Sulfur

By Arreana

The Conclusion to "Farro"

Khensa must redeem herself for the hardships she has brought upon her people. She knows what she must do. She will end the revolution she helped to create. No more running.

Bomani will never be king if he can’t return order to Waset. Without food, without wheat, the city will fall to pieces and he will be king of nothing but rubble and ashes. To get it back, he’ll follow the thieves to the ends of the world.

To the north, over the mountains and into the hidden kingdom beyond. Through a world of steam and smog and rain, and from there into darkness they’ll delve. Death will be their final obstacle, and His Eaters their final judges on a quest that might break them both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arreana
• Release date: Jun 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301421503

Book preview

SULFUR

Arreana

Copyright © 2011 Arreana Krueger.

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition.

To Bomani and Khensa,

sorry about this.

Your Friend

Table of Contents

Title Page

The Great Abyss

The Shapes of Memory

Cedar and Pine

The Axes They Wield

Forging a Pass

Discovering Ice

A Hard Goodbye

The Mighty Cadasa

Being a Greenwitch

People of the Mountains

Bathed in Smoke

Jumping the Tracks

The House of Bateman

I Own Slaves

Hamlif's Exhibition

For a Thousand

The News from Waset

The Gilded Cage

A Shower of Bluecoats

The Truth of the Abyss

Fool, Fool, Fool!

So Darkness I Become

Dirty Hands Grasping

A Tub of Ice

The World Above

Prince of Anarchy

Priestess of Blasphemy

The Distance Between Us

Death and His Eaters

Monarchy's Quiet End

From One Sea to the Next

Consequences of My Desires

A Visitor from Ferga

Preview: Evergreen

Also By Arreana

Acknowledgements

About Arreana

The Great Abyss

I’m not meant to ride horses. I’m meant to climb and jump and sing.

The leather saddle is hard, the breadth of the horse uncomfortable to sit, and my wool trousers chafe. We have ridden all night, down back alleys and through slums. We have slinked like weasels, our horses’ muzzles pressed closed, our wagon disguised as a tinker’s cart. We crossed the Nelios River just as the sun was rising, going in pairs with our heads bent against the rain.

We rode past the orchard, its soil dark and fragrant, and its branches laden with the last of the season’s lemons and peaches and figs. Beyond the trees the valley rises to meet sand and rock, and we climbed it single file. We rode until the great city of Waset was nothing more than a smudge on the blue and pink horizon, and then we continued until it disappeared completely.

Our wagon finds its path through the dunes, tracing the lines the wind has etched into the desert. By the time the sun is hot enough to burn a hole through the clouds, we are farther from the city than I have ever been before.

Ghari drives the wagon, and Mbiki sits beside him. Together they sing a song better suited for taverns. They are understandably boisterous; our eventless escape from Waset has made them recklessly jovial, but Bomani allows it. After all, who would think to follow us out here? We follow no road but the one nature has carved for us.

He rides ahead of us, our leader, his eyes scanning the yellow horizon, his dark shoulders squared off beneath the hazy sunlight.

It’s humid; the sand is still damp from last night’s rainfall. In a few days this whole area will be transformed into something unrecognizable—a green grass field speckled by wildflowers. Their lives will be short beneath the heat of the sun, but for a few weeks there will be vibrancy here. From the ground will spring a multitude of other things, toads, beetles, and shrews. I have never seen the desert in blossom, and I wonder if I ever shall.

It feels good. Shana rides at my side, her heart-shaped face turned to the sun. Her soft features, marred only by her splotchy birth mark, are rendered only softer in the glow.

The warmth banishes the chill of the night from my weary bones, but the ride does me more harm than the sun does me good.

I don’t know how you can take it. I slip a hand between my thigh and the leather saddle. My flesh stings.

Shana watches me fidgeting in my seat and sees my white-knuckled hand clinging to the saddle horn. You’re not used to riding, but it’ll get better in time. You’ll develop calluses.

I would sooner heal my injuries than tolerate them for that long. It’s like a mosquito bite I can’t scratch, nagging for attention.

My horse, a brown monster Jarai has named Fili, tosses his head. With a wordless gasp I take hold of the creature’s mane.

