“You don’t know me.” Pezarrat’s pockmarked face revealed little. He scratched tight beads of hair on a sun-bronzed scalp and watched Vandana and the old healer stumble around swaying bodies. “My ship, belowdecks or above.”
Djola nodded. “It’s your fleet, Captain.”
Pezarrat held out a bark-paper scroll. A resin seal smelled of cathedral forests. “It appeared on my bunk. How does Kyrie do it? I don’t even know where we’ll go.” Djola tucked the scroll in his Aido bag. “Why don’t letters appear on your bunk? Is Kyrie trying to scare us?” Pezarrat eyed the barrel of books. “You tell that old mountain bitch how good we treat you. Books, meat, tree oil, a boy or girl or veson if you want.”
Djola grunted at pirate largesse. Pezarrat got quieter. “You feed the whores your meat rations. Don’t you worry they’ll die a poison death meant for you?”
Djola fed them antidotes too. “Why waste worry? They’re your spies.”
“I have to pay Vandana and Orca two shares each.”
“A share and a half,” Djola muttered.
“Who wants to sleep near a man who conjures ghosts and bad weather?”
“Haints come of their own accord, and we are the weather.”
Pezarrat chortled. He enjoyed their sparring. “You should join us.” Half the pirate crew began as captives. “You’ve already paid a tenth of what you owe me.”
“Surely I’ve reached a third by now.”
“During every raid, you hide in your bunk, talking jibber jabber. Afterward you disappear in a scroll or codex.” He looked down. “Amplify Now.” He puzzled over the first image: a conjurer with one eye closed leapt in the air and touched a wheel that exploded into flames. “What does this jumba jabba mean?”
Djola chose his words carefully. “Amplify Now is a poor translation for the Lahesh: Xhalan Xhala.” It felt strange speaking the name of the spell of spells out loud. Vandana took a sharp breath and dropped a needle in the middle of stitching a wound. Djola stared. Nothing had rattled her like that in a year of plunder and mayhem.
“You know dead languages? Speak, woman,” Pezarrat commanded.
Vandana shrugged. She never looked in Djola’s books. Orca couldn’t read. Poor spies.
“Xhalan Xhala is conjure to call tomorrow from what we do yesterday and today,” Djola said.
“No man makes time.” Pezarrat frowned at another symbol. “Flames from a crossroads heart. I’ve seen this squiggly Vévé before.”
“Reckoning fire.” Djola leaned close to Pezarrat. “Calling reckoning fire, a man risks burning up too.”
“I don’t believe in spirit debt.” Pezarrat slammed the book shut. “You claim reckoning fire for yourself?”
“It’s just a carnival dance.” Djola forced a smile. “A trick on the eye.”
“Azizi and Council welcome tricks. A book of Lahesh wim-wom might cut our tax.”
Djola snorted. “Untested, savage conjure is worthless. Just tall tales.”
“So you always say, yet you collect so much.” Pezarrat and Vandana glared at scrolls and codices.
“Azizi would know how his enemies think,” Djola said. “Tall tales reveal a lot.”
“So this jumba jabba is a cheap thing, but not worthless.” Pezarrat tapped Amplify Now against Djola’s chest. “Tell Azizi, all men are the same. Don’t waste himself looking for savage secrets, just grab their randy balls and squeeze.”
“What about the women, the Iyalawos who rule the mountains?”
“Squeeze them too.” Pezarrat sniggered as if they shared memories of violating women. “I don’t fear Iyalawo Kyrie or any of them.” He tossed the book out a porthole into the placid sea.
Djola flinched and bent down to a spy who’d gone to Bog City to poison wells and spread lies. A broken bone poked from a sleeve.
“This one also builds ships.” Pezarrat stood over them. “He needs both arms.”
Vandana gripped his torso and sat on his legs as Djola tugged clenched muscles to make room for the bone. He snapped the broken pieces together and held tight while Vandana wrapped the arm to a splint. The fellow passed out. Djola headed for a captive bleeding from her side.
Pezarrat blocked him. “Sometimes I think you should be a librarian or a priest and sometimes I think you have an assassin’s cold heart.” He wasn’t stupid, just greedy and heartless. “I think you’ll try to skewer me when you find whatever you seek.”
Djola spoke Anawanama. “I’m worth more to you alive than dead. When a change comes, it’ll be too late for you.”
“I have no use for savage poetry.” Pezarrat feigned understanding. “I intend to get rich, kill you before you kill me, and retire from the sea to the floating cities.”
“Why keep a snake in the house if she wants to eat you?” Djola translated a line from The Songs for Living and Dying.
“All men are snakes.”
5
Mortal Danger
No matter that Pezarrat tossed the book.
Djola had spent sleepless nights memorizing every word, every image. What you know is always yours. Lahesh conjurers could call fire yet stay cold. They felt the motion in stillness, sensed the truth in a lie, and changed the unknown into the known. They brought the power of Smokeland to the everyday. If Djola could touch a thing, feel its fate, imagine flowing in its time, he could pull reckoning fire and bring tomorrow to today.
“We’ve run out of splints and bandages,” Djola cursed.
“I sent Orca to fetch the healing silk I stashed in my hammock.” Vandana was sewing up pirates and captives in flickering lamplight.
“Thank you.” Djola hated sewing flesh.
“How bad?” A delirious captive clutched Vandana. “Will Pezarrat take me?”
“Maybe.” Djola drizzled a honey-venom potion into his and everyone’s mouth, for strength and sleep. Tomorrow, captives had to be well enough to replace dead pirates or be sold to a farm, brothel, mine, or army. Weak ones would be tossed overboard along with pirates too broken to fight again. Captives were eager to join Pezarrat. They imagined a few years of easy raids and then retiring to a rich life in the floating cities. “Better to get off these ships as soon as you can.” Djola wanted to turn his patients into rebels. No potion for that.
“I’m patience.” Vandana finished sewing and touched Djola’s arm. “Like you.”
Djola snorted.
“I will take everything to home.” Vandana held up a small bag. “A library from the floating cities.”
“Lahesh conjure? Is that how you hide your long blades?”
Vandana smiled, dagger teeth glinting. “Old warrior women trek across Mama Zamba to Arkhys City. We can be spared and know how to come back to home.”
When nobody else could be snatched from death, Djola shooed Vandana and the old healer away. He scrubbed the bloody floor with sand and salt water. He stripped naked and tossed his clothes out a porthole. Orca appeared toting hot water and a clean apron, shirt, and pants. He scrubbed Djola’s skin, ate his smoked fish, and drank his wine, then feigned desire, a lusty display. He was relieved that Djola declined as usual. Orca put out every lamp except one so Djola might read.
“Do you still tell the captain you’re pleased with me?” Orca’s cheeks dimpled.
Djola smiled. “Yes. I want only you.” This might mean danger for Orca.
“He thinks you’ll tell me secrets, eventually.” Orca curled up close, a hot ember.
“I serve the Empire and I miss my wife, our three children. No secrets,” Djola said.
Orca kissed him. “Don’t leave me when you escape. I know I could please you.”
“You please me already.” Djola took comfort in a warm body against his chest, but arousal was impossible. No failing on Orca’s part. The boy sang soft nonsense and fell asleep. He could sleep through rats fighting over maggoty food, pirates screeching, and lightning storms breaking the night. Lulled by his breathing, Djola pulled out the letter. He almost forgot to neutralize Kyrie’s conjur
e. “Patience.” He sprinkled gold dust and broke open the resin seal.
I say again, I regret hiding among the masks when masters ambushed you at Council
Saving my own head
“What can I do with your regret?” Djola muttered. It helped to talk back.
Shadow warriors carry shade with them and hide in the bright glare of truth
What you predicted comes true—strength to you, Djola, in exile
Blossoms burnt by desert wind bear no fruits, no seeds
Clear-cut mountain slopes crumble away in torrential rains
Rotten groundnuts and berries mean songbirds starve
Fields overrun with beetles and mold produce little grain
Djola’s hands shook. He’d witnessed this from Holy City south to the Golden Gulf.
Council condemns thief-lords, Zamanzi raiders, and city chiefs who steal children
Mobs slice up vesons, blaming them for poor harvests, storms, stillbirths, anything
Yari and other griots avoid the capital and hide out near Mama Zamba
“Fools! And is the harvest better?” No way for Djola to get a letter to the mountain backbone for Yari. “Zst!” If he could just talk to Yari. They could do Xhalan Xhala together and make a stronger spell.
Rebels masquerade as good citizens and nobody knows their plans
Djola scoffed. “They have no plans. A mob, nothing more.”
Arkhys City wise men want a week each month in the library to themselves
Azizi refuses to ban women even for a day, a wedding present to Queen Urzula
Tree oil from Holy City is abundant and nobody freezes on cold nights
The Master of Arms has a fresh supply of warhorses and more recruits every day
Empire coffers are full and warrior morale is high
Azizi won’t give Hezram your chair
“He’s unworthy to crawl on the floor of Council.”
Money, Water, and high priest Ernold scheme for Hezram in secret
Trapped in Arkhys City, your half-brother, wife, and children are in mortal danger
Djola read these last lines a hundred hundred times. His heart thundered; his breath was shallow. Orca woke with a start. He stared at the scroll in Djola’s trembling hands. “Poison?” His heart pounded too.
“Yes. In the letter.”
Orca scooted away from the bark-paper. “Do you know an antidote?”
“No.”
6
Living
Orca lit another lamp and dashed off.
Djola talked on to the walls, in Anawanama. “Grain is a coward who hangs in shadows waiting to see where the winds blow. Kyrie is holed up in her precious mountain. She won’t leave her glaciers to help just a few people. My people.” His chest tightened. Each breath was a stab. “Her own sister!” Djola pounded the deck. “Why write mortal danger to me when I can do nothing but go mad?”
Perhaps Grain hoped to shield himself from Djola’s wrath, in which case Grain was a fool and a coward.
Vandana appeared with Orca in a Lahesh flame-cloth tunic that glowed in the dark. Djola barely noticed. “Assassins have failed the masters at Azizi’s table, so this letter is the knife in my heart.”
The last line read: I didn’t find out until too late. Kyrie sends hope.
“How long has Grain kept this from me?” Djola shouted.
“Who knows?” Vandana knocked the knife that Djola dug into his chest from his hand. It clattered to the floor, loud enough to wake the dead, or maybe that was Djola howling. He shoved past Vandana and stepped on a woman too wounded to roll out of his way.
He cursed Kyrie, Grain, and pirates, priests, thief-lords, farmers, and good citizens then banged into a post and fell. Orca sat on his belly. Vandana cradled his head while he cried.
* * *
Djola woke the next morning shivering, yet his insides burned. His head was in Vandana’s lap. She stroked his cheek. Orca curled against his back, snoring. Djola lurched to standing.
“You all right?” Vandana’s stupid question and teary look sent him racing out of sick bay. Up on deck, a freak snowstorm slapped him in the face. He paced along the railing, snarling at a white sky falling into a gray sea.
“Nobody in the Gulf has seen storms like this in a hundred years.” Pezarrat stepped from a snow squall wrapped in a white bear. The head had fangs. “Wild weather every week. Fools read ominous messages from the gods in any ill wind. I see opportunity.” Djola wanted to murder Pezarrat then join his family in the death lands. Luckily for the captain, Orca had confiscated the blades hidden in Djola’s sleeves, belt, and boots.
Pezarrat dodged balls of sleet. “I tell everyone ice storms are Djola’s fault. Outlaw conjure. They feel better to hear that. Well, not better about you, but jumba jabba is better than crossroads gods laughing at you.”
Djola backed away from Pezarrat and returned to sick bay. He downed a seed and silk potion. The day passed in a haze. Orca and Vandana were busy sewing wounds that had reopened. Vandana did Djola’s work and hers. Orca brought him roasted bird stew. Somebody ate it, not Djola.
“Don’t lose hope.” Vandana sat down next to Djola. “Your family could still live.”
“Hope might keep me alive,” he replied. “It will also be torture.”
“No. Despair is torture. Do something good. That is living.”
“Everyone asks too much of me.”
“Do they?” She patted him and went back to sewing folks she insisted were well enough to fetch a good price.
He swung from hope to despair twenty times a day. He almost killed Pezarrat a dozen times and also thought to poison himself.
Orca watched him closely. “In suicide, no honor for your family. Suicide serves your enemies. Vandana is right. What if your family lives? What if you’re like the ancient heroes who faced down demons and saved their beloveds and everybody else too?”
Djola sneered at Orca but practiced pulling fire for Xhalan Xhala. He’d mastered many tricky spells: talking to rivers and trees, feeling the rhythms of dirt and water, reading the stars. Pulling fire required different talents: a storm of stillness in his mind, a sense of the heat animating everything. Many a conjurer had burned up trying to pull fire with a false gesture, an off rhythm, the wrong breath. For Djola the hardest part was the chill on his hand and at his heart.
Freak storms chased the fleet out of the Gulf. Pezarrat sold off contraband and headed to the floating cities sooner than planned. Djola rejoiced. Spies said Urzula might visit the floating cities. An audience with the queen meant word of Samina and the children. Hope was still a habit.
7
Love
Awa slipped Bal the smoked fish and crumble bread she’d stolen from the feast basket. They were both starving, sleepy, and Awa wanted to curse. The enclave had marched day and night, in and out of Mama Zamba caves and ravines, with only brief pauses for water and nuts. Now they paddled in several barges across a cold underground lake. Under what ground and toward which stars Awa couldn’t say. She was a mapmaker and hated feeling lost.
Awa was sixteen, a grown woman, and Isra still kept her in the dark. They headed to a secret crossroads, a ceremonial ground where Sprites might become Elders, if they couldn’t wait until the next big gathering of the clans. Jod and two other Sprites had decided to be shadow warriors. Waiting two years for the sweet desert gathering would be punishment, so Yari and Isra agreed to let them cross over early. However, Jod and his comrades, Cal and Neth, had to prove themselves exceptional. Yari dug up shadow warrior scrolls and prepared tricky questions. Isra dragged the enclave to a little-known region to test their scouting skills. If Jod, Cal, and Neth failed to stay hidden for a day, they would have to wait for the clan gathering to become Elders.
The underground lake was blue-green, liquid turquoise. Probably beautiful if your belly was full and your feet weren’t throbbing. The air was thick and warm—the breath of an exhausted beast. Sunlight streamed from tree-lined holes in the ledges ab
ove them, illuminating gray, bronze, and red walls. The cave’s wrinkled surface called to mind elephants wallowing in mud and spraying each other with clay.
A dream image—Awa was paddling in her sleep. Jerking awake, she ducked before hitting vines and strings of rock hanging over the lake. More wasted beauty. Why come this way? The barges passed into deep darkness, and Awa shivered. Isra had to know a better route. For some reason, vie wanted everyone to feel lost. Elders kept so many secrets and hidden scrolls. Awa was too tired to be annoyed. She’d be mad later when she had more energy.
This dark passage was the longest so far with no one lighting a torch. Something red smoldered up ahead—a bed of coals? Would Awa have to walk barefoot over fiery rocks to get out of the cave? Father’s thoughts, not hers, still plaguing her. Awa gripped Bal, who was calm, in shadow-warrior form, singing a rhythm for the paddlers. Awa leaned into that. Even so, when the barge bumped solid ground, she shrieked.
Yari lit a torch and cursed. A path led up a steep incline. The red that Awa had spied was a flame bush glowing in a sunlit opening. Isra waved everyone off their barge. Bal leapt ashore and helped unload supplies. Two other barges bumped land and more torches were lit. Light didn’t help Awa figure out where they were. Cold, hungry people tromped on elephant-skin stone and grumbled. Awa gathered Yari’s books and stumbled off the barge. They had more books than usual, brought from a secret cache for the ceremony.
“Quit pouting,” Isra whispered to Yari. “Sprites have gone out scouting since the gorge—why not let a few cross over early?”
“You insisted they were ready to scout, not me,” Yari replied.
“But you led them into danger,” Isra said. “You risked their lives.”
“You brought Jod into the enclave and he has your heart.” Yari frowned. “Jod draws spirit from elsewhere. He could end up a lapsed Elder.”
Master of Poisons Page 12
