Awa clamps his mouth. Rokiat nuzzles her. Soot sticks his nose out the door. Hezram is close, a few minutes, moving away. Soot wants to run him down. He growls, impatient, yet he knows they must hunt Hezram carefully. Soot must creep up on Hezram when he sleeps, or swims in the sea, or pisses on a tree at night. Soot must rip Hezram’s throat and eat his heart and liver before anyone notices.
Awa lifts his paws onto Meera’s shoulder. “Take us. Somewhere safe,” she says.
Scents from Mango and Fannie waft through the window. They are tense, but in no danger. Soot steps sideways with Meera into Jumbajabbaland and then to the corral. Fannie and other warhorses greet Meera. Mango stands guard, ears wide. Soot goes back for Rokiat but the man wants to stay in the locked room with fiends. Soot has to drag him to the corral. Rokiat opens his mouth as if to lick someone then shakes the void off like a dog. Soot returns for Awa. She stands over a breath body who smells like her, not Hezram. Awa has stabbed the heart with a viper’s head. She killed two snakes last night and didn’t let Soot eat the heads. She holds a cloth of vapors under a twitching nose. The breath body becomes more solid than shadows; cheeks turn brown like blood. If Soot had Awa’s eyes he’d see red. A woman has come back to herself.
“Mother?” Awa says.
“Is it you?” Mother runs a finger over a mark on Awa’s forehead. “Grown up, an Elder saving me?” Mother’s heart is erratic. Venom runs in her blood.
“Yes, a griot.” Awa hesitates, hiding something. “Did Father—”
Soot sneezes out the smell of venom and tries to swallow a bark. His woofing makes Awa jump. Her face is wet with tears. She is so sad, all the time. Soot whines and paces. The other spirit slaves are restless. He nips Awa’s hand and growls. A sluggish fiend sits up and shakes the other bodies.
“Take us both at once.” Awa lifts the dying woman away from thrashing fiends. Several clamber to standing too. “Can you do that?”
Soot is weary. Still, he puts one paw on Mother’s shoulders and another on Awa. They hug him. He licks their faces and steps sideways. Fiends tug at his tail too late. Pausing in Smokeland to catch a breath, Soot smells Hezram—his sweat, his voice coming from a stranger’s mouth. A fiend jumps from a tree carcass. Soot wants to rip out its throat but he steps to the everyday with Awa and Mother. The bad moments dissolve in the kissing and hugging and good mood aromas at the corral. Soot wags his tail, slapping friendly legs. Everyone is happy! Mango sprays Meera with warm water, cleaning away blood and filth.
“I should be dead,” Meera says.
“I wouldn’t have let them…” Rokiat declares.
“Miracles.” Mother smiles and babbles. Perhaps she will not die right away. Her heart is steadier. “To see you again. I never thought.”
Awa fusses over Mother, combing snarls from wiry hair, offering her bread and a jug of broth from the pirate cook. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to—”
“No,” Mother says, patting Awa. “I’m fine. To see my beautiful daughter. Miracles.” She pushes Awa toward Meera and Rokiat. “I’m fine. Go. They need you.”
Reluctantly, Awa turns to Meera and Rokiat. Mother spills the broth. Soot laps it up. He eats the bread as it falls from her fingers. After many trips through void-smoke with heavy everyday bodies, Soot is a tired old hound. He sets his head in Mother’s lap and she pets him. Awa puts a cloud-silk robe from her Aido bag over Meera’s wet skin. The robe holds the tang of the cold region, almonds, heather, and raintree blossoms.
“I thought you’d jump on Fannie and follow us.” Meera shakes her head.
“I said they were ahead of us.” Rokiat strokes Fannie. “Bibi always follows Fannie.”
“We stopped for the coin and clothes you and I hid,” Meera says. “Then Bibi ran and ran, into mirages, and we left poison dust behind. I thought we were safe. Free.”
“Like now?” Rokiat looks every direction. Soot sniffs his crotch. Rokiat wants to run, not stand and fight like Awa. “Hezram caught up with us before.”
“Why were you guarding the cell and not a prisoner in it?” Awa is mad at Rokiat.
“Rokiat told Hezram he rode off chasing me and Bibi.” Meera clutches his hand.
Rokiat shrugs. “Hezram assumed Meera was my prisoner.”
“And made you Master of Horses?” Awa doesn’t trust him.
