Master of Poisons

by Andrea Hairston

  Fannie hesitated, wary of sludge surging across the Empire Road. The poison master caressed her neck and ears and melded his body to hers as she scrambled into brush away from deluge. Monster and all, he was a true horseman. Awa pressed her face into his icy cape and clung to his waist, praying he wouldn’t get thrown.

  “Just water,” he murmured, coaxing Fannie back to the road. “Water will save us. Water is life.” He whispered about the wonders of wetness and the miracle of muscle and bone. Was he a lapsed Elder like the traitors who helped Zamanzi raid her enclave? Or a Babalawo, a father of mysteries from the floating cities gone witchdoctor rogue? “You know water,” he said, calming even the screeching crows. “You are water.”

  “We’re all water,” Awa mumbled, “still—” Too much water ripped and roared toward the narrows and the only bridge outside Holy City for leagues and leagues, a triple-arch stone structure on disputed land that nobody tended to. “We could be trapped in this valley between a flood and a deadly sandstorm.”

  “I know.” The poison master didn’t seem like a suicide. This flood must be more destruction coming faster than he had expected.

  Awa couldn’t really fathom what he had expected.

  “Rogue impulses.” He talked to her thoughts. Hopefully he wouldn’t make that a habit.

  Fannie stumbled on through refuse battering the road. Rather than worry about drowning, Awa lost herself in the polyrhythm of blood beats. The horse’s heart was a bass djembe drum, half the pace of the man’s. The crows’ treble hearts went too fast for counting. Awa’s heart played among these beats. Sprite discipline rescued her again. Still alive, why fear death and spoil your moments? They managed to reach the narrows before an exhausted mount dumped them in brush or the flood swept the road away. Awa smelled Holy City deluge gaining on them, a burnt blood and raw sewage odor. Cathedral trees bellowed as the ground quaked and tore up their roots. Across the river, the distant foothills of the Eidhou mountain range beckoned.

  The Narrows Bridge was a worse wreck than Awa recalled. Abutments, piers, and arches were missing stones. Railings dangled over the side and got buffeted by debris rushing down the river. Muddy refuse skittered across the roadway. One more flood would wash this bridge away. That could happen this afternoon. Crows chattered worry and hope. Fannie took one step onto the bridge and balked.

  “So much water. And the bridge wobbles like a loose tooth,” Awa said. “Too risky for her.”

  The poison master glared at a whirlwind of ash and sand coming their way. “More risk if we don’t cross.” He jumped down and urged the mare a step at a time to the middle of the roadway. Slow going.

  Uprooted baby cathedral trees, crashing and banging like giants at play, careened around a sharp bend in the river five hundred feet from the bridge. Rubble from cottages, libraries, and granaries had gotten caught in a rush of roots and branches. The tangled mass surged forward and smashed the center piers. Books went flying and glass shattered. Branches exploded into splinters. Grain fell like rain. The bridge shuddered as if it meant to come apart. Fannie kicked the poison master’s leg. He stumbled to the edge. Gripping Fannie with her thighs, Awa leaned over and yanked the strap of his bag with her strong hand before he tumbled into the water. Horse, man, and young woman slid through mud along a gap in the railing.

  “Whayoa!” The poison master spread his cape wide, catching a rush of wind and slowing them down. He hurried them away from the railing over soggy scrolls and choking fish. Shrieks made him halt and turn. “Zst!” He tugged Fannie’s halter, but she wouldn’t budge.

  A ten-story tower bashed into cathedral trees wedged in the river bend. Bright faces peered from barred windows. Rich, blood-sucking southerners were weeping and wailing at the mountain gods. Feeding on tree oil and transgressor blood, they’d expected protection from catastrophe and a long, long life. They clawed at bars meant to keep danger out. Awa hated their rosy, well-fed cheeks. A boy of thirteen or fourteen bled from his eyes. Awa gritted her teeth against a thrill of pleasure. In a moment, tree trunks would snap and the tower would smash the bridge. They were all doomed. Her last thoughts should not be spite or fear.

