The dissenters continued to converge on the half-fallen house until more than a dozen had made their way inside. The interior of the house remained dark until the last of the group had arrived. At the lighting of a single candle, their clandestine meeting commenced.
2
“How much longer will it be before we act?” a voice hissed out of the candle-lit gloom.
The speaker was a man named Adisu. He was a leather-worker whose goods and premises had been destroyed beyond repair by the rampaging Uloans. He had not been able to recover his losses nor resume his business, and the seeds of bitterness within him had now reached full fruition. And, like some others, Adisu blamed his misfortunes not on the invading Uloans, but on the Fidi and their new god. In his mind, he associated the islanders’ massive attack with the coming of the foreigners, as if the Fidi had somehow been the cause of the Uloans’ actions. Now, the invaders were long since defeated and destroyed. But the Fidi were still in Khambawe. And Adisu wanted them to be gone from the city.
“How long will we continue to allow these outsiders to rule us, change us, turn us into whatever it is they want us to be?” Adisu continued.
The light from the candle cast a wavering illumination on Adisu’s dark face as he awaited a reply to his questions. When none was immediately forthcoming, he forged ahead impatiently, his voice low in tone, but infused with fierce urgency and repressed anger.
“There is no time better than now to make a move,” he insisted. “Half of the sorcerers have gone off to the Uloan Islands, to do who knows what? They say they want to put an end to the scarred devils’ threat, once and for all. But for all we know, they could be bringing the rest of them back here to finish what they started.”
He allowed that ominous – and absurd – speculation to hang in the air before he pressed on.
“Whatever they’ve got planned, the point is, now we can do something about them, because they are at less than half of their full strength.”
After a short silence, another voice spoke out of the near-darkness of the meeting place.
“And what would you have us do, Adisu? Even at half-strength, the Believers are much more powerful than we can ever hope to be.”
All eyes turned toward the new speaker, whose name was Jass Kebessa. Kebessa was a minor member of the Degen Jassi whose status had been even further diminished with the coming of the Fidi and the defeat of the Uloans. His influence in the Emperor’s court was scant because of his steadfast refusal to embrace the new religion of the Almovaads.
More than once, he had told anyone who would listen that he would rather believe in no god or goddess at all than a god of foreigners, regardless of how beneficial this Almovaar appeared to be. That stance caused his standing in the court to become negligible at best. However, by virtue of his rank, Jass Kebessa was the leader of the small cadre of dissidents.
“Would you have us incite an uprising?” Kebessa asked. “That would be a difficult task, indeed. Most of our people are in love with these newcomers. There is nothing they would not do for them ... and nothing they would not do to anyone who caused harm to them. So ... what would you have us do?”
“Something! Anything!” Adisu shouted, no longer caring whether anyone passing outside the meeting place could hear him.
“The longer we wait, the fewer our chances,” the leather worker went on, his voice somewhat calmer. “Already, people are disappearing into thin air without any explanation.”
“But those people are only tsotsis,” another speaker interjected. “Most of us are happy to see those vermin disappear. Aren’t you?”
The new speaker was Tamair, a middle-aged woman who had lost her husband and children when the Uloans had attacked, and had nearly lost her own life as well before the night-sun first shone and the tide of battle turned. What she had seen and experienced on that deadly night could never be effaced from her soul. The Almovaads wanted her to forget her past, and embrace their future. But Tamair preferred to remember. And she was suspicious of those who advised her to forget her old life and begin anew. She would never forget. Never ...
“What happens when the Maim is empty of tsotsis?” Adisu retorted. “Who will disappear next? Does this new god have a hunger that can never be satisfied, no matter how many people are taken?”
“We don’t know,” Jass Kebessa said. “We know only that the Emperor Gebrem is under the spell of this Kyroun, and when Gebrem opens his mouth to speak, it is the Fidi’s words that come out. Kyroun is even made himself the Leba! And how much longer will it be before a Fidi, and not a Matile, sits on the Lion Throne?”
That speculation caused the others to fall into silence for a long moment, before Adisu spoke in reiteration of his opinion.
“We must act, then.”
“But how?” Kebessa asked again.
“To kill a serpent, you must cut off its head.”
These words came not from Adisu, but from a new speaker, one who had previously made few contributions to the dissidents’ discussions even though he attended all the gatherings.
The speaker’s name was Sehaye.
3
A slight smile curved Sehaye’s lips as he wended his way through the rubble-strewn interior streets of Khambawe. The dissidents’ meeting had ended, and his ideas had received much attention, even from the cautious Jass Kebessa. Almost without thinking, Sehaye avoided the broken stones and other debris that littered his path as he savored the outcome of the gathering. In another part of his mind, he wondered if he would soon help to remove the wreckage past which he was now stepping, rubble he had, in his way, helped to create.
In the time before Sehaye’s countrymen had launched Retribution Time, the street he travelled had been free from detritus. But it had not been free of tsotsis, who had awaited in the shadows, poised to pounce on the unlucky and unwary who came within their reach. Now, the tsotsis were penned in the Maim, and were steadily disappearing. The only danger the street now posed for Sehaye was the chance of stumbling over some unnoticed obstacle.
