Bal sang harmony, at home even in ancient music. Envy stole Awa’s balance and she almost fell from the horse’s back. She’d always been silent on Smokeland journeys, afraid of nothing in particular, just mindful of disturbing the mood. Singing joy with Bal was thrilling.
“If this is what boat people throw away, think what they must keep,” Bal said.
The iron horses suddenly collapsed into shuddering heaps underneath them. Awa grabbed Bal and leapt clear. The beasts belched smoke, slid over a precipice, and smashed into the rocks below. A shower of wheels, mesh, and metal shards exploded up the cliffs. Bal reached her hand into destruction before it fell back into the sea.
“What are you doing?” Awa shouted.
“Thanks”—Bal hugged Awa to her volcano heart—“for saving me.”
“Saving you?” Awa frowned at the sinking wreckage. Talking books gurgled and went silent. Dim red eyes faded to gray and sank. “Just now? That was nothing.”
“Not just that.” Bal shook her head. “Thanks for bringing me here, for—”
“Smokeland’s no trash heap. Nobody throws things away. Smoke-walkers take what they find back to the everyday and leave wonders for others to share.” Rubble floated in the scummy bay. “Something happened to the boat people.” Something bad.
“Ask them when you come back.” Bal held up a gray marble eye and a slim golden wheel. Grinning, she put these treasures in a medicine bag made from Aido cloth that disappeared in the shadows. “I’m sure we could conjure iron horses in the everyday.”
Awa marveled at the possibility. “Perhaps, but— Whayoa!”
A mob of empty-eyed spirit slaves tumbled out of a cave below them. They had translucent lungs and faint ember hearts. A rotten fruit smell gusted from cavernous mouths full of granite teeth. Seaweed decayed in their hair. Who had these smoke-walkers been before?
“Fatazz!” Bal drew her sword. “Yari said to avoid ember hearts.” The spirit slaves jerked toward the sound of Bal’s voice. She shook Awa. “Fly us away from here.”
Awa gazed into empty eyes. Her mind was smoke, her feet heavy weights. Flight was impossible. She’d lost the speed of thought. The spirit slaves climbed up through brush, slow but steady.
“Let’s go.” Bal tugged Awa’s arm.
“Maybe they are the missing boat people.” Awa tumbled to her knees. Jagged shells pierced her skin and blood trickled into the sand.
The spirit slaves scrambled faster right toward them.
Using a chorus of voices, Bal sang harmony with herself. She tapped her feet and beat the hilt of her sword on volcanic rocks, creating dense polyrhythms that echoed around the bay. Thunderous reverberations assaulted the spirit slaves. Going every direction at once, they got tangled up in each other on a narrow ledge. Several fell down the cliffs into the bay.
Bal wrenched Awa back to standing and danced her away from the edge, a favorite routine from the everyday. Blocking Awa’s field of vision, she hissed softly in her ears. “We must leave this region.” Her breath was hot and her volcano heart pumped too fast. “You promised Yari. We must warn vie.”
That jolted Awa’s mind clear. “Spirit slaves are usually so much slower.”
“They have a hungry look.”
“Yes.” Awa whisked Bal through the remaining regions of her heart, pausing only for brief glimpses. Swamps, grasslands, and deserts blurred together. They encountered few smoke-walkers and had to avoid spirit slaves in each region.
“Are there always so many with ember hearts?” Bal asked.
“Usually just one or two.” They stood in Awa’s home region under the giant beehive in the elder cathedral tree. Awa spied no spirit slaves nearby and sighed. Calm sentinel bees crawled across her shoulder. One got tangled in her hair and buzzed. “Never a spirit-slave horde before.”
“You’re brave to travel Smokeland alone.” Bal used a solemn warrior voice. “We must tell Yari to weave a story of your courage.” She pulled a tight curl-bundle of Awa’s hair straight and released the sentinel.
“I’m never alone. I have the bees.” Awa grinned. “I’m glad to have a shadow warrior along this time.” She filled her lungs with the sweet expiration of the elder tree. “Take a deep breath. The hard part is leaving Smokeland.”
Bal filled her lungs, and Awa flew them to the border-void. Bal ground her teeth as smoke invaded them. Awa felt as if she was home again, and Father, Mother, Kenu, and her younger brothers had just abandoned her in the desert to dry up and blow away while they enjoyed life in a lush oasis.
