“Oh.” Awa felt uncertain about poison. Did Mother mean to kill Father?
Mother blinked away tears. “With the Elders, you’ll map all of Smokeland. Think on that.”
Awa loved to draw maps and plan visits to faraway places, but getting sold away from the family wasn’t a story she’d told on herself. She clutched a honeycomb from Smokeland, her only possession, and stared at Kenu. The snake birthmark along his cheek quivered and his nose flared. He wanted to cry.
There’d be nobody who would do everything he dared. Not just freeing the elephants, Awa poured water in Father’s wine so he wouldn’t get so drunk. She stole forbidden scrolls from his bag for Kenu to read in the night. Kenu whispered to Awa about the village girl whose eyes were so deep and dark, he got lost in her gaze.
Why didn’t Kenu protest?
Elders were dragging Awa off to hot coals and worm meals. There’d be nobody for Kenu to share secrets with; nobody to make up funny stories to save him from Father. Two days ago, instead of getting drunk and beating Kenu, Father laughed over Awa’s tale of dogfish men chasing mud maidens and washing away in the rain. Father even blamed the elephant escape on Awa, not Kenu. How could Kenu let Father sell her to his enemies?
Awa clung to Mother. “I’d rather stay with you and brother Kenu.”
Mother’s face ran with tears, but she said nothing.
“Bugs in your hair. You’re a mess.” Kenu tried to laugh. Her younger brothers had no problem chortling. Who would they laugh at tomorrow? Kenu chased them off.
“A bee.” Awa pouted. “They don’t make a mess.”
“I know.” Kenu touched the snake birthmark on his cheek. “Don’t forget me.”
“I won’t.” Awa wiggled the snake on her forehead. “What’ll you do in Holy City without me? Don’t make the high priest mad.”
“I won’t. I promise.” Kenu held her so close, so tight she couldn’t breathe.
The Green Elders were gentle yet firm as they pulled Awa away. The sun was a white disk in gray. Awa kept looking back until Mother and Kenu disappeared in the mist hugging the herb garden. Awa wanted to shriek. What good would that do? She forced herself to remember every Smokeland moment. Drawing a map in her mind was better than burning with rage.
5
Storm
The first week of Council was as unreasonable and frustrating as fighting with Nuar and Samina. In an afternoon break, Djola escaped to a south wall of the emperor’s citadel—a maze of domes, columns, gates, and towers. He was a solitary figure in an Anawanama travel cloak and mesh veil. The third void-storm in a week roared through the capital.
This wasn’t a regular wall of sand blowing in from distant dunes and blotting out the sky. Rogue twisters popped up here and there from nowhere, from static and shimmer. People barricading windows were too late. Whirligigs snaked through the streets, searing cheeks, burning lungs, and desiccating ancient cathedral trees. The library’s onion domes were engulfed in sooty sparks. Stone turrets swayed in a shower of static. Wooden shops and hovels rattled. Thatched roofs lifted up and spun away.
Djola took perverse pleasure in this spectacle. The good citizens were primed for change. Tonight’s Council session would be better: hope was on the other side of a lethal storm.
An elephant staggered down a riverstone alley toward the citadel’s iron gates. Harassed by an angry mob, the elephant flapped her ears and trumpeted. A squall of soot and sparks chased her and had good citizens charging for cover. Djola chuckled at false bravado. The squall wound itself tight behind the elephant’s tail, twisting and sparking with a fury and then disappeared. Nobody ventured forth to take up the chase. Who could say where else a poison whirlwind might dance? Twisters vanished and the air cleared. Blue-green water sparkled beyond the docks. Djola opened his cloak. Rogue elephants and demon storms fueled his resolve. A sea breeze would cool his temper.
The elephant stomped distress, calling to family, pleading for rescue—no elephant reply, just horses and men hollering in the distance. Maybe she was the last of her clan to survive. A massive beast roaming behind the emperor’s citadel without a handler was strange. How had she gotten to the back alley? No guards raised an alarm. They were busy patrolling capital streets, quashing unrest. Djola was right to leave Samina and the children behind. Council always faced riots these days.