  When Zamanzi raided the crossover ceremony, Awa should have chosen warrior, like Bal, no matter the risk. Soldiers ignored the mysteries and trained to survive destruction and death. They experienced glory and love. But no matter her bad choice, Awa had puzzled impossible questions, collected life and death stories as a griot might, and smoke-walked to a seventh region of snow and ice. Drunk on Rokiat’s coconut wine, she and Meera had sworn never to leave the other alone. Even if Awa had faltered recently, she’d meant every word. That was glory and love, no matter what Meera did in return.

  “You there! Help us!” Southerners shouted in the staccato tongue of barbarians. “Please, have mercy.”

  Nothing to do even if Awa wanted to. Fannie was paralyzed. Heartbeats raced out of time. Tree trunks with thirty-foot diameters snapped like twigs. A servant jumped from an open balcony and got smashed by debris.

  “Run!” The poison master smacked the mare’s haunches. “Run or die!”

  Fannie leapt forward. Awa clung to her mane. Her heart quickened to an impossible pulse as fear flooded her despite Sprite discipline. Solid ground and stout tree trunks shimmered like a mirage. The opposite shore was too far, even at a gallop. The tower rushed for the bridge. They would need wings to escape the collision alive.

  “No! Please! No!” Awa screamed with the blood-sucking southerners. “Mercy!”

  The tower rammed the bridge.

  14

  The Amethyst River Speaks

  Mercy? You have stood on my banks, oblivious. Who are any of you to ask for mercy?

  I am your sweat and spit, and tears of joy, but you do not know water.

  For a thousand thousand years and more, winding through rocks, slipping downhill to the Salty Sea, I cut gorges and pounded out waterfalls. I hewed these green lands from barren rock and brought mountain riches to meagre soil. This valley was my garden grove. I nourished roots, called up clouds.

  The wind whispered its secrets to me. The sky rode my back, blue, green, and white froth. Falling stars cooled in my mud. The moon tugged me toward its cold bosom. I hosted rainbow spirits, brought the dead back to life, again and again.

  What do you know of mercy? Do you mourn waterfalls or gorges become barren cliffs? I have drowned hopes and swallowed despair. For a thousand thousand eons, I ferried life more leagues than you can count. You say, we are all water; water is life. Empty talk.

  I am three thousand leagues all at once, ocean too, reaching the floating cities and beyond. I am glaciers and steam and clouds and blood. You are fools, come and gone in a blink, stuck in one small splat of time, running in circles, ruining wherever you touch down. Your poison in my water has killed many with no return from death.

  A hairy mammalian weed, why should I offer mercy to you?

  You let loose a fury in my stream, breaking the pattern of my patterns, drying up my dreams. Who will hold me? What will guide me? Water is life, but what do you care that I am river no more, but a deluge, and afterward dry dead land making a lethal storm of the wind?

  Mercy? Hosting this last rainbow, I—

  15

  Monsters

  Darkness swirled behind Awa’s closed lids. The pattern of her being was faint. She might have slipped into the death lands, except irritating river talk made her heart pound, made her gasp in breath.

  “Mercy is a miracle,” Awa croaked at the Amethyst River. “To give or receive…”

  And who believes in miracles? The River replied.

  “I should be dead, I was dead, but…” Awa’s temples throbbed with the beat of hooves on solid ground. “I’m alive again.”

  Yari claimed that every moment was a gift, a miracle, yet despite dazzling experiences in Smokeland, Awa never understood miracles until now. Coming back from the dead, she found joy in needles of rain cutting her skin and in panic sweat dryi
ng under her arms. Bird shrieks from up, down, and sideways were a serenade. Crow slurry sailed past her nose and jolted her eyes open. The poison master sat behind her now, holding her up, and she was thrilled to be cradled by a monster.

  “A wonder…”

  The sky spun more than darkness had. She blinked a gray horizon into its rightful place. Night was coming. The sun was pink haze behind a high canopy of trees. Dry fields had given way to the foothills of the Eidhou mountain range. Cathedral trees covered every ridge. They’d traveled far. Awa must have been dead to the world for a long time.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come back to yourself,” the poison master murmured, relieved.

