Master of Poisons

by Andrea Hairston

  “Lies and illusions won’t save us,” Djola replied.

  “Neither will spit on poison sand,” Lilot muttered.

  “Find an antidote for devastation.” Urzula pointed to withered bushes and trees that had been savaged by yesterday’s storm. “Bring Kyrie back to the table.” She touched Djola’s cheek. Her hands were cool and rough. “My husband will welcome you both.”

  “Kyrie won’t come back unless we change.” Djola thrust the sweetgrass basket at her. “The bones of the future. Get this to Samina. Tell her I’m sorry for not following her advice. Tell her I love her.”

  “Of course you do.” Urzula took the basket. “And you love the world.”

  “Sentimental slop.” Lilot grunted. “Survive any way you can, poison master.”

  “Yes. We need you.” Urzula gripped his shoulders. “Come back to Zizi with proof that what you told Council is true and find an antidote.”

  “Impossible.” Djola groaned. “Zizi chose greedy masters over me.”

  “You asked proud masters to live like Green Elders and Anawanama savages for ten years. That’s impossible. How could Azizi say yes and maintain power?” Urzula kissed Djola’s dry lips and pulled him to her bosom. He felt less jumbled as she held his sorrow. “High priest Hezram angles for your chair but Lahesh tinkerers know something about everything. Go find a Lahesh spell nobody can deny, something better than Hezram’s Dream Gates in Holy City and you’ll sit beside the emperor again. Samina will forgive your foolish arrogance. She’ll bring your children down from Kyrie’s mountain to celebrate your return.” She released him. “Come back to us all.”

  “A Lahesh antidote. Yes. I can do this.” Djola repeated this as the guards marched him across the bridge and past Azizi’s daughter and son. The children stared at him and let go of their strings. The bird kites flew up over the citadel turrets and vanished.

  14

  Elephant Memories

  The Elephant stands at the foot of Mount Eidhou uncertain which direction to take. Her map for today and tomorrow is blank. As the sun hides behind steep cliffs, she remembers Djola, his scents, his laughter. Empire guards drag him down the alley behind the citadel, and she is sad. These are the same bad men who wanted to poke her with sharp blades last night. They scurry through sparse trees toward the Salty Sea. Djola stumbles along, his eyes glazed, his limbs rubbery. Will the guards eat him?

  Once, long ago, when the Elephant was crossing a muddy river, her family lost to mist, her spirits low, Djola came riding by, smelling of fruit, ink, and good humor. He sat on a tall horse and watched the Elephant try to scramble up crumbling banks. The Elephant was young, her legs too short, and the mud sucked her strength. She was weak and hungry and expected any moment to be eaten. The wind roared in distant trees, carrying the scent of predators.

  “How did you lose your family?” Djola called to her, using a friendly tone. “Run, little one, this way to me. I have a mango for you.” He held up a piece of fruit and laughed. “A wild one, aren’t you, and strong. You can do it.”

  The Elephant was exhausted and her legs gave out. She tumbled back into muck. The bank was too steep, too slippery. There was no way out.

  “Want a bite?” Djola tossed the mango in the air. “Come get it.” The Elephant loved mangos. She walked down the river toward him and tugged at a sapling on the bank with her trunk. “Good girl. Not so steep. Do you hear your mothers calling?”

  The mud muffled sounds traveling through the ground. Only soggy jibber jabber reached the Elephant’s feet. She tugged and tugged. From tough stem to sturdy roots, the sapling resisted her trunk. A young cathedral tree, it refused to join the Elephant in the river. She had to join the tree on land. Packed dirt was joy under her feet. The ground rumbled. Her family called, searching for her. The Elephant rumbled a message back to them. She promised to follow their sounds and find them, before anyone ate her. Djola held out hunks of mango. The Elephant grabbed them as she hurried by, scant nourishment for a long journey.

  “You took the whole thing.” Djola laughed again. The Elephant carried his sounds and smells with her as she hurried to her family.

  Today, Djola does not laugh as Empire guards haul him toward the docks.

