Master of Poisons

by Andrea Hairston

  Awa stammered as a crow with smoking wings flopped on the ground. Kyrie pulled fire from the bird, and threw the flames over Hezram’s head. Djola wrapped the chittering creature in cloud-silk and tucked it in his cloak. Awa nodded gratitude. Truth be told, she loved the crows. Bal played Yari’s doubled-headed drum. Awa’s feet took up the slow, steady rhythm. Hips swung this way and that to hit upbeats. She used Urzula’s spark torch to accent tricky phrases.

  “We thank you, Emperor Azizi, for your patience, your time.” Meera spoke in a strong voice for them both. She talked over masters interrupting her again and again. Bolstered by Bal’s beats and Awa’s dance, Meera detailed the horrors of transgressor huts and Nightmare Gates. Azizi and many others hung on her words, even Tembe. Meera pointed at Jod and his gang near the front of the audience. She described torture, rape, and murder. The gang smirked and made threatening gestures.

  “Awa stomped me.” Jod lifted up a splinted leg. “Broke my leg, and that other piece of slag sliced me.” He held up a bandaged arm.

  “Too bad it wasn’t your neck.” Meera told of cells in the citadel where prisoners were tortured and bled. “Right now, for Hezram’s and Ernold’s spells.”

  “Is that so, Hezram?” Azizi said, calm water.

  “They lie,” Hezram replied.

  “I escaped one of your cells this afternoon,” Meera insisted.

  “Show us these wounds,” Money shouted. A chain of coins and cowries at his waist rattled. Ernold, Water, and others chimed in. They wanted the women to strip naked.

  “Is this a reasonable request?” Grain asked. Pale eyes in dark skin looked spectral.

  “Denial is a drug we’ve sucked too long.” Djola’s voice boomed and silence fell. “Where is Hezram’s proof?”

  “Holy City’s prosperity is my proof,” Hezram replied.

  “Holy City is in ruins because of you, Hezram.” Rokiat ran from the trees, his hair blowing around the wound on his cheek. Fannie, Bibi, and other warhorses charged behind him, rearing and snorting battle cries. The crowd gasped. “I’m a witness too,” he shouted.

  Jod gripped his sword.

  “Rokiat saved me from Jod today.” Meera was exaggerating. Jod attacked her and she sliced him. Acolytes pummeled each other to get to her. In the confusion, Rokiat locked her up for blood conjure. Jod had to find someone else to abuse. But when Rokiat repeated Meera’s stories, everyone groaned, as if hearing the horrors for the first time.

  “Horse master, you have a beautiful voice. It rings with truth.” Tembe’s praise was soft and sweet as ripe mango. Meera clung to Rokiat, admiring him too. “Still—”

  “We must condemn Hezram, not invite him to the table.” Grain stepped forward, beating a talking drum. Hezram’s supporters stiffened. Arms drew his sword.

  Hezram jumped up in front of Awa. “I know you.”

  “You know nothing,” Meera snarled.

  “I hear your father sold you to Green Elders and your transgressor mother to the huts.”

  Awa gaped from Mother to Father to Azizi. Who told?

  “I know you smoke-walk and desecrate sacred ground, and, because of you, the void leaks into the everyday and poisons our lives.” A wily move to blame Awa for what he did. “Every afternoon we are devastated, because of you and other transgressors.” The faithful cursed Awa and other abominations. The undecided wavered—Hezram was a compelling spectacle. “Your gate-spell would leave Arkhys City vulnerable.” He circled Awa. “My spell would require blood sacrifice, yes, but it would hold back the poison desert.”

  Soot crept up, growling at Awa’s side.

  Hezram stepped back. “Call off your wolf or he loses his head.”

  “Not my dog,” she said as Soot licked her hand. “Soot belongs to himself.” Still, she clutched a handful of hair at the back of Soot’s neck to prevent a lunge.

  “Green Elder nonsense.” Hezram hooted and the audience joined him. “Do you believe rivers and forests live and mountains too? Do they talk to you?”

  Awa’s heart pounded. “Not the mountains. I’m not an Iyalawo…” Djembe drums drowned out her thoughts. She choked on her own tongue.

  “I speak truth. Listen.” Hezram stole Awa’s time to talk. He blamed the ills of the world on barbarians ravaging the Empire; on northlanders and Green Elders worshipping rocks; on vesons and transgressors desecrating sacred ground and inviting the void to the everyday. He said nothing of everyone plundering land and sea, but vowed to turn tainted transgressor-blood into miracles. Lies people wanted to believe. Clapping and finger snapping galvanized him. He waved a Lahesh scroll at jeers from the back of the audience. “I deserve a seat at the table.”

