Abengoni

by Charles R. Saunders

  “Heard,” the tsotsis replied in a ragged chorus.

  “Find Amiya-girl,” Mofo continued. “Bring her back, alive. She be my luck. Never should’ve let her go. Heard?”

  “Heard.”

  Mofo nodded. Then he waved his hand in curt dismissal. And the set scattered, for soon the soldiers their henchmen would be patrolling the streets they had once ceded to the tsotsis and the hyenas. Though none would say it aloud, more than a few of the set wished that one of Muvuli would come and claim their Jass, so they could finally be free of him.

  4

  To find Athir Rin, the tsotsis would have had to make their way into the Gebbi Senafa. Then they would have needed to evade human guards and magical wards. And if they somehow managed to succeed in slaying the Fidi but failed to avoid capture, they would have received a punishment even worse than what the Muvuli that stalked the Maim could mete out.

  The reason the erstwhile Ship’s Rat was safe was that he had become an honored guest of the Emperor Gebrem. And even as the Ashaki set scoured every reeking alley and bolthole in the Maim, Athir was ensconced in his own chambers in the Palace, enjoying sumptuous food and the finest talla and kef, attended by a pair of young female servants who supplied him with more than just food and drink.

  Athir took another sip of his talla and savored the tangy taste. It was much better than the rotgut he had forced down his throat in the talla-beits of the districts close to the Maim, or other dubious concoctions he had drunk in less-reputable corners of the world.

  He grinned. And he had ample reason to be smug.

  During the immediate aftermath of the Uloan invasion, Athir had taken the biggest risk of his life – and he won, even more than he thought he had when he made off with the tsotsis’ plunder while they were fighting for their lives against the Uloans. The hoard of loot he had filched from the tsotsis had immense value. But for all practical purposes – and Athir acknowledged no purposes other than the practical – it was worthless and useless to him.

  He knew that once the survivors of the carnage discovered that the tsotsis had been plundering them even as they were fighting for their lives and their kingdom, the ensuing eruption of indignation would be frightening in its intensity. Anyone who attempted to profit from goods stolen by the tsotsis would have been torn limb-from-limb by mobs of Matile, who now hated the tsotsis even more than they did the Uloans – and there weren’t any more Uloans around for the Matile to kill.

  Therefore, Athir needed to think of some other way to gain advantage from the loot he had taken from fellow thieves, which in his mind evened the score for the purse they had stolen from him in the Ukili shebeen. It did not matter to him that the loot was far greater in value than the contents of his purse.

  Well did he remember the abuse he had suffered at the hands of Mofo and the Ashaki set during his “stepping over.” He remembered the fear that had been his constant companion during the time he ran with the tsotsis, and the ill-concealed disdain and contempt in which he knew Jass Mofo held him. And those bitter memories made his decision an easy one, once he had worked out all the details in his mind. And the revenge that followed his carrying out of that decision tasted all the sweeter, like the finest Fiadolian wine.

  It had been a simple matter for him to seek out a Matile army officer and spin a tale of being captured by the tsotsis during the fighting against the Uloans, and being forced to accompany them during their depredations. He had ultimately escaped their clutches, he said half-truthfully, but not before learning where the set that had captured him had cached its loot. Athir then offered to show the officer where the cache was located. And he asked for nothing in return.

  Muldure and other members of the White Gull’s crew would have seen through the Ship’s Rat’s story as if it were made of glass, for they knew him well. And even the Matile officer, whose name was Keteme, harbored some suspicions about Athir, as he would about anyone even slightly associated with the tsotsis. But in the debilitating immediate aftermath of the invasion, before the rebuilding had begun, even a glimmer of good news was better than none at all.

  So Keteme allowed Athir to lead him and some other soldiers to the spot in the sewers in which he had cached the Ashakis’ spoils. That course of action was Athir’s toss of the dice.

  Under normal circumstances, Athir would never have placed himself in such a vulnerable position. It would have been a simple matter for Keteme and his troops to slit his throat and keep the loot for themselves once it was in their hands.