  Other bad men on horses, hearts pumping, the smell of predators in their sweat, race after Djola and the guards. These men hunger for Djola’s heart. The Elephant is close enough to see their eyes shine with fear as they draw their blades. The men do not see an elephant, only shadows. The horses catch elephant-scent and a glimpse of angry ears flared wide. She stands in an entrance to Kyrie’s wise-woman corridor, hidden by rocks and laurel trees. The Elephant trumpets, flaps her ears, and throws up a cloud of dirt. The horses are spooked and dash back the way they came. The riders curse and spit. Some fall on the ground and are dragged in dirt. A few slam into cathedral tree trunks and shriek. The Empire guards shriek too. They drive Djola faster down the alley toward the docks. The Elephant steps out of the corridor to follow them.

  “No, no! They’ll kill us both.” Djola waves at her to stay away. He stands near a gangway to a boat as the guards banter with a seaman. “Save yourself.”

  People gape at the Elephant, drop baskets and buckets, and holler. The guards talk faster to the seaman. Someone throws a knife toward her. It bounces off her shoulder. The Elephant flinches at the sharp pain. More blades appear, shovels and axes, and a fiery torch. But when family or friends (even people) are in danger, the Elephant can’t abandon them. She takes another step.

  “No. Go. At least one northerner should triumph today.” Djola shouts and flails. The crowd is ready to pounce, but hesitates. “Run. For me,” he pleads.

  Reluctantly the Elephant backs into the wise-woman passageway. She fades from view to a chorus of gasps. The woman carrying fire takes a step closer to the entrance. “Kyrie’s mountain shadows attacked me before, right here.”

  “Witch-woman shadows, yes, but no elephant,” a man says. “The Master of Poisons must have conjured her.”

  Djola laughs, in a better mood. The Elephant is glad, but also sad as the guards throw Djola on a pirate ship bound for the floating cities. Other seamen shrink away from him, as if he were fire or a gang of sharp fangs. The Elephant hovers at the entrance of the corridor until the sails catch the wind and Djola is carried out to sea. When the ship is a pale memory on a deep blue horizon, she turns away from the water and back to decisions. This corridor led her to the sea, but a branch goes up the mountain. The Elephant has never climbed a mountain. No matter. There are too many hungry people by the sea guarding sweet water, grain, and fruit trees. The Elephant sends a message into the ground. If anyone is listening, if anyone is alive to hear her voice, they will know and understand the choices she makes, they will know the direction to take to find her. They will hear her and hope.

  The Elephant doesn’t forget this day. Hope is what she carries with her on the steep climb.

  15

  Filled with Now

  Smokeland saved Awa. When she first joined the Green Elder enclave, she wanted Father, her two middle brothers, and even Kenu and Mother to die a thousand deaths. She also ached to hug them to her heart. This back-and-forth hate-love tormented her. She woke from dreams of her family with balled-up fists and an aching jaw.

  Father had sneered at Awa’s artistry, at her useless stories and dancing bees, but her sale had garnered enough jewel, cowry shells, and coin to send three sons from Holy City to the capital for grand opportunities—no matter how stupid or cowardly they were. Did Father wonder at her fate? Did Mother poison his bread? Would brother Kenu ever pour libations for her sacrifice or just laugh at a green-land freak?

  Yari, the high Elder who brought Awa into the enclave, said, “Anything you believe could be wrong.” Yari was a graying veson, the griot of griots, once advisor to Emperor Azizi. A trickster, vie had sparkling eyes and a lightning smile. Ropes of vie’s hair, adorned with seedpods, bells, and whistling reeds, danced even when Elders stood still for
meditation.

  Tapping and squeezing a double-headed talking drum, vie could seduce a snake or a crocodile. Yari’s lovers—good citizens, barbarians, savages, witch women, Council masters, perhaps even Azizi—would fill a pirate ship. Who could resist Yari’s charm or brilliance? Certainly not Awa.

  “For wisdom you must intertwine passion, faith, and doubt,” Yari said. “Like drumming four beats to seven or weaving Aido cloth, every color strong but a play of shadows for untrained eyes. A righteous person sings harmony with themselves. Holding contradictions and polyrhythms in your spirit, that’s the basis of all conjure.”

  Other Garden Sprites did this easily. Bal, who joined the enclave a few months after Awa, could sound like a fleet of drums and a choir of voices her first week. Bal wove Aido cloth robes to disappear in and crafted flimsy sweetgrass into weapons, boats, and bridges. Awa was all thumbs. Her Aido cloth regularly unraveled. The best she ever managed was three beats to two on a drum and a single overtone when she sang. Drums, thread, and song were wasted on her. Indeed, Awa was so inept that—

  “I worry Yari might sell me to thief-lords or abandon me to poison desert.”

