The Enchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba Book 1)

by Marc Secchia

  Mama Nomuula, starting on Shioni’s hair, was needling Annakiya about how Shioni’s locks had never seen the teeth of a comb. The Princess was wearing a suitably rueful expression. Mama’s fingers were soothing, and her face peaceful in the reflected lamplight. What made her so fond of a ferengi slave, a troublemaker, a stubborn girl like her who was moulded of a different clay? Mama had set so many bones, bound so many wounds, cared for the General and the King night and day–she must be exhausted! And yet here she was, caring even more.

  “How is the General, Mama?”

  “It’s a bad break, Shioni. At his age…” she sighed. “That Kalcha had to drive right over him, hadn’t she? Trust him not to complain about no wounds. Seems it takes a dagger just to dig some truth out of the stubborn old goat. How’s I ever to keep him in bed long enough to heal?”

  Shioni felt guilty at having his confidence. After all, the General was not so grouchy once he started talking!

  “Mama, I wish now I had told him the whole truth about Anbessa and the magic and all. We might not have… well, this might not… and so many people are hurt or dead…”

  “My chick!” exclaimed Mama, throwing her arms around Shioni, “Don’t you never blame yourself for nothing! This world’s full of evil folks. I’s seen the Kalchas and the Dabirs, from low-born to high, they’s nothing but the same breed of viper. You did right. The King, he don’t believe in nothing–not in God, not in witches and magic, not even that he could fail. Getu is true, and even he got tangled up in their web of evil. And believe you me–he has his regrets too, things he’d love to put right. That’s a wrong voice in your head, honey. Don’t you be listening to them wrong voices.”

  “You may be a mere slave-girl,” said Zi, admiring the fluttering of her eyelashes, “but it was your arrow that changed West Sheba’s fate.”

  There–a comment that was pure Azurelle. Shioni was beginning to wonder if all the ridiculous vanity was just for show. Her brain might be the size of a hazelnut, but there was clearly nothing wrong with its inner workings!

  She glanced up at Mama Nomuula, thinking: Were she and the General so close that she could know his private feelings on this matter? There was so much more to the General than ever met the eye. Their conversation surely proved it! Could it be that Mama had seen it too? Surely… no. Surely not Mama and the General? But something in the way that they talked about each other gave her a feeling like butterflies in her stomach. She lowered her eyes to hide what she was thinking.

  “Mama, will the General recover?”

  “I’s given him something to make him sleep,” said Mama, suddenly working busily at Shioni’s hair again, “and set them bones right. Now his body must do its work, just like Talaku and that rock on top of his shoulders, and all them wounded warriors.”

  “It was also you, Shioni, who found the baobab’s secret,” added Annakiya. “Did any of you notice, it has started to blossom?”

  “But it was dead before–”

  “This is a magical castle,” said Zi. “There’s enchantment all around us. If you humans weren’t such insensitive blockheads, you would feel it too.”

  Azurelle was right, Shioni thought. The castle was coming alive around her, as though there was a heart beating away somewhere, secretly, that hadn’t been there before.

  Author’s Note

  If you have read this far, congratulations! I hope that you had as much fun reading Shioni of Sheba: The Enchanted Castle as I had imagining and writing it.

  Ethiopia is a magical land. It is the place where I live; a land to fall in love with. The backdrop to Shioni of Sheba is the Simien Mountains, north of Gondar; a spectacular, fractured volcanic landscape where unique plant and bird life abounds. This series is grounded in Ethiopian history, which is ancient indeed, and holds mysteries and wonders which have puzzled scholars over the centuries. I hope to delve further into these mysteries in books to come.

  There are further adventures planned for Shioni! The suggested reading order for the series is:

  Shioni of Sheba: The Enchanted Castle

  Shioni of Sheba: The King’s Horse

  Shioni of Sheba: The Mad Giant

  Shioni of Sheba: The Sacred Lake

  Shioni of Sheba: The Fiuri Realms

  Visit Marc’s website at www.marcsecchia.com to read more about Shioni and catch up on exclusive news and previews.

  Shioni of Sheba arose from stories that I told my own children–I am blessed with 4 girls, and I have shamelessly borrowed from them to create the characters in this story. Thank you, S, E, R and A, for being patient with an author’s work! And for reading, reviewing and discussing the stories with me. Shioni belongs to you.

  And if you ever get the chance to come to Ethiopia–seize it. It is a unique, life-changing experience.

