Lank gray hair fell over rheumy hazel eyes and made him look older than Djola, yet he was scant thirty-nine. War stole his youth, treacherous peace his middle age. His bones ached and his vision blurred. Azizi had become a bitter old man, seeing enemies and traitors even among his staunchest supporters.
“Why do you thwart me?”
“I am for you.” Kyrie lowered her head.
She trailed Azizi as he limped to the stone-wood table. Short, round, and crisscrossed with silver tattoos, Kyrie was a fortress of knowledge and power. Jewels nested in a cloud of silver hair. Silk tunic and pants floated over an agile form. Her moon face was nothing like Samina’s, yet her voice was almost identical to Djola’s wife’s.
“I’ve never conjured Dream Gates.” Kyrie’s musical accent made Djola ache for Samina like a youthful lover. She nodded at chief cook Lilot lurking in the shadows. Older brother was wrong—the women were here! Kyrie was Djola’s staunchest ally. She’d support his map to tomorrow. “Hezram perverts Lahesh conjure.”
Azizi turned and loomed over Kyrie. “Do what you can do.”
“Arkhys City shelters too many citizens and foreign refugees.” Kyrie used Samina’s inflection for a fact not to be argued with. “We can’t feed them all from Mount Eidhou.”
Azizi hissed, a pot about to boil over. Masters shuffled their feet, tugged beards, and rubbed eyebrows. Azizi contemplated friend rat whose cheeks bulged with goat meat and seaweed. “Be reasonable.” He feared Kyrie might let Arkhys City starve to save her mountain people and wild land. “Be generous.” He dropped into a Lahesh waterwheel chair at the head of the table. “The fire’s gone out. It’s cold in here and dark.”
“Iyalawo Kyrie, esteemed wise woman,” Djola spoke over grumbling masters, “we ask for no more than your people, your land can spare.”
“In Anawanama Eidhou means all rivers flow from my heart.” Kyrie scratched a fingernail across a rock wall and lit a candle with the sparks. “Plundering my mountain—”
“Eidhou is not your mountain, it’s the emperor’s,” high priest Ernold said.
“Actually, nobody owns the mountains.” Kyrie lit candles around the room. “I speak for Eidhou, as guardian and—”
“So do I.” Ernold had been after Kyrie’s mountain realm for years. If not for the conjure in her Mountain Gates, he’d have strip-cut sacred forests and declared Kyrie and her people transgressors who should bleed for the glory of the gods. “I know the mysteries and all that is sacred. Witches and witchdoctors make a carnival of faith.”
Everyone went stone still, even the rat. Kyrie blew sparks from her fingertips into the fireplace and flames burst through a smoldering woodpile. “You’ve danced on the moon’s cool white face and seen elephants fly.” She called Ernold a liar to his beautiful face. “Yet I walk Eidhou’s glaciers, taste the breath of cathedral trees, and cloak myself in wind and rain and snow. The mountain is my backbone. I—” She stumbled to a halt at Azizi’s left side. Her stool was missing, her goblet face down, her plate empty.
“Kyrie always comes after supper,” Djola said, swallowing panic. “Guards!”
“No sweets tonight.” Water sneered as guards appeared from the shadows.
“In times of turmoil many believe that a woman at the stone-wood table is a sign of weakness,” Ernold said, rubbing the crimson tattoos on his bald head. He’d persuaded Azizi to do this. “Even an Iyalawo of Kyrie’s stature.”
Grain frowned at Arms. “Besides Council, who knows she is here?”
Kyrie had conjured a wise-woman passageway through mountain forests to come and go from Arkhys City without notice. The best emperor-spies couldn’t find her almost invisible path—a great escape route for an Iyalawo, elephant, or any Wild Thing.
“My men removed the beaded monkey stool last month, after Kyrie left the citadel,” Arms muttered.
“Last month?” Grain glared at him, like a lover betrayed.
Arms turned to Djola. “I meant to tell you both.”
“You didn’t,” Djola said.
Arms stiffened. He followed Azizi’s orders even if they were stupid. Maybe he agreed with this one. Azizi waved the masters into their seats. Djola remained standing. Kyrie was essential. How could Azizi dismiss her without consulting him?
“Masters at your table spoil for war,” Kyrie said. Her fingers sparked as if she’d scratched a rough surface. “They think I’m only good for carnival amusement.” The air above the table burst into flames. Kyrie took each man’s measure in the bright-as-day light while they gaped or fumed at her conjure. She was no better at politicking than Samina. Grain groaned and closed his eyes.
Azizi ground his teeth at her insolence. “So why do a carnival fire-show at Council?”
“Emperor Azizi,” she glared at him, “do you no longer wish the Iyalawo of Mount Eidhou to sit at your table?”
The guards drew swords. Panic sweat made them reek. Kyrie would defend her mountain to the death. If even half the griot tales were true, Council was no match for her. She could burn them all right now and who would hear their screams?
“Zizi,” Djola hissed a boyhood name in the emperor’s ear. “I beg you, speak to her.”
Kyrie bowed low, spreading her arms like wings. The flames overhead winked out.
“Give me a reason to bring your stool back.” Azizi huffed and speared a hunk of goat. “I’d trust whatever gate conjure you’d offer.”
“Every gate requires sacrifice. I conjure with the willing. No transgressor blood or stolen spirits like in Holy City.” Kyrie spat at rogue sparks dancing on her fingertips. “The bushes, trees, rocks, and haints that power my gates do so willingly, for Mount Eidhou, for—”
“For love?” High priest Ernold interrupted her for the third time and sucked his teeth, disgusted.
“You prefer a spirit slave to a lover?” Kyrie glanced at scowling faces.
Azizi slammed his hand on the table. “Whatever it takes!”
“On this path, you’ll destroy what you do love.” She nodded at Djola and Grain, then bowed deeply to Azizi again. “I take my leave. I hope Council uses wisdom to guide you away from deadly illusion to a true solution.”
Azizi trembled as he waved her away. Guards covered her eyes and led her out.
High priest Ernold grumbled. “We should lock her up.”
“You fools would have done that long ago if you could,” Grain shouted. “Have you looked outside? We need Kyrie’s conjure book. Who else knows as much as she does?”
Yari, the famed griot of griots, knew more than Kyrie perhaps. But Yari avoided the stone-wood table. Djola bit his tongue before blurting this. Books and Bones grumbled about jumba jabba. The others joined in. Azizi whistled them silent. “Kyrie never stays away long.”
Kyrie was bosom close to chief cook Lilot and to Urzula, Azizi’s pirate queen wife. While the men dithered, Kyrie would lose her escort in the cook’s maze. She’d find a way out, fade into the trees behind the citadel, and abandon Djola to the cowards and fools on Council.