FIREWORKS

Time slowed to a crawl once more. I paced the length of the room, back and forth and back again, my thoughts scampering like mice from our two estate cats, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser. I berated myself over and over for being trapped like this, even though I knew deep down the fault was not mine, nor anyone else’s. How could we have known this was all part of an elaborate scheme?

Yet, it seemed not to matter to the part of me that insisted I should never permit myself to make a mistake. Eventually, I laid down on the bed, still fully clothed in my khakis, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

The rattle of a key in the lock woke me from slumber, and I sat up as Rhys hurried into the room. “Good, you’re dressed. Get your boots on and come downstairs so we can get you fed before Captain Lafitte sets sail.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and slipped my feet into my black leather boots as Rhys fidgeted. I asked, “Is anything wrong?”

“No, of course not,” he replied, his words tumbling over themselves as his eyes refused to meet mine. “Maria just wants you to have a good meal to remember her by before you leave, that’s all.” Suspicious, yet without any reason to challenge him, I stood up and followed him out of the room into the hall, matching his brisk pace as we strode towards the stairs.

Until we passed one of the closed doors and a female voice let out a shriek. “That was Miss Ravenwood,” I said, stopping and turning around.

Rhys put himself between me and the door. “Miriam was fine up until about an hour ago, when she began getting agitated. I had to restrain her before she hurt herself.”

Evidently I slept right through it without hearing a sound. “Are there any, ah…”

“Changes?” I nodded and he shook his head. “Nothing physical. If we leave her be, the fit should subside. Come.” I was dubious as I walked away from the door, but her wordless shrieks died off as we reached the stairs and walked down them into the hotel lobby, where several ill-kept men were standing, and into the cantina where Maria and her daughter were waiting.

They seemed frightened, but calmed down as Rhys translated my comments thanking them, and complementing Maria on her cooking. The daughter smiled at me, and as I drank a glass of pulque, served me a plate of whitefish in a spicy red sauce, and more tortillas.

I was finishing the last of the fish when Captain Lafitte swept into the room. “Excellent, you are ready.” He was dressed in puffy blue trousers stuffed into black boots that rose to his knees, a green silk shirt, and a red sash tied around his waist. A pair of revolvers stuck out from either side. “I wish to sail on ze evening tide.”

Rhys said, “Be careful when you leave. The Mexicans are still frightened, but the Maya are not.”

The Frenchman gave us a wolfish smile. “I have given orders for all ze remaining men to fall back to ze ship, save for ze dozen who will escort us down to ze dock. Are you sure you do not wish to join us?”

The Welshman shook his head. “Everyone thinks we’re victims as well. Besides, Miriam’s ill and cannot travel.”

Captain Lafitte’s grin turned into a leer. “My men tell me you had some sport with her.”

“If you knew what I’ve put up with ever since Bella-” He stopped abruptly. “Anyway, we will be remaining here.”

Before Captain Lafitte could respond, a man wearing a blue striped shirt and canvas trousers burst into the room. “My captain,” he said in French, “The natives we were using to stow provisions have overwhelmed the men guarding the engine room. They barricaded the door, and when Pablo asked them in Spanish what they wanted, one replied, ‘For Ix-Tab to take us home’.”

Rhys went pale. “Ix-Tab is the Maya goddess of suicide.”

Captain Lafitte pulled me out of my chair. “Get back to the ship,” he yelled at the sailor as the chair fell with a crash, “and tell the engineers to shut down the engines. Then break down the door with boarding axes. If the natives snuck an Aethyr Artifact aboard and activate it while the Terramagica engine is running…”

The Frenchman bolted for the entrance as Captain Lafitte continued pulling me along with him through the lobby and out into the street, ignoring my questions as his men fell in beside us. He shouted orders to the group milling around the sea gate, watching the messenger pelt down the dock as he screamed the captain’s instructions at the top of his lungs.

From the docked ship, I heard the deep thrum of Terramagica engines as they started to turn over. The Frenchman who had warned the captain had almost reached the gangplank as men with long axes rushed towards the main hatch. The engine thrum deepened in pitch.

