wind and concentrated on the quiet feeling of La Revanche moving forward with a faint shiver. Then the boat’s motion changed.

  Haidan cocked his head. “We reversing.”

  Screams came from the side, and three shots. Haidan stood up and moved in front of Dihana to protect her. He looked over the rail.

  “They everywhere,” he shouted.

  Dihana pushed past him to look down.

  A flotilla of small barges, dinghies, people in kayaks, and rafts had assembled in front of La Revanche. People with bags by their sides waved. Mongoose-men stood along the side of the steamer, weapons drawn.

  “Take me with you,” an old lady cried, a small chest by her feet. “Please don’t leave all of we, Minister. Them Azteca go kill we.”

  The silence broke. The flotilla threatened, pleaded, demanded, begged, to leave Capitol City. Some cursed them for leaving, and some sat and stared at her with empty, hopeless eyes. Dihana stood at the railing in front of hundreds of Capitol City people looking to flee.

  “This is no good,” she told Haidan. “Give me a bottle of wine to smash against the bow. Let us christen this ship now. Tomorrow morning, early early, before the sun rise and anyone realize what happened, the ship must leave.”

  “Seen.” Haidan’s locks swayed and he turned around to find a bottle of something for her to smash. The ceremony would be done quicker than anyone had planned.

  “What a mess.” Dihana wanted off the boat, to show the people of Capitol City she wasn’t running anywhere. She grabbed her skirt and grabbed one of the thick ropes hanging from the mast. With a grunt she pulled herself up to stand on the rail where everyone could see her.

  “What you doing?” Haidan asked.

  The boat, not ship, she told herself, rocked. Not enough to drop her into the water as long as she kept a good grip on the rope.

  “We ain’t going nowhere,” Dihana shouted as loud as she could, changing her speech to address the large crowd. It was like being a young girl again, when she had made the rhythms of her words sound one way for her father, and then another for her friends she met in the Ministerial Gardens. “No one going nowhere!”

  The flotilla quieted down.

  “This ship here a fighting ship,” Dihana yelled. “Ain’t no running ship. You hear? Ain’t no one running here. When Azteca come, I go stand up on the wall looking down at them me-self, just like any of you.

  “Azteca looking for living sacrifice for they god-them. And I don’t intend on letting them walk into Capitol City.

  “So don’t be ganging up on this ship. If you want leave, the gates of the city out there.” Dihana pointed back inland. “Or through Grantie’s Arch you-self, on any of you boat. But not on this one. This boat already got a mission.”

  She turned and held out an empty hand.

  “Hand me the bottle,” she demanded. Haidan stood under her, a small smile cracking the edges of his mouth anyway. He handed her a cheap green bottle of ale.

  “Here,” Dihana shouted. “I christen this boat La Revanche. They tell me this name means ‘revenge’ in some old language of the old-father. May it live true to its name then, and help all of we bring fear back out of Capitol City to the Azteca.” She smashed the bottle against the rail, covering Haidan in cheap alchohol.

  When she clambered down, Haidan took her arm. “You remind me of you dad. Decisive leader. Never someone to cross.”

  Dihana stepped over broken glass. The last thing she wanted today was to be compared to her father. He had known about Ma Wi Jung for all she knew. He must have needed something important from the Loa to not try to get to the north.

  Maybe something like what the Loa gave John for his journey. Haidan told her John had it in a safe in his cabin, and that none of the crew knew about the device that would get the Ma Wi Jung to work. But if the Loa had been getting this device ready, maybe her dad had not been so misguided as she had thought.

  This possibility shook her a bit.

  “Come, we need to head for shore.” Dihana gathered herself. “Get as many boats to follow us in as possible. Haidan, get your men out there to sign up fighters from the men on these boats. Any of these people could help us fight the Azteca.”

  Haidan pulled the collar of his coat up. “Well, for better or worse we commit now.”

  Dihana looked him straight in the eye. “One man who has been north. One gift from the Loa. It only takes one thing, Haidan, one thing.”

  Haidan nodded. “I know.”

  Just before they left, Dihana slowed down to meet John deBrun one last time. She shook his good hand. It was anyone’s guess as to what would happen next, she thought, on their rocky voyage. But it was out of all of their hands. They had a city to defend now.

  “Good luck, Captain,” she said. “You’re on you own now.”

  “Thank you, Prime Minister,” John replied.

  And then she was helped back over the side of the boat, to the cheers of the ragtag armada all around them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The warm hues of the morning sun lined the edge of the eastern ocean’s reflections, while in the other direction the world remained dark as they left. Grantie’s Arch slipped past La Revanche, and the crew spoke in tired morning whispers, going about their duties. A small cooking fire spread the smell of coffee around the deck.

  This was the best time to leave, John thought. He stood off in the corner of the rear cockpit, watching the two helmsmen pull at the wheel.

  John held a cup of coffee in his good hand and kept his hook tucked underneath his other arm, yet still visible. It gave him credibility among many of the fishermen sailors that crewed La Revanche. He liked that.

  The steamship was fast. The deck thrummed under his feet as they surged out from Capitol City’s watery gates.

  They cleared the breakwater walls, a jumbled pile of rock protecting Grantie’s Arch from the worst of the Northern Sea weather. La Revanche began to pitch.

  “Sails,” John ordered. “Full canvas!”

  The word passed down in scratchy voices. Three teams leapt up the netting to unfurl the sails. The canvas dropped down with a pleasant scratching sound, then a snap as the booms bounced at their end.

  “That’s better,” someone muttered. The ship’s bucking steadied into a slow swaying as the sails filled and the rigging creaked tight. John took a sip of coffee. Already Grantie’s Arch looked just large enough to walk through.

  A few small fishing boats bounce
d near mooring balls of different colors, pulling up wicker fish traps. The fishermen waved at them.

  Even in the face of impending war, some things went on.

  After several hours of clipping along, the walls of Capitol City slipped beneath the horizon. By that time the cooks had served a late breakfast for several sailors. Most of the mongoose-men lined up against the rails, hung on for grim life, and puked their guts out.

  This was not the heady adventure of his last trip over two decades ago. A lot of time lay between here and then; six years of marriage to Shanta, and thirteen years raising Jerome. The memories threatened to overwhelm him. John looked at the rolling waves and pushed it all away.

  He wondered if that passage of time had matured him for this second attempt or made him too soft to pull it off. He knew the dangers of the ice and the cold this time.

  This time the stakes were higher than he could ever have imagined.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  A ragamuffin woke Dihana at sunrise to tell her the Councilmen had fled. She ordered him to find Haidan. She wanted a squad to hunt them down.

  By the time she was having a midmorning breakfast of sausage, eggs, and some fresh milk, Haidan had the Councilmen rounded up.

  “They was in Tolteca-town,” Haidan said.

  Emil was bound with rope. He sat down at the table across from her, and Dihana put her fork down. The other Councilmen stood outside in the hallway, sullen, mongoose-men with guns eyeing them.