  He pledged to sweep the Empire clean and bring back rain, beauty, and power. He promised the prosperity of old and also of never before. His acolytes perverted an Anawanama storm dance. No lightning graced their feet; no clouds rode their breath. They were wild eyes and a frenzy of limbs. Drunk on void-smoke, their heart rhythms were too similar. Foam dribbled from noses and ears. Hezram joined the dance and stomped until his drummers and dancers collapsed. He leapt over twitching bodies to Djola. “Poison master, you destroyed Holy City, Ice Mountain, and the Amethyst River.”

  Accusations and threats flew as masters insisted Hezram or Djola was to blame. Queen Urzula blasted sparks over Council heads. Everyone froze. “Let the witnesses finish,” she said.

  “Yes,” Azizi said. “I want to hear what Awa has to say.”

  Meera squeezed her. “I’m for you and you’re for everybody.”

  “Even for the animal-people?” Hezram sneered.

  Lilot aimed a spark torch at Hezram’s head. “Not another interruption.”

  Bal played a harvest rhythm. Awa walked with Soot, past scowling faces. She soaked up moonlight, let mountain chill fill her, and then turned to the crowd. “I’m one of you. Every year, right outside Holy City, farmers invited the desert to encroach on their lands. I know. Grandfather and Father did this. I am you.”

  She stepped in front of Kenu. “People sold neighbors, their daughters, and even sons to whoever could pay, just to save their farms another day. I was sold. Mother managed to get me to an enclave, thinking I was safe, but the Green Elders roamed the fringes, running and hiding and thinking they were free, but we were not free.”

  She moved on to the pirates. “Nowhere to run from ourselves. No paradise island or miracle mountain. People slaughter their herds, kill the old trees, and fish the Golden Gulf dry. More and more transgressors bleed and die in the huts, but nothing gets better. I was bled and broken, like the trees.”

  She approached Grain. “After the bloodletting, we had more suffering, more desert. Hezram lies. You know it. You just hope to sneak by. I know. I did this too, hoping not to be the one Hezram bled to death.”

  Djola tapped his cane to Bal’s beats. They both sang in many voices. Soot threw back his head and howled.

  Awa danced to Djola. “Few of us can be heroes. I thought once of killing Hezram, but realized it would do no good. So I didn’t fight at all. I hoped to live in his shadows. But he bleeds the shadows.” She raced by Bal and paused at Kyrie. “I’d rather not fight. I’d rather ride up into Eidhou Mountain and make noisy love in a goat-hair tent. Why save a corrupt empire?” Zamanzi and Anawanama clowns snapped their fingers and joined her dance. “We all do void-spells.” Awa sighed. “Not just Hezram or Djola or whoever you’d like to accuse instead of yourselves. We’re happy to buy slaves and cheap goods from pirates, blame vesons for our greed, or blame barbarians and northlanders when we eat our children. We do this. We need to write a new story.”

  Awa pulled the moon mask from the conjure bag, put it on, and sang more than spoke. “We brought the mountain down—we farmers, pirates, Elders, miners, masters, witch women, northlanders, ice hounds, tree-oil merchants, we good citizens and transgressors hacking the roots.” She gripped Meera’s hand. “For now and tomorrow, I dance a moon masquerade and sacrifice the old light to make a new s
tory.”

  Grain and Tembe’s women played talking drums with Bal. Rebels and carnival clowns dropped on cloud-silk ropes from the trees, tumbling and juggling. Queen Urzula, Lilot, and the kitchen crew donned moon masks and danced with Awa—an Anawanama masquerade for the Festival of Memories.

  Meera shouted, “We brought Ice Mountain down. Awa’s gates would hold back the storm and give us a respite, would give us time to conjure a new path.”

  “No transgressor huts, no tree apocalypse. What is the Council vote?” Djola leapt onto the flying-jackal table. Bal halted the beats. Quiet fell like a curtain. Soot crouched and bared his fangs, ready for attack. Djola marched around the table, pounding the torch cane. Mango flapped her ears behind him and threw up dirt. “Awa’s or Hezram’s gates? Nightmares or a real chance to dream?”

  Ernold, Money, and Water voted for Hezram. They looked ready to murder Boto as he sided with Grain, Arms, Kyrie, and Djola.

  “No need for me to break a tie.” Azizi whistled at Awa.

