by Mirren Hogan
“What do you want with us?” Darai asked again.
The sorcerer didn’t reply. He’d already turned his focus and magic to the girl.
Darai felt like a pig, tethered and led around the wagon to a fire, around which sat three more sorcerers, two dressed in the same black robes as Wutango. The other wore dark red and only he looked up from his meal to regard the captives, a hunger in his eyes that Darai found disturbing. He shuddered as the magic pulled him forward and down, to sit on the opposite side of the fire from the sorcerers, next to the girl.
The girl looked terrified, though her posture suggested that she possessed some measure of defiance still. Nevertheless, she shrank from Wutango as he moved his hand, guiding the magic to loosen their bonds. Another gesture and twin plates rose from beside the fire, each settling neatly in the laps of the girl and Darai. Wutango sat, lifting his staff from the ground and appeared unperturbed as the crimson glow around him went out.
Darai gasped, trying to take in the meaning of it, but his hunger and confusion about everything that had taken place since the Outpouring had compounded, jumbling his thoughts and making them whirl in his head. The hunger he could remedy, he decided; perhaps after that he could figure out the rest.
He looked down as at his lap, the firelight dancing across a shadowed plate of gari, the shreds of the cassava plant serving as a bed for a steaming mound of spiced pork and potato. Darai sniffed, identifying tamarind and chilli, with a hint of ginger. He regarded the food with suspicion until he remembered that they didn’t need to poison the food. If they wanted him and the girl dead, they would be. He picked the fork up from the side of the plate, the magic tether just long enough to allow it, and began to eat. The pork was hot, the chilli, burning down his throat and warming his stomach perfectly. If anything, it was milder than he was used to. Reluctant as he was to admit it, the food was delicious. He ate it all and washed it down with a lukewarm cup of bissap handed to him by Wutango.
“You not eat?” he heard Wutango addressing the girl and watched from the corner of his eye, trying to do so unnoticed.
The girl looked to have only pushed her food around her plate without taking a bite.
“Must eat,” Wutango continued, miming eating with his hands.
“Can’t let them wither away before the harvest,” one of the sorcerers in black interjected, laughing. He was only a few years older than Darai, and by far the youngest of the three sorcerers.
Darai couldn’t keep his face from turning his head, regarding the sorcerer in a mixture of surprise and confusion. “Harvest?” Darai’s hand tightened around his cup until his knuckles became whiter. “You want us to farm for you?” Farm? He was a hunter.
A silence fell, heavy but brief, before the three sorcerers in black burst into laughter. Only the man in red remained mirthless, his eyes fixed on Darai in a stare that sent shivers up the young man’s spine.
“He thinks we . . . ” Wutango chortled, slapping his knee with his thigh, knocking his staff so the tip touched the earth, the red aura flaring for a moment before dying as he adjusted it across his lap. “He thinks we need farmers. Boy not know what collector means?”
The ‘boy’ did not. He frowned at their infuriatingly mocking laughter. Darai glanced at the girl, who was staring at the sorcerers in uncomprehending horror.
“Collector?” she asked softly, her fork falling from her fingers to her plate, clattering loudly. She showed no sign that she noticed.
Wutango had introduced himself as Collector Wutango, Darai recalled, though at the time he hadn’t given it a second thought. He did now.
It was the third black-robed sorcerer who replied, a man younger than Wutango. Mentally identifying him as the middle sorcerer, Darai’s eyes followed the man as he rose to his feet and began pacing past the fire and back. When Middle spoke in the flawless tongue of a native Mindossan, Darai knew him for the man who had spoken to his family in Nageso. The same sorcerer who had claimed that Darai belonged to the guild now. Eager for an explanation, Darai sat forward to listen.
“The Outpouring,” Middle began, placing his hands behind his back as he affected a lecturing tone, “was predicted when the magic began to ebb. It’s like a tidal wave; it draws back before it overflows.”
The other two black-robed sorcerers nodded their agreement. Only Red, as Darai thought of him, remained silent and apparently disinterested.
“For the guild, it was a protracted time with less magic available; not even beseeching the gods yielded relief.”
