Now, for the first time, he was in Almovaar’s abode on his own, without the Seer present to guide him. After much reflection, Gebrem had decided that if he were to be the true ruler of Matile Mala, it was necessary for him to encounter his new god without the benefit of Kyroun’s well-meaning intercession.
And he had questions to ask Almovaar ... more than he had first imagined, now that he had seen the shadows.
He waited. The shadows waited with him. Before long, an eddy of sand appeared in front of him, a tiny whirlwind no higher than his knees. Slowly, the spiral increased in size until it towered high above him, loftier than the stelae that rose throughout Khambawe, higher than the tallest tree in all the forests of Abengoni. The mighty pillar of sand whirled in front of Gebrem, blasting his face with heat, scoring his skin with granules of grit that stung him mercilessly. Within that pillar, Gebrem could detect the vague, shifting outline of a human form that disconcertingly resembled that of the shadows on the sand.
And still, Gebrem waited, along with the shadows. In his Realm, the god—Jagasti or not—was always the first to speak. When he did, Almovaar’s voice was wind and sand, sibilant as a breeze, yet hard as a stone cliff-face.
You are here alone, Almovaar said. Where is the Seer?
“Kyroun is not the Emperor of the Matile Mala,” Gebrem replied. “I am. There are things I must learn that only you can tell me. And those things are of greatest concern to the Emperor, not to the Seer.”
A gust of wind nearly blew Gebrem from his feet. Sand stung his face and other exposed areas of his skin, and he shut his eyelids tight, lest he be blinded by the flying particles. Still, he stood firm, refusing to acknowledge the sudden fear that was threatening to overwhelm him. And he wondered how long it would be before the relentless wind forced him to flee Almovaar’s Realm.
Abruptly, the wind subsided into a breeze that gently plucked the grains of sand from Gebrem’s skin and clothing. When he opened his eyes again, Gebrem saw that the shadows were gone.
You have cut the cord that bound you to Kyroun, Almovaar said. And you have woven your own cord that binds you to me. That is to the good. I have waited for this moment to come. And now it has. Ask of me what you will, Dardar Asfaw Gebrem.
“You have saved the Matile Mala from destruction,” Gebrem said. “And because of you, we will soon be as great as we were before; perhaps even greater. Everything of which I have long hoped and dreamed will now come true.”
He paused, gathering courage to utter his next words.
“But why did you choose us? Why not some other people, elsewhere in the Fidi Lands? Why did you bring Gebrem back to the land of his far-distant ancestors? What is it here that you want, or need?”
A lengthy silence followed. Gebrem waited. He knew time did not pass in the same way for a deity as it did for a mortal. He often wondered whether time even existed for eternal beings like Almovaar and the Jagasti ...
You needed me, Almovaar finally said. You still need me. For those who are such as I, it is better to be needed than forgotten and forsaken. That is something your Jagasti will learn soon enough.
Gebrem nodded. The answer was less than he wanted, but still more than he had expected from the deity.
“I have another question,” Gebrem said.
Almovaar waited.
“There is a price for everything,” Gebrem continued. “Before our Jagasti became powerless, we paid a price for the ashuma they gave us. And for what you have given him, Kyroun has paid. I can see it in his eyes, even though he does not speak of it.”
He paused, secretly dreading what he knew he had to ask next, and also knowing that he would never rest if he did not ask it.
“What, then, is the price we Matile must pay in return for what you have given to us?”
Gebrem steeled himself for another blast of searing, sand-filled wind from the god. It never came. Instead, the shadows reappeared, surrounding him until they blotted out the golden glow of the sand of Almovaar’s Realm.
Then Almovaar told him what the price would be. And when Gebrem fully comprehended what it was, he devoutly wished for the sand and the wind instead of what he heard.
2
In the heart of the Tokoloshe embassy, a woman was the center of all attention, even though most of the Tokoloshe and their Dwarven kin were elsewhere. The woman was on her back, on a bed. Her stomach was distended, and her breath came in short, choking gasps. She was in labor. And she was the first Tokoloshe woman to be in that state for a long time, even by that long-lived people’s reckoning.
Several other Tokoloshe women surrounded the one who was about to give birth. They were far from certain about what they needed to do; they could only rely on memories of ancient folklore, as well as their intuitive understanding of the birthing process, and the magic all Tokoloshe carried at their core. Yet for all their capabilities in a score of arcane arts, birthing was far more difficult for the Tokoloshe than it was for either humans or Zimwe. Tokoloshe pregnancies lasted longer, and their babies were larger in proportion to their mothers’ bodies, and thus much more difficult to deliver.
The woman in labor, whose name was Izindikwa, struggled to fend off the pain that lanced through her in unrelenting cycles. The others around her chanted birthing-spells that were, at best, only half-remembered. Izindikwa tried to concentrate on the ball of light that hovered over her, spilling pale illumination onto her heaving abdomen.
But her concentration slipped away from her. And she uttered a low moan that quickly rose to
