Abengoni

by Charles R. Saunders

  Athir tensed his muscles in anticipation of instant action. Kalisha was armed; he was not. But he was a full-grown man, and she was only a girl. Surely he could overpower her, then take the mask and use it to light his way while he searched for a way out of the Underground ... and then out of the city. The dagger wasn’t even in the girl’s hand now. And his own hands were quick.

  As if she had been listening to his thoughts, Kalisha suddenly bared her dagger with a speed of hand that matched Athir’s at his best.

  “You stayin’ with me,” she said.

  Athir relaxed. Better to keep her talking, then find a way to distract her, he thought.

  “Why don’t you take off that mask,” he suggested. “It must get hard for you to breathe with it on all the time.”

  “Mask don’ want to come off,” Kalisha said.

  “How’s that?”

  “I carry Mask for long time, it don’ want me to put it on. Then one day, Mask tell me to put it on. Then it tell me where you be, and tell me to come get you. Now, I wait for Mask to tell me what to do with you.”

  “I ... see,” Athir said noncommittally.

  Inside, he shuddered.

  This girl is crazy, he thought. And the mad were the most dangerous to deal with of all, because there was no way for even the shrewdest operator to anticipate what they might do next, or why. That was the reason Athir had never stolen from anyone he suspected of insanity.

  “Do you think the mask might want you to take me out of these sewers?” Athir asked hopefully.

  “No,” Kalisha replied. “Too dangerous up there. Muvuli ...”

  “So you’re not going to take me to Jass Mofo?”

  Kalisha shook her head. The mask moved with her, as if it had become part of her body.

  “Mask want you. Forget Mofo.”

  Athir stifled a sigh of relief. Kalisha might be mad, and she was carrying a weapon. But at least he was better off with her than he would have been had he remained trussed in the alcove like a sacrificial offering. And he had shadows of his own to avoid above the Underground. If his enemies could pluck him out of the Gebbi Senafa, it might well be better for him to remain here, hopefully well beyond their reach. And, even though she was clearly deranged, at least Kalisha did not appear to want him dead. Not yet, anyway.

  Sooner or later, though, the Ship’s Rat would be free – Mask or no Mask.

  “Come,” Kalisha declared. “It better not to stay in one place too long.”

  “Truer words were never spoken,” Athir muttered as he followed the glow of the Mask into the darkness.

  3

  Sadness suffused the Empress Tiyana as she sat in the Throne Room of the Gebbi Senafa. She did not sit on the Lion Throne; she would not have the right to do so until her formal coronation ceremony. She did not look forward to that event ... or to any other. Or even to living another day with the onerous weight of the sorrow that pressed down on her like a leaden shroud.

  Instead, she sat at the bottom of the steps that led to the dais upon which the Lion Throne rested. The ancient, ornate seat loomed high above her. Its shadow penetrated beneath her skin and darkened her soul.

  She imagined that Gebrem was still sitting on the Empire’s throne. But in her mind, the image of her father became as it had been the last time she saw him, lying dead beside his overturned gharri. And she thought of the Lion Throne as a Blood Throne ...

  Tiyana shook that image from her mind as she tried to concentrate on the Degen Jassi who were coming one-by-one to affirm their fealty to her. It was a ritual that dated back to the time before the Matile built cities of stone. Was it only yesterday that Tiyana stood by Gebrem’s side while the Degen Jassi paid similar tribute to him after the death of Alemeyu?

  That recollection brought a new wave of grief, which Tiyana struggled to suppress. The time for more tears was later. But not now. Not here.

  Tiyana did not want to be Empress. Not this way. She would have preferred to be a shamasha if being so would have allowed her father and Keshu to live. But that was not to be. The Empire was in her hands now ... hands that she kept clasped tightly together, so that the Degen Jassi would not see how badly they were trembling.

  Her father ...dead.

  The man she wanted to become her husband ... dead.