  He pulled things from her hair and tossed them to the wind before she saw what filth it was. He thought himself kind. Were all monsters deluded? He touched her withered arm with a soothing balm. She flinched all the same. Gravelly-throated crows swooped up from the valley and chattered about survivors trotting toward them.

  “We’re only a few leagues ahead of good citizens who might want to stone us,” he said. “The carrion-eaters celebrate everybody’s heartbeats.” He had a smile on his tongue. “Hearty folks from Holy City ride warhorses also.”

  Perhaps Meera and Rokiat had ridden impossibly far too. Awa smiled. “Miracles.”

  “Yes. We’re on high ground,” he said. “Safe.”

  Awa frowned. “No matter what miracle you did on the bridge, we’re not safe. Did you hear the Amethyst River? Your death-spell hounds us still.”

  “Not my death-spell. The People die from their own poison.” Rage burned through his icy cloak and stung her. “Reckoning fire does not consume a good heart.”

  Fannie snorted as the incline got steeper. Her hot breath fogged in cold drizzle.

  “But—” Awa’s tongue was heavy. “So many die who were not to blame.”

  “A person always has a choice.”

  “Living in a transgressor hut, we—”

  “Can you swear you did nothing to cause poison desert?”

  “No, I, I…” She chopped roots and tried to forget herself for two years.

  “Did you resist? Any of you in the huts?”

  Awa shrugged. “We just survived.”

  “I thought as much,” he muttered. “Throughout the Empire, people are just surviving and so water, air, and earth become poison.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Denial is worse than poison sand.”

  Awa shuddered. “Everyone has spirit debt…” She never imagined resisting, only escape—an impossible dream each night that sometimes included Holy City crumbling into poison sand. Prayers danced to the crossroads gods were always for sweet revenge that wouldn’t trouble her heart spirit with more debt. The poison master’s bring-down-the-mountain spell had answered these prayers.

  “What happened on the bridge?” She changed the subject. “Tell me.”

  “You saved me,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  He chuckled. “Rogue impulse.”

  “How did we escape the tower collision? How could we—” She almost threw up. He patted her shoulder. She tried not to cringe at the silver-mesh glove.

  “Look to that ridge.” He pointed. “Our destination will keep your stomach down until we can take a proper rest.”

  The horizon was a steady seam of gray. A grove of young cathedral trees rose above a rocky outcrop. Bushy new growth was burnished bronze. Awa’s dizziness faded. Acres of trees at the base of the hills had been felled. The scarred landscape was infested with toxic brush and strangle vines. Soldier beetles thrived, eating exposed heartwood.

  “Thief-lords.” The poison master spit out hatred.

  “Crows feast on fat soldier beetles. They’re happy.”

  “Too many beetles decimate everything. Barbarians steal today and tomorrow too.”

  Cathedral trees supposedly belonged to the emperor. Precious oil, wood, seedpods, leaves, and roots were his living treasury. Sickly trees were chopped with an imperial license. Hezram held the license for Holy City and environs. He guarded his groves with warrior acolytes and Dream Gate conjure. The lands beyond the Narrows Bridge were disputed, so no licenses had been issued. Empire patrols were too scattered to keep thief-lords from raiding groves and hacking down trees.

  “Barbarians will return with elephant brigades and fire bows to claim this young grove,” Awa said. “I hate them also.”

  “Forgive my anger. It is old and unwise, leaking through a crack. My wife warned me…” The poison master shook his head. “Southern thief-lords are no better or worse than anyone. We must forgive—”

  “I don’t forgive them.” Awa clutched her burnt arm. “I can’t.”

  “Do you forgive yourself?”

  “Do you?” Awa shouted. “Is reckoning fire and poison sand forgiveness?”

  The poison master stiffened.

  Awa leaned on Fannie’s neck, away from his anguish. “Your forgiveness is hollow.”

  “At the crossroads we can always change direction.”

  Awa’s stomach howled at Green Elder jumba jabba.

