The day had been glorious. The southern sun gilded the sparse clouds as they frolicked in a fair wind. It was a time of slow delicious sweltering. Now, at last, the day drew to a close. The past seventy-two hours had provided recreation and renewal for the family of Bilalistan’s youngest Wakil, Kai of Dar Kush. For those precious hours, duty no longer deviled him.
For now, Kai could release the tension from body and mind, allowing both to dwell only in the fathomless crystal blue of the waters, hands and spirit stretching out for the rainbow of tropical fish fluttering just beyond reach.
He dove deep, suspended as if by the hand of an invisible djinn, hovering above the twisted wreck of a triple-master that had foundered fifty years before his birth. That there was another ship, far more recently scuttled, in the waters east of the islands, he knew too well. The sight of this wreck sobered rather than enthralled. It reminded him of the carnage that his father’s gold had, if not wrought, endorsed after the fact.
The sailors’ bones scattered in its shattered hull were not the first, nor would they be the last to drift in the depths of the Songhai. The deceptive tranquility of these islands had concealed fierce and deadly battle as the nations of Africa contested for the New World.
Mali had been first to touch Bilalistan’s shores, her ships piloted by captains and navigators refused by Abyssinia’s royal court. But that kingdom’s Immortal Empress had swiftly grasped the potential of the storied land far to the west, and had claimed ownership. Egypt likewise had sent ships and men, as had half a dozen other peoples. Bitterly they fought. As kingdoms rose and fell in the Old World, so did they in the New.
The derelict’s barnacled ribs shimmered in twenty cubits of crystalline water, not some heroic singularity but merely another of the rivened husks scattered about the sea bottom like broken birds’ nests, once the proud carriages of the bravest sailors the world had ever known. Whether their destroyers’ vessels had flown the flags of their origin or slunk through the islands like sharks in the starlight, death had been the same, the watery graves the same, the end the same: northern Bilalistan belonged to Egypt and Abyssinia alone.
Kai resented the fact that such thoughts had interrupted his swim. This was a time for pleasure, not politics. So despite these waters’ grim history, or the urgency of a mission he dared not share even with his beloved wife, he paddled about like a boy half his age, reveling in the sun and surf.
Kai of Dar Kush had known war, and loss, and twenty-three summers. He was a tall man, so perfectly proportioned that, in repose, he seemed smaller than his actual height. Beardless and smooth-skinned was Kai, of almost weightless carriage, as easily underestimated as a sleeping cobra.
A solid shadow glided beneath him, roiling the water with its passage. Kai blinked his eyes to clarity, bringing into focus the dolphin’s every gray-black digit. Its five cubits of muscle could have shattered him with a flick if it chose, but the creature seemed more inclined merely to float and study him.
On other days the islands’ watery denizens had seemed more playful, carving watery loops and curlicues, inviting him to follow if he could. Today the dolphin seemed merely to examine him. Its flat black eyes brimmed with a questioning intelligence. Close behind it, a second, smaller dolphin kept pace.
Trailing bubbles, Kai paddled back up to the surface, where his dhow Baher Feras, the “Sea Horse,” awaited. Its swooping teak hull bobbed gently on the waves, lateen sails billowing in the afternoon’s warm, moist breeze.
His mate Lamiya lay sunning on the hardwood deck with their daughters, Aliyah and Azinza. Lamiya herself was descended from the Afar people on the shore of Lake Abbe in Old Djibouti. A single aged servant, Yohela, had accompanied her on this trip, yet her hair, braided and beaded into the intricate patterns typical of the Afar, never bore the same configuration two days in a row. Four years Kai’s senior, Lamiya was in both face and form the most elegantly sensual woman Kai had ever known, and he had adored her since childhood.
Beside her, the small ones waved their pudgy brown arms in his direction, giggling. Azinza, a plump little fireball, had seen four summers, two more than Aliyah. Azinza was adopted, being the daughter of Kai’s late uncle Malik. But despite the different circumstances of their birth, the girls couldn’t have been closer had they been twins.