  “Nonsense.” Bal stood behind Awa on cliffs above the Salty Sea. They were becoming fast friends. Arkhys City’s sandstone towers and domes shimmered far across the bay. “Why chant nonsense?” Bal’s cheekbones were high and sharply etched; her limbs long, elegant, and muscled. Round Awa wanted to look like her. “Yari loves us all, but you the most.”

  “No.” Awa raced along the cliff edge, doing a rock, water, and shell dance. Tons of black and white fish flesh jumped from the waves and trilled at her clumsy gyrations. When she flapped her arms, the behemoths mimicked her with stubby flukes. Bal applauded. “You’re a shadow warrior, Bal. You carry shade with you. You can hide anywhere and seem like a hundred warriors. What conjure can I do?”

  “You call giants out of the sea and conjure moon-bridges to Smokeland. I can’t do that.” Bal pulled Awa back from the edge toward scraggly laurel trees. “We all love you. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do.”

  “People love you and sell you too.” Awa hissed. Mother and Kenu had let Father sell her, so Kenu could build towers to the stars. “Love isn’t enough.”

  Bal looked stricken. She hadn’t told Awa who’d sold her to the enclave. Awa leaned close, hoping for this secret. Bal only said, “That’s true, I guess.”

  “You must take better measure of yourselves.” Yari, carrying lesson scrolls and nut bread, dropped down beside them from a jagged overhang. “You two know how to listen and, without losing yourselves, hold anyone or anything in your heart. This is grace.” Yari wrapped long arms around Awa and Bal. Cloud-silk robes smelled of sugarbush and desert rose. “Grace is how you fashion something from nothing, Bal, and why you can traverse Smokeland’s border-void, Awa.”

  “I thought it was spiders and bees, guiding us.” Bal giggled.

  “Laughter is good. So is sweat.” Yari set down the nut bread and pulled out a double-headed drum decorated with Aido cloth and sweetgrass. Squeezing brown and gray leather cords that connected the black goatskin heads, vie modulated tones and made the drum talk. Ancestor words shook Awa’s bones.

  “Dance, read, and think on the measure of your spirit.” Yari could drum a child into this world or reason out of a person’s mind. “Move!”

  Awa tripped over her feet trying to catch the beats. Even Bal groaned at tricky polyrhythms.

  “Make your own music,” Yari commanded. Bal sang several harmonies with herself and worked her feet like a stampede. She pulled Awa into a furious dance. “Fill yourself with now,” Yari sang, “tomorrow may not come.”

  Awa kissed her teeth. “If the world ends, we won’t be here to be sad.”

  “Are you sure? Basawili—not the end, more breath to come.” Yari took off into the laurel trees. Songbirds flew from the berry bushes, grumbling. Yari was fast and relentless. Awa and Bal resigned themselves to being out of breath all day.

  Good Empire citizens believed life in an enclave was dull and brutal: wandering, camping in drafty tents, eating grass and worms, chanting. People told many lies on the Elders. Where were the raggedy savages, liars, thieves, and perverts living like it was yesterday? Garden Sprites never had to walk on coals. Father had gotten those ugly purple scars on his feet somewhere else.

  Father also claimed they bashed his head with jumba jabba. But Awa loved the discipline and adventure, the poetry and history, the animal lore and number play. Yari taught her ancestor tongues—Zamanzi, Anawanama, Lahesh—and signs and ciphers to map the everyday or hold tangled Smokeland memories. Awa practiced writing and drawing three times a day while Bal sang and sword danced.

  Awa stood once in a herd of wild horses, memorizing hoofbeats before they vanished to who knows where. She drew a history of bees, tracked fish flight, and calculated the distance to the moon. Wherever the Elders made home, by the sea, in the desert, or on a mountaintop, Awa and Bal memorized the sky. Awa’s torment over her family faded to an occasional ache, and Bal always hugged these sorrows away.

  Best of all was Smokeland. Awa’s trips beyond the border-void were long and luxurious. She mapped and catalogued many wonders. On one trip, Awa passed through a border realm of exploding jellyfish, lightning bolts, and deadening void-smoke. She barely held onto herself but came upon a village in the treetops: a weave of houses, balconies, bridges, and temples. Lovers with spiderweb hair and cloud-silk robes swayed in the branches. Their pleasure rippled through the leaves and through her body too. New aches surprised her.

