Vie’s tales were renowned in the floating cities, around the Golden Gulf, across the Arkhysian Empire and beyond where the maps ran out. Yari knew something about everything or at least more than most griots. Vie released Awa and Bal and smiled. “You’ll travel together many times, to every region of your hearts.”
“Really?” Bal asked. “You see this?”
“Yes.” Yari’s eyes filled with tears. “You shall make a new world.”
Yari always said, Each day, every one of us makes the world new. New wasn’t necessarily good, yet Awa felt certain that, despite experiencing many, many worlds, Yari looked forward to the one she and Bal would make.
16
Pirate Living
Djola’s first weeks at sea were a blur. He was heart and stomach sick. Elephants trumpeted in his dreams, chastising him for poison sand blowing everywhere. He woke each morning not believing in the pirate ship that rocked under him or in the scoundrels who raided merchant ships and villages or in the story a griot might tell on the Master of Poison’s defeat at Council.
He should have gone with Samina and the children to Kyrie’s mountain. Bal loved waterfalls, Tessa the mango groves. Quint was happy anywhere they were all together. But the poison desert would chase them wherever they ran. To save them, he had to master Xhalan Xhala and conjure an antidote to poison sand.
Djola was an honored prisoner on the pirate flagship, a converted slaver with a large galley and several decks, ideal for Captain Pezarrat, his commanders, and their captives. Still, the food was disgusting—wormy meat, moldy bread, and sour brew. Djola threw up a lot and got into fights.
A northlander claimed giving up the old ways for a pirate life was better than being a corrupt master and chopping down the world to warm the emperor’s ass. Djola broke his arm and ribs, and almost choked him to death. Luckily the northlander pleaded for his life in Anawanama before passing out. Djola pulled trembling hands from the fellow’s neck. He put an ear to cracked lips and was relieved at the rasp of breath.
He shook the man and whispered, “The Master of Grain hid behind Lahesh masks and let guards drag me off. I persuaded Zizi to let savage Grain sit at the stone-wood table. I halted the Empire’s assault on Grain’s precious northland.” Rage made him wheeze. “Zizi owes me his life, many times over. Exile? A pirate life?”
The barely conscious pirate moaned. He had dark skin and pale eyes like Grain. Djola dragged him to sick bay, set the arm, and wrapped the ribs. Nobody fought with Djola after that. He moved into sick bay, ate his meals there, and concocted Lahesh potions to calm his spirit. The old healer was grateful if Djola set a bone or shared a pain-killing brew. Wounded men wept in his arms, grateful too, for a cool rag at their necks or a hand to hold as they faced death.
At night, Djola burned tree-oil lamps and spent uninterrupted hours reading books and redrawing ancient maps. He charted routes along the inland waterway for Captain Pezarrat, always steering the fleet to places Green Elders might have hidden sacred books. He collected tales of void-storms devastating farms, villages, and forests. Searching for a pattern in a chaos of details was torture. Patience eluded him.
Four months gone since Djola sat at Council, almost five, and the sun was setting on a barbarian thief-lord village. The library at the beach was orange fire. Clouds of soot obscured other buildings. Djola had to persuade Pezarrat not to burn libraries or wise men. What could he learn from bone and ash?
The pirate fleet raced from the Golden Gulf to open sea. It listed so far starboard he feared it would capsize. The steer-man maneuvered into the wave just so, and the ship righted itself. The storm swell had seasoned pirates vomiting. Samina had hidden a sachet in his Aido bag: lavender, jasmine, and raintree blossoms from Smokeland. Inhaling her medicine steadied him.
Twenty raggedy vessels bobbed in unruly waves around the flagship. The hulls looked thrown together from shipwrecks and plundered docks. Patchwork sails were tucked away from the coming storm around driftwood masts. The rigging seemed frayed, chaotic. Too often foes thought one more storm would sink the pirate derelicts. Illusion. Pezarrat’s fleet masqueraded as ramshackle yet Azizi had exiled Djola to the rogue with the sturdiest, fastest vessels. Merchant-patrols could never catch them.
