Master of Poisons

by Andrea Hairston

  She squinted at a captive rattling the locks and chains that bound her to a cage. The woman’s clothes were shreds, her golden hair singed, her face blotchy with bruises. She wore an anklet made from moth cocoons and beetle carapaces. Awa swallowed a shriek. Meera, still alive! A warhorse was tied to Meera’s cage—Bibi! She stomped and snorted, chasing off a burning acolyte.

  Rokiat circled the wagon-cages, riding Bibi’s yearling. He winced at hail pounding his blood-crusted face. Bibi had followed Fannie here and the other horses followed Bibi. Awa whistled an alert to the herd. Bibi, and Meera too, jerked up at the piercing melody. Rokiat snapped his head around as horses whinnied and reared against restraints. Did they see Awa? Fannie dashed past her through the narrow opening to the other side.

  “Fannie! Stop!” Vines and roots snagged Awa’s leg and held tight. “Come back.”

  “An Iyalawo with gold tattoos joins Hezram’s dance,” Bal shouted.

  “Zst! Tembe.” Awa clawed at vines holding her prisoner. “The wise woman of Ice Mountain. She worships Hezram.”

  “Then Tembe isn’t a wise woman, but a fool.”

  Awa whistled a come-home call to Fannie who kicked at ropes and stakes hobbling the horses. “Tembe has roots beyond the Empire in the floating cities.”

  “So?” Bal said. “Fools blow themselves up there too.”

  “Tembe might know conjure to break through Kyrie’s gates.”

  Bal had no cheeky reply for that.

  10

  A Good Story

  A deep voice echoed around the cliffs. “My gates will hold against Tembe.”

  Awa stared through a gap in those gates to Fannie and Bibi, head-to-head, conferring and gnashing teeth by Meera’s cage. Bibi reared up, straining against hobbles. She shoved Fannie and nipped her flanks. Meera rattled the cage as Rokiat raced toward them.

  “Do not worry.” A figure in a flame-cloth robe and pirate pants cinched at the ankles jumped down from the cave of mirages and blocked Awa’s view. “Basawili.” The voice was a round, fierce woman, with silver tattoos, silver hair streaked red, and blue-violet eyes like Samina. Calm as dirt and clear as a drumbeat, she chanted Lahesh, Anawanama, Zamanzi, and languages Awa didn’t yet know. Trees echoed the woman’s songs and haints danced to her rhythms.

  “Iyalawo Kyrie.” Terrified, Awa wriggled free of brambles. She spread her arms wide, and bowed. Kyrie acknowledged the greeting, flicked sparks from her fingertips, and headed for Djola, who still lay slumped against the boulder. Fannie galloped through the narrowing gap just before vines, branches, and roots closed tight again. The sun broke apart clouds, and the rain subsided. Had Kyrie conjured the storm?

  “Warhorses try to break free, kicking and biting. Acolytes run shrieking down the road.” Bal swung down on a purple vine, singing harmony with vieself:

  Warrior, warrior, why do you lament?

  Are the arrows in your bow all spent?

  My song got lost late last night

  Running from a quaking tongue

  My burnt lips refused to fight

  My rebel heart was undone

  Stiff fingers stroked deadly air

  Tomorrow’s songs dying there

  As Bal gathered sword and bow, Fannie nosed vie, approving of Green Elder music. Bal scratched velvet ears and sang on.

  Warrior, warrior, sweet enemy mine

  Why do we squander so much sunshine?

  Our songs won’t run far away

  Just into another day

  Warrior, warrior, have you forgotten?

  Greed makes even sweet apples rotten

  With no stout hearts to keep time

  Or breath and bones for good reason and deep rhyme

  Doesn’t really matter, your breath lost or mine

  No songs will save this fine day

  I say, warrior, warrior sweet enemy mine

  With no stout hearts to keep time

  No songs will save this fine day

  Green Elder music energized Awa. Meera, Rokiat, Bibi, and the herd were alive. Awa would free them from Hezram with Fannie and Bal’s help. Somehow. Awa hugged the warrior and the horse in bright sunshine.

  “Don’t rejoice yet.” Kyrie prodded Djola. “Hezram will head to Arkhys City. He brings Azizi warhorses, an army of acolytes, and transgressors to bleed.”

  “I saw my friends from Holy City,” Awa said.

  “Yes.” Kyrie scowled at her. “The gates opened at your request.”

