by C. T. Rwizi
Isa smiles. This is why the herald is one of her favorite members of her father’s court. Her ability to subtly influence the minds of princes and kings while flattering their egos is matchless.
“Exactly,” Kali says. “Kola Saai is a subject prince—your subject prince, Great Elephant. He shouldn’t get to make these types of moves without your permission. I say you rein him in. Remind him that while he’s headman of his clan, you are king of the Yontai.”
“Being king is a delicate balancing act,” the king says. “The other clans let us rule over them because we respect their internal sovereignty. Every headman has the right to administer his legion as he sees fit. I can order them to march and fight for me if there is a need for it, but I cannot—I must not—tell them how to organize themselves. That is not our way.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Father.”
Isa raises her eyebrows, and next to her Suye covers her gaping mouth with a hand, her eyes wide with shock. The king might be an indulgent father, but challenging him so openly is pushing things too far.
“They let us rule because it is our divine right,” Kali continues, “and if you keep giving them leeway, they’ll abuse it until the mask-crown means nothing.”
“I think what His Highness means to say, Great Elephant,” the herald interjects, “is that you’ve been a kind and generous king thus far, and it has served you well. But now it’s time to be firm. Kola Saai’s ambitions must be curbed before drastic measures need to be taken against him.”
“I say you send a high mystic and a contingent of Jasiri to pay him a visit,” Ayo suggests. “The Spiral or the Fractal, perhaps. Ooh, maybe even the Arc. I guarantee you’ll see him fall back into line very quickly.”
This idea is so asinine Isa fails to keep her mouth shut. “Yes, Father. Behaving like a common thug will really get the headmen to respect you. And I’m sure the Shirika will just love being used as your personal goons.”
Ayo turns in his chair to face her. “That’s pretty much what they are, Isa.”
“Ayo.” The king frowns at his younger son. “You will not speak ill of the divine Shirika, understood?”
Ayo raises his palms. “My sincerest apologies; I recant my statement.” He comically addresses the richly tapestried walls of the study as though they might have ears. “The Shirika are holy and infallible, and I repent of my blasphemy.” He drops his arms, not looking penitent at all. “In any case, it’s obvious what the Crocodile is doing if you think about it.”
Isa rolls her eyes again, and Kali smiles without humor. “Then enlighten us, little brother.”
“He’s clearly preparing for a southward expansion into Umadiland,” Ayo says. “I bet he’ll raise the issue for discussion at the next Mkutano. He’s always had a stiffy for empire.”
While the king shakes his head, and the herald masks a chuckle as a cough, the crown prince glares at his younger brother. “Don’t be crass.”
“And to be honest,” Ayo goes on, “I don’t think empire is such a terrible idea.”
“Now you’re being daft,” Kali says.
“Am I? The Yontai has never been stronger. If Father took the reins of the ten legions and marched south, we could take all of Umadiland within the month. Not only would that give us control over a vital section of the World’s Artery, I’m willing to bet they’d welcome us with open arms for ridding them of their blighted warlords. Imagine the economic possibilities, the new resources to exploit. It makes complete economic sense.”
Oh, Ayo, Isa thinks. Consistently proving yourself to be nothing but a pampered prince eager to expend lives in your quest for power, with no thought for the human cost.
“The kingdom’s fine just the way it is,” the crown prince says, and Isa silently thanks the Mother for him. “We don’t need an empire. What we need is more cohesion. The headmen need to know who’s in charge, and Father needs to take a harder line with them.”
“I know one way you could do it.” When Ayo looks back at Isa with a sneer, she knows the gist of what he’s about to say. “Make the Sentinels serve for ten comets instead of six.”
“Perhaps we need not go so far,” the herald says. “The logistics alone would be a nightmare.”
But this was an indirect barb meant for Isa, so she doesn’t shy away from it. “The Sentinels are a barbaric, outmoded tradition that has no place in civilized society.” Magically binding your own citizens in obedience to the crown on pain of instant death for six years of their youth? They might as well be slaves.
