Shadow Speaker, page 22
“Stay down!” Jaa shouted, then rushed from their hiding place. Ejii coughed and sputtered, her eyes watering. She heard more clangs. There was so much noise from the wasps and the people singing to them and it was so dark that no one else seemed to register that something was happening. Jaa came back unharmed but looking very angry.
“They’re shooting seed compacts,” she said. She cursed.
“What’s . . .” Ejii coughed.
“You were lucky. That seed should have torn your chest open, and if that didn’t finish the job, the poison from its touch would have two minutes later,” she said. “They’ve been following us since we left. One of them tried to get on that mutatu right behind us. He was dressed as a woman. Stupid man, mutatu can always tell a man from a woman. I thought they were just watching us. I knew that bastard would try something. I just thought he’d do it at the meeting! What’s the point of killing me out here?!”
Ejii was horrified. She was in the middle of an assassination attempt. And I thought I had to stop Jaa from killing the chief! she thought. Everyone’s gone mad!
“Let me peek,” Ejii said, rubbing her chest.
Jaa looked at her and then nodded. “Stay low,” she said.
She slid on her belly, ignoring her chest’s soreness, and looked around the tree. She could see several of them. They wore black pants and tops and carried what looked like metal rings. They ran from tree to tree, assuming that they had the cover of darkness.
“There are about ten,” Ejii said. “What are those rings they carry?”
“Compact seed shooters,” Jaa said. “And they’ve probably got pheromone disks. You’ll see now. Earth people don’t have a chance in hell against these weapons. They can make the very trees and ground attack you. If they declare war, we’re done for.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Not we,” Jaa said. “I’ll fight, but you run. If they take me, you take my place.”
“Run where?” Ejii asked. “You’re alone!” She began to shudder, panicked. Her eyes fell on the ground. She grabbed a stick. It was too small. She grabbed another.
The man was silent as he sprang from the bushes and ran at Jaa with some sort of weapon raised. He swung it at Jaa, who dodged it and swung her sword, slicing the man in the belly. Ejii stumbled back, nauseous. She blinked as the world went metallic.
“They’re not after you, Ejii,” Jaa said, kicking the man aside.
Something whizzed past Ejii’s ear. She dropped to the ground as she saw another man burst from the trees on Jaa’s right.
“Jaa!” she shouted, grabbing whatever she could. “He’s coming.”
She swung the branch. Heavy and thick, it smashed against the man’s face, taking him by surprise. She felt something painfully snap in her own chest and she fell with the man. When she came back to herself, her mind was filled with the song of the wasps, and she and Jaa were still behind the tree. She tasted blood in her mouth.
“Get up,” Jaa was saying. Ejii’s face burned as if she’d been slapped. “Whatever happens to you because you’re a shadow speaker, you have to endure it and keep running. I can handle these men.”
“I’m okay,” Ejii said, getting to her feet. But even that was painful. She rubbed her chest. It felt as if someone had kicked her there with a shoe made of steel. She looked at the man she’d hit. He was either out cold or dead. Then she looked at the man Jaa had taken on. He was definitely dead, lying in a growing pool of blood. Some tiny green long-snouted animal was already sipping it up. She looked away, disgusted.
“What do you see?” Jaa asked.
Ejii scanned around them. The bush worshippers were still worshipping, the bushes were still eating the wasps, the wasps were still singing the song of Allah, and the flower in the center was still at peace. In the forest around, she spotted several dark-clothed assassins biding their time.
“That’s the only way,” Ejii whispered, pointing behind them. “Can you see?”
“I’ll manage,” Jaa said. “No matter what happens to me, you go. You have a duty.” She paused. “Ejii, do you understand me?”
Ejii rubbed her chest but nodded.
“We run on your command,” Jaa said, wiping her sword on her pant leg.
Ejii waited a moment for an assassin to hide behind a tree. They were almost surrounded, except for from behind. She was glad that Dikéogu had stayed behind. At least one of us will be alive by daylight, she thought. “Okay,” Ejii whispered. “Go!”
They burst from the bushes, slapping branches aside and jumping over fallen trees. More deadly seeds tore at leaves and tree trunks as they ran. Just a second before it happened, Ejii spotted two assassins in the trees above. Then there was a spraying sound and she heard Jaa curse. She chanced a look behind her and saw that Jaa had stopped running, wiping at her clothes. Ejii stopped, too.
“No!” Jaa shouted at her. “What did I tell you! Keep going!”
A chittering sound came from nearby.
“Ejii, go!”
“It’s coming from over there,” Ejii shouted. “On your right!”
Jaa looked in that direction, her sword raised. Then Ejii saw the first creature come bounding from a bush, teeth bared, long sharp claws ready. Jaa swiped her sword, slicing the large rabbit-like creature in half. Then a hundred more came at her and Ejii couldn’t see anything but Jaa’s sword and fur flying. Behind the battle, Ejii could see more assassins coming. “Go!” she heard Jaa scream at her.
Ejii turned and ran. Her face was wet with sweat and panicked tears. When she couldn’t run anymore, she walked. She had no idea where she was and she was exhausted and she was afraid to stop for fear of something biting, scratching, or eating her. All she’d come across were small rodents, insects, spiders, and birds, but who knew what was poisonous and what was not? The one consistency was the parrots. Red, blue, green, all colors. And as she progressed, she saw more and more of them.
“What are you looking at?” she asked two parrots who had the nerve to sit on a branch the level of her face and stare at her as she passed. They didn’t answer. She cursed as her nose started bleeding and her head started pounding. I’m in real trouble, she thought. But her trouble wasn’t as bad as Jaa’s. “They killed her. The chief of the Ooni Kingdom had her killed,” she bitterly said to herself out loud.
She let her guard down, Ejii thought. I infected her with stupid ideas that I don’t even believe. She started sobbing as she trudged along. Then she stopped and picked up a large stick. She had a duty, and if anything tried to stop her, she’d bludgeon it to death.
She didn’t know how long she walked. Her stomach grumbled and she didn’t care. She still had the egg stone in her pocket and she didn’t care about that either. Jaa was dead and she had a duty. It was her job to represent Earth at the Golden Dawn Meeting. But she couldn’t do that because she was lost in a Ginen forest, not a village in sight. Not even in her sight. She considered climbing a tree to see above the forest, but the trees around her where so tall and their lowest branches were too high, and she was afraid of what might live in them.
She came to a grassy field and sighed with relief. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic amongst the tightly packed trees. But she was still weary. Grassy fields might mean snakes. She threw some rocks in hopes of scaring any snakes off. Some sort of round green and white amphibious-type creature about the size of her head scrambled away. It made a clicking-croaking sound as it did so. It behaved so flabbergasted and looked so terrified that Ejii couldn’t help tiredly laughing.
She walked slowly into the field, slapping the area ahead of her with her stick. When she reached the field’s center, she looked at the sky. Her mouth fell open. The night sky wasn’t the deep blue of Earth and Ginen; it was purple-blue and there were two moons in it. One was full and one crescent.
“Wha . . . . ” was all Ejii could say. The great merge, she thought. And then she started to panic. Had she walked into another place? She felt movement in her pocket. She plucked out the egg stone and it was warm to the touch. Something was vibrating inside it.
Three parrots landed in a tree on the edge of the field. As Ejii watched, more of them arrived. And then more, and then more. Soon all the trees were full of parrots of many different colors. Suddenly, all the birds flew into the air. She grasped her stick more tightly, bending her legs, ready to strike when the time came. The birds intuitively flew in the same direction, squawking loudly. Spiraling up into the sky and then arching back to the bottom.
“Go back to where you came from, beast!” the flock of birds said. The unified voice rattled in her brain. “You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here!”
Ejii clasped the egg stone and raised her stick. “Yet I saw you where I came from. Wasn’t that your kind I saw near the Burning Bushes?” She paused, noticing that she spoke in her own language of Hausa, not the language of Ginen. “I go where I please.”
“Go back to where you came from.”
The birds cycled faster, their motion producing a rhythmic noise that affected her senses, then several flew at her. She slapped at them with her stick and they came faster, their feathers slapping at her skin. Their noise suddenly increased and she felt a painful popping in her ears, an ache in her forehead, and a wave of nausea. She crumbled to the ground. As her world went fuzzy, her hand still grasping her stick, amidst the attack of birds, she thought she saw something in the sky. Something yellow.
She felt the egg stone, still vibrating, slip from her fingers. The queen bird, she thought. The first to taste me. I hope she chokes on my eyes. Then she knew nothing.
• • •
Jaa?! she thought frantically. Are you . . . The wind. She turned her head and found her face buried in a mass of brown bird feathers that smelled of crushed flowers and oil. They were rough against her face. Her arms were around its head. She clasped more tightly when she saw that the other birds were flying high above the trees. She raised her head and looked more closely at the bird’s feathers. She could see individual strands. Hair. Another bird with feathers like hair? She read the bird for a moment. Flight. Trees. Deserts. Oceans. A thousand lands . . . She pulled away, dizzy.
“You awake?” The mass of hair turned and she found herself looking into the dark brown face of a man. She almost let go. He clasped her arms more tightly. “Good. You’ve been out for a few minutes.” He paused. “Don’t worry. You’re safe.”
She saw him for what he was. A windseeker. He wore yellow pants and a long yellow top. Like any windseeker, he had the iconic seven long thick dreadlocks, called dadalocks.
“You saved me?” she asked groggily. Her head ached thickly and she groaned.
“My name is Sunrise. I’m a friend of Buji’s, but it was the idiok baboons who learned of what would happen.” He paused. “You listening? Don’t go back to sleep.”
“I’m here,” she mumbled.
“The idiok can see bits of the future. You’ll meet them. They told me you’d be where you were. I found you just in time.” He sighed. “They’d have torn you apart. It’s a greater problem.”
Ejii closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Talk, Ejii. Until I can get you back,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot. Oh, here.” He pushed something warm into her hand. The egg stone. “What is that?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Ejii said, relieved.
“Whatever it is, it saved us. It was making so much noise that the parrots flew off you for just long enough for me to grab you.”
She looked at the egg stone, now quiet in her hand. She yawned. “Why do those parrot people hate humans so much?”
“Not just humans,” he said. “Earth humans. They can smell the difference. The Agonians have officially allied themselves with the Ooni chief.”
“Why does the Ooni chief hate Earth people so much, then?”
“Because of their contamination, of course,” Sunrise explained. “Pollution.”
“I understand that, but nothing’s really happened yet.”
“Eh? Says who? Didn’t Jaa tell you about the envoy she sent a few years ago?”
“No.”
Sunrise laughed bitterly, maneuvering slightly in the air. Ejii could see the Ooni Palace in the distance. “Jaa is a proud woman. Her kind rarely talks about their failures.”
Ejii snapped back to alertness. Jaa is dead, Ejii thought. Torn apart by those monsters. I have to take her place. “Tell me,” she said.
“Two years ago, to improve relations with Ooni, Jaa sent a group of men to meet with the Ooni chief,” Sunrise said. “These men were ignorant fools, especially the leader, Atachee. I don’t know why Jaa hired him. Maybe she wasn’t directly involved in the process. What I really can’t understand is why the magician let them into Ginen.”
“He’s tricky,” she said.
“Indeed,” he said, nodding. “Well, they came driving their large trucks full of ‘Earth’s finest.’ The moment those trucks crossed into Ginen, they began a path of destruction. The vehicles spewed smoke and fumes, poison to this land. If I were to take you over the area—its not far from here—you’d see how all that land has turned to ash. The soil can’t grow even a fungus! There’s no place in all Ginen where a flower cannot grow! I have seen every inch of this planet and no such place exists! Until that envoy came.”
“But I don’t understand,” Ejii said. “Even Earth can deal with pollution.”
“That’s the point,” Sunrise said, annoyed. “Ginen is a clean place; it has no tolerance for that poison.”
Ejii was reminded of something she’d read about the Native Americans in the United States. How they had no tolerance for alcohol, so when the Europeans brought it to them, it wreaked a terrible havoc on their bodies. Whereas the Europeans could guzzle their whiskey like water and not be so pointedly affected. “I think I understand,” she said.
“Good,” Sunrise said. “Anyway, the chief was so angry that before the envoy could make it to the palace he had his men slaughter every single one of those Earth people. And he had all that they brought burned to waste. I know that Jaa had specifically ordered Atachee to never bring such vehicles to Ginen. But Atachee wanted to impress the chief with something the chief had never seen before. He’d never been to Ginen. He didn’t realize our technology put Earth technology to shame a thousand times over. Now, since the great merge, the chief has decided to act in the offensive.
“War has never solved anything and the Earth people will fight back. We have better weapons, but look what just one of their vehicles did to Ginen soil. Earth could use that as a weapon. Jaa must convince the chief of peace.”
Ejii didn’t know what to say or think. With Jaa dead, then this was up to her.
“What did the baboons say about Jaa?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Why?”
“You don’t know?”
“I was only told where to find you,” Sunrise said. “What? What is it?”
“The reason I was there was because Jaa and I were attacked. Jaa said they were sent by the chief’s assassins. We were going to see the Burning Bushes . . .”
“Eh?! Attack? Is she . . .”
“I’m sure of it,” Ejii said, a sob suddenly escaping her chest.
“Chey, this can’t be! I have to get you back!” he said. “Close your eyes if you have to.” And before Ejii could say anything more, Sunrise grabbed her arms, dropped many feet, and picked up incredible speed. Ejii didn’t close her eyes, but she did scream.
CHAPTER 23
Dawn
“Ejii!” Dikéogu screamed as Sunrise set her on the ground outside the house.
He came running and Ejii, despite her sadness and the pain in her chest, smiled. He hugged her until she coughed. “What happened?” he asked. Then he noticed Sunrise.
“Is anyone here?” Sunrise asked Dikéogu.
“Inside.”
They hurried inside and Ejii stopped at the entrance. Sitting on the chair in the middle of the room was Jaa. Her clothes were torn and she had scratches on her face but she was very much alive. She grinned when she saw Ejii. Aside from Buji, his parents, and Gambo, there was a woman with skin lighter than the Arabs. If it weren’t for her long green dress, many long brown braids, and three gold nose rings, Ejii would have thought that she was from the United States or Europe. The woman dabbed Jaa’s bleeding arm.
Ejii was acutely aware of everyone watching her. “I thought you were . . .”
“I’m not,” Jaa said. “Takes more than a few pheromone-enraged slashrabbits to take me down.”
“I saw a lot more than a few,” Ejii said.
“Are you sure it was the chief who sent them after you?” Dikéogu asked. “I mean, maybe it was terrorists or . . .”
“It was the chief,” Jaa said. “One of the assassins told me so. Of course, I had to squeeze him a bit first.”
“Plus his solders have obvious traits,” Buji said, bitterly.
Jaa took Ejii’s hand. “I’m glad to see you.” She paused. “Just as you had to leave me, I had to leave you. All I could hope was that you’d find your way back, as I did.”
Ejii nodded. “I understand.” And she did.
“Meet Jory,” Jaa said. “She’s a close friend of mine from Lif. She’s also a gifted medicine woman, like your mother.”
“Well met,” Jory said, looking Ejii up and down.
“Same here,” Ejii nervously said.
“Jaa, tell me what happened,” Sunrise said, stepping forward.
As Jaa, her husbands, Sunrise, and Jory discussed things, Ejii and Dikéogu slipped away to the garden where Dikéogu had spent the previous night. Ejii sat down hard on his mat and sighed a long exhausted sigh, rubbing the middle of her chest. Dikéogu sat beside her and she told him everything.