Shana claims I shall get used to it, but I don’t see how anyone can get used to such a thing. How does she ride with such ease? She’s like a dancer and her horse, her partner. It knows her every command, understands the meaning behind her every movement. She tightens her thighs and it surges forward; she presses with a knee and it prances sideways.

I can only sit on Fili, hoping that he’ll be content to simply follow the others.

What I wouldn’t give to ride like you.

Shana laughs. And what I wouldn’t give to climb like you. Lord Lateef told me all about it—how you leapt out his window.

I grimace. Not one of my better moments.

Bomani snorts. I had thought him too far away to hear us, but it’s obvious I had been wrong.

One side of Shana’s mouth curls into a smile, discreet and almost secretive. She turns away with a half-suppressed snigger.

What’s so funny? I demand from them both. I lean forward in the saddle, relieving the sores upon my rear.

Bomani chooses not to hear me, and Shana stifles her grin.

The clouds swallow the sun and once more threaten rain. At first it falls cautiously, a few drops that cool my burned face. Then the clouds build, and the first cursory drops congregate into sheets of water. It drenches us, and all around the dunes soak it up like sponges. Their muddy faces slip away beneath the downpour. The sands shift and slide like cresting waves. They beat at our heels, muck and water and clouds of gnats.

Ghari and Mbiki’s song trails off in the slop, and little Jarai, bundled up on the wagon bed, curls beneath the carpets and blankets with a sour frown.

The rain ebbs as the afternoon stretches on, and, when it seems to be thinning at last, Bomani draws us to a stop. I had been trying to doze in the saddle without success; the ache in my rump is impossible to ignore, and my precarious balance, a constant hindrance.

We erect poles and string up carpets and lay down blankets. We sit beneath our canopies, but the rain is a fine mist now, and it finds us under our covers and attacks. Sand sticks to my sores, rubbing against my skin and making it feel that much worse. Soon it will be night again, and the rain will likely fall heavy and hard, forcing us to move on.

Jarai stacks rocks in the corner of our lean-to, inventing a game with his fingers and a twig. A platter of dinner leftovers rests between Shana and me, gristle and crust and a piece of bone as round and polished as a silver dena. We’re cold in the dampness, and so we huddle close as night marches closer. We’re itchy in our wet wools, but at least we’re warmer.

I’m beginning to think I’ll never be able to sleep, when Bomani appears from behind the lean-to. He has been tending to the horses; horse hair and mud cake his hands. He bends near double, peering into our tent of carpets and blankets.

I want to show you something.

At first I think he’s talking to his little brother, but he’s staring at me. Show me what?

Come on, I’ll show you. He steps back out into the rain, his black hair slicked to his forehead as though he had dunked his head in a bucket of water.

Go, Khensa. I’ll clean up. Shana gives me a push.

With a groan, I pull myself tenderly to my feet. I hobble out into the clearing, the mist collecting into raindrops on my eyelashes. Mbiki and Ghari share a lean-to, smoking a pipe and saying nothing. The rain has dampened even Mbiki’s irritating cheerfulness. Finally something good to have come from the wetness, I don’t have to pretend not to hear him.

I look away; I won’t risk him catching me watching.

Why are you walking like that? Bomani wipes his hands clean down the front of his tappa, leaving a brown smear upon the cotton.

I might ask how you’re walking at all. I step closer, my legs bent at the knee and my soaked trousers clinging to my blistered thighs.

You’re really not one for horseback riding, are you?

Took you this long to figure that out?

Come on, we don’t have much time. Any darker and you won’t be able to see it.

See what?

The Abyss. We’re close.

The air rushes from me in a hiss. It seems rather a place you go—you fall—not a place you see. The Great Abyss?

So they’re close: Mama. Bata. Shalra, Bomani’s mother and the victim of the powers that course through my veins. Is that why he wants me to see it? To remind me of the mother I’ve taken from him?

He’s watching me, rain running in rivulets down his sharp face. Everything about him is sharp, his jaw, his brow, his frown, his eyes, and his voice.

I’ll go, I whisper. If Lateef the Coward had been able to descend to the very bottom, then surely I am brave enough to look upon it. In all honesty, I want to see it. It is the face of our troubles, after all, the resting place of us all, and the domain of Death the Eater.

