“Those days are gone.” Awa’s insides roiled. She was ravenous. Regular feasting made hunger hard to ignore. Would she ever feel full?
Soot nosed Awa’s crotch, catching her distress. He licked her fingers.
“Can you walk faster, Awa?” Kyrie yelled over a shoulder and picked up speed.
“I’ll try.” Each step sent shivers of pain through Awa’s bad leg. Nothing else throbbed or oozed. Djola was a good healer. She thanked Vandana for that.
Bal and Kyrie lifted him over uneven ground and carried him up an incline. They went faster than Awa, even lugging his dead weight. She stumbled back into Fannie, whose ears stood erect. The warhorse was on alert for ambush. Crows circled above, mocking clumsy people. The cheeky piebald one landed on Awa’s shoulder, plucked a glittery thread from the cloud-silk head wrap, and flew on.
“Djola,” Awa said, “your annoying birds keep us company no matter where we go.”
“Not my crows,” Djola replied. “Yours.”
Awa scoffed. “Of course they’re yours.”
“They belong to themselves,” Bal sang.
“Awa’s friends then,” Djola said, “following her all the way from Holy City.” He sounded better, but dragged his foot and left a trail of slime.
Bal laughed at crows swooping for Soot’s tail. “Who has too many friends?” This sweet nature grated. Hadn’t Bal been the calm, bleak one when they were Sprites? Who was this volatile, cheery stranger? Bal turned and grinned at Awa as if she were coconut wine that vie’d like to guzzle right now in front of everyone. “You know I’m right. Friends are wealth too.” Bal loved a memory, a good story, not who Awa was now.
“Well—” Awa froze.
She didn’t trust love. Mother loved Father so much, she didn’t poison him after he sold her daughter. Djola loved Azizi even after Azizi had banished him, let his wife and children die, and then devastated the Empire. Djola forgave Azizi, but not Kyrie. Did he really expect more from a woman, from an Iyalawo, like Bal said? Maybe Awa did too.
Bal shot Awa another lusty look before lifting Djola over a muddy hole. “I’ve got you,” Bal whispered, sultry, throaty, talking to them both. Which story would Bal (and Djola) choose—lost daughter who’d become a protégé of Kyrie or shadow warrior orphan with a common name? Both might be true.
A black crow snatched the silver thread from the piebald one. They swooped around a ledge, teasing each other. Their carefree banter annoyed Awa. Why crows liked her or how Soot always found her or why Djola trusted her with his bag was a mystery. And what was Kyrie up to? Too many secrets and mysteries made Awa’s head throb.
“You’re so quiet back there,” Bal said. Bells and seeds on Yari’s drum rattled in time with their march. Bal added an occasional rhythmic flourish—an invitation to hold forth. Any griot could hear that. Awa refused.
“Hoarding all your good stories.” Bal kissed her teeth with mock irritation. “Spare us boredom. Tell your tales.”
A fearless shadow warrior would never understand life in the transgressor huts or love such a weak good person as Awa, such a broken person. Her bad leg screamed pain as her foot got caught in a crevice. She wrenched muscles to stay upright.
“I need breath for speed.” Awa lied with truth, a Holy City habit she couldn’t shake.
“Please. What of the musician whose spirit haunts the drum? Or the goat who lost her hide for upbeats?” Bal dared Awa to tell how she came by Yari’s drum.
“Sugar on dung.” Awa rubbed her face. Bal wouldn’t give up until vie extracted the snake-venom tale. “Well—”
Fannie squealed and reared. Awa clutched her mane as she backed up. An elephant lumbered their way, wavering like a mirage. Scars crisscrossed her back and one tusk was a jagged stump. The enormous beast moved fast, ears flapping, trunk extended. For an instant Awa feared she was the vanguard of a barbarian thief-lord raid. Yet Kyrie and Bal smiled and waved. Soot wagged his tail. The elephant halted before Djola and trumpeted. She extended her trunk and gathered his scents: Jumbajabbaland, honeybees, raintree blossoms, void rot.
“Mango knows you, remembers you,” Kyrie said.
Djola pressed his nose to the tip of Mango’s trunk. “Why name an elephant Mango?” He grumbled, happy to see the beast.
“Why not?” Bal asked.
Mango wrapped her trunk around Djola’s waist and pulled him closer, rumbling. He leaned against her broad forehead, rumbling a reply. Mango dropped to one knee.
“The Master of Weeds and Wild Things indeed,” Awa whispered.
