The Demon of the Air

3

The surface of the lake was like polished obsidian, the stars’ reflections, broken by ripples, as enigmatic as the shadows that would rise and fall in an obsidian mirror.

There were no voices or footsteps on the causeway and no paddles except ours broke the water around us.

The light from Lily’s torch fell on the raised side of the causeway, throwing into relief the stones set into the wall. Since we had caught up with His Lordship’s party, his boatman had been less eager than ever and Handy had no difficulty keeping up with him.

“You’re on the wrong side of the causeway, for a start,” the boatman had pointed out sulkily.

“That’s all right,” my master had responded blithely. “The bridges are all raised at night. We’ll pass through at the last one. We’d better cut across the lake and head straight for your creek after that. I’ve no intention of explaining myself to the warriors in the guard post at the end of the causeway.”

“Suppose we find Young Warrior’s boat,” I had said, thinking it was high time somebody asked an obvious question, “what do you propose to do then?”

“We’ll make him come quietly, or we’ll kill him. The boy too.”

“No!” My cry of protest had burst out of me before I had time to think about it. To the five shocked faces that turned toward me, I had explained: “You can’t just murder the lad out of hand. You don’t know what he’s done-maybe he couldn’t help it, maybe his fatherforced him into it!” I had turned to my brother for support. “The sorcerers-what about the sorcerers?”

The torchlight had thrown Lion’s face into sharp relief, casting deep shadows that made it look like a bare skull and about as easy to read. His eyes had glittered like jewels in the flickering light as he looked from my master to me. “We’ll take the sorcerers-the ones that are left-and put them back where they belong: in prison. That’s right-isn’t it, my Lord? Those were Montezuma’s orders.”

There had been a long, uncomfortable silence then, before my master had finally pronounced: “It all depends on what we find when we get there. I will decide then!”

“And my son?”

Lily had still been holding the torch steady in the Chief Minister’s canoe. Her hand had trembled slightly, shaking loose a few embers that had spiraled slowly into the water.

“It all depends,” my master had repeated gruffly.

Now Lion, Handy and I sat in silence as we watched the causeway slide by and waited for a dark interval to appear, revealing the last bridge and the place where we were to cross to the southern side.

Handy said: “I still don’t understand what Shining Light’s doing on that boat. I thought he was on a trading venture. I saw him leave. He had a canoe full of provisions. It was One Reed, remember, and you thought it was a funny day to be off on a long journey.”

“I suppose the provisions were for Young Warrior, the boy and the sorcerers,” I said.

“Which means,” my brother pointed out, “that whenever the merchant and his boyfriend-or his boyfriend’s father, whatever-had their falling out, it must have been after that, mustn’t it? Shining Light would hardly have delivered himself up as a hostage, complete with his own food supply.”

“So what did they have a row about?” Handy asked.

I hesitated while I tried to imagine what might have been going through the merchant’s mind. “I suppose Shining Light was going to lie low for a while, to keep out of the way of the merchants-not to mention the Chief Minister! He told his mother to pretend he’d gone on a trading venture. Maybe that’s why you were asked to deliver his message to my master, Handy-so that you could attest to the fact that he was off somewhere with a boat full of provisions, asif he was going on a long journey. In fact he wasn’t, but he needed somewhere to hide. The obvious place was Young Warrior’s boat. Maybe being cooped up with that vicious young man for a few days was enough to convince Young Warrior and Nimble that he was more useful as a hostage than a guest. Then again …”

Then again, I realized, what I had just said was nonsense. Lily had told me that Shining Light had not known where Curling Mist’s warehouse was. If that was the truth, then Shining Light could not have delivered himself to Curling Mist-or Young Warrior-willingly or otherwise, because he would not have known where to find him.

If that was the truth.

Lily had no reason to lie to me about that; nor had her father, who had told the same story, accounting for the bare room in their house. But suppose Shining Light had lied to both of them?

As soon as that thought occurred to me, the fabric of the story I had woven together out of the past few days’ events began to unravel. Things that I had seen and heard and all but forgotten about came to mind, and each was like a loose thread pulled away from the cloth until there was nothing left of it but the truth.

And I had seen the truth myself, only that evening, without recognizing it. I had even told Lion and Lily about it, without knowing what I was saying.

“We’ve got it all wrong,” I started to say, but Lion interrupted me.

“Whatever they fell out over, you can ask them both about it soon. Here’s the bridge!”

