Simon Levack - The Demon of the Air

I found old Black Feathers at the top of the stairway, sitting under his magnolia tree, enjoying a quiet smoke under the stars before turning in for the night. He had his eyes closed, but opened them at the sound of my footsteps.

He sat upright. His eyes started from their sockets, his hands flew out in front of him as if to ward off an attack, and the pipe fell from his mouth and struck the floor with a clatter. He made a faint noise far down in the back of his throat.

“You seem surprised to see me,” I said, pausing significantly before adding, “my Lord.”

A thin streak of smoke rose from the dropped pipe into the air between us. Neither of us made any move to pick it up. I would normally have retrieved it as a matter of course, but I was in no mood to tonight. My master seemed to have forgotten about it.

“You didn’t think I’d be back today, did you? Were you expecting to see me again, ever? What did Curling Mist want with me, anyway?”

His hands dropped onto his knees. He relaxed a little against the back of his chair. A puzzled frown took the place of his stupefied stare, deepening the lines permanently etched in his forehead.

“Curling Mist?” he echoed.

“Yes, my Lord. We both know what sort of dealings you have with him and why his son comes here. You sent me to Pochtlan and they knew exactly where to find me. That’s what you wanted Handyfor yesterday, isn’t it-to deliver the message? What happened-did the team from Huexotla let you down? Was he collecting his winnings? And why me?” I added, my voice rising with bitterness. “It’s not as if you couldn’t spare the money. Am I that useless?”

Ordinarily I would never have got away with such insolence, and if repeated it would have given my master a lawful reason to put a wooden collar round my neck and send me to the market, where the only likely buyers would be priests looking for sacrificial victims. This time, however, all he could find to say, over and over again, was: “Curling Mist?”

“You can’t pretend you didn’t know he’d be there.” As I told him what had happened to me I watched his frown deepen. When I finished there was a long, thoughtful silence.

“Curling Mist,” my master murmured to himself, for the last time. “But that doesn’t make sense …”

Then he seemed to pull himself together. The frown lifted and he coughed once to clear his throat.

“I don’t understand your story, Yaotl, and frankly I don’t believe it.”

“But you know it’s the truth!”

“Silence!” he roared, his hands gripping his knees and his knuckles suddenly turning white with fury. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Have you forgotten who I am, slave?” He was trembling with rage, and in spite of myself I took a step away from him. “I tell you to go and find the merchant and what happens? Not only do you fail to do what I told you, but you come barging into my presence, unbidden, looking and smelling as if you’ve been sleeping in a ditch, and have the temerity to tell me what I know or don’t know! I could set you to work in the quarries for this-that would teach you some manners!”

“But my Lord, I …” I spluttered, but then fell silent, my indignation failing in the face of his anger. In a few words old Black Feathers had reestablished our relationship of master and slave, reminding me that I was his man and not my own.

“I’m sorry, my Lord,” I mumbled.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The trembling subsided.

“I don’t pretend to know what you’ve been up to,” he said at last,“but from the look of you, you’ve obviously been through a lot.” I had lost my cloak, my breechcloth was torn and sodden, dried blood caked my face and neck, my legs and feet were black with mud, and a small puddle had formed on the stuccoed floor around me. “In fact,” he went on, “I wonder if you haven’t been overexerting yourself. Perhaps you ought to rest. After all, it’s not as if you’ve got anywhere nearer to finding Shining Light, or the sorcerers, for that matter. Yes, that’s it. You can spend tomorrow resting, and see if you get any fresh ideas.”

It was my turn to stare as I realized that I was being dismissed from his sight, and that as far as my master was concerned our discussion was over.

I crept away down the steps. It was hopeless to argue. If my master knew I was telling the truth but was denying it for some reason then nothing I could say would make him change his mind. In any event, what was I going to suggest-that he take my kidnapping up with Curling Mist, when I was convinced the two of them had connived to bring it about in the first place?

As I headed back to my room, however, I was left with the uneasy impression that he had ordered me to rest because he wanted to keep me in his house, within easy reach, while he made up his mind what to do with me.

Icrawled onto my sleeping mat, grabbing a rough old blanket with numb fingers and pulling it over my painfully cold limbs, and lay down, too exhausted to care that I was still caked in mud and blood.

“Where have you been all day?”

I groaned. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“How can I?” Costly grumbled. “I threw my blanket off duringthe day, when it was too hot, and now I can’t reach it. I’m freezing! Also, no one’s been around to give me my medicine, and I haven’t been able to go all day.”

Swearing under my breath, I got up and found the old slave’s blanket for him. It was too late for him to have the revolting infusion he took to open his bowels, but I found the gourd anyway so that I could give it to him first thing in the morning. I swirled the liquid inside it around and judged that he had enough to last him a couple of days.

“That’s better. Now you can lull me to sleep, telling me what you’ve been up to.”

I told him. I wanted nothing better than to slip into unconsciousness myself, but I was too uncomfortable. A violent shivering had come over me and my head was throbbing. At the same time the numbness that had come over my toes and fingers from being immersed in icy water and exposed to the evening’s chill was wearing off and they felt as if they were on fire.

My companion’s only response was: “So you fancy your chances with the widow, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I growled between teeth clamped together to stop them chattering. “Apart from the fact that she’s from a merchant family and I’m a commoner and a slave, she’s got no reason to like me. She thinks I’m part of the reason her son ran away.”

“And she’s not your type anyway,” he added mockingly. When I ignored him he went on: “Still, I’d be more worried about this man Curling Mist. You really think our master gave you to him to settle a bet? It seems a roundabout way to go about it, though.”

“That was my first thought. Even he might not get away with handing me over openly. I thought staging a kidnapping might be the easiest way of doing it without risking exposing himself.” The explanation sounded plausible, but I had already worked out that it was nonsense. It was simply too much trouble to go to for the sake of a trifling debt. “Besides, he seemed remarkably eager to kill me. I’d not have been worth much to him if he had!”

But what was I worth to Curling Mist and his boy? They had wanted something from me, and me in particular. No, I corrected myself: the man would have killed me immediately, but the boy hadexpected me to tell him something. What information could I have that he might need so badly he and his father were prepared to kidnap me to get it?

“Why did he let me go?” I wondered aloud, remembering that blood-streaked face peering at me over the side of the boat. I could not make sense of any of it. The boy had played his part in my abduction, and he had hit me with the paddle, although he had plainly done that so that his father would refrain from taking the knife to me. But why had he not called out when he was watching me treading water and his father was shouting for me?