by C. T. Rwizi
She bristles at the mention of Kwashe in this context. “Why would I care what he does?”
“I thought you’d want to know,” Midzi says.
“Why would I?”
“Because . . . well, I thought you two had a thing—”
“Had. Past tense. Not that it’s any of your business.” When Midzi raises his palms, looking genuinely intimidated, Ilapara realizes that she’s perhaps being unnecessarily aggressive. I am not my emotions, she tells herself, and she takes a calming breath. “Sorry. I’m a bit on edge today.”
Midzi drops his arms, offering a weary smile. “I understand. We live in rocky times. I can barely sleep most nights.”
Something she understands all too well.
She looks toward the boss’s residence, biting her lower lip. Might be her imagination, but the air feels a little too still today. And if Bloodworm is here, whatever’s going on behind that house can’t be good.
Finally she comes to a decision. “I’ll go look,” she says to Midzi and leaves her spear leaning against the gatehouse shack.
“Good luck,” he says. “Just be back before the shift change. I need to get some of that sleep I’ve been missing.”
The scene in the backyard reveals itself slowly to Ilapara.
It is a reflex she acquired under the tutelage of a beloved uncle in the open wilds of her homeland, a trained but visceral reaction to danger. Her heart beats faster, her senses sharpen, and time seems to crawl to a standstill as her mind opens to—
A backyard of barren earth, a latrine in the far corner, an outdoor cooking shed in another, thick smoke billowing from the dying fire beneath its corrugated iron roof. Not far from it, two men in hide skins beating large drums. A dozen people kneeling in a circle, heads bowed. BaMimvura, his protuberant belly hanging bare over a leopard-skin loincloth. His three wives, all bare chested and unveiled. Their children, the youngest a girl of six and the oldest a bearded young man, all with tearstained cheeks. A naked wraith standing in the center, his skin rubbed bone white with chalk, the whiteness marred only by the cosmic shards singed onto his arms, which glow crimson like lit coals, and the putrefying wound on his belly, a ghastly thing boiling with worms, pus, and foul poisons. He looms, with a bloodstained witchwood knife in one hand, over yet another kneeling figure, this one a Faraswa man with the characteristic obsidian skin and curling metal horns of his people. His face is the picture of silent agony, a river of red flowing from where his right ear has just been shorn off—
Ilapara stops next to Kwashe, a silent spectator leaning against a wall a safe distance away, watching the unfolding ritual with his arms crossed. She feels the temperature fall around her, the cold embrace of a harsh truth her mind won’t accept.
“What’s going on?” she says.
Kwashe was once a carefree young man with a quick smile, and then he went on his first tour up the Artery. Now, whenever she looks into his eyes, she sees only disillusion and anger swimming just beneath the surface.
“The boss got spooked,” he says without looking away from the spectacle. “He’s paid Bloodworm to perform a muti ritual of protection for his family.”
Ilapara feels her stomach churn as she regards the bleeding Faraswa man. “But that’s their gardener. He works here.”
“For fifteen years,” Kwashe says and lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. “Faraswa blood, and all that. And apparently the muti is stronger if there’s a bond between victim and perpetrator, so.” He shrugs again.
Inside the circle of the kneeling family, standing over the victim, Bloodworm’s bony figure sways, trancelike, to the beat of the drums. He is a disciple of the Cataract, the judge and executioner presiding over Kageru in the warlord’s name, and is feared by all for his terrible powers over blood and flesh. Even now Ilapara sees trickles of his victim’s blood—blood that had fallen to the earth—crawling up his legs and thighs like living worms, converging upon the putrid gash on his belly and feeding the poisons brewing there.
He reaches down from behind and cups his docile victim’s chin, his manic, bloodshot eyes staring into the east, where the moon will rise in a few hours. “By the power of the Great Woman of the Skies,” he shouts in a voice that makes Ilapara shiver, “she who sits upon a throne of blood, we summon you, our ancestors from the Infinite Path, so that you may hear our pleas.”