“The old master died in the poison dust from Ice Mountain,” Meera whispers in Awa’s ears. “Despite everything, I do love Rokiat.”
Awa stays mad. “In that cell, there were so many transgressors to bleed and spirit slaves to—”
“Hezram has twenty cells in the citadel, not all full yet.” Rokiat trembles. “Rebels will bleed too, for Nightmare Gates around Arkhys City.” He smells hopeless. “Hezram will find us anywhere.”
“I’d rather be dead then—” Meera looks at Mother and leans into Rokiat.
Mother sits in the dirt, leaning against a post. She is smiling at them. Her breath is too slow. So is her heart.
“What are we going to do?” Meera asks.
“Not just save ourselves.” Awa rubs Soot’s head. “Take us to Bal and Djola.”
Soot is happy to hear them planning the hunt. He raises his tail and scents the air. He is a powerful old dog and wild. Hezram should smell him and cower.
8
Sacrifice
“Awa’s gate-spell idea could work.” Kyrie squinted at Djola, a skeptical spark on her fingertip.
They whispered in a corner of the citadel kitchen as Djola drank Lilot’s frothy medicine. Five fireplaces and three Lahesh stoves roared. Pots of herbs boiled; ducks on spits dripped and hissed—a barbarian feast-day specialty. Lilot’s helpers—former pirates and witch women in training—stood at high tables and mixed fruits and sweetmeats with spices and vinegar. Chattering and laughing, they carried trays of hot food into the citadel maze. Soot drooled and they slipped him scraps and scratched his head. Pungent medicine wraps from the cold cellar gave off a dizzying scent.
Djola leaned against a sweaty stone wall, more tired than he ever remembered being.
“You will be the willing sacrifice?” Kyrie sounded dubious.
“A true Dream Gate spell won’t work otherwise,” he replied.
“You’re a terrible smoke-walker.”
“So?” Djola glanced at Awa.
She hovered over her mother as Lilot wrapped the old woman in medicine cloth and poured a hot brew down her throat. Urzula did the same to the transgressor girl they’d rescued. Meera? Hezram’s pretty horse master stood near Meera. He flinched at doors creaking and dishes clattering then moaned as if he were at the edge of death. Kitchen crew fussed over him, icing his brow, rubbing tension from his back. Meera squeezed his hand, cooing comfort. Bal paced around them, disgusted.
“It’s our best chance.” Djola smacked the wall. “What else against Hezram?”
Soot growled. He growled every time someone said Hezram. Kyrie shook her head, a hundred ideas racing behind her eyes. Djola felt impatient to get going. Kyrie pounded his chest and reminded him of Samina.
“Trust me.” Djola gripped her fist and kissed gnarly fingers.
“What of Awa’s own plans?” Kyrie asked Samina’s question.
“Awa and Bal love this world, the way I used to.” This wasn’t an answer. He snatched the cane Urzula had given him and headed into the hallway maze. He had to get out of this stifling kitchen, away from Kyrie’s obstinance.
“Thank you.” Bal appeared at his side and he halted. “For rescuing my Awa.”
“She saved me. Did she tell you? Probably not. She blames herself for Yari’s death.” Djola pulled Bal close and told how Awa refused to abandon him when he was a deadly weight. “Awa brought Yari and a sea of demons back from the void.” He savored the memory. “In a burst of indigo light, Elders turned into themselves again.”
Bal stroked Yari’s drum, dazzled. Vie leaned into Djola. “You’re a story Awa told me. In the enclave, when we were young. That story saved me.” Bal
winked at him and Awa, bowed to Kyrie, and slipped away. Djola felt a surge of pride, despite having nothing to do with Bal’s training.
Kyrie shoved him down the dark corridor. “The emperor is a difficult trick.”
“I can give Azizi what he wants,” Djola said. “I’m not an arrogant fool anymore, and Zizi is ready to listen to me.”
“Can we afford to sacrifice you? Who will Azizi listen to after you’re gone?”
Djola pressed Kyrie’s sparking hand to his heart. “Let’s not fight.”
“It will take everything to conjure Dream Gates.” She patted him. “We must be heroes.”
“Of course.”
“Heroes don’t do what they want or get what they need.”
“You’re relentless, woman.”