  “I made no request.” Or maybe she did. Awa pushed confusion aside. “Meera and Rokiat escaped when I did, but Hezram must have captured them and the horses.” Curses filled Awa’s mouth. Perhaps Rokiat had betrayed Meera. He wasn’t in a cage.

  “Tell us about Hezram.” Bal picked up Yari’s drum, recognition dawning.

  “Yours now,” Awa said, too quickly.

  Bal frowned and tied the drum to a sweetgrass belt. “Another good story.” Bal stepped breath-close, straightened Awa’s cloud-silk head wrap, and pouted like the petulant child vie used to be. “We’ll help your friends.”

  “You will?” Awa was dazzled by Bal’s ferocity.

  “Of course, I would do anything for you.” Bal stroked Awa’s snake birthmark. “But you’re a stingy griot. You owe me several stories.”

  “Hezram is danger,” Awa said quickly. “In Jumbajabbaland he was as powerful as … as … as Yari.”

  “Basawili.” Kyrie pounded Djola’s chest and shouted in Anawanama. “Good citizens believe poison desert won’t breach Hezram’s Dream Gates and they’re happy to bleed other people’s children. Council and Azizi too. Fools.”

  Djola opened his eyes, one black, one red, and scanned from the shimmering cave to piles of ash. He jiggled the crystal in his foot. It flared. “Kyrie, Kyrie. Only bad news. It has been many terrible years. Where’s the greeting?” He slurred his words and sounded drunk. Soot licked his face.

  “The People eat each other. Time for salutations is past,” Kyrie replied.

  Awa escaped Bal and ran to Djola. “Are you all right?”

  He laughed at her stupid question. Death wheezed at the back of his breath. “I presume you’ve introduced yourselves.”

  Kyrie shook her head. “No need. Everyone has heard of me, and Bal told endless tales on her beloved Awa.”

  Embarrassed, Awa leaned her forehead to Djola’s and whispered, “I worried you might get lost in the void.”

  He patted her cheek with a mesh glove. “You saved me. How can I get lost now?”

  Awa sputtered, so much sentiment coming at her. “We saved each other.”

  “Haints fortifying my gates won’t linger forever,” Kyrie declared. “New sacrifices must be made.”

  Djola grunted. “I don’t have much left to sacrifice.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you,” Kyrie snapped. “We must get you to Council. I’ve conjured a corridor almost to Arkhys City. Tembe will do the same for Hezram when they regroup. Can you walk?”

  “Not fast, not far,” Djola replied.

  Kyrie hauled him to standing and pointed at the mirage cave nestled up in the cliffs. It seemed distant, a steep climb over treacherous cliffs. Djola teeter-tottered. He’d never make it on his own. Kyrie kissed her teeth and poked rocks and dense brush on the ridge. Fannie wouldn’t make the climb either.

  “We can’t leave the warhorse behind,” Awa said.

  “Of course not.” Bal threw Djola’s blood-crusted arm around vie’s neck and shouldered his weight.

  Djola squinted. “Who are you, disappearing in bright light?”

  “A shadow warrior,” Awa said. “That’s my Bal.”

  Djola gasped. Awa also attended to her breath.

  “Did Awa tell tales on me?” Bal kept him from falling over. “I’m no haint or fiend.”

  Djola nodded at Bal’s Aido cloth tunic. “To see new patterns, you need new eyes.” He tried to open his cape. “I wear the same pattern. Lahesh invented this in Smokeland.”

  “I didn’t k
now that,” Bal said mildly, “and Yari was my teacher.”

  Kyrie rolled her eyes and muttered a curse about tinkerers and wim-wom.

  Djola sagged. “We’re all fools, acting as if what we know is all there is to know.” He stroked Bal’s face and looked ready to weep. He dropped his hand. “Ignorance won’t save us from the Master of Illusion.” More words tangled on his tongue.

  Muffled screeches from Hezram’s side made Awa flinch.

  Kyrie gripped Djola’s chin. “Here’s the news: Good citizens think the gods are cruel old witchdoctors living on mountaintops. They believe I power demon gates with stolen phalluses, eat my enemies’ hearts, and even call up bad weather.”

  Luckily Awa hadn’t commented on Kyrie conjuring storms. “The Anawanama say: We are the weather,” Awa declared.

