Cold Steel

“Cat?” Bee’s voice was remarkably level. “Are you hurt?”



“I’m not touched.” I was shaking, not with fear but with fight. I was ready to rip out the throat of the next creature that attacked Bee. “We need to move. Find a gate to get you and the legate back to the mortal world.”



“This is a constant nightmare of death!” cried Amadou Barry. “Have we truly crossed into Tartarus, where the ancestors bide? Where skulls are wreathed in the form of living heads? Where every monster seeks to kill?”



Ignoring him, I slung on the pack with Vai’s tools and started walking. “I’d call Rory’s pride to protect us, but we’ve no warded ground in sight where they can shelter if a tide rips through.”



I led with my sword, keeping my right shoulder next to the wall. Bee followed with the other two packs, slung on before and behind her, and the cacica’s head held out in front to guide us. Amadou Barry limped behind her, and Rory brought up the rear. The ground alongside the wall was stony, marked with patches of lichen. Eyes glowed in the night like pairs of fireflies, softly ominous.



“What is a tide?” Amadou Barry demanded. “Why is everything here attacking us?”



I couldn’t help but want to rub his nose in his ignorance. “Since you seem to think we do not know what we are about, I should like to inform you of what you do not know. Now and again young women are born who walk the dreams of dragons in their sleep.”



“I know that!” he protested. After a hesitation, he said, “Go on.”



“All you powerful men want Bee to make use of her dreams to fulfill your own ambitions.”



“We merely wish to keep her out of the hands of the Iberian Monster so he cannot use her dreams to conquer Europa.”



I snorted.



“If that was your only purpose, Legate,” said Bee in a low voice, “then I am surprised at the insulting offer you made me.”



“Bright Venus, but you Phoenicians are too proud!”



I cut in before they could tumble into what would seem too much like a lovers’ quarrel. “The tides of those dreams wash the spirit world like great waves of smoke. Where the smoke washes, the land is wiped clean. Every thing and every creature that is touched by the smoke is changed. Except for warded ground, which is what we’re looking for now. The creatures who live in the spirit world hate dragon dreamers and want to kill Bee.”



“This is the most outrageous tale I have ever heard,” he said, but the tremor in his voice made me realize he was actually listening.



“Perhaps my vision deceives me,” said the cacica, “but it seems we are not going anywhere.”



“These walls are certainly of greater circumference than the walls of Rome,” said Amadou, as if relieved to have the conversation change to a subject on which he might account himself an expert.



“Who is this young man?” asked the cacica. “He has not asked to be brought to my notice. Yet he speaks as if I had requested his opinion.”



“I do not need anyone’s permission to speak!” said Amadou.



I squelched an urge to punch him.



“Your pardon, Your Highness,” said Bee. “It was rude of me to forget my manners.”



I wasn’t sure I liked Bee’s simpering expression as she introduced Amadou Barry to the cacica as a young man of high rank like to that of the nobles of the Taino kingdom. The cacica was not impressed by his grudging courtesy. I wasn’t either. But I had more urgent concerns. Ahead lay a sprinkle of drying ichor and a mat of white feathers whose pattern I recognized.



“Blessed Tanit! We’ve come back to where we started. It’s not that we’re not going anywhere. We’re going in a circle around a wall with no entry. The chain that binds me to Andevai can pierce the wall but we can’t.” I poked at the wall with the tip of my sword. Its substance remained stubbornly hard. “He’s inside, but we have no gate.”



“No gate?” remarked the cacica, in surprise. “You cut a gate once in the fence the behiques raised around Kiskeya, young woman. As you well recall, since it was through that gate my murderer entered my realm. Why can you not cut a gate here in the same manner?”



Amadou Barry rudely spoke right over her words.



“You just claimed to know what you are about in this place,” he said in the tone of a man who has had enough of the pretensions of the lesser folk. “It is time you girls gave up this fruitless quest and returned to Adurnam with me.”



Bee turned to look out toward the horizon. “Cat! A light is rising. A dragon is turning in her sleep. I can feel the smoke of her dreams rushing toward us.”