The Dog races off as fast as he can run. He hates the temple: thrashing breath bodies, caldrons of oil and blood, clouds of void-smoke. He slips through an open door, looking like a gust of soot. Dazed acolytes almost trip over him, but he stays away from clumsy feet. They breathe too much void-smoke. It’s killing them. Awa and Meera were here yesterday with Rokiat. The Dog will find them later.
Wandering without a pack in the temple is dangerous. Heavy doors slam shut at night. Some tunnels lead to nowhere. Priests hunt dogs and pierce them with swords or throw fire. Spirit slaves tear dogs to pieces. The Dog smells this, but can’t turn back. He has Yari’s scent and Hezram’s, from moments ago. He runs, knocking down an acolyte who doesn’t get up. Others trip over the boy and also don’t get up. The commotion is camouflage. Nobody sees the Dog stick a nose in Hezram’s chamber.
Too late. Hezram hugs Yari’s thrashing breath body. He drizzles poison in Yari’s mouth and chants in vie’s ear. The Dog lunges for Hezram’s throat. A pack of breath bodies reeking of Hezram leap up and block the Dog. No chains hold them to stone benches. Hezram barks and Yari joins the attack. A mass of fists and teeth try to bite the Dog’s neck. They rip mouthfuls of fur from his back. Spirit slaves are awkward and confused in the everyday.
The Dog knocks Yari down and other spirit slaves fall on vie. Before they regroup, the Dog dashes out the door. Spirit slaves are too inept to trail him. They chase their tails and barge into one another, blocking Hezram. The Dog runs along the Dream Gates to the outside. Dazed acolytes don’t notice him slipping out the citadel. He picks up Awa’s trail and runs and runs until he sees her. She is beyond the warhorse meadows with Rokiat and Meera. They bury bodies—dead men who reek of temple conjure and void-smoke. The Dog charges into Awa and almost knocks her down.
Awa pets him. “What’s the matter?”
The Dog pants and snorts, howls and whimpers. Yari is lost and it’s his fault. He tries to crawl into Awa’s lap.
“What happened to you?” She laughs, and the Dog nuzzles her, whining. “You’re usually cheering me up.” She lets him sit on her.
“We need a break anyhow.” Meera strokes his back. He whimpers when she touches bare skin. “Did something try to eat you?”
Meera and Rokiat sit close. They talk softly and stroke the Dog’s head as Awa puts bee spit on his wounds. Nobody licks him though.
“It’s all right.” Awa kisses his nose. “You got away to us.”
The Dog licks her and falls asleep. In his dreams, he chases Yari and Hezram through Smokeland.
8
Holy City
Obsessed, relentless, and not quite right in his mind, Djola marched into Holy City. He hadn’t been in his right mind since Zizi exiled him. No seed and silk potion dulled his senses and although Samina’s chill cooled his temper, rage fueled his resolve. He pushed that thought away. It was noonday when Ice Mountain’s highest peak cast the shortest shadow. Only Mount Eidhou near Arkhys City had a peak so high with ghost-blue glaciers frozen year round.
Barbarians, northern tribes, and citizens would gather this evening to receive blessings from fickle mountain gods. At the festival’s end they’d pay tribute to high priest Hezram and his lapsed Elders and Babalawos, his witchdoctors. This was money snatched from the emperor’s coffers, from roads and bridges, armies and waterworks. Water was fluid treasure, the Empire’s greatest currency. Holy City squandered water, blood, and the wind too.
Hezram and his gang of liars deserved what was to come.
During noonday heat, people in Holy City withdrew to cool cellars for siesta, love play, or meditation. Only women’s societies toiled to prepare feasts and dances while transgressors did penance labor—what no righteous person would soil their spirits with. Transgressors swept streets in Holy City clean of dung and set out flowers that seduced a riot of rare songbirds.
Djola donned a silver-mesh blindfold and headed for the festival plaza in front of the temple built into Ice Mountain. He tapped counterpoint to the hummingbirds with a blind-man staff. Cheerful cooks offered him fragrant honey cakes. Warrior-acolytes guarding the citadel’s Dream Gates laughed at an unarmed, disabled supplicant. They assumed he’d arrived early to be nearest the water altars.
“Hope to catch a wayward miracle, do you?” one sneered and let him pass.
Sweating and muttering in character, Djola picked his way around clay cottages perched atop underground streams. Holy men stayed cool even with hundreds of lamps burning. Transgressors provided a steady supply of tree oil, wild goat, and ice from the mountain. Northlanders brought books, maps, and tapestry from across the world. Barbarian thief-lords offered children to bed. The holy men had no complaints.
Blindfolded, Djola was not distracted by luxury or other power-spells. Passing through the frosty metalwork of Hezram’s Dream Gates, his skin prickled at cold conjure. He zigzagged over the stone altar square to the sundial courtyard. Lines of crystals marked the sun’s transit across the sky. Whether Djola could see them or not, rainbow spirits from the crystals danced across his white robes. They were tricksters, playful one moment, deadly another. Djola’s heart thundered in his ears as he praised the crossroads gods and strode over sharp facets poking his boots.
Nestled below jagged cliffs just beyond Rainbow Square was the only temple to the supreme god and his gang of minions outside of Arkhys City. This spirit house guarded the mouth of the Amethyst River. Water for all green lands in this region flowed a thousand leagues from Ice Mountain to the Salty Sea—a perfect site for reckoning fire.
The stench of boiling blood and oil hung in the air. How did anybody get used to that? Tapping a crossover rhythm on the bottom step to the temple, a call to death and new life, he proclaimed, “I will bring your spirit hall down. Come to the sundial courtyard and witness defeat.” He loosed a stiff wind to carry his words and awaken Hezram, once a carnival witchdoctor of dreams, now risen to high priest of Ice Mountain and, according to Grain’s last letter, a candidate for Azizi’s Council. Hezram had risen as far as Djola had fallen. Everyone in the city awakened to Djola’s words echoing in the streets. Nobody believed their ears. Only a man wishing death would wield a weapon or weapon-spell inside the citadel’s Dream Gates. Unafraid, folks abandoned cool cellars to go witness the miracle of god striking down foolishness.
Djola waited patiently for his audience who no doubt saw themselves as good citizens of the Empire. Few men were evil in their own minds, but Djola saw Holy City dwellers as bloodsucking demons destroying green lands. He savored their last breaths. The terror he was about to unleash would force everyone in the Empire and beyond to heed his words and change.
As feet stampeded through the Dream Gates, Djola called up an image of the spirit house in his mind’s eye. Cathedral tree columns rose five hundred feet, anchoring glass walls and forming archways to the glory of the supreme god. The skulls of martyred saints leered at him from massive porticos. The flags of rich merchants and thief-lords fluttered on iron spires. Water rumbled through culverts and dams to the Amethyst River. The teeth of supposed traitors rattled in glass jars. Djola’s teeth could have been there. Tree oil and transgressor blood bubbled and coagulated in iron pots—food for power-spells and dream conjure.