Awa sat in a house for wanderers, a refuge on stilts for anybody on the way to somewhere. If you knew how to find this clearing, you were welcome. Dense palm-leaf roofs kept the downpour out. Awa ate until she couldn’t swallow another bite. Young Anawanama sat around her giggling and teasing each other. They smelled funny—unfamiliar spices on their breath and strange oil in their hair. They looked at her sideways. She wrapped herself in their rippling words and a mudcloth blanket. The former acolyte sat behind her wrapped in a blanket too. They could have climbed down the stilts and run away. Shadow warriors might have been anywhere, yet Awa suspected, nobody would stop them.

Yari gave Father sacks of jewels, but Awa wasn’t a prisoner or a slave.

Yari’s voice rustled with the leaves. “These people will take you in if you don’t want to travel on with us. They have a good life.” In the stilt house next to hers, young women sang softly and twisted sweetgrass into ropes. Yari played a talking drum, squeezing the leather strands that connected the heads and tapping just so to mimic Anawanama words. “Whatever you want,” Yari whispered.

“I don’t know what I want, besides—” going home. Awa couldn’t imagine staying with savages, even friendly, beautiful ones, her mother’s tribe.

Were Green Elders any better than savages?

“Don’t worry. When you know what you want, you’ll do it.”

“I draw a map every night in the dirt, to remind myself where I’ve come from.”

“Good. You aren’t lost.”

Awa fell asleep to the talking drum and bees buzzing in her ear. In the morning she thanked the villagers, touching their hands to her forehead. They were puzzled by the gesture of respect a daughter made to relatives, but touched their cheeks to her palms. Yari and the other Elders slipped into a cave passage through the mountains without looking back. Awa followed, going the direction she wanted to go.

11

Djola’s Map

The Master of Grain persuades northern tribes to share desert conjure: bunchgrass seeds that grow with little water; black aromatic rice and tough red beans that can survive a flood; midnight berry bushes that hold a hillside, bring light to the eyes, and turn sand back to soil.

Emperor Azizi closes mines that poison rivers. Tainted metals are illusion treasures. Azizi opens the dams and frees lakes and rivers. The Master of Water lifts the ban on mud and silt masquerade. He takes charge of waterwheels and oversees wind-and fire-works. He uses ancient Lahesh tinkering to reclaim deserts.

The Master of Arms makes sure no children go hungry. Food is rationed as during the last war—everybody lives on the same portions. Back taxes are forgiven. Arms runs the market. Who doubts his fair-mindedness? On market days, griots sing his praises and recall sacrifices of old.