  But circumstances in Khambawe were far from normal, and Athir knew it. Most of the city lay in ruins, and outrage at the opportunistic depredations of the tsotsis had risen to a fever pitch. Few people were thinking clearly while bodies still lay in the streets and buildings lay in smoking ruins. Athir’s calculations of his odds proved correct: this time, the soldiers’ sense of duty superseded their all-too-human greed.

  The Ashakis’ hoard was collected, and the stolen goods were returned to the owners who had survived the invasion. Keteme, his men, and Athir divided what was left.

  When the Emperor learned of Athir’s role in the recovery of the tsotsis’ plunder, he had, in gratitude, given Athir a room in the royal palace. Suddenly, the Ship’s Rat had become a man of wealth and influence in the rebuilding city, much to the bemusement and disgust of his former shipmates, who were certain Athir had stolen the booty himself, then passed the blame on to the tsotsis when he found he couldn’t sell it.

  None of them had said anything to the Matile, though. The Ship’s Rat simply wasn’t worth the trouble, even though he now possessed much more material goods than any of those who had scorned him.

  Wrapped in luxurious Matile garments, Athir leaned against the ornate cushions that supported his back and fingered the thin tail of hair that hung from the back of his head. He thought about Mofo and the other tsotsis, and how they were currently on the run, stalked by soldiers, shadows, and even ordinary citizens bent on vengeance.

  And he laughed out loud.

  “I love it,” he said. “I just love it!”

  He was speaking in his native tongue, which his servants did not understand. They laughed with him, anyway. For they knew this Fidi could be generous, given the proper enticements.

  And, as Athir looked on in approval, they began to provide them.

  4

  Neither the Ashaki nor the Muvuli would ever be able to find Kalisha ... not as long as she remained in the darkness of the Underground, an extensive labyrinth of tunnels and sewers of ancient vintage that lay beneath the streets of Khambawe. Kalisha was safe in the Underground. But she was also alone.

  She sat still as a stone, the wet surface of a tunnel wall clinging to her back. At first, she had loathed the sensation of dampness constantly seeping into her skin. Now, she welcomed it, because it reminded her that she was still alive; that the gloom that surrounded her was not the endless dark of death.

  Her fingers trailed idly across the Mask of Nama-kwah. By now, she knew every contour of the effigy by touch alone. Its shape was as familiar as that of her own face and body, emaciated though she had become during the long time she had spent in hiding. She sustained herself on fungal matter she foraged from the walls and whatever scuttling creatures she could capture on the ground. Water was plentiful, if not particularly palatable.

  Her fingers paused at the dent in the Mask, the single blemish caused when Mofo had hurled it against a wall. Kalisha had smoothed it as much as possible, but despite her efforts, the imperfection remained. She hated Mofo for the way he had defaced her prize when he discarded it – and her. Her ambition to be his consort one day was now as dead as the tsotsis’ rule of the streets.

  And the Mask had saved her life.

  Kalisha remembered the night a Muvuli had come for her. She had seen other tsotsis attacked, yet she had, child-like, refused to believe the same thing could ever happen to her – until it did.

  Fear had clutched at her heart when she saw a second
shadow materialize behind her. It had pulled a dagger from the silhouetted simulacrum of cloth at its waist, even as Kalisha’s own weapon – and her natural shadow’s – remained in its hiding place. She had stood frozen in fear as the Muvuli’s blade rose, then began to fall ....

  Then the light of the Blue Robes’ night-sun glinted from the silver surface of the Mask. And a luminous shaft of illumination pointed the way to an open sewer – the way to the Underground.

  Kalisha had not hesitated. She dove toward the opening even as the second Muvuli’s dagger barely missed her own shadow’s back. The dark mouth of the sewer swallowed her whole, and the Blue Robes’ shadow could not pursue her into it. She was safe.