Djola wiped blood from his marble eye and tears from Mango’s cheeks, before scrambling onto her back. Ancient Kyrie climbed up, agile and practiced. Maybe she wasn’t as old as lying griots claimed. Old didn’t have to mean infirm, yet Kyrie defied the stories. The elephant headed out the corridor into a mango grove. The exit was closer than Awa realized. Bal leapt up on Fannie and hauled Awa up too. They trotted into warm sunlight. Awa felt dizzy, uncertain. Her thoughts were riddled with the hidden lies she was willing to believe. How would she ever clear her mind?
The elephant stomped away from the grove. Fannie looked back to the cave.
“Mango knows the best way to Arkhys City.” Kyrie was eager to battle Hezram’s lies.
“Good. Once we’re there, I’ve made a plan with Samina.” Djola was also unafraid.
“Better than the Holy City plan, I hear. No turning a mountain to poison desert.” Kyrie smirked. “That golden heart wheel holds you to life. Let’s not waste it.”
“Golden heart wheel?” Bal poked Awa. “From Smokeland?”
“Yes,” Djola said. “Lahesh conjure I suspect. Griots say some Lahesh escaped the everyday with their spirit and breath bodies. They roam the inner seas, tinkering and drumming.”
Awa almost burst into tears. The boat people were Lahesh! Yari’s people, living in Smokeland and Hezram hounds them.
Bal squeezed Fannie’s sides to get her moving. “Where’d you get a heart wheel?”
Awa talked over Bal. “Does Samina know conjure to stop Hezram?”
“Yes. Yari did too. Abelzowadyo,” Djola replied, and Awa lost a few breaths.
“What’s that?” Bal hugged Awa’s trembling shoulders. “I’m a tough blade of sweetgrass. Don’t worry about tromping me down. I can hear any story you tell.”
“Abelzowadyo is Zamanzi for sacred shapeshifter. Yari told us,” Awa said. “Djola will explain. He’s a wise man, good at explaining.” Let him tell of Yari’s death and their trip to Samina’s cold realm. Awa leaned onto Fannie’s neck, urging the warhorse to follow the elephant. She whispered, “While they save the Empire, we can rescue Meera, Rokiat, and Bibi.”
Fannie snorted, not eager for this journey either. She reared and kicked before reluctantly trotting on to save their friends.
BOOK
V
1
Hidden Faces: What Fannie Knows
“Fannie, my heart, we can’t go back.”
The whirlwind of dust, ash, and sparks leaking from the border-void blows itself out. Afternoons have the worst leaks. Fannie looks back toward the Mountain Gates.
“Not that way.” Awa gestures at the Empire Road, at tree ruins in the storm’s path. “Only forward.”
Every day Awa says this, for many days. She sounds like clover and sweetgrass even speaking nonsense. Still, Fannie flattens her ears, angry. The elephant drops a bushel of dung and plods down the mountain toward Arkhys City, a few days’ march at elephant pace. Fannie follows even though she hates leaving her herd on the other side of a bush gate with hairy cowards from Holy City. She worries she’ll never see Bibi and the others again. Bibi nipped tender flanks to chase Fannie away.
Fannie knows no way to untie knots or chew through chains and rescue the herd. And why abandon Awa or Djola to become a slave, even when they head the wrong way? After traversing the light bridge too fast (and burning her eyebrows off), Awa can barely stand. Walking a great distance is impossible. Awa carries to
o many heavy weights—a mountain, a river, and pieces of the sky. Djola is mortally wounded. “Abelzowadyo!” he rasps, but no matter the wheel at his heart and the crystal in his foot, he leaks spirit into the void.
Still, Awa and Djola are hope.
Two years ago, Fannie was war sick too, ready to abandon everyone, ready to lie down and not get up, ready to be smoke in the void. Awa sang Jumbajabbaland songs till Fannie stopped jolting at every rustle or flicker. Awa cleaned the battlefields from her hooves, brushed terror off her back, soothed her from withers to tail. Awa (and her bee and crow friends and Soot too) faced down drunk acolytes to protect Fannie, Bibi, and the herd. And before Ice Mountain came crashing down and the Amethyst River lost its banks, Djola opened rusty Green Gates and called the herd to freedom. So, despite the horrors Fannie glimpses in the gloom as they march closer to Arkhys City, she matches her gait to the elephant’s—an unwieldy fearless creature—who rumbles, bellows, and flaps giant ears. Rogue warriors scurry out of their way. Predators keep their distance. Fannie is grateful for elephant conjure protecting them.
The wrong direction might be the shortest way home.
