Mmendi and Thalit’s spirits guide the People still.
Awa looked from Isra’s body to Bal, who trembled with rage. Yari’s story craft and man-masquerade drew cheers and whistles from the savages. Yari hated that word, but they’d burned Isra alive—what else to call them?
“Only Zamanzi know the whole tale.” The axman squinted at Yari. “How did you learn this? Unless—the walking library!” He lowered his ax. “You are Yari, the Lahesh griot who seduces husbands, wives, emperors, and snakes, who drums up the past and the future.” He pounded the ground in front of the traitor-Elders. “I won’t cut Yari’s neck and risk Xhalan Xhala. Only a fool courts Lahesh reckoning fire.”
Yari’s name moved through the crowd like a sandstorm. Three chiefs clashed blades to possess the griot who knew something about everything. Bal snatched a sword from a careless guard and challenged the chiefs. Archers aimed bolts at her, but the war chief stayed their hands and let Bal fight. “For the show if nothing else,” he growled.
The cocky chiefs underestimated Bal. They lunged at her halfheartedly, winking at women who huddled with horses and goats at the edge of feast tables. Bal slashed tendons and foreheads and danced away from disabled foes. Limping around with blood dripping in their eyes, the cocky chiefs skewered each other. A shadow warrior defeated enemies without killing. The war chief claimed Bal as soldier and Yari as his griot praise-singer.
“Join me,” Bal shouted to Awa. “Wife is too perilous.”
“Yes, choose,” the axman said, “or die.”
Awa’s tongue knotted as the axman lifted his bloody blade again. Zamanzi considered women too weak-minded to be griots. Awa was no shadow warrior like Bal and desired no husband. What choice was this? As a warrior, she’d die quickly. “I choose…” She ached to pour a libation to the crossroads gods. No time. “Chief’s wife.”
“No,” Bal cried, and Awa’s heart wrenched. “Too dangerous.” Bal dumped sword and spear at Awa’s feet. “Don’t leave me.” She pressed her Aido cloth bag at Awa’s chest. The axman did not notice. Aido cloth was every color strong but a play of shadows for untrained eyes.
While Zamanzi warriors laughed at Green Elder sentiment, Yari snuck a catalpa anklet in Awa’s hand and whispered in Lahesh, “Survive. We will find each other.”
“How?” Awa whispered Lahesh too.
“You’re the mapmaker, the storyteller. You’ll make a way.”
The axman snatched a weeping, thrashing Awa away from Bal and Yari. He forced a bitter, intoxicating potion down her throat, locked her in a cage, and dumped her in a wagon with two other caged Sprites. Awa banged against the bars as the wagon lurched off. Bal and Yari faded in the mist. Two families lost.
* * *
Sprite discipline deserted Awa. Her spirit was too scrambled to make any sort of map for tomorrow. Zamanzi held her in a cage for ritual cleansing—drug potions, cold water baths, hot stones on her belly. The drugs made it hard to think right or feel herself. She was haunted by Yari’s hard eyes as Isra burned alive and Bal’s tearstained cheeks when she chose chief’s wife.
Awa might have done mortal damage to herself, but Yari said, Survive. The moon turned to a pale scar leaking silver light, and her blood came with cramps and heartache for two families lost. Old men leered through the bars, happy she could produce Zamanzi sons and daughters. One must have been her husband to be. Survive. Awa blotted out mottled faces and recited from The Green Elder Songs for Living and Dying.
“Hush that noise,” the axman declared one night. “Tomorrow, twenty-first wife.”
Awa whispered every song, losing herself in the words, rhythms, and rhymes. Better that than go mad. What you know is always yours.
* * *
On Awa’s wedding day, the southern barbarians raided during the final cleansing mutilation. Zamanzi women were fracturing her leg—to ensure she couldn’t run away from a chief five times her age—when thief-lords tromped in on elephants. They pierced her husband-to-be with fire arrows. The ancient chief lurched into her, trying to escape.
Awa caught fire too. The barbarians laughed as she rolled in the dirt like Isra and smothered the fire. They let the old chief burn alive, then wrapped Awa’s burnt arm and set her broken leg. Thanks to Zamanzi potions, pain was a distant throb. Survive. We will find each other.
A thief-lord transported her to Holy City as a blood offering to the gods of Ice Mountain. High priest Hezram paid well for Sprites—good blood, no family, and not yet dangerous.
Awa’s first transgression was singing tree song under the scar moon, actual sacred cathedral tree melodies that only high priests should know. She’d learned tree song in Smokeland. Her second transgression was talking to the Amethyst River. The river was sick. Anyone could hear that. A person didn’t need medicine-woman skill or priestly dispensation.
The barbarians didn’t know that Awa was a smoke-walker. Women supposedly polluted Smokeland. One transgression meant exile, slave labor on an Empire caravan or merchant ship. Two meant a slow death, toiling and bleeding for the glory of the supreme god. For three transgressions, the punishment was spirit torture too terrible to speak of.
Awa wanted to curse the crossroads gods, but she refrained. Cursing the gods wouldn’t help her survive.
15
The Future from the Past
Many conjurers collected fire-spells. They showed off at carnivals, throwing sparks, exploding leaves, even eating flames. Only the Lahesh burned through this moment to ones that were coming: reckoning fire. Everyone said Xhalan Xhala was impossible conjure, but Djola had yet to admit defeat. Samina would never forgive that. Impossible was what lazy, ignorant fools said when they reached their limits. Djola had to push beyond himself. Hadn’t he always done that? He was the first northlander at the stone-wood table, and for twenty years, second only to Azizi! After mastering Xhalan Xhala, he’d sit at the emperor’s table again.
Pezarrat and his pirates were well-fed and spirited. They cheered a clutch of merchant vessels sailing in on a good wind. Hefty boats with bright sails rode low in the water. Pezarrat hurled Djola’s acid-conjure at one ship. When the hull dissolved into sludge and sizzling vapor, the other ships blew horns signaling surrender. Pirates looted the ships without suffering many casualties, although a few merchants lost their heads protecting trinkets. Grateful for an empty sick bay, Vandana and Orca joined the victory celebration. They gobbled shrimp, drank too much wine, and slept like the dead on plush pillows and blankets—merchant booty.
Up on the deserted deck, Djola swept feathers, medicine bags, and discarded trinkets into the sea. A scar moon sank into rippling water. Samina’s moon. He was clean-shaven and clear, his fortressed heart a faint smolder, closer to the chill he needed to pull fire. He found a merchant blade and stowed it in an empty sleeve. Dead merchants floated by, and he wondered if they’d been slavers. A few unlucky pirate lads floated with them. Djola turned away, unmoved thanks to his heart fortress. Orca and Vandana had helped him fashion silver-mesh gloves, cold conjure impervious to hot spells. Singing, he put on one glove and left one hand bare.