Darai experienced no sympathy for his captors. Were they expecting any?
“Thus,” Middle continued, “when spring arrived, we could not prevent the Outpouring. However, we must all reap the benefits of such a rare event.”
Benefits? Darai thought, dragged from home against my will and bound? I see no benefits.
Beside him, the girl snorted softly, obviously in agreement with Darai’s thoughts.
“It is the job of the collectors, Wutango, Ezeji,” Middle indicated the youngest of the trio, “and myself, to harvest those who absorb the magic.” He paused while Darai let his words sink in, trying to find some comprehension from them.
Those who absorb the magic. The words echoed around in Darai’s mind, over and over, along with the word ‘harvest.’ He felt as though something was about to click into place when the girl let out a high sound of understanding.
“You’re going to take the magic back out of us!” she accused. “You’re harvesting us for the magic!” She got to her feet and staggered backward, trying to run, but her invisible tether held her firmly in place. Her face filled with blind terror, she struggled, pulling hard as if it’d be worth losing her hands to escape. Failing miserably, she began to panic, screaming hysterically, “What are you going to do to me, what are you going to do?”
Wutango flared crimson again, the tip of his staff touching the dirt and the girl wove where she stood, her eyes rolling back in her head until she collapsed into the dust.
Darai made to jump to his own feet, but Middle stepped forward, hand on the young man’s shoulder, holding him in place.
“She’s just asleep,” Middle assured him, though nothing would reassure Darai now. “She might wake with a headache though.”
“It’s true,” Darai stated, shrugging the man’s hand from his shoulder. “What she said you’re going to do to us?”
Middle didn’t even pause before replying, “Yes, we are.”
CHAPTER 3
The night that followed that meal was the longest of Darai’s life. He dearly wished he were back home in Nageso, helping harvest cotton and maize and trying to stay in the good graces of the ancestral spirits and the great tribal god Woru. He didn’t sleep; he lay awake in the back of the wagon, his bonds released, listening to the girl’s steady breathing.
He tried to figure out where they were. He’d been too scared to do more than register that they travelled steadily west. Thinking back, all he could remember seeing from between the slats of the wagon was the golden desert and low shrubs that struggled for survival in the arid soil. The ground on which they’d sat to eat had been nothing more than dirt. He deduced they’d left the lush Nageso Valley while he was still unconscious, so he was at least three days from home.
He kicked out at the side of the wagon, frustrated that he hadn’t paid more attention to his grandmother’s ancient crackling maps. So, he didn’t know where they were, but he could remember what his grandmother had told him about the sorcerers’ guild.
Rubbing his sore foot, he lay down and closed his eyes, drumming his fingers on the base of the wagon while he thought.
On the continent of Isskasala were six kingdoms: northern Serain; eastern Iljosk and Kalil; Chaq, the nation west of Mindossa; its northern neighbour Azlim; and Mindossa itself. Of these, Mindossa was the most civilised and its capital—Dassane—was the jewel in Isskasala’s crown.
His grandmother had gone to Dassane once in her youth, and the tale
s she told of it were unbelievable. Dassane was the seat of power for the king of Mindossa and the home of the sorcerers’ guild. It was also the centre of Mindossan commerce and, according to Bekela, the world at large. She’d spoken of a huge library a university and the largest and only floating markets in Isskasala.
In short, Dassane was the opposite of Nageso. Darai always thought of his home as being in the middle of nowhere in a land of nothing. Unfortunately, that told him nothing more about the guild. Why, he wondered, did three sorcerers wear black and the other red? As scared as he was of them all, the man in red frightened him the most. Perhaps because the man had not said a word and nothing was more worrying than a threatening enigma.
No less of a concern was what the girl had said of the sorcerers removing the magic they’d absorbed in the Outpouring. Darai couldn’t help but think of how a water gourd sagged when it was empty. Would emptying them of magic do the same to them? Would it kill them? For the first time, he considered that he might die and renewed his resolve to run as soon as he had even a small opportunity. He may die in the desert, but he’d take the chance before he let them suck him dry. Determined to stay alert, he watched the first rays of the sun appear across the horizon before the wagon slowed and came to a stop.
