Master of Poisons
Page 11
Yari had doubts, but finally agreed on one condition: vie would lead the expedition instead of Isra, the enclave’s best scout. To sweeten the deal, Yari promised Isra a new song.
Isra scowled. “An exiled master roams the Gulf hunting you on a pirate ship.”
“Your spies are well-informed.” Yari kissed Isra.
“He sends missives in Lahesh that you don’t share.” Isra tried to be angry. “Did he steal your heart and stomp it? Like the high priest of Holy City?”
“He’s not like Hezram. More like the Sprites we have now. I worry about him.”
“Were you lovers?”
Yari smiled. “He thinks I waste my time teaching Sprites.”
“You seek news of pirates and old lovers from Kahartan warriors. Rascal—”
Yari drowned out Isra’s protests, singing a favorite:
Stolen love tears you apart, but—
We can give love away
Make a bridge of the heart
Isra laughed as Yari promised a new verse on return. Thrilled, Bal gathered bow, arrows, sword, spear, drum, and calabash rattles. Awa had no instruments or weapons to take along and felt useless. She helped Isra and Yari load grain stores onto hardy goats, then packed up bedding, tent, Isra’s loom, and the few books they carried with them.
Who needed to lug heavy tomes and delicate scrolls when Yari knew more stories than vie had time to tell? Before the enclave crossed the Bog River Gorge, Awa had hoped to visit the Kahartan library with Yari, the greatest library outside the floating cities, but Isra’s spies said library and librarians were soot. Pirates had raided and stolen the best books. Awa sighed and pulled on climbing boots. Why bring a smoke-walker on a dangerous expedition when what you needed were warriors?
Isra and the enclave disappeared into the gorge, silent and slippery as fog. No barbarians would be able to track them as they scattered into the hills. Yari and the big-headed wild dog led the scouts and five pack goats the opposite direction through loose gravel and scrub brush. Keeping up with Yari’s jaunty pace left Awa breathless.
The dog stalked a foolish party of Kahartans who, given poison weapons and midnight stealth, intended to ambush the Green Elders. Uneven terrain around the gorge was treacherous. Flash floods carved new canyons every afternoon. The barbarians slowed to a crawl. Yari sang, in many voices, a local song that laid out the best routes along solid rock ledges and sounded like birds, bugs, and wind in the bushes. Awa sang along, guiding the Sprites creeping behind her.
“I’m a map,” she whispered in Bal’s ear. “I know all the songs from around here.” Kahartan thief-lords regularly plundered villages near their city, but had never learned the People’s songs. “I’ve drawn this entire region many times.”
Yari shushed her using the hand-talk of Ishba people. They perched above the enemy, invisible, though a keen-eared barbarian might catch whispered words under Yari’s song-cloak. Shadow warriors nocked arrows, aimed spears, and drew their swords.
Bal, Awa, and the other Sprites hid in fragrant laurel bushes. Awa calmed her mind to map every detail of this encounter and tell a full story. At least she could do a griot’s task.
Quiet voices argued in the staccato merchant tongue. Awa made out thirty Kahartans: burly, honey-colored men, with clipped beards and ropes of brown hair pulled tight in crown knots. Exhausted and dispirited, they shivered and cursed the sliver of moon that offered meagre light. They’d left horses behind somewhere with fallen comrades.
Defying the tales of Green Elder defenses, the troop had started as fifty warriors, surely enough to subdue griots, clowns, and vesons. They intended to steal grain, goats, and tree oil. Rock fields and steep climbs had broken Kahartan legs and too many necks. The captain called a halt in a dry streambed until sunrise. Dawn was less than an hour away.
By morning Isra and the enclave would be camped throughout the wooded hills on the other side of the gorge, a difficult site to ambush heading east from the Golden Gulf. A few archers in the trees could pick off anybody trying to scale the gorge. The Kahartans were already defeated. Awa rejoiced.
An owl screeched a love call and shadow warriors hooted in response. Jed or Jod—a scruffy, snub-nosed Sprite Awa barely knew—laughed at barbarians who didn’t realize they were about to die. The berry potion made Jod’s hazel eyes shine in the dark like a lion’s.
