His wife’s hair was a silver bush with mischievous streaks of red. Her tattoos were intricate, silver snowflakes that caught the light, and she was tall, of mixed heritage, like the woman approaching them. Blue-violet eyes disarmed Djola, daring him to be a better man. Dazed, he clutched a stranger and panted in her face. The silver-haired pirate woman broke free and frowned brown eyes at him. Djola mumbled apologies and the woman walked on.
“So many languages I’ve never heard. Wind-wheels and waterworks,” Orca exclaimed at a windcatcher pumping water. “Who builds such things?”
Djola leaned against a metal-mesh building that looked like an overturned basket—a merchant dome. “Lahesh tinkerers still make sure the cities don’t fall apart or get swallowed by the sea. My wife has Lahesh blood and wisdom. She kept our reeds singing.” A blast of white light blotted out Orca’s face. Djola shut his eyes. Heat burned inside his chest. He wanted to call fire and incinerate the island paradise. What had they done against void-storms to help his family and all the families on the mainland? Who in the floating cities spent a breath on Samina, one of their own daughters, who gave her body to him so that pirates might live in peace?
“Are you all right?” Orca held him up.
“Yes,” Djola lied. “Let’s buy conjure supplies first.”
The merchants stocked everything: Anawanama herbs and dyes, cathedral seeds and pulverized cloud-silk for Lahesh potions, barbarian dried mushrooms and holy water, Lahesh metal-working tools, Smokeland honey, wax, and herbs, rare earth compounds for acid-conjure, cloud-silk bandages, shadow-warrior spider cloth, even fermented midnight berries that cured night-blindness. Prices were fair, low even. Djola wasted no time haggling. He hired ferryboats to transport purchases to Pezarrat’s ship.
Business complete, Djola led Orca across a sweetgrass bridge to a garden barge where Babalawos—the twelve wisest men in the world—and two Iyalawos gathered among voluptuous flowers to talk, argue, or let their minds wander. They wore violet robes and a weave of tight braids on their scalps. They sat on stools with Smokeland scenes carved on the sides and brandished iron staffs to evoke mountain and water deities. Speaking Lahesh, they welcomed Djola and Orca with fruit, nut-cakes, and honey wine.
The two oldest Babalawos remembered Yari’s and Djola’s visits many years ago. Djola let them think he’d become a Green Elder and Orca was a Garden Sprite. The old men were eager to hear his reports of the world—the women too. A drummer thanked the crossroads gods and called for silence. Djola told stories of void-storms popping up from nowhere, from static and shimmer, to devastate the land. He noted range, frequency, and severity then offered his folded-space theory. They snapped fingers, approving of his insight.
As he tallied animal and crop loss from poison desert, Orca held up scrolls of storms devastating green lands, painted in a vivid Anawanama style. Silver static and black ash made everyone itch.
“How do you know all of this?” asked a Babalawo who was Djola’s age.
“I’ve seen it,” Djola replied. “Kyrie gets reports to me.”
Muttering, the Babalawos set down their cakes and honey wine. Djola cursed under his breath for letting her name slip. The drummer drowned out the grumbling. The eldest declared that idiots were ruining the mainland. Everyone agreed. They sang laments for Weeds and Wild Things on distant soil, but felt safe enough on their remote island paradise to joke: wild women and foolish men caused void-storms, and what cure for stupid people except to wipe them out? A catastrophe to cancel out disaster. Orca laughed at lewd gestures—people humping rocks.
The middle-aged Babalawo pounced on Djola. “Kyrie set a barbarian on fire with sparks from her fingers, then like a Zamanzi warrior ate his heart while he watched.”
“Nonsense, Haji.” An Iyalawo spoke for the first time. “Burning alive, the man’s not watching anything.”
“Perhaps Kyrie’s folded space corridors are spreading void-storms,” Haji shouted.
“You’re jealous.” The Iyalawo shouted over him. “You can’t make a corridor.”
“Women’s conjure wreaks havoc with the everyday!”
“And men don’t add to the void?” The Iyalawo rolled her eyes. “You lot tried to assassinate Kyrie behind Urzula’s back. You’re mad at Kyrie for surviving.”
Haji poked Djola. “Follow your own theory to the source. I’ll wager it’s Kyrie.”
Djola attended to his breath, willing himself to be patient. “What other ideas to stop void-storms and poison desert?”
“The mainland has doomed itself,” the oldest Babalawo said. “You seek the impossible.” Everyone nodded, poured more wine, and chewed at dried figs.
“You feel safe with your pirate ships and Lahesh conjure!” Djola closed his eyes on an image of the wise men and women going up in flames. Luckily he couldn’t pull enough fire, or he would have blasted them. “We’re wasting our time.” He grabbed Orca.
“What language were you speaking?” Orca asked as they stormed off the garden barge.
“Lahesh.”
“The trickster’s language.” Orca smiled. “That’s why the wise men laugh at us.”
12
Libraries
It was a day’s walk over many bridges to reach the biggest island Yidohwedo made as it reached to the stars. Djola’s last shreds of hope were dissolving into panic, so they hired a canoe to travel the waterways to the peak-island in an afternoon. Colorful fish darted in and out of undulating seaweed and coral reefs. Curious sea turtles nudged their boat, and Orca and Djola took care with their paddles. The docks were jammed. Farmers came to tend vegetable and grain fields. Pilgrims in feathered hats headed for the observatory at the mountaintop: a stone fortress with windows to catch stars at dawn, twilight, and during the night.
Climbing the steps to the summit, Orca was breathless, yet he squealed at golden domes and sun-and-moon dials. “The griot of griots claims there are more than a thousand windows filled with Lahesh wim-wom: celestial wheels, tubes with eyepieces, star-catchers. Under the windows are scrolls and paints to create a record or render a vision.”
“A thousand?” Djola darted by sweaty farmers. “Yari may have exaggerated.”
“I hope it’s true what vie said about sky windows.” Orca grinned. “Pezarrat didn’t want you coming alone. He said you could escape through a window to another world.” Orca was a terrible spy. “If you don’t return … He says he’ll kill Vandana.”
“A lie. He’d sell her. What does Yari say about the observatory?”
“Special windows open to the heart of sparkling demons. At night, when darkness invites demons to hold still a moment in the sky, you might step through the window and greet them without fear of being eaten. No escape though. If you don’t step back, you’d be lost in the dark between stars.”
Lahesh whimsy cheered Djola. “When I visit Urzula go look through the windows.”
Orca agreed, even though Pezarrat wanted him to tail Djola everywhere.
The library was the dim heart of the observatory. The whoosh of reed-wheels made Djola’s skin tingle. Lahesh wim-wom kept the sea’s dampness out. Adjusting to near darkness and cool, dry air took a moment. Shelves cut into Yidohwedo’s walls were augmented by wooden scroll-cases from the old cities. Books filled the mountain. On trips with Yari, Djola had roamed the library for days. He’d learned antidotes for everything and the language of dirt, water, and wind. Afterward they made love under the stars, whispering about wonders they might discover the next day.