Master of Poisons

by Andrea Hairston

  12

  Treason

  “And Djola, what will you do?” Azizi asked.

  Djola had resolved to master Xhalan Xhala and find the cause and a cure for poison sandstorms. If Yari still refused to teach him the Lahesh spell of spells, there were other Elders. When Azizi’s great grandfather conquered the northlands, he outlawed what he didn’t understand, what he feared. Conjurers who defied his edict were put to death.

  Green Elders wrote down the old ways before everyone forgot what they knew. Elders hid books in libraries across the world, where nobody would notice. Djola knew what to look for—Lahesh metal-mesh covers, impervious to most spells or poison. Yari had taught him that at least. While Council implemented his map to tomorrow, Djola would search for Xhalan Xhala. He’d told Azizi this, but only Azizi. The other masters would know soon enough.

  “I’ll help where I’m needed,” Djola declared.

  The Master of Arms leaned over the stone-wood table, breath caught in his throat. He ran a finger over Djola’s calculations, delighted. Arms was easy to please. The burly idealist stuffed a honey cake in his mouth. He and Grain grinned at each other, while Water and Money just looked uncertain. Djola’s plan would make them richer men, but—

  “Ten years living like…” Hope and fear warred on Azizi’s face. “Which tribe does mud and silt masquerade? Lahesh?”

  “Haven’t the Lahesh died out?” Money slitted silver eyes.

  “Lahesh live on among us,” Djola said. “Anawanama do mud and silt masquerade.”

  “That’s worse.” Ernold rubbed his priestly skull. “Too much jumba jabba.”

  “Consult every library and all the storytellers.” Azizi sighed. “Kyrie said as much.”

  Djola’s words should weigh more than an old woman’s. “All wisdom isn’t written.”

  Azizi poked the scroll. “Is this a cure?”

  “Precautions,” Djola replied. “Until we understand what’s happening to green lands.” Money, Water, and Ernold smirked at green lands. Djola cursed softly.

  Azizi groaned. “I’d hoped for—” He made a vague gesture.

  “Miracles?” Djola said. “Miracles are hard work.”

  “Something faster”—Azizi had made speed a virtue in his Empire—“and not so complicated.” He preferred elegant, simple solutions. “You’d have us live like Green Elders.” Other masters grumbled agreement. “Who can trust bloodthirsty Zamanzi or corrupt barbarians to lay down weapons and share seeds and wisdom?”

  Djola was ready for this argument. He circled the stone-wood table, shaking the sweetgrass basket of bones. “We give Anawanama, Zamanzi, and other tribes amnesty, a chance to catch their breath and raise their children, not bury them. You heard Chief Nuar. Void-winds blow over the northland. We offer them and southern barbarians a seat at Council, decent land to farm instead of storehouses to raid. No war on any border.” He had them all nodding till high priest Ernold kissed his teeth, disgusted.

  “More wise women on Council?” he said. “Kyrie isn’t enough for you?”

  “We aren’t defeated,” Water shouted. “Why surrender to women and savages?”

  Books and Bones handed the scrolls to Djola. “Freak storms are on the rise. Dream Gate conjure could protect us tomorrow. High priest Hezram’s offer is generous.”

  “Djola expects us to give away tomorrow without a fight.” Ernold spat in the fireplace. “Hezram is Empire through and through.”

  “You’d trust a man who bleeds his own people?” Djola shouldn’t have been shocked at their stupidity, but he was. “Hezram won’t prevent freak storms and more ghost villages.” He glanced up at the sky windows, the only windows in the Council chamber, dark eyes, blind eyes. No other master had gone out and experienced the poison storm. They felt safe behind citadel walls. “We must all dance to a new beat, dispel the void clinging to us.”

  “True.” Azizi stuttered. “But the greatest empire—” As he got tangled in a coughing fit, Water chanted about the glorious Arkhysian Empire. Ernold and Money joined him. Books and Bones pounded rhythmic support. Arms pressed thin lips tight.

  Water turned on Grain. “Where do you stand?”

  “With the greatest empire,” Grain replied. What else could a northlander say?

