Young Warriors (13 page)

The reed hut reeks of smoke and of ash. And it is dark within
its woven walls—at first.

The
jadu
sits cross-legged on one side of a cold firepit, and I
on the other. Between us lies a bed of ashes, gray and lifeless; not
even an ember remains alive to kindle a spark.

“Light it.” The
jadu
's
voice slithers through the hut like a
cobra questing for prey.

I stare at the bed of ashes. How can I light a fire that has alreadyburned to ash? I stare, and feel the weight of the witch's eyes
upon me.

“You promised me justice,” I say, and the jadu laughs.

“I know what I promised, little sacrifice. Light the fire, if you
would obtain what you seek.”

Again I stare at the bed of ashes before me. “How?” I ask at
last.

For a time there is silence in the witch's reed hut, silence thick
and hot as velvet. The
jadu
counts the beads upon her grim necklace;I hear the faint click of bone against bone as the little skulls
fall through her fingers. At last she speaks.

“Fire is life. Why were you born a woman, if not to kindle
new life?”

I do not understand; I expect her to chant an incantation, to
perform a spell, to summon demons to my aid. The witch does none
of these things. She sits and counts her skull-beads. I stare at the
heap of ash between us.

Fire is life—but this fire has burnt out. To rekindle it, I
would need food for its flames to feed upon. Wood, or dried cow
dung—or flesh and bone. I close my eyes, and behind my lids see
hot red teeth eating the Humbolt bungalow, devouring the bodies
that lie within its dying walls.

I open my eyes; the heap of ashes has not changed. I look up
at the
jadu,
whose staring eyes are black as moonless midnights.
“Fire is death,” I say, and hear another faint click as another skull
passes through the witch's fingers.

“So are you.” Click, and again click, a small steady sound of
time passing. “Light the fire.”

“I cannot.” Tears burn my eyes, spill down my cheeks; tears of
anger, and of loss.

“And I can give you nothing you do not already possess. You
are like me, little sacrifice; all women are alike in the dark. Light
the fire.”

Her endless serenity before my passion angers me; rage sinks
its fangs into my heart. I reach out and scoop up cold ash from the
firepit—and the ash glows. A spark—

Fire. I hold fire in my bare hands.

“You are a woman. You are life and death.” In the new fire
light,the
jadu
's
hands shine wetly red against pale bone as she
counts her little skulls. “Go now, and remember what you have
promised me.”

Flames swirl between us, the fire in my hands leaping up to
catch in the woven reeds, turning the witch's hut into a funeral
pyre. Flames light up the night, and even in a dream, I know the
pyre I have kindled is my own . . .

And when I dream such dreams, I know the
jadu
reminds me of what I was, and what I am, and what I will become. All I know is that I offered up my life to her magic, and endured what passed that night; endured and survived until the moon set and the sun rose, and its light upon my eyelids burned me awake.

It was morning, and I was alone. Save for myself, the reed hut was empty—truly empty—and I knew the witch was gone and would not return. I crawled out of the hut and down the bank to the sullen river, and in the sun-bright water I saw what the
jadu
had created from my craving for vengeance and my vow of payment.

A face pale as the moon; eyes bright as the sky. I looked upon myself in the river's uncertain mirror and saw what others would see, when they looked upon me now. A miss-baba. An English girl.

Estella.

That was how I became Estella—or rather, the semblance of Estella, the Estella that English men and women would expect to see. To achieve that was not hard, for Estella and I had been close as twin sisters. What was hard was to survive long enough to reach Humbolt-sahib again. For the Devil's Wind still blew across the land, devouring all in its mad path.

I walked first back to our station, only to find its dwellings burned and death still lingering in the hot dry air. Standing before the heap of smoking ash that had once been the Humbolt bungalow, I weighed what I knew of the English settlements, trying to decide where to seek Humbolt-sahib.

