Abengoni Page 4

  “We cannot allow these people to die, Alemeyu,” she said.

  The Emperor looked at her, but said nothing.

  The Leba spoke then.

  “The Fidi must have braved the Sea of Storms for a compelling reason,” he said. “We must learn why it is that they have risked so much to come here.”

  Dardar Alemeyu considered Gebrem’s words and found no hidden agenda or disguised duplicity within them. He conveyed that evaluation to the Leba by means of a curt nod. Then he turned to Eshana.

  “The Fidi will need food, water, and healers,” he said. “They are too weak to be moved from the ship; whatever they require to survive must be brought here to them. See to it.”

  The Dejezmek touched his fingertips to his brow in salute to Alemeyu. Then he snapped rapid a series of orders to his troops. As the men hastened to carry out the Emperor’s wishes, Jass Gebrem gazed thoughtfully at the Ishimbi replica the Fidi still clutched in his hand.

  During his boyhood studies, Gebrem had read about the replica. It was one of a set carved more than five centuries ago for a Fidi merchant-lord who had been fascinated by the originals. According to legend, the sculptor, whose name Gebrem could not remember, had sailed on a Matile ship to the Fidi lands to deliver the replicas personally. Then the Storm Wars struck, and the sculptor never returned.

  Jass Gebrem looked down at the sorcerer, whose head rested comfortably in Tiyana’s lap.

  You, my friend, I, myself, will heal, he promised silently.

  On the dock where it had been left behind, the Emperor’s cheetah, Makah, continued to growl.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Questions

  1

  From the shining splendor of Gebbi Senafa – the Imperial Palace – to the sad squalor of its slums, the Jewel City buzzed with activity, the source of which was the arrival of the visitors from the Fidi lands. After the Emperor had reached his decision on the Fidis’ fate, he and the rest of the Degen Jassi – all except the Leba, Gebrem – departed from the ship. Jass Eshana’s soldiers used sturdy ropes to secure the crippled vessel to the dock, preventing it from breaking up and sinking.

  Once the ship was stable, other Matile ascended the ramp. Some carried painted, earthenware pots of kef, and others had baskets of injerra, the flat disks of bread eaten throughout the Matile Mala. Still others brought steaming bowls of wat, a spicy stew that seared the tongue like fire.

  Healers came as well – men and women garbed in unadorned chammas. They carried their herbs and talismans in leather pouches, and their surgical implements rested, like swords, in scabbards. With the healers came the Keepers of the Dead, who were laden with bundles of fragrant leaves that would mask the odor of the Fidi who had not survived their long voyage. Later, they would prepare the foreigners’ bodies for burial.

  As the day passed, throngs of curiosity-seekers came to the docks to catch a glimpse of the strange ship. Guards posted by Jass Eshana refused to allow any of the gawkers aboard, and eventually the crowds diminished. But the gossip did not. A storm of rumors swept from the high-class kef-houses to the seedy slum taverns called talla-beits; from the market squares to the jewelers’ shops; from weapon-makers’ forges to thieves’ dens.

  Why did they come here? was the question all asked, wherever they were.

  No one knew. Nonetheless, most people speculated.

  Some thought the Fidi were escaping from some unknown calamity in their homeland – perhaps Storm Wars of their own. Others believed the foreigners were the harbingers of an invasion. But the most frequent conjecture was that Nama-kwah herself had brought the Fidi to Khambawe, for reasons known only to her Amiya, Tiyana, who would soon reveal the Goddess’s purpose to all.

  2

  In the Beit Amiya – the House of Vessels – the low-roofed, many-chambered building in which the Vessels of the Jagasti dwelled, Tiyana stood beside a rectangular pool of clear water. The pool lay at the center of an inner courtyard surrounded by the plain, white-washed walls of the building. Flat stone benches lined the sides of the pool, and flowering shrubs splashed the courtyard with color. Its water welled from a spring sacred to Ateti, the Jagasti who was the Goddess of lakes and rivers.

