The Master of Money, Water’s twin brother, also had a sickly pallor and a hoarse wheeze as he agreed. “The price will only go up.” Hard to tell Money and Water apart. Both were Hezram’s toadies on Council, Ernold too, though he’d deny it.

Djola smacked the table and rattled empty plates. “You’d suck blood from our people, our children, to make spells for order?”

“Transgressors who offend the gods aren’t our children,” high priest Ernold said.

“Hezram does blood conjure with children in Holy City?” The Master of Arms tugged a red beard frosted silver. An incurable idealist, he burped sour breath and patted a belly poking up from broad hips, a dumpling burial ground. “Shame.”

“Yes, but…” The Master of Books and Bones worried crumbs on his plate. The knotty beard on his sagging jowls was egg white. His eyes were black beads. He hugged a coarse cotton robe. “Griot storytellers claim freak storms never touch Holy City. Inside Dream Gates, weapons or weapon-spells turn on the men wielding them.”

Grain snorted. “Half the city lives in huts, bleeding for these impregnable gates.”

“And the glory of god. Bleeding is an honor for the fallen,” Ernold declared. Grain laughed outright at priestly nonsense. Arms scowled. The other masters squirmed.

“Mixing blood and tree oil to conjure Dream Gates is illusion solution. Outside Holy City, poison dust still blows, devastating the land.” Djola was losing patience. “From the mines to the farms to the forests, we must work together to reclaim the land, change our ways.”

Money shook a mane of black hair. “We can’t afford change.”

Djola rolled his eyes. “You’re against change on principle.”

“Hope enchants you.” Water shook his own mane and guzzled wine. “You step in dung and see the next harvest, not shit on your boots. Transgressor blood is cheap.”

Djola poured water in his cup. “Cheap like a poison oasis in the desert.”

Water stiffened. He’d stab Djola in the back if he could. “Speak plainly.”

“That wasn’t plain enough for you?” Djola downed his cup in one gulp.

“How much spirit debt for a Dream Gate?” Books and Bones worried waist beads.

“Only the conjurer of the gates incurs a debt.” High priest Ernold squirmed in his chair. “He’d be an honored hero-soldier sacrificed to win a war.”

“You don’t believe in spirit debt. You piss on the old religions.” Grain poked the embers. “You burn sacred cloth, cut tongues out, yet people still believe.”

“War is brutal and pointless.” Arms picked goat from his teeth. “I hate war.”

“Are you joking?” Money and Water hooted together.