No. No more would I call him sahib. For I was no longer Taravati, wife of Manoj the
khitmagar,
but Miss Estella Humbolt, daughter of Gerald Humbolt, Englishman. And murderer.

Our station was—had been—small, of little importance in the grand scheme of English rule. But downriver lay Agra and Cawnpore, great cities with large cantonments. Surely Mr. Humbolt would travel to one of those strongholds?

I turned away from the ruined bungalow and began to walk toward the main road, the highway that ran past our station and led to the greater world beyond. As I set my feet upon its sun-hardened dirt, I knew my journey would be arduous and long. But I did not care; I was strong, and time did not matter. Only justice for the dead would end my journey.

But my journey was easier than I had feared, made so by the very conflict that had set my feet upon the path to death. For all that season the Devil's Wind blew across the burning land—and carried me with it. Carried me implacably to my prey.

No one took any notice of me as I walked the road. It seemed that the
jadu
's magic veiled me from the savage life around me; I walked inviolate as a
purdah-nishin
behind her curtain. I might have been a shadow falling across the hard-packed earth. A shadow, or a ghost.

Only when I came at last to an English cantonment far up Sher Shah's Road, far from the blood and fire and death, did I become tangible once more, my reality reflected in alien eyes.

“Good God, I don't know how she did it. To walk all the way from Kalipur to Guljore—a mere child—safely through those devils—” The colonel's voice caught as if upon a sob; I had not known an Englishman could weep.

“Hush, my dear; you'll wake her. She needs her rest, poor thing.” The colonel's lady spoke low and soft, yet with a firmness that commanded obedience even from her husband. “Tomorrow will be time enough to ask questions.”

I listened, and smiled, and knew I had no more to fear from them than I had from the dangers of the road.
Men see
what they wish to see.
The
jadu
's voice seemed to whisper through the dim room like a serpent. The English wished to see a miracle, and so when I walked into the colonel's bungalow and proclaimed myself Estella Humbolt, that was who I became in English eyes.

I looked deeply into those wondering, grateful eyes and saw no doubt there. No doubt at all.

The English could not treat Estella Humbolt too well; all the ladies vied to care for me, to give me dresses and bonnets, stockings and hair-ribbons. The men regarded me as a portent of victory, a banner to flaunt before mutinous India as proof of English courage. Estella's survival granted them hope.

And the English needed hope during those hot black days, for little news reached them, and all of it was bad until I walked into their lives. Too many lay dead, too many still remained in peril. So to see young Estella Humbolt walk untouched out of the hell India had become lifted English hearts; restored English faith in themselves, and in their English god.

Nothing was too good for Estella Humbolt. I was the darling of the station, as if I were their one and only daughter.

I found their care touching, their defiant calm admirable. Their concern for me was useful as well; I had only to ask to have my wishes granted. I had the sense to express only moderate desires, suitable to a young English girl.

What could be more suitable, after all, than a daughter's ardent longing to see her father again?

Information was hard to come by, but I heard something of Gerald Humbolt's new life when a messenger slipped into the cantonment upon the summer's hottest day. He had traveled all the long road from Calcutta, bringing orders for the colonel: Stay and hold, forbid passage to any mutineers who sought to ravage westward. The colonel frowned and muttered low and fierce, like an angry tiger, “Stay and hold our position? Bah! Nonsense! A child could hold this fort— why, Estella here could hold it!”

He patted my shoulder and I reached up and clasped his hand, like a trusting child. “Could and shall, if you order it, sir.” I sounded more like a plucky English girl than Estella herself would have.

The colonel's scowl eased. “You see?
That's
the stuff England's made of!” Then he introduced me to the messenger from Calcutta, proudly displaying me as if I were the regiment's luck-stone.

Upon hearing the name Estella Humbolt, the messenger said, “Humbolt—not Gerald Humbolt's daughter?” His voice rose with an odd excitement, an emotion explained by his next words. “Estella Humbolt, alive—what news to take back. Your father thinks you dead.”

