“Xhalan Xhala is a tall tale.” Ernold snorted.
“That’s what you look for in the libraries”—Books and Bones worried his beard—“a conjure too dangerous even for Yari.”
“Dream Gate conjure is harmless compared to Xhalan Xhala,” Ernold yelled.
“Which is it, priest?” Grain scoffed. “Is Xhalan Xhala a tall tale or deadly conjure?”
“The griot of griots isn’t afraid of Xhalan Xhala,” Djola murmured. “Yari doesn’t trust people to do right with sacred knowledge.” Yari didn’t trust Djola in particular.
“Can you stop poison desert with your plan?” Water shouted.
Djola shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Azizi clenched the table with trembling hands. He rattled goblets and dishes. “Neither you nor Kyrie know the cause of poison desert or an antidote.”
“Your map to tomorrow is almost a cure.” Grain gripped Djola’s shoulder. “Isn’t it?”
“Cure?” Djola should have lied to gain time, to regroup and fend off the other masters, but his arrogant tongue refused. What lie would last longer than a day, a month? “Kyrie and I don’t know the cause or a cure.”
“Honest to a fault.” Azizi sighed. “Betrayal is shouting about poisons and offering crack-cruck measures before you know an antidote.” His eyes were an angry blur. “You saved my life and helped me conquer all the green lands from the savage north to the barbarian south, from the west waters to the sweet desert in the east. But today you stab me in the heart with jumba jabba. I banish you for abandoning me during the Empire’s greatest challenge. We must conquer the poison desert or die trying.”
Djola gasped. Too shocked to beg for reason, too wise to plead for mercy, he attended to his breath.
Books and Bones looked stricken. Arms wanted to gut Money and Water and slit Ernold’s throat. Grain slipped into the shadows by the Lahesh masks. Why go down for Weeds and Wild Things? Azizi avoided Djola’s eyes. “Banished.” Djola tossed his scrolls into the fire. Years of labor at the far edge of hope smoked and crumbled to ash. Too late, he spied daughter Tessa’s scroll, his shield. It caught a spark and burned. Tessa would scold him for that.
“Defend yourself,” Azizi commanded. “Change my mind.”
Djola shrugged, nothing more to say. Denial was as inexplicable as poison sand blowing across fields and twisting down alleys. Death whooshed in Djola’s ears and emptied his mind. His tongue went rogue, and he muttered, “Basawili.”
“What does that mean?” Azizi asked. “More Green Elder jumba jabba?”
“A northern outlaw language,” Books and Bones said. “Who knows savage talk?”
“Anawanama: not the end, more to come,” Grain translated. “Roughly.”
“Such a powerful conjurer makes a deadly enemy,” Ernold said.
“We should execute Djola on this stone floor,” Water said. “Savages have no honor.”
The guards aimed spears at Djola. Arms and Grain bristled. Djola felt like someone had smashed his head.
“Execute?” Books and Bones blinked, as if waking from a trance. “I don’t know.”
Money, Water, and Ernold shouted at the librarian. Arms and Grain yelled at each other. Azizi pulled Djola close and whispered in Lahesh, “Fool, you should have lied. What can I do when Kyrie deserts me and the whole table is against you?”
“But banish me, Zizi?” Djola stared at him, blank.
Azizi squeezed his shoulders. “Go visit all the libraries in the world. Talk to wise men and long-winded griots. Find your Xhalan Xhala cure and be quick. You can do that, can’t you?”
“I guess.”
“Twenty years ago, you made peace from blood and bile and ash.”
“Did I? That seems like a griot tale for children,” Djola sputtered.
“You persuaded me to trust Kyrie and marry Urzula. You can find an antidote for anything. The Master of Poisons, yes?” Azizi gestured at the ashes of Djola’s scrolls. “Take a few months. Bring us Xhalan Xhala, then we’ll do the hard work for a good tomorrow.” He actually believed Djola could do what he commanded. “Swear to me.”
“I’d need a ship and—”
“I can arrange a pirate crew.”
“Why pirates?”
Azizi smiled. “A rogue fleet will take you anywhere, and whatever you do, whatever desperate measures you need to take to find the cure, nobody will connect you to me. The People remain on my side.”
Djola felt dizzy. “This was your plan all along.”
“Not exactly … You insist we must always have many pots on the fire.” Azizi whistled the masters silent and spoke Empire vernacular. “My decree is banishment. I’ll hold each of you responsible if Djola dies before leaving Arkhys City.”
Arms had a knife at Water’s back and a sword to Money’s throat. They raised their hands high and backed away. “We are happy to let the Master of Poisons die at sea.”
High priest Ernold stood in a splash of sunlight, teeth and bald head gleaming. Books and Bones had curled up under the table, like a scroll someone crumpled and threw away. Grain faded into the smoke by the fireplace. The guards who brought Djola to the table wrenched him from his seat and dragged him blindfolded through a maze of tunnels. Hyenas howled and laughed.
13
Pirate Queen
The cook’s entrance to the emperor’s citadel was close enough to Thunder River to feel the chill of Eidhou’s glaciers in the water. Every breath carried the taste of spices, spirits, and bitter herbs. The scrappy guard yanked the cloth from Djola’s eyes. Afternoon sun made him squint. He staggered, dizzy from wandering the maze, from losing his place at the stone-wood table. Disaster, happening too quickly to be believed.
Turning down the map to tomorrow, yes, but Azizi banishing his closest advisor, his most loyal friend? That was madness. Did every emperor eventually go mad?
“Basawili,” Djola muttered as jolts of terror scrambled his thoughts.
“Why do you keep repeating that?” The scrappy guard shook Djola.
“He’s lost his mind,” the other guard said. “Wouldn’t you?”
“He was always a bit off.” The scrappy guard doused Djola’s hot head with cold water from the river. “All the masters are.” And the emperor too.
Death kept whooshing in Djola’s ears. Basawili was his reply. Not the end, more breath to come. An hour ago, he was one of the most powerful men in the Empire. Now he was a nobody who couldn’t get a breath. Azizi was sending him on an impossible quest to find a quick cure. Djola clutched the sweetgrass basket. Nuar tried to warn him about Empire treachery. Samina too. He tripped and fell. Uneven stones in the courtyard scraped skin from his knees. The pain was slight, but cleared his vision.
No one from Council had been exiled in twenty years. Would he live to see his wife and children again? What happened to the family of a disgraced master? Did Azizi give a thought to that? Samina and the children would be safe at the hideaway. But they’d worry when he didn’t return, when they got word of his exile. Djola’s heart pounded.