  Others close to her had survived the attack. Kyroun ... her Fidi friend, Byallis ... her Matile friend, Yemeya. But the part of her that should have been grateful that they were still alive lay dormant, as though it had died along with Keshu and Gebrem. When she had more time to grieve alone, she would appreciate the good fortune of those who – including herself – had survived. Now, though, she could not.

  The voices of those who were offering their allegiance to her seemed to be coming from a great distance, at the end of a long, hollow shaft of emptiness. She could barely hear them well enough to nod her acceptance at the appropriate times. Tiyana wished she could be somewhere – anywhere – else. But she knew tradition compelled her to be where she was now. It was her duty to be there.

  She was the Empress ...

  Then, for a reason she could not have explained, her attention suddenly focused on Jass Kebessa, a minor member of the Degen Jassi to whom she had previously paid scant, if any, heed. Yet now, as he knelt on one knee before her, bowed his head, and began to recite the ritual words, Tiyana heard him clearly. The internal distance that had muffled the words of others had disappeared.

  “Mesfin, my life is yours,” Jass Kebessa intoned, as had all the others who preceded him; as would those who were behind him.

  “I pledge you my fidelity,” Jass Kebessa continued. “I will serve you and the Empire well.”

  Still on one knee, he raised his head and looked at her.

  Why are his eyes shifting, Tiyana wondered. What is the meaning of the drops of sweat standing out on his brow?

  Jass Kebessa waited for her to give the nod that would send him on his way. It was taking longer for him to receive the time-honored signal than it had for others. Stinging perspiration crept into his eyes.

  A slight touch from Kyroun prodded Tiyana into giving the awaited nod. Jass Kebessa rose, bowed, and made way for the next member of the Degen Jassi to give the Empress her pledge.

  And, once again, grief put a distance between Tiyana and the words that would be repeated endlessly that day.

  4

  Much later, Tiyana lay awake in her bed at the Beit Almovaar. Despite the entreaties of the more tradition-minded members of the Degen Jassi, she had refused to sleep at the palace this night. She could not bear the thought of spending the night in her father’s bedchamber. As it was, sleeping in the bed she had shared with Keshu carried its own complement of sorrows. But here, at least, she could wrap the sheets she had hoped to share with him forever tightly around her body, and she could still feel him and smell him as she slept the sleep of one who was completely drained, both physically and emotionally.

  The burdens of her new position had not eased after the pledges of fealty were finished. After the Degen Jassi had departed, Kyroun had taken her aside and told her all of what had transpired in Khambawe during the time she had spent in the Uloan Islands. He told her about the continuing progress of the rebuilding, and the re-establishment of the links that had once held the Empire’s territories together. He told her about the unexpected departure of the Tokoloshe.

  And he told her the tale brought to him and her father by the kabbar Eshetu, who had seen survivors of the second Fidi ship among the Thabas, far to the south. He had discussed the implications of the latest Thaba incursions under their formidable chieftain, Tshakane, who appeared well on his way to becoming an emperor in his own right among the cattle-herding tribes of the highlands. And he told her how he and Gebrem and planned to act upon this convergence of events.

  As well, he suggested ways in which she could quell the disquiet rampant in Khambawe in the wake of the tsotsis’ treacherous attack, and how she could reassure the Matile that their Empi
re would retain its newfound stability and momentum even in the face of the assassination of Gebrem. And he had discussed how vengeance could be exacted against the perpetrators of the killings. The shadows, as it seemed, had not been sufficient.

  Tiyana had only half-listened to him. She understood the gravity of his words well enough. But she could only vaguely attach what he said to herself, or to the future. As well, part of her harbored an unfair resentment toward him because he was alive and her father was not. And another part was mortified that she could wish death on the man who had saved the Empire.

  Sensing the extent of the conflict within Tiyana, if not its exact nature, Kyroun brought the one-sided conversation to an end.

  “We are all weary,” he had told her. “Better that we get whatever rest we can. But heed this, Tiyana – the responsibility that has passed to you is yours until the day you die. It is what defines you now. I know you wish that did not have to be so. Yet so it is, and you cannot change it. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Tiyana said in a voice devoid of feeling, as though someone other than herself had spoken the words.