With a creak Darai hadn’t noticed the night before, the back of the wagon opened, sending dust up into the air as it hit the ground with a bump. The youngest sorcerer—Middle had called him Ezeji—climbed the ramp, a gourd in his hand reminding Darai of his thoughts in the darkness, only this gourd was full.
“Are you thirsty?” Ezeji tossed the gourd to Darai, who caught it deftly and twisted the stopper open. It was water, warm and slightly stale, but clean; Darai drank deeply, saving the rest for the girl.
She began to stir now, perhaps awoken by the sound of the sorcerer’s voice.
“Here.” Ezeji held two bowls of porridge on the palm of his other hand and now offered one to Darai, placing the other near the girl as she sat up.
She scooted over into the far corner, wincing and rubbing her forehead with the heel of her palm whilst regarding the sorcerer with suspicion.
“You need to eat,” Ezeji said gently. He pushed the girl’s bowl closer to her, using only the wood that formed his staff and not the magic Darai presumed resided within it. “There’s nothing in it but eenyandi.”
Jackal-berry porridge was one of Darai’s favourites, especially sweetened with sugar. Only Chaqians referred to the sweetener as eenyandi. That must be from where Ezeji came and from the girl’s curt nod, her as well.
He watched them for a moment, the girl’s body rigid with defiance, the sorcerer’s with concern. But, Darai decided, it was with no more interest than his father would have given to his breeding pigs. They were a commodity, or the magic was. He looked down at the gourd lying sealed near the girl’s foot; it wasn’t the container that was valued, but the water inside it. Water was the difference between life and death for all of the nations on Isskasala and extremely valued. Perhaps magic was not such a dire commodity, but maybe Darai could trade on it somehow. He didn’t know how, but if an opportunity arose, he’d grab it with both hands and wring it before they wrung him.
The porridge was palatable and Darai ate to keep up his strength. The girl didn’t eat until Ezeji withdrew; then the back of the wagon clicked into place and it resumed its bumping westward roll. Without a word or a glance at Darai, she began to eat, finishing every bit of porridge and draining the gourd, holding it up over her mouth for the last drop.
Darai finished with only a fraction less vigour and put his bowl and spoon down beside him where they rattled as they travelled.
“You all right?” he asked the girl, who looked startled and responded by shrugging.
“My head aches.” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, turning her face to look out between the slats.
“They said it might,” Darai said to the back of her head. Obviously dismissed, he scooted to the front to see if he could look forward, hoping to plan an escape.
Peering through a crack in the more solid headboard, Darai could make out the bobbing heads of the oxen in the traces. From what he could tell from the little he knew of oxen, both were fine looking beasts. Between himself and the beasts, driving the oxen Darai could make out the back of a small man in dusty white clothes and a turban twisted around his head. An Azlimer, Darai thought. Only the men from the western kingdom wore the turban.
In front of the oxen was a carriage, an expensive one if Darai guessed correctly. It was shimmering black, as if the dust didn’t dare to touch it.
“It’s protected by magic,” the girl said, causing Darai to jump. He hadn’t noticed her move to kneel beside him and look through the end of the same crack.
“How do you know?” he asked, managing to sound accusing without meaning to.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked scornfully. “How else would it stay clean out here?”
She had a point, but Darai only shrugged. “I guess so.”
He turned his eyes back to the crack, to the black lacquer work on the back of the carriage, broken only by a strange symbol. It was shaped like a blood red triangle; its most acute angle pointing downward, what looked like a staff diagonally crossing the centre of the triangle in gold paint.
The symbol of the sorcerers’ guild.
Not that Darai expected anything less.
The carriage stopped and before Darai could draw back, the wagon did the same, jolting him until he hit his head painfully on the headboard. He cursed and sat back, pressing his hand to his forehead while his vision swam for a few moments.
“A village,” the girl hissed, drawing his attention, more carefully this time, back to the crack.
