Abengoni

by Charles R. Saunders

  2

  The old Gebbi Zimballa Palace had been erected during the reign of Emperor Dardar Birhi, the monarch who had begun Khambawe’s transition from a modest seaside fishing town to its eventual status as the Jewel City of the Matile Mala Empire. With the passage of centuries, its splendor had diminished, and the efforts of even the finest painters and stonemasons could not forestall its eventual decline. Long ago, the Emperors had moved their residence to the newer Gebbi Senafa, which was located closer to the city. Yet the people of Khambawe did not demolish the old building, out of respect for its importance to their history. They continued to maintain the edifice, although it was seldom visited by anyone other than scholars who made use of the library still located within its walls.

  Now, in Khambawe’s time of peril, the Gebbi Zimballa had found another purpose to serve: refuge.

  Inside the old palace, the Emperor and Issa tried to make themselves comfortable in the chamber that had been hastily prepared for them. According to the history woven into faded tapestries and preserved in leather-bound tomes that few other than the most dedicated historians had reason to peruse, the chamber had once served as the throne room of Emperor Dardar Birhi. When he was a child, Alemeyu had been an avid reader of those ancient volumes, and he remembered now that the territory Birhi had ruled was about the same size as his own diminished empire. The irony inherent in that similitude was not lost on Alemeyu.

  Both the Emperor and Issa left their steaming cups of kef untouched on a golden tray. Food and drink were not their primary concerns now.

  Still clad in the armor of Issuri, Alemeyu sat on a throne of granite worn smooth by many the generations of previous monarchs that had used it. The royal seat in the Gebbi Zimballa was far less imposing than the Lion Throne in its successor palace. The carvings on its back and sides were barely visible. They represented the triumphs of Khambawe’s earliest rulers over their rivals in other cities. Many years had passed since the last time an Emperor had sat on this throne. On its arms, Alemeyu could see traces of dust his retainers had left behind in their rush to make the long-disused chamber ready for him.

  The Emperor had not reprimanded them for their neglect. This night was no time for formalities or protocol. He had already decided that he would not abandon the seat of his distant ancestors if Khambawe fell this night. In Birhi’s time, the Zimballa had been as much a fortress as it was a palace. And in this old fortress, the last of the Matile Mala Emperors would live ... or die.

  There was only one throne in the Gebbi Zimballa. For that reason, Issa sat on the topmost of the seven steps that led to the dais on which the throne was mounted. On those steps were carvings that, like the ones on the chair itself, had been diminished by time to mere scratches in the stone. Issa paid scant heed to the record of history upon which she rested. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, which she had pulled close to her chest. Her eyes were drawn to the shadows cast by the torches that were the only illumination in the chamber.

  The few furnishings left in the throne room were familiar enough, despite their great age. But the shadows they cast seemed somehow sinister, like hands with grasping fingers pressed against the wall.

  Makah, the Emperor’s cheetah, lay curled like a house cat at Issa’s side. The cheetah’s eyes stared unblinking at the entrance to the chamber. If the spotted cat saw the shadows, it paid no heed to them.

  With a slight shudder, Issa looked away from the shadows. She and the Emperor were alone in the old throne room. A retinue of soldiers was posted outside the door, and throughout the rest of the old palace as well. They, as well as the Emperor and Issa, knew if they were forced to fight here, it was likely to be their last battle.

  Issa looked up at Alemeyu. The firelight cast no shadows on his gold-chased armor. Instead, the muted illumination rendered to him a radiance that she would, at another, less-fraught time, have admired. However, that luminescence did not reach his eyes.

  Alemeyu was staring beyond Issa, and beyond the shadowy walls of the throne chamber. He could have been looking into the future or, perhaps, the past. Or he might have been looking into himself.

  Whatever the Emperor was seeing, it displeased him. Beneath the golden helmet that crowned his head, Alemeyu’s brows were knotted in a frown.

  “I wish we had more news,” Issa said, for not other reason than to break a silence she was beginning to find oppressive.

