“Awa, for Council,” Djola replied. “She’s the conjurer who gave me a Lahesh eye for clear vision and a heart wheel for compassion.”
“A woman is your cure?” Azizi whistled disapproval. “Rebels worry about treacherous women. They say Tembe is a worse piece of conjure than Hezram.”
“I made this same mistake, blaming Kyrie for—” For what Azizi did, for what Djola himself didn’t do for his family. “Awa is Abelzowadyo. Bal also.”
“I don’t know this word.” Azizi bit into the goat haunch.
“Zamanzi for sacred shapeshifter, a conjurer of change.”
“Zamanzi wisdom is hard to swallow.” Azizi chewed quickly, like his rats. “Who has not lost someone to Zamanzi poison or blades?”
“Who has not lost someone to Empire blades?” Djola attended to his breath before speaking on. “Yari gave Awa this sacred word, a crossover gift.”
Azizi took another bite of goat. “Yari could see a person from beginning to end—”
“Awa is a Green Elder and carries a Lahesh wise-woman bag. She would conjure Mountain Gates for the capital.”
“Like Kyrie’s?” Azizi sucked a string of black seaweed. “Impossible without trees.”
“Awa writes a new spell. She would use silver-mesh.”
A faint smile twisted at the corner of Azizi’s greasy lips. “How?”
“Awa conjures with a willing sacrifice—no transgressor huts, no spirit slaves. A willing sacrifice can sustain us for years. Awa should tell you herself.”
“You and Kyrie believe in her. Let’s drink to that.” Azizi filled their wine cups, then put a hand over Djola’s. “Wait. Eat first and explain the spell clear-headed.”
Djola picked at the food. “You already have silver-mesh along the capital walls.”
“For a year, the masons worked wonders with stone and metal.” Azizi swallowed his wine in one gulp. “They’ll finish that last section beyond the oasis tonight.”
“Awa proposes to use their handiwork the way Kyrie uses rocks and trees.”
“Council has other plans.” Azizi’s hands trembled. “Hezram would be emperor.”
Djola shoved his plate away. “Nobody should be emperor, Azizi, ruling lands they’ve never touched or tasted, passing judgements on people whose songs, spells, and languages they’ve plundered and outlawed.”
Azizi choked down a hunk of stink cheese. “The People regularly give away their power to fools and monsters who lead them into the void.”
Djola thrashed in his chair. Azizi clutched his arms and held him still.
“Awa should take my chair before I break it apart,” Djola said.
“An emperor must be protected from himself. That’s why I need you at my table.”
“With Awa you’d still have the votes you need to do right.”
“Ah, the new librarian. Boto? He never seems happy voting for Money’s schemes. Is Boto a rebel-spy?” Azizi poked Djola. “Bargaining and plotting, like in our youth.”
“No.” Djola pushed him away. “In our youth, you would have never—”
“If Awa takes the poison master chair, what will you do? What will I do?”
“Kyrie says you agreed to cut down groves and bleed other people’s children.”
Azizi smeared nut butter on a slab of berry bread. “You’re not eating anything.”
“No appetite.”
“My appetite returns.” Azizi swallowed the bread and gulped more wine.
“How could you allow Dream Gates? Nightmare Gates, really.”
Azizi hit the table and rattled dishes. “Eight years ago, you should have lied, said you had a cure.”
Djola tore off Lilot’s bandages and thrust his foot on the stone-wood table. The wound oozed cloudy fluid and a rotten smell. His toes had withered to stubs. The ankle was purple and swollen. Poisoned veins crept up his calf. Rainbow tricksters in the crystal sucked down void-smoke. “Lilot says foot and crystal should come off, but the crystal and heart wheel hold me to life, for a time.”
“Fatazz!” Azizi pulled his robe tight.
“Yari was the spirit slave who fed on my foot,” Djola wheezed, “until Awa rescued vie from Hezram’s void-spell.”
“Nobody breaks Hezram’s spells,” Azizi hissed.
Djola snorted. “Does Hezram spread this tale?”
“Yari tried to seduce him in Holy City and got sucked into the void, for lying.”
“A true Lahesh, Yari got a thrill persuading enemies to be lovers, with truth, not lies.” Djola sighed. “You know this.”
“Nobody survives Hezram. Nobody ever comes back to themselves.”
