Jass Imbiah shivered in agony as the absorption continued – and, despite the pain, pleasure as well. But she neither moved nor cried out. When Legaba was finished, the web of weed was no longer visible. And the rest of the spider-shape in the sand disappeared.
Jass Imbiah’s eyes shone like stars. She stretched her arms and legs, and the air around her crackled as if charged with lightning.
Now, your shoulders are wide enough, Legaba told her.
Then he was gone.
And Jass Imbiah was ready to do what she had to do, free from self-doubt and trepidation.
2
Throughout the Shattered Isles, activity teemed. From the largest islands – Jayaya, Makula, and Omanee – to mere flyspecks of rock that were home to only a few dozen inhabitants, the Uloans labored to prepare for their invasion of the mainland. This would be a far greater venture than the sporadic raids they had carried out over the centuries since the end of the Storm Wars. This was Retribution Time.
The skirl of steel ceremonial drums echoed throughout the islands, urging the Uloans to redouble their efforts. Spurred by the knowledge that the time that had long been soon to come had finally arrived, the islanders spared no effort to carry out Jass Imbiah’s commands, for they knew that their ruler’s words were also the words of their god.
In crystal-clear pools, the huangi held rites of purification. Dozens of Uloan warriors at a time immersed themselves in the water while the huangi uttered incantations that washed away all doubts and fears, leaving only the desire to fight and die for Legaba, and to annihilate the mainlanders. If they died in that cause, their spirits would become one with Legaba, and they would live forever in Legaba’s Realm beyond the horizon of the world.
On altars atop the islands’ highest hills, other huangi conducted sacrifices. As the populace of entire towns and villages looked on in awe, the huangi slaughtered pigs and goats and huge, flightless birds, the only domesticated animals that remained on the islands after the Storm Wars, and bathed in scarlet streams of blood as the beasts died. For in the worship of Legaba, blood was power, and power was blood. After the sacrifices ended, the malignant ashuma of the Spider God coursed like liquid fire through the huangis’ veins.
In their forges, blacksmiths dipped the swords, spears and maces they made into vats filled with the sap of mwiti-plants from the Uloan forests. The viscous liquid clung to the points and edges of the weapons. Thus treated, the blades would leak poison into the wounds they inflicted, rendering them doubly lethal.
Carpenters repaired all the available warships and fitted new rams to their prows. New vessels were also constructed at a frantic pace. Even fishing boats were modified to hold as many warriors as possible. Not since the height of the Storm Wars had so many fighting ships been amassed for an assault on the mainland.
And in the most remote areas of the islands, the secret places in which the Uloans interred their dead, the bravest of the huangi performed the ultimate ritual of Retribution Time, one for which prophecy and many generations of ancestors had prepared them, the “soon come” time that had finally arrived.
The Uloans had long ago departed from the burial customs of the mainland. Their cities of the dead were not merely symbolic; they were real. Full-scale replicas of Uloan dwellings had been erected in the hidden valleys between the islands’ rugged hills. And in those dwellings, the Uloan dead waited.
Powerful ashuma kept the ubia-vines and other intruders away from the charnel-cities. The huangi unwove the spells of protection before they entered, then restored them to prevent any interruption of what they intended to do. The cities of the dead were built on barren ground.
Nothing stirred; the coral dwellings were wrapped in cocoons of silence. The families of the deceased did not visit their relatives after their funeral rites were completed, for they knew that the dead would walk again at Retribution Time.
Inside the houses, clay effigies sat on stools, reclined on beds, leaned near windows. The effigies, called jhumbis, were not intended to represent likenesses of the corpses they encased. Thick layers of dull, gray clay covered the bodies from head to foot, creating lumpish caricatures of the human form. On the faces, cowrie shells took the place of eyes and sharp shards of clamshell substituted for teeth. There were no other features.
Jass Imbiah had dispatched a single huangi to each city of the dead. The huangi inspected the houses, ensuring that all the jhumbis inside remained intact. They all were; not even the insects that feasted on carrion flesh would go near them.
Satisfied that the jhumbis had not come to harm during their long time of quiescence, the huangi went outside to altars that had been built long ago in anticipation of this day. Stripping off their feathered garments, the huangi reclined on the flat surfaces of the altars. And they raised long, sharp daggers high over chests incised with scars in the shape of spiders.
From far away in Ompong, Jass Imbiah spoke to them simultaneously, whispering a single word the huangi heard in their minds – now.
Then, as one, the huangi plunged their daggers into their own chests, and dragged the blades down to their groins, opening their own bodies in devotion to Legaba and Retribution Time. They shrieked the name of their god as they died. And their life-blood poured out of grooves cut into the altars and soaked the soil underneath.
Inside the houses of the dead, the clay that covered the jhumbis began