A warship faster than storm clouds loomed on the port side. Djola made out the catapults and spark-torch weapons of the Empire Patrol, peacekeepers who’d condemn a pirate raid. Blades glinted in the last sunbeams. Archers crouched in the rigging. The Empire Patrol could ram through Pezarrat’s rogue fleet, blasting boats with spark torches. Only Patrols had pirate speed and floating-city weapons. Queen Urzula saw to that.
The Patrol would attack the flagship first. Djola was unsure which side to fight on. As he pulled a knife from his boot, his hands shook. A warrior no more, he’d lost the taste, the will for killing. The Empire ship breezed by. Archers and spear-carriers waved as they pulled alongside the rig riding lowest in the sea. Someone played jaunty notes on a barbarian flute. Planks thunked the decks and joined the ships. A pirate crew lugged booty into the Patrol’s hold. A bribe. Going in Azizi’s coffers, no doubt.
Djola gagged. He’d come on deck to study the storm and clear his mind. That wasn’t working. He hurried back to sick bay, a dark den, barely taller than he was. The old healer—whose name Djola kept forgetting—lit tree-oil lamps that hung from mismatched beams. Swinging lights made eerie shadows dance along the hull. The old man was thin as a ghost, had three teeth, and five scraggly gray hairs. He looked ready to fade into the death lands, but was never seasick and never complained if Djola abandoned him to watch the sun set or a storm rise. Singing a barbarian ditty, the old healer trudged among bodies stuffed in bunks, slung in hammocks, and sliding on a lumpy wood floor. Djola had survived grisly battles, yet, to his surprise, these broken bodies made him as shaky as Azizi. He flexed twitching hands. Tremors persisted as he cleaned and dressed a knife wound.
“Pezarrat bribes Empire Patrol boats,” Djola remarked. The old healer shrugged and attended to the loudest groan. Djola talked on as if to a friend. “He defies Urzula’s peace and recruits men with few prospects: vanquished Anawanama and Zamanzi, orphans and the sons of outlaws, runaway slaves, and pirates who’ve lost everything to peace.”
The Empire had drafted Djola when he was young, stupid, and lost too.
“Your hands shake.” The old healer rubbed rheumy eyes. His jowls creased with pity. “Captain Pezarrat lives by ancient pirate ways. Don’t let him see that.”
Djola drank a cathedral seed and cloud-silk potion to quash the tremors. This bitter Lahesh blend blunted feelings without interfering with his mind, his work. Or that’s what he told himself. A thrashing patient punched the old healer in the nose. Djola ran over and held the man till the fit subsided. Nothing more he could do except—
“I could conjure carnival illusions and frighten villages or merchant ships into quick surrender.” He grinned. “Only a few casualties on either side. Books intact, no griots or libraries going up in smoke.”
The old healer patted Djola’s shoulder like he’d lost his wits. Djola shrugged off the hand. “This is possible.” Hope was still a habit. “I’ll persuade Pezarrat. He’s greedy. I can use that.”
The old man’s bulbous nose dripped blood. He wiped it on a sleeve. “Captain likes to burn. Burning is easy.”
Djola pulled an arm back in its socket. The wounded pirate howled. “My conjure will be easier. I’m the Master of Poisons.”
“You were, yes.”
Djola trudged to the next patient. He refused to believe that the ground had dissolved under his feet. Out the porthole, the stars sparkled in the sky. Djola would make an ally of the wind.
17
Out of Nowhere
It was five months and seven raids before Djola caught Captain Pezarrat alone on the upper deck, and then his mouth went rogue. No mention of conjure and carnival illusions for bloodless raids. Instead, he blurted, “Why head to Arkhys City?”
“
Are you afraid to go home?” Pezarrat was as muscular and robust as Arms and always on the lookout for weakness. “Almost a year, maybe they’ve forgotten you.”
“Why risk a run-in with an Empire Patrol you can’t bribe?” Djola replied.
“I take my fleet where I want.” Pezarrat poked the codex that Djola held. “And I let men read whatever nonsense we salvage from barbarians.”
“Lahesh advice for lovemaking. A disappointing waste of parchment.”
“Azizi loans me a mapmaker who guides us to where he wants to go.” Pezarrat scratched beads of hair on his skull and peered at Djola. “For this, I pay one fifth from every raid.”
“You pay so Empire Patrols don’t sink your raggedy ships.” Azizi filled his coffers and blamed pirating on a banished master. “You hide half of what you steal.”