“Yari did and saved me and Awa.” Djola told the tale, relishing Azizi’s tremors and twitches. Yari’s drum rattled from the shadows. “Let’s not waste Yari’s sacrifice on Nightmare Gates.”
Azizi spit out an olive pit. “Hezram was sniffing around. Savages were in revolt, and you, Yari, and Kyrie had abandoned me to a Council of traitors and cowards.”
“You never listened to Yari,” Djola said softly. “You removed Kyrie’s stool then banished me. We never abandoned you.”
Azizi jumped up, combing crumbs from his beard. “I could have executed you and Kyrie. Brought in Tembe and Hezram right then. But I waited eight years!”
“Should I thank you for my pirate adventure? Or my family—”
“Too arrogant to lie. Hezram is your fault.” Azizi paced around the stone-wood table. “I didn’t expect you to take so long. A few months at most.” He smacked stolen robes and helmet masks. Two masks fell down—Anawanama sacred clowns, laughing through a cloud of dust. “I’m fending off rebels, starving hordes, and witchdoctors with demon armies, and you bring me what, a witch woman to conjure Mountain Gates?”
“Woman or not, Awa is the true Master of Poisons.”
“Hezram defeated Yari. Sooner or later, he’ll try to kill us all.” Azizi kicked a rusty iron horse. It fell over, insides spilling out. A golden wheel rolled to the fireplace. “Even Urzula fears the Master of Illusion.”
“Hezram will ambush us tonight when the gates are finished,” Djola said.
Azizi stood over him. “What are you going to do?”
“Me?” Djola tried to recall why he and Azizi had been friends, why he’d sacrificed everything for him and the Empire. “We had grand plans. A better future, a just one.” His head ached. “My brother, my wife, warned me. We made a disaster, Zizi.”
“So it’s Zizi now?” He stabbed his knife into the stink cheese by Djola’s foot. “That’s what Yari called me, lying in my arms, a tongue in my armpit. I loved vie.”
“I know.” Djola dropped his foot to the well-worn marble floor. “Not just Yari, I’ve lost everything, everyone—”
“Not everyone.” Azizi gulped Djola’s wine and stared at Bal. “Marry your enemy. That’s what Yari said. Be the father of their children, then your enemy might not slit your throat in the night.” He hurled the cup in the fire. It flared. “Masters fear my witch-woman wife and her cook lover, or I’d have been a crows’ feast long ago. I only masquerade as emperor.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. My half-brother was murdered in front of you. And so many others.” Djola gestured at the polished marble floor. “Did Nuar die there or by the fireplace?”
“Nuar trusted Ernold and Money. A fool, like Bones and Books.” Azizi poked the fire, sulking. “Nuar betrayed Samina to save himself.”
Djola choked. Vision blurred in his marble eye. Every color was a bright blade slicing him. Nuar said he’d do anything to survive. “Brother Nuar betrayed my family?”
“He claimed Samina plotted against me.” Azizi touched Djola’s hand. “You weren’t here, and Samina trusted Nuar. How else would they have overpowered her? Nuar rounded your children up on the road to Mount Eidhou.”
“Who told you that?” Djola stood up. The pain in his foot was a jolt of clarity.
“Ernold and Money.”
“You believed them? Nuar would never
do this. They told lies you’d be desperate to believe.”
“Nuar spooks my dreams.” Azizi’s hands shook. “Grain claims Ernold’s acolytes captured Tessa and Quint on the way to a Green Elder enclave or Anawanama village. Nobody knows what happened to your middle daughter.” Azizi peered at Bal. “This shadow warrior has the green from your eyes, Samina’s long legs, and your daughter’s name: Bal, a gift of fire and wind.” Azizi gulped wine from the jug. “So, you, Kyrie, and this Awa-witch will defeat Hezram, with the aid of rebels. Then you’ll conjure metal Mountain Gates? My queen and her cook lover will help too. That could work.”
“Awa’s plan, not mine.” Djola’s lip curled. “I loved my wife, my enemy. She loved me.” Rage surged out the crack in his heart. Sweet relief. He leapt on Azizi and pinned him to the ground. “You blame me, Yari, Kyrie, and Nuar for what happened, for Hezram, for my family lost, but I blame you. A coward. You betrayed us all.” Djola pressed a diamond-tipped blade into Azizi’s throat. Yari’s blade. “I plan to taste your last breath, burn your body, then scatter the ashes so there is no place to mourn you.”
