A Wasteland of My God's Own Making Read online

  When Afua reached into her bag and pulled from it a length of stout iron, Djaga said, “Are you sure we should do this?”

  Afua shrugged, handed the iron bar to Djaga, and pulled out a second from the bag. “Is all not fair in war?”

  “We are not at war.” The pry bar’s weight felt obscene.

  “Did your father not tell you?” Afua used the tapered end of her bar to prize at the tomb’s seal. “The grasslands are always at war.”

  Djaga waited, watching the way behind though she was certain they hadn’t been followed. They’d come to a place that had been hidden for a hundred years. Only a handful knew anything more than the stories told around the fires, stories of warrior women who’d led the Great Reclamation of the central hills, bringing two generations of peace. And here we are, come to steal their glory.

  No, Djaga told herself. It wasn’t glory they were after, but a way to touch Sjado and Jonsu both. It wasn’t for themselves that they had come. It was for the good of the king and queen. For the good of the tribe. War stood on the horizon. It was their duty to do all they could to prepare. Wasn’t that what Djaga’s father had told her growing up?

  Well, here I am, Djaga spoke to his memory. This is needed.

  “Well, put your shoulders into it,” Djaga said, sick of watching Afua struggle with the seal. She took her own bar and drove it into the gap with a sharp, full-bodied thrust. When she leaned against it, powering her weight into the bar, she felt the door shift. A sigh of air was released from the tomb. It smelled of loam and decay and long-forgotten days.

  They descended into darkness. Well below the surface of the barrow, lit only by the sunlight filtering in from behind them, was a stone-lined space reaching out into the darkness, until it was swallowed by the gloom. On either side of a central aisle were dozens of sarcophagi. Wreaths of withered grass and flowers lay centered on their dusty lids.

  “Which one?” Djaga asked.

  “To the far end,” Afua replied. “The spear’s tip. The place of honor.”

  They counted as they went, a dozen, then two, then fifty, until at last they came to the end of the great, subterranean hall. The stories had told of five score buried here, but Djaga could see now that there was one last sarcophagus standing apart from the rest—the hundred and first.

  Djaga was suddenly fearful of approaching it. “What does it mean?”

  “It means that her story was lost to the passage of time, nothing more. Now quit acting like a scared little grass maiden and help me open it.” She motioned to the place beside her. “Unless you wish to weave baskets and paint gourds for the rest of your life.”

  Djaga moved to stand beside the last of the sarcophagi. Their leader, surely. Together, they pried the lid up. When they pushed it aside, the harsh scraping echoed eerily. It felt like an affront to the gods. Inside the sarcophagus, barely visible, were a pair of desiccated legs held loosely together with a cord woven from stalks of grass. Upon the toes were golden rings. Around the right ankle were three bands of gold.

  “Those,” Afua said, pointing to the anklets.

  Djaga swallowed. “You’re sure?”

  As Afua reached in and slipped one of the anklets around the foot, the cord of grass crumbled as if it were made of ash. “Stop asking me that.” She held the anklet up, admiring it, then took off the rope sandal on her right foot and slipped it on. When she noticed Djaga hadn’t moved to do the same, she snapped her fingers. “Hurry up, you moon-eyed girl!”

  Djaga took one deep breath. I do this for you, Sjado. She reached in and slipped the second anklet from around the frail foot but, unlike Afua, slipped it around her own ankle while hardly looking at it. That done, they quickly moved to the opposite side of the sarcophagus and shouldered the stone lid home. Djaga shivered as it boomed shut.

  “Let’s go,” Djaga said. “The air is pressing down on me.” She refused to run—the two-faced god would not be pleased if she did—but neither did she dawdle. Soon they had made it out and had done their best to close the crypt door. It was too heavy, though, and they had no leverage. They managed to scrape it only a little before they gave up and began heading back toward the village.