  At Tiyana’s side, a shamasha – a servant-girl recruited from Khambawe’s sprawling slums – used nimble fingers to undo the tiny clasps that held the strands of her costume together. Clad only in a length of plain white cloth knotted around her waist, the shamasha worked carefully. Tiyana had forgotten the girl’s name; in the Beit Amiya, shamashas came and went like shadows. In the eyes of the Amiyas, the shamashas were little more than slaves. This one was younger than most, with narrow hips and a chest still flat as a boy’s.

  One by one, the diamond-studded filaments fell away until Tiyana was naked. Holding the scanty costume as though it were a spiderweb, the shamasha laid it into a lacquered box no larger than her fist. The Mask of the Goddess had already been returned to its place in the temple common to all the Jagasti. By the time the girl turned back to Tiyana, the Amiya had already slipped into the pool and submerged herself.

  She stayed under long enough to allow the fresh, spring-fed water of the pool to dissolve the salty rime of the sea. But she could not wash away the misgivings that had begun well before she saw the shadowy bulk of the Fidi ship looming over her.

  Nama-kwah had warned her of impending danger. Was the Goddess telling her the threat lay in the coming of the Fidi? Tiyana doubted that. She was not a scholar, but based on what she had learned of bygone times, she knew Fidi had never presented any hazard to the Matile. They were nothing more than strangers from an unimaginably distant land, strangers who until now had been nearly forgotten.

  Yet the goddess had given Tiyana her one-word warning at almost the exact moment of the Fidis’ arrival ...

  Tiyana tried once again to contact Nama-kwah. But the silence from the Goddess was so emphatic that she wondered if she would ever hear the Jagasti’s voice again. That possibility was too terrible to contemplate, so she stopped thinking about it.

  Abruptly, Tiyana kicked her legs, propelling herself back to the surface. She used no ashuma this time; the magic power was far too precious to waste on such mundane matters as bathing.

  For a long moment, Tiyana floated face-up on the surface of the pool, allowing the fully risen sun to beat down on her bare skin and burn away her many misgivings. Then she swam to the side of the pool and climbed out of the water. She was refreshed in body, but still troubled in spirit.

  The shamasha handed her a chamma striped with the green and blue colors of the sea – Nama-kwah’s colors. After draping the garment loosely over one shoulder, Tiyana dismissed the girl with a curt gesture. As the shamasha quietly disappeared into the shrubs, Tiyana sat down on one of the benches and gazed at the pool, as though the answers she was seeking could be found in its depths.

  “Tiyana.”

  Startled, Tiyana turned in the direction of the voice she had heard. She smiled when she recognized the man and woman coming toward her.

  The woman, whose name was Yemeya, was one of the four Callers who had sung in the ceremony. She had removed her long headcloth, and sunlight glinted from the ornaments of amber and gold woven into her thick braids. With Yemeya was Keshu, Amiya of Halasha, the Jagasti of iron, the blacksmith’s craft, and war. Keshu wore white cotton trousers decorated with strips of shells. Above the waist, he wore only bands of leather ornaments across his broad, muscular chest. His dark face was solid and broad-featured, as though forged by the god he served, and his hair was braided into dozens of short, unadorned spikes.

  “You looked as though you were still dancing on the waves,” Yemeya said as they drew closer.

  Tiyana raked a hand through her short hair, which had been cropped close to her scalp to accommodate the Mask of Nama-kwah. Now, she would allow her hair to grow until the time for First Calling came again.

  “Maybe I was,” she said. “And, I hope, more successfully.”

  They all shared a
chuckle at that bit of self-deprecation.

  “Well, Tiyana, no one in Khambawe should be happier than you that the Fidi ship came here today,” Keshu boomed as he sat beside her on the bench. With easy familiarity, Yemeya sat by Tiyana’s other side, bracketing her, but not close enough to crowd her.

  “Why do you say that?” Tiyana asked.

  “You couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to explain away the mess you made of your Calling.”

  Tiyana stared at him speechlessly and open-mouthed for a moment. Then she began to laugh. Keshu and Yemeya joined her, and they rocked and hugged each other until the mirth finally let them go. They would savor this moment of levity while they could. Only in the courtyard of their House were the Amiyas and others, such as the Callers, able to allow such a break from the disciplines to which they had dedicated themselves since childhood.

  “Can you imagine how it would have been if that ship had come during one of my Callings?” Keshu said when he could speak again.