Azizi waved trembling hands at Bal who had dropped bow and swords and run close. “What about forgiveness?”
“Forgiveness is a lie,” Djola said.
“So many, many lies.” The tremors in Azizi’s hands subsided. “I was the youngest son. I never expected to rule. But you saved me, Djola. Why?”
11
Lost
Awa shuffled behind Soot as he padded up a steep, dark corridor in the citadel maze. Urzula’s sparking staff offered only fitful light. Djola’s conjure bag bashed her hip, weighty again. She clutched the furry Mama Zamba travel cloak tight against the chill. “Where are we?”
“They said go this way.” Meera dragged several paces behind Awa and Soot.
She was weary and slow; even chewing soft berry bread was an effort. With food, love, and rest, Meera would regain her vitality, but Awa feared Mother had been a spirit slave too long to recover. Mother’s breath tasted like rotten fruit; her eyes were half empty, her heartbeat erratic. Awa left Mother in the kitchen, Lilot’s realm, a citadel inside the citadel. Kyrie, Queen Urzula, and Lilot promised to help Mother, keep her safe. Witch women could surely do more for Mother than Awa. So much void-smoke had leaked into the everyday—nobody was safe.
Meera abandoned Rokiat to the kitchen too. He was a weak good person, afraid to bring Emperor Azizi terror tales from Holy City. Yet he was handsome, sang like a shadow warrior, and Meera loved him. Awa was also a coward, and Bal loved her. Awa’s stomach fluttered. Love was strange.
“I hate secret passageways,” Awa muttered. “Witch women turn jackals and hyenas loose in the maze to kill trespassers and assassins.”
“Would Queen Urzula or Lilot do that?” Meera swallowed a shriek. “Hezram tells lies. An illusion-spell.”
“How do you know?” Awa gulped, caught again by lies she was willing to believe.
“My aunt fed a hyena pack bones, gristle, and guts.” Meera sounded ready to cry. “The pack left our goats alone and kept other hyenas away. We had more goats than anybody, the best cheese. Jealous herders said my aunt was a Mama Zamba witch and I must be too, for the hyena pups in my lap. That’s how we ended up in Holy City. More witch women in the huts than men from such lies.” She paused for a breath. “And my aunt bled to death our first day.”
Awa and Meera had never traded stories. “Thief-lords sold me to the huts.” Awa’s good leg was throbbing. She walked slower. “I sang with rivers and trees. I also talked to crows and bees and smoke-walked.”
“I warned Rokiat—if he told on you, I’d make all the warhorses hate him. He loves the horses more than me.”
“You knew.” Awa shook her head.
“Of course. Your hair was on fire!”
A window looked out on a full moon rising from Thunder River just before it would vanish behind the mountains. Awa dipped her head in moonbeams and whispered gratitude for moon sacrifice. Meera stepped close. She pulled Samina’s cloud-silk robe tight over today’s bruises and cuts—from snub-nose Jod or others?
“I’m sorry we rode off without you,” Meera whispered. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Awa shrugged. “Who could think?” Forgiving Meera was easy. Nothing to forgive. “I’ve done worse, but now we change. We don’t just save ourselves.” Meera nodded.
In the kitchen, after Djola and Bal disappeared, Awa told Kyrie of Father and Kenu building Nightmare Gates. Awa promised to sacrifice herself to Djola’s Dream Gates for her friends, for the Weeds and Wild Things, and for Bal. Djola was too valuable to lose and Dream Gates needed a willing sacrifice. Kyrie looked relieved. Our secret was her only reply. Every minute since, Awa wanted to take this promise back. “You’re strong, Meera. You’ll help me keep my promise at the gates, no matter what.” She couldn’t ask Bal—vie was too lovesick to understand. “If I falter.”
“Our vow.” Meera’s face shone in moonlight. “I’m for you and you’re for me.”
Awa repeated their words and hugged her. “I love the world and I love someone, the way you love Rokiat.”
“Bal,” Meera said, wiping tears. “And you came for me.”
Soot yapped, and they hurried up to him, their cocoon anklets banging a polyrhythm. He jumped against a Lahesh whimsy wheel carved into the rock. With a second lunge, a door opened, and light and warmth trickled into the passageway. High ceilings disappeared in the dark. Moonlight leaked through sky windows. Soot scampered in, barking and growling, and raced out a whimsy wheel door on a far wall.