As always, the sight of his family filled his heart with joy, but there also remained a trace of regret. Kai loved the water’s warm embrace, its ability to challenge his body’s endurance and strength. Its potential to wash away sins.
Below the waves lay a world entire, a world more innocent and honest than that above. One he would have shared with his wife, but could not—Lamiya was no child of ocean or lake. Her forays into water were confined to the bath. In fact, except for considerable skills as a horsewoman, Lamiya was more a creature of politics and etiquette than physical exertions.
“Time for another dive?” Kai called.
“Just a few more minutes,” his beloved replied. “We’ll have dinner ashore.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come in? Yohela could watch the children.” He arched his eyebrows at her flirtatiously.
She laughed tolerantly, resisting the lure. “Perhaps later, Kai, and closer in to shore.”
“I won’t let you drown.”
“The ocean may have its own plans.” She gazed up at the Sea Horse’s sails. “A good wind. Will Elenya’s ship be on time?”
“If wind fails, her captain will stoke the boiler.” He wrinkled his face at her.
She settled back down with Aliyah. “Wave to your abbabba.”
“Abbabba!” the infant screeched, grinning hugely.
Kai waved back, and then dove, once again seeking the sleek gray masters of the deep. It was they who would attend the voiceless, shattered ships, who might comfort the ghosts of long-drowned sailors. His finned companions’ flat black eyes knew him for who and what he was, yet still they accepted him, agreed to be his confessors.
Silently in the depths, they communed.
CHAPTER TWO
Grand Imperial was the largest of the Songhai Islands, studded with cocoa plantations and shoreside salt harvesting operations streaming revenue north to Bilalistan. Kai owned one plantation outright, and two others in limited partnerships.
Eighteen hours a day Grand Imperial’s commercial dock swarmed with workers. As darkness fell, it suffered an almost lycanthropic transformation. After dusk, honest merchants sought shelter in hotels or private homes, and surrendered the sidewalks to the night breed that haunt docks worldwide. They swarmed with pimps and prostitutes, thieves and cutthroats, opium smokers, bhang drinkers, and those who ignored the words of the Prophet to seek solace in the fermented fruit of grape, hop, or barley.
While his wife and daughters took their ease in the Grand Imperial’s finest hotel, Kai slipped into leather pants, a cotton shirt, and a simple cloak to stride the night in solitary fashion. Tonight he needed no companions. Tonight, he sought a hash den called Al Makman, “The Hiding Place.”
Al Makman proved an appropriate title for a reeking hole sandwiched between the slat-walled wreck of a fish-processing plant and a whore-ridden boardinghouse.
Opening the front door, Kai was assaulted by a wave of hemp smoke, the reeking stench of spilled beer, and stale vomit.
He waded through the stink and selected a table where he might keep his eye on the door. He ordered a hookah and spent a few minutes drawing shallowly before spotting the man who had arranged the meeting.
Wearing a yellow scarf as promised, the newcomer towered over his table. Kai looked up into a long sun-beaten face with deep smile lines and bright eyes. “My name is Yohannes,” his contact said.
“I am Kai.”
“Alabaster.”
“Onyx. Join me.”
“An excellent notion.” Yohannes grunted, and sat, ordering a beer from a sallow, petulant tavern slave. He noted Kai’s adverse reaction. “I am Christian,” he said.
Kai nodded.
“Of course. I’ve met few black Christians.”
“Abyssinia is one of the few places Christians escape persecution,” said Johannes.
“I am not deeply schooled in your history,” Kai confessed.
Yohannes stretched back into his seat. “Saint Mark the evangelist thought to preach the holy gospel and the good news of the Lord Christ in the great city of Alexandria, and in Abyssinia and Nubia. Through this excellent notion souls were saved, and even the Empress respected those teachings. She gave us shelter when the Pharaoh declared that the Treaty of Khibar did not extend to those Jews who followed Christ. ‘Immortal’ or not, she is worth the fight.”
Beer arrived, foam slopping out of an oversized mug. Kai gave Johannes time to take several sips, taking the opportunity to study Al Makman’s net-shrouded ceiling and sawdust-strewn floor. With a single slow sweeping evaluation he noted the drunks and revelers, the whores wiggling on their customers’ laps, the cutpurses who eyed his boots and sword, wondering if the stranger might make a profitable night’s work and trusting the instinct that said no.