His heart warmed to see the wild elephant, a fellow northlander, a rebel defying the odds, making her own way. What would a simple bolt or spear do against an angry elephant or thousands of anxious citizens for that matter? The People needed vision, a map to tomorrow. Djola was the Empire’s greatest mapmaker. He stroked the spell-scrolls in his bag, years of hard work. Samina’s wisdom was there too. She would tell him to be careful, patient this evening at Council. He could do that. Soon was better than never.
The elephant shook off a cloud of dust and sparks. She wandered across the alley, her trunk writhing in front of her. The freak storms were like sandpaper. Blisters on her back glistened with blood. No longer dodging a mob or a whirlwind, she poked a jagged, broken tusk at an empty grain bin and stumbled through a dry water trough.
“Have you come to Council with a petition from the animal-people?” Djola sat down at the edge of the wrought-iron gates. “No? Well, I’ll tell them for you: disaster is upon us.”
His feet dangled between the bars. Mist condensed on coppery skin, and a sea breeze wafted through dense black hair. The weather shifted so quickly. As the sun disappeared into the Salty Sea, his eyes flickered in dwindling light. His moustache drooped and itched his lower lip. He was clean-shaven except for the mustache, a northern custom that made him look savage—or worse, like a Green Elder!—to folks in Arkhys City.
Samina urged him to grow a beard, do any masquerade that might gain access to people’s right minds. Djola refused. An itchy beard would aggravate him and impress nobody. Samina had a head for gazing at stars, navigating the seas, or reading books, not face-to-face politicking. After hearing petitions, Council would curse and argue all night. In the morning, Emperor Azizi would do nothing, and more people, animals, and grasslands would die, unless Djola forced Council to admit truth: no hope without change, no change without sacrifice.
The elephant bellowed, tears darkening the wrinkled skin around her eyes.
“I know.” He’d rather be home too, at the north edge of the Eidhou mountain range with Samina, waiting for the moon to rise over the Salty Sea, making love in the sand.
The elephant caught Djola’s scent and halted below him. She lifted her trunk, exploring his secrets. He smelled of crossroads conjure and root work, of sweet water and mint tea, of ink and musty parchment. He put his hand through the bars. The elephant got a whiff of mango and cathedral nuts and moved in close. Djola emptied the food from his bag for her. Her thin ears radiated heat as she gobbled this scant food offering. Mangos in the mountain groves were still plentiful. After the last sweet morsel, she wrapped her trunk around his hand, marking him with her scent and gathering in his. The two finger bones at the end of her hairy nostrils tickled—a tale for Tessa and Bal. His daughters loved elephants.
“Whayoa!” Emperor guards not from his loyal escort appeared at Djola’s shoulder, burly, hairy fellows with weapons ready. Southern barbarians?
“Hold.” Djola gripped their spears before they did anything foolish. The elephant trumpeted. “Run.” Djola spoke Anawanama, his mother’s tongue. The guards wouldn’t know a northern language, but the elephant might. “Leave this city while you have the chance.” The elephant raised her trunk, beckoning him to join her. “No. I must stay.”
A scrappy guard pulled his spear arm free and said, “Did a caravan lose this beast?” Djola blocked him. The elephant lumbered down a path to the foothills of Mount Eidhou. She must smell fruit trees and mountain springs. The passageway was wide enough for her, and Mountain Gates would open for an escape. Djola smiled at good decisions. The scrappy guard grimaced. “Someone has lost a fortune.”
“That’s a wild one,” Djola said.
“There aren’t any wild elephants left.” He smirked at Djola.
“Poison desert is chasing the last few into the city,” Djola declared. “A pity.”
“Why waste pity on lumbering beasts?” Nobody wanted to hear about elephants and bees dying off. Samina and Nuar were right about this. “Our children starve.”
“Zst!” The second guard hushed his comrade with a curse. A guard shouldn’t argue with a master—even a clean-shaven northlander like Djola.
“I love my children too,” Djola said, defensive. Everyone assumed northlanders sold or abandoned their daughters and sons without a thought.
The second guard managed a smile. “Petitioners are waiting.”
“Yes.” Djola watched the elephant disappear. “I make a map to tomorrow for all.”