Then let’s go. He gestures to the rise at my left, a shallow hill over which I can see nothing but the dusky skies. Before you lose your chance.

I must hurry to keep pace with his long-legged strides. My sandals fill with wet sand, scouring the bottoms of my feet and collecting beneath my toenails.

The hill has turned to mud, and it sucks at my feet. I climb it awkwardly, bowlegged and tired. The act of going up the slope tugs at my sores, and I groan as I take a moment to cover them with my hands.

Don’t rub at them. It’ll only make it worse. Higher up the rise, Bomani has turned back in time to see me massaging my aching rump.

I make a face, conscious of how ridiculous I must look: dressed like a man, my hair loose and dirty, my legs crooked, my face cherry red from heat and exertion. I drop my hands to my sides and shoot him a blistering glare.

I comb my hair away from my dripping face. No one will see us, right?

Who would see us? No one’s there.

You’re sure?

No one will see us, he growls.

I’m too busy huffing and puffing my way up the slope to say anything else. It’s not steep, and as we near the top the desert around us begins to unfold—waves of sand stretching against turbulent skies.

We’re almost to the summit when Bomani breaks the silence: They dropped my mother yesterday.

His back is turned; he can’t see me flinch. I think of Shalra the Queen, the woman I had killed with sanity and regret. Does Bomani mean it as a barb?

How do you know?

Sadiki told me before we left. Only a small procession. My father’s too busy with the rebellion to do much more.

I can’t tell if that’s bitterness I’m hearing in his voice, or if it’s the climb taking its toll. He has spoken so little all day that I can hardly tell. But why else would he show me the Abyss or tell me about his mother, if not to remind me of my guilt?

Here. He takes my elbow, hauling me up the last five feet. The other side drops into a steep decline, reaching towards the massive rock plateau below. I can barely distinguish it from the surrounding stone.

A half a mile off, but I can still see that it’s almost perfectly circular and over a hundred meters wide. It’s a patch of darkness in the middle of nowhere—an inkwell ready to be poured. Deep within, Death the Eater waits, His arms outstretched.

A shiver dances up my spine. I duck behind the rise, unable to stomach even this briefest of glances.

Bomani stares at it. Do you think the Eater really exists?

Yes, I say, my stomach rumbling. The Eater devours the bodies. Lateef confirmed it.

He only confirmed that there were no bodies, not that the Eater was eating them.

Why does it matter?

It doesn’t, he says in a way that suggests that it really does.

My mama would have been dropped into it months ago. Was she caught by the Eater and consumed, or had she hit the bottom and disappeared with the rest of the corpses?

I look back over the ridge, and there it is, the great window into the underworld. It’s still in waiting, like a spider upon its web.

Why had he brought me here? Why had I agreed to come?

I’ve seen enough, I’m going back. I push myself up, but Bomani’s voice calls me back:

Wait.

Why?

His brow creases, I can see the square line of the jaw as he grinds his teeth together. What I said to you back then. It was wrong.

What? I hold my breath. Said what? When? I want desperately to know. He has called me many names. He has accused me of many crimes, but I only desire acquittal for one:

He cradles his mother’s corpse. He’s crying. He’s sticky with her blood. He’s screaming, You’ve killed her!

Bomani’s eyes narrow, his lips purse, but he’ll say no more. Perhaps he is embarrassed, but more likely he is unhappy that I don’t understand. I want to be forgiven, but I’m not ready to ask for it. I’m not ready to hear him say those words to me again. You’ve killed her.

The Abyss presses upon my subconscious, a constant reminder of all those I have inadvertently sent there—all my fault.

Murderer! screams Shalra from the lofty railing from which she jumps.

Bomani is looking out at the Abyss again, and I sit upon the sand, unable to move.

Why did you bring me here? I feel his stare without seeing it. I don’t dare look at him for fear of the expression he wears.

He sounds more incredulous than angry. I thought you should see it.

But why?

Because you never have.

I don’t like it.

Another growl rumbles deep at the back of his throat. A bite in his voice hints at frustration. I’m not asking you to like it. I just thought you’d like to see where they took your mother.

Silence; the rain masks the raggedness of my breathing.

Bomani scoffs. What did you think I was going to do? Push you in?