Djola hobbled away from Kyrie up the dark, twisty corridor toward Council, cursing mazes, assassins, and heroes. Lilot had wrapped his mangled foot in furry bandages that snagged on jagged stone sticking out from the wall. Urzula’s cane provided sparks of light and meant nobody had to carry him, yet climbing from Lilot’s kitchen, he almost passed out three times. He gulped sour air and slowed down. Whatever Lilot put in her frothy brew cleared his thoughts and calmed his belly. He’d refused pain conjure. Seed and silk potions interfered with reasoning and memory, with resolve and courage too. Facing Azizi, clarity should counter rage.
He clutched the wall, surveying a crossroads of six hallways. When assassins, spies, and Azizi’s scoundrel nephews got lost in this maze, Urzula’s jackals supposedly ate their traitor hearts, Lilot’s hyenas crunched their bones, and Azizi’s rats ate what was left. Rats ate anything.
Tessa wavered in front of him, a shaft of mist from nowhere with blue-violet eyes like Samina’s, a long neck and big feet like his. Quint was a smoldering ball of ash rolling around his sister. “The living are the changes the dead cannot make.” Talking out loud to haints fortified Djola. “Trust me.” Haint children nodded at his resolve and dissolved. Evening air drifted through a window. He stuck his head out. In the citadel corral below, Mango sprayed Lilot’s helpers as they brought bushels of food. Djola chuckled and walked on.
Iridescent torch-bugs flashed green and blue, a light serenade. They crawled on a Lahesh whimsy wheel carved into the wall. Djola leaned into the rough surface, willing it to be the Council entrance and not the jolly rat carvings up ahead. After a good shove, a door opened onto the chamber. He whispered his mother’s prayer to crossroads gods and walked in.
9
A Change of Heart
Council’s high ceilings, sky windows, roaring fireplace, and stone-wood table weren’t as formidable as Djola recalled. Moths had eaten away at robes and helmet masks stolen from barbarian or Zamanzi warriors. A Lahesh iron horse listed to the side, rusting among sacred relics from forgotten peoples.
Azizi stood at a side table of steaming food, thin and bent, bushy eyebrows and patchy beard gone white. His left hand trembled and his right eye drooped, as if he too had danced Xhalan Xhala. A flimsy gray robe fluttered around a wasted form and made him look like a haint. Time had served him no better than Djola. Azizi shooed rats from the cheese and said, “Are you coming in or meditating on the whimsy wheel?”
Two emperor guards, muscled and mighty, waved double-edged swords and poison daggers at Djola. These men had wrenched Djola from his Council chair, dragged him through back alleys to the harbor, and given him to Pezarrat. The warriors trembled, confusion in their eyes. Barbarian stock, they loved their emperor and believed dying for him would be a great honor, not a waste of blood. Djola should forgive them for following terrible orders. He should also forgive himself for bringing down Ice Mountain and abandoning his family. The guards grimaced at him. Djola leaned on his cane. He needed to sit down.
“Djola’s the guest I’ve been waiting for.” Azizi motioned the guards away. They backed up only a bit. “A long wait, but the Master of Poisons has finally returned.” Azizi sighed. “Just in time, my friend.”
“I’m the Master of Weeds and Wild Things,” Djola replied.
“A new name signals a change of heart.” Azizi tilted his head. “Masters at my table say you want to murder me.” The guards sliced the air with their swords.
Djola sucked his teeth. “Why would I murder you?”
“For what I did or”—Azizi frowned—“for what I didn’t do. Council can’t decide. Some say you hate the Empire. You’d see us burn and celebrate our ashes on the wind.”
“Money, Water, and Ernold worry about what they’ve done and not done.” Djola trembled. “They burn the world, celebrate ash, and tell self-serving lies.”
Azizi ambled between Djola and his jittery warriors. “Hear a lie a thousand thousand times … Who recognizes truth?”
“That is the challenge to all wise people.”
“Are we wise?” Azizi gripped Djola’s arm, taking his weight. “Did reckoning fire ruin your eye?”
“Xhalan Xhala. I’ve done too much violence.”
“So I’ve heard.” Azizi walked Djola toward the table.
“I see wonders now.” Djola tapped the red orb. “The eye is a Smokeland treasure.”
Azizi set Djola down in his old Council chair with Anawanama ancestor spells carved on the arms and back. He found a stool for Djola’s mangled foot and stroked the Lahesh crystal poking out of Lilot’s furry bandages, unafraid. He tucked Djola in scratchy blankets stolen from a desert people. Turquoise beads dangled in the fringe. “Sky rocks heal. What happened to your foot?”