Ayo scoffs and turns away from her. “Says the bored princess with no functional understanding of the real world. Good thing the kingdom will never be in your hands.”
Isa feels her blood run frigid. “And it’s just as good it won’t ever be in the hands of a covetous spare heir with a massive chip on his shoulder. Must be an awfully cold existence living under the permanent shadow of your betters.”
“They go straight for the jugular, don’t they?” Kali remarks.
“He started it,” Isa points out.
“Children . . . ,” the king cautions as Ayo turns around again, this time with his lips twisted in a snarl.
“Why are you even here, Isa? Don’t you have dresses or something to try on? Or better yet, a crocodile to consort with?”
Isa’s nails bite into her palms. I am absolutely going to kill Zenia.
The king abruptly straightens in his chair. “Heh? What’s this about consorting with a crocodile?”
Ayo’s snarl turns into a cruel smile. “He’s a Sentinel, isn’t he? Tell them, little sister. What is it about the crocodile?”
“That’s none of your business,” she says.
“Not according to what I’ve heard.”
“And what have you heard?” the king says, his worried eyes darting back and forth between Ayo and Isa.
Ayo turns to his father, looking smug and triumphant. “I’ve heard we might have bride-price negotiations to prepare for in the near future.”
“With a crocodile?” The king and the crown prince both look at Isa like they just found out she’s contracted a particularly disgusting, virulent plague. The herald, on the other hand, looks at Isa like she already knew and the knowledge amuses her. Isa squirms in her seat next to Suye and says nothing, suddenly regretting her choice of hideout.
“A Sentinel?” Kali demands. “Who is it? I’d like to have a word with him.”
Isa thanks the Mother when a guard in the crisp blue tunic and aerosteel armor pieces of the Saire Royal Guard enters the study and executes a bow. “Great Elephant, His Worship the Arc is here to see you.”
“And not a moment too soon.” The king sighs. “Go ahead and show him in.” Sitting back in his chair like he’s weary, he shakes his head. “Perhaps a visit with the Sibyl Underground is long overdue, otherwise I swear by the Mother you children will send me to an early grave. Herald, we will continue this discussion at dinner tonight. As for you, my deeply troublesome progeny”—he wags a finger at Ayo and Isa—“I will want an explanation about this crocodile business.”
Kali scowls and folds his arms. “And so will I, quite frankly.”
On their way out of the study, Isa gives Ayo the evil eye, which only makes him smirk. “I swear I will get you for this,” she whispers to him. “Don’t forget I know your secrets too.”
“I’m quaking in my boots,” he says before walking off with Kali and the herald, leaving Isa in the glazed rotunda with Suye and the silent pair of guards.
She glares at their retreating backs until she sees them stopping to bow to a tall figure walking toward the study with the same guard who announced his arrival. Long, layered crimson robes hang from his lean frame, and a moongold half mask covers the left side of his face, though it isn’t enough to dim the brightness of his deep-set eyes.
The high mystics of the Shirika have always frightened Isa with their power, this one in particular. Before he comes close enough that they have to acknowledge him, Isa
grabs Suye’s hand and drags her out of the rotunda, praying to the moon that they don’t run into her mother.
16: Musalodi
Khaya-Siningwe—Yerezi Plains
In the depths of an insensate slumber, Salo watches as a witchwood blade thrusts repeatedly into soft flesh, coating itself with red, violent slickness and flinging drops of it into the air. The blade thrusts and thrusts, and the blood falls like rain, until he, like the blade, is drenched to the bone. All the while, a feline shadow watches from a corner.
Help me; stop the pain, a voice says.
She was to be my last chance, says another. Now, my hope is with you. Find me. Remember.
Nimara wakes him up when she knocks once on his door and enters, bearing yet another wooden tray with gourds of acrid tonics and broths. Salo shifts on the bed, propping his back against a mountain of downy pillows and doing his best to shake off the nightmare. Since he awakened, his dreams have acquired a particularly vicious lucidness, and it’s a struggle not to let them eat away at his sanity.