I look at him at last. His upper lip is curled into a sneer, and his eyes are narrowed to slits.

I wouldn’t put it past you, I reply, folding my arms over my chest.

Stop being so dramatic. He springs to his feet. You’re over-thinking this.

I stand, too, and see the Abyss again. It pulls my eyes and needles my thoughts. It feels closer than before, as though the maw of the underworld has slid closer while my back had been turned.

If your father catches me, they’ll throw me in alive, won’t they?

Kicking and screaming.

I glower up at him, but he’s serious. I can almost see the reflection of his thoughts in his eyes. How long would it take to hit bottom? What would await me, Death the Eater, or the men that live inside, covered in dust and cloaked in the yellow light that Lateef had described?

The weather’s turning. It’s time to move on. Bomani turns me around by the shoulder, pointing me towards our camp. Through the rain, I can just make out our tiny tents, makeshift lean-tos clustered together, a muted array of reds and maroons and orange.

###

I stand in my stirrups. I teeter, but I would rather be unbalanced than sit any longer upon the sores. The first day was bad, but the second is infinitely worse. No amount of padding, be it blanket or pillow, is enough to cushion me from the leather.

It’ll get worse before it gets better. Bomani reins in his horse beside me. His eyes are the color of stone.

I grunt.

I know what you’re thinking, Shana declares from my right. You want to heal it with your Farro, but you really shouldn’t.

You’ll only make it worse. Bomani glares at me, challenging me. You have to let the calluses develop. Otherwise you’ll never harden yourself to it.

I grunt.

Tomorrow will be better, you’ll see. The second day is always the hardest. Shana leans out of her saddle, and her hand grazes my shoulder.

Bomani shakes his head. No, it’s the third day. That’s when the blisters burst.

Would you shut up? By the Eater! I hang from the saddle horn, smacking the prince wherever I can reach him. Shana laughs and Bomani smirks. Tears spring to my eyes when the skin on my thighs stretches and burns.

They tease me, but that night Bomani strips an arak bush of its bark, and Shana grinds it into dust on a slab of basalt. It’s mixed with the Chuka paste we’ve brought with us, and, behind the cover of our canopy, Shana administers it to my battered legs and my burning bottom. At first it stings, but then the pain fades like the ebbing of a tide. I sputter in relief, my face sinking into the damp blankets.

It’s not as effective as your Farro, but it’ll help.

I exhale. It’s amazing.

Shana lays a cool blanket over the sores. The prince says you’ll ride in the wagon tomorrow.

What about Jarai?

He’ll ride Fili.

So a four-year-old can ride when I cannot. I would be humiliated if I wasn’t so relieved. There are enough blankets and carpets and sacks on the wagon to separate me from the unforgiving wood.

I guess I’m not good at this traveling business.

You’ll develop the skill. You have had no need for it until now.

I had promised Bomani that I would be helpful if he brought me along. I’m supposed to be caring for Jarai, but all I’ve done is stolen his spot on the wagon—pathetic.

I keep thinking how comfortable Lateef must be, snug in his bed.

But we’re actually doing something, Khensa. You’re just getting used to the road is all.

I have the feeling that she’s chastising me, and perhaps rightfully so. I don’t mean to be difficult. Thanks for the medicine.

Of course, she says as she pulls back the cover. It’s started raining again, lazy drops thudding against the canvas cover of our lean-to. Mbiki’s laughing somewhere out of sight. The smell of pipe smoke wafts through the air. Bomani and Jarai squat in the center of the camp, their shirts off and prickly sponges in hand. They scrub themselves of dirt and sweat with the aid of the rain.

Jarai’s skin is white and soft and Bomani’s tanned and scarred. They are so dissimilar, these siblings—naivety and innocence in the former, coarseness and temper in the latter.

Shana tuts. They’ll catch a cold like that.

The scars on Bomani’s chest are as diverse as they are numerous. I wonder at their origin, at the stories each carries. What had given him the large hooking scar? The tusk of a hippo? The horn of a bull?

His eyes meet mine, and then he pulls on his tappa and walks away.

###

Still sore, my dear? Mbiki twists around, looking over his shoulder and down at me.

Don’t call me that, I mumble.