  Djola raised his cane and chanted Abelzowadyo on the wind. This word echoed from the river across the city to the sea. He jumped down and backed away from the table.

  Kyrie gripped Awa. “Crossing over, do you choose Abelzowadyo?”

  “Yes,” Awa said.

  “Then Basawili. This is not your last breath. We will whisper your story into tomorrow.” She pressed a vial into Awa’s hand.

  “The same Lahesh poison Samina drank—cathedral seed and cloud-silk?” Awa trembled.

  “Not always poison, a conjurer drug, to help you transform.”

  “Will I be a snow squall or an avalanche with stone teeth?”

  Kyrie lifted her cape and blocked poison darts coming their way. Warrior-clowns in the trees shot arrows into the dart blowers. Rokiat thrust Meera behind him. Fannie and Bibi pawed the ground, their eyes white and wild.

  “Drink it quickly and walk on.” Kyrie tossed Bal her conjure book and ran to Djola.

  Faster than second thoughts, Awa swallowed what tasted like mud. She flew above the oasis garden, leaving her breath body at the edge of the trees, and headed for the crossroads of crossroads.

  What happened after that, she couldn’t say.

  17

  Xhalan Xhala—Tree Tales

  The Trees whisper, Xhalan Xhala, across their branches. Lahesh learned this phrase from twigs rustling an alarm. For a thousand thousand years, elder Trees have whispered Xhalan Xhala whenever fire swept through a forest. Leaves also rustle Basawili, a word the Trees gave to the Anawanama, whenever they threw seeds on the wind. Basawili, not a word from their own heartwood, a word so old that elder Trees must have learned it from beings long gone. Roots rumble Abelzowadyo, a story they told the Zamanzi who slept on hard ground. Abelzowadyo—what roots learned about life from rocks and dirt. The Trees are a night chorus singing Xhalan Xhala, Basawili, Abelzowadyo, and words in languages people once spoke but have forgotten. A reckoning fire comes, but this is not your last breath, so change, change, change.

  Crows, Bees, Goats, and Behemoths tell a story of the Master of Weeds and Wild Things. Mango, Fannie, and Soot report the tale too. Thunder River gurgles and froths, echoing the animal-people accounts, disagreeing now and then—rivers must twist and muddy everything. The Wind carries truth in all directions. Elder Trees are patient, adding new storylines whenever they emerge. These People will be dead soon, thirty, fifty years, fallen leaves feeding roots, and like Rivers and Wind, they are restless, impatient, and fickle. People demand a story-song to celebrate now. So here it is:

  Awa says, “Death is a doorway and you guide me through to the other side.”

  Three arrows pierce the Master of Arms, yet he fights on, protecting Emperor Azizi whose guards lay dead in the dirt. A patchwork clown joins Arms, riding an iron horse backward and forward, shapeshifting as arrows whoosh where vie no longer is.

  “Traitor.” Jod drives a sword through Rokiat’s side and into Meera. He pulls the blade out slowly as they collapse into one another. That is the last thing Awa sees before flying off to Jumbajabbaland. She misses what Fannie and Bibi do to Jod and the gang attacking Rokiat, Meera, and her. Pirates fight with acolytes who’ve swallowed the void and lost their senses. Clowns carry Awa’s breath body up into a house in the branches. Soot steps here and there, risking spirit blood to follow Awa’s Smokeland trail.

  Djola hides in bushes to drink mashed seeds and spiderwebs—a dose that will stop his heart. When he leaves his breath body, Mango stands watch. She can rip a tree from its roots. Warriors avoid the elephant and fight each other while Hezram’s spirit slaves chase Djola and Awa. Ernold’s fiends lurk at Jumbajabbaland borders, for ambush.

  Kyrie comes through the border-void first. She is mountain heavy and plummets onto a black ribbon of dirt that was once river. She sits on a sun-bleached rock and peels off robes. The silver tattoos covering her body pulse. Kyrie impaled herself on mountain thorns before coming to Council. She knows how to milk vipers and let them live and how to imbibe their poison and not kill herself, immediately. Her blood is mostly minerals, venom, and poison seeds. She is Eidhou Mountain saving itself.

  Awa arrives second and tries to give Kyrie the Lahesh folded space, but Kyrie refuses the small bag. Djola drops from the border-void. He snatches Awa up, and they fly on, glancing back only once. Naked and vulnerable like a bug on that rock, Kyrie turns her face to the sun. Spirit slaves, chasing Awa’s and Djola’s fresh blood scent, careen in and slam to a halt. In the hot sun, Kyrie stinks of the cathedral tree oil she smeared on her belly. She smells more like a tasty morsel than a deadly weapon. The spirit slaves attack. Kyrie howls.