  Only then did Djaga realize she felt no different. No different at all. The anklet did not make her feel closer to Sjado, as Afua had promised. It only filled her with shame.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  In the fighting pits of Sharakhai, Djaga’s battle with Talashem continued. In the tempest of her swings, her awareness of Afua was nearly, though not completely, lost. Why she’d come to Sharakhai, and why now, were mysteries Djaga had yet to solve, but of this much she could be sure: it was a tale that could only end in misery.

  Talashem was no fool. He saw Djaga’s preoccupation and knew enough to press the advantage. His shamshir spun, dealing blow after blow. Djaga was barely able to fend him off. When he followed a block with a furious charge that knocked her off balance and drove the spike at the center of his shield into her shoulder, the pain and the blood brought her back to this place, to the dirt, to the warrior before her, to the satisfying heft of the club in her hand.

  For you, Sjado. All is for you.

  After blocking Talashem’s sword low, she spun around his shield and the head of her spiked club into his back. His armor blunted the blow, but he reeled from the pain and backed away, trying to regain his center. But Djaga advanced too quickly. She ducked a hasty swipe of his sword, kicked his knee, causing him to buckle, and drove her club against the side of his shield when he raised it. She put the whole of her body, the whole of her years of rage, into that blow. The release felt sweet. The club landed so hard it dented the shield’s edge and sent Talashem reeling.

  That one small opening gave her all the time she needed. She raised the club and drove it against the top of his helm. The blow rang sharply against the metal, but beneath it was the satisfying sound of a meaty strike. Talashem collapsed, his body spasming several times before he came to a rest, arms splayed against the pit’s dirt floor.

  The crowd raised their hands to the desert sky, cheering as one. Djaga’s breath came in great huffs, her rage still wrapped around her like a flaming cloak. She turned, examining the crowd, forgetting who or what she’d been looking for. The crowd thought it was for them, and their full-throated roar rose to new heights.

  Then her purpose returned. Afua. She was looking for Afua.

  But she was gone. Just as Djaga had been able to sense Afua’s presence earlier, she sensed her absence now. Afua was no longer in or near the pits.

  Djaga’s eyes swung to gaze at Nadín. None of the worry she’d shown earlier had ebbed. She’d seen Djaga’s frantic search for Afua for what it was, and was as worried for Djaga as she’d been before the bout had begun.

  How can I explain it to you? Djaga thought.

  She couldn’t—she’d hidden too much from Nadín—so instead she turned and headed down the cold, darkened tunnel.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Afua came two days later. Djaga was working on Nadín’s ship, Yerinde’s Needle, repairing the sails as Nadín had taught her. It was calming work, sandships. Always something to do. Always something to take Djaga’s mind away from Sjado’s hunger, which some days felt as if it were gnawing at her from the inside. The feeling never truly left her, but simple, hard, physical labor, was one of the most effective remedies. As was fighting. The days after a bout were always the most peaceful for her, Sjado’s appetite having been fed to some degree.

  The harbor’s kaleidoscope of sounds mingled with the hot breeze. The dull pounding of a hammer. The sad call of an amberlark hiding in the shade beneath a pier. Old Ibrahim telling a story, coins clinking as patrons tossed them onto the carpet he’d laid out for just that purpose. From the harbor’s opposite side came the shrill voice of a woman hawking her wares. “Elixirs, my lords,” she called to those walking by. “Elixirs made from the fabled dune drake, known across the desert for bringing a twinkle to your eye, a thing your lady love will tha
nk you for.” The western harbor was a ragtag assemblage, to be sure, but they were Djaga’s adopted family as well. She’d accepted them early, and they, with Nadín’s help, had accepted her in return. It was this as much as the work on the sandships that Djaga loved.

  Finishing a line of stitches in the canvas, Djaga arched her back, working out the kinks. Nadín stood not far away on the deck, waving with a smile to someone along the quay. She looked beautiful standing there, as much a part of the ship as the lateen sails or the skimwood runners.

  Nadín, catching Djaga’s gaze, stared down at her. “And what do you find so interesting?”

  “You.”

  Her stern look turned to a smile. “I am nothing.”

  “You are the brightness of the sun as it shines through the rain.”