The sky unfolds above me, its stars like courting fireflies, its clouds turned to silver in the waxing moonlight.

We should talk soon, Khensa, about your mother. His hand reaches out for me, for the crown of my head. I roll onto my side.

Leave her be, Mbiki, Ghari says.

Shana laughs, Jarai whoops, and together they ride great galloping circles around the wagon. I envy them their cheer. I envy them their view on the first rainless desert night, the purity of the sand, the silver dunes. I have seen it all before, but through a fog of dread, pain, and terror.

Next to me, a barrel of water sloshes back and forth—half full. The sound of it throws me back into another time: I’m on a boat in the breathless night, the ocean tide lapping upon the hull of a mighty ship. The kraken stirs from its depths, its eyes as black as obsidian.

Ghari, how far are we from the mountains?

Four more days of this, I wager. His voice rasps; he has been smoking. Then another one or two through the foothills.

Then the mountains?

Then Kallum, where we will trade horses for ponies and water for wool.

And then the mountains?

Only if we’re unlucky.

I know what he means: only if we don’t find the wheat caravan first. Only if we can’t beat the northerners to the mountains.

The wagon bumps over a rock and I land upon my sores with a hiss.

Sorry. Sorry.

The Shapes of Memory

Bomani has a map. At night he drapes it across his horse’s neck and stares at it. He examines, too, the rotation of the stars, the position of the moon, and the shape of the land before us. The first night he checks it only briefly, confirming our route. The next night, it’s out a little longer, his brow furrowed as he deciphers the puzzling glyphs and lines. Tonight, five nights from Waset, he studies it with such consternation as to concern us all.

When dawn approaches once more we find ourselves a flat surface upon which to camp. I maneuver myself carefully from Fili’s saddle, massaging my cramps. I squat again and again, but even this cannot loosen the knots in my thighs.

Ghari helps Jarai down from the wagon, and it is he who asks the question we’ve all been wondering: Is something wrong?

No. No, I don’t think so, Bomani mumbles.

But as we make camp that morning, he takes the map with him when he steps away to relieve himself. He comes back with it crumpled in his fist.

We’re too far west.

Sire? Ghari drops an armful of tent poles to the ground, rushing to the prince’s side and taking the map from his clenched hand. He’s the only other member of our party with the ability to read a map.

We’re lost! Jarai covers his mouth, exaggerating horror.

We’re not lost, Bomani grumbles. We’ve just overshot the main road, is all.

I’ve been lost in the desert before; it ended badly. What are we going to do?

Now you’re panicking, too? He folds his arms over his chest. It’s not that big a deal. We’ll continue north until we hit the foothills, and then we’ll follow them east to Kallum.

He makes the mistake sound unimportant, but his jaw is clenched and his eyes are as sharp as flint. Big words aside, he thinks the delay will cost us.

How many days have we lost?

He runs a hand through his hair. Two days. Three?

Two, Ghari confirms, holding the map so close to his face that he has vanished from view. We’ll go faster once we’re free of this sand. We can dump some of the water, too.

Two days isn’t much. I try to smile. We can make up the distance.

Bomani says, Who knows how far the northerners have gotten? They could be over the mountains by now. They have weeks on us.

True. Ghari hands back the map. But then we are not burdened with thousands of pounds of wheat. If they’ve passed through Kallum, we’ll hear about it.

I’m hungry. Jarai tugs on my sleeve, reminding us all of the task at hand.

I’ll get dinner started. Shana goes to the wagon to scrounge through the foodstuffs while the rest of us fall to the rote task of assembling camp.

We’re good at it now—stakes in the ground, ropes tied double, carpets unfurled. Jarai uses a length of brush to sweep away the rocks and debris. He hums to himself, indifferent to his brother’s aggravation.

Bomani removes the saddles from the horses one by one, tossing them upon blankets with undue force. He brushes the creatures until fine strands of dust and hair fill the air. They snort and pace and whinny, but he’s deaf to their complaints.

I watch him from the corner of my eye as I go about my own chores: erecting my tent and laying out the blankets I share with Shana. He needs time, I know. That, and space, and—if he’s especially lucky—a little peace. I know his temper, quick but brief, from having experienced it firsthand too many times to count. I had, after all, once thrown a bowl of yogurt into his face.