  Her voice caused Alemeyu’s head to snap forward, then back, as though he had suddenly awakened from a deep slumber. His brow smoothed, and his mouth turned upward in a fleeting smile.

  “Considering what we have heard so far, I’m surprised you would say that,” he told her.

  That comment brought a smile in return from Issa – also fleeting. At the beginning of the invasion, a succession of runners had come from the city. The descriptions of defeat and destruction they brought with them fell like stones in Issa’s heart, as well as Alemeyu’s. Then the messengers stopped arriving. And that, in itself, bore a meaning that was ominous.

  It was Alemeyu’s brief smile, along with the tension that accompanied their long wait, that then caused Issa to say words she never imagined would ever spill out of her mouth ... words she had never wanted anyone – including herself – to hear, despite the truth in them.

  “Alemeyu,” she said. “I am sorry I could not give you – and the Empire – an heir.”

  The Emperor looked at her in silence for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. As she returned his gaze, Issa was reminded of the day they had wed – an elaborate ceremony attended by the Degen and Imba Jassi, with Jass Gebrem pronouncing the ritual words that bound them to each other until she or the Emperor died, or one of them put the other aside.

  Alemeyu had put three previous wives aside because they had not been able to continue the line of Issuri. Issa’s predecessors had been well compensated, but they lived in tacit, unofficial exile from the Degen Jassi. They no longer even resided in Khambawe. Their continued presence in the court and the city would have been an affront to the Emperor’s current consort, and an embarrassment to him.

  On the day they were wed, Issa had vowed that such a fate would never be hers. I will bear him a child, she told herself fiercely. I will ....

  But as the years passed, no heir was born. And before the Fidi came, before the Uloans came, she had known that before long, the Emperor would put her, too, aside.

  Then Alemeyu spoke.

  “The fault for that is not yours, Issa,” he said. “It is mine.”

  3

  As the voice that guided them had instructed, the Uloans halted well out of the view of any watchers on the walls of the Gebbi Zimballa. Without torches, and clad for the most part only in their dark, spider-scarred skin or, in the case of the jhumbis, smooth clay, they were invisible to all but the keenest eye. And the sounds of their leaders’ murmured conversations did not carry to the ears of the palace’s defenders.

  The invaders listened closely to their guide. Then they fell silent ... and waited. A few moments later, the dark mass of the Uloans wavered subtly, like a shimmer of heat on a plain at the height of the dry season. And then they moved forward, making no attempt to conceal themselves.

  They marched quickly across the remaining stretch of ground, making no sound other than the soft crunch of their feet against the flowers. Anyone watching from the ramparts could have seen them. And many of the soldiers whose sole duty was to defend the Emperor and Issa were gazing directly at the invaders coming toward the old palace. Yet they saw nothing ... heard nothing.

  The walls of the palace were riddled with pits and cracks ... easy hand- and foot-holds for a determined climber. And the Uloan invaders were nothing if not determined. Like a swarm of spiders, they scaled the palace’s exterior. They left the jhumbis behind. But the walking dead would soon have their own part to play.

  Only when the Uloans made their way over the ramparts did the soldiers finally become aware of their presence, as t
he air shimmered again. A moment later, the dumbfounded Matile found themselves facing a nightmarish horde of spider-scarred, wild-eyed invaders. For a moment, they were startled into immobility. And their recovery came much too late.

  The Uloans drove their swords deep into the bodies of their foes, punching their weapons’ points through leather armor and piercing hearts and entrails. Screams of agony shattered the silence of the palace, which was suddenly no longer so far removed from the slaughter that was occurring in the city.

  Once the initial shock of the Uloans’ sudden onslaught – as though they had materialized from the night itself – passed, the Matile soldiers retaliated, hacking and slashing in a frenzy of hatred and fear. Light from the Moon Stars reflected from spatters of blood and glinted in the glaze of dead men’s wide-open eyes.

