Djola’s audience reached the stone altar square with a roar.
“Every midsummer, savages and fools come to curse the festival.”
“This clown is too crazy to wait for evening cool.”
“He’ll be cold as a ghost soon.”
Djola sucked up their enthusiasm for his imminent demise, removed a silver-mesh glove, and touched the bottom step to the temple with his bare left hand. He took a breath. Blindfolded, he relied on his mind’s eye to dance Xhalan Xhala and show them their future. The mob halted fifty yards from him and hushed. Even men were wary of treading on crystals in the sundial courtyard. Only priests and warhorses were so bold.
A geyser of flame as wide as the spirit house spurted beyond blue sky to the stars. A chaste fire, it did not spread to nearby trees, but whirled tight against the temple walls. With each twist and turn, it consumed a wooden portico, glass facade, or stone tower. The mob groaned.
“So much fire. Does the fool burn?”
“I don’t think so.”
Djola pulled off his blindfold. Coppery skin burnished on pirate ships was salt streaked and taut with contempt. Full lips ran red with blood. His left hand throbbed. His right eye oozed burning pus. He must look like an angry demon. Confusion and disbelief spread through the mob. The temple was now a mound of sky rocks nestled in yards of cloud-silk—toxic baubles, like in Jena City. Brutal deities were trapped in the spidery orange veins of the turquoise. Four afternoon worshippers, three miners, and two acolytes tending transgressor blood in a front chamber were vapor. Only those deep in the mountain on the other side of Hezram’s Dream Gates survived. Djola let out a breath of cold mist. He refused the hapless dead a heartbeat of regret. He hoarded regret for the deaths of his family.
“The temple didn’t burn, did it?”
Ashes fell on their heads, but the good citizens resisted the evidence of their senses.
9
Witchdoctor
High priest Hezram, frantic, blue robe tangled, head and feet bare, raced across the sundial courtyard toward the whirling poison master. Hezram swallowed pride and fell to the ground by the mound of turquoise. Dragging silky brown hair and beard in the dirt, he kissed dung-coated boots and begged for mercy.
Witchdoctors, lesser priests, and groggy acolytes surged past the water altars onto the sundial. Sumptuous yellow robes cushioned clumsy falls as they dropped down behind their leader. Citizens, northern chiefs, and barbarians seethed behind the holy men. Warriors left armor and weapons outside the Dream Gates. They looked naked and foolish. A few howled. Behind the men, women dancers and cooks in festival robes hugged each other at the edge of the plaza. The women were careful not to desecrate the stone altar square with female flesh lest they call down more catastrophe.
“Festival conjure,” Iyalawo Tembe declared. A wise woman with floating-city ancestors, she was the only woman who’d dare speak in the priestly citadel. “Nothing else burns. Impossible, a mirage, a carnival-spell.” A robust figure, Tembe’s skin was darker than Djola’s, her hair a dusky cloud with streaks of gold. She had green-flecked black eyes, like Djola. A fortress of knowledge pledged to Hezram, Tembe scowled at Djola and calmed the crowd. Those who still wanted to run from catastrophe were jammed in too tight to move.
“Don’t worry.” She spoke with a musical lilt. “The supreme god won’t turn a blind eye and abandon the faithful.”
The holy men knew better. The gods—if they existed at all—cared only for power. “Mercy! Mercy!” Hezram and his inner circle chanted, a few in barbarian languages.
“Mercy?” Djola had ancestors from north and south. Mercy rescued none of them. “What good is mercy or fickle gods or corrupt priests and lapsed Babalawos living on people’s fear?”
Several books wrapped in Lahesh metal-mesh tumbled down crumbling steps. They landed by Djola’s feet and raised a cloud of sand that stung his shins. The holy men choked on their chants as he thrust scrolls and books into the small bag slung across his shoulder. Vandana’s bag, his bag now.
“Mercy is salvation in every religion. Why steal ancient books no one can read?” Hezram gripped Djola’s thigh. “We welcome all gods in Holy City. Join us. Surely, Emperor Azizi would—”
“You’re a pampered, backwater protectorate, sacrificing children.” Djola shook Hezram off and dropped turquoise sky rocks into his bag—proof for Council. “Thief-lords pay tribute but tell you lies.”
A musician beat her talking drum to say: “Lying in the citadel means certain death.”
“You’re a stranger, from the floating cities perhaps?” Hezram glanced at the dwindling mound of turquoise and a bag no bigger than a calabash. His mustache wilted and his smile cracked. “Inside the Dream Gates, it’s suicide to lie. Weapons kill the men who wield them.”
“Yes.” Djola blinked aching eyes. Without a blindfold, he too was vulnerable to void-spells. “Barbarians and northern chiefs don’t lie inside the citadel. They say nothing. They even avoid stabbing each other on the streets of Holy City. Beyond the city, anything goes.” He dabbed his oozing eye with cloud-silk that fluttered back into the small bag of its own accord—Orca’s spell. “Who believes in mercy? Tell me you don’t worship catastrophe and power.”
“What is this conjure?” Hezram gestured at Ice Mountain. Cathedral trees shuddered down burl-mottled trunks to leagues of roots. Branches flailed in the wind.
“These steps”—Djola pointed—“they go to the peak?”
Hezram nodded. “Climbing is prayer. The mountain is the supreme god’s temple.”
“Literally.” A hairline crack zigzagged around Djola’s heart fortress. Had he gone too far? No change without risk. The mountain quaked in the aftershock of his spell. The steps were shivering, crumbling. The devastation he called up ran deep.
“I don’t understand what you’ve done.” Hezram was curious despite rage.
“I only amplify what you do. Xhalan Xhala. What everyone does…”
“Impossible. Xhalan Xhala is a Lahesh tall tale.” Hezram burnt his hand on encroaching sand. “Who are you?” Few witchdoctors or masters wielded more power than Hezram and they sat on the Emperor’s Council in Arkhys City.
“You’ve been blissfully ignorant in Holy City.” Djola barged past Hezram and addressed the crowd. “Floating cities and archipelagos refuse passage to Empire caravans and trading ships unless we hand over half the cargo at each port. Pirates steal what remains and sell our own goods back to us for profit and sport.” There had been no sport in it for him. “Spies slip into our villages, poison wells, and pollute young minds, inciting rebellion for love of this god or that delusion.” He tapped his blind-man staff against a clay urn. “War rages on every border. Tribes fight each other over goats and cheese, over stolen women and wounded pride. Over water and air … Poison desert encroaches on green lands, starving us all.”
“Poison desert?” Hezram pulled blue robes tight against his muscular physique. “Why punish Holy City for other people’s crimes?”
“You bleed even children for your power,” Djola shouted. “Children!”