by C. T. Rwizi
Jomo steps forward with his gilded cane, his leg brace squeaking as he does so. “I am the herald. I should go with you. My mother always accompanied your father to the Mkutano in the Meeting Place by the Sea.”
Obe Saai follows him, hands clasped respectfully before him. “As your honor guard, I should come with you, Your Majesty.”
“You stay away from my cousin!” Jomo says, wheeling around to face him with blazing eyes. “Your kind should not be welcome here after what your uncle did.”
“With all due respect,” Obe says, meeting the herald glare for glare, “I am not my uncle.”
“A crocodile is a crocodile.”
Isa has to physically hold in a sigh. She suspected this would happen. “Neither of you shall be coming with me.”
Both young men look at her with hurt in their eyes. “Oh, come on, Your Majesty,” Jomo says. “Leaving me makes no sense!”
“You may accompany me next time,” she clarifies. “Tonight I will take Sentinels Dino Sato and Ijiro Katumbili.”
At this, both Jomo and Obe go from hurt to indignant. Dino Sato is Isa’s other honor guard, and Ijiro Katumbili is probably the youngest warrior in the room, a strapping, bright-eyed fellow with the look of innocence about him. Isa doubts he has yet seen his seventeenth comet.
Both warriors step forward, failing to hide their surprise.
“I need their experience,” Isa says to the indignant pair. “Dino and Ijiro are princes who have traveled to the Meeting Place by the Sea with their fathers before. This won’t be their first time there. I can’t say the same for you two, can I?”
This reason is partly true. The real reason she wants to leave Jomo and Obe, though, is that she doesn’t want their strong emotions clouding her judgment.
“You will respect Her Majesty’s wishes,” says the Arc, ending all discussion on the matter.
He retrieves a moongold timepiece from the folds of his crimson boubou and gives its ticking face a glance. “Are you ready, Your Majesty?”
Smothering a tremble with a heavy breath, Isa dons the mask-crown. As it unfolds itself to cover her face, she feels it working its sorcery to give her the visage of a metallic four-tusked elephant wearing a crown of spikes, with eyes that glow like burning charcoal. Controlling its expressions is instinctual; the mask-crown will reveal only that which she wishes it to.
She senses an immediate change in how the warriors look at her, sees it in their awed expressions. With the mask-crown glinting on her face, they now see the imposing man who wore it not a month ago, not the frightened young woman wearing it now. Good.
She rises to her feet and walks down the dais with the poise of a princess who is now king, holding out her arms for her chosen warriors. With all eyes watching, Dino Sato and Ijiro Katumbili step forward to meet her, each one taking an arm in his.
“Do not forget that the Meeting Place is a construct,” the Arc says to her. “It won’t feel like it, but nothing there is real, and no one can harm you. Your minds will be entangled in the Void, but your bodies will still be here. Should you wish to return, simply will the mask to bring you back, and it will obey.”
Isa takes another breath to put steel in her veins. “Understood, Your Worship.”
He bows his head. “Good luck, Your Majesty.”
While the Arc steps back, Ijiro leans in, looking rather nervous and a little guilty. “I’ve never been to a Mkutano before, Your Majesty,” he whispers. “I have five older brothers, so I never got the chance.”
She tries to look reassuring—as reassuring as a metallic four-tusked elephant can look. “It’ll be my first time, too, so perhaps we can take strength from each other.”
Relief loosens the tension in his shoulders. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Next to them, Dino smirks. “Relax. Don’t worry. Just don’t think too much, and you’ll be fine.”
Dino Sato is light skinned where Obe is swarthy, with fine-boned, sharply defined features. Where Obe hides his sensuality beneath a rigid guise, Dino wears his on his sleeve. Where Obe’s good looks lie in his secret smiles and intense gaze, Dino will capture the room’s attention the instant he walks in. He is charming and knows it.