And with a quick motion of the witchwood knife, Bloodworm severs the gardener’s other ear.
“I can’t watch this.” Ilapara turns away in horror, gouged to the depths of her soul.
But Kwashe’s arm shoots out to grab her, his nails digging painfully into the skin beneath her crimson robe. “Don’t you dare turn away.”
She wrests her arm back, tears flinging from her eyes. “Why the devil not?”
His gaze is cold and without mercy, just like his voice. This is not the Kwashe she once knew, the optimist who was always ready to tell a joke; this is a hollow stranger in his body. “That poor man is being tortured to death for the simple crime of being what he is. The least we can do is bear witness. Let his death torment us, drive us to madness if need be. The Blood Woman knows we deserve worse.” He looks back at the ritual, eyes hard as stones. “We chose to work for this man.”
“No.” Ilapara shakes her head vigorously as if to cast the words out of her mind. “I never chose this.”
“But you knew what he was, didn’t you?” Kwashe says. “We all did. And yet here we are, like tsetse to a festering wound. Collecting debts for him, protecting his properties, running his errands. We’re no different from him, Ilira. We might even be worse.”
Kwashe isn’t holding her anymore, but his words keep Ilapara rooted to the ground. She’d like nothing more than to tell him he’s wrong, that she’s played no part in this atrocity, but she knew going in what kind of man BaMimvura was.
She’d heard the rumors of muti killings. They are not strictly uncommon in Umadiland, despite those who practice them being universally hated and reviled, and there were whispers that BaMimvura was one such individual. But she closed her ears to such talk because she needed coin and a job.
Kwashe is right, she realizes. I deserve to watch every second of that man’s death. But when Bloodworm reaches into the gardener’s compliant mouth and begins to cut out his tongue, she averts her gaze for the last time.
“I have gate duty,” she says and can’t walk away fast enough.
3: Musalodi
Khaya-Siningwe—Yerezi Plains
Salo and Nimara walk past the kraal’s grammar school on their way to his workshop. Several girls in colorful beads and skirts are sitting on reed mats along the school’s polished veranda, frowning in concentration at the chalky slates in their hands while a heavily pregnant woman watches with hawkeyed attention.
Both Salo and Nimara wave at her; she smiles and waves back, her copper bangles shimmering reflectively.
“Hello, Ama,” he says and smirks at the girls. “A numbers test, I presume? And I’m guessing you didn’t warn them.”
“They are girls,” Ama Lira says unapologetically. “Their minds should be quick, and they should know to be always prepared.”
Ama Lira is the chief’s wife and Salo’s stepmother. She is also one of the grammar school’s teachers, with a reputation for testing her students frequently and often without prior notice.
“Go easy on them, Ama Lira,” Nimara suggests with a wistful smile. “I remember how much I hated surprise exams.”
The girls mumble in agreement, prompting Ama Lira to shake her head at them with both hands on her waist. “Listen to these children. They want things to be easy when they should be begging me to make them harder.”
Her students complain in unison.
“We are not playing games here,” Ama Lira says. “When Nimara awakens, she’ll need Asazi to work with her. But the girls of this clan have lagged behind for too long. You need to be whipped into shape! Now get back to it before I deduct another five minutes from your time.
”
The girls return to their slates with muted grumbles, and next to Salo, Nimara’s smile becomes fixed. “Good luck!” she says. “And don’t be nervous.”
When they have walked out of earshot, Salo studies the side of her face. “Are you okay?”
She doesn’t look at him. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“If you say so,” Salo says, deciding not to pry.
The thing about Nimara is that she’s practically the only woman in the entire clan still willing to serve in an arcane capacity. In fact, Clan Siningwe hasn’t known a mystic in over ten comets.
It is whispered that the last AmaSiningwe cast a curse on the clan before her death, ensuring that any woman who attempted to succeed her would suffer an untimely end. Salo isn’t sure he believes this, but a succession of Siningwe women did die at their awakening ceremonies, either accidentally or by the redhawks they had summoned.