“Our victory is almost too easy,” he mumbled under Yari’s owl masquerade. Awa and Bal smirked with him. How such stupid people had gained control of the Golden Gulf and all the land south and west of Holy City was a mystery.
Yari gripped Awa and shook the smirk from her face. Bal stopped grinning also. Even Jod pulled a mask over disdain.
Yari spoke with vie’s hands. Long fingers danced in Awa’s face. “If I cannot talk sense the Kahartans will hear, you must guide our scouts back through the gorge to Isra. Nobody else knows the song-maps.”
“Oh.” Awa was Yari’s backup. She wanted to ask why talk sense to stupid barbarians who chopped down forests, dug up mountains, and fished rivers till they were dead waters, but she just nodded.
“We’re not better than anyone.” Yari read her sullen silence. Vie gestured to all the Sprites. “We fall like leaves and fail like crops. Our blood dries up and our shadows scatter. We eat lies and think them sweet.” Vie must fear death could be near and took care with last words. “Don’t lose yourselves in petty pride. I almost died doing that.”
“Don’t die tonight.” Awa gestured and hugged Yari, relishing the scent of desert roses. “Not losing myself in others’ thoughts is one of my strengths.”
“Is it?” Yari pulled away. “You shall find out.”
Vie shook bristling braids loose, played calm-heart rhythms on the talking drum, and sauntered into the enemy’s camp as bold as a sunrise. “I am Yari, the griot of griots. You’ve been chasing me and my people, so I thought I’d let you catch someone.”
The Kahartans looked as stunned as Awa. They exchanged glances, drew weapons, but hesitated. “The griot of griots,” the captain yelled, “is only a legend.”
Whirling in Aido cloth, Yari disappeared and reappeared several times, singing harmony with vieself: Warrior, warrior sweet enemy mine, will this be our last time? A blotchy-skinned barbarian lunged and sliced shadows. He kicked dirt up in his oiled beard. Braids came loose from his topknot and blood dribbled from cuts and gouges.
The captain blocked a second lunge. “Save your strength.”
“Yes. Why waste ourselves in battle?” Yari said. The wild dog chased the goats to the captain. “I bring you bunchgrass from the north that survives drought and sprouts after deluge. This we Green Elders can spare. But raiding us, you will die.”
The captain sucked deep breaths. One hand hovered by his sword, the other over a pounding heart. The dog growled and Yari sang in many voices. The rhythm of the drum, the jingle-jangle of seedpods, and vie’s hair dancing in the wind was hypnotic. Shadow warriors clanged swords and spears, and sent fire arrows over the Kahartans’ heads.
Bolts landed in a circle, illuminating gray hairs, young boys, and battle-weary regulars who should have stayed home. Shadow warriors brandished blades in crevices and bushes, reflecting the firelight and creating a fearsome display from mist and shade. Even Awa thought there could be several hundred scouts.
The barbarians backed away. The blotchy one almost slid over a ledge. Yari gripped his cloak. Looking into his fearful, despairing eyes, Awa let go of the contempt in her heart.
“You have great numbers in your walled cities,” Yari said. “But in the mountains, deserts, and swamps, you cannot defeat us. Take this offering, go home, live well.”
The Kahartans shifted and wheezed, not the battle they’d expected. Who ever knew what Yari might do? Vie leapt in the captain’s face, talk-singing, “You think: Our homes are rubble. Fields are sludge. Babies eat soot or go hungry. Tomorrow the sun won’t rise.” Yari saluted the purple sky. “Yet the light comes.”
The capta
in sputtered like a lover right before release. Yari motioned at Bal to play drum and rattles. Vie gripped several fire arrows and juggled, a trick learned from Kyrie, the witch woman of Mount Eidhou. Yari threw fire arrows at the feet of warriors who looked ready to crack. They blubbered tales of pirates and acid bombs laying waste to their city. Each warrior added a new horror, a secret defeat. An exiled master used his conjure to make Pezarrat unstoppable. Yari listened, hungry for details. The pirates stole books and holy relics. Only half of Kaharta survived and none of the grain stores. What the pirates didn’t take, they burned.
“Rebuild what was lost. Give your children no reason to cry over your bodies. Make a new home around the gorge away from pirates. With a watch in the canyons, raiding parties are easily defeated. Try trade instead of plunder, a new life.”
