“Are they all dead?” the Emperor asked as the soldiers returned their weapons to scabbards tipped with silver.
Eshana knelt and touched the throat of the Fidi lying closest to him, a young, yellow-haired woman wearing loose breeches, an open shirt and a short, straight sword at her side. A faint pulsation fluttered against his fingers.
“This one isn’t,” he said.
The Emperor’s face remained expressionless. No one could tell whether Alemeyu considered that to be good or bad news. Eshana looked at the Emperor for further instructions.
“Give them all the help they need,” Alemeyu said.
“See to it,” Eshana told his troops.
Then the commander noticed a hatchway that led below the deck, and pointed toward it.
“And see if there are any more down there,” he added.
The soldiers hurried to carry out the Dejezmek’s orders. Their weapons were not necessary now, but the raw healing skills some of them had acquired on the battlefield could be of some use to these strangers.
Then Bulamalayo entered the proceedings.
“We wish to assist the ones who are – like us,” he said.
The Tokoloshe emissary was telling, not asking. Although the Emperor noted the breach of protocol, he only nodded. Precedent and custom meant little now. He had a feeling that the coming of the Fidi was a portent of a change to come. And he wasn’t certain he was ready for change of any kind.
3
In the meantime, Tiyana and Jass Gebrem had turned their attention to a lone figure slumped against the ship’s mainmast. It was a man swathed in a deep-blue mantle. His head was inclined forward, hiding his features. His knees were drawn up to his chest; it appeared that he could topple onto his side at any moment.
Then the Fidi straightened, rose to his feet, swayed for a moment, then stood fully erect.
An ambience of power emanated from the man, and both Gebrem and Tiyana recognized it as the source of the magic that had disrupted their ashuma during First Calling. They drew back in alarm, marshalling their ashuma for protection if necessary. Then they moved forward again.
No one else had noticed that the blue-clad Fidi was standing: another indication of the power that was beckoning – or compelling – Gebrem and his daughter to come closer. When they did, they saw a man well beyond his middle years, with a mane of white hair that began past his forehead and ended below his shoulders. Yet it was fatigue more than age that had etched the lines that scored a narrow face that was clean-shaven, save for a tuft of white beard that pointed downward from his chin.
His eyes were his most prominent feature – eyes the color of the gray clouds that brought the Long Rains to Abengoni. Those eyes stared straight into Gebrem’s, as though the Fidi were reading the Leba’s thoughts ....
Tiyana touched her father’s arm and gave him a questioning glance. Then her grip tightened, for the Fidi was reaching beneath the folds of his robe. Before Gebrem or Tiyana could react, the Fidi’s hand re-emerged. In it, he held a small, dark sculpture – a replica of the Ishimbi statues that lined the dock. Tiyana and Gebrem exchanged a look of astonishment.
The Fidi essayed a small smile. And he opened his mouth, as though about to speak. Then he swayed, as if the cost of his effort to rise had caught up with him. His mouth closed, and a moment later so did his eyes. And he slowly slid forward, his legs no longer capable of holding him upright.
Without thinking, Tiyana reached out and caught the Fidi. Beneath his robe, the man was sturdier than he appeared. But Tiyana was strong enough to manage his weight. Holding him close enough to feel his faltering heartbeat, she gently lowered him to the deck.
Now the Emperor and the Degen Jassi approached the mainmast. Before they reached Gebrem and Tiyana, one of Eshana’s soldiers emerged from the hatchway. A grim expression marked his face as he reported to Eshana.
“Are there any Fidi down there?” Eshana asked.
“Yes,” the soldier replied.
“Are any alive?”
“Some.”
As the Degen Jassi murmured to each other, the Emperor appeared lost in thought – or dreams of long-dead days of glory, when Fidi ships came regularly to Khambawe’s docks. Only Issa dared to interrupt his reverie.
“We cannot allow these people to die, Alemeyu,” she said.
The Emperor looked at her, but said nothing.
The Leba spoke then.
“The Fidi must have braved the Sea of Storms for a compelling reason,” he said. “We must learn why it is that they have risked so much to come here.”
Dardar Alemeyu considered Gebrem’s words and found no hidden agenda or disguised duplicity within them. He conveyed that evaluation to the Leba by means of a curt nod. Then he turned to Eshana.
“The Fidi will need food, water, and healers,” he said. “They are too weak to be moved from the ship; whatever they require to survive must be brought here to them. See to it.”
The Dejezmek touched his fingertips to his brow in salute to Alemeyu. Then he snapped rapid a series of orders to his troops. As the men hastened to carry out the Emperor’s wishes, Jass Gebrem gazed thoughtfully at the Ishimbi replica the Fidi still clutched in his hand.
During his boyhood studies, Gebrem had read about the replica. It was one of a set carved more than five centuries ago for a Fidi merchant-lord who had been fascinated by the originals. According to legend, the sculptor, whose name Gebrem could not remember, had sailed on a Matile ship to the Fidi lands to deliver the replicas personally. Then the Storm Wars struck, and the sculptor never returned.
Jass Gebrem looked down at the sorcerer, whose head rested comfortably in Tiyana’s lap.
You, my friend, I, myself, will heal, he promised silently.
On the dock where it had been left behind, the Emperor’s cheetah, Makah, continued to growl.
CHAPTER THREE
Questions
1
From the shining splendor of Gebbi Senafa – the Imperial Palace – to the sad squalor of its slums,