Mount Eidhou hides its snowy head in mist for most of their journey, but on the fourth day at sunset, blue ice glaciers ghost above a ring of clouds. Arkhys City is a festering splotch sprawled at the base of the foothills, spewing dark rivulets into the sea. Fannie smells the riots before she hears or sees them. The wind reeks of blood, vomit, and burnt flesh. The city attacks itself. What do Awa or Djola hope to find there?
Years ago, Fannie rode into the capital, twice, with the big herd, when she was not yet leader, when she was young, and they followed a sandy mare with a golden mane and a brave heart. The city smelled of clover, oats, and ripe fruits. Baskets lined the roads, and she ate whatever she wanted. Crowds threw flowers and cheered. The morning after Fannie’s second and last visit, the sandy mare went down and never stood up. Warriors hacked her legs and thrust spears into her heart.
Several brave mares died, and then Fannie was leader, charging through blood and bones, running toward spears and bows, and the herd followed her. Death came from every shadow. So many lives ambushed and lost, who could claim victory? Fannie stumbled around all night with a dead man on her back. Finally, hairy warriors, stinking of tree oil and blood, brought the herd to Holy City. Fannie chomped fingers, broke ribs, and kicked a few heads so they’d kill her quickly or leave her alone. She never trusted Hezram’s gang. Raiders and thieves, blood always on their breath, they would prey on anyone, even themselves.
If nobody shows mercy, as the Amethyst River says, who should Fannie trust?
The last splinters of sunlight leave the sky. They are almost down the final hill. Awa falls asleep against Fannie’s neck, snoring into her mane, trusting her and the void-smoke direction they take. Distant screams and last breaths make Fannie’s ears shiver. Soot howls. Not an everyday yapper, this dog comes from beyond the smoke, from Jumbajabbaland like Fannie, or she might have stomped him already.
The emperor’s warhorses all come from beyond the smoke. The Lahesh admired their strong hearts, loyalty, and courage. They invited a herd to the everyday, as friends. Raiders killed the Lahesh, stole the horses from themselves, and made them laborers and warriors. The mares who led that first journey are long dead, and young colts born recently know only the everyday. Fannie is old enough to remember life on the other side, but she is afraid to take the herd back home. What if they get stranded in the void?
And now the border-void leaks into the everyday …
Last week, guarding Awa’s and Djola’s breath bodies at the elder tree, Fannie heard cries for help from Jumbajabbaland. She stepped sideways, skirting smoky borderlands. Whenever she’d done this before, fruit trees and sweetgrass meadows greeted her; travelers danced in cathedral branches; water creatures sang from the sea. This trip, Fannie smelled hungry spirit slaves. She spied elder trees ripping roots and running from poison sandstorms, but saw nowhere to roam free. The void swirled around her hooves and up her legs, dulling her thoughts, drinking her will. A fiend sprang at her from rotten bushes. Reacting as in battle, Fannie sidestepped back to the everyday. She shook off the itchy smoke clinging to her mane. Any fate in the everyday was better than becoming an empty-eyed fiend or adding heart spirit to the void.
Soot scurries between Fannie’s feet and growls the memories away.
“Somebody behind us?” The shadow warrior twists around and puts an arrow to the bow, yet the warrior’s heart does not race when they cross a rickety bridge made of woven sweetgrass. The bridge sways under their feet. Fannie hates this. Thunder River crashes far below them in a rocky ravine. Fannie wants to turn back and go anywhere else. The shadow warrior sings and caresses her sides. Fannie sways with the elephant, sick in her stomach. Then hooves touch solid ground again. Relief. She nickers.
The elephant turns and tickles Fannie with the fingers in her trunk, a friendly gesture. The shadow warrior pulls a thread and the rope bridge unravels. It whistles in the wind and smacks against rocks before splashing into water. Fannie is glad they won’t return this way. Crows holler and swoop. The hairy cowards tracking them must find another crossing. Fannie snorts relief. Darkness will end soon. Sunlight is always a balm.
Djola grumbles, twitches, and moans. Awa jerks awake and sits up.
Kyrie curses. “Veson-sacrifices to the mountain god.”
