Mother and other smoke-walkers reported slogging through a border realm of enchanting freaks and monsters. Before entering Smokeland proper, they were harassed by lightning bolts and spears of fire. Jellyfish explosions and poison dust cyclones were also common. Worst was a cold, dark emptiness that seeped through skin, erasing thought, desire, and fear. To survive the border-void, smoke-walkers often drank a cathedral seed and cloud-silk potion to lift their minds above despair. This Lahesh potion eased the journey, but did not cause it. Even drugged, many people never made it through Smokeland’s border realms. Their spirit bodies got lost in the emptiness or stolen by high priest Hezram for his conjure. Their breath bodies withered to bone and then dust. Awa thought of it as poison desert in the mind.

The first time she wandered to Smokeland was in the company of bees. It was the day before her twelfth birthday. She and oldest brother Kenu had opened an elephant corral left behind by thief-lord raiders and let the beasts run free. Angry villagers who wanted to sell the elephants chased after them, but the elephants escaped. Father was outraged. Awa ran away from him and Mother arguing over true love and some other man’s child.

Awa followed friend honeybees as they flew sideways into the woods. Which woods, she could never say. The forest surrounding Father’s lands was ancient cathedral trees whispering to one another up in the clouds. Bronze-colored bark was dappled with purple moss. Feathery needle-leaves started out red and turned green with age. Cathedral roots were as thick as Awa and oozed an oily scent that made her dizzy. In her childish memory, Smokeland-terrain got tangled with the everyday. This first time, Awa was disappointed not to find a border of fiends, exploding jellyfish, and void-smoke. She landed in a field of wildflowers by a cathedral tree grove. She moved at the speed of thought, spinning endlessly around a drop of water as it slid down a leaf. In a blink she raced from riverbank to valley to rocky peak.

A beehive the size of an elephant rested inside a tree trunk cavern. Swarms of workers buzzed about, stingers hot with venom. Dancing distress, they smelled like ripe bananas. Awa saw no reason for alarm. Trees and bushes were heavy with flowers. The ground was a mosaic of petals. Deep-throated blossoms bulged with fragrant nectar. Inside the hive, the queen pushed an egg from her abdomen into a cell every minute. Workers spit nectar into the queen’s mouth. A thousand nurses buzzed over a developing brood. Drones were fat and frisky. Bee paradise.