Behind the Degen Jassi, two separate groups sat on elaborately carved wooden stools. One of those groups was the Imba Jassi, rulers of the agricultural lands on the fringes of Matile that were once powerful kingdoms in their own right. Their garments were less elaborate than those of their urban cousins: solid-colored lengths of cloth knotted about their waists and shoulder-shawls, called harai, that bared most of their upper bodies. Their hair grew bushy and unbraided, and their weapons were their only ornaments. On their faces, they wore expressions of habitual ferocity, for they were the ones who had to directly face the threats to the frontiers of Matile territory. Their hard eyes showed their disdain for the soft decadence of city life.
The people the Imba Jassi ruled were part of the Empire in name only, the same way the Mala was an empire in name only. Direct governance from Khambawe was a thing of the distant past. Yet the historical and blood ties that connected them to the Empire remained strong, and they always attended First Calling, even though they no longer arrived laden with items of tribute for the Emperor.
The other guests were neither Matile nor human. They were emissaries from the hidden land of the Tokoloshe – the kingdom of the dwarves. Robes of gray, black and brown swathed the squat bodies of the half-dozen Tokoloshe delegated to attend the ceremony. Their faces were wide, dark, broad-featured slabs of hard flesh surrounded by manes and beards of frizzy black hair. Each of them wore a pendant of polished granite around his neck; the Tokoloshe valued simple stones far more than they did the precious metals and gems humans so avidly craved.
For years beyond counting, the Matile had maintained an alliance with the Tokoloshe kingdom, forged as a matter of necessity against their common enemies. It had continued long after those enemies had been vanquished, and the Tokoloshe were still welcome guests at Matile rites such as First Calling. But no human had ever visited the Tokoloshes’ underground homeland. No one even knew where it was.
As a sign of respect, Matile craftsmen had made the emissaries stools low enough to accommodate their short legs. The six emissaries sat silent and motionless as the rocks they revered.
There were no seats for the rest of the crowd: a brightly-clad throng of merchants, craftsmen, jewelers, dyers, incense-makers, stone-cutters, silversmiths, menial laborers and market-women who had roused their children early to witness First Calling. Still, their vantage point was better than that of the throngs of ragged slum-dwellers who hovered at the periphery of the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tiyana’s dance.
On a weathered platform carved with sorcerous symbols, one man stood apart from the rest, even the Emperor. This man was black-bearded, of middle years and stature, ordinary in appearance save for the saffron-and-white chamma that swathed his lean body, and the piercing power of his dark-eyed gaze.
This was Jass Gebrem, the One to Whom All Jagasti Spoke; the Leba, or supreme priest, of the Empire. Gebrem stood second in rank only to Dardar Alemeyu, but had influence that in at least one way exceeded that of the Emperor who, for all his royal prerogatives, could not communicate directly with the Jagasti.
Master of the few arcane arts that remained to the Matile people after the devastation wrought by the Storm Wars, Gebrem was the one who controlled the Calling. In his right hand, he held the abi: a long, flattened silver rod upon which the symbols of all the Jagasti were carved. The abi served as a focal point for the ashuma power he wielded.
So far, the ceremony had passed as it should. The drummers, arrayed on a wharf that jutted into the harbor, kept their hands motionless above the cowhide covers of their tall, cylindrical instruments. Behind them, other music-makers held long wooden flutes called imbiltas between their lips.
As well, the wharf held four young women who were so similar in appearance that they all seemed to be duplicates of each other. They wore long, ivory-colored chammas that left their slender brown shoulders bare, and head-cloths of the same hue that trailed down to the backs of their ankles.
These were the Callers of Nama-kwah, whose wordless song had filtered down to Tiyana. They were a four-birth; double-twins, an event so rare among the Matile that scholars and sooth-sayers were still debating its true significance. Among another people, the four sisters might have been put to death soon after they were born. The Matile, however, generally considered their birth as a miracle, a sign that the Jagasti had not totally forgotten them.
Jass Gebrem raised the abi, then lowered it. The time had come for Tiyana – and Nama-kwah – to appear.
3
The moment Tiyana broke through the surface in a shower of flying spray, the drums, imbiltas and Callers joined a new song – a song of welcome and rejoicing. This song was the true First Calling: the summoning of a new season, a reiteration of hope for the future; and echo of songs sung long ago by Etiya, whom the Jagasti first heard in the Beforetime.
The music of the Calling wafted out to sea and sky, and the mist followed the Callers’ voices, gliding away from the docks and returning to the sea that spawned it. The listeners swayed, eyes closed, captured by the evocative harmonies. Even the taciturn Tokoloshe were impressed by what they heard, though they made no outward demonstration of their reactions.
The drumming muffled the slap of waves against a battered hull. The flutes drowned out the sigh of the breeze through tattered sails. The singing hid the creak of weakened timbers.
And an overwhelming will worked magic that masked the approach of strangers through the mist in the harbor....
Tiyana paused on the water, standing on its surface as though it were solid ground. Mist flowed in translucent streams around her body,