“Patrols spare you, not me. Why?”
“Empire priests burned ancient codices. Barbarians collected them. We would know our enemies.”
Pezarrat huffed. “Chief Nuar has a better storm-sense. Why not loan him to me?”
“Nuar would lead you into a trap.” Djola tasted the air and nodded to the steer-man who turned the ship leeward. “I take you where pirates have never ventured.”
“Pirates know the open sea, Anawanama savages the inland waterway.” Pezarrat scowled. “And I trust no one.”
A commander, whose sleek hair was twisted into a crown knot, approached the captain and held up a bark-paper scroll: Anawanama sacred paper made from mountain fig trees and outlawed in the Empire. Djola’s name was written under a Vévé—the sun and moon circling a crossroads—a sign from the Master of Grain.
“This just … appeared.” The commander spoke with a southern staccato accent. “Out of nowhere!” Kyrie must have folded time and space into a wise-woman corridor and sent a letter from Grain, maybe with word of Samina. “It won’t open.”
The commander jabbed a blade at the seal. The scroll spewed sparks. Silvery-blue flames devoured his pants and tunic. He shrieked and flailed. Pezarrat jumped away. Crewmen threw buckets of water at him. The fire blazed on. The commander tried to run.
Djola tripped him. “Kyrie’s fire-spell protects the scroll. Use gold dust, not water. End his suffering quickly, before the flames spread.”
Pezarrat hissed. “Do what he says.”
Crewmen smothered the burning man in a fortune. Rivulets of gold seared the deck. Ashes drifted up into the sails. A horrible death. Djola shouted Anawanama nonsense, passed his hands through smoke, and pulled the unscathed scroll from the dead man’s grip. A good jumba jabba show. He insisted they shove the corpse into the sea.
Pezarrat gestured agreement. “How does witch-woman Kyrie find us?”
“Bring me any letter that appears from nowhere,” Djola said softly. News usually took months to travel across the Empire. Kyrie’s conjure took no time. “Don’t tamper with the Vévé seal or—”
Pezarrat gripped his throat. “Why not just toss the cursed thing in the sea?”
Djola pulled Pezarrat’s hands from his windpipe. “Without my gold-spell to contain it, Kyrie’s letter would keep coming back, trying to find me,” he lied.
Pirates scowled and backed away. Pezarrat masqueraded cool. “What do I get?”
“I’ll make you a weapon, acid-conjure to dissolve enemy resistance. Merchant ships and barbarians will surrender quickly. No pirate casualties.”
Pezarrat slitted his eyes. “You really know how to do this?”
“I was a spy in a Green Elder enclave. I know many spells.”
Pezarrat glanced at the commander’s body. “I guess you do.”
“I need supplies,” Djola said. “The floating cities have cheaper prices than Arkhys City.” And wise men, the world’s best library, and even talking books. “A direct route across the sea, we’re there in less than a month.”
Pezarrat patted Djola. “My guard will get what you need for acid-conjure in Arkhys City. At the docks, we can even buy you a fighting woman from beyond the maps.”
“Women from beyond the maps are dangerous.”
“I like danger. You too, I think. We’re alike.” Pezarrat and his gang sauntered away.
Azizi thought finding Xhalan Xhala and an antidote would be quick. Madness. Djola dashed down to sick bay. His hands trembling, he unfurled Grain’s letter.
Strength to you, Djola, in exile almost ten months
Nothing much has changed since my last letter
Azizi is as thin and brittle as dead leaves
Yari has disappeared—even I can’t track vie
Northland chiefs chant war and call you and me traitors
Arms whines like a wounded dog
The other masters sit on their thumbs and blame you for speaking bad news aloud
Hezram presses for a chair at the stone-wood table—Azizi still puts him off
Queen Urzula hunts rogue pirates
She’s torched fifty boats, after confiscating the cargo
No master crosses her
Kyrie cannot say if you receive my words
I know the rhythms of your heart and the inland waterway
I too would be an ally to the wind and stars and this connects us
Writing a fourth letter means I believe you receive these reports
I hope you find good conjure to conquer poison desert
Azizi expects a miracle
Something bold and bright to save the day, like from a griot’s hero tale
We all need that
The crossroads gods are tricksters—power to your conjure hand
Nothing from Samina. Djola read the letter four times, as if words from Samina might appear or as if he’d missed news of her somehow and just had to read more carefully. How could Grain write such a letter? Who cared if Arms whined and Urzula chased rogues? Djola cursed Nuar and Yari, who must know Djola was in exile. Nuar should defend Djola against angry chiefs. Yari should persuade Azizi to do right instead of disappear.