Bal whimpered. Caught in despair also, she was a heavy weight. The border-void was endless, the smoke thick and sticky; escape seemed almost impossible. Sorrow began to fade along with the thrill of clutching Bal to her heart.
“We’re too heavy and there’s more void-smoke than usual. Sorry.” Awa jabbed Bal’s neck with a bee sting and then her own neck too. After sharp, burning pain, they swooned.
19
Vandana
Pezarrat dropped anchor at Arkhys City. No slaves allowed inside the capital, but trade at the docks was swift. Djola gave a supply list to Pezarrat’s men. If Council spies saw him on deck, they’d send an arrow his way. Why give high priest Ernold or the Masters of Money and Water opportunity for murder? Djola paced the half-empty sick bay, muttering. He should get word to Rano for Samina or maybe word to Yari that he needed help. Yari was always ready to forgive. Samina too.
The old healer pointed at blood-soaked bandages on their patients. “They’ll bleed out, unless we sew.” Thread, sutures, and needles weren’t on Djola’s supply list. Nothing for sick bay was. “I’ll get what we need.” The old healer threw on a cloak.
“Can you deliver a message for me?” Djola stammered.
The healer scratched his few hairs. “I’ll tell Pezarrat you do this.”
Djola scribbled Lahesh to Yari and Samina. “To the veson who cleans the library. Bring me vie’s seal.” The old healer took the tiny scroll and left him alone with wounded captives who groaned and whimpered. Djola downed half a bottle of seed and silk potion to lift his mood and dull his mind. He sank into a pleasant haze and watched the moon rise from inky water and climb high in the sky. Time dissolved.
The old healer returned carrying months of supplies and a scroll with a Vévé to the crossroads gods: the moon caught in a spiderweb. “Your friend had just finished scouring the windows.”
“Friend?” Djola grunted. “No. Just someone I know.”
“Vie promised to deliver your messages for no pay. A friend.” The healer talked on. Djola heard little except, “Vandana is too old, too fierce for Pezarrat, but he bought her anyhow, for you.” The healer offered Djola needle and thread.
“I don’t sew flesh.” Djola smacked his hand away. “I need conjure supplies.”
A woman stepped in front of the old man and held up a Lahesh metal-mesh bag of poison sand. She was careful not to spill a grain. “I am Vandana.” She dumped salts, lava stones, rare earth compounds, potash, dried bat dung, and crystals at Djola’s feet. Dark as polished lava, she had big bones, big breasts, big hips, and four teeth filed dagger sharp.
Dagger teeth were supposedly common among warrior women on the far side of the Mama Zamba mountains, where the maps ran out. Vandana shook skinny gray braids at a captive whose wounds seeped blood. “Captain says you need help.” She shifted to Lahesh—perhaps not her mother tongue, but well-spoken. “I told him, Vandana work medicine with you.” She got in his face. “You agree?”
Pezarrat loomed in the doorway. “You pine after your wife.” He’d bought Vandana to irritate Djola. “I hope your letter gets to her.”
Djola forced a smile. “Vandana, you help the wounded. Can you sew? I’ll do conjure for the captain.”
Pezarrat disappeared up the ladder. Vandana shook her head and lashed Djola’s cheek with a whipcord braid, drawing a line of blood. “You make death for Captain.”
“Acid-conjure means less death than fire raids.”
“I’m trying to save us all.”
“A man with a mission.” She gripped him. “Captain says he dumps me in the sea, if you don’t want me. I’d have to kill him.”
Djola laughed the first time in who knows how long. “I want you.”
“Good. Many need stitches. I teach you sewing tomorrow. No time now.”
Vandana pulled a needle from a small bag at her waist and bent down to a captive. While Djola worked into the night making acid-conjure, she and the old man cleaned, sewed, and bandaged wounds. She babbled to her patients about flowers blooming in snow fields, eagles roosting by cliff cottages, and granddaughters clashing swords at dawn then sneaking off to lovers in the afternoon. “All done. They’ll live,” she declared.
“Thank you.” Djola admired her bold spirit.