  Kyroun had departed from her then, and Tiyana had returned to the Beit Amiya. Now she finally breathed in the slow rhythm of deep sleep, the white cotton sheet bunched and tangled around her body, which was curled into itself like that of a frightened child.

  She was in her familiar bedchamber ... yet, at the same time, she was somewhere else ...

  5

  Tiyana stood in the midst of a landscape of sand. Plains and mountainous dunes stretched farther than her eyes could see, the horizon touching a sky the color of saffron. A gentle breeze blew grains of sand against her skin. But the sand did not sting her. Instead, the touch of the grains was like a thousand tiny caresses.

  The sheet from her bed was draped around her like a chamma. Its ends stirred in the breeze and tickled her legs. Her many braids blew around her face, at times obscuring her vision.

  Although she had never been in this place before, Tiyana knew it was the Realm of Almovaar. Kyroun had described it to her, and so had her father. At those times she had envied their access to the deity, and wondered if Almovaar would ever deem her worthy of entry to his Realm. Now that she was here, she wished only that Gebrem could be with her, and that she could be with Keshu.

  She turned in a slow circle, searching for both men, for could their spirits not be alive in Almovaar’s Realm, as the Believers were taught when they joined the religion? But she did not see either man.

  She did not see Kyroun, either. She was alone, except for the sand, and the wind, and her sorrow.

  Then the wind began to pluck at her sheet, pulling it away from her body. Tiyana struggled to clasp it closer to her, but the wind was insistent, like many hands pulling in all directions. When the wind began to buffet her and the sand suddenly started to sting, she released her hold on the sheet. The wind took it from her, and blew it away like a white, flapping bird that soon became lost in the yellow sky.

  Now Tiyana stood naked in the sand, self-conscious even though there was no one present to see her. No one, other than Almovaar. And she could not see Almovaar.

  She dared to call to him.

  “Almovaar,” she said, suddenly angry. “Show yourself!”

  Again, the breeze blew around her. Again, grains of sand struck her. This time, instead of falling away, the grains adhered to her, dotting her ebony skin with numerous flecks of yellow hue. When she attempted to brush the sand away, it continued to cling to her skin and hair. She looked like the embodiment of a midnight sky speckled with golden stars.

  Then, abruptly, a pillar of whirling sand formed before her, a column that grew until it towered higher than the stelae that pierced the sky in Khambawe. Gebrem and Kyroun had described their own experiences with this pillar. She knew she was now in the presence of Almovaar.

  Her anger fled, and she sank to her knees before the pillar, and looked up at the mass of swirling sand. She knew she should wait for the god to speak. But she could not. There were questions to which she needed answers.

  “Why did you allow my father to die?” she asked, in a voice not unlike that of a small child. “Why did you allow Keshu to die?”

  I did not allow them to die, Almovaar replied.

  “But you could have prevented their deaths.”

  No. That is beyond my level of dominion.

  Tiyana fell silent, not understanding how saving the lives of the men she loved could be beyond the “dominion” of a deity who had rescued an entire people. But she had other questions to ask.

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  To show you what you need to see.

  Tiyana opened her mouth to ask another question ... then she closed it when she saw a shadow that was not her own grow out of the sand like a tall, dark weed. Another shadow sprouted beside it. Then another. And another. More of them sprouted, until the golden sand turned black with their numbers. They were sticklike and immobile. Tiyana feared them.

  “These must be the Muvuli that are taking the lives of the tsotsis,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

  They are my Children, Almovaar said. They need sustenance. They obtain that sustenance from the people of the Beyond World. And my Children sustain me.

  Surrounded by the shadows, Tiyana remained silent, even as an ominous realization was beginning to take shape in her mind.

  It is not only the tsotsis that fulfilled the needs of my Children, Almovaar said.