  For all its desperate heroism, the Matiles’ resistance had no chance for success. The first surge of the Uloans’ onslaught had decimated the ranks of the defenders. And their abrupt appearance, seemingly out of nowhere, had left the soldiers confused and disoriented, even as they fought grimly and hopelessly for their lives, as well as those of their rulers.

  In the midst of the unequal battle, several of the invaders broke away and cut down the Matile who were guarding the gates to the palace. Some of the Uloans died before their grisly task was completed. But those who lived were sufficient in number to pull the gates open, allowing the jhumbis to lumber inside.

  Only then did the Uloans raise their triumphal cry: “Retribution Time!”

  And, as the islanders mercilessly drove the remaining defenders away from the walls, shadows followed them.

  4

  Issa blinked, unsure that she had heard Alemeyu correctly. She realized that she had. But she still couldn’t believe that the Emperor would ever have made such an admission.

  “Alemeyu, you don’t have to ...”

  The Emperor held up a hand to forestall her.

  “There is nothing else to say,” Alemeyu told her. “I have always known that I am the reason I have never sired a child with you, or any of the others.”

  Issa did not know how to respond to that admission. She looked at Alemeyu as though she had never seen him before. In his eyes, she could see the shadows of dead dreams and many years of self-recrimination.

  “I know what others say about me beyond my presence,” Alemeyu continued. “My ears are everywhere.”

  “I never spoke of the problem to anyone,” Issa said, still looking directly into Alemeyu’s eyes.

  “But you knew the truth, just the same.”

  Issa dropped her gaze.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged. “I knew.”

  After a moment of silence, Alemeyu spoke again.

  “I would have put you aside once the talk became more than mere whispers that only the walls could hear,” he said.

  Issa looked at him again, and a sharp retort sprang into her mind. Before she could give it voice, Alemeyu continued.

  “It would have been for the good of the Empire,” he said.

  Issa’s spark of anger faded as quickly as it had ignited, for she knew Alemeyu was only speaking the truth.

  “For the good of the Empire,” she repeated dully, dutifully.

  The Emperor rose from his throne then. He reached down, clasped both of Issa’s hands in his, and gently raised her to her feet. As he looked into her eyes, she could see that for a moment at least, that shadows that haunted him were gone.

  “Issa,” he said softly. “No matter what happens now, I will never put you aside.”

  Unshed tears stung the corners of Issa’s eyes as she smiled and squeezed Alemeyu’s hands. She opened her mouth to speak – but a sudden yowl from Makah stopped her.

  The hair around the cheetah’s neck and shoulders bristled like a ruff. The great cat was still staring at the open entrance to the throne room. The soldiers who stood on guard did not appear to notice whatever it was that had disturbed Makah. A moment later, the cheetah bolted from the throne room. And a moment after that, a sudden commotion of battle reached the ears of Alemeyu and Issa.

  The Emperor let go of Issa’s hands and called to the guards at the entrance.

  “What is going on out there?” he demanded.

  Amid the patter of rushing footsteps, one of the guards entered the chamber. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to compose his face into a mask that would hide his fear.

  “The Uloans are here, Mesfin,” he said.

  Alemeyu and Issa looked at each other. The shadows had returned to his eyes, and hers as well. Then the Emperor drew the Sword of Issuri from its gilded scabbard.

  “Stand behind me,” he told Issa.

  Then he turned to face the entrance, swordhilt gripped tightly in both hands, even as the guards moved into a defensive formation and the sounds of fighting drew nearer to their door.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Almovaar Comes

  1

  The Beit Amiya was dark and silent. No Vessels stood before the unheeding images of the Jagasti. Instead, in front of each statue, an Amiya’s mask lay face-down – a clear, if unspoken, reproach.

  The Matile Mara Empire had been forsaken by its deities at a time when its people needed them most. No longer would the Amiyas be Vessels for the ashuma that had been passed down to them by the Jagasti since the day Etiya sang. The Vessels were now empty, waiting to be filled with the spiritual essence of a new deity.

