Bujiji was on his knees before Jass Imbiah’s throne. His gaze followed hers as she looked at the barb-marks on the tube. Beads of sweat slid down the scars on Bujiji’s face. Now, he was beginning to regret the extra time he had spent with Awiwi, despite the pleasure that dalliance had given him.
“You bring I this tube with the mark of the ubia on it,” she said. “What these marks mean?”
“Them mean I and I almost not catch the tube in time,” Bujiji answered truthfully, with not even a thought of prevaricating. “But I still catched it before the ubia can. The message inside not harmed.”
That was all he could say in his own defense. Now, he could only wait for Jass Imbiah to proclaim his punishment.
But Jass Imbiah said nothing about punishment. Instead, she slid one long fingernail down the side of the tube. Her nail left only a slight scratch on the wood. Yet the tube split open like a dry reed.
She pulled Sehaye’s message out, unrolled it and read it. First, her eyes widened. Then, they narrowed. Then, her brow furrowed in a scowl, and the corners of her mouth turned downward.
“Them mainland blankskin find they a new ally,” she murmured, more to herself than to Bujiji or the guards. “An ally who come from far, far away.”
She paused and reread the message. When she spoke again, she still seemed to be thinking aloud.
“I and I must ...”
Jass Imbiah’s body stiffened as she broke off in mid-sentence. Abruptly, she shot up from her throne, her feet lifting from the ground before she caught her balance and began to pace the floor in front of her throne. Her movements were stiff and disjointed, as though she was no longer in control of her limbs. Her eyes rolled up, showing only bloodshot white crescents.
The others in the chamber looked on wide-eyed, for they knew that Legaba was now riding – possessing – Jass Imbiah. And they trembled inside, for even though Legaba was their one god, he was could be vengeful, spiteful – and unpredictable.
With a sudden twist of her limbs that seemed to wrench her body in several directions at once, Jass Imbiah tore off her chamma. Her naked form was lean, cadaverous, androgynous, ageless. Spider-scars covered her from head to foot. And on her skin, the spiders were moving ...
When Jass Imbiah spoke again, Bujiji and the guards covered their ears and collapsed to the floor in awe and agony, even as they realized that Legaba was riding Imbiah, who was his Vessel. Her voice was no longer that of a woman, or even a human being. It was Legaba’s voice: a voice that roared mightily through the palace and into the streets of Ompong, and from there across the whole of Jayaya and to all the Shattered Isles.
RETRIBUTION TIME! the Uloans’ god cried again and again through the fraying vocal cords of his Vessel.
RETRIBUTION TIME! RETRIBUTION TIME! RETRIBUTION TIME!
Throughout the islands, the Uloans heard the revelatory message of their god. Some people shouted in ecstasy and repeated the cry of the revenge that they and their ancestors had long hoped would “soon come.” Others wept in trepidation. All knew that the destiny for which they had waited so long had finally arrived. All knew that their lives had changed from this day; and that the lives of some would be lost when the Uloans gained their revenge for the evil the Mainlanders had done to what were once the Happy Isles.
4
Much later, alone in her chamber in Ompong, Jass Imbiah gathered her strength, which had been sorely depleted during Legaba’s violent possession of her body. The only light came from a ring of candles mounted in the skulls of mainlanders who had been slain in battles of the past. The dim light of the candles wavered on her scarred face as she mouthed words of power handed down from her ancestors. Her muscles ached, and her throat felt as though it had been ripped inside out. She concentrated on healing herself.
Among the Uloans, Jass Imbiah’s position was a combination of Emperor and Leba. Other Jasses ruled on other islands, but only Imbiah had the ability to withstand being ridden by the Spider God. Still, her power over the other Jasses had been more symbolic than real – until now.
Until Retribution Time ...
Even as one part of Jass Imbiah’s mind focused on the healing process, another ruminated on what had happened when she read the message from the mainland spy. During a possession, Legaba was part of her, and she was part of Legaba. She knew what the spider-god knew and felt what he felt. When Legaba rode her this time, he assured her the prophecy he had given to one of Jass Imbiah’s predecessors soon after the end of the Storm Wars was about to be fulfilled.
When Retribution Time comes, the dead will fight beside the living, and the final victory will be ours ....
Why now? she had dared to ask Legaba, even as she had screamed his message to his worshippers over and over. After so many years, why now?
Instead of telling her, Legaba showed her. She saw the arrival of the Fidi ship in Khambawe’s harbor, and she saw the pale people from far away, of whom the Uloans had retained fewer memories than had the mainlanders. The islanders paid less attention to the past than the blankskins; their main concern was the vengeance they foresaw in the future.
However, it was not the coming of the Fidi that caused Legaba’s declaration that Retribution Time had finally come. It was the new deity the outlanders had brought to Abengoni. Unlike the enervated, largely absent Jagasti, this outland god, whose name was Almovaar, was potent ... dangerous.
Legaba showed Jass Imbiah an image of the new god’s Seer: a pale, white-haired