“I know,” I said. “All the others are.” I glanced down, veiling my eyes, feigning a struggle against tears. I knew what they would say now
—brave
little girl; how you have suffered!
Just as I knew what they would say if I told the whole truth, that Gerald Humbolt had murdered his family and his servants
—poor
thing; su fering has addled her wits.

“Is—is my father well?” I asked, and was assured that Gerald Humbolt was not only alive, but very well indeed, having reached Calcutta unscathed. Of course he mourned the vile slaying of his wife and his daughter by mutineers
—
but the fact that he now controls his daughter's fortune consoles
him,
I finished silently.

“But the news that his daughter is alive will console him.”

After a moment, I lifted my head and saw the colonel and his lady and the man from Calcutta all smiling wistfully at me. “Have you a message you would like me to take to your father?” the courier asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Tell him that I am here. Tell him that his daughter awaits him.”

And I waited all through the long, hot span of time the Wind blew red death down the plains. Meerut, Delhi; Agra and Lucknow. Jhansi. Cawnpore. Doomed cities; skulls strung upon the Dark Goddess's necklace. But no wind blows forever, and She Who Dances Death is a harsh mistress. Those who offer life to her must do so with a pure heart. Hatred and bloodlust have no place in her service.

Her favor withdrawn, the Devil's Wind blew itself out, leaving behind only silence and death, and the seeds of vengeance. And when that Wind no longer blew, Gerald Humbolt traveled the length of India as if the Devil drove him, drawn by the news that Estella lived as a moth is drawn to lamp-flame.

He rode up the drive when the sun soared high and few others were abroad; only the mad or the desperate ventured forth under the deadly noonday sun. Gerald Humbolt could not afford to wait for the reunion with his daughter. He would wish to know at once what she had seen and heard last May—and what she had said, and to whom.

I watched him ride up, and smiled and rose to my feet. I had prepared for our meeting with great care. I wore a white muslin frock, its skirt billowing over three petticoats; half-boots of bronze leather clad my feet, and blue ribbons tied back my hair. A vision of the perfect English girl, wide-eyed, innocent, trusting; a girl who lovingly awaited her loving father.

I could feel his eyes upon me as he stared, trying to decide whether he faced danger. I smiled upon him, my eyes clear as rain-water, and called out to him.

“Father—oh, it is you, it really is!” Behind me I sensed the presence of the colonel's lady, coming to greet her guest, to watch his reunion with his daughter.

Before me, Gerald Humbolt had dismounted; now he walked towards me, forcing himself to smile. A poor effort, showing his teeth in what might as well have been a snarl.

“Estella.” He stopped in front of me; he looked ill, his face a sickly, pallid mask. “No. It can't be. You—”

“Did you think your daughter dead?” Since I stood upon the verandah steps, I could look him in the face, deep into his angry, frightened eyes. “Aren't you glad to see me, Father?” Then, as I leaned forward, I suddenly knew what to do; understood the power granted me by the
jadu
's magic. The power to create justice for my dead.

Smiling, I kissed him upon the cheek—and as I straightened, I let Estella's shadow slip away. Let him see me.

His eyes widened and his breath seemed to choke him; he forced words past his lips. “You—you cannot be Estella. It's a trick. She—”

“Is not dead, while I live. And I am here.”

On the verandah behind us, I knew the colonel's lady waited, granting us privacy for the reunion of father and the daughter so miraculously restored to him. And I knew Gerald Humbolt would not reveal my masquerade, lest he betray himself as well. So when he spoke again, it was in a harsh low voice that carried to my ears alone.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“Why, I stand in place of your daughter. And what should a dutiful daughter want of a good father?” I moved closer. “I want what you owe your daughter. I want what you owe your daughter's mother. And, Humbolt-sahib—I want what you owe me.”

As I spoke those last words, I set my hand upon his chest, where his heart beat hard beneath muscle and bone. “This is what you owe us, Humbolt-sahib. Life.”