  Before Tiyana’s widening eyes, a portion of the pillar that was Almovaar became transparent. And pictures began to form in the space ... pictures of the Uloan Islands ... pictures of the people Tiyana and the other Adepts had healed, and freed from their age-old hatred of the Mainland and their dependence on the evils of Legaba. Pictures of these same people, huddled in fear, fleeing from the Muvuli in their midst, shadows that came for them after dark ...

  “I did that?” Tiyana cried. “If I had known ...”

  You would not have done it. And when my Children finished with the tsotsis, they would have sought their sustenance elsewhere.

  “Among the other people of Khambawe,” Tiyana said, a quaver in her voice reflecting the horror growing rapidly within her.

  But there was no need for them to turn their hunger in that direction, Almovaar said. The sorcery you unleashed among the Uloans brought the Muvuli to them.

  “And when they are finished with the Islanders ...” Tiyana said.

  Almovaar was silent long enough to allow Tiyana to provide her own answer to the question she was about to ask. When he was satisfied that she knew the answer, he went on.

  That is why you must make war against the Thabas. My Children will need more sustenance.

  Almovaar’s words whirled through Tiyana’s head like debris uprooted in a windstorm. She could not speak. She could hardly think. Without conscious volition, her hand was raking across her brow in an attempt to dislodge the particles of sand embedded in her skin. Her efforts were not successful.

  Power comes at a price, Tiyana, Almovaar said. Kyroun was willing to pay the price. So was your father, once he knew what it was. So, too, were many others before them. But the choice was always theirs, not mine. The Muvuli are the price you pay for the restoration of the Matile’s greatness. Are you willing to pay that price, Empress Tiyana?

  Tiyana did not reply.

  You do not have to answer now. But you must answer soon.

  Before the echoes of Almovaar’s voice died, the pillar of sand vanished. So did the Shadows. Once again, Tiyana was alone in Almovaar’s Realm. She remained on her knees, with her head bowed.

  Now she knew why Almovaar had been shunned before he had appeared to Kyroun in the Fidis’ faraway land. Now she knew why the Seer was being so insistent upon beginning a campaign against the Thabas. Now she knew why the tsotsis had killed her father and Keshu, and tried to kill her as well.

  And now she knew her father had hidden this terrible se
cret from her.

  Would he have told me the truth about the shadows, had he lived? she wondered.

  Tiyana closed her eyes and waited for more tears to flow. When none came, she opened her eyes again ... and found that she was no longer in Almovaar’s Realm. She was back in her bedchamber, the Moon Stars’ pale light streaming through the window. Looking down, she saw that the sheet that had blown away in Almovaar’s Realm had returned to enfold her. But when she sat up in her bed and let the sheet fall away, her eyes widened when she saw the light of the Moon Stars reflecting from the grains of sand that covered her skin from head to toe.

  Even as she reached convulsively to brush the sand of Almovaar’s Realm away from her, the grains suddenly dropped in a whispery cascade. Tiyana shook the sheet, and the sand fell to the floor.

  Then Tiyana sank back onto her bed. She knew sleep would elude her now. She still had her sorrow. But she had no more tears to shed. And she had no answer to Almovaar’s question.

  EPILOGUE

  Nama-kwah swam in swirling spirals in the waters of her Realm, leaving a silvery trail in her wake. She was in the part of her Realm that was closest to the Beyond World, but she did not look past the barrier that separated the two. Her Children followed, their movements mirroring her agitation. They were capable of sharing her mood, if not her thoughts.

  The goddess could not confide her worries with her Children, for they were incapable of understanding her in that way. Nor could she speak of them with the other Jagasti. They would understand her far too well; and in such understanding, they would condemn her as Legaba had been condemned so long ago, as the people of the World Beyond conceived of time.

  Had she done right with her latest intervention ... an act that forbidden by an accord among the Jagasti? Was she, in truth, no better than Legaba, or this new god, Almovaar, who now held sway in the land once favored by her and the others? And had the Jagasti been wrong to distance themselves from the Matile?