Sehaye’s smile broadened as he left the interior of the city behind and approached the dwelling he had appropriated in the aftermath of Retribution Time’s failure. It was a modest house that had escaped the brunt of the destruction on the night of the invasion. Its previous owners had been killed, and no one else had come forth to claim it. Close to the area in which the dissidents met, although they never gathered in the same place twice in a row, as well as the other still-damaged areas in which he made his living, the location was ideal for Sehaye’s purposes.
And he had finally found a purpose after a period of aimlessness, and at times madness, that had lasted until the time immediately following Jass Gebrem’s coronation as Emperor. It was a gap he barely remembered, and he knew he was fortunate to have lived through it.
Even before the coronation, he could no longer maintain his previous identity as a fisherman. His boat had long since been lost. And after he had looked at the harbor the day after Retribution Time ended, and he had seen the spider-scarred corpses of his countrymen covering the surface of the water so thickly that he could have walked across them, he could no longer bear the sight of the sea.
Despite his wiry frame, Sehaye’s back was strong. Soon enough, he was able to stave off starvation by helping to clear the rubble left from Retribution Time, and participating in the rebuilding of the city he had dedicated his life to bringing down. The irony of his position did not escape him, and there were times when he teetered on the brink of an abyss of despair.
Then, one day, a voice that came from within pulled him away from that brink. He was certain that the voice belonged to Legaba. Sometimes, though, he thought it might belong to a different source, one that he did not care to contemplate very long or very deeply ...
Why I make questions? he asked himself.
Voice helping I, he assured himself in the Uloan dialect he spoke only in the deepest recesses of his mind.
I and I listen and learn, he
promised himself.
Sehaye became known as a silent but capable worker who did what he was told without asking any questions. Following the advice of his new inner companion, he watched and listened as he worked. At first, he was searching, as always, for fellow spies from the Islands who might have survived Retribution Time. But even if any such people existed, he had no way of recognizing them. Jass Imbiah had forbidden any contact among her mainland spies; if they became acquainted, they could inadvertently give each other away. After a while, though, he gave up that search. If he were to be the only Uloan left in Khambawe, so be it.
Where Jass Imbiah gone? he often asked himself bitterly. Why she leave we? That the ruler of all the Islands was dead, he had no doubt, even though he had not personally witnessed her demise. And he also knew he had no way of ever returning to his homeland. Even if he did, he would likely be killed as a damned blankskin before he could open his mouth to convince his fellow Uloans that he was one of them despite his lack of spider-scars.
Sehaye had listened more closely as he heaved rocks and repositioned beams. And he began to hear mutterings of discontent; the voices of those who did not accept the huge changes that had occurred in Khambawe and spread throughout the Matile Mala Empire, even though the catalysts of those changes, the Almovaads, had saved the dissenters’ lives as well as those of the Believers.
And those were the voices the new speaker inside Sehaye’s head wanted him to hear ...
Sehaye continued to listen as he worked. Then he began to speak ... softly, unobtrusively, using the words that the voice inside him suggested. At first, the dissidents were surprised that their taciturn co-worker possessed the ability to utter more than two words at a time. However, the more they listened to him, the more respect they developed for what he said.
Soon enough, the dissidents invited Sehaye to one of their gatherings. Although he remained relatively quiet, when he did speak, his words were well-received. He quickly became accepted among the dissidents’ thin ranks. They entrusted him with their secrets because they were confident his mouth would stay as closed outside their meetings as it usually did during them.
At times, Sehaye wondered why the voice inside him harbored any interest at all in the dissidents. During their gatherings, they did little other than complain incessantly about the dominance of the newcomers; the changes the new religion had wrought; and the possible perils of the Almovaar magic, which was in many ways even more powerful than the ashuma the Amiyas had wielded in the legendary past. They also grumbled about Kyroun’s near-equality of power with that of Gebrem.
They even criticized the new fashions that were sweeping the younger people: the hair-dyeing to emulate the Fidis; the adoption of Fidi clothing, the intrusion of some of the foreigners’ words into the Matiles’ speech. Sehaye had rapidly grown weary of such useless talk, but the voice inside had persuaded him to continue to attend the dissidents’ gatherings.
Recently, though, the dissidents’ discussions had become more urgent. Rumors were spreading of a new war to come, to be launched by the Matile against the Thabas who were encroaching on the southern frontier.
Considering the near-annihilation the Matile had almost experienced when the Uloans invaded, the dissidents believed they were not alone in their trepidations about going into battle again so soon. The city was still recovering from the devastation the islanders had wrought. And there was even now another action being taken against the Uloans, on their home islands. Ships had departed the harbor, but no one knew what their ultimate intent would be once they reached their destination. The new authorities had remained silent about their purpose.
Sehaye had said nothing when the discussion touched on the islands. He needed to exert all the power of his will to prevent himself from attacking the Matile when they spoke of their satisfaction with the debacle his people had suffered. However, he did take satisfaction in the knowledge that the after-effects of Retribution Time would continue for a long time to come as the Matile rebuilt their city ... and his own schemes came closer to fruition.