The ship exploded like fireworks on Twelfth-night. All of us shied back as flaming pieces of wood and metal shot into the air, raining down on the dock and the ocean around it as fiery hail. Captain Lafitte cursed in three languages I recognized and several I did not, before turning and glaring at me. “Change in plan. We are going to ze fort of San Miguel instead.”

With every piece of flaming debris, my hopes rose a little more. “How do you know you can trust Captain Ivy? She might decide to double cross you.”

“Not so long as I have you.” He grabbed me by the shirt front and pulled me so close I could smell the rum on his breath. “No tricks. I have to keep you alive, but Bella said nothing about a few bruises to keep you in line.” I nodded, remembering my grandfather’s advice to only pick battles I thought I could win, and he turned towards his remaining men. “We are heading up this street to the second intersection, turning right, and heading for the gate leading to Fort San Miguel. Have your rifles out and ready to fire.” His men looked frightened, though they tried to hide it, falling into place around us as we hurried down the stone paved street.

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Gaslight lamps set into the walls flickered between a few doorways, their flames barely giving us enough light to see by and casting odd shadows over much of the street as we marched along. The street level windows were shuttered against the darkness and barred with iron rods, while the glass in the windowpanes above the shadowed doorways reflected the light. Like silent eyes they watched us pass beneath them.

We reached the first intersection without incident and came up to the second, the men in front glancing back at Captain Lafitte for direction. He motioned towards the right and they began to turn.

An old native woman wearing white came around the corner. Captain Lafitte whipped out his pistol as the Frenchmen leveled their weapons, but the Maya woman ignored them as she strode up to me. Reaching behind her, she pulled off the small monkey clinging to her shoulder and thrust it at my face. The Frenchmen stared at her in confusion as Captain Lafitte snarled something at her in Spanish.

Instead of moving aside, as he obviously wanted her to do, she shook her head and lifted up the monkey, answering him back in Spanish as I looked at the captain. “What does she want?”

“For you to take ze little animal,” he snapped. “She claims it is ze change for ze silver coin you gave her earlier today.” He motioned for her to leave, but she only shook her head and thrust the monkey at me once more.

I did not want the captain to do something rash, so I held out my hands. “Here, let me take him.”

The little monkey climbed onto my arm before moving to my shoulder, settling in as if I owned him, and the Maya woman hurried away as Captain Lafitte put his pistol back in his sash while his men lowered their weapons. “I will be happy to shake ze dust of this place off my feet,” he said as the men formed a circle around me, chuckling as the small creature tugged on my ear, making me wince.

Then the sharp click of a pistol’s hammer being cocked made everyone freeze in place. “Reckon you fellas have gone far enough,” Jack’s voice said as he and a lot of Maya men in dark clothing and wielding machetes, stepped out of the doorways on all sides and closed in.

Cornflower stepped out of a doorway as well, also in black clothing and bearing a club in each hand with blades like serrated teeth. She spoke a word and the blades began glowing bright blue as sparks of Aethyr energy crackled between them.

Captain Lafitte had his hand on his pistol but did not draw it. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Keeping you folks from getting killed,” Jack answered as he stepped into the light. “The Maya here are all riled up and wanted to ambush you without warning. But you and me, we’ve both fought for the Republic and I still respect you. Even if you’ve fallen back into your old ways.”

Captain Lafitte’s wolfish smile returned. “Respectability has always been a thin veneer. So, what do you want?”

With his revolver, Jack motioned at me. “Give me Jon and I give you my word of honor we’ll let you and your men leave.”

“Do you think I will give him up just like that?”

“Reckon I do. See, without him you ain’t got a dog in this fight. Maybe you don’t get the gold you’ve been promised, but think about how loco people get when they’ve got the money and you don’t.”

“A valid point with anyone except Bella. She honors her promises.”

“You sure? Anyway, the airship pirate’s likely to hightail it out of here once she realizes what a dog’s dinner things have become. Not to mention, Bella’s a lot more cocksure about killing the Camazotz than I’d be. Critter fifteen feet tall with command of all the Zotz ain’t gonna go down easy.”