She snatched a lamp and tramped out of sick bay. Djola followed her to the hold, which was jammed with salt, northland seeds, baskets, and outlaw cloth. She slung a hammock over water barrels then pulled a knife from her small bag, a long knife that shouldn’t have fit. She pressed the blade against his heart. “I sleep alone, knife ready, eye open.”
Djola grinned. “You haven’t come to kill me.”
“You’d already be dead.”
“But you could be a spy for … anybody.”
“Pezarrat should send you a warm body.”
“No.” Djola held up the metal-mesh bag of poison sand. “I’m too busy.”
“Studying void-storms?” She pushed him back toward sick bay. “Be careful there.”
The next morning, Djola gave Pezarrat acid-conjure, and the captain raided a fleet of merchant ships. Djola refused to watch. He hid in his bunk and drank seed and silk potion. Victory was swift. Hulls turned to sludge and merchants surrendered. No casualties. “A man of your word.” Pezarrat mocked him, but left him alone to work.
Djola spent the next days trying to neutralize poison sand. He lined a wooden bucket with Lahesh metal-mesh and wore a mesh veil to protect his face. He doused lethal grains with fire or water, then added concoctions of crystals, potash, bat dung, and lava stone.
The results were always the same: a spoonful of poison sand turned into a bucketful, which he tossed out a porthole. He should have worried about watery forests and behemoths, but despair and seed and silk blunted his concern. He needed to talk to wise men in the floating cities.
20
Orca
After a fifth acid-conjure raid, celebrations raged up on deck. Djola lay on his bunk in a silk-and-seed stupor, watching a spider weave a web—a crossroads-moon Vévé—in the open sick bay door. Pezarrat charged through the sticky strands. He clawed his face and spit spider-silk. “Vandana says you need a warm body.”
Pirates dragged in Orca, a hefty boy with dimpled cheeks and a long, silky braid. Orca had been used so badly during the celebration, he could barely walk.
“No.” Djola refused to invite a spy between his thighs. “No.”
Pezarrat chortled. “Vandana fought off a gang of horny men. She insisted the fat one was perfect for you.”
“If I don’t want him, will you dump him in the sea?”
“Why keep spoiled meat?” Pezarrat and his men barged past Vandana.
Djola groaned at the blood on Orca’s clothes and the suffering in his face.
“Give me a hand!” Vandana helped Orca to Djola’s bunk.
Djola and Vandana tended Orca’s wounds, gave him food Vandana stole from Pezarrat’s table and boiled wine made from Smokeland fruit. Djola held Orca’s hand through the night while Vandana told tales of wild women from beyond the maps. Instead of dying out after plague and war decimated their people, the women crossed Mama Zamba and seduced thief-lords, good citizens, pirates, and slaves. Dazzled by free, wild-women ways and anxious for another life, a better story, their lovers went back over the mountains with the women and never returned to the Empire.
“Is this true?” Orca whispered.
“Yes.” Djola squeezed the boy’s hand, wanting to believe also. “True.”
Orca’s body healed quickly, but he was skittish, rarely spoke, and never left sick bay. He offered his body to Djola and looked terrified when Djola declined. Drunk pirates kept sniffing around him, so Djola told Pezarrat he wanted Orca exclusively. Pezarrat agreed. Acid-conjure let the captain triple his raids—as Vandana predicted. Sick bay was flooded with foolhardy pirates and wounded captives. Orca tended patients, doing what Djola hated. He had a gentle touch and a soothing manner.
“What else can I do for you?” Orca asked.
Djola let Orca massage tension away, but nothing more.
“You should learn what we know,” Vandana declared. “You like doctoring.”
Vandana taught Orca and Djola healing secrets from beyond the maps. Djola was excellent at concocting cures. Orca was better tending patients. Evenings, after brewing herb potions with Djola or patching up pirates with Vandana, Orca joined Djola climbing the mast. Birds hovered in warm updrafts, their delicate wing feathers gleaming. Djola liked dangling over the sea, feeling the swell in his stomach, letting the wind get lost in his hair. High waves broke across the bow and reminded him of Samina on a flimsy raft, cutting the water, naked under a sliver of moon.
Orca watched him sway over roiling water with terrified eyes. Vandana roamed the deck below, shouting at stars and gathering moonbeams for her small bag. Pirates who considered forcing her to their bunks feared how they might wake in the morning, or if they’d wake at all. She had an array of hidden weapons, yet was gentle, sentimental. She believed in dragging people back from death. Anybody was worth her efforts.
