by Evan Winter
He walked closer to the dragon.
“The Royal Nobles are the architects of the coup and are lost to us,” Nyah said. “The few Petty and Greater Nobles who still side with the queen are restless, rudderless. We can’t allow them to think that the queen is too weak to hold us together. We need to put this ruling council in their place.”
Tau’s exposed skin felt hot enough to burn. “You want to barge into their meeting and surprise them,” he said. “You want me there, with my swords and scarred face, to remind them that the queen has both words and weapons.”
“Every tool has its purpose, Champion,” she said. “Will you serve yours? Will you serve her?” Nyah looked at the dragon and back to him. “Or only yourself?”
Without waiting for an answer, she walked away, leaving Thandi behind.
The younger Gifted pointed at the ground behind him and closer to the dragon. “Watch the blood on the floor, Champion. It can kill.”
Tau followed her finger and saw the wet blackness staining the cobbles in streaks. “That’s its blood?”
“The youngling was wounded when it went aboveground, and in any case, the blood is poisonous,” she said. “The Indlovu came and gathered as much as they could, but the Guardian’s heat prevents any from getting close enough to get it all. Have a care.”
“I see.”
She nodded to him, paused, and spoke. “You’ll come, won’t you?” she asked. “Nyah isn’t telling you everything.”
Tau had his back to her, but he was listening.
“We cannot rely on the loyalty of the others,” she said. “The Nobles follow General Otobong. He’s the highest-ranking Indlovu in the keep, and he’s close with members of this … ruling council.”
Tau said nothing.
“We do need your help,” Thandi said before following the vizier.
Tau let her go and got as close to the creature as he could, close enough to reach out and touch it, the heat making it feel as if he were standing on top of a funeral pyre. Still, he leaned closer, letting his scalded lips almost brush the dragon’s scales.
“She felt guilt for what’s done to you, and I won’t blame you for her death,” he whispered to the beast. “I just want you to know that the Omehi intend nothing but this for you.” The flesh on his cheeks began to peel. “They wouldn’t forgive it if they’d been treated this way and so can’t believe that you can either. They think you’d kill us all if you could and that’s why they’ll never let you go.” He shook his head. “But Zuri believed that this thing we’ve done … that we do to you is a blight on our souls. She told me that a reckoning is coming, but I wonder if it must.”
Unable to take the heat, Tau stepped back.
“When the time comes, I promise you freedom or a quick death,” he said. “As soon as I’m able, either way I’ll release you.”
The dragon’s eye snapped open. Its bloodred iris ringed a pupil so deep and dark it felt like he were gazing into an abyss. Then the pupil thinned vertically, focusing, and the dragon shifted its bulk, trying to stand.
Hearing something fall to the ground behind him, Tau leapt back, swords in his hands.
“Champion!”
Tau shot a look in the voice’s direction. It was one of the Gifted tasked with keeping the youngling under control, and she was pointing to the woman next to her. The Gifted had collapsed, unconscious.
“Please,” the pointing Gifted said, “your closeness to the Guardian makes the work more taxing. Pleas—”
The dragon roared, the sound cracking inside Tau’s head like a whip, and the eye facing him rolled in the dragon’s head as the creature scrabbled at the cobbled floor, trying to lift itself. Swords ready, Tau shifted sideways and away from its claws when movement from the circle of Gifted caught his attention.
The woman who had collapsed was on her knees, and she raised a hand in the youngling’s direction. The effect was immediate. With the circle of Gifted complete again, the dragon could not fight its way free. Backing away, Tau watched as the youngling’s pupil dilated and lost focus, and the eye finally closed.
“Champion,” the one who had spoken earlier said, teeth gritted, the strain of manipulating her gift evident, “you must leave us to this.”
With another glance at the Gifted on her knees, and wishing he had something more to offer the women whose work he’d made more difficult, Tau nodded and left the prison. His skin burned, but that wasn’t what hurt. He was thinking about Zuri.
