Naamah's Blessing

I asked.
    She blinked.
    I whispered a prayer of thanks to Eisheth, the D’Angeline goddess of healing. “I am very, very glad. You should not have done that, Machasu.”
    Her breast heaved in a shallow cough. “But now you know, lady. It works. One part to three, aye?” One feeble hand rose, feeling at her throat. “It is only that it takes longer to work on humans.”
    “Aye,” I murmured. “So it does.”
    It took the better part of another hour before Machasu was strong enough to walk with my aid into our quarters. Slipping her arm from my shoulders, I lowered her to rest on her pallet in the antechamber, where she slept long and hard.
    In the courtyard, I tidied away the evidence.
    The white-boned carcasses of the lizards did not concern me. They were the ants’ rightful prey, and no one would question their deaths. But I was careful to measure out the amount of
wurari
poison in the stoppered jar, pouring it into the mixing bowl, which I had cleaned. I added three drops of
chicha
for every drop of poison. When it was done, I tipped it back into the earthenware jar, and shook it, shoving the wooden stopper in place, making it ready.
    Lighting a taper, I sealed it with wax. I gathered several dozen more spiny thorns, wrapping them in a length of cloth. I stowed away both the jar of poison and my roll of thorns in the bottom of a satchel, and washed the mixing bowl one last time.
    By the time I had finished, the sun was beginning to set. I checked on Machasu, and found her sleeping soundly. Her skin was damp and overly warm, but her breathing was reassuringly steady. I sat beside her for a time, breathing the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves, stroking the hair back from her brow, thinking on how the courage of these Quechua women humbled me.
    When the shadows began to gather in the corner of the chamber, I retreated to my own room. The ants made their nightly foray up the sisal rope, clustering in their customary ball.
    Tomorrow, we marched to war.
    All I could do was pray that it ended swiftly.

SIXTY-SEVEN

    I f I had thought our caravan that departed from Tenochtitlan all those months ago was an unlikely one, it was nothing to the procession that set forth from Vilcabamba.
    It took hours simply to exit from the jungle fasthold, our company winding down the terraced steps and crossing the narrow, swaying bridges, forced to walk no more than two abreast, the hand-ropes on either side blackened by a stream of ants. The armored warriors under the ostensible command of Prince Manco led the way, steel glinting green in the sunlight that filtered through the canopy. Behind them marched a thousand more warriors in traditional Quechua gear, quilted cotton armor and wooden shields, wooden clubs with stone or bronze heads.
    Raphael de Mereliot, Lord Pachacuti, was carried behind the army on a splendid litter. Mayhap in other circumstances he would be reviled for taking a position of safety, but Lord Pachacuti was a special case. He commanded the black river itself, an army more terrifying than any human one.
    A dozen of Raphael’s favorite handmaids from the Temple of the Sun marched behind him with Cusi among them, along with Ocllo to supervise them and a bevy of servants to help them attend to his every need.
    On Raphael’s order, I marched alongside them. Behind us was an endless line of porters and servants carrying supplies in woven baskets lashedto their backs, our D’Angeline company somewhere among them, lost in the throng. I would have worried, but I could sense Bao’s
diadh-anam
.
    Once we cleared the gorges surrounding Vilcabamba, the road widened and our pace quickened. The ants spread out through the adjacent foliage in a carpet of living blackness, scavenging as they went, seemingly tireless.
    I could not help but wonder at the cost to the environs. Raphael was using the ants to unnatural ends. The highlands that lay many leagues before us were not their natural habitat, and I feared they might lay waste to it. And what of the jungle that we would leave behind us? The ants played a vital role in maintaining the balance of nature. Whatever damage their enslavement had already done would be magnified ten-fold in their utter absence as their natural prey was left to multiply unchecked.
    But I supposed such concerns were beneath Lord Pachacuti on his quest for godhood.
    Our first days during the long march to Qusqu were uneventful, unless one considered the logistics of managing such an undertaking