When the fleet reached the Golden Gulf, Pezarrat bombarded Sand Haven, a fortified barbarian city, with acid-conjure. Hundreds died. Vandana blamed Djola and stopped talking to him. This was an arrow in his gut. She still insisted Pezarrat bring Sand Haven books and live griots to Djola. The books were full of whimsy and fear. Griots spouted the same jumba jabba he’d already read about Xhalan Xhala: the power of Smokeland in the everyday; tomorrow from yesterday right now; sacred conjure too dangerous to be shared.
What did that mean? Djola was a terrible smoke-walker. He hated leaving his body to fly off to who knows where. He barely made it through the border-void his last trip with Samina. Wielding the power of Smokeland in the everyday was a daunting prospect. He’d rather concoct mixtures from stone powder, crystal dust, and potash. Babalawo wise men in the floating cities might know how to master the spell of spells. They might also help him neutralize poison sand.
After Sand Haven, Pezarrat hid the fleet in a cove to avoid paying Azizi his share. Orca climbed a mast without Djola. Vandana walked the deck and shouted to the stars. The old healer went off drinking with the steer-man. Djola sat alone in sick bay, puzzling poison sand, refusing to give up. Every mystery could be solved. Yari said this. Djola closed his eyes. He drifted close to sleep, calm, sober, his thoughts sharp. The puzzle yielded: void-storms appeared like Grain’s letter, not from nowhere but perhaps from a wise-woman corridor or a bit of folded space.
Djola sipped a cup of soup. At the second mouthful, he spit it out. Too late. The bitter taste of lethal mushrooms hid behind garlic and honey. He carried antidotes for common toxins in his Aido bag, but these were potent, fast. One mouthful, and Vandana found him convulsing, an antidote clutched in a paralyzed hand. She helped him choke it down, babbling Mama Zamba sagas until his heart slowed, his breath was steady, and his strength returned. They took long breaths together.
“Basawili.” He thanked her and the crossroads gods.
Vandana hugged him. “I wish no death on you.”
Djola drew knives from his sleeves and raced to the galley. Vandana followed, wielding long, diamond-tipped blades he’d never seen. They confronted the cook—a young idiot paid off by Council no doubt. Djola forced him to guzzle a bowl of his mushroom brew. In minutes, the cook foamed at the mouth, choked, and died. A kitchen boy cowere
d under a table. Vandana blocked Djola and let the boy run away.
“Little one not against us,” she murmured in Lahesh.
Djola’s hands trembled. “The cook killed himself.”
“When do we go to home?” Vandana held his hands till rage subsided.
Djola couldn’t go home without an answer to poison sand. He was certain it traveled through folded space, but why, how? “Soon I hope.”
“Be quick, catch good weather. It’s a long walk over ice walls, each one higher. Many steps to cross the backbone.” Lahesh called the mountains that ran from Arkhys City to Holy City their mother’s backbone, Mama Zamba. “Then is dry sand, stealing water from skin and eyes, no matter what you’re drinking.”
Beyond the mountains was the end of maps. Few travelers survived the sweet desert and glaciers to reach Arkhys City. Besides Yari, Vandana was the only one Djola knew. Warrior women with dagger teeth and diamond blades had been a tall tale he doubted until he met her.
“I must understand something first,” Djola said.
“I know. I am patience. I have good to do in the meanwhile. That is living.”
21
A Broken Tusk
Pezarrat marched into the galley with a phalanx of guards trailing behind him.
“Empire spy”—Vandana pointed at the cook—“dead from his own soup.”
Pezarrat thrust a bark-paper scroll at Djola. “A letter appeared.”
Djola snatched it. Leaving Vandana to clean up the galley mess, he dashed to sick bay. Orca, smelling of moon mist, hovered close as Djola neutralized Kyrie’s conjure with gold dust, broke the seal, and read Grain’s flowing script.
What you predicted comes true. Strength to you, Djola, in exile
No rainbow fish run the rivers—revelers at the Water Festival go hungry
Kyrie sends honey, mangos, and goats for Arms to distribute in the Arkhys market
Master of Poisons Page 9