  Marc Secchia

  Addis Ababa, February 2013

  Preview of Shioni of Sheba: The King’s Horse

  The sheer side of a tall, black silk tent rippled like oily water in the bright sunlight. Shioni was parched. Her throat felt like a ball of dry thistle was stuck behind her tongue, and any attempt to speak would result only in croaky frog speech. A sharp stone was grinding her cheek against her teeth. Her eye cracked open a slit. A long-legged soldier ant was scuttling past her nose across a field of cracked red clay, its huge mandibles waving about like a river crab’s claws searching for food to scavenge.

  Her nose itched. But her hands were prevented from moving up for a good scratch. What? Where was she? What was holding her hands? These thoughts seemed to trickle through her overheated brain as sluggishly as sweet honey seeping from a honeycomb. Her eyelid seemed stuck to the eyeball. The mere act of opening it further demanded a gruelling effort.

  Shioni finally realised she was lying on her left side, with her hands chained in front of her to an iron stake hammered deep into the ground. The stake could have held an elephant. It was more than enough for her.

  “Wake her up!”

  Ice-cold river water dashed against her head like full force of the Jinbar waterfall. Shioni groaned as a dozen hurts started to yammer their pain all at once. That woman’s voice… she knew… Kalcha! The witch-leader of the Wasabi! Her eyes snapped open. But the sunlight was so intense that she had to squint in order to see anything.

  “Get up, slave!”

  Kalcha’s voice was as cold and angry as the day she first spied on her at the Wasabi camp up in the high mountains. Shioni recalled her shock at upon realising the strength of the Wasabi forces, and the sheer, unnatural bulk of the hyenas that had pulled Kalcha’s chariot into battle. Her exact words that day drummed through her mind: ‘Then will I hold in my hands the power to change you all, to make you men, men such as this world has never seen! We will build our kingdom of death and destruction, and you will become kings and enslave all mankind!’ Hyenas being changed into men? Kalcha’s ambitions had been thwarted only by an arrow shot into the brain of her pet python by Shioni herself.

  And only Azurelle’s golden blood had allowed the arrow pierce her enchantment.

  A cruel kick to her stomach lifted Shioni off the ground. She crashed against the iron pole and lay stunned, slumped like a child’s blanket dropped carelessly on the ground. She heard herself sobbing at the pain, and bit her lip until she tasted blood. No tears for the witch! She’d hold her tears whatever the cost.

  “Kneel before Kalcha, worthless slave!”

  Two pairs of hands set her roughly upright. Supporting her body against the hot metal, Shioni opened her eyes again. She found Kalcha’s beautiful face just inches from her own, staring at her with eyes as grey as storm clouds. But her beauty was like cold marble, and her smile, which on another woman might have dazzled and delighted, was so loaded with malice that it became a thing of disturbing ugliness. The hatred and cruelty in her heart was chiselled upon her features, giving her an air of wild, deadly splendour.

  She seemed pleased. “You fiendish child of the snows!” she said. “At last I have yo
u within my grasp. You stole my Fiuri! You destroyed my python! Now you will pay for ruining the hour of my greatest triumph.”

  Shioni should have been overawed. But her mind seemed half-asleep, functioning at the speed of a hurrying snail. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: “Why aren’t your eyes red anymore?”

  The witch gave a howl of fury! She shrieked, “Because you broke my curse! It was my castle, all mine, until you spoiled everything! Now I have to start again.” With hateful glee, she added, “So many more sacrifices are needed. I must have blood. Buckets, of blood, yes, rivers of it. My power is growing every day.”

  Shioni had no answer for the witch but to shudder.

  Kalcha snapped her fingers. “Have you met my pets?”

  A huge, scarred muzzle pressed against Shioni’s head. Black, scabby lips parted to reveal fangs as long as her thumb. “Give us this youngling for a snack, mistress,” growled the hyena. “She will never bother you again.”

  Shioni tried to pull away from hyena’s putrid muzzle, but the chains prevented her from moving far. The beast rammed its head into her shoulder, shoving this way and that, playing with her like a cat amusing itself with a field mouse. The other massive, stoop-shouldered hyenas were nosing about her too, now, yapping and whining in excitement. She had nowhere to go. Grinning fangs encircled her.

  Shioni, Shioni…

  Kalcha, sinking her bony fingers into Shioni’s cheeks, said, “My spies are already inside your castle. Soon I will know all your secrets–especially yours, you annoying little cockroach. No mere slave will stand in Kalcha’s path! And I am already in your mind and in your dreams. Be afraid, little slave. I will teach you the meaning of fear.”

  Shioni! Something was pinching her earlobe.

  “Now, my pets, know your enemy! Taste her flesh, crush her bones. Teach her the power of Kalcha!”

  “We hear, o great Mistress!” Slavering jaws rubbed drool down her leg.

  “I’ll choke you!” Shioni’s voice quavered. Teeth clamped upon her leg. “No, nooooo–!