Mbiki startles me from my reverie, squatting down beside me and relieving me of my staking mallet. He didn’t mean to lead us astray, poor boy. He’s taking it too personally.

The pitying crease in the man’s brow galls me. The muscles in my stomach tighten. Bomani hasn’t led us astray. He's being careful.

That may be, but he’s going to panic the horses if he doesn’t calm down.

Mbiki’s concerns aside, we let him thunder. He would have too much energy to rest otherwise. He assembles the lean-to he shares with Jarai, and then he paces circles around the camp, watching like a vulture as Shana and Jarai strip the smoked flesh of a perch from its needle-thin bones. He hovers over Mbiki’s shoulder as he strikes up the small brush and dung fire that will keep the flies at bay until evening.

I endure the critical stares because I know that Bomani has every right to his frustration. All this time he had hoped to avoid entering the mountains, but after so many delays, after so many days wasted out here in this blistering desert, a crossing seems unavoidable.

I’m boiling the water for tea when he at last takes a seat. The flakes of cinnamon, spokes of anise, and cardamom pods fill the campsite with the sort of warmth a fire cannot provide. It draws us all in like moths, weary and sore from our long ride. We huddle in close beneath our canopies, and all of us smell of smoke and dirt and sweat. Without water, each day cakes upon the last. I feel heavier and tougher than I had before. Calluses have formed beneath the blisters; I’m like tanned leather left out too long beneath a scorching sun.

It’s the small blessings that matter: warm tea, a sprig of mint, chamomile oil to rub upon my sunburns. I’m impatient for sleep. I want my tea and shade now that the sun is rising in earnest. My arm tingles as a line of Kah as violet as my eyes snakes from my finger. Invisible to all but me, it unspools towards the tin. I tie it to the copper and feel it as though it were a part of me—hot, solid, and metallic. No one else can see as I agitate the brittle, glowing metal, no one can see me encouraging the tea within to boil.

The air explodes with the smell of oranges and cloves, and the cinnamon bark unfurls like a morning glory at sunrise. I sever the connection with a flick of my wrist and pour us each a cup. I reserve mine for last; by then the tea is bitter, dark, and bubbling—the way I like it.

Ah my, does that ever feel good. Ghari gulps his down, complimenting me with a smack of his chapped lips.

Even Bomani drinks it all, and I like to imagine that it improves his mood.

Someone once told me that you can tell a woman by the tea she brews, the old steward says.

And a man by the songs he sings! Mbiki chortles to some private joke. I heard the same thing from Khensa’s mother. She always said—

Don’t do that, I snap.

He presses his lips together and the thought drops away into silence.

I’m beginning to think I’ve doomed any potential conversation when Bomani turns his tea cup upside down upon the sand. Well then, Ghari, what does this tea say about its maker?

Ghari grins, turning his own cup upside down beside the prince’s. I won’t pretend to possess the ability of to tell. It’s a fine tea, Khensa. That’s all that matters to these old bones.

Spicy. Shana laughs once, like a bell chiming.

I like the tea, Jarai adds, misunderstanding the context. It tastes like pudding.

Very funny. Very funny. I take his cup and all the others, collecting them and my blackened tin. I'll save the herbs and seeds and bark for tomorrow.

Laliya used jasmine—a single blossom added right at the end. That’s when the flavor was best. Mbiki stares up into the pink sky, remembering the taste of a tea I was never given the chance to try.

Laliya, was this the name of my real mother, the one who died giving birth to me?

You’re determined to force the issue, aren’t you? Bomani grumbles. He loosens the ties of his tappa before wrestling his khepesh and its sheath from his belt. He drops it on the blanket with a sigh. You’re so transparent.

Mbiki looks away, a deep frown darkening his wrinkles. He has hinted at my mother before, last night, and the night before, but not until now have I considered the possibility that he is trying to prompt me to ask.

Bomani’s right, I’ve just been too preoccupied with my sores and my burns to notice it before. When she’s ready to hear more, she’ll ask. Until then, keep your mouth shut, or—Eater hear me!—I’ll take your tongue just as my father took Umayama’s.

