Cold Steel

As I climbed, the air changed texture, stirred by a guava-scented wind. I emerged into the hollow trunk of a ceiba tree so huge that the buttressing of its aboveground roots rose like the pillars of a house over my head. The chittering of Rory’s captors echoed around me, but I could not see them. I sought threads of shadow to conceal myself, but here in the spirit world the shadows were like eels, too slippery to hold. Skulking in the tangle of roots, furious and almost weeping at losing Vai when I had come so close to him, I probed at my shoulder. Just below the collarbone rose a puckered scar, tender to the touch. The fingers of my left hand were scored with whitened scars, cleanly healed. The ache subsided to that of an injury sustained days ago instead of moments. The speed of healing was a brutal reminder of how time passed differently in the spirit world, where an hour might equate to days in the mortal world and a day to months. How much time had passed in the mortal world just while I climbed the tree? How far away was Vai now?



Hidden within the roots, I peered onto open ground, my first glimpse of the spirit world here in Taino country. In the heavens, no sun or moon shone. The sky had a silvery-white sheen like the inside of a conch shell. Straight ahead lay a monumental ballcourt where figures played batey, the game so beloved in Expedition and throughout the Antilles. The players ran up and down the ballcourt bouncing a rubber ball off thighs or forearms or elbows, never letting it touch the ground. They even bounced the ball off stone belts they wore around their hips, although in Expedition no one used the traditional gear.



At the end of the ballcourt closest to me rose a stone platform. A man sat there, cross-legged, watching the game. He wore a headdress ridged with feathers as in imitation of a troll’s bright crest, a white cotton loin wrap, and armlets of beaten gold. His septum was pierced by a needle of pale green jade, and he wore dangling earrings carved out of bone. One step below him, a rabbit dressed in a loin wrap was seated at a sloped writing desk with a brush in hand, busily writing in sweeping strokes as its ears twitched.



I crossed the plaza, climbed four steps, and halted below the lord.



“You’re the Thunder, the Herald of the storm the people call hurricane.”



“Here you are, Cousin,” said the Thunder, unsurprised by my arrival. “By what name should I call you?”



“People call me Cat,” I replied, for I knew better than to reveal my full name. “Why did you take my brother?”



“You took a life. We took a life.”



Dread chilled my heart. “Have you killed my brother?”



“Death is merely the other side of the island.”



“I haven’t the knowledge to debate questions of natural philosophy with you. I just want my brother back.”



“It is time for the match. Batey is the game.” He gestured toward the ballcourt. At the motion of his hand, thunder grumbled beneath my feet. “If you score, then we shall give you a chance to stand before the elders and defend yourself against the accusation laid against you. On behalf of the spirit lord you call the Master of the Wild Hunt, you cut a path into our country and allowed him to kill here as if he possessed the right to do so when he possesses no such right. Think how we must look at you, Cousin! We let you walk in our land as a guest, and you betrayed us.”



My head was still spinning with the vision of Vai encased in ice. “So if I score a point, I’ll be allowed to stand trial before a hostile assembly? That’s my chance?”



“If you don’t choose to speak in your own defense, it’s no skin off my nose.”



“It scarcely seems a sporting game if I’m obliged to play a game I only learned a few months ago against spirits and opia who have played for time uncounted.”



“I freely offer you a gift, Cousin.” A skull inset with beads and gems sat by his right knee, and I was sure it was watching me, for its hollow eyes gleamed. “The gift of the skill you would have achieved had you played the game for as long as these others have.”



I had to take the chances I was offered. “That seems fair. I agree only if all responsibility falls to me. If the ancestors find I am not at fault, then my brother and I are both free to go.”



“We are agreed.”



“I’ll need leather cords to tie up my skirt.”



The rabbit scribe set down its pen and tossed me a rope of braided cords. I untangled the cords and used them to secure my skirt at knee length. I still wore only my sleeveless bodice.



Thunder himself fitted me with arm guards. There was something not intrusive but intimate in the way he handled my body. He did not loom or leer, but I felt the spark all the same. Loving Vai had opened my eyes to the currents that roil the waters between people who feel attraction one for the other. But while I might have been appreciative, I was not tempted. I smiled to show I understood his game, and I stepped back politely.