Patience, Sehaye, the voice counselled. Patience ...
And so Sehaye continued to cultivate his ties with the dissidents, who continued to be satisfied with talk, not action.
Then, on this very night, the voice planted its final seed of suggestion in Sehaye’s mind. The islander’s eyes widened when the whispered words first welled within him. He wondered if madness had once again claimed him, as it had in the days that immediately followed the demise of Retribution Time. However, the more he listened, the more he realized that the voice was speaking the truth, and if he could persuade the others to accept the voice’s proposal, Retribution Time would be, in a small but not insignificant way, fulfilled after all.
That thought caused Sehaye’s smile to broaden as he reached his dwelling and went inside.
4
On another dark street of Khambawe, Jass Kebessa and Tamair walked side-by-side. Before the Uloans’ invasion, Kebessa would never have associated so closely with someone of Tamair’s lower social status. Now, he actively sought her companionship, even though most of his own family had managed to survive the terrible night of slaughter.
Even under the changed circumstances of the Renewal, as the Emperor Gebrem’s reign was beginning to style itself, Kebessa continued to hide his true feelings from himself, convincing himself that he regarded Tamair only as a friend from whom he sought counsel.
“Do you think Sehaye is mad?” he asked as they walked along a street that was relatively free from rubble.
The street was closer to the main part of the city, which had by now been almost completely rebuilt. Other people were abroad this night, and the Moon Stars’ light outlined their faces as they passed. If anyone recognized either Tamair or Kebessa, they gave no indication.
“Mad?” Tamair repeated. “Well, his idea certainly is.”
After a short pause, she continued.
“In fact, I’ve never heard of anything more insane in my life – even in these times of lunacy.”
Kebessa chuckled.
“That’s why it just might work,” he said.
This time, it was Tamair’s turn to laugh.
“I never thought I’d hear something like that from him,” she said. “He was always so sensible before.”
“In a way, he’s being sensible now.”
That comment caused Tamair to stop walking and give Kebessa a quizzical glance.
“How’s that?” she asked.
Kebessa stopped as well, and he returned her gaze directly, without pretense of ulterior motive.
“His scheme brings no direct risk to us,” he said. “If it fails, no one will ever know that we were involved.”
“That’s only if Sehaye doesn’t talk.”
“I have a feeling he won’t.”
“Are you willing to gamble our lives on a ‘feeling?’” Tamair demanded. “Hah! That’s the way is has always been with you Jassi.”
As Kebessa looked at her, a distance became evident in his eyes; a reminder of times past, and the way he would have regarded a woman like Tamair back then. Tamair could sense that distance as well.
“What we do will be for all of us to decide,” Kebessa said stiffly.
Little else was said as they began to walk again. When they reached one of the principal streets of Khambawe, on which the light from night-torches overwhelmed the Moon-Stars’ glow, they silently went their separate ways.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Tokoloshes’ Decision
1
Rumundulu struggled to conceal his shock at the words he had just heard. The words had been spoken by Mungulutu or, more precisely, Mungulutu’s simulacrum, contained in his sphere of pale phosphorescence suspended high above the floor of the Tokoloshe Embassy. Light from Mungulutu’s orb bathed Rumundulu’s broad, dark face in an ashen glow, turning his features into a stark, expressionless mask.
He was alone in the innermost cranny of the Embas
sy: a cavern hewn deep in the bedrock below the surface of the ground. Only the foremost of the Tokoloshe who were delegated to dwell among humans were permitted to enter the chamber, which had been shaped by magical means into the form of an inverted bowl. Its walls were smooth; its floor as flat as any street in Khambawe. The chamber had neither furnishings nor decorations, nor anything else that would indicate it had ever been intended for habitation.
For several moments now, Rumundulu had remained silent in an attempt to comprehend the consequences of what Mungulutu had just told him. He concluded that his wisdom was too limited to encompass the enormity of Mungulutu’s message; its significance loomed larger than anything he or any other Tokoloshe had ever encountered or contemplated. It was as though some huge hand had suddenly swept hundreds of years of history and custom aside, and left in its place only a yawning, incomprehensible chasm.
Rumundulu could only shake his massive head in disbelief as he pondered the unthinkable. He had been in a conference with Bulamalayo, his figurehead among the humans, when he felt the insistent, pulling sensation that told him he was being summoned by Mungulutu. Bulamalayo had immediately understood what was happening, and simply nodded as Rumundulu walked away with a rigid gait, as though invisible strings controlled his limbs.
Gaze fixed on a horizon visible only to himself, Rumundulu had not returned any of the many greetings his fellow Tokoloshe and the Fidi dwarves had given him. The Tokoloshe had seen such a detached gaze in his eyes before. Well did they know the reason it was there, and they were quick to step aside and allow him room to pass. However, some of the newcomers perceived Rumundulu’s behavior as brusque until the Tokoloshe took them aside and explained the nature of the summoning their leader obeyed. The dwarves understood then, although their eyes continued to follow his passage.
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