“Have you been to Abyssinia?” Johannes asked.
“Not yet. I hope to visit my wife’s family soon.”
“An excellent notion. No educated eye should miss the Pillars of the Nile.”
“So I’ve heard.” Kai took another small draw on the hookah, then directed discourse to the matter at hand. “Documents found among my father’s effects,” Kai said, “hinted that a letter would come, addressed in a certain cryptic manner, as did yours. And that I should do as it instructed.”
“And gold.” Yohannes grinned. “He doubtless spoke of gold.”
“So. Not all is patriotism and piety?”
“The three are not mutually exclusive.”
Kai handed Yohannes a leather bag. The Abyssinian peered within, smiled, and then hefted it in his hand, nodding approval. Secreting it on his belt, Yohannes then pushed an envelope across the splintered wooden table toward Kai.
Kai examined it, careful to shield it from curious eyes. He looked up, face reflecting the question in his heart.
“The Alexandrian vessel was captured and scuttled,” Yohannes said. “There is more than one way to wage war, and the Lord rewards His soldiers.”
“And sailors, apparently.”
“An excellent notion.” Johannes drained his glass. “We all do what we can, in our own way. Farewell, Wakil. Christ bless you. May we meet again, under better circumstances.”
“Insh’Allah, and His grace upon you, traveler.”
Cavalierly saluting the man he would never see again, Johannes left the Al Makman and strode back out into the mists of night.
CHAPTER THREE
At ten o’clock the next morning, the dock thronged with a crowd even denser than the previous day’s. Jostling with laborers and merchants for standing room, Kai and Lamiya welcomed the steam-screw Assannafi, “The Victorious.” This was the second-to-last leg of the journey it had begun in Abyssinia. It had churned the waters of the Red Sea as it rose north, traveled west through the Egyptian Sea, across the ocean and to the Songhais, ferrying Elenya home from university. After the Grand Imperials, it would steam farther north, taking the Brown Nile up to Djibouti’s capital city of Radama.
He spotted his younger sibling and her three attendants instantly. “Elenya!” he cried. “How you have grown!”
“Kai! Lamiya!” she cried, and embraced him warmly. Nineteen now, Elenya had grown to within two digits of her brother’s height. Her face was heart-shaped compared to Lamiya’s gentle oval, although like the imperial niece she wore her hair in tight thin braids. Her gold earrings depended almost to her shoulders. A thin chain linked her gold nose-ring to a mesh cap of wrought silver that dangled over her cheeks and eyes, forming a veil that provided modesty and proclaimed her station at a single glance.
But … was that tobacco he smelled on her breath?
Kai directed several sun-bronzed bondsmen to place Elenya’s luggage on the Sea Horse.
“Only another few days and you’re home,” he said. “Miss us?”
“More than I can say. I’ve been at sea so long I wondered if my legs would still work with dirt beneath them.”
“I know!” Lamiya said. “I felt the same way every time I made the crossing.”
Elenya looked at Kai curiously. “Why did you decide to meet me here in the islands?”
For an instant Kai’s eyes shifted away, and then he answered in a joking tone. “Wasn’t it enough that I didn’t want to waste a single moment of time with my only sister?”
“Kai …”
She had him. “Oh well then, supervising investments for Lion.” Truth, if incomplete truth. Lion’s Blood was the name of the investment company formed three hundred years before, pooling the monies of several branches of Kai’s family into a single driving economic force. By the time a branch opened in Bilalistan it had evolved into a limited partnership, with forty-nine percent of the stock owned by investors, including the Empress herself. Kai’s grandfather had chaired its first Bilalian branch. Following the death of Kai’s father, neighbor and friend Djidade Berhar had taken the chair, and would hold it until his own death or retirement. This was a blessing: as owner of the largest estate in New Djibouti, Kai was burdened with the duties of Wakil, senator, administrator, supervisor of some six hundred servants, and captain in the territorial guard, as well as those of husband and father. Allah gave a man but two hands, and Kai’s were full.
