Djola poured water in his cup. “Cheap like a poison oasis in the desert.”
Water stiffened. He’d stab Djola in the back if he could. “Speak plainly.”
“That wasn’t plain enough for you?” Djola downed his cup in one gulp.
“How much spirit debt for a Dream Gate?” Books and Bones worried waist beads.
“Only the conjurer of the gates incurs a debt.” High priest Ernold squirmed in his chair. “He’d be an honored hero-soldier sacrificed to win a war.”
“You don’t believe in spirit debt. You piss on the old religions.” Grain poked the embers. “You burn sacred cloth, cut tongues out, yet people still believe.”
“War is brutal and pointless.” Arms picked goat from his teeth. “I hate war.”
“Are you joking?” Money and Water hooted together.
“War is a joke, but peace is more entertaining.” Arms leapt in the air, twisting his hefty torso, flapping his cape like wings—an agile dancer, a formidable warrior. He landed by the goat cheese, chased rats away, and stuffed a creamy ball in his mouth. Grain smiled at his antics. Arms punched Grain’s shoulders. Flirting? They whispered to one another and laughed.
“We must be serious.” Money shoved his picked-over feast away. Water mirrored his brother’s disdain. They spoke together, an irritating habit. “War is coming.”
“May catastrophe come when I’m dead,” Books and Bones sighed. “Why struggle? What comes, comes.” Djola had hoped for the old librarian’s support, not philosophical farting and groaning. “We aren’t gods. Tomorrow belongs to them.”
“Gods don’t care about time.” Djola gripped the librarian’s ink-stained hands. “Tomorrow never comes and today belongs to us.”
“True.” Books and Bones bit his chapped lip. “And the past hasn’t gone anywhere. Still…” He’d rather be in the shelves with his books.
Djola had to keep an eye on his mood. “We count on your wisdom and insight.”
The door beside the warrior masks creaked and swung open to the Council antechamber. Yesterday this door opened on to a dim tunnel. Azizi’s guards claimed citadel rooms changed places and hallways shifted also. Djola laughed at himself for believing tall tales for a second. A simple trick to make identical rooms and fake hallways—Empire illusions.
In the antechamber, blindfolded petitioners waved scrolls and shoved each other. They were penned in by ropes and surrounded by guards. Djola gasped as half-brother Nuar barged to the front of the mob. Gray hair puffed around his blindfold. Anger was chiseled across his sharp chin and high cheekbones. Djola bristled. A home ambush had proved insufficient. Chief Nuar had come to argue with Djola in front of Azizi and Council.
The black and brown mudcloth cloak draped over Nuar’s long limbs matched stolen drapes hanging at antechamber windows. A provocation. Under the mudcloth, he wore a leather and copper-mesh tunic, outlawed Anawanama armor—another provocation. Nuar carried a sweetgrass basket with braids of green and brown bark undulating along the sides and across the top. The beautiful design irritated Djola.
“Collect petitions, then guide them out,” Arms commanded. Petitioners threw scrolls in the air. Most clattered against the walls and landed in the antechamber.
“Wait.” Djola turned to Nuar and spoke Anawanama, their mother’s tongue. “What can you say that I don’t know?” The crowd veered toward his voice, toward an echo of the ancestors. Djola flinched as they pleaded: Bad things are coming. Save us. Save me.
A few petitioners elbowed Nuar. He drove them back and boomed in Empire vernacular, “Master of Poisons, we intend to survive.” Nuar scrunched his face under the blindfold as if at a bad odor. “You feel too good about yourself”—he leaned over the ropes—“standing in the path of a deadly storm like an idiot.” Perhaps Nuar saw Djola on the annex wall watching the mob chase a wild elephant.
“I would learn the storm’s secrets,” Djola said. “Ignorance won’t save us.”
“You gave up the old ways hoping to be worthy, more than a savage.” Nuar switched to Anawanama. “Where are the women? How do you decide the world without them?” He shook his head. “You call down ruin. I should sit at the stone-wood table. The Empire has made you an enemy to yourself.” Older brother had found a good argument.
Djola sputtered, caught off guard. “Get to your petition, man.”
Nuar lifted the basket high and spoke Empire vernacular again. “I don’t bring words for Azizi and Council to dismiss. I bring the bones of my great, great, great grandchildren in a basket of the ancestors.”
Petitioners shouted curses and threats. Arms signaled an end to the audience. Nuar tossed the basket. Bouncing off the closing doors, the basket landed at Djola’s feet. Money toed a braid of green and brown bark. Djola snatched the basket up and hugged it.
Nuar was the first northern chief Djola talked to the peace fire. Nuar gave up ambushing Empire caravans for farming. Other chiefs followed his lead. Empire crops ruined the land in ten years. The soil was now unfit for basket trees. Only sweetgrass held on. If nothing was done, it would all be desert soon. Nuar came to Council to warn them, to speak for the ancestors and the unborn.
“We’d make a fortune selling sweetgrass baskets that hold ancestors and the future,” Money said. “But savages won’t sell sacred vessels.”
“Anything might be in that basket,” high priest Ernold said. “Nuar’s an old scoundrel.”
“He tells us to choose carefully or suffer high spirit debt,” Grain said.
“Jumba jabba,” Ernold muttered.
“You could sell other baskets,” Djola said, “and avoid spirit debt.”
Azizi was late. His esteemed masters argued over heroes and debts, over a glorious past and a ruined future, over untamed northlanders and rebels rioting outside the citadel. The Master of Water proposed conquering barbarians south of Holy City, but the war chests were empty. Arms wanted to collect back taxes, but who could or would pay up? Money and Water wanted to sack a floating city across the Salty Sea. They suggested masquerading as barbarians. Arms laughed. The Empire had no conjure against the superior defenses of the floating cities. The best Arms could do was send warriors to die in a futile siege.
Djola said little and listened for truth underneath their words. Hope had become a bad habit. The alternative was despair, and Samina prevented Djola from indulging in that. She’d probably encouraged Nuar to come to Council.
“Xhalan Xhala!” Djola murmured. He would bring Smokeland to the everyday, conjure truth from illusions, from possibilities and maybe-nots.
What else could he do with the bones of the future?
8
Iyalawo
“You know every other spell.” Emperor Azizi’s voice echoed from a hallway. “You must know Dream Gate conjure.”
Azizi stormed into Council followed by Kyrie, Iyalawo—wise woman—of Mount Eidhou and Samina’s older sister. The masters jumped to their feet. Azizi barely acknowledged them. He focused on Kyrie.
“You’re as bad as mobs rioting at our gates.”