The days since her death had been impossible; the nights were worse. Like the youngling, Tau had been living a life little better than death, but unlike the beast behind him, he could still control the direction in which his fire flew.
He’d go to the queen. She needed him and he needed her. He’d go to the queen, because at the end of his path with her stood Abasi Odili.
REUNION
Tau found his sword brothers waiting for him in the hallway leading to the council chambers. He hadn’t spent time with any of them since the night of the battle, and the faces of those present brought to mind the faces of those he’d never see again.
“Tau!” Hadith said, striding over and clasping him wrist to wrist before pulling him into a hug. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you,” Tau said. His head was spinning. The tunnels hadn’t relinquished their hold on him yet, and he wished he’d had a little more time to come back to himself before running into everyone, but even so, he couldn’t deny how good it felt to see his brothers.
Uduak, waiting for Hadith to release him, wrapped Tau up in an embrace that pinched his still-healing ribs. “Tau,” the big man said.
“Common of Kerem!” Themba, smiling large enough to show teeth and the gaps where teeth should have been, made a show of examining him from scalp to sole. “The new cloths and swords suit you.”
Kellan, standing at attention a few strides back, saluted. “Champion Solarin.”
Feeling awkward at having an Ingonyama showing him such respect, Tau returned the salute. Kellan had proven himself to be a decent man, but it was still hard for Tau to think of them as peers or as being on the same side.
“It’s good to see you, brother,” Yaw said, appearing out of the shadows to clap Tau on the shoulder. “You’ve been missed.”
“And you, brother,” Tau said.
“Any chance we were called from our beds to get fancy swords too?” Themba asked. “The color on those blades matches my eyes.”
None of them had their swords, and Tau wondered if there was any merit to Themba’s joke. “It wasn’t me who called you.”
“Themba is just joking,” Hadith said. “Well, not about us being woken up. We were all in our beds when Nyah sent for us. You’re not coming from your rooms, though. Where were you?”
“Neh?” Tau asked, knowing Hadith well enough to guess he’d not missed Tau’s unsteady gait.
Hadith put a hand on Tau’s shoulder. “You look like you’ve been spending time in tight spaces,” Hadith said, too low for the others to hear. “Where are you coming from, Champion?”
The queen and her retinue saved Tau from answering. Queen Tsiora Omehia walked into the large hallway from a smaller side entrance flanked by her vizier and Gifted Thandi. Behind them marched four members of the Queen’s Guard.
Tau and the men with him went to their knees.
“Rise,” the queen said. “We thank you for leaving your rest so early, and you have not been called to us frivolously.” She nodded to Nyah.
“We go to the council chambers,” Nyah told them. “It seems several Greater Noblewomen in this keep have taken it upon themselves to form a ruling council. Their rush to do so I will attribute to a desire to offer our monarch aid and wisdom, since anything else slips dangerously close to treason.” Nyah clipped the syllables on the last word, making it sound even uglier than usual. “You have been asked for specifically. Most of you are Lessers, but you fought for your queen when it seemed hopeless to do so. Greater Noble Kellan Okar,
nephew to the last champion, stands with you. He came to his queen’s defense when few other Indlovu would do so.”
Kellan bowed his head, accepting her praise.
Nyah returned the gesture, then turned to Tau, staring him down. “We are also joined by the queen’s anointed champion,” she said. “Champion Solarin, who has sworn to serve his queen for the rest of his days … or for as long as she finds his service worthy.”
Tau had little patience for the way she kept needling him, and he stared back, holding her gaze with his own.
A breath passed and Nyah looked away, speaking to the others as she did so. “I do believe this so-called ruling council hopes to tie the Omehi back together, and I find no fault in that,” she said. “However, forming their council in secret and excluding the queen from this gathering suggests that ending our civil strife is not their only aim.