“And importing workers for the salt fields,” he concluded.
“I thought Caucasians were too troubled by the sun to be of much use here.”
“Greeks are the key,” Lamiya said. “They suffer the climate better than those pasty northerners.” And worked harder, as well. Bilalistan exported hemp, hardwoods, cotton, salt, teff, and silver. These went to the Twin Thrones in tribute, as well as to trade routes sweeping as far as China herself. Of most immediate importance, guns and steel went to the Northmen who managed the slave trade, guaranteeing a steady supply of labor for the vast southern plantations and estates.
“More expensive, though,” Lamiya said. “Quality is always more expensive—oh, boy?” she called to a dock worker. His scarred, shaven head bobbed obsequiously at her call. “Move that below, would you?”
Within the hour Baher Feras’s sails were stowed. Her steam engine bellowed its cotton plume as the ship cast off. The emerald waters of Djibouti Gulf embraced them.
“It is wonderful to see you,” Kai said.
“And even better to be heading home,” Elenya replied.
More than three years had passed since, with the death of his father Abu Ali, Kai had assumed the mantle of Wakil. The office of Wakil was a judgeship with powers of both high and low justice, the second most powerful post in New Djibouti.
Shortly thereafter, he and Lamiya had married. Lamiya had borne him a daughter, Aliyah, named for Kai’s brother, who had died a hero during the early days of the Aztec campaign.
“Azinza?” Elenya said to their adopted niece. “I’m your cousin Elenya.”
“E-len-yah?” The child giggled, and hugged her cousin’s leg through Elenya’s dress, refusing to release her. Elenya returned the hug, cooing and cuddling and enfolding herself in the bosom of the family she had not seen in two years, the family which, in a mere two months, she would leave once again. She was no longer a baby, but not yet a woman either, her heart caught in that tenuous place betwixt the two, where the enchantments of the past and the promise of the future balanced delicately, both equally enticing, in a manner that would never exist quite the same way again.
But for now, there was the sun, and the tide, and a joyous homecoming, and that was enough.
CHAPTER FOUR
It took four days for Baher Feras to journey from Grand Imperial to Djibouti Harbor, time that Kai spent in glorious relaxation with the two women he most adored.
They talked, and laughed, and sunned. Together they resurrected the good
times, dined on fresh fish, crab and fruit; invented new constellations in the night sky, and played game after game of satranj.
In the middle of the third day a crescent of land appeared to the north, slowly resolving into a maze of docks, multistoried brick buildings, and ship berths. Dominating the entire glittering arc was the colossal statue of the Prophet’s companion Bilal. The image of the first muazzin, the first to call the faithful to prayer, stood astride a tiny island in the middle of the harbor. His visage was grave and wise and titanic, face sublimely noble. One arm was outstretched as if beckoning to a distant horizon. The other held open a bound copy of the Qur’an. The edifice was the second tallest man-made structure in Bilalistan, fifth tallest in all the world. This, then, was Djibouti Harbor, the busiest port in the New World, the economic lifeblood of the southern empire.
“Welcome home, warsa,” Lamiya murmured. “Dar Kush has not seemed whole without you.”
Elenya was walleyed with pleasure. “So much has changed. Look!” She pointed. “New buildings!” Her finger marked out the sloping, half-completed roof of a structure rising above all the others, an inverted arch slightly resembling an enormous saddle. “What is that?”
“The choral house,” Kai said. “I’m surprised that you don’t recognize the design.”
“Beautiful…,” Elenya said. “And modeled on the Empress’s own!” She spanked her palms together in delight. “Will there be a dome as well?”
“In time. It should be finished within the year,” Kai said. “They say Governor Pili will attend the opening!”
They passed the squarish brick building housing the Lion’s Blood holding company. It was integrally involved with Bilalistan’s primary economic base: buying, selling, brokering, gold storage, management services—any activity that might increase its store of wealth.
The wharf itself was a termite’s nest of activity: Bilalian engineers and supervisors directed as servants carried and lifted, the entire process purposeful and planned.
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