At the fifth read, he decided Samina was wise to stay hidden, silent. His enemies hunted her and the children and would murder them. Three letters lost made his heart ache. What had he missed? Reading a sixth time, Djola could barely breathe. Grain should have written more—Djola was still in the dark. His mind was so jumbled, he couldn’t think. He crumpled the letter and pressed it to his heart. Miracles were hard work. How would he do a miracle if he lost his wits?
18
Smokeland
A few months before Awa’s fourteenth birthday, her hair turned thick as strangle vines. Her breasts were suddenly round and full, and muscles bulged. A strange woman with midnight eyes and sable skin burnished red looked back at her from lakes and streams. Bal declared her a great beauty who’d wreck someone’s heart. Awa dismissed Bal’s praise. She had no time for love. She mapped the clash of Smokeland territories—each region was many regions intertwined, a polyrhythm of possibilities. She crafted a calendar of Smokeland moods and drew the harmony of its seasons.
Once, covered in a swarm of bees, she skirted the borderland void and stumbled sideways into Smokeland. She hovered at a crossroads—a thousand thousand paths, bridges, and skyways intersecting. Dizzy with possibility, she stepped back to the everyday with the bees. Elders and Sprites marveled at static sizzling in her hair and crackling from elbows and knees. Bal claimed Awa had left no breath body behind on this trip.
“I’ve heard old Lahesh tales of full-body journeys, but only seen horses or wild dogs step sideways in and out of Smokeland.” Yari rejoiced at Awa’s prowess. “A smoke-walker like few others.”
After practicing till her heart could beat in six regions at once, Awa dragged Bal’s spirit body through the border-void and headed to favorite places. The treehouse village was deserted. Roofs had blown to the ground. Walls and floors had come apart and thumped in the wind. Shredded cloaks fluttered like ghosts in the shadows. Acid filled Awa’s mouth. Her heart stuttered, off the beat. Calling on Sprite discipline, on hours of relent
less meditation with Yari, she hauled Bal on to another region.
“We’re leaving too soon,” Bal said.
“That region was desolate, eerie. I can show you somewhere better.” Perched on cliffs above the blue-green bay, Awa scanned the horizon for the boat people’s sails or cook fires. On a clear day she could see a hundred hundred leagues. The boat people must have been very far out in the water.
“What do you look for?” Bal asked. She was a head taller than Awa now and two thirds as wide. Impatient, Bal rested her chin on Awa’s spongy locks and muttered nonsense. Awa refused distraction and took her good time puzzling out an answer. Fog rolled in from the border-void. Dirty waves slammed refuse high onto the cliff walls, higher than the water had ever been before.
“Could sea level be rising?” Awa said. “From storms or…”
“You’re truly baffled. Unusual.”
“Not just that—” Awa felt abandoned by treehouse lovers and the boat people.
Bal jumped down to a ledge in front of two rusty iron horses with cloud-silk tails and feather manes. “You should have asked the boat people to explain their ways.”
“I thought we could do that today.”
“Ha! You thought I’d talk to them.” Bal stroked a horse’s tail and leaned her face into purple feathers. Both creatures came rattling to life, shaking seaweed and sand in her face. Bal squealed delight. The horses’ hearts were golden wheels of light in iron-mesh cages. Red eyes blazed as they snorted hot steam. “Let’s ride.” Bal grinned. “Come on. You love horses.” Bal sprang on a polished back and rode off.
The second metal beast climbed up a path to Awa and nudged her with a furry nose. Awa shrugged off anxiety and jumped on its cold back. Her horse followed Bal’s to another ledge. The ride was herky-jerky, and the metal beasts made an awful clatter, as if each step ripped apart their innards. They meandered through rags and broken talking books. Fragments of ancestor story-songs filled the air.
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