Forest-dwelling Anawanama, desert-rogue Zamanzi, and other so-called savages north of Arkhys City had grown restless under the Empire’s fist. Djola couldn’t say or think savage without wanting to argue with the word, take it back, turn it around. Why should proud people slave and starve to feed greedy Empire citizens? Southern thief-lords around the Golden Gulf also chafed against taxes, desert winds, and the rule of law. They preferred to let the best blades claim the most riches.
Samina once saw Djola as the architect of peace, a hero who turned northern tribes and southern thief-lords into loyal subjects of Emperor Azizi. She fell in love with a master of the impossible. Everybody was ready for peace back then. Twenty years gone by and Djola’s peace had frayed with each dry riverbed and bleak harvest. Southern barbarians grew bolder, raiding Empire caravans and tree-oil strongholds. Northern tribes did the same. And now there was a plague of void-storms. Nothing to lose with death coming from every direction. Samina was right to worry.
Djola refused to scratch his hind parts, tug his mustache, and wait for someone else to act. “We save each other,” he declared.
“Is that so?” The scrappy guard drew Djola into a dark archway and blindfolded him. “Jackals roam these corridors, and hyenas. They chew traitor hearts and suck spy bones.”
“What a way to die,” the other guard groaned. “We know the safe route.”
“Safe?” Djola muttered.
They hurried through a maze of passageways back to the Council chamber, back to unsettling truth: they could all—master, thief-lord, guard, emperor, and elephant—lose everything.
6
A Mission
Awa was exhausted. Long-legged Green Elders had marched for a week, hardly resting or eating, rarely talking. They shared names only once. Awa remembered Yari, a veson with dancing braids and a singer’s voice, and Isra, a spiky-haired barbarian with a throaty laugh. No one else—she’d been too sad or mad to pay attention.
Yari gave full purses to farmers who sold daughters and younger sons to stave off ruin. The farmers were desperate, like Father. But Yari never bargained, even when the girls were skinny and sickly and likely to slow them down. A few boys ran off, back to their farms perhaps. Isra railed against treachery and warned Yari to save some sky rocks so they wouldn’t starve. Yari shrugged and kissed Isra’s cheek.
Mother was wrong. A Green Elder journey through the wild country wasn’t an adventure filled with song and wonder. Scrambling over roots and loose rocks took most of their focus. They traveled mountain tunnels or rugged goat paths, avoiding solid elephant roads. At night Yari whispered explanations to sullen faces while Isra and the other Elders kept watch. Most good citizens had forgotten that elephants first stomped wide thoroughfares from glacier-fed lakes to fruit forests. Awa knew this already. She and Kenu had read elephant escapades in Father’s scrolls.
High priest Hezram collected tolls on the elephant roads, even far from Holy City. If travelers couldn’t pay, they were sold to pay the debt or sent to transgressor huts to be bled. Hezram declared Elders enemies of the temple and banned them from elephant roads. He paid a generous reward for captured Elders. Mother spoke truth. Yari, Isra, and the others risked their lives to collect Sprites. Crafty farmers sold Yari their daughters then turned vie* in for a reward. Mercenaries hunted them. No Elders sang for fear of ambush.
Goat paths challenged muscles and joints. Awa hurt all over. When Elders stopped for water and a few berries, they also rubbed achy ankles. She wished she could have gone with Kenu to apprentice in Holy City next year. Building a tower to the stars had to be better than running and hiding for your life. The other Sprites cut their eyes at her, suspicious. She had no one to trade stories with, even the bees in her hair were quiet. Did Kenu feel as lonely as she did?
Awa fell asleep in the middle of swallowing a mango slice and ended on someone’s back, her head bouncing against spongy braids. Elders passed her from back to back until she woke from dreams of riding an elephant and slid down. Fear twisted the faces of the other Sprites. Awa counted sixteen. When she’d fallen asleep there were only eight, including her. Isra put a hand to her lips to stop her asking a question.
The six Elders were shadow warriors, fading in and out of view, as quiet as sweetgrass fluttering on a breeze. They spoke with their hands and mimicked jackals and crows to cover noisy steps. Awa might have marveled at griot tales come true, but she was sweaty and hungry and wanted to sneak back home. A stupid idea. No girls ran off. Father would turn her away or sell her off to someone else. Mother would weep and brother Kenu would fuss, but they’d take Father’s side. And then where would she be?