I would thank Bomani if not for the tiny bud of disappointment germinating within me. I can’t help thinking, Laliya. I want to know about her, more than I have ever wanted to before. The name is like a spark growing within, electrifying me.

Why had mama never told me the truth? Why had she never told me that I had been born to another?

Mbiki—my father, I have to remind myself—is looking at me. He’s hoping I’ll ask, as though by listening to him I would be forgiving him. But I won’t forgive him, not ever. Because of him the Purple Man had kidnapped and tortured me. It’s because of Mbiki that I’m now an orphan.

What was mama’s name? The question is out before I can stop it.

Mbiki’s answer is immediate: Laliya.

"Not her. Mama."

I don’t know.

How can you not know the name of the woman who raised me?

Because I never met her. I only ever went to the Sagebrush to see Laliya.

Sagebrush?

The Sagebrush? The voice is Bomani’s, but the hiss is so low and dangerous it could be a viper’s. I think you’ve said enough.

Mbiki is silent once more. The prince grips the hilt of his khepesh, and Ghari touches the back of his neck as though he, too, knows the significance of Mbiki’s slip. The Sagebrush?

I look at Shana, hoping for some sort of explanation, but she looks as confused as I.

Jarai traps a beetle with one of my teacups. His cry of delight breaks apart the awkward tension.

He brings me the beetle, cupped in his hand like a jewel, and plops it in my lap. I identify it for him—a glossy backed roller—but my thoughts are still with Mbiki. Neither Bomani nor Ghari will look at me. It must be something bad to provoke such a reaction.

I don’t like secrets, and I hate them even more when they concern me. This is my mother, my heritage. Why should anyone know more about it than me?

What’s the Sagebrush? My voice betrays my anxiety. The bitter taste at the back of my mouth can’t be attributed to the tea. The sun is warmer than it had been only moments ago.

A bar, Mbiki says.

Oh, Bomani sneers, "so you lie now. Self-serving bastard. He looks at me when Mbiki does not. His voice sounds like a sharp clap as he explains, The Sagebrush is a brothel, one of Sadiki’s."

It takes only a moment for me to understand. "My mother was a prostit… Mama was a prostitute?"

No one answers. They know I’m not really asking. My words hang in the air, as stifling as the sun. I get to my feet. I’m walking away, crawling beneath the lean-to’s canopy.

Mbiki yells at Bomani: You had no right to tell—!

Bomani growls in response: If you had only been patient we wouldn’t—

Jarai wails, Stop fighting!

Ghari demands, Stop this, look what you’ve done!

Only Shana dares to follow me. Her hands graze my shoulder, rub my back, but it’s impossible to appreciate their warmth.

In the space between misery and slumber is time to reflect upon the strangeness of my childhood. I was raised in the slums and yet taught to play the harp, taught to dance, taught to sing like none of my neighbors ever were. Now I know why. My skills are not the product of mama’s innate genius, but the passage of her own training onto me. Playing, dancing, singing, posture, language… These are the things she would have known, the skills with which she had eked out a living.

A single thought accompanies me into sleep: If I’ve been trained as a lady of the night, did that make me one?

###

The matter of my nighthouse mothers is not brought up again. We break camp early that evening, and Mbiki’s still red in the face from his fight with Bomani. Jarai pouts and shuffles around the camp, kicking at stones as we dismantle the lean-tos. Only Shana smiles as she passes out our cold breakfast of oats and dried figs. We eat in silence, standing around the smoking remains of our dung fire.

A drop of rain splats upon the back of my hand, marking the end of our two-day dry spell. Jarai is lifted onto the wagon and Mbiki and Ghari scramble onto their seats. We mount then, and I settle uncomfortably upon my old sores and aches.

The rain is little more than a drizzle, fine droplets that make it difficult to see. It comes and goes with the passage of the clouds, and we hunch and shiver against it, our woolen tappas and trousers barely protecting us against the chill.

On and on we ride, the wagon’s wheels sinking into sand, creaking across stone, the landscape lies unchanging for miles upon miles. The foothills are only days away, but I can see no evidence of them.

Look there, a fennec. Bomani’s first words all day. He’s pointing to an eastern rise, and sure enough, tucked into the sand with ears as large as a bat’s, is the tiny, beetle-hunting fox.

