Djola took perverse pleasure in this spectacle. The good citizens were primed for change. Tonight’s Council session would be better: hope was on the other side of a lethal storm.
An elephant staggered down a riverstone alley toward the citadel’s iron gates. Harassed by an angry mob, the elephant flapped her ears and trumpeted. A squall of soot and sparks chased her and had good citizens charging for cover. Djola chuckled at false bravado. The squall wound itself tight behind the elephant’s tail, twisting and sparking with a fury and then disappeared. Nobody ventured forth to take up the chase. Who could say where else a poison whirlwind might dance? Twisters vanished and the air cleared. Blue-green water sparkled beyond the docks. Djola opened his cloak. Rogue elephants and demon storms fueled his resolve. A sea breeze would cool his temper.
The elephant stomped distress, calling to family, pleading for rescue—no elephant reply, just horses and men hollering in the distance. Maybe she was the last of her clan to survive. A massive beast roaming behind the emperor’s citadel without a handler was strange. How had she gotten to the back alley? No guards raised an alarm. They were busy patrolling capital streets, quashing unrest. Djola was right to leave Samina and the children behind. Council always faced riots these days.
His heart warmed to see the wild elephant, a fellow northlander, a rebel defying the odds, making her own way. What would a simple bolt or spear do against an angry elephant or thousands of anxious citizens for that matter? The People needed vision, a map to tomorrow. Djola was the Empire’s greatest mapmaker. He stroked the spell-scrolls in his bag, years of hard work. Samina’s wisdom was there too. She would tell him to be careful, patient this evening at Council. He could do that. Soon was better than never.
The elephant shook off a cloud of dust and sparks. She wandered across the alley, her trunk writhing in front of her. The freak storms were like sandpaper. Blisters on her back glistened with blood. No longer dodging a mob or a whirlwind, she poked a jagged, broken tusk at an empty grain bin and stumbled through a dry water trough.
“Have you come to Council with a petition from the animal-people?” Djola sat down at the edge of the wrought-iron gates. “No? Well, I’ll tell them for you: disaster is upon us.”
His feet dangled between the bars. Mist condensed on coppery skin, and a sea breeze wafted through dense black hair. The weather shifted so quickly. As the sun disappeared into the Salty Sea, his eyes flickered in dwindling light. His moustache drooped and itched his lower lip. He was clean-shaven except for the mustache, a northern custom that made him look savage—or worse, like a Green Elder!—to folks in Arkhys City.
Samina urged him to grow a beard, do any masquerade that might gain access to people’s right minds. Djola refused. An itchy beard would aggravate him and impress nobody. Samina had a head for gazing at stars, navigating the seas, or reading books, not face-to-face politicking. After hearing petitions, Council would curse and argue all night. In the morning, Emperor Azizi would do nothing, and more people, animals, and grasslands would die, unless Djola forced Council to admit truth: no hope without change, no change without sacrifice.
The elephant bellowed, tears darkening the wrinkled skin around her eyes.
“I know.” He’d rather be home too, at the north edge of the Eidhou mountain range with Samina, waiting for the moon to rise over the Salty Sea, making love in the sand.
The elephant caught Djola’s scent and halted below him. She lifted her trunk, exploring his secrets. He smelled of crossroads conjure and root work, of sweet water and mint tea, of ink and musty parchment. He put his hand through the bars. The elephant got a whiff of mango and cathedral nuts and moved in close. Djola emptied the food from his bag for her. Her thin ears radiated heat as she gobbled this scant food offering. Mangos in the mountain groves were still plentiful. After the last sweet morsel, she wrapped her trunk around his hand, marking him with her scent and gathering in his. The two finger bones at the end of her hairy nostrils tickled—a tale for Tessa and Bal. His daughters loved elephants.
“Whayoa!” Emperor guards not from his loyal escort appeared at Djola’s shoulder, burly, hairy fellows with weapons ready. Southern barbarians?
“Hold.” Djola gripped their spears before they did anything foolish. The elephant trumpeted. “Run.” Djola spoke Anawanama, his mother’s tongue. The guards wouldn’t know a northern language, but the elephant might. “Leave this city while you have the chance.” The elephant raised her trunk, beckoning him to join her. “No. I must stay.”
A scrappy guard pulled his spear arm free and said, “Did a caravan lose this beast?” Djola blocked him. The elephant lumbered down a path to the foothills of Mount Eidhou. She must smell fruit trees and mountain springs. The passageway was wide enough for her, and Mountain Gates would open for an escape. Djola smiled at good decisions. The scrappy guard grimaced. “Someone has lost a fortune.”
“That’s a wild one,” Djola said.
“There aren’t any wild elephants left.” He smirked at Djola.
“Poison desert is chasing the last few into the city,” Djola declared. “A pity.”
“Why waste pity on lumbering beasts?” Nobody wanted to hear about elephants and bees dying off. Samina and Nuar were right about this. “Our children starve.”
“Zst!” The second guard hushed his comrade with a curse. A guard shouldn’t argue with a master—even a clean-shaven northlander like Djola.
“I love my children too,” Djola said, defensive. Everyone assumed northlanders sold or abandoned their daughters and sons without a thought.
The second guard managed a smile. “Petitioners are waiting.”
“Yes.” Djola watched the elephant disappear. “I make a map to tomorrow for all.”
Forest-dwelling Anawanama, desert-rogue Zamanzi, and other so-called savages north of Arkhys City had grown restless under the Empire’s fist. Djola couldn’t say or think savage without wanting to argue with the word, take it back, turn it around. Why should proud people slave and starve to feed greedy Empire citizens? Southern thief-lords around the Golden Gulf also chafed against taxes, desert winds, and the rule of law. They preferred to let the best blades claim the most riches.
Samina once saw Djola as the architect of peace, a hero who turned northern tribes and southern thief-lords into loyal subjects of Emperor Azizi. She fell in love with a master of the impossible. Everybody was ready for peace back then. Twenty years gone by and Djola’s peace had frayed with each dry riverbed and bleak harvest. Southern barbarians grew bolder, raiding Empire caravans and tree-oil strongholds. Northern tribes did the same. And now there was a plague of void-storms. Nothing to lose with death coming from every direction. Samina was right to worry.
Djola refused to scratch his hind parts, tug his mustache, and wait for someone else to act. “We save each other,” he declared.
“Is that so?” The scrappy guard drew Djola into a dark archway and blindfolded him. “Jackals roam these corridors, and hyenas. They chew traitor hearts and suck spy bones.”
“What a way to die,” the other guard groaned. “We know the safe route.”
“Safe?” Djola muttered.
They hurried through a maze of passageways back to the Council chamber, back to unsettling truth: they could all—master, thief-lord, guard, emperor, and elephant—lose everything.