A pungent smell wafts from the tray, and he tries not to grimace. Nimara has been taking good care of him ever since they fished his mangled body out of the lake over a week ago and delivered him to the bonehouse. Despite the excellent care, she’s been merciless about keeping him on a strict diet of slop so bitter he’s probably gained permanent wrinkles just from frowning at it.
And judging by the smell alone, the slop she’s come with now doesn’t bode well for his future.
She smirks when she notices his expression. “Yes, you’re going to eat every last drop. No negotiations.”
“But I said nothing,” he complains.
“Your face said everything.” She sets the tray on the little table beside his bed and lowers herself onto a chair. She’s smiling, though her expression is worn around the edges. “By the way, I bring news. An emissary of the queen will be visiting tomorrow.”
The windows in the room are yellow stained glass, so there’s always a sunset glow refracting onto the polished floor and the bare drystone walls. Salo thinks it’s early afternoon outside, though after several days of mandatory bed rest, time no longer seems to make a difference to him.
“You’re worried,” he says, studying Nimara’s face in the room’s gold-filtered light. “Why?”
Her eyes glimmer anxiously at him. “I happen to know that this particular emissary is the one the queen sends to deliver bad news.”
“Huh,” Salo says. Bad news from the queen. What might it be? If you succeed, she said to him on the night of his awakening, you’ll be more useful to the Plains than any clan mystic could ever be. Now that Salo has had time to think about it, he sees plainly what she was really telling him: There’s a price you’ll pay for this, and I will come to collect.
“I guess I’m about to learn what Her Majesty has in store for me,” he says. “Whatever it is, at least I’ll be finally getting the devil off this bed.”
A sketch pad sits on the bedside table, with strings of cipher prose scribbled all over its front page. He picks it up, along with the pencil on top of it, and tries to continue where he left off, but there’s a traitorous tremor now pestering his hands.
“I don’t like this,” Nimara says, watching him. “Your awakening shouldn’t be used to extort favors from you. And you’re definitely not ready to leave the bonehouse. You were a lump of blood and guts not a quarter moon ago.”
“I look fine, considering, don’t you think?” Salo points to his chest, where not even a scratch remains of his encounter with the redhawk. “I feel fine too.” At least he sort of feels fine, but she doesn’t need to know this.
Nimara seems troubled as she regards his chest. “Looks can be deceiving. I mean, I might be a competent healer, but your recovery has been a little too miraculous for my liking. There could be complications we haven’t detected yet.”
“Maybe, but nothing good can come from worrying about things we can’t control.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Have you seen Niko lately?” Salo says, changing the subject. He hasn’t seen the ranger once since awakening, though Niko was supposedly here every day when he was still unconscious. Aaku Malusi, on the other hand, visits once a day; Ama Lira, Salo’s stepmother, has visited a few times; and VaSiningwe came by just once, though he didn’t stay long and spoke barely ten words.
“He’s . . . been on patrol duty this whole week,” Nimara says, fidgeting with her steel bangles. “I’m sure he’ll drop by as soon as he can.”
“Right.”
“What are you working on?”
Salo looks down at his sketch pad with a self-mocking smile. “Oh, this? Nothing interesting. I’m trying to design my first spell.”
A smirk touches her lips, and she peers at the sketch pad. “And how’s that working for you?”
“Not well, to be honest. Take a look.”
She is warily amused as he places the pencil on his lap and stretches out his hands, palms facing each other. The moon might be far off in the heavens, but he now understands, in a way he couldn’t have before, that its reach is boundless; he could be anywhere in the universe, and his shards could still drink from its reservoir.
As his shards come alive on his arms, pulsing with raw essence, he begins to feel a light drizzle on his skin—no, not exactly a drizzle but an echo. No, not quite that either. He’s already drawn essence a few times before, but he still can’t compare the sensation to anything he’s ever experienced.