Two bodies hang in a tree, flayed flesh, burnt faces, upwind. Fannie shies away too late to avoid them. The elephant wails, vibrating the ground under their feet. The herd halts, quiet, agitated. This is not the work of hungry predators, but warriors or angry people who leave flesh to rot. Fannie is impatient as Kyrie and Bal cut the bodies down and scatter flesh and bones in the brush. When done, Bal trembles and moans, batting Kyrie away. Awa slides down to hug and kiss Bal, and they sway with the breeze. Awa knows how to stroke terror away. She sings a Green Elder song and soothes everyone. Fannie nudges Awa, not wanting to remain. The elephant wraps her trunk around Kyrie’s arm before she climbs back up. Fannie wants to gallop away from death and sadness. Even the elephant manages to go a bit faster.
They trot along walls covered in a filigree of silver-mesh as in Holy City. Artisans have crafted crossroads Vévés to call down spirits and hold them. Djola curses and Kyrie sucks her teeth. Fannie neighs, agreeing with their distress. Silver-mesh corrals stretch around the city, a promise, a threat, not yet animated by haints or spirit slaves. They reach a wall that is being rebuilt with silver-mesh. Djola and Kyrie hunch down on the elephant to pass under a dilapidated archway into the city. Empire guards, tottering in a drunken stupor, motion them down cracked marble stairs. Fannie’s iron shoes skid on the slick surface. She looks back to mountain cliffs and freedom.
“Rebels should stay alert,” Bal hisses at the guards.
Soon there will be sober warriors and locks on sturdy corral gates. Why turn themselves into prisoners? Somehow Fannie must get Bibi and their big herd free again before Arkhys City is as dead as Holy City, before there is no escaping poison desert. She snorts stinging granules from her nose and lifts her head. Awa strokes her neck. The Amethyst River is wrong about Awa and Djola. Fannie knows their hearts. In the face of great danger, they seek help in Arkhys City to save the herd.
The city’s guard towers are dim and spooky. No tree-oil lamps light the way. Too many faces hide in dark recesses. Who can tell what ambush desperate citizens might plan? As dawn colors the sky, Mount Eidhou casts circles of red light up into the clouds, a fiery crown atop blue glaciers. Good citizens in doorways and windows glower and drool as if they want roast dog, horse, or even grilled elephant for breakfast. Hunger makes fools of us all. Soot stays close to elephant legs. Fannie would stomp any fool trying to snatch him.
Musicians raise a racket in the distance. Fannie hesitates. The elephant matches her bellows to the music and picks up speed. Djola’s grumbling fades. Bal adds harmony to the music as they amble closer to the mark
et. Onion towers on the emperor’s sandstone citadel gleam with hints of dawn. Tree-oil lamps in a hundred windows wink at them. Banners catch a breeze and stir up birds roosting in high windows. They fly through dust demons, squawking. Fannie hates the sand in her nostrils.
Once lush, Arkhys City is now a desert town in the rain shadow of the mountain. Fannie lifts her ears. Thunder River clatters down from glaciers through rock culverts and separates the oasis at Rainbow Square from the emperor’s citadel. Deep roots drink from the river. Pendulous white and purple blossoms sway in the breeze. Raintrees in bloom on the banks of the river are impervious to void-winds. For now. Songbirds offer finicky lovers sand beetles and chirps.
Fannie isn’t lulled by this tranquility. She stays alert. At the riverbanks multiheaded giants with tree trunk legs and cloud-silk robes dance around a warhorse from Holy City. At such a distance, vision is vague. Fannie rears, ready to fight foes or show allies the measure of her fury and power. From years on the battlefields, she knows masked carnival players are unpredictable and dangerous, but warrior-clowns also might possess conjure Awa and Djola need.
A good masquerade could save you from death.
2
Eishne, Festival of Memories
“I told you,” Djola sputtered at Bal. “Abelzowadyo means sacred shapeshifter.”
Desperate, exhausted, and not quite right in his mind, Djola bounced into Arkhys City’s sprawling market on an elephant’s back. The market was a city within the city. Wading through clouds of dirt and dung, gawking at stalls, animals, and people from everywhere, he felt as flimsy as a forgotten ancestor. Vendors setting up shop cheered carnival rogues making a grand entrance.
Bal stood on a high-stepping mare with ribbons in a red mane and juggled four blades. Warhorse or Shadow Warrior never crossed their minds. Awa and Soot wore identical headdresses with feathers, bells, and glittery fur. They could have been Lahesh tricksters of old. Kyrie sat in front of Djola, wearing patchwork robes, her silver hair concealed in purple cloth. Mountain Vévés on cheeks and brows looked like face paint. Oohing and cooing, the witch of Mount Eidhou painted a yellow snake on Mango’s brow. Djola’s lip curled. Rage at Kyrie was maybe unjust, but Kyrie should have persuaded Samina to live.
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