Isra marched the Sprites down a shallow creek and halted suddenly, still as stone. They were being tracked. Awa gulped breath. Her heart felt louder than the cricket serenade. Behind them, Yari drummed and sang. Vie pulled fire from the air, a bright blue column of flame that lit up the trees from root to crown. Another griot tale come true.
The trackers emerged from the trees. They stumbled over their own shadows, hissing and spitting, wobbly as drunks. Yellow cloaks snagged on branches. They were Hezram’s warrior acolytes. Spears, swords, and bows slipped from their grasp. They collided with one another and collapsed in the mud. Yari’s drumbeats made Awa woozy too. Isra tugged her and the other Sprites farther downstream. Awa’s head cleared as the drumming got fainter.
Isra squeezed her hand. “Yari drums the warriors into a stupor and steals their weapons.” Isra took great pleasure in this. “You could learn to be a shadow warrior too.” Awa didn’t want to be any kind of warrior. “Holy City swords and bows will fetch a good purse. That means a feast tomorrow and supplies for our long trip home.”
“Where is home?” Awa thought Elders were always on the run with no real home.
“We usually make home, every day.”
Awa didn’t understand this answer. “Oh?”
“Nothing but danger to eat here. No time for home.”
Before Awa formulated her next question, Yari and one of Hezram’s acolytes trotted down the creek, chatting and smiling like two friends. They both carried a bundle of weapons.
“Only the youngest dropped all the way to sleep.” Yari grinned. “I had to reason with the others.” Awa wished she’d seen that.
Isra grumbled. “How much did reason cost?”
“A few bags of herbs.”
The acolyte trailing Yari was bumps, bones, and unruly hair. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He threw up in the fragrant tonic-bushes that grew along the creek. Awa and the other Sprites jerked away.
Yari held him up. “Hezram drugs his warrior acolytes.”
Isra groaned. “We were lucky. This squad didn’t know your tricks.” Isra gripped the boy. “I presume Yari persuaded you to join us.” The acolyte nodded. “Welcome, but you’ll be the last to join.”
* * *
They headed into hot, wet forests. Anawanama territory, where Hezram’s acolytes wouldn’t follow. Warm rain poured through the leaf canopy, drenching everybody. Slippery roots battered exhausted feet. Isra paused inside the fragrant trunk of a cathedral tree that rose above the clouds. A swa
rm of demon-flies lit up the dark with pale blue light. The Elders shouted and laughed with one another in savage tongues. Sprites huddled together and whispered. The former acolyte sat alone like Awa. He shook his head and coughed.
Awa rubbed sore toes and listened to the other Sprites complain. What good would that do? She drew a map in the dirt, noting the twists and turns they’d made on their march. There were gaps when she’d been asleep. She drew what she could imagine. Yari ambled close and offered her a gourd of fruity liquid. Awa gulped this down. Her mouth tingled and, after a few moments, everything looked clearer, brighter.
“What was that?” Awa stared into the gourd and clutched Yari’s hand.
“Juice from midnight berries helps night vision.”
“Does it hurt to pull fire?” She had a thousand thousand questions. Yari took the empty gourd and almost stepped on her map. “Watch out!” she yelled.
Balanced on one foot, Yari peered at her work. “Anawanama always know where they are. Blindfold them, spin them around in a maze, then bury them in a hole. They’ll point and say that is west to the water and there is east to the mountains and sweet desert.” Yari stuck corn stalks in Awa’s dirt map. “There is your father’s farm, right? Behind us is south to Holy City and the Golden Gulf.” Vie drew the Salty Sea and Mama Zamba mountains. “March a little north along the sea and you reach Arkhys City. After that, free lands beyond the Empire’s grip.” Vie drew a clump of trees. “We head east through Anawanama territory.”
Awa studied Yari’s additions to her dirt drawing. “I’ve never been all the way to savage woods.”
“Savage?” Yari frowned, then smiled. Demon-flies glowed behind swirls of vie’s hair. “The Anawanama remember your mother. Does she remember them?”
Master of Poisons Page 3
