Gods of Jade and Shadow(67)

“Thank God, he is not dead,” she said.

“What if he was?” Hun-Kamé replied with a shrug, smoothing the lapels of his suit. “He is only a man.”

“I am only a woman. It doesn’t mean you can chop me down like a weed, without any care or thought; neither can you chop him.”

“You forget, maybe, who I am.”

“I think you are a nobleman, and killing a man who need not be killed would be ignoble. Am I mistaken?” she countered.

Behind his handsome, polished stillness, there lay a hard and ugly core. Her na?veté allowed her to glimpse it, but she could not fear it. He’d been kind to her, and she therefore expected his kindness would extend to the entire world. He must have realized this and rather than reply with a harsh word he raised a palm up politely.

“You are gracious. I will be gracious, for your sake,” he told her.

At that point she noticed that Hun-Kamé’s hand, which he’d used to get hold of the guard and thrust briefly into the barrier, was blackened, as if it had been charred. This distracted her from the meaning of his words, which, had she analyzed, she would have found rather shocking, since he’d said he meant to please her. He did this thing for her.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“It is not a nice sensation, but soon remedied,” he replied and shook his hand, bits of blackened skin flaking off, revealing a whole and perfect hand again, which now reached for the knife the guard had dropped. “But I suspect there will be more fire and pain. Come, we need to find the Uay Chivo. I can’t leave without that necklace.”

They headed up the stairs quietly. The house had been a tomb when they entered it, and it had returned to its stillness, their steps almost soundless. At the end of a hallway they glimpsed a man standing in front of a door and retreated. It was the other guard.

“What now?” she whispered.

“Same as before, I’ll make myself hard to spot.”

As he said this, the inky darkness shrouded him and he disappeared, but when she peered down carefully at the shadows she noticed that they were darker than they should have been, a thing of velvet. This velvet piece of darkness drifted around the corner and away. Casiopea pressed her lips together and waited.

Hun-Kamé came back a couple of minutes later and guided her to the door the sentinel had been guarding, only the man was now sprawled before it.

“Alive,” Hun-Kamé pointed out, half in jest. “Never say I was not generous to you.”

“If anyone asks, I’ll say you are the most generous of all the gods I’ve ever met.”

“Your jokes are no good either,” he replied.

But he was smiling again; the practice of it made it easier.

He turned around and fiddled with the door, unlocking it as he’d done with the boxes. The Uay Chivo’s room was crammed with many bottles, jars, and sundry objects, just as his study had been filled with odd specimens. In the room there were two goat sculptures that matched the ones downstairs, but the sculptures in this room were made of a dark, rich wood. There was also a four-poster bed, heavy and ornate. On it slept the old man, his hands against his chest, covering the necklace.

They moved quietly, but no sooner had they taken three steps than the wooden goats turned their heads in their direction, staring at them. The room grew warmer.

“What a pair of brazen fools you are,” the Uay Chivo said, rising from the bed. “Walking into my inner sanctum like one walks into the maw of a beast.”

“Rethink whatever it is you are planning,” Hun-Kamé said.

The admonition had no effect. The sorcerer held up his hands. The goats charged at them. Casiopea was able to move to the right and jump behind a table, putting it between herself and one of the magical beasts. This slowed down but did not deter the goat. It glared at her with its blind eyes, lowered its head, then rushed forward, shoving the table with brutal strength. Casiopea was thrust back, the goat pinning the table and her against the wall.

She could do little except watch the animal as it glared at her and tried to push the table harder, pressing her like an insect, sending splinters jumping through the air as it bored into the wood, into the wall behind her, and squeezed the girl. Casiopea thought she would die, her lungs would burst, for surely no one could withstand this and survive.

The goat, frustrated with the slow progress of such an endeavor, now attempted to chomp at whatever part of Casiopea’s body was visible and available. It happened to be the face, and if it didn’t bite off half a cheek, it was because she managed to lower herself a few centimeters, evading its maw, though this angered the goat, which kicked the furniture and squeezed her harder against the wall.

She could not scream. Her breath seemed to have escaped her body; it hovered in an empty space, and no plea of help rose from her lips.

Hun-Kamé shot forward and plunged his knife into the creature’s head and yelled a word. A ripple, a crack, ran down the goat’s head, and it split into two pieces, and those pieces jumped in the air, the knife jumping with them, and the wood split into more pieces. It dashed against the walls, dashed against the floor, shivering, twisting, and growing still.

Hun-Kamé pulled the table away and pulled Casiopea toward him.

She felt boneless, a flower with a broken stem, and if he had not held her she would have fallen to her knees. On the opposite side of the room she spotted the remains of the other wooden goat. She took a breath and pressed a hand against her throat.