  That started a fresh wave of laughter, for the Calling of Halasha involved the handling of fire and molten metal in an extremely dangerous manner. When the mirth subsided once again, Yemeya asked a serious question.

  “Tiyana – what happened out there?”

  Tiyana did not answer immediately. Keshu and Yemeya were her best friends, and ordinarily she would never have hesitated to confide in them. This time, however, she sensed that she could share Nama-kwah’s cryptic warning with only one other – her father.

  “That is for the Goddess to say, not I,” she finally told her friends.

  Yemeya and Keshu both nodded their understanding. Then they each clasped one of Tiyana’s hands. Keshu carefully concealed his emotions as he felt Tiyana’s hand in his, for his feelings toward her extended far beyond friendship. And he could not let her know of those emotions.

  Not now – not ever.

  As the Amiyas and the Caller sat silently gazing into the pool, the angle of the sun’s rays turned the water blood-red. If that change of color was a portent, it went unnoticed.

  3

  As night’s darkness settled over Khambawe, and the Moon Stars illuminated the sky, Jass Gebrem continued his healing of the white-haired Fidi. Soldiers had carried the unconscious man into a cabin below the deck of the ship. A probe by his ashuma told him the cabin belonged to the Fidi. After the man had been placed on a bed, Gebrem ordered the soldiers out, indicating that he was not to be disturbed.

  Sitting on a chair of a design unlike that of anything made in the Matile lands, Gebrem used his ashuma to examine the Fidi. The abi served as his focal point as he probed. He found neither illness nor injury as his arcane senses delved beneath the stranger’s robe, and beneath his skin. Despite the whiteness of the Fidi’s hair and the lines that time and troubles had cut into his face, Gebrem quickly realized that the foreigner’s vitality was more than a match for that of a much younger man.

  But that vigor, uncommon though it was, had been depleted to its limit – or, perhaps, beyond. The toll exacted by the sorcery the man had exerted to convey his ship through the Sea of Storms had left him sorely debilitated; he was close to death despite the magic that imbued him.

  Gebrem realized that the stranger needed a regeneration of his source of magical strength more urgently than any relief that could be provided for his body. Until that source was replenished, food, water and physical healing would be of secondary importance.

  As he concentrated on the Fidi’s innermost essence, Gebrem could sense that the man had already begun a process of self-healing. Without external assistance, however, the course of his recovery would last many days, perhaps even weeks, with a strong possibility of failure. Gebrem’s ashuma could accelerate the speed and intensity of the stranger’s healing, and enhance the likelihood of success.

  Closing his eyes and grasping the abi in both hands, Gebrem visualized the Fidi’s essence as a candle-flame wavering weakly in the darkness of a night in which the Moon Stars were obscured by thick clouds. As he concentrated the power of his ashuma, the flame began to grow brighter and stronger, driving the darkness away. Gebrem quickly realized that the Fidi’s own strength was increasing, adding further fuel to the internal blaze.

  Suddenly the stranger’s volition roused, and Gebrem felt as though he were astride a runaway quagga, with the reins flying out of his reach. The candle-flame he envisioned grew blindingly bright, like a new sun invading a midnight sky. The sheer power of the burst was alarming. But Gebrem refused to break the contact, however dangerous it might be. He could feel the Fidi reaching out to him, just as he had during their first encounter on the deck of the strangers’ battered ship ...

  A soft knock sounded at the door of the cabin, breaking Gebrem’s concentration. His eyes flew open, and the abi nearly fell from his hands. Angrily, the Leba rose and pulled the door open. Jass Eshana was there, unperturbed by the anger in Gebrem’s eyes.

  “Do my words mean nothing to you?” Gebrem raged. “I explicitly said I was not to be disturbed.”

  “Your explicit words mean a great deal, Leba,” the Dejezmek returned calmly. “But not as much as Alemeyu’s.”

  Gebrem scowled as Eshana continued.

  “The Emperor has requested our immediate presence at the Gebbi Senafa. Not just us – all the Degen Jassi, and the Imba Jassi as well.”