The Chief Minister’s boat coasted through the gap in the causeway and then, just as we turned to follow it, it vanished. There was a faint hissing sound as Lily doused the torch in the water of the lake, and then there was nothing to see by but the stars and the water’s own eerie phosphorescence.

Trailing his paddle in the water, Handy brought us to a halt next to the other craft.

“It’s a creek, a little bit south of Chapultepec.” Although this was still a long pull away by canoe, my master’s boatman had taken to whispering. “When we reach the aqueduct we’re almost there. The boat you’re looking for is moored in its mouth, a fair distance from the shore.”

“That makes sense,” my brother muttered, “if he doesn’t want the sorcerers slipping overboard and swimming for it. We’ll have to get into the creek mouth as quietly as possible and try to get between him and the shore. If Young Warrior or anyone else tries to escape that way we should catch them.”

Lord Feathered in Black silently prodded his boatman with his foot, and the man slowly took up his paddle and dipped it in the water.

“If there’s a boat in there, I can’t see it,” Lion whispered.

We lay in the bow of the canoe, staring into the tangled darkness that marked the edge of the lake. We dared not stand up, in case our quarry caught sight of us outlined against the stars.

“Are we sure this is the right place?” Handy asked.

“He seems to think so.” I looked over my shoulder at the dark, quiet water behind us, where I assumed my master’s boat still floated. “Our reluctant boatman was happy enough about finding the aqueduct.” The man had uttered a cry of delight, quickly stifled, when the long, low stone structure had emerged out of the darkness, as though he had surprised himself with his own skill. It had taken a long time to get that far, paddling cautiously through the gloom. The final leg of the journey, following the shoreline down to the creek mouth where our quarry was supposedly waiting, had been all too short.

“Let’s go anyway. I’m tired of waiting.” I spoke through teeth clenched to stop them chattering. I had told myself it was a cold night, although it must have been colder for Handy, because after we had passed Chapultepec he had taken his breechcloth off and wrapped it around his paddle to muffle it.

“If we keep to the middle of the channel,” Handy suggested, “we ought to find them.” He thrust his paddle into the water and began to push the canoe forward.

A faint splash from behind us told me that the other canoe was on the move as well, but its boatman had not troubled to muffle his paddle, and we could hear its progress clearly as it forged ahead, steering a course wide of our own and much closer to the bank. A fleck of foam, gleaming white in the starlight, showed where the paddle blade dug into the water, tearing its surface and throwing it up as he sped past us.

“What’s he doing?” Handy muttered. “He’s far too close to the bank! He’s going to run aground if he’s not careful!”

“Not to mention the noise he’s making,” Lion said.

I suddenly realized what the man was up to. “He wants to run aground! He’s trying to escape!” I was already standing up, making our canoe rock as I strained to see where the other boat was going.

Across the water came a crash and the sound of splintering wood.

The brief silence that followed ended with the beat of heavy wings as some large bird, perhaps a heron, started from its roosting place and took flight across the lake.

“They’ve hit!” Handy observed.

“Quiet!” I snapped. Had I imagined it, or had there been another sound? Even as I struggled to identify it, however, it was obliterated by curses and recriminations from the direction of the wrecked canoe.

“Old Black Feathers is not happy,” remarked my brother.

“Nor is the lady,” added Handy.

It struck me that the merchants must bring their women up differently from the rest of us, because I was sure my mother had never known some of the words Lily was using. I wondered if she had learned them in the marketplace. I could not hear the boatman’s voice at all. I supposed he had made good his escape, leaping overboard as soon as he knew the crash was imminent.

“Well, that’s that,” declared Lion. “Everyone on this side of the lake will know we’re here now. We might as well forget it.” He scrambled to his feet to join me in standing unsteadily in the center of the canoe. “If Young Warrior was ever here, he’ll be on the move. He can hardly have missed that lot-”

“Well, shut up, then!”

As Lion lapsed into shocked silence I looked hurriedly around. “If he’s moving, we should be able to hear him!” I explained. “That’s if my master and Lily will be quiet … Will you be quiet?” My last words were shouted to be heard over the commotion on the bank.

There was a momentary pause before my master’s incredulous voice came back to me, reduced to little more than an outraged croak. “What did you say?”

“Listen!”

Everybody listened.

“What was that?” asked Handy.

Simultaneously he, Lion and I turned around.

“Splashing,” Lion suggested. “Is it someone swimming?”