“It’s only been days, but the Noblewomen in that council chamber have forgotten who fought and died to stop Abasi Odili’s coup. Well, you’re going to remind them,” Nyah said. “You’re here because they need to see that the blades that beat Odili back are loyal to Queen Tsiora Omehia II, and not to councils, whether ruling or guardian.”
“They think us too young to lead,” the queen said, stepping forward and catching the eyes of everyone present. “They think the damage Odili has done can only be undone by their hands, hands they’ll call experienced and deserving. But the Omehi have been steered by hands claiming those merits for generations, and yet today, a greater number of our people starve, suffer, and perish than ever before.
“The ruling councils have had their chance,” she said, “and it was squandered on a war without end that slowly grinds our people to dust. That’s the experience to which they lay claim, and we say it’s not enough. We say it was never enough.”
The queen walked by them, leading the way in her midnight-black dress edged in patterns of gold. Nyah, Thandi, and the Queen’s Guard followed, and the rest of them came after.
“From her lips to the Goddess’s ears,” Tau heard Yaw mutter to himself as if in prayer.
“Champion,” Nyah said over her shoulder, lips tight. “Perhaps you’d care to walk alongside your queen, as is customary?”
Feeling a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment, Tau sped up, moving past Themba, whose arched eyebrow and twinkling eyes made his face look like it was begging to be slapped. He caught up to the queen and they left the hallway, entering the Guardian Keep’s anteroom.
Tau hadn’t been back to it since the day he’d fought alongside Champion Okar, and it was strange to see the large circular space empty, without the chaos of a dozen life-and-death skirmishes. Otherwise, the strange room was as he remembered.
It had thick columns supporting a high balcony with two staircases offering access, and though such ostentation was still a sight, the columns, staircases, and balcony were nothing compared to the anteroom’s centerpiece.
The anteroom was anchored by a fountain made of chalk-white stone that was filled with a swirling red liquid. Standing in the blood-colored waters was a towering statue of Champion Tsiory, his sword plunged into its depths, and through some artifice, the carmine slurry was drawn up into the statue so it flowed to Tsiory’s sword hand and down the hilt and blade of the statue’s weapon. It was a gory reminder of the costly nature of the Omehi’s first days on the peninsula, and it disturbed Tau almost as much as the memory of the lives that been lost in the room only a few nights gone.
Tau pulled his eyes away and they settled on the corridor where his predecessor, Champion Okar, had fallen. Half-formed figures of gray hid in the murk, and Tau’s hands snapped to his blade hilts.
He thought to draw, almost did, but the shapes remained motionless and the queen placed one of her strangely cool hands on his. Tau had to force himself not to yank away from the unexpected touch.
“We asked a sculptor to render the scene of Champion Okar’s last stand,” she said. “When the work is done, anyone who wishes to enter that hallway must pass the statues of the Queen’s Guard who fell holding it. They must pass the likeness of Champion Okar, who gave his life for ours.”
She watched him as she spoke, and this time, Tau was first to turn away. There was something in the way she looked at him. They were strangers, but she had no trouble letting her gaze linger. It made him feel like less of a person and more of a thing, like a favorite toy, long misplaced and only just found.
“Do you find it fitting?” his queen asked as they walked past the unfinished statues.
“I do … my queen. You honor Champion Okar and all who fought beside him.”
“He honored us,” she said, moving down the next hallway and into a part of the keep that was new to Tau.
They were in a short passageway ending at a tall wooden door guarded by two Indlovu. The soldiers snapped to attention when they saw the queen. Tau didn’t pay them much mind. He was looking at the door.
The wood was pale, and even in the dim torchlight, he could see that it was made from brittle Xiddan timber. For all its size, he could kick it down, if needed.
“Open it,” Queen Tsiora ordered, walking toward the Indlovu. “We have something to say to those inside.”
The soldiers hesitated, glancing at each other, but the queen kept to her pace, moving forward as if the door were already open, and the two Indlovu hurried to make sure it would be.
COUNCILS
When the door to the council chambers opened, Tau heard a man’s voice, cave-deep, arguing the end of some unheard point, but the voice faltered when the queen walked in. Tau and Nyah were next through the door, and the rest of their group came behind them.
The room was circular, enclosed, brightly lit, but smoky from the burning torches, and its floor was painted black. Holding court in its center, wearing the uniform of an Ingonyama, was a boulder of a man. His freshly shaven head gleamed and he had thick eyebrows that sat on a forehead large enough to keep rainfall from ever wetting his nose.
Tau guessed he was the owner of the deep voice, but it was just a guess. There were eleven other Indlovu in the chamber sitting on rising rows of concentric benches, and as the queen’s group entered, they’d all stood to salute her. The queen ignored the military men, so Tau did the same, letting his eyes flit about to take in the rest of the space.
At first glance, the circular room gave the impression of no beginning or end, a room without hierarchy. It was a nice idea, but not an Omehian one, and across the room in front of Tau, instead of another row of benches, there was a line of tall-backed chairs on which six Greater Noblewomen sat. Queen Tsiora focused on them.
“My queen,” said the heavy-browed Ingonyama, saluting hard enough to crack his skull were it not slate thick.
She inclined her head but didn’t look at him. Instead, she spoke to one of the two women seated closest to the center among the six in the chairs. “What do you do here in the dark, Mirembe?”
“My queen,” Mirembe said, rising to bow along with the other Noblewomen, “your presence is an honor.”
“Is it?”
Head low, eyes up, Mirembe smiled as if the queen had made a joke. The Greater Noblewoman, with hair the color of Ihashe grays, had walked her path for many cycles and was still handsome. Her skin, the color of fresh coal, was unlined, her eyes were bright, barely a crinkling at their edges, and when she smiled, her teeth were cloud white. “It’s an honor, my queen, as always, to be near you.”
“If the honor is so great, why not ask us to attend this … gathering?”
Mirembe took her seat, her lush dress billowing like a wave when she did. “We gather solely to explore the paths that lie before us. We gather to collect our thoughts so that, once they are collected, they can be presented to you, my queen.”
Nyah took a step forward, drawing even with Tsiora. “By what right?” she asked.
Mirembe looked like she hadn’t understood the question. “Vizier?”
“You heard me.”
; Mirembe flashed that cloud-white smile, and in Tau’s mind it stretched wide enough to touch her ears. “Vizier Nyah, I did hear you but don’t understand your concern. We’re simply fulfilling our duty as the peninsula’s one true ruling council.”
Nyah waved a dismissive hand in Mirembe’s direction. “You meet in the middle of the night with the queen’s generals, vote yourselves to power, and have the audacity to—”
“Have a care, Vizier,” Mirembe said. “You have a voice in council decisions, but that tradition is not enough for me to allow you to undermine us.” She shifted in her chair, leaning forward. “We were unanimous without you, but if you’d like to vote against this council’s formation, you can do so now, though it’ll change nothing, given our majority.”
The air was thick with tension. Tau could feel it like it was crawling over him.
“Majority? Who do you six represent but yourselves?” asked Nyah.
Mirembe’s smile slipped. “We are the Ruling Council. We represent the Omehi.”
“The unabridged title is ‘the Queen’s Ruling Council,’” Tsiora said, “and perhaps it’s time your queen had her say.”
Mirembe’s smile came back, and when she spoke, Tau saw that her teeth had grown and curved like fangs. “Your Majesty, if it was my decision to make, your say would be all that counted.”
Tau squeezed his eyes shut, doing his best to reject the hallucinations as the chairwoman continued to talk.
“It pains me to even mention it,” Mirembe said, “but as we all know and accept, Omehi law dictates that the queen’s will be balanced with the will of the Guardian and Ruling Councils.”
Tau opened his eyes. The chairwoman looked normal again. He’d shaken the vision loose, but Nyah had noticed his behavior and was looking at him from the corner of her eye.