The queen was forced to step in so the clan wouldn’t remain defenseless, but even she wouldn’t go further than blessing Nimara and the clan’s Ajaha with her power. She rarely sets foot anywhere near the kraal.
And so, as the first woman in years willing to take her chances and prove the curse a myth, Nimara has become the clan’s best and only hope for a clan mystic. So far she’s done a fine job of it, but these days her smiles don’t come as quickly, and they rarely reach her eyes. A restless energy lingers about her all the time, like she’ll explode if she sits still even for a moment. She hasn’t complained to him about it, but he can sense her unease. Everyone is looking at her, waiting, expecting, and it’s slowly eating at her.
He might have pitied her were she not the most capable person he knows.
The workshop is a lonely drystone shed built within a copse of gum trees at the end of a gravel road, just a stone’s throw away from the kraal’s northern wall. Practically as far from the gates as is possible to go inside the kraal, and since there’s not much else in its vicinity, few people are ever tempted to visit.
Salo likes it that way.
The interior smells of metal and grease. Arrays of tool kits and disassembled rotary machines overrun the tabletops. They find Aaku Malusi dozing with his feet up on one of the worktables, looking mere seconds away from falling off his chair. He jerks as the door creaks on its hinges behind Nimara, which makes her freeze in place. But somehow he keeps defying gravity and starts snoring again a moment later.
“How does he do that?” Nimara asks, still frozen by the threshold.
“Practice.” Salo shakes his head with pity. “I better get him out of here.” He quietly approaches the sleeping man, grimacing as the stench of musuku wine surrounds him like a cloud. He’s relieved to see the man wearing a loincloth beneath the gray fleece blanket swathing his torso. “Thank Ama for small mercies. At least he’s not naked today.”
While Nimara tries not to laugh, Salo gently shakes him awake. “You must go to your hut, Aaku. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
Aaku Malusi squints as his eyes flutter open. “Musalodi?” His voice is harsh and croaky. “What time is it?”
“It’s past noon, Aaku.”
He scratches the bristles on his gaunt cheeks and frowns like there’s a bad taste in his mouth. “Past noon, is it? And I had so much work to do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Salo says. “I’ll take care of business here. You go get some rest.”
Aaku Malusi blinks around the workshop like he’s trying to remember how he got here. “Are you sure? I . . . don’t want to burden you with too much work.”
If he’s even half as confused as he looks, he’ll sooner break something than fix it.
“I’ll be fine,” Salo assures him. “I promise.”
A smile briefly animates his haggard face. “You’re a good boy, Salo. Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it, Aaku.”
It takes him a while, but he finally gathers enough wits together to get up on his feet. A current of anxiety runs down Salo’s back as he watches him leave.
Take a good look at him, says a cruel voice inside his head. This is what happens to men who forget their place and chase after things best left to women. Men who’ve lost the respect of their clan. Is that the future you want? Because that’s what will happen to you if you keep walking down this path.
“I see your education in letters has made you very sharp,” his uncle Aba Deitari once said to him. “But I fear you are becoming too much like a woman.” They had just finished playing several rounds of matje, all of which Salo had won effortlessly while the older man had struggled to keep up.
“You are crafty and subtle,” Aba D continued. “Your mind is like a maze; I can never tell what you’re thinking. And you care far too much about books and the mysterious ticking of machines. This is not wholesome behavior for a man.”
“I don’t see what’s so wrong with books and machines,” Salo said, trying not to shrink into himself.
“And that’s why I worry,” his uncle told him. “A man’s strength is not in letters written on a page but in his knowledge of the soil and the rivers and the lakes. It’s in his herd of cattle and the sweat of laboring in the suns; it’s in the arm that wields his spear. Leave books to women; they are creatures of the mind. You are a man and must be a creature of the flesh.”
Books for girls and spears for boys: a creed all Yerezi clans live by, with little room to wiggle. But Salo’s aago danced to the beat of her own drums, and if her grandson wanted an education, then he would get it.
And no one, not even her son, the chief, could sway her once her mind was set.