  She looked as if she were going to brush the compliment aside, a thing she always did when Djaga showered her with praise, but the words seemed to die on her lips as she stared out to the end of the pier. Footsteps approached, thumping along the pier’s heavy planks. Djaga knew without turning who it would be; she had the same feeling as she’d had in the pits.

  As Djaga stood and turned, she was back in the grasslands, stealing the artifacts of the dead, ready to use them so that the gods might witness her. And they had, Djaga thought, a flash of dead bodies swimming before her eyes. She blinked and shook her head, focusing on the approaching woman once more.

  The Afua now heading down the pier walked with a bit of a limp, and of course she appeared older than Djaga’s memories—she was now on the lean side of thirty summers, just like Djaga—but otherwise she looked remarkably similar to the years they’d spent together in the grasslands, especially the smile on her face, the demon’s glint in her eyes.

  That was how her grandfather had always described her: that little demon. He’d been joking, of course—the sort of thing a grandfather said to get a mother riled—but it had stuck. It was as much a part of Afua as her broad cheeks, her rounded chin.

  “Good day to you, Djaga,” Afua said in Kundhunese.

  “What are you doing here?” Djaga replied.

  “I’ve been in Sharakhai for some time.” Afua looked over the ship with a pinched expression, as if she’d come to buy it but now found it wanting. “I’ve been meaning to seek you out.”

  “And only now found the courage?”

  “Who is this, my sweet?” Nadín asked in Sharakhan.

  Afua turned to face Nadín, but continued to speak to Djaga in their tribal language. “I’m surprised you haven’t told your little pet about me. I’m sure you sensed me in the pits. Are you embarrassed of me, Djaga?”

  Pet, Afua had called her, which meant she knew about the two of them. “You’ve been watching me….”

  “In Sharakhan, if you please.” Nadín took a step toward Afua with a look that could wither stone. She was not a tall woman, Nadín, but in that moment she looked every bit Afua’s equal. “And tell her to stop staring at me with that smug smile of hers before I smash it off her face.”

  Djaga moved quickly to Nadín and took her hand, easing her away from Afua. “Forgive me. Afua is my cousin, raised in the same village as I. We haven’t seen one another in some time. Afua, this is Nadín.”

  Though clearly annoyed, Nadín gave Afua a bow of her head. Afua returned the gesture crisply, almost coldly, then considered Djaga anew. “The news I have is for you alone,” she said, thankfully in Sharakhan.

  Djaga squeezed Nadín’s hand. “I need but a moment.”

  Nadín was wary, and tight as a bowstring, but she trusted Djaga. After a pause in which she regained her composure, she nodded and went belowdecks as if there were more important things that needed tending to. Djaga motioned Afua to sit along the gunwales, but Afua jutted her chin toward the end of the pier. “Let’s take to the sand.”

  Djaga shrugged and followed her. They took the ladder down and strode away from the ship, making for the center of the harbor’s expanse. “Now what is it you want?”

  “Want?” Afua laughed, a bark that rose above the wash of sounds around them. “I’m here to help you, cousin.”

  “Help me? My life was ruined because of you.”

  “If I recall it rightly, you were right by my side when we entered the barrow. You took the pry bar from my hands willingly!”

  Djaga had never forgotten the shame of what she and Afua had done, but it hadn’t felt so deep as this, not in a long time, not since coming to Sharakhai. Djaga stopped walking. “You’ve come to help, you say, but first you wish to rub my nose in my failures?”

  Afua stopped and turned, the skirt of her purple dress flaring as she did so. “Forgive me.” She took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “It feels like yesterday. I’m sure it does for you as well. But I have come to help you. I’ve come to release you from the torture you’ve endured.”

  There was always a gnawing feeling within Djaga. With the rage she’d expended in the pits the other day, it was little more than a simmer, but when Afua had said these words, the feeling began to roil once more. “Release me from what?”

  “Don’t be thick. I know what’s plagued you. You know the same of me. The two-faced god, Djaga. Sjado’s rage lives inside me, Jonsu’s peace ever out of reach. Can you say it isn’t the same for you?”