Of late he’s been distant with her. Sometimes she worries she’s losing his friendship, not only because she enjoys his company but also because it would be a politically catastrophic loss to her right now. He’s a direct line of communication to his father, the headman of the Sato clan and wearer of the Impala mask. He might be key to securing the headman’s support.
Ijiro’s father, on the other hand, is the Bonobo, one of the Crocodile’s closest allies. The conniving part of Isa is taking him along as her escort mostly for the shock effect. Let them see that she isn’t completely powerless, that she holds their sons by the leash.
“Are you ready?” she asks them both, and they nod.
“Remember, no thinking,” Dino says.
“Will yourself away, Your Majesty,” the Arc says. “Command the mask to take you where you need to be.”
But his voice is fading away because Isa has already commanded the mask, and now she feels it yank her mind out of the fabric of existence and into—
Oblivion. There is nothing here, and yet there is everything. It is a lonely, transient moment of painful immortality, a cold, deathless hell where she has no form, no words to speak, no eyes to see, and no ears to hear herself scream—
She is suddenly whole again. The temple’s bamboo arches and cloisters have vanished. She now stands at the shores of an endless expanse of water that glistens in the starlight. The beach stretches out before her until it curves away, bounded on one side by the seas and on the other by dense jungle.
By her side, Ijiro’s breath comes out in rapid gasps. She squeezes his arm gently. “Are you all right?”
“Shouldn’t we be asking you that, Your Majesty?” Dino says, then shakes his head and sighs at Ijiro. “He’s thinking. I told him not to do that.”
She pulls away from Dino to better attend to the younger Sentinel. “Come on, Ijiro. Breathe. It’s all right. You’re here now. We’re all here. We’re safe.”
She needs to hear those words too. Crossing through that place took a piece of her soul from her, made her feel like she was nothing, or like she was the only person alive in the universe. How anyone can stand repeatedly crossing through such a place is beyond her.
Ijiro fights to bring himself under control. His broad shoulders heave, fists clenched by his sides. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I’m all right now.”
“Yes, you are. And you have nothing to be sorry for.”
Ijiro nods, wiping his eyes. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Very touching,” Dino says, “but it looks like the Mkutano is about to begin. Perhaps we should walk a little closer so we can actually, you know, attend.”
Isa casts a glance at the waves breaking on the shore, then up at the starry skies glittering on the waters. She suffers a shiver of dread when she realizes she doesn’t recognize any of the stars up there. The Devil’s Eye, whose milky upper spirals are always at the southernmost edge of the horizon, is nowhere in sight. Wherever she is now, she is no longer near the world’s equator.
And these waters . . . is this the Dapiaro of the West or the eastern Inoetera? What exotic lands wait on the other side? Is this truly not real?
“Your Majesty.” Worry has slipped into Dino’s voice. “We must join the Mkutano before it begins. Are you sure you’re all right?”
She looks away from the ocean. “Yes, Dino. Let’s go.”
Yards away along the beach, eleven stone pillars jut up from the sands around a depression so that they form a circle, each pillar reaching fifteen feet into the air. As they walk closer, Isa realizes that the pillars aren’t pillars at all but massive thrones with elongated backrests, complete with steps leading up to the seats.
The ten headmen are already there, each one sitting on his throne, flanked by his two escorts. Their enchante
d masks gleam in the starlight, their eyes glowing with magic. A fire burns in the depression at the circle’s center, which is deep enough for the headmen to see each other over the towering flames.
The Bonobo is in the middle of a speech when Isa arrives—she knows that he is this month’s Speaker, the headman elected to preside over the Mkutano. He stops speaking when he notices that everyone’s looking not at him now but at her.
“All hail Isa Saire!” Dino announces. “King of Chains, Great Elephant of the Yontai, she who straddles the center of the world and rules its beating heart!”