A tiny village, no more than twenty, maybe thirty huts set in a rough circle around a communal well. Darai saw a pig dart in front of the wagon and disappear behind one of the huts and wished he could do the same. Following the pig was a ragged group of children, their small naked bodies dusty, their hair in tangles that their mothers must despair of, but their faces all broadly grinning. They stopped to peer into the side of the wagon, sticking their fingers in and daring each other to climb the slats.
Someone chased them off and Darai sat back. The back of the wagon was already hot and stuffy, the midmorning sun beating hard. A silence fell, though he didn’t notice it for a long while and when he did, he jumped to his feet, pressing his eye to a slat.
Now, there was not a soul in the village, not even a pig and no sign of the sorcerers or the wagon driver. The wind didn’t even stir; it was as if time had stopped. If he’d ever believed in the gods and ancestral spirits, now would be the time to start praying.
“Do you think they killed them?” he asked softly, though he truly did not want to hear the answer.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the girl shrug. “Probably.”
Darai remained on his haunches for the better part of two hours, watching and waiting until his legs ached. Unable to hold the position any longer, he was about to lower himself to his rear when the wind picked up, gusting across the village, dusting billowing in its wake. On the tail of the wind, the villagers returned, their arms laden with cassava and baskets that looked to be full of cocoa beans.
In spite of the pain in his thighs, Darai licked his lips; he’d love a piece of chakleti, the sweet produce of the cocoa bean and sugar, even if it was the last thing he ate. His appetite disappeared when he spied the sorcerers returning.
All four of them, he could see through the slats, paired off and supporting two people between them. One was a man, aged and gnarled; the other was a child, no more than five years old. Darai assumed they’d been caught out in the Outpouring.
Two more for the sorcerers’ harvest.
CHAPTER 4
Darai had no idea how long he’d been unconscious after the guild had come for him, but after the wagon shut behind the newcomers, they lay asleep for a full day and the following night. Neither m
oved, except for the rise and fall of their chests. At least they were still alive.
The girl curled up in a corner, her fear returning to her eyes. She stared at the man and child, her eyes fixed. Once or twice, he saw her blink, but mostly he left her alone, lost in his own thoughts, despairing of his own vulnerability.
When despondency threatened to overwhelm him, he swallowed it down like a steaming mug of kawaha. Instead he focused on the land beyond the wagon as another morning passed into a dry, dusty afternoon. There was nothing out here, in this part of Mindossa. Nothing but stunted trees, sparse patches of hardy grasses, snakes bathing on the rocks that flicked their tongues idly as they watched the wagon roll by, and the occasional lizard or bush rat. And dirt, sand, and dust.
The Gele Desert, Darai thought. When he was a child, a man in his village killed his wife and his penalty had been exile to the Gele Desert. Now Darai understood that the exile was a death sentence. No one could ever live here, they could do no more than pass through and hope to reach the fertile Dassane Valley on the eastern coast. With a start, Darai realised that they’d arrive in the capital within a day or so.
As the sun hung a finger width from the horizon, the old man and the child stirred. At first, they exhibited nothing more than twitching muscles. A finger here, a foot there, then the old man’s eyes popped open. They moved slowly, taking in his surroundings before he slowly sat. Apparently, he recognised that he wasn’t presently in the company of any immediate threats. That settled, he leaned back against the side of the wagon and began to chew on a lump of tobacco he pulled out of a pocket in his worn pants.
The child roused more slowly, yawned, stretched, then let out a squeak of surprise. He scampered into a corner and sat staring, arms encircling his thin legs.
“It’s all right, we won’t hurt you.” Darai moved over slowly in an awkward crouch, made precarious by the rocking of the wagon.
The boy looked at him with huge eyes and Darai saw wariness there, and fear. Nothing Darai didn’t feel himself. It was like looking into a small mirror. What would it take to reassure the boy? There was little he could do. He couldn’t promise to look after the child or claim that he’d be unhurt; he could neither keep his promise, nor make assurances. He didn’t know if any of them would remain alive once they’d been emptied of their magic. Still, he felt the need to say something.