  Grain stood up from the stone-wood table as sour faces turned murderous. Money, Water, and Ernold shouted lies about northlanders, transgressors, and vesons. They lambasted pirates, barbarians, and power-mad women then spooked themselves into turning down prosperity for Holy City illusions. When the sun finally made it over the foothills and shone through the sky windows, high priest Ernold accused Kyrie of being a traitor witch from the floating cities who wanted to destroy history’s greatest empire. Kyrie, whose weapon-conjure turned back pirate ships and saved Azizi’s fleet; Kyrie, who’d given her sister to Djola and arranged the imperial wedding with Pirate Queen Urzula.

  “Kyrie forged peace on the Salty Sea,” Djola shouted, his patience shot. “Her conjure book is the most coveted in the world.” The end of days, and Ernold was making a grab for Kyrie’s mountain temple.

  Azizi dispatched guards to detain her. Too late, Kyrie was long gone.

  Djola sneered at Ernold. “A wise man would have lured Kyrie in for one last Council, poisoned the wine, and betrayed her then.” A wise man would have bitten his tongue. Too late now. “Kyrie will close the Mountain Gates and never leave her cliffs. Council gains nothing except an enemy at our back.”

  “And one at the table?” Water, Money, and Ernold ambushed Djola, talking faster than thought. They accused him of working with Azizi’s enemies. Djola’s scrolls for change and Nuar’s basket of bones were proof that savage Djola was against the Empire’s glorious way of life.

  Djola faltered, weary from twenty years of pleading with men who poured libations to denial, weary of being the savage speaking jumba jabba nobody wanted to hear. His tongue tripped over words he’d said too many times. This was the opening they needed.

  “Plotting with your wife’s sister.” Water shook his mane of black hair. “Those two witch women are as close as lovers.”

  Money stood over Djola, a hand at a hidden dagger. “Why do you betray us?”

  “Answer them.” Arms shook Djola.

  Azizi’s hands trembled. “You and Kyrie, traitors?”

  “Kyrie and I can’t betray what is already lost.” Djola gestured around the table. “We’ve poisoned our days. We find a new way to live or perish.” Hardly a rebuttal to treason, but he had nothing else to say.

  Azizi turned to him, eyes pleading for a lie even. “What about that Lahesh conjure you’ve been chasing? Xhalan Xhala, the great spell of spells?” Desperate Azizi wasted Djola’s Lahesh secret on cowards and thugs.

  “Xhalan Xhala is a tall tale.” Ernold snorted.

  “That’s what you look for in the libraries”—Books and Bones worried his beard—“a conjure too dangerous even for Yari.”

  “Dream Gate conjure is harmless compared to Xhalan Xhala,” Ernold yelled.

  “Which is it, priest?” Grain scoffed. “Is Xhalan Xhala a tall tale or deadly conjure?”

  “The griot of griots isn’t afraid of Xhalan Xhala,” Djola murmured. “Yari doesn’t trust people to do right with sacred knowledge.” Yari didn’t trust Djola in particular.

  “Can you stop poison desert with your plan?” Water shouted.

  Djola shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Azizi clenched the table with trembling hands. He rattled goblets and dishes. “Neither you nor Kyrie know the cause of poison desert or an antidote.”

  “Your map to tomorrow is almost a cure.” Grain gripped Djola’s shoulder. “Isn’t it?”

  “Cure?” Djola should have lied to gain time, to regroup and fend off the other masters, but his arrogant tongue refused. What lie would last longer than a day, a month? “Kyrie and I don’t know the cause or a cure.”

  “Honest to a fault.” Azizi sighed. “Betrayal is shouting about poisons and off
ering crack-cruck measures before you know an antidote.” His eyes were an angry blur. “You saved my life and helped me conquer all the green lands from the savage north to the barbarian south, from the west waters to the sweet desert in the east. But today you stab me in the heart with jumba jabba. I banish you for abandoning me during the Empire’s greatest challenge. We must conquer the poison desert or die trying.”

  Djola gasped. Too shocked to beg for reason, too wise to plead for mercy, he attended to his breath.

  Books and Bones looked stricken. Arms wanted to gut Money and Water and slit Ernold’s throat. Grain slipped into the shadows by the Lahesh masks. Why go down for Weeds and Wild Things? Azizi avoided Djola’s eyes. “Banished.” Djola tossed his scrolls into the fire. Years of labor at the far edge of hope smoked and crumbled to ash. Too late, he spied daughter Tessa’s scroll, his shield. It caught a spark and burned. Tessa would scold him for that.

