“Do you curse a hero?” The poison master asked again, low in his chest. A threat?
“What hero?” Awa said. Was he truly deluded? “You?” She bit her tongue too late. Living in a transgressor hut, she usually sassed in her mind, keeping her spirit alive without risking her neck. Tree song made her reckless.
“Heroes are fools,” he said. “I curse them too.”
Farm laborers ran around Fannie, heading toward disaster, toward families trapped in a city turning to poison desert. The poison master warned them to turn back, but they continued going in the wrong direction. The poison master finished his song:
Lost is my art—cracked is my heart, yet—
Who knows what tree grows
I say, who knows what tree grows
In all our lost art
In the crack in my heart
The piebald crow soared and dipped in time with his melody, warning the flock. Awa wanted to urge crows to peck the poison master’s eyes or call bees to sting him.
“Green Elders say folks who curse others waste passion,” he said. “Worse, they curse themselves. Squandering heart spirit on ill will supposedly hastens death.”
“In Holy City, I never saw curses turn back on anybody, even inside Hezram’s Gates—except a weapon-spell.” Still, she’d refrained from cursing priests, Zamanzi, barbarians, Father, Mother, or brother Kenu. Conjure was a long game. Power for spells was borrowed from the same well that nourished heart spirit. Blessings might fill the well; curses drained the heart for sure. “Reckoning fire awaits conjurers who abuse borrowed power.”
“Maybe,” he growled. “How did you survive the huts without curses?”
Awa unsettled stomachs or called bees to sting bald heads, outside the Nightmare Gates. She put the vilest characters out of commission for days, provided a respite for everyone, and never killed a soul. Wielding a polyrhythm of curse and blessing, she let people poison themselves. Even stomping Jod in Rainbow Square had been self-defense, not revenge. Hopefully she hadn’t wrecked her heart spirit slaughtering so many cathedral trees.
“I poured libation to crossroads gods.” Awa lied with truth, a Holy City habit.
“Curses lurk inside you,” the poison master said, “for fathers and witchdoctors.”
“I curse nobody,” Awa said. The poison master was probably beyond her modest skill, like Hezram. “A little torment. Trickster crows are happy to oblige.”
“Good girl.” He nodded as they left grain fields behind and rode into a scrub brush wasteland. Cathedral trees hugged the riverbanks. “When I was a captive on a pirate ship, I cursed too many folks—ruined my heart.”
Awa considered him with new interest. Such a powerful medicine man had been a captive? Despite the fortress-spell, he rubbed his chest as if his heart ached for the evil he’d done. Rumbles under the roadbed interrupted her inspection. “Do you hear?” she said, a challenge as much as a question.
The poison master tensed. “The roots warn us, warn everyone.”
Trees swayed as if in the grip of a tempest. The Amethyst River twisted around a bend and swelled over its banks. Torrents of mud-brown water inundated its placid blue-green currents. Swarms of insects rushed ahead of feasting bats.
“Zst!” Awa said.
“What? Do the roots say more?”
Awa shook her head. “My friends Meera and Rokiat raced off on warhorses. I don’t know which direction they took.” She was furious with them, yet still hoped they’d made it across the city bridge. “Meera and I would have ridden off together, tomorrow.”
“What about the other transgressors tomorrow?” His anger was a smack.
How was Awa responsible for them? “We planned an escape, not a rebellion.”
“Apocalypse on our heels. We must all hurry.” Singing conjure music, he urged Fannie to a fast trot.
“Even she won’t last at this pace,” Awa said. “Flesh and blood have limits.” Escape with one rider would be faster.
This must have also occurred to the poison master. “I can’t abandon you, child. The mare loves you. A broken heart won’t take me far.”
Fannie slowed to a pace she could maintain without breaking her heart.
13
Glory and Love
A few hours of freedom and Awa’s head throbbed and her butt ached. The poison master reminded her of compelling fiends in the border-void who could unravel the best minds. Yet the headache was her own fault. She could never help thinking a knotted thing apart. This was her genius and also torment. Most Sprites played first thought against second and third thoughts and, no matter the clash and confusion, held the polyrhythm for truth. Awa never stopped at a clash of three or five or seven or … How else to survive Smokeland or a transgressor hut? She hadn’t forgotten herself after all.
Fannie hesitated, wary of sludge surging across the Empire Road. The poison master caressed her neck and ears and melded his body to hers as she scrambled into brush away from deluge. Monster and all, he was a true horseman. Awa pressed her face into his icy cape and clung to his waist, praying he wouldn’t get thrown.
“Just water,” he murmured, coaxing Fannie back to the road. “Water will save us. Water is life.” He whispered about the wonders of wetness and the miracle of muscle and bone. Was he a lapsed Elder like the traitors who helped Zamanzi raid her enclave? Or a Babalawo, a father of mysteries from the floating cities gone witchdoctor rogue? “You know water,” he said, calming even the screeching crows. “You are water.”
“We’re all water,” Awa mumbled, “still—” Too much water ripped and roared toward the narrows and the only bridge outside Holy City for leagues and leagues, a triple-arch stone structure on disputed land that nobody tended to. “We could be trapped in this valley between a flood and a deadly sandstorm.”
“I know.” The poison master didn’t seem like a suicide. This flood must be more destruction coming faster than he had expected.
Awa couldn’t really fathom what he had expected.
“Rogue impulses.” He talked to her thoughts. Hopefully he wouldn’t make that a habit.
Fannie stumbled on through refuse battering the road. Rather than worry about drowning, Awa lost herself in the polyrhythm of blood beats. The horse’s heart was a bass djembe drum, half the pace of the man’s. The crows’ treble hearts went too fast for counting. Awa’s heart played among these beats. Sprite discipline rescued her again. Still alive, why fear death and spoil your moments? They managed to reach the narrows before an exhausted mount dumped them in brush or the flood swept the road away. Awa smelled Holy City deluge gaining on them, a burnt blood and raw sewage odor. Cathedral trees bellowed as the ground quaked and tore up their roots. Across the river, the distant foothills of the Eidhou mountain range beckoned.
The Narrows Bridge was a worse wreck than Awa recalled. Abutments, piers, and arches were missing stones. Railings dangled over the side and got buffeted by debris rushing down the river. Muddy refuse skittered across the roadway. One more flood would wash this bridge away. That could happen this afternoon. Crows chattered worry and hope. Fannie took one step onto the bridge and balked.