It was her tutelage in languages, scripts, and numbers that gave Salo the skills he needed to read the magical and academic tomes his mother had left behind. By the time Aago passed on two comets ago, he’d learned enough to start making a difference around the kraal, and because they desperately needed a mechanic who wasn’t an unreliable drunk, no one made too much noise when he took over much of Aaku Malusi’s duties.
The old man, meanwhile, sank deeper into a pit of loneliness and alcoholism.
“Such a shame,” Nimara remarks as they both watch him shamble down the gravel road with the aid of a staff. “He looks like he was handsome once.”
Salo turns away and walks to a wall-mounted chart listing all his unfinished projects. He was last working on repairing the desynchronized patterns of a mind stone for one of the chief’s water pumps—a project due in two days. Given how he’ll be stuck at the mill the whole day tomorrow, he doubts he’ll be able to meet that deadline.
Just what I need. More blame for someone to lay at my feet. “You said you wanted help?”
“I did.” Nimara’s shoulders are tense as she drifts past him on her way to the largest worktable in the room, leaving a whiff of her citrusy perfume hanging in the air. While Salo watches, she reaches for the spiderlike choker wrapped around her neck; it unclasps itself, and she places it on the table. That choker is actually her talisman, and he knows what she’s about to ask even before she opens her mouth with an imploring look.
“I’ve hit a wall with my Axiom, and I desperately need a pair of fresh eyes to look it over.”
I knew it. Salo immediately shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
She tries to work him with an endearing pout. “Please?”
“No, Nimara,” he says. “What I do for the clan is one thing. People might turn their noses up at me and Aaku Malusi, but they know they need us. We’re useful. But what you’re asking? It’s not just crossing the line; it’s outright sacrilege. I’m not even supposed to know about Axioms, let alone help you with yours.”
Nimara stares at him like she thinks he’s an idiot. “Everyone knows about Axioms, Salo. You’re being paranoid.”
“And you are missing the point. I’m not supposed to know enough about them to help you.”
“There’s no ban on knowing things,” Nimara argues. “And all I’m asking for is advice, nothing more. That’s not sacrilege.”
“It is. It really is. But for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s not. We still both come out looking bad.”
“Only if we tell anyone about it,” Nimara says, “which I won’t. Not that I’d be ashamed of it, by the way, because unlike you, I don’t think there’s anything shameful in asking for help from a more informed source, no matter who that source is.”
The migraine Salo felt earlier gathers force near his right temple. He pinches his eyes shut beneath his spectacles to soothe the pain, but it makes no difference. He moves to sit across from Nimara, settling down onto a high stool. “Why not consult the librarians at the Queen’s Kraal? Helping young Asazi with their Axioms is literally one of their main responsibilities.”
“Why bother?” Nimara says. “There’s an expert sitting right in front of me.”
Salo groans. “Please don’t say that.”
“I don’t need to.” She points a playful finger at the talisman curled around his left wrist. “What you’ve hidden in that little snake of yours says it all.”
He sits back, frowning. “Are you blackmailing me?”
The smile Nimara was wearing congeals on her face and then dies. “I’m asking for your help. You can always say no.” She begins to gather her things, but Salo motions for her to stop.
“Wait.” He subtly tilts his head toward the oldest cabinet in the workroom, where he keeps a particular soapstone carving hidden. “I had help, too, you know. You could have the same help if you wanted it.”
Nimara settles back down but gives him a cynical look. “You’re joking, right? That thing almost killed you. I was there. You were a mess.”
“It’s the best teacher you could ever ask for,” he says, but she shakes her head.
“Absolutely not. I know my method is slow—”
“Too slow. This clan needs a mystic yesterday.”
“—but I’ll build my Axiom the conventional way. If it takes me years, fine. When I finally earn my shards, it’ll be because I got there the right way. Not because I took shortcuts.” Salo sees a crack in Nimara’s composure, something vulnerable in her eyes. “I don’t want to mess this up, all right? Everyone’s counting on me.”