  “Defend yourself,” Azizi commanded. “Change my mind.”

  Djola shrugged, nothing more to say. Denial was as inexplicable as poison sand blowing across fields and twisting down alleys. Death whooshed in Djola’s ears and emptied his mind. His tongue went rogue, and he muttered, “Basawili.”

  “What does that mean?” Azizi asked. “More Green Elder jumba jabba?”

  “A northern outlaw language,” Books and Bones said. “Who knows savage talk?”

  “Anawanama: not the end, more to come,” Grain translated. “Roughly.”

  “Such a powerful conjurer makes a deadly enemy,” Ernold said.

  “We should execute Djola on this stone floor,” Water said. “Savages have no honor.”

  The guards aimed spears at Djola. Arms and Grain bristled. Djola felt like someone had smashed his head.

  “Execute?” Books and Bones blinked, as if waking from a trance. “I don’t know.”

  Money, Water, and Ernold shouted at the librarian. Arms and Grain yelled at each other. Azizi pulled Djola close and whispered in Lahesh, “Fool, you should have lied. What can I do when Kyrie deserts me and the whole table is against you?”

  “But banish me, Zizi?” Djola stared at him, blank.

  Azizi squeezed his shoulders. “Go visit all the libraries in the world. Talk to wise men and long-winded griots. Find your Xhalan Xhala cure and be quick. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “Twenty years ago, you made peace from blood and bile and ash.”

  “Did I? That seems like a griot tale for children,” Djola sputtered.

  “You persuaded me to trust Kyrie and marry Urzula. You can find an antidote for anything. The Master of Poisons, yes?” Azizi gestured at the ashes of Djola’s scrolls. “Take a few months. Bring us Xhalan Xhala, then we’ll do the hard work for a good tomorrow.” He actually believed Djola could do what he commanded. “Swear to me.”

  “I’d need a ship and—”

  “I can arrange a pirate crew.”

  “Why pirates?”

  Azizi smiled. “A rogue fleet will take you anywhere, and whatever you do, whatever desperate measures you need to take to find the cure, nobody will connect you to me. The People remain on my side.”

  Djola felt dizzy. “This was your plan all along.”

  “Not exactly … You insist we must always have many pots on the fire.” Azizi whistled the masters silent and spoke Empire vernacular. “My decree is banishment. I’ll hold each of you responsible if Djola dies before leaving Arkhys City.”

  Arms had a knife at Water’s back and a sword to Money’s throat. They raised their hands high and backed away. “We are happy to let the Master of Poisons die at sea.”

  High priest Ernold stood in a splash of sunlight, teeth and bald head gleaming. Books and Bones had curled up under the table, like a scroll someone crumpled and threw away. Grain faded into the smoke by the fireplace. The guards who brought Djola to the table wrenched him from his seat and dragged him blindfolded through a maze of tunnels. Hyenas howled and laughed.

  13

  Pirate Queen

  The cook’s entrance to the emperor’s citadel was close enough to Thunder River to feel the chill of Eidhou’s glaciers in the water. Every breath carried the taste of spices, spirits, and bitter herbs. The scrappy guard yanked the cloth from Djola’s eyes. Afternoon sun made him squint. He staggered, dizzy from wandering the maze, from losing his place at the stone-wood table. Disaster, happening too quickly to be believed.

  Turning down the map to tomorrow, yes, but Azizi banishing his closest advisor, his most loyal friend? That was madness. Did every emperor eventually go mad?

  “Basawili,” Djola muttered as jolts of terror scrambled his thoughts.

  “Why do you keep repeating that?” The scrappy guard shook Djola.

  “He’s lost his mind,” the other guard said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “He was always a bit off.” The scrappy guard doused Djola’s hot head with cold water from the river. “All the masters are.” And the emperor too.

  Death kept whooshing in Djola’s ears. Basawili was his reply. Not the end, more breath to come. An hour ago, he was one of the most powerful men in the Empire. Now he was a nobody who couldn’t get a breath. Azizi was sending him on an impossible quest to find a quick cure. Djola clutched the sweetgrass basket. Nuar tried to warn him about Empire treachery. Samina too. He tripped and fell. Uneven stones in the courtyard scraped skin from his knees. The pain was slight, but cleared his vision.