Captain Lafitte frowned. “Are you sure ze Camazotz has control over those creatures?”

“Nope, but Ran-Li is. Now, how about you and me quit jawing, you get your men to point their weapons towards the pavement, and send Jon over here before someone gets all nervous like and does something stupid.”

“How do I know you will not attack us once you have him?”

“These are friends ready to die if necessary,” Jack answered, “not suicidal ones like them who blew up your ship.” He motioned behind him. “Leave out of that gate and head towards Merida. There’s people out that way who want a French king in Mexico, so you’ll have no trouble finding folks willing to help you. Go back to the Republic, Jean, or better still, head for New Orleans. Don’t be a durn fool: live the rest of your life in peace.”

Captain Lafitte stared at Jack for a long moment. Then he sighed. “Give me a moment to explain things to my men.” Jack nodded, and he turned towards the other Frenchmen. “They offer favorable terms of surrender, yet all of you remember the horrible oath we swore. Choose a target, and on my command, prepare to fire-”

“They attack,” I yelled, slamming into one of the slender Frenchman at the front. He tripped over his own feet and went down as a revolver behind me began to roar, echoed by the Maya warriors as they raised their machetes and rushed in.

The man let go of his rifle and it hit the paving stones, going off with a bang as I ran after it while it skittered away. I picked it up on the fly, cocking the handle as I had been shown, which ejected the brass casing and chambered the next round, then turned around.

Several Frenchmen managed to raise their rifles and fire, dropping a couple of the Maya, but the rest could only use their weapons to desperately block swinging blades and try to fight back. The Maya fought two or three to a foe, Frenchmen screaming as steel bit into their shoulders or necks, one going down from a blade ripping open his leg before another sliced open his stomach. Captain Lafitte had his pistol out and was fanning the hammer as he fired at a Frenchman holding off a frenzied Maya digging gouges out of his rifle.

The Maya warrior dropped like a stone and Cornflower stepped into his place. She swung and wrapped her blade around the rifle, the serrated blades flaring with a blue light as she rapped the side of his skull. He went down like a felled ox and she leaped towards another taking aim at one of her friends. She swung upwards, hitting the barrel of the rifle, and it went off, the bullet ricocheting off a stone wall as her other club smacked against his leg and he went down as well.

Acrid smoke filled the air as men screamed in agony, the man whose rifle I had taken scrambling away while a Frenchman raised his rifle and took aim at her.

Jack shot him. The Frenchman lurched like an East-end gin crawler before two Maya warriors set on him with machetes, but Cornflower never noticed, her eyes meeting mine from the other side of the street. She gave me the wildest, fiercest grin I had ever seen on anyone and my heart leapt inside me.

Then I saw Captain Lafitte behind her, taking aim. I froze, my eyes widening as I screamed a warning. Fire flared from the barrel. Cornflower lurched forward, time seeming to slow as both weapons fell from her hands, flaring with blue sparks as they hit the street while she gasped and dropped to her knees.

The rifle was at my shoulder and aimed at the old pirate as he swung about and took aim at Jack, who was grappling with one of the last Frenchmen still on his feet.

I could not pull the trigger. I had slain Kobols but never another person, and as he cocked the hammer back and sighted along the barrel for a clear shot, I stood like I had been turned into a statue of a man. Clinging to my shoulder, the little monkey stood up and gripped my hair with one of his tiny hands as he put his face next to my ear. His cold voice whispered, “Take the shot.”

Aethyr ‘magic’, like Terramagica, has certain natural laws which supposedly cannot be altered. One of these laws is that no non-organic substance can be enchanted and made into an Artifact. Yet, the Eldarion-Maya can combine wood with obsidian (which is naturally occurring volcanic glass), and turn them into an Aethyr Artifact, like the serrated swords their warriors use. Eldarion scientists are at a loss as to how this can be possible.

Ask an Eldarion-Maya how they do it and all you will get is a sly smile.