  In another region, Awa discovered underwater river forests undulating to the melodies of golden behemoths who sported white speckled fins. She swam beside creatures twice the size of elephants against the currents. She wove her song into behemoth sounds that she could feel but not hear as they swam among seaweed bushes and feathery trees. Iridescent eyes peered at her from murky caves, and tentacles reached out to greet or eat her.

  The behemoths nudged the curious tentacles aside with a flap of tail flukes and a roar of bubbles. She laid her cheeks against cold skin, grateful for their caution. Exuberant behemoths flew with her out of the water and plunged deep again. In a third region, a city of boats—floating towers with sails or spinning waterwheels—washed in on a blue-green tide and out again leaving iron horses and singing books on a rocky shore. Distant cook fires on the waves twinkled like stars. The metal beasts frolicked to the music the books made. Enchanted, Awa danced with them until they disappeared into caves.

  Awa returned to the everyday exhausted and delighted after this long trip. While she’d been in Smokeland, weeks had passed and the Elders traveled beyond the maps to a wild side of the Mama Zamba mountains. They camped far from any barbarian or Empire city at a rocky oasis in the sweet desert. As long as the rains came and the desert bloomed, the enclave enjoyed peace and posted few guards. When the dry season unleashed deadly storms, foolish men became desperate. They’d attack anyone anywhere, even Green Elders who knew the most powerful weapon-spells in the Empire. Today was peace.

  Yari cornered Awa and Bal at the cook fires. Vie smelled of cinnamon, jasmine, and sweetgrass. “Tell me, what do you say to people in Smokeland?”

  “Nothing.” Awa cringed, embarrassed. “My tongue knots up.”

  Yari feigned shock, rattling moth cocoon anklets. “Knotted tongue. You?”

  “Yes. Me.” Other smoke-walkers, their starlight hair glinting and volcano hearts pumping fiery blood, were too beautiful for words. “Nothing comes.”

  Yari turned serious as a knife thrust. “Avoid anyone whose heart is an ember.”

  Awa grumbled. “You told me before. A hundred hundred times.”

  “You might lose yourself in their eyes. Spirit slaves are Hezram’s weapon.”

  “Not just Hezram,” Bal interjected.

  Yari bristled. Too angry to mask it. “Hezram is the worst.”

  “I’ve only seen a few,” Awa said. “They
were too sluggish to catch me.”

  “Don’t count on the speed of thought.” Yari danced around Awa, jabbing her with drumsticks. “Spirit slaves will suck your dreams and leave you hollow.”

  “I’ve never seen that happen.” Awa dodged the sticks. “People make up terrifying lies about smoke-walking because they’re afraid to venture beyond the everyday.”

  “True”—Yari halted—“but always play caution and risk together. Promise me.”

  Awa groaned. “Of course.” She held up her charm bracelet. “I always carry bee stingers from a Smokeland hive.”

  “Good. Rehearse what to say to other smoke-walkers beforehand.”

  Awa had yet to meet Mother. Would she dare Smokeland journeys without Awa? Just in case, Awa decided to rehearse a speech for her. “I will.”

  Bal balanced on an arm, swirling her legs and a sword in figure eights, so elegant and deadly that Awa wanted to … what? “I’m tired of just guarding your breath body here and now,” Bal declared. “Just waiting, waiting, waiting…”

  “Practice patience,” Yari said. “Shadow warriors can’t let stillness be an enemy.”

  Bal rolled her eyes. “Who’d poison Awa’s breath body in an Elder enclave and then live to steal her spirit body in Smokeland?”

  “Don’t underestimate our enemies.” Yari’s voice shook. “They may know as much as we do. Or more.”

  Did Hezram know more than Yari?

  Bal jumped in front of Awa before she could ask. “Take me with you to Smokeland?” Bal knew what Awa wanted before Awa did.

  “If I’m able, yes,” Awa replied.

  Yari hugged them to vie’s heart. “Of course you’ll be able.” Yari often acted like the sentimental Elders from carnival tales. Awa and Bal took secret pleasure in this. Every Sprite hoped griots would spin epics from their adventures, but Awa and Bal had an advantage. Yari was griot for all the Green Elder clans, the griot of griots, what Empire citizens called a walking library and Lahesh called a bridge, one foot in yesterday, the other in tomorrow.