It might not be deliberate on their parts, but what happens next tells Isa exactly who among them is her enemy, who is ambivalent, and who she might consider a friend: the Kestrel and the Lion both rise to their feet and bow; the Impala inclines his head respectfully where he sits; the Buffalo and the Caracal watch the others carefully; the Jackal, the Hare, and the Rhino relax into their seats; the Crocodile bares his teeth in a smile, and the Bonobo steeples his hands, looking down at her from his throne like she’s a bug crawling on his expensive carpet.
“Your Majesty,” he says in a voice dripping with hardly concealed distaste. “We were not expecting you.”
Isa takes her time as she sweeps her gaze around the Meeting Place and the men sitting on their thrones.
Like their predecessors—and their sons and nephews today—all of them served in the King’s Sentinels for six comets, went on to command their clan legions upon graduating, and then rose to their current stations when their fathers passed on. And while some of them have let themselves grow plump and soft with the years—like the Impala and the Rhino—it is clear to Isa that each was not only born to power like she was but groomed for it.
These men all know the stench of weakness when they smell it, and if she falters even for a second, she knows she will never have their respect.
Brocades and silks hang in drapes over their bodies. Gold shimmers on their fingers and dangles around their necks. The Buffalo wears the fattest diamond pendant because his clanlands are rich with diamond mines. The Hare has emerald rings on every finger for a similar reason.
If Isa is ever going to bend these men to her will, she knows she will have to stand her ground, starting right now.
“This is my first Mkutano since I was crowned,” she says to the Bonobo. “I wonder why you thought I’d miss it. Could it be because you’ve elected a regent while a king yet lives?”
The Bonobo smiles down at her, steepled fingers tapping against each other. He’s a powerfully built man with a booming voice and muscles that bulge out of his golden robe. When he glares down at Ijiro, Isa feels the boy stiffen and breathe in sharply.
He fears his father. Isa can’t say she blames him, though. Not when she can feel her heart threatening to rise up her throat.
“You left us no choice, Your Majesty,” the Bonobo says. “A king cannot run a kingdom from the cloisters of a temple. If you came out of hiding, there would be no need for a regent.”
Isa smiles back, then marks the Crocodile with her gaze. “If I came out of hiding, my family’s assassins would dance over my corpse.”
To his credit the Crocodile remains cool and composed on his throne. “But Your Majesty,” he says, “from your tone one would almost think you were accusing me of something.”
“The guilty are always quick to cry foul.”
“And accusations against a headman must be founded on facts.”
Isa walks toward him, feeling the train of her robe flow out behind her. He’s in a glittering green robe that does little to hide the lithe muscles beneath, sitting in the throne facing the oceans—the place of honor. She feels Dino and Ijiro trail behind slowly. Such a scene has likely never played out in the Meeting Place. She stops at the foot of the throne, taking care to meet the Crocodile’s fiery gaze with hers. “I made no accusations, did I? But here’s a fact for you, Your Highness: you’re sitting in my chair.”
A deadly flame ignites in the Crocodile’s eyes. Isa has to remind herself that she can’t be harmed. This is why the king and the headmen will often meet here; the Meeting Place by the Sea suffers no violence on its shores. But the man’s gaze still makes her shiver.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he says at last. “My apologies.” And then he rises to his feet, strides down the steps, and walks to the vacant throne across the circle, retaining more dignity than Isa would have liked. His two escorts seethe visibly as they follow him.
She tempers her childish instinct to scold them and walks up the steps to her throne. Only once she’s seated do the Lion and the Kestrel do the same. She nods at them in acknowledgment.
As Dino and Ijiro move to stand on either side of her, she wonders about the wisdom of bringing them here. They might be a reminder of the power she wields over the headmen, but that reminder might only encourage them to take that power away.
Her fears are validated as soon as the Bonobo opens his mouth to speak. “As I was saying before Her Majesty arrived, we will begin this Mkutano by deliberating the matter of the King’s Sentinels, after which we will put the matter to a vote. The House of Law has given us the mandate to decide among ourselves whether to keep this oppressive system in place. Should we decide to abolish it, the Shirika will annul the sorcerous bonds that hold our sons and nephews prisoners—”
“Excuse me, Your Highness,” Isa interrupts. “I must be dreaming because it seems to me like you’re about to begin this Mkutano without giving me my due. Surely you wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to assume that I have nothing to say to my subject princes.”