It sees us, too, its huge eyes glowing in the twilight, and it flits away, gone as quickly as it had appeared. I watch the point where it had vanished, hoping it will return. My childhood behind the Junktown walls had prevented such sightings. I have never seen foxes or jackals or the fabled lions of the south.

Have you ever seen an elephant, Bomani? I ask after we’ve passed where he had seen the fennec.

Yes. Cracked a rib for it, too. He touches his side, remembering.

Are they as big as they say?

Depends on what they’ve been saying. They’re big, yes, and mean. I was hunting lions when I stumbled across one.

Did it pick you up? I have seen only one depiction of the creature, from which I have formed all my assumptions. Graffiti on a wall, a gray creature standing on legs as thick as pillars with ears as big as ostrich wings. A great appendage protrudes beneath the eyes and wraps itself around a man. I remember the man’s face in the drawing as he hung suspended; it had been purple.

No.

Well then, what happened?

It charged me, so I tried to climb a tree. I wasn’t fast enough. It smashed me into the trunk.

You never were a great climber, were you?

He doesn’t seem to mind my smirk. He shrugs. I don’t usually have the need.

Shana rides in step with us. My brother had a similar experience with a bear once.

A bear? I am all astonishment. How did he get out alive?

He ran but… Well, he ended up falling twenty feet into a cavern and breaking his ankle. The bear didn’t follow him, but it took us nearly two days to find him.

Bomani scoffs. He shouldn’t have run. First rule with any predator: run and get chased. He should have stood his ground. He peels back his tappa to expose his scars. He points to one in particular, a long white gash across his right breast. This here is bear.

So, they are hunting scars after all.

This—he points to a larger set, rough and ragged—is lioness.

Shana and I are duly impressed.

We don’t have to probe; he launches into the story without hesitation, dropping his reins and gesturing as he says, The lioness was difficult. She was a loner, and it took me several days to track her down. When I did, she was sleeping. I threw my spear first, but it wasn't enough. She came after me, mad as that bull elephant. In a fit of panic, I didn’t draw my weapon.

Shana gasps.

I lean over. What did you do?

She grabbed me by the shoulder—he shapes his hand into something like a paw, putting it over the matching scars to demonstrate—and was about to bite, when I punched her square in the nose.

I guffaw.

What? he grumbles.

You punched a lion?

Just to dislodge her. It gave me enough time to finish the job.

You punched a lion.

Yes, what of it? He hears the laugh in my voice but can’t tell if I’m laughing at him or not.

That’s…amazing, Shana says. She, too, is masking a grin.

It’s the truth!

Of course it is. I wave him off with a grin. You’re as honest as they come.

He bristles. You say that like it’s a crime.

You’re blunt at times, Sire. Shana looks away after she says it. He’s a prince, after all, and she still treats him as such.

I, however, share none of her trepidation. ‘Blunt’ is too kind, Shana.

Bomani huffs. I say what comes to mind. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

I shift on my sores and sigh. "That’s because there isn’t anything wrong with that. We’re teasing you, Bomani."

I know. He looks away, convincing me he hadn’t.

Shana calls my attention back. She’s staring at the shape emerging from the horizon.

The Cadasa.

Its silhouette is black against the gray skies, its mighty peaks coated in white, as though they had been dipped in flour. The clouds roll over them, hiding them from view only to be revealed moments later, closer. They continue unbroken to the east and the west. They appear deceptively small from here, but seeing them brings home the gravity of our quest. If we can’t find the northerners between here and the mountain pass, then we’ll have to cross them.

You’ve been to the foothills before?

Yes, Bomani replies. He’s also watching the mountains. I’ve hunted in the wilderness north of Kallum twice.

And have you any good stories to tell?

He grins—a flash of white teeth in the moonlight. The best of them all. He touches the hooking scar at his side, gruesome, deep, but an obvious object of pride.

Elk? More bears?

No elk or bear could leave such a scar. This is rhino.

What is a rhino?

That’s all the encouragement he needs. With that, Bomani is telling us another story, more terrifying and grandiose than the first. He describes a beast larger than a bull, meaner than an elephant and stronger than a lion, with a great horn upon its head and nostrils bigger than a balled up fist. Like a hermit, it lives