  Fiends tear each other apart trying to reach her, yet after one bite, their insides explode in clouds of indigo. Mouths that were twisted into someone else’s smirk relax. Vacant eyes fill with light and expression. Hezram’s visage fades from a hundred faces. Most heartbeats are silver lightning bolts like Samina’s, but here and there, volcano hearts tremble and pump blood. Kyrie’s wounds crust over quickly, but she winces with every move. “Flee back to your breath bodies,” she rasps.

  Without questioning or thanking her, revived smoke-walkers rush across the border-void. Somewhere in the everyday, a person comes back to themselves. To those who have no breath bodies to return to, Kyrie says, “You could wander a while until you fade or you could inhabit Awa’s Dream Gates, do a spirit watch. What say you?”

  Most fly off into the distance. Awa’s mother appears, heart silver lightning. She joins a group that wants to flow into the silver-mesh. “Follow Awa,” Kyrie commands, and they take off. A few indigo haints remain. They snag spirit slaves still coming for Kyrie and explode with them. Finally, nobody attacks her. Indigo haints help Kyrie into her robe. She is light and flies easily after Awa and Djola.

  In the everyday, Arms and Azizi escape to the oasis garden, to the masquerade towers and treehouses with Lilot, Urzula, and their children. A few masters are with them. They tend to broken, battered bodies. Red-and yellow-robed men surround the oasis, yelling and clamoring for a fight, but a rain of arrows and a blast of sparks prevents them from advancing. Silver-mesh conjure shimmers in the everyday and in Jumbajabbaland, ready to be Hezram’s Nightmare or Awa’s Dream. Kenu holds the Gates open to spells and haints, and peers down a cascade of stars to a crossroads. Awa’s father lies dead at Kenu’s feet, acolyte arrows in his chest. Bal balances on a rope bridge above Mango, singing many voices and playing Lahesh crossover rhythms into the opening. Boat people in Jumbajabbaland echo vie.

  “Burn the trees,” Hezram yells. “Why waste blades? Fire and smoke will do the job.”

  Iyalawo Tembe of Ice Mountain blocks him. “No fire.” She is a chill wind surrounding him. “These trees are sacred. I know their songs.”

  “Get out of my way, woman.” Hezram looms over her.

  “Save the day and you will have a seat at the table,” Tembe declares. “Burn the trees and it will be like Holy City all over again. We do not
destroy the world to save it.”

  “I’m winning.” Hezram holds a sword to her neck.

  “Then why fight me?” Tembe shatters the sword with a cold touch. “Most of your men are dead or they’ve come back to themselves and deserted you. Perhaps you’ll be emperor of nothing. Or perhaps you’ll die a traitor.”

  Hezram scans the battleground. Many bodies nourish the dirt. “They betrayed me.”

  “Tell the story you want and fight again tomorrow.” Tembe leans close. “Isn’t that what we’ve always done? We can’t hand the world over to transgressors.”

  Hezram clutches her waist. “You could find the light bridge, the crossroads. Take me there.”

  “No. Smokeland is a realm of possibilities but also maybe-nots. I won’t risk losing you, losing everything.” She pulls away from him.

  “You betray me too?” Yellow and red-robed acolytes gather around Hezram.

  Talking drummers surround Tembe. “Today I go where the water runs. To survive. Show me you’re the man I love.”

  “I’ll find Awa.” Hezram leaves his breath body and passes through the borderland. He wanders leagues and leagues of wasteland. Snowstorms dull his senses, chill his mind. He leaves a trail for Soot to follow but the Master of Illusion finds no trace of Awa or Djola.

  At the crossroads of all the regions where star bridges lead in a thousand thousand directions, Awa and Djola rest. A moon mask is plastered against Awa’s sweaty cheeks. Djola’s cape snaps in a fierce wind. A snowstorm approaches—Samina. She passes through Awa, then Djola. They shiver and shudder. Samina’s form solidifies with the touch of spirit she has stolen from them.

  “I have finally come home.” Djola hugs her close and buries his face in a snow squall of hair. He and Samina cry tears that turn to sleet. They speak a flood of words too fast to catch. Djola finally turns from Samina, pulls the crystal from his foot, and plucks the wheel from his heart. He hands these treasures to Awa. “I shall keep the marble eye and watch over you.”