  In a courtyard outside the abandoned Beit Amiya, the Vessels gathered around the Seer Kyroun and Jass Gebrem. With the Vessels were the Almovaad Acolytes and Adepts: the Believers who had followed their Seer across the vastness of Cym Dinath and through the Sea of Storms. Now the new home that had been promised for the end of their long, dangerous journey was going up in flames. They could see long tongues of fire licking at the sky beyond them; they could hear the bizarre war-cries of the invaders and the hopeless wails of their victims; they could hear the crackling of flames and the occasional roar of collapsing buildings.

  Yet their faith in Almovaar remained unshaken. And they were prepared to pass that faith – and its concomitant power and blessings – on to the Matile.

  The Almovaads and the Matile sat on the ground in a wide circle that surrounded Kyroun and Gebrem. The two spiritual leaders were also seated. Gebrem’s abi lay in front of them on the sward of clipped grass that stretched away like a dark-green lagoon.

  “Almovaar will aid us this night,” Kyroun said.

  His comments were addressed to the Matile, not the Believers, who already knew what their Seer was going to say and do.

  “But you must help me to summon him,” Kyroun continued. “And to do that you must vow, for now hereafter, to serve Almovaar alone, and no other god or goddess of any kind.”

  “Be it so,” the Almovaads said in unison.

  Kyroun turned deferentially to Gebrem.

  “The choice is yours,” the Seer said. “And there is not much time left to make your decision.”

  From her place in the circle, Tiyana looked at her father. She knew him well enough to see what the others could not: his anguish; his deep humiliation. Gebrem had wielded most of the scant ashuma that remained to the Matile, and done so with all his faith in the Jagasti and the Empire, and to the best of his not-inconsiderable ability. And now even that tantalizing remnant of the power of ashuma was gone, as if it had never existed, as if it had never enabled the Matile to rule half a continent and sail across the world, as if the Matile were no better than the Thabas who lurked in their hills to the south ....

  Now Khambawe, the Jewel City, was about to be incinerated.

  Tiyana caught Gebrem’s eye. Her father returned her searching gaze for a long moment, communicating a great deal to her without any necessity for words. Then he looked away.

  “Be it so,” Gebrem said quietly, echoing the words of the Believers, to whom he had now committed himself and the Amiyas.

  Tiyana winced inwardly. She knew how much it cost her father
to say those words. And she knew how much it cost her and the other Amiyas, for Gebrem was speaking for all of them as well as himself. He had previously discussed the matter with the Vessels, and they had all agreed that the Fidis’ god should be given the opportunity to save the Matile.

  Kyroun gave Gebrem a slight bow of acknowledgement.

  Then he said: “Now we begin.”

  2

  The masks in the Beit Amiya did not remain in their places for long. Dark, furtive figures scuttled from the shadows that dominated the main chamber. Quick hands seized the Jagastis’ masks and stuffed them unceremoniously into sacks.

  Kalisha glanced at the other shamashas who, like her, were fronting for tsotsi sets. Once it became clear that the Beit Amiya had been abandoned, the clandestine tsotsis had met and decided to partition the plunder the Vessels had left behind as though it no longer had any value to them. It had value to the tsotsis, though. Kalisha’s sack was loaded with fine chains of silver and gold, as well as jewels pried loose from their mountings.

  And now, the mask of Nama-kwah was hers. It rested in the sack on top of the rest of her booty.

  She looked up into the face of the goddess’s idol, half-hidden in darkness. Then she glared at a bigger, older female tsotsi whose covetous stare indicated that she might consider breaking the pact the thieves had reached. Already, avarice was undermining that agreement, and the tsotsis were beginning to dispute the ultimate distribution of their loot.

  With one hand, Kalisha clutched her sack to her chest. With the other, she reached into her waistcloth and pulled out her dagger. The other tsotsi decided she could be satisfied with the contents of her own sack after all. Kalisha was small, but she had long since established herself as a deadly foe who could not be intimidated; a person whose dagger was quick to strike and quick to draw blood.