  At first, she had loathed the noisome stench of the Underground. And she missed the sun’s light and warmth. And she longed for the sound of other people’s voices, and the sight and touch of them. Eventually, however, those yearnings passed. She came to realize that the Muvuli would never find her as long as she remained below. And neither could other tsotsis bent on stealing the Mask from her.

  Before going into the Underground, Kalisha had not failed to notice the covetous glances some of the surviving tsotsis of the Maim had cast at the bundle that was always clutched in her arms. It had to contain something of value ... something worth stealing. Small as Kalisha was, however, there was a glint in her eyes that warned would-be thieves to beware. It was like looking into the eyes of a cobra.

  Kalisha was not alone in the Underground. The Mask served as both her companion and her friend. The only time she spoke aloud was when she spoke to the Mask.

  She remembered how Tiyana had donned the Mask during ceremonies at the Beit Amiya. She had seen Tiyana become one with the goddess. In her fronting persona, she had been all but invisible to Tiyana and the others she served, so they seldom, if ever, shooed her away. She had watched and listened; observing much, but understanding little.

  More than once, Kalisha had wondered what it would be like to place the Mask’s face over hers. How snugly would it fit her? Would she, too, become one with Nama-kwah, as Tiyana had?

  Now, the Mask was hers. She could put it on any time she wanted, and her curiosity would be satisfied. And, on several occasions, she had begun to do so. But each time, something stopped her hands before they could place the Mask over her head. It was as though another, unseen hand placed itself gently, but firmly, over hers, exerting just enough pressure to restrain her without hurting her.

  Eventually, Kalisha realized that the Mask would let her know when it wanted her to put it on. Until that time came, she would remain Underground, out of the reach of tsotsis and Muvuli alike. She would remain in the darkness as long as she had to. The Mask would tell her when she should put it on, and leave the Underground, and see the sun and the Moon Stars again.

  She ran her fingers across the face of Nama-kwah. And she sang a wordless song in a voice corroded from lack of use.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Uloan Fears

  1

  Legaba’s Realm lay silent and inert. Its sky was like the inside of a leaden bowl: gray, flat and featureless. Its sourceless light had grown so dim that the landscape it illuminated was almost invisible, shrouded in a shadowy pall like the overhanging smoke from some massive, cataclysmic conflagration, or a fog that encompassed the entire world.

  The trees that dotted the endless swamp drooped like gigantic, wilted flowers. Their branches hung even lower than they had before; some of them snapping off and falling, then floating aimlessly in fetid water. A colorless scum rimed the swamp’s surface. Occasionally, bubbles would rise in the water, as though something underneath was struggling to breathe. Those bubbles were the only indication of life in all the dreary the dreary vistas of Legaba’s Realm. His Children ... the crocodiles, the serpents, the hordes of spiders ... had all vanished after Almovaar’s departure. The Spider God was alone.

  Legaba himself had remained motionless beneath the shattered remnants of the trees that had once surrounded him like a palisade. Now, only jagged stumps remained. The fragments of their trunks and limbs had long since drifted away or sunk to the bottom of the swamp.

  The Spider God had greatly diminished in size. Before, his bulk would have dwarfed even that of an elephant in the Beyond World. However, his losing battle against Almovaar had reduced his substance to an irregularly-shaped sphere about the size of a buffalo.

  Legaba’s innumerable tentacles were gone. The eight crimson stars that were his eyes no longer shone, leaving him as monochromatic as a piece of shale. Almovaar’s lattice of golden fire, which had ensnared Legaba and rendered him helpless, had disappeared soon after its work was done. Still, the foreign deity’s power left its traces behind in the form of lines scored deep into the crust of Legaba’s surface. The effect was ironically similar to that of the web-like scars that his worshippers had etched into their skin.

  Despite the ruin of his domain, Legaba was far from dead. But he was as dormant as a deity can become. He cared nothing for the decay that surrounded him; he was hardly even aware of it. His consciousness had become dim as an ember. There was no fuel left to sustain it. The most powerful among his worshippers, Jass Imbiah and the huangi, had all perished. The survivors scattered on the islands were too weak to engage his attention, and even if they were strong enough, he could not have answered their callings. And he had no more will to allow his Children to live. Now, all Legaba could do was dream.

