“So much water. And the bridge wobbles like a loose tooth,” Awa said. “Too risky for her.”
The poison master glared at a whirlwind of ash and sand coming their way. “More risk if we don’t cross.” He jumped down and urged the mare a step at a time to the middle of the roadway. Slow going.
Uprooted baby cathedral trees, crashing and banging like giants at play, careened around a sharp bend in the river five hundred feet from the bridge. Rubble from cottages, libraries, and granaries had gotten caught in a rush of roots and branches. The tangled mass surged forward and smashed the center piers. Books went flying and glass shattered. Branches exploded into splinters. Grain fell like rain. The bridge shuddered as if it meant to come apart. Fannie kicked the poison master’s leg. He stumbled to the edge. Gripping Fannie with her thighs, Awa leaned over and yanked the strap of his bag with her strong hand before he tumbled into the water. Horse, man, and young woman slid through mud along a gap in the railing.
“Whayoa!” The poison master spread his cape wide, catching a rush of wind and slowing them down. He hurried them away from the railing over soggy scrolls and choking fish. Shrieks made him halt and turn. “Zst!” He tugged Fannie’s halter, but she wouldn’t budge.
A ten-story tower bashed into cathedral trees wedged in the river bend. Bright faces peered from barred windows. Rich, blood-sucking southerners were weeping and wailing at the mountain gods. Feeding on tree oil and transgressor blood, they’d expected protection from catastrophe and a long, long life. They clawed at bars meant to keep danger out. Awa hated their rosy, well-fed cheeks. A boy of thirteen or fourteen bled from his eyes. Awa gritted her teeth against a thrill of pleasure. In a moment, tree trunks would snap and the tower would smash the bridge. They were all doomed. Her last thoughts should not be spite or fear.
When Zamanzi raided the crossover ceremony, Awa should have chosen warrior, like Bal, no matter the risk. Soldiers ignored the mysteries and trained to survive destruction and death. They experienced glory and love. But no matter her bad choice, Awa had puzzled impossible questions, collected life and death stories as a griot might, and smoke-walked to a seventh region of snow and ice. Drunk on Rokiat’s coconut wine, she and Meera had sworn never to leave the other alone. Even if Awa had faltered recently, she’d meant every word. That was glory and love, no matter what Meera did in return.
“You there! Help us!” Southerners shouted in the staccato tongue of barbarians. “Please, have mercy.”
Nothing to do even if Awa wanted to. Fannie was paralyzed. Heartbeats raced out of time. Tree trunks with thirty-foot diameters snapped like twigs. A servant jumped from an open balcony and got smashed by debris.
“Run!” The poison master smacked the mare’s haunches. “Run or die!”
Fannie leapt forward. Awa clung to her mane. Her heart quickened to an impossible pulse as fear flooded her despite Sprite discipline. Solid ground and stout tree trunks shimmered like a mirage. The opposite shore was too far, even at a gallop. The tower rushed for the bridge. They would need wings to escape the collision alive.
“No! Please! No!” Awa screamed with the blood-sucking southerners. “Mercy!”
The tower rammed the bridge.
14
The Amethyst River Speaks
Mercy? You have stood on my banks, oblivious. Who are any of you to ask for mercy?
I am your sweat and spit, and tears of joy, but you do not know water.
For a thousand thousand years and more, winding through rocks, slipping downhill to the Salty Sea, I cut gorges and pounded out waterfalls. I hewed these green lands from barren rock and brought mountain riches to meagre soil. This valley was my garden grove. I nourished roots, called up clouds.
The wind whispered its secrets to me. The sky rode my back, blue, green, and white froth. Falling stars cooled in my mud. The moon tugged me toward its cold bosom. I hosted rainbow spirits, brought the dead back to life, again and again.
What do you know of mercy? Do you mourn waterfalls or gorges become barren cliffs? I have drowned hopes and swallowed despair. For a thousand thousand eons, I ferried life more leagues than you can count. You say, we are all water; water is life. Empty talk.
I am three thousand leagues all at once, ocean too, reaching the floating cities and beyond. I am glaciers and steam and clouds and blood. You are fools, come and gone in a blink, stuck in one small splat of time, running in circles, ruining wherever you touch down. Your poison in my water has killed many with no return from death.
A hairy mammalian weed, why should I offer mercy to you?
You let loose a fury in my stream, breaking the pattern of my patterns, drying up my dreams. Who will hold me? What will guide me? Water is life, but what do you care that I am river no more, but a deluge, and afterward dry dead land making a lethal storm of the wind?
Mercy? Hosting this last rainbow, I—
15
Monsters
Darkness swirled behind Awa’s closed lids. The pattern of her being was faint. She might have slipped into the death lands, except irritating river talk made her heart pound, made her gasp in breath.
“Mercy is a miracle,” Awa croaked at the Amethyst River. “To give or receive…”
And who believes in miracles? The River replied.
“I should be dead, I was dead, but…” Awa’s temples throbbed with the beat of hooves on solid ground. “I’m alive again.”
Yari claimed that every moment was a gift, a miracle, yet despite dazzling experiences in Smokeland, Awa never understood miracles until now. Coming back from the dead, she found joy in needles of rain cutting her skin and in panic sweat drying under her arms. Bird shrieks from up, down, and sideways were a serenade. Crow slurry sailed past her nose and jolted her eyes open. The poison master sat behind her now, holding her up, and she was thrilled to be cradled by a monster.
“A wonder…”
The sky spun more than darkness had. She blinked a gray horizon into its rightful place. Night was coming. The sun was pink haze behind a high canopy of trees. Dry fields had given way to the foothills of the Eidhou mountain range. Cathedral trees covered every ridge. They’d traveled far. Awa must have been dead to the world for a long time.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back to yourself,” the poison master murmured, relieved.
He pulled things from her hair and tossed them to the wind before she saw what filth it was. He thought himself kind. Were all monsters deluded? He touched her withered arm with a soothing balm. She flinched all the same. Gravelly-throated crows swooped up from the valley and chattered about survivors trotting toward them.
“We’re only a few leagues ahead of good citizens who might want to stone us,” he said. “The carrion-eaters celebrate everybody’s heartbeats.” He had a smile on his tongue. “Hearty folks from Holy City ride warhorses also.”
Perhaps Meera and Rokiat had ridden impossibly far too. Awa smiled. “Miracles.”
“Yes. We’re on high ground,” he said. “Safe.”
Awa frowned. “No matter what miracle you did on the bridge, we’re not safe. Did you hear the Amethyst River? Your death-spell hounds us still.”
“Not my death-spell. The People die from their own poison.” Rage burned through his icy cloak and stung her. “Reckoning fire does not consume a good heart.”