  No one from Council had been exiled in twenty years. Would he live to see his wife and children again? What happened to the family of a disgraced master? Did Azizi give a thought to that? Samina and the children would be safe at the hideaway. But they’d worry when he didn’t return, when they got word of his exile. Djola’s heart pounded.

  The guards should just put a knife in his gut and get it over with.

  “Do you understand what he’s going on about?” the scrappy guard said.

  Djola squirmed. “Where is Rano? He can get word to Samina, to my wife.”

  “He uses savage talk, reverting to old ways.” The other guard patted his shoulder, not unkind. He raised his voice. “Courage, poison master. You can survive. Just do what the emperor asks.”

  “Fatazz!” The scrappy guard cursed as sparks flared from the cook’s entrance. Pirate Queen Urzula emerged with a spark torch—lightning caught on a stick. The guards dropped to one knee, exclaiming at floating-city conjure. Wind nor rain nor sandstorm would douse Urzula’s light.

  “Have you lost your escort, my queen?” The scrappy guard kept his eyes lowered, but challenged Urzula for wandering about alone. “Emperor Azizi needs his wife to be safe.”

  “Who will attack me?” Urzula laughed. When a spark torch wasn’t lighting up the dark, it could be deployed as a weapon, burning down buildings, boats, and men. “No worries.” She extinguished her torch with gold dust. “I have many weapon-spells.”

  A witch woman from the floating cities, Urzula was wide and muscular, well-built for having babies and standing on the decks of pirate ships. Her skin was darker than Djola’s, her hair cropped close, peach fuzz. Silvery white dots made half circles above her eyelids. A line of white crossed blue-tinted lips going from chin to nose—floating-city makeup. Like Samina, Urzula never adopted Empire style, even though good citizens thought she was a seductress.

  She blew a dart and skewered a poison snake that dangled from the bushes above the guards’ heads. “Are you men safe?” She chuckled.

  An hour ago, Djola would have chuckled with her. There were too few pirates. That’s why they didn’t rule the world. That’s why Urzula and Samina left the isolationist floating cities and married Azizi and Djola. Lahesh diplomacy: marry the enemy. Urzula could get word to Samina. They were friends.

  “Basawili, Queen, I need your help.” His tongue finally cooperated. He spoke Empire vernacular.

  “Basawili,” Urzula smiled sadly, undulating in schemes. The guards gaped at her sensual meditation, d
istracted. Urzula licked her lips. She understood politicking. “Djola would speak with me and I would speak with him.”

  The guards exchanged glances. “We must get to the docks.” The scrappy one shifted from foot to foot. “We don’t want to miss the tide.”

  “You won’t. I know the sea better than you.” Urzula waved them off.

  The guards slumped against the railing on the bridge. Lilot, chief cook—and Urzula’s true love according to whisper and gossip—strode out of the citadel maze. Outside Council’s shadows Lilot was a bold presence, even wrapped in veils and robes for travel. Lilot’s lips were tinged green, and she had red dots above her eyelids. They meant something Djola had forgotten. Lilot wasn’t as sultry or compelling as Urzula, but she was just as formidable.

  Urzula and Azizi’s son and daughter accompanied her, children, ten and thirteen years old. They had their mother’s fierce features, yet were lanky and lean like Azizi. They’d have been taller than Lilot, except for the cloth wrap that crowned the cook’s head. The children also wore travel clothes. Urzula kissed each child. Then Lilot shooed them across the bridge with bird kites to fly.

  “Lilot tells me your troubles.” Urzula scrutinized Djola. Lilot heard everything that went on at Council and reported to her. “You’ve been wronged.”

  “Get word to Samina, through Rano. Tell him not to fight and her not to worry.” Djola spoke slowly. “Tell her to take the family to Kyrie’s realm.”

  Urzula nodded. “Lilot takes the children to my niece’s ship. I miss them already.”

  Djola swallowed fear. “I miss Tessa, Bal, and Quint.”

  “Arkhys City is no place for our little ones,” Lilot said. “The masters are rotten.”

  “Not all of them.” Urzula gestured at the cook. “Lilot wants to poison half the stone-wood table, but I say that would mean war.” She laughed. Lilot and the guards laughed with her. Urzula stepped close to Djola. “If there is war, nobody wins.”

  “Fool.” Lilot snapped fingers in Djola’s face. “Why not say what they want to hear?”