“Change is hard.” The captain drew his sword, gripped Yari’s arm, and pulled vie close enough to taste breath. “Why should I trust you?”
“I leave you your lives,” Yari said, tender almost. Vie brushed dust from the man’s beard. “I begin with trust.”
“You’re a crazy fool, but”—the captain raised his sword high—“I salute you. To life.”
After a moment, the barbarians cheered with him.
“You’re brave men. I’ll tell your stories.” Yari leaned into the captain. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.” Vie disappeared into shade and mist, a voice on the wind. “Be good to the goats and they’ll honor you.”
The fire arrows made a circle of soot in the dry streambed. The sun lit up the sky. The captain bent down to the bags of bunchgrass seeds on the goats. His troupe gathered around him. A few men glared up at the ledges. “Desperation forced us out on a clown’s crusade.” The captain held up a fist of grain. “Northlanders make a nut loaf and sour bread with this. They call it lovegrass.”
3
A Different Story
The shadow warriors disappeared in the bright sunlight. Awa was glad to be hiding in dense laurel bushes. “Yari’s charm worked.” She gestured to Bal and released clenched muscles.
“Barbarians aren’t stupid. They fear our blades, our numbers,” Jod said, loud and bold. “I would too.” He looked disappointed as the Kahartans withdrew in high spirits. “They deserve the death they offered others, not clown songs and gifts of grain.”
“Do they?” Bal climbed down to a ledge, fading in and out of view.
“Showing off shadow warrior skill doesn’t impress me.” Jod sounded impressed.
Awa was thrilled to see what Yari’s diplomat craft could accomplish. Griots were often peacemakers. She would need to learn this. “If we killed the barbarians, who would we be?”
“Alive, who will they be?” Bal always asked good questions, but why take Jod’s side? “Barbarians will think the gorge is theirs to plunder, pollute, and kill.”
“You talk as if the gorge is alive.” Jod sneered.
“Why not?” Bal snapped at him. “When the world is dead, so are we.”
Jod choked off laughter. “You actually believe Elder jumba jabba?”
“Some of it.” Bal and Jod faced off as if to fight.
Awa stood between them. “You can’t believe everything Elders say, but—”
“Grow up!” Jod shoved Bal to the edge of a ravine. “Barbarians would kill us without thinking.”
“Maybe.” Bal blocked Jod’s second attack and put a knife to his neck. “Maybe not.”
Jod grimaced at her skill. “Why are we on the run if they’ve been defeated?”
“No one has won.” Yari stepped from the shadows and separated them. “Tell a different story.”
“You know every story,” Jod shouted. “Why know so much and live worse than savages?”
“That’s your question, not mine,” Yari replied. Awa wanted Yari to argue with Jod. Instead, vie led scouts the tricky way around the gorge to throw off trackers.
Awa argued with Jod in her head. Anawanama and Zamanzi lived better than poor Empire citizens, even as renegades on the run. They ate well and lived free. Father’s farm had been headed for ruin. He had to sell Awa, so his sons could have prospects. Green Elders lived simply, not poorly. What good was a dank stone house, slaves who hated you, and dumb animals who couldn’t take care of themselves?
As if to prove Awa true, Yari took them by abandoned farms and villages where groundnuts rotted, wells ran dry, and grain stalks crumbled. Poison dust raised stinging welts on exposed skin. They paused in a barn to get out of a foul wind. Two balls of rags trembled by a dead farmer in an empty corral: young boys too weak to moan or stand.
“They probably sold their girls,” Yari muttered.
Scouts drizzled water on parched lips, and, when the wind died, threw the boys on their backs and trotted on, singing comfort.
Six days the scouts wandered, gathering survivors and refugees. A silent trek. Exhausted and numb, they finally reunited with the enclave in a green-land valley. The leaves on a hundred hundred trees whispered welcome. A stream rushing over rocks gurgled joy. Standing in a waterfall, Awa and the others washed the poison dust away and smeared on Smokeland honey to ease the sting. The story Awa told at the feast fires was of shadow-warrior bravery, Yari’s wisdom, and barbarian resilience.