  He dreamed of what could have been ... what should have been ...what would certainly have been, had it not been for the intervention of that accursed alien deity, Almovaar ...

  He dreamed of the triumph of Retribution Time: his worshippers overrunning the mainland, conquering, burning, killing all who resisted and enslaving the survivors, tearing down the monuments to the other Jagasti ...

  He dreamed of walking the world again, while the other gods continued to cringe fecklessly in their Realms ...

  He dreamed of the day when he would be the god of all the people of the Abengoni continent, his image scarred into everyone’s skin ...

  One of Legaba’s eyes flared into life as those images filled his consciousness. The charred surface of his body rippled, as though something was stirring underneath, and he was on the verge of awakening. Then the scarlet blaze winked out again. And the defeated deity continued to dream.

  2

  The Uloan Islands writhed beneath a carpet of moving plant life. With the demise of Jass Imbiah and the huangi, and the defeat of Legaba by Almovaar, the ashuma that had kept the mwiti-plants at bay had subsided, then disappeared. Unfettered, the plants had soon begun to expand their movements.

  Ubia-vines crawled out of the forests like a legion of grotesque serpents, overwhelming outlying villages and farms, attacking anything that moved or stood still. Grasses turned into lethal webs that enmeshed the unwary. Single blades grew higher than a man’s head, and they wove ominous patterns in the air, and they danced with a disquieting frenzy in the absence of wind. Fruits throbbed like beating hearts, with poisonous ichor beading like perspiration on their skin and dripping onto the ubia-infested ground.

  The petals of flowers large and small opened and closed like hordes of groping hands. Clouds of noxious fumes wafted from blooms that unexpectedly shifted their colors and shapes. The roots of trees erupted like tentacles from the ground, whipping spasmodically in the air and ensnaring even the largest animals foolish enough to blunder into their reach.

  When the first few Uloans were swarmed by ubia-vines or smothered in deadly snares of grass, the others were too concerned about the return of the Retribution Time fleet to take much notice of the mwiti. But as the toll of death mounted and the infestation intensified, the Uloans retreated, abandoning their homes and moving closer to the beaches ... closer to the sea.

  Slowly, but inexorably, the mwiti were forcing the Uloans out of all their settlements. Large cities – even Ompong, on Jayaya – were being overrun and deserted. Even the cities of the d
ead, from which the jhumbis had marched to join the invasion of the mainland, were not immune to the incursion. Vines crept across the walls of the empty house-tombs, and trees sprouted inside them. Their rapidly growing branches split the structures apart from within.

  With no means to protect themselves, the surviving Uloans could do nothing other than retreat, giving ground grudgingly, but inevitably. It was as though all the mwiti-plants had developed a conscious purpose: to expunge human life from its midst. And there was a reason for that purpose ... a reason the Uloans had long ago allowed themselves to forget.

  The islands’ beaches were the Uloans’ final refuge. Beyond the edge of the sand, the islands’ interiors had become seething masses of mobile, lethal vegetation. By day, the plants of the mwiti blotted out the horizon like a writhing green wall; at night, they slithered and crept closer to their prey. Soon, even the beaches would not be a haven for the Islanders. They would either have to find a way to defeat the mwiti, or die on the blood-red sand ... or in the sea itself.

  And still, the Uloans waited for the ships to return.

  3

  A tiny, gurgling wail pulled Awiwi from her troubled sleep and rescued her from a terrifying dream. In it, the Retribution Time fleet had made its long-awaited return to the Islands. Along with all the other surviving women, children, and elders of Jayaya, she waited on the beach. As always, the Uloans scanned the empty horizon, hoping that this time, the sight of sails would reward their never-ending vigil.

  In Awiwi’s dream, the sails appeared, one after the other, until they covered the sea like fronds torn from palm trees during a storm. There were far more ships returning than had set off to wreak havoc on the mainlanders. But in her dream, that anomaly didn’t register.