Awa and Meera tiptoed in. Emperor Azizi lay limp on the marble floor, eyes closed, breath shallow, his heart doing a bird beat. Djola held Yari’s knife to his neck. Blood trickled across the diamond tip. Bal hovered a few steps from the blade. Vie shot Awa a desperate look.
“Forgiveness is a lie,” Djola said.
“So many, many lies,” Azizi replied. “I was the youngest son. I never expected to rule. But you saved me, Djola. Why?”
“Nobody can save you now.” Djola shook Azizi. “Look at me as you die.”
“Stop,” Awa yelled. “What are you doing?”
Djola glared at her.
Awa glared back. She marched over and crouched down. “Djola the Assassin is a tale Hezram would tell.”
Djola snarled at her. “I’m the end. You begin a new story.”
“I need a better end to begin with,” Awa declared.
Bal gripped Djola’s knife hand. While they wrestled, Awa and Meera dragged Azizi away. They propped him in a chair at a stone-wood table. Azizi stared glassy-eyed at his rescuers then traced the blood drizzling down his robe. Meera ripped a piece of the fancy hem and tied it around the neck wound. Awa raced back to Djola.
Bal leaned vie’s forehead against Djola’s. The blade trembled between them. “Kill the emperor, and—Hezram will seize power tonight.”
Djola stammered. “I’m lost…”
“We could all be lost souls.” Awa put cool hands on his head and heart Vévés. “We must never give up looking for each other.”
Djola let the knife fall and went limp in Bal’s arms. Vie clutched him and rocked.
Following a rogue impulse, Awa stumbled to the emperor. “Come with me?”
“Where?” Azizi shook his head, eyes blank, breath still shallow. Blood soaked through the cloth at his neck. “Outside the citadel, I’m not safe.”
“You’re not safe here either.” Awa squeezed Meera’s hand. “Watch over us.”
12
Trading Stories
Before Meera could protest or Azizi could resist, before Bal or Djola realized what was happening, Awa lifted Azizi’s spirit body through the sky window and headed for Jumbajabbaland. The border-void was thin, a puff or two of smoke. Azizi kicked and screeched all the same as Awa tugged him into what might be or could be, but was certainly not far from all that was happening right now in the Empire.
“You must be Awa.” Azizi batted the
air in front of his eyes. “Am I drunk or is this jumba jabba real?” He gawked at the swirl of landscape rushing by and the volcano hearts pumping in his and Awa’s chests.
“Jumba jabba means speaking miracles is grace, for we are what we say.” Awa quoted The Songs for Living and Dying. “So say what you mean to be and do what you say.” She flew faster than the speed of thought, trying to find the rhythm of Samina’s realm.
“Smokeland.” He pointed at wisps trailing behind them. “Yari wanted to fly me across the void once, years ago, but we never made it.” Azizi pulled a tight curl at her neck. A sluggish bee crawled to her ear.
“Leave her be,” Awa commanded.
Startled, Azizi jerked away. “Yari said I was too heavy.”
“Djola was heavier than you at first. And Yari smoke-walked with Djola.”
“Or—” He pointed at her chest. Her heart was like a star exploding. “Perhaps you’re a stronger smoke-walker than Yari.”
Awa snorted. “Or perhaps you’ve changed, gotten lighter. The Zamanzi say each person is many more beings than they think. That makes shapeshifting easy.”
“Who listens to them?” Azizi touched his throat. “My uncle or one of my father’s masters paid Zamanzi to poison my family. I’m the only one who survived.”
Awa hid her shock that the emperor wished to trade stories with her. “My good-citizen father sold me to Green Elders and sent Mother to a transgressor hut, for love of your Empire.”
“For love of jewels and coin more likely.”
“Well, you and I are change and hidden strength. Abelzowadyo.” Awa slowed down. The seventh-region rhythm eluded her. The sky was smoke gray, no green auroras to guide her. They soared over putrid trees and black riverbeds. Rubble spilled down the hills and into the sea. Behemoths flailed in sand and warhorses rotted on the hoof. A desiccated hive sat among mounds of gossamer bee wings. Awa almost lost the speed of thought. She landed on a barren cliff. On a nearby ledge, spirit slaves with Hezram’s face shuffled over one another getting nowhere, too depleted to be a threat. Ember hearts burned out, and demons who had once been people crumbled into poison dust. No good story to make of this. Awa choked on void-smoke.
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