“How did you lose your family?” Djola called to her, using a friendly tone. “Run, little one, this way to me. I have a mango for you.” He held up a piece of fruit and laughed. “A wild one, aren’t you, and strong. You can do it.”
The Elephant was exhausted and her legs gave out. She tumbled back into muck. The bank was too steep, too slippery. There was no way out.
“Want a bite?” Djola tossed the mango in the air. “Come get it.” The Elephant loved mangos. She walked down the river toward him and tugged at a sapling on the bank with her trunk. “Good girl. Not so steep. Do you hear your mothers calling?”
The mud muffled sounds traveling through the ground. Only soggy jibber jabber reached the Elephant’s feet. She tugged and tugged. From tough stem to sturdy roots, the sapling resisted her trunk. A young cathedral tree, it refused to join the Elephant in the river. She had to join the tree on land. Packed dirt was joy under her feet. The ground rumbled. Her family called, searching for her. The Elephant rumbled a message back to them. She promised to follow their sounds and find them, before anyone ate her. Djola held out hunks of mango. The Elephant grabbed them as she hurried by, scant nourishment for a long journey.
“You took the whole thing.” Djola laughed again. The Elephant carried his sounds and smells with her as she hurried to her family.
Today, Djola does not laugh as Empire guards haul him toward the docks.
Other bad men on horses, hearts pumping, the smell of predators in their sweat, race after Djola and the guards. These men hunger for Djola’s heart. The Elephant is close enough to see their eyes shine with fear as they draw their blades. The men do not see an elephant, only shadows. The horses catch elephant-scent and a glimpse of angry ears flared wide. She stands in an entrance to Kyrie’s wise-woman corridor, hidden by rocks and laurel trees. The Elephant trumpets, flaps her ears, and throws up a cloud of dirt. The horses are spooked and dash back the way they came. The riders curse and spit. Some fall on the ground and are dragged in dirt. A few slam into cathedral tree trunks and shriek. The Empire guards shriek too. They drive Djola faster down the alley toward the docks. The Elephant steps out of the corridor to follow them.
“No, no! They’ll kill us both.” Djola waves at her to stay away. He stands near a gangway to a boat as the guards banter with a seaman. “Save yourself.”
People gape at the Elephant, drop baskets and buckets, and holler. The guards talk faster to the seaman. Someone throws a knife toward her. It bounces off her shoulder. The Elephant flinches at the sharp pain. More blades appear, shovels and axes, and a fiery torch. But when family or friends (even people) are in danger, the Elephant can’t abandon them. She takes another step.
“No. Go. At least one northerner should triumph today.” Djola shouts and flails. The crowd is ready to pounce, but hesitates. “Run. For me,” he pleads.
Reluctantly the Elephant backs into the wise-woman passageway. She fades from view to a chorus of gasps. The woman carrying fire takes a step closer to the entrance. “Kyrie’s mountain shadows attacked me before, right here.”
“Witch-woman shadows, yes, but no elephant,” a man says. “The Master of Poisons must have conjured her.”
Djola laughs, in a better mood. The Elephant is glad, but also sad as the guards throw Djola on a pirate ship bound for the floating cities. Other seamen shrink away from him, as if he were fire or a gang of sharp fangs. The Elephant hovers at the entrance of the corridor until the sails catch the wind and Djola is carried out to sea. When the ship is a pale memory on a deep blue horizon, she turns away from the water and back to decisions. This corridor led her to the sea, but a branch goes up the mountain. The Elephant has never climbed a mountain. No matter. There are too many hungry people by the sea guarding sweet water, grain, and fruit trees. The Elephant sends a message into the ground. If anyone is listening, if anyone is alive to hear her voice, they will know and understand the choices she makes, they will know the direction to take to find her. They will hear her and hope.
The Elephant doesn’t forget this day. Hope is what she carries with her on the steep climb.
15
Filled with Now
Smokeland saved Awa. When she first joined the Green Elder enclave, she wanted Father, her two middle brothers, and even Kenu and Mother to die a thousand deaths. She also ached to hug them to her heart. This back-and-forth hate-love tormented her. She woke from dreams of her family with balled-up fists and an aching jaw.
Father had sneered at Awa’s artistry, at her useless stories and dancing bees, but her sale had garnered enough jewel, cowry shells, and coin to send three sons from Holy City to the capital for grand opportunities—no matter how stupid or cowardly they were. Did Father wonder at her fate? Did Mother poison his bread? Would brother Kenu ever pour libations for her sacrifice or just laugh at a green-land freak?
Yari, the high Elder who brought Awa into the enclave, said, “Anything you believe could be wrong.” Yari was a graying veson, the griot of griots, once advisor to Emperor Azizi. A trickster, vie had sparkling eyes and a lightning smile. Ropes of vie’s hair, adorned with seedpods, bells, and whistling reeds, danced even when Elders stood still for meditation.
Tapping and squeezing a double-headed talking drum, vie could seduce a snake or a crocodile. Yari’s lovers—good citizens, barbarians, savages, witch women, Council masters, perhaps even Azizi—would fill a pirate ship. Who could resist Yari’s charm or brilliance? Certainly not Awa.
“For wisdom you must intertwine passion, faith, and doubt,” Yari said. “Like drumming four beats to seven or weaving Aido cloth, every color strong but a play of shadows for untrained eyes. A righteous person sings harmony with themselves. Holding contradictions and polyrhythms in your spirit, that’s the basis of all conjure.”
Other Garden Sprites did this easily. Bal, who joined the enclave a few months after Awa, could sound like a fleet of drums and a choir of voices her first week. Bal wove Aido cloth robes to disappear in and crafted flimsy sweetgrass into weapons, boats, and bridges. Awa was all thumbs. Her Aido cloth regularly unraveled. The best she ever managed was three beats to two on a drum and a single overtone when she sang. Drums, thread, and song were wasted on her. Indeed, Awa was so inept that—
“I worry Yari might sell me to thief-lords or abandon me to poison desert.”
“Nonsense.” Bal stood behind Awa on cliffs above the Salty Sea. They were becoming fast friends. Arkhys City’s sandstone towers and domes shimmered far across the bay. “Why chant nonsense?” Bal’s cheekbones were high and sharply etched; her limbs long, elegant, and muscled. Round Awa wanted to look like her. “Yari loves us all, but you the most.”
“No.” Awa raced along the cliff edge, doing a rock, water, and shell dance. Tons of black and white fish flesh jumped from the waves and trilled at her clumsy gyrations. When she flapped her arms, the behemoths mimicked her with stubby flukes. Bal applauded. “You’re a shadow warrior, Bal. You carry shade with you. You can hide anywhere and seem like a hundred warriors. What conjure can I do?”
“You call giants out of the sea and conjure moon-bridges to Smokeland. I can’t do that.” Bal pulled Awa back from the edge toward scraggly laurel trees. “We all love you. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do.”