“One of Hezram’s fiends fed on me in Smokeland.” Djola hesitated, not ready to tell Yari’s story again. He removed the mesh glove from his right hand but left the lethal one covered. “Lahesh crystal stops me from leaking into the void.”
“What’s to stop me leaking away?” Azizi turned to the guards. “Leave us to each other.” He whistled over their complaints. “Djola is my old, old friend. Watch out for the other masters.”
The bolder guard eyed Djola. “Inside the Council chamber we keep you—”
“Go,” Azizi shouted. “I’m safe with Djola, an Empire hero.”
Mumble-grumbling, the warriors headed for the massive doors opposite the fireplace.
“I’m not a hero.” Cold filled Djola’s lungs and his lethal hand burned, as if he danced Xhalan Xhala. “Wait, I see—”
Azizi and the guards looked around. “What?”
An ambush. The void swallowed Arkhys City. Crows turned to soot; exploding behemoths spewed amber foam. An acid wind ravished cathedral trees, toppled stage towers, and the carnival oasis was sludge. Awa, Bal, Boto, Kyrie, and Vandana also, shapeshifted into bone masquerades with Hezram’s face. They muttered his lies:
Who dances with fire?
The foolish go up in flames, but not the brave or the wise.
I am the new world.
You are the old. I have only to wait for your demise.
Djola refused these visions and released his spirit body. If not hope, better to see nothing and slip away to Jumbajabbaland. He flew out the sky windows easily. The border void was thin—so much smoke had leaked into the everyday—he passed through in a gasp. The light bridge was a blink. Djola raced toward Samina’s cold arms and cruel breath. Bright and bold as in life, she stood on a glacier. When he could almost smell the raintree blossom, she turned her back and faded into an avalanche.
“No,” Djola yelled. “I’m almost there. Wait.”
10
Lies
“Wait for what?” Gruff warriors said as Djola slammed back into the everyday.
Azizi shook his shoulders and whispered, “You were just shadows and breath.”
“Are you listening, poison master?” The guards detailed a slow, horrible death if any harm came to their emperor. Djola scowled at empty threats. He tortured himself worse than anybody else could.
“He’s too feeble to do any harm,” Azizi assured them.
Reluctantly, the warriors tramped into a Council antechamber without no
ticing Bal in Aido camouflage skulking by stolen mudcloth drapes. Vie slipped into Council with swords, bow, and talking drum before the doors locked with Lahesh conjure.
Azizi saw Bal easily. All Yari’s lovers became vie’s students, noting what others might not. “I know this instrument.” He tapped Yari’s drum. “A shadow warrior could assassinate me and disappear, yet Lilot guided you here.”
“Past her hyenas and jackals.” Bal grinned, arrogant, cheeky. “Shadow warriors don’t kill enemies, not even animal-people if they can help it.”
“Griots get carried away. I’ve never seen a jackal attack a person.” Azizi tapped the drum again. “Who are you?”
“Yari was my teacher. I carry vie’s drum.” Pain rippled through the chamber. “I’m Bal. Djola is family.” Bal bowed.
Azizi glanced from Bal to Djola and back. “Oh?”
“Yes,” Bal replied. “I’ve vowed to keep him safe.”
“Keep us both safe then,” Azizi said. Bal bowed again and faded into the shadows by the door. Azizi turned to Djola. “Is vie part of your cure-spell?”
Djola clamped his tongue on there is no cure, only change. “Bal rides with Kyrie.”
“I knew you’d talk Kyrie back to Council.” Azizi stood by an Iyalawo stool at the stone-wood table. The beaded monkeys holding up the seat sniggered. “Still master of the impossible.”
“Actually, Kyrie brought me back.”
“A wise move.” Azizi pointed to roasted goat, mashed tubers, pickled seaweed, spicy nut butters, and berry bread. “Lilot cooked your favorites. Let’s talk and fortify ourselves before Council comes to fart and groan and torture us.”
“Council sits tonight?” Nobody had told Djola this.
“Why drag our feet?” Azizi worshipped speed. “Poison desert creeps closer every day.” He piled two plates and sat next to Djola, rubbing shoulders, banging knees, as if eight terrible years weren’t a chasm between them, as if they were the same brash youths who’d dreamed and schemed behind the Elders’ backs years ago. “Urzula said you and Kyrie were coming today with the antidote to our troubles.”
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