  “Indeed.” Kyrie spat on smoldering ashes and strode to her Mountain Gates. She stroked the vines and brambles that had opened for Fannie. Hidden under leaves and in the elbows of branches were a hundred hundred knife-like thorns. Kyrie took a breath and fell. Thorns pierced her face, neck, chest, belly, thighs, and ankles.

  Awa lurched toward her. “What are you doing?”

  Djola lunged at of Awa. “Let her be.” That move took all his strength. He dropped down on a cathedral root arching over a boulder. Bal and Awa exchanged worried glances as he spoke through gritted teeth. “Kyrie joins the mountain.”

  “Whatever that means.” Awa worried for Kyrie and Djola. Bal stood behind Djola, letting him lean into vie’s knees.

  Kyrie pulled away from the thorns. “Most people believe rivers, dirt, trees, and bees have no spirit or destiny.” Blood and silvery fluid oozed from many wounds, yet her voice was strong. “Even in the floating cities, the world is a dead thing. Nothing but greed and power are sacred. That’s why I left.”

  Djola snorted. “You conjured peace with Zizi and the Empire. Floating-city Babalawos called you traitor and sent your husband to poison you. That’s why you left.” This wasn’t the story Awa had heard.

  “Yes, my one true love betrayed me.” Kyrie sounded wistful. She tramped below the mirage cave and splattered silvery blood. Vines retreated and rocks dissolved. “Don’t worry, Awa, we aren’t people who betray the ones we love.”

  “You’re a mountain, Kyrie. I don’t know who I am,” Djola and Bal said in unison and then gaped at each other.

  “Griots tell wild tales about the witch of Mount Eidhou,” Awa stuttered.

  “Griots are the best liars.” Kyrie stomped along the cliff face, dripping blood. Bushes, roots, and rocks dissolved. She was carving out a path.

  “What about commandeering Samina to power your Mountain Gates?” Djola said. “Your sister, your own blood?”

  “Sisters?” Awa exclaimed.

  Kyrie turned a large boulder in her way to vapor. She was zigzagging up toward the mirage cave. “I conjure only with the willing.”

  “Samina was willing to do whatever you asked.” Djola hugged his rage. “Why not ask her to save herself?”

  Kyrie stared into the trees. “After you were exiled, I didn’t know where Samina and your children were.”

  Djola sank down again. “In a secret hideaway I built up the coast. Nobody but half-brother Nuar knew that. And my guard.”

  “Ahh.” Kyrie stumbled over nothing. “Samina brought the children to Arkhys City to find you.”

  “Of course,” he muttered.

  “She didn’t dare smoke-walk under the eyes of priests. When we finally met in Smokeland, she wanted to find you. Who argues with Samina when her mind is set?” Kyrie paused at a bulging ledge. “I don’t force rocks, trees, and people to do my bidding or command a haint army. People tell lies on me.”

  Djola trembled and shook his head. The crystal in his foot flared.

  Awa stepped on the path Kyrie carved. It was steep and narrow, but Fannie could manage it. “Your power is not a lie.”

  Bal bristled. “People fear and hate power in a woman.”

  Awa touched a silver fleck from Kyrie’s wound. Her finger burned. She rubbed it quickly in soothing dirt. “They think Kyrie is ruthless and heartless.”

  “Heartless for protecting her mountain, her people?” Bal shouted. “That’s the nettle weed calling the prickly pear too sharp.”

  Awa stood breath close to Bal. “Griots say Kyrie’s people are stingy haints, hiding in a green-land mountain paradise.”

  “They’re refugees from Empire wars,” Bal replied.

  “Why care about refugees or their pile of rocks? Arkhysian farmers and good citizens starve and freeze. Hezram promises a sweet yesterday instead of a bleak tomorrow. Who can resist that?”

  Bal’s face twisted. “You defend that dung heap after what he did to you?”

  “I don’t defend Hezram,” Awa stammered. “You’re too angry to—”

  “Aren’t you angry?”

  “We have to see how other people see.” Djola’s voice cracked.

  “I do,” Bal shouted. “Northlanders and good citizens would make me choose woman or man, or burn me alive. Zamanzi burned Isra right in front of us. Remember?”

  “Yes, but—” Awa wanted to forget. “We—”

  “Barbarians kill elder trees for temple bonfires. Good citizens suck every root dry to light the night. They let Hezram bleed a thousand thousand transgressors to death. I could—”

  “What?” Awa hissed. “I siphoned oil from roots and slaughtered many, many trees.” She touched a young cathedral sapling. “You’d put an arrow through every heart that bowed to Hezram’s power? You’d kill us all?”

