Kate Elliott - Cold Fire

How long did it take them to die? For how long did their minds hang on, screaming, as they slid inexorably into the claws of the plague?

I saw Abby. Her hair was bound in a head wrap of brown-and-gold cloth. She was running a hand along the bars of an empty cage as if counting in time to the tune she was singing. “On a fine batey, do yee hear, me sissy-o? We want one of they, do yee hear, me sissy-o? Which one do yee want? Do yee hear, me sissy-o?”

“Abby! It’s Cat’reen!”

She looked at me without recognition and walked on.

I fled back to the house and barred the door. I washed my face and hands once, then twice, and then a third time, but what I had seen and heard would not rinse away. I sank down on the mat and let the exhaustion of despair drag me down into sleep.

“Cat?” James Drake’s voice woke me. “Here’s food and juice. I haven’t seen you all day.”

I opened the door. Drake stood with a half smile on his face and his hair darkened by being sopping wet; his clothes stuck to him; he looked as if he had been swimming. He was not alone.

“Abby!”

She smiled awkwardly at me, as a friend might when caught in a situation where you can’t admit you know each other. She held a tray.

“Go inside,” said Drake to her. “Set it down. Then come back outside. That’s right.”

I stepped back as she lurched inside and set down the tray.

“Pardon, gal. I just set dis down.” She again offered that awkward smile and limped out, holding her side, not looking back.

“She doesn’t know me!” I hissed, my voice breaking.

He gave off an odd scent: almost sweet and with a bite like a spark settling on the tongue. “Cursed bad luck for her. She could slip into the active phase tonight or tomorrow, and then it will be too late to help her. Bastards!” He was in the grip of a fever, words rising. “What high and mighty creatures they all are, so proud of their virtue! The truth they will never admit, none of them, is that a fire mage can burn out all the seedlings of the disease, all the teeth, just as long as an infested salter hasn’t yet entered the active phase.”

“But then why don’t they?” I cried, thinking of her blank stare.

“They don’t want to pay the price. Be on the beach by dusk with all your things.”

He left.

I forced down the griddle bread with its bitter aftertaste, drank the juice, and ate the strips of dried chicken. The gourd bottle still redolent with rum I filled with water and tied to my bundled skirts and boots. I walked to the deserted beach and dabbled my toes in the water. Cool feet make a cool head. Clouds had built up, sliding in from the northeast, and a squall swept through, soaking me to the skin and pounding across the bay in a sudden boil.

Hair plastered to my body and my clothes utterly sodden, I laughed. I pressed a hand to my breast, the curve of the locket beneath my bodice shaped to the curve of my palm, and I thought:

Vai.

Vai? It was as if the cursed man would never stop plaguing me. And yet he had done his best to help me.

Shadows darkened the sea as the sun lowered west behind the island’s ridge. A shape like a dark cloud floated against the sky in the east. Did a lamp flare over the water? A faint clut-clut-clut like the clatter of factory machinery teased the edge of my hearing, growing louder. The tang of burning wood and oil tingled in my nostrils.

As twilight poured into night, the sword flowered to life. A crash shivered, felt through the soles of my bare feet. A shout rang out, followed by the clang of an alarm bell. I turned.

Flames glowered in the pens. Smoke streamed skyward. Someone had set the cages on fire.

People yelled from the roof of the prince’s house. Were they waving at me? Or trying to attract the attention of the figures moving through the houses? Where had they all come from?

In the red gloom, the figures swarmed into view, moving toward the beach. I saw them clearly.

A mob of salters staggered toward me like a pack of rabid dogs.

Running seemed the stupidest thing to do, trapped as I was against the sea. I drew my sword. The flat white eyes of the salters glinted in its light. The forward edge of a wave shushed up the beach to kiss my toes and slide away again.

Legate Amadou Barry and his sisters and aunt had escaped the salt plague by boat. I had once mocked his story because I hadn’t understood how salters could reach an island, but I knew now that all you had to do was to be bitten. Invisible teeth would gnaw away at you with no sign of the disease showing until it was too late.

I ripped off my pagne and wrapped it around my neck to keep it out of the way as I backed into the water. Could the monster that had attacked me in the deeps swim so close? Did it matter? The salters halted at the limit of the waves, and there they licked their teeth and grasped with unwashed hands. The man who had bitten me stood among them, saying, “Kill me, kill me,” as he strained to the edge of the salty brine and retreated as foam tickled up the sand.

A weight knocked into my legs, bumping me sideways. I shrieked as a huge shape surfaced and a round head blinked solemnly beneath my gleaming blade. The world stilled and the wind hushed. For an instant I stood poised between the mortal world and the spirit world, feet in one and head in another and my heart shoved so hard up into my throat I could not breathe.

It was a cursed turtle. Watching me like a messenger come to remind me that the Master of the Wild Hunt had his spies everywhere: You belong to me, Daughter.

Or maybe it was just a sea turtle, as surprised as I was.

From the roof, Prince Caonabo called. “Perdita! Wade to the point! Wait on the rocks!”

An oblong shape blotted out stars and clouds alike. Lamplight flared overhead.

“Cat! Don’t come out of the water!” Drake shouted, but I could not see him.

A thread slithered down from the sky to slap the water. It was a rope ladder, lowered as by Ba’al’s heavenly messengers. I stared at it as if it were a serpent sliding close to strike, for its swaying bounce hypnotized me. Two figures scrambled down. The first gripped a lamp’s hook in strong white teeth. As he turned to take in the scene on the dark shore, he spotted me, let go one hand from the ladder, and drew a very impressive knife from a harness crossed on a dark chest.

I brandished my sword to make sure he knew I had it. I could take a cursed knife, but I wasn’t so sure about taking him, for he had the posture of a man who knew how to fight and kill. Although his willingness to raid a plague island filled with brain-rotted dying people who could easily infest him did not inspire confidence in his intelligence.

The person above, the one without a lamp held in his mouth, spoke. “Gal! Yee hear me?”

“I’m just a lost woman, no threat to you,” I cried. “Can you get me out of here?”

“No salter, she.” By the voice it was a woman. She seemed to be explaining things to the man with the lamp and the knife, thus giving me even less faith in his wit. “She be in the water, see? Therewise not a salter.”

I kept my guard up although he sheathed the knife and swung around to peer at the beach.

“Cat! Get on the ship! Go up now!” Definitely that was Drake’s impatient voice.

He pushed down through the salters without fear, dragging Abby. She lurched like a broken toy, sobbing in fear. He led her to the edge of the water. A wave brushed up over her bare feet and she whimpered with a horrible hurt dog sound. The salters backed away from Drake as from poison, but yet they so yearned for my blood that they kept coming back and retreating, all in time to the sough of the waves.

Drake tugged Abby against him as in an embrace. He ripped away her blouse, uncovering her torso and breasts. The gleam of my sword and the light of the ladder man’s lamp illuminated a suppurating wound gouged into her side. The wound oozed with a slime that glittered like phosphorous. Drake pressed a hand against it, fingers smeared into the oily mess. She cried out, then stilled as abruptly as if he had stabbed her. I yelled a protest and splashed forward to save her.