Like drinking liquid light. Like soaring on an electric cloud or kissing the dawn. This isn’t theory anymore, the secret fantasies of a boy who knows things he should not. This is real, powerful.
His shards begin to crackle with red sparks, but he doesn’t release the power as it is—that would accomplish nothing beyond a pretty light show. Raw essence is indefinite potential, like a piece of steel yet to be shaped by the smith’s hand. It needs an Axiom to harness it as useful energy, and then a spell to direct that energy toward a specific magical goal.
So he commands his shards to harness the essence as Storm craft. Then, using the patterns of the spell he has created and memorized, he releases the magic.
A tiny cloud forms between his palms, air condensing into liquid. Then the cloud compresses into a crystal of ice that grows outward from the center, branching off into increasingly complex arrangements. His Axiom provides the necessary Storm craft so effortlessly he suffers very little mental strain.
Too bad the spell doesn’t quite work the way he wants it to.
The yellow window beside his bed shudders ominously. With a sigh he cuts off the flow of power and watches the ice crystal fall onto his quilt, where it melts and disappears. His shards vanish back into his skin.
“This is frustrating,” he says. “At this rate it’ll be ages before I come up with something that won’t explode in my face. I need a spell book.” Only now does he look at Nimara and notice her open-mouthed stare. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says. “It’s just . . . the spell needs work, sure, but the fact that you’re making windows shake with one ring . . . how are you doing it? I thought any kind of Storm craft required at least two rings.”
He smiles, relaxing into his pillows. “It’s what I was telling you the other day. A well-built Axiom will stretch every ounce of essence as far as it can go.”
“Huh,” Nimara says, a thoughtful look in her eye. “So how does it feel?”
How does it feel to see? is what she’s really asking. To have power coursing through your veins?
Salo flicks his tongue in the gap between his teeth, the right words eluding him. “It’s . . . magical. I don’t know how else to describe it. And the strangest thing is, I feel some kind of . . . block on my shards.”
“A block?” she repeats, her forehead creasing with concern.
“Right now they only respond to Storm craft, but I know I should be able to do more because of the way my Axiom is built. Something is blockin
g my access to the other crafts, and I’m not sure what it is.”
“I told you your recovery was too miraculous,” she says gravely. “This is probably a side effect.”
Salo shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Call it a hunch.”
“Meditation might help,” she says.
“Mm. You know what else would help? If I got my hands on, say, a spell book, maybe that would speed up my recovery.”
She smiles like she can see right through him. “I wasn’t aware learning spells had curative effects.”
“Please, Nimara,” he begs. “I need to start building my repertoire, and right now I have nothing that actually works. There aren’t any spell books in the kraal; I know because I checked. But I can’t be expected to design everything for myself, can I? I’d never get anything done.”
She bites her lower lip in thought. Finally her eyes twinkle, and she reaches for the bowl on the tray. “Tell you what—if you eat your lunch without a fuss, I’ll ask a friend of mine at the Queen’s Kraal and see if she can’t send a falcon over with a spell book or two. Storm craft, is it?”
Salo forces himself to smother his resentment and accept the bowl. “Fine. But just so you know—”
“I said no fuss.”
He keeps quiet and scoops up broth with a spoon, failing not to grimace as he slips the concoction into his mouth. The taste is so harrowing it almost brings tears to his eyes.
She laughs. “Oh, Salo, you make this too much fun.”
“Glad you’re enjoying my misery.”
“Maybe just a little,” she admits. “But as much as I would love to keep watching, you’re not my only patient.”
“What a pity,” Salo quips.
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” She gets up from her chair and makes to leave, but at the door she pauses, looking sideways at him. “Salo, I probably shouldn’t ask, but . . .”
“But?” he prompts her when her voice trails off.
“What happened when you were under? I mean, you were down there for a long time. What did you see?”