Suddenly we were talking in whispers again. The three of us kept as still as we could with the canoe swaying beneath us, while we peered into the gloom around us, and even the voices from my master’s stranded canoe were stilled.

“I can’t see …” I began.

“What’s that?” Handy seized my forearm and tugged it toward where he wanted me to look. “Did you see?”

Lion joined in. “Yes! Yes! I see!”

Then I saw it too: a flash of white, like spray driven from the surface of the lake. I saw it again, but the second time there was something else with it: a pale flicker of movement, the sort a bare arm might make, frantically wielding a paddle.

Raising my eyes a little, I saw a dark mass lying in the water, just in front of us and not much more than a spear-cast away.

From behind me came the sound of maguey fiber ripping as Handy tore the breechcloth from the blade of his paddle.

“Come on, everybody paddle!” Lion had thrown himself into the bottom of the canoe and was striking the water urgently with his hands, and before I had time to reflect on how pointless this was I was doing it too, drenching myself in clouds of icy spray as I tried my pathetic best to add to our speed.

In no time my arms ached, and despite my exertions I was trembling with cold. My hands and feet were going numb and yet the strange, dark boat ahead of us seemed to get no nearer. My head began to spin and I closed my eyes for a moment to clear it.

When I opened them again, the boat was on top of us.

It was the largest craft I had seen. It must, as I had guessed, have been carved out of a whole tree, and a tall one at that. It had been decked over and a shelter the size of a small house stood on the deck, with a number of shapeless bundles scattered around it. I barely had the time to take all this in before we ran into it with a force that jammed my face into the bow of the canoe.

Out of the darkness, and over the ringing in my ears, I heard someone mumble thickly: “We’ve hit!”

All around me were noise and movement: angry male voices andrunning feet. The canoe seemed to be swaying, although as soon as I tried extracting myself from the narrow space I had been tossed into I realized it was because my head was spinning from the blow it had taken in the collision. The thick mumbling voice had been my own.

I got to my knees, bringing my head level with the side of the canoe just as a sandaled foot landed on it. A moment later the foot took off again, and the canoe gave a sickening lurch as my brother launched himself into the air, screaming like an injured jaguar. As I tried to stand, with Lion’s war cry echoing off the trees at the lake’s edge, Handy shoved me aside. I heard the slap of his bare foot as he planted it where my brother’s had been and then he too hurled himself across the gap between the boats.

“Wait!” It came out as an unintelligible gasp. What were they using for weapons?

Lion and Handy scrambled over the big boat’s side. They stood for a moment near one end of the vessel before running toward the shelter in its middle.

By the time I saw the danger it was too late to avert it.

He had been crouching at the far end of the boat, keeping low to avoid being knocked overboard in the collision. To get to him, Lion and Handy would have to dodge around the shelter. Their foe had plenty of time, and took it, unfolding himself from the deck and standing up in lazy slow motion. The blades of his sword glittered faintly in the starlight as he raised it above his head.

With a triumphant cry, Lion leaped toward him, outpacing Handy.

Then the boy struck.

Nimble had been lying by the shelter, indistinguishable from any of the shapeless objects lying around him. As Handy passed him he leaped to his feet, with his paddle in both hands, and swung it at the unsuspecting commoner’s head. I heard a soft thump and Handy toppled into the water with a loud splash.

My brother’s reaction was eerily fast. He seemed to spin in midair as he turned to face the new threat behind him. Nimble had the paddle raised again. Lion leaped high in the air as he went for the boy, hoping to avoid the improvised weapon, or catch it at the top of its arc before there was any force behind it.

Nimble took a step backward. He flipped the paddle over and thrust the end of its pole into my brother’s stomach.

Lion flew into the pole with his full weight behind him, folded up around it with a loud grunt, and collapsed.

A horrible silence followed.

I stood, leaning heavily on the side of the canoe as I moved cautiously forward. Luminous shapes danced before my eyes in time to the thumping pain in my head. I stared at the strange boat.

Our canoe and the big craft were not quite touching, although they were still close enough that I could have scrambled across the gap between them. There was a sluggish feel to the way the canoe was moving that puzzled me until I noticed that my toes were under water. The impact had split the canoe’s timber and it was slowly sinking.

The boy dropped his paddle with a clatter. The man at the other end of the boat lowered his sword and looked across the water at me. He was too far away in the darkness for me to see his face, but by now I did not need to.

I hailed him grimly.

“Shining Light!”