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 love 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.
For this night’s council, though, pomp had been set aside. Only the eldest of the Jassi could recall a similar unscheduled gathering of the Degen Jassi, never mind one that included the Imba Jassi – but not the Tokoloshe, who were closeted in a conference of their own. That extraordinary council had occurred nearly a century before, when the Uloans had mounted a massive surprise attack that nearly overwhelmed Khambawe.
One ship from a remote land hardly constituted a similar invasion. Still, the sudden arrival of the Fidi after a centuries-long absence demanded immediate attention.
As the latecomers filed into the huge, torch-lit chamber, the tapestries that covered its walls stirred with their passing, lending an illusion of motion to the scenes from Matile history and mythology woven into the fabric of the hangings. The people were depicted as round-faced, large-eyed caricatures, a convention that remained unaltered over the millennia that had passed since its beginning.
On this night, Dardar