“Well done.” Isra had slicked spiky white hair down with red clay for celebration. “What of the fields and forests?” Vie wasn’t fooled by Awa’s omissions.
“The land near Kaharta is dead,” Bal said, “and poison desert spreads.”
“We shall see if we’re better at surviving than Kahartans are.” Isra gripped Yari’s waist. “You should be glad I didn’t go and sent Garden Sprites with you instead.”
“Why?” Yari drank a long draught of honey wine.
“I would have stopped you giving away our goats.” Isra took the wine and drank a swallow. “I’d have let shadow warriors shoot our enemies and not waste fire arrows on air. I wouldn’t have risked our children for news of an old lover.”
Awa would soon be fifteen, a child no more. None of the Sprites were.
“It was your idea to take them with the scouts,” Yari countered.
“Today the crossroads gods smile on you.” Isra emptied the wine jug. “But I know these people. I’m one of them.” Isra grew up around the Golden Gulf and raided villages and enclaves until Yari persuaded vie to run away to the Elders. “Change is unlikely.”
“You changed.” Yari grinned. “Or are you still a tight-hearted demon?”
“You can’t charm everyone.”
“I don’t need to. I have you to protect me.” Yari squeezed plump Isra and sang an untranslatable Lahesh love song.
Isra groaned. “When I’m not there and you dance into danger and charm fails?”
“Do you plan to leave me?”
“The gods of the crossroads laugh at our plans.”
“We can laugh too!”
Isra drew Yari into their tent to finish arguing on the bed.
Everyone retired except Awa and Bal, who sat watching the sliver of moon rise. It had grown a little fatter. The wild dog rested his big gray head in Awa’s lap, chewing the last of the feast scraps. Bal balanced on one arm, legs swaying. Awa knocked her over. They wrestled with the dog, then settled into a furry heap, toes in the warm ashes.
“What would you have done?” Bal asked. “Killed our enemies or not?”
“I don’t know,” Awa said. “I’m not brave like Yari, to risk dancing for the enemy…”
Bal stroked a tight curl at Awa’s neck. “You’d have come up with a good story, I’m sure.”
“You always say that.”
“Well”—Bal touched the snake mark on Awa’s forehead, eyes full of sloppy sentiment—“we always need a good map for our days.”
Awa took secret pleasure in Bal’s faith.
4
A Snake in the House
Amplify now
Every yesterday lives in today
We have many futures and each changes the past
Imagine freedom and it is yours
“Fatazz!” Chanting verses from Amplify Now wasn’t mastering Xhalan Xhala. Djola sipped a potent cathedral seed and cloud-silk potion. Tremors coursed through his body. “Xhalan Xhala changes all that might be into a single what is. Other possibilities turn into void-smoke.”
He spoke Anawanama to the boy who offered him water, a mute child of nine or ten. Quint’s age. “You must feed the void-smoke to the crossroads gods, or else it slips through a wise-woman corridor and storms the everyday. Feeding crossroads gods is tricky. The spell is almost impossible.” The boy shrugged and thrust a cup at him. Djola pushed it away. “I need fire, not water. Calling fire is the pivotal spell. Xhalan Xhala is a spell of spells.”
The boy stomped off, pouting like Bal. With Djola an honored guest on a pirate ship, Nuar would try to turn Quint into an Anawanama chief. Yari would be a better teacher. Sweet Yari, bold Yari went off to train Sprites, to teach the future. They had no future unless—“I was meant to find Amplify Now!” He shouted as if Yari stood near. Vie wouldn’t teach him Xhalan Xhala, proclaiming, Better for ancient wisdom to be lost than perverted.
Why write down conjure unless you wanted somebody to learn it? Once he mastered Xhalan Xhala, he’d sweep away corruption and bring fools back to the peace fire. Yari and Kyrie would return to the stone-wood table. Djola would offer his family and everyone a good life.
“What words are you chewing?” a pinched voice demanded in Empire vernacular.
Djola almost threw a knife in Captain Pezarrat’s placid brown eye. The rascal appeared in the sick bay door without a sound. Lahesh flame-cloth pants were cinched at his ankles and glowed in the dark. “Why are you here?” Djola also spoke Empire vernacular and slid the blade back up his sleeve. “I thought you—”