  “Come!” Kyrie hugged a boulder partially blocking the cave entrance. It rolled aside until the opening was big enough for a warhorse. Kyrie’s blood path sparkled in the sun, beckoning them. “I’ll help with Djola.”

  As Kyrie raced down to them, Bal spoke in a choir of angry voices. “Where is Kyrie’s stool at Council? She uses gate conjure to protect Mount Eidhou, but has no spirit slaves, bleeds nobody but herself. And they say she is a monster, while Hezram with his lies, terror huts, and illusions is a hero, a savior welcomed to Council by Azizi.”

  The crystal in Djola’s foot spit murky spears of light then turned clear. He wheezed at the pain. “Let’s not fight one another.”

  Soot licked Bal’s knees. “Truth is—hard to accept.” Bal swallowed more argument.

  “Truth is whatever you’re willing to believe,” Djola declared.

  “Nothing more, nothing less.” Kyrie took his hand. “My true love drank poison the floating-city Babalawos gave him for me. He snatched the cup away from me at the last moment and took his own life. Without his sacrifice, I’d have never realized the danger, never escaped the floating cities, never made peace with Azizi. He loved me more than his own life. Love is power.”

  “Love? Power?” Awa’s mouth fell open. Wounds on Kyrie’s face leaked silver. Other wounds had crusted over, Vévés to mountain and forest spirits. This Kyrie was not the Kyrie of legends. “How do we change what people are willing to believe?” Awa asked.

  “We must hurry. Azizi is still willing to believe Djola.” Kyrie pulled him and Bal along the path. “This way to that truth.”

  “Why trust Azizi, Kyrie?” Bal’s voice echoed around the mountain, calm once more.

  “I don’t,” Kyrie replied. “I trust you, Awa, and people I don’t know who seek to join with the Weeds and Wild Things, with the rocks and rain. Even Djola.”

  He flinched. “Trust is our wealth.”

  Awa shook her head at Elder-speak.

  Djola touched her cheek and said, “We are Yari’s hope.”

  11

  A Mirage

  They tramped up Kyrie’s blood path at Djola’s pace, Bal shouldering his weight now and again. Fannie pawed vines creeping back over red dirt. Soot nipped at warhorse heels and kept her moving. Kyrie regaled them with tales of good folks slogging through the void and suffering enormous sacrifices to make a better way for all. Bal argued with Kyri
e’s hopeful chatter but Awa barely listened to these griot tales for children.

  After returning from Jumbajabbaland, Awa had planned to give the conjure bag back to Djola then leave him to his save-the-Empire quest and go find Bal. But here was Bal on a save-the-Empire quest too or something similar with Kyrie. Bal wasn’t Awa’s Bal anymore, and suddenly, killing Hezram and rescuing Meera, Rokiat, and the warhorses seemed impossible, even with what she’d learned from Djola.

  Awa shivered in a chill wind. The Master of Weeds and Wild Things had one foot in the death lands and was barely able to carry himself. No giving back the conjure bag to him, it was almost too heavy for Awa in the everyday. What then? Abandon Djola and Bal to witch-woman Kyrie? One breath, Awa was full of bravado, the next full of dread. She stumbled over nothing. “Zst!” A poor griot, Awa didn’t know what story to tell on her future.

  “Too many people are good and weak. Hezram exploits this,” Bal said and hauled Djola into the cave, a tunnel actually, through the mountain.

  Soot scampered behind them, drooling and wagging his tail. Happy! Awa dragged into the gloom. Her breath fogged in the tunnel’s icy air and her skin prickled. Cold conjure. Translucent ground and walls looked onto darkness flecked with stars, like the light bridge. The sun shone in blue sky at both ends. Fannie gnashed her teeth and shook her mane. Warhorses hated caves and tunnels, no matter how miraculous.

  “Fannie, my heart, the tunnel’s shorter than it looks.” Curiosity shifted Awa’s mood. She had been dead to the world when Djola conjured a corridor as they escaped Holy City. “This passageway is more than a trick on the eye,” she shouted to Kyrie. “You’ve folded space and bent time and light. Is Samina’s light bridge a wise-woman corridor connecting Smokeland regions?” Kyrie mumble-grumbled. Awa took that as a yes.

  “When we were Sprites”—Bal leaned into Djola, bright and cheery again—“Awa could never help thinking a knotted thing apart.”