  Though it felt strange to admit it, Djaga felt exactly the same. She’d never told anyone. Not the people of her village when they’d held her for trial. Not Osman, the owner of the pits. Not Nadín. Even here, standing before a woman who knew her tale, who knew her shame, Djaga couldn’t say it aloud. It felt too much like blasphemy.

  “What of it?” Djaga finally asked.

  “You can be free of it. I’ve found a way!”

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  A storm threatened the horizon as Djaga and Afua jogged over the grasslands. Over the stand of low trees that marked the northern edge of their village, a twisting column of smoke rose into an overcast sky. The scent of wood smoke came to them, and roasting gazelle, one small portion of the feast that would be consumed when the rites of passage had been completed.

  As they reached the dirt road and passed through the stone archway, people began waving to them from the doorways of their huts. “Be stout,” old Elu called to them, her gray hair wild, her smile even wilder. “Be stout and you’ll win the heart of the goddess.”

  Afua and Djaga shared a look. Afua smiled, but it was forced. She’d said over and over that there was no harm in touching the artifacts of the fabled warriors—that we would risk so much will prove our passion—but even she must be having doubts by now.

  Soon they’d arrived at the village center. Hundreds moved about, readying all for the ritual and the feast to follow. Tall wooden posts had been freshly painted in red and white and yellow. Hanging from each was a horsetail dyed indigo and blue. The wind played with them, made them flutter in alternating rhythms as the southern storm pressed closer. The mock battlefield—little more than a shallow depression—held a number of the other aspirants already. Djaga’s uncle and brother were talking with one another at the edge, along with others from the temple.

  “And there she is,” her uncle said, arms spread wide. They hugged. His tall headdress, made of bright beads and painted quills, rustled and clicked as he moved. He introduced her to others from nearby villages, who had come to witness her in her attempt to join the temple of the two-faced god. Her brother brought her fermented horse milk and bade her drink it quickly. It would make her shine more brightly to the gods, he said. She took it, not because she believe him, but because she thought it might quell her nerves.

  Her ankle burned from the weight of the gold wrapped around it. She and Afua had stopped on the run back home and covered them with mud, but to Djaga it looked like a child had done it. How could they not see what it truly was? How could they not point and name them blasphemers?

  Djaga nearly went to tell her uncle to confess it all, but just then Afua strode up to her and gripped her b
y the elbow, holding her in place. “Will you calm yourself?”

  “I want to take it off, Afua. The shame of it burns my skin.”

  “We did it for a reason. Now find your nerve, girl. Sjado rewards the bold.”

  Time and again, the old tales spoke of Sjado winning at any cost—against mighty Hiwe, against swift Pemaru, against even Onondu, using his own tricks against him—before the aspect of the warrior faded and peaceful Jonsu rose to prominence once more.

  “It still feels shameful.”

  Afua’s face grew angry. She gripped Djaga’s arm to the point of pain. “Bury your shame, girl, and find your heart. You’ll not deny me this day.” She softened a moment later, and nodded to Djaga’s uncle. “This is as much for him as it is for you. You know as well as I how his heart will swell with pride when the mark of the warrior is cut into your skin.”

  She watched her uncle, who had become like a father to her and Idé after their true father had died five years earlier in their tribe’s ceaseless border skirmishes with the neighboring Halawari. Just then he was smiling as the King of a nearby tribe told a story, motioning to his daughter, who had been a member of Sjado’s temple for years now. Djaga could tell her uncle was smiling not for the King, who was a blowhard if Djaga had ever heard one, but for how proud he would be should Djaga be accepted as well.

  “I just want this day to be done.”

  “It will all be over soon.” Afua smiled. “In the flit of a hummingbird’s wings.”

  The next hour passed like a dream. Greeting the dozens who’d traveled from leagues all around. Taking the sacrament of goat’s blood. Being painted with yellow clay by the high priestess herself, a woman with green eyes that seemed to pierce Djaga’s heart.