  Gebrem replied to the summoning to the palace with a sharp nod of assent, followed by a dismissive gesture. If Gebrem’s abruptness affronted Eshana, the Dejezmek didn’t show it as he withdrew from the cabin, closing the door behind him.

  Then Gebrem turned back to the Fidi, half-expecting him to have regained consciousness and be looking at him. But the stranger’s eyes remained closed, and he inhaled and exhaled in the slow rhythm of deep slumber. Gebrem probed lightly with his ashuma and found that the Fidi’s flame continued to burn brightly. There was little more the Leba could do now; he could only wait until the Fidi recovered on his own. And he seemed well on his way to doing so.

  Still carrying the abi, Gebrem departed. He was determined to return to the Fidi’s side as soon as he could – which would be as soon as the Emperor allowed, and who knew when that would be?

  Moments after the cabin door closed, the Fidi opened his eyes.

  4

  Leather reins rested easily in Jass Eshana’s hands as he guided his two-wheeled gharri, a light chariot, through the tree-lined streets of Khambawe. The well-trained team of quaggas – large, horse-like animals with faint stripes on their hindquarters – responded instantly to the slightest nuance of command, enabling Eshana to divide his attention between the route he was travelling and the drone of the voice of Gebrem, who was standing beside him. As usual, Gebrem was complaining about the Emperor.

  Street torches set at regular intervals splashed light on the intricate facades of the houses the gharri passed. Most of the houses were single-storied and flat-roofed, with exteriors painted in the colors of the gems for which the city of Khambawe had gained renown and of the flowers that grew in stone pots beside the doors. From time to time, the gharri was engulfed by the shadows cast by the towering obelisks that commemorated the greatness of bygone times.

  Clattering behind Eshana and Gebrem came an escort of soldiers in gharris of their own. Unlike the city’s meaner districts, where hyenas and beggars fought over refuse and gangs of thieves called tsotsis ruled the night, the streets the two Jassi travelled were safe. Even here, however, it was never wise to be out alone after dark; hence the armed escort.

  “He has not changed, and he never will,” Gebrem grumbled. “Even when we were boys, he would alter the rules in the middle of a game when he was losing ....”

  Eshana nodded non-committally. He had heard words like these far too many times in the past. Why the Leba had long ago chosen him as an unwilling confidant, he would never know; the two kinsmen had never been particularly close in other matters. But Eshana listened nonetheless, because for reasons of his own he, too, bore little lo
ve for the Emperor.

  “He’d say, ‘I will be Emperor one day and you won’t, Gebbie,” the Leba mocked. “Emperor of what? Matile Mala is barely a speck of what it used to be – and even that speck is getting smaller.”

  The gharri reached the circle of woira trees that surrounded the Gebbi Senafa. Thick-limbed and sturdy-boled, the woiras stood like giant sentinels sheltering the seat of the Matile Mala Empire’s power. A smoothly paved road led through a gap in the trees, and in the distance the lights of the palace glittered like a swarm of stars. For all its significance, however, the palace was not a towering structure. The spire atop its conical roof barely topped the crowns of the trees. Yet even the darkness of night could not cloak its splendor.

  Light from the Moon Stars cast a diffuse glow from the Gebbi Senafa’s silvered exterior. Its gates and octagonal walls glittered with jewels: the wealth of a vainglorious empire on display. Successive Emperors had augmented the splendor on the walls as they received tribute from all parts of Abengoni. Alemeyu, however, had added little during his reign.

  The palace gates hung wide open, and the entrance soon swallowed the gharri that held Gebrem and Eshana as they turned their discussion to what they might find it necessary to say at the council of the court. Servants took the reins of their quaggas as the Jassi stepped out of their gharri. The soldiers stayed where they were; they would be needed to escort the Leba back to the Fidi ship when the council with the Emperor was finished.

  5

  Ordinarily, the Degen Chamber of the Palace swarmed with servants, soldiers and supplicants. Of the multitudinous rooms and chambers in the imperial house, only the Degen Chamber was accessible to the common citizens of the Jewel City. There, the nobility of Matile Mala sat in council and judgment: deciding petitions and grievances, dispensing justice and determining the direction of the empire, all accompanied by rigid protocols that had long ago outlived their original purpose and meaning.