The Bonobo lets his anger show on his mask, but only for a moment; just long enough for Isa to see the emotion yet fleeting enough to be deniable. “My apologies, Your Majesty. Yes, it is customary for the king to give a speech before we begin deliberation. I will yield the fire to you.”
“Thank you, Great Bonobo.” Isa interlocks her fingers and stares gravely at her headmen. “I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss something very important to me. Something so important it’s been keeping me up at night these last few days. My beloved princes, I want to talk about colors.”
The headmen trade baffled looks. The Bonobo is the first to speak. “What?”
“Colors,” Isa says. “Are they not the most wonderful things in the world? Passionate reds, earthy browns, fertile yellows, mysterious grays, trusty blues”—here she looks across the circle—“treacherous greens. Could it be that the colors we’re most drawn to say something about what kind of people we are?”
After another long silence, the Hare shakes his head. “Her Majesty makes a mockery of this sacred place.”
“Her Majesty is the king,” says the Kestrel. “And she is allowed to give a speech without interruptions.”
“Thank you, Great Kestrel,” Isa says. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, colors.”
Mkutanos at the Meeting Place by the Sea are meant to last for two hours and not a second longer. The flames of the burning fire mark the passage of time; they grow weaker with each passing moment, dying out completely when the two hours have elapsed.
Isa has a whole speech prepared. While the fire wanes, she whiles away the time with several loosely related discussions, from the color spectrum to the capital’s architectural history to the economic outlook of a kingdom at war with itself. She speaks until everyone knows that she will not let them do what they have come here to do, for she is king, and a king may speak for as long as she wishes.
She knows in her heart that this is weak power, but it is still power, so she will not shy away from using it.
The Bonobo’s eyes gather rage until they burn brighter than the fire in the depression. The Hare and the Rhino begin to fidget. Across the circle, a slow smile of begrudging respect spreads across the Crocodile’s face.
Isa doesn’t stop talking until the fire goes out with a hiss, signaling the end of the meeting. She stifles the sigh of relief that builds up in her chest. “Oh, will you look
at that. Our time is up. And I wasn’t even close to finished! Perhaps I can give the rest of my speech next time.”
When she rises to her feet, the Kestrel and the Lion do the same, though they appear a little more enthusiastic about it now. This time she lets the sigh out. She feared she would lose their respect with this move, but it seems the exact opposite is true.
“Mother’s blessings upon you, Your Highnesses,” she says. “Until next time.” And then she descends the steps to her throne, heading for the stretch of beach they came from. She could just slip back to the temple from here, but she wants the satisfaction of a proper exit.
Dino and Ijiro follow quietly behind her. They didn’t know what she was planning to do; if they think any less of her now, they aren’t showing it.
Halfway there a voice calls out to her: “Your Majesty. A word, if you please.”
Isa considers ignoring the request because she knows exactly whose it is. Curiosity wins out in the end, though, so she stops and turns around.
The Crocodile has taken off his mask. He’s walking toward her alone, with what she might have considered a charming smile had its wearer not murdered her entire family.
How she wishes she could say he is hideous. Some vile, hollow-cheeked wraith with pustules swarming his face. Or perhaps a brute of monstrous girth, with blubbery breasts drooping down to his knees, the sweaty folds of his pendulous double chin rolling like the curds of rancid boar’s milk.
But no. Kola Saai is quite easy on the eyes, if a little short for a man. He keeps his face clean shaven and his frizzy hair closely cropped. He’s also fairly young for a headman; he can’t be more than a decade older than Isa’s seventeen years.
“A wonderful performance back there,” he says. “Your knowledge of what goes on in the city’s sewers is . . . enviable.”