  “Every choice you make could be wrong,” he continued. “Forgiveness replenishes your heart spirit.” He reminded her of Yari, playing conflicting truths against each other.

  “I’m too faint to think.” Her belly was touching her backbone. There were no scraps from Tembe’s cook pots until the end of a festival day. Perhaps she could scrounge something to eat in the grove above.

  No one owns the trees

  The poison master sang Yari’s favorite song as the mare high-stepped through strangle vines creeping across the Empire Road.

  They belong to themselves

  Or maybe to the bees

  No one owns the dew

  Another’s heartbeat

  The rays of a setting sun

  Drifting through the leaves

  “People belong to themselves too.” Awa shivered in the cold drizzle. “Does that stop thief-lords from selling anyone? Nonsense we sing for stupid children.”

  “My children are dust, scattered on the wind.” He drew Awa into his warmth and pulled his cloak around her shoulders too. “So I sing for my haint children, growing old in the shadows.”

  No one owns our hearts

  We can give love away

  Or share it in our arts

  No one owns my soul

  Your tears of joy

  The rays of a rising sun

  As the new day starts

  No one owns the trees

  We belong to ourselves

  Or maybe to the bees

  Another miracle. Awa felt sorry for a monster, for treading on his wounds. She ached with the pain of ghost children loved and lost. “You must tell me how you called a miracle to save us,” she said. “And how we have traveled so far. It’s a thirty-day ride from Holy City to the foothills of the Eidhou mountain range, even on a warhorse.”

  “Forty-day ride, and if I must tell you,” he said, “I’ll tell, when you’re stronger.”

  Awa sat up on her own. “I’m strong enough for any story.”

  “You need much heart spirit for the Iyalawo language of miracles.”

  Awa felt dizzy again, remembering the opposite shore shimmering like a mirage. The poison master must have folded the distance from the Narrows Bridge to the Foothills Bridge. “You conjured a wise-woman passageway.” Awa had never believed the tales of conjure women folding space and bending time and light to hide their comings and goings. But there was no other explanation. “I would love to see such a wonder. Why would Tembe share Iyalawo secrets with you?”

  “Not Tembe. Another.”

  “Who?”

  Someone battered at the seals around his heart. Awa felt this and flinched. He exhaled a cold breath and mumbled in a dead language as Fannie trotted uphill past tree stumps and rotting roots.

  16

  Taking Measure

  The oily expiration of young cathedral tr
ees filled Djola’s mouth. The grove must be around the next bend, beyond a rocky outcropping. New red leaves fluttered in the wind, catching the last of the sun. Trunks and ferns undulated in the shadows, a trickster’s dance. Gray forms with granite teeth, smoky hair, and spark hearts floated between the trees. Haints.

  Djola’s breath grew shallow; his eyes burned with unspent tears. Samina was the chill at his neck, the cold in his bones. Kill nobody in my name. Using Samina’s spell to open a wise-woman corridor had been foolhardy, and then singing from The Songs for Living and Dying … Bold haints broke from the forest of shades and taunted him for reckless conjure, whispering with the leaves.

  “How else could we escape the deluge?” He yelled in Anawanama, what his mother’s people used, before the Empire and after, to talk to the stars and trees, to ancestors and spirits. “I couldn’t choose death on the Narrows Bridge. Not time yet.”

  “Why shout in words nobody remembers?” the transgressor girl asked in Empire vernacular—once a minor trading language and these days filling everyone’s mouth.

  “I remember,” he replied in Empire talk, glad to focus on her. “We’re not all dead to this world.” The transgressor girl twisted around to face him. Haints ventured closer. He almost made out a round familiar face. The crack in his heart throbbed. “So much I cannot say or see unless I speak Anawanama.”

  “Ancestor tongues conjure other worlds.” The girl followed his gaze. “What?”

  His eldest daughter, Tessa, wavered in front of him, a shaft of evening mist with blue-violet eyes like Samina. Tessa was wide-hipped and forthright like her mother and arrogant like Djola. She chastised him for